The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-08 00:00:00

THE PARIS PENNY-A-LINER.

We call coureur de nouvelles him who supplies the
petty news inserted in our newspapers under the head
of Faits Divers, and which in press terms is called
Faits-Paris.

The coureur de nouvelles must have two qualifica-
tions. As he must solicit he must be audacieu.r et
fluet, as the solliciteur in the play. Behold the man,
survey him quickly, for he will be off and escape your
view. At the office itself be appears but to disappear.
Like the eagle he brings his booty to the nest, and flies
off in quest of fresh captures. With a slim body and
legs, a broad hat, an umbrella under his arm, a safe foot,
keen eye, paper in hand, and inkstand in his pocket, he
sallies forth at a venture. To lounge and look about
by profession, to be the historian of every incident.
solemnity, and disaster ; such is the lot of the courear
de nouvelles. He is the confidential secretary of the
capital, the Tacitus of the ILuievard, the Thucydides
of the public thoroughfare.

Who marries us? Who buries us? Who examines
for us the state of the atmosphere? Who sees monu-
ments rise and fall, empires subverted and erected ? Who
attends our funerals? Ye all will name that Argus
who, like the solitaire of d'Aulincourt, sail tout, volt
lout, entend tout, est partout.
Oh! how many Kings he has sects rise and tumble
down ! How many buildings constructed and sub-
verted ! He has seen and spoken to the man iinpri-
soned and killed ; he knows all about you and me ; the
thought is enough to make one shudder. But fear not ;
the good man is a very tomb of discretion ; he repeats
only what he can honourably disclose. Scandal never
comes from him. Yet how heroic must the discretion
of a man be who has stripped more human beings and
unroofed more houses than Lesage's Diable Boiteux !
Not a slate, not a tile can be removed without his
leave. None can murder without his visa. None can
extract a hair from our head without his inquiring into
the deed. He fixes at within a line the height of the
river, the direction of the wind, and the mercury in the
thermometer. Like death, he has übiquity and omni-
potence. He has acquaintances everywhere, even under
the executioner's roof

The most renowned coureur de nouvelles of later
times was Mathieu Donzelot, alias l'enfonee pave, a
nickname derived from his solemn steps, which he re-
gulated by beating time and strickiHg the flags
with a long ivory-headed cane. Donzelot's lodgings
were on the Qum aux Lunettes, if he may be said to
have lodged anywhere, for he was perpetually ex.
ploring every street, nook, and corner of the town. He
was at all fetes, and the witness of every mishap and
disaster. If any illustrious man were to be buried,
old Donzelot adapted his mien to the occasion. He
hoisted a crape band to his hat, and crept into a
mourning coach. He then became all ears and eyes,
gathering lamentations, intercepted sighs, shed tears
with his fellow mourners, and took notes.
In the morning, before he sallied forth, old Donzelot
consulted the sky and the barometer which ornamented
his garret ; then, taking up his cane and inkstand, he
would say —" Rai❑ ! We shall have people slipping and
crushed under carriage wheels ;" or " The weather is
stormy ! We shall record some cases of mental drrange-
ment and hydrophobia ;" or, lastly, " Cloudy and
gloomy ! Fine weather for spleen—let us hunt after
suicides." According to these probabilities Donzelot
regulated his day's operations.
One day Donzelot's weathercock lay in the direction
of an enzezite wind. The coureur hastened to the Place
du Pantheon, where the students were getting up a
little riot. The moment he appeared a shower of stones
hailed him. " Good !" exclaimed Donzelot, "it begins
in proper style ;" and, without any dismay, he estab-
lished his observatory on the most perilous spot. A
friend passing by earnestly entreated him to take to his
heels. Donzelot, heedless of his advice, drew his watch,
and recorded minute by minute the various stages of the
enzeute. " Will you not go ?" roared again his friend.
" Not I," replied the news-hunter ; '• but since you are
flying, hare the goodness to leave this with my news-
paper, and tell them I remain on the spot to send them
the sequel."
An hour afterwards confusion was at its height. The
two parties came to blows, the Municipal Guard fired, and
a bullet struck Donzelot. A surgeo❑ hastened to him.
" You arc wounded," said he. " I am," replied Don-
zelot, " and severely too, for I cannot write." " This
is no time to be scribbling," roughly observed the practi-
tioner, "we must attend to your wound !" "My busi-
ness," replied Donzelot, " is to relate the occurrence,
and you must do that lor me. Just write the following
transcript :
. . .

"‘ 'Three o'clock, p.m.—Alter a discharge of mus-
ketry made by the military, three wounded and one
killed were counted on the side of the people.'"
" Who then is the dead man ?" inquired the surgeon.
" 1," returned Donzelot, and he expired ! He ~xpired,
like Epaminondas, on the field of battle ; like Turenne,
like Bayard. He died like Moliere, on the theatre of
his achievements.

With old Donzelot the ancient and bright prototype
of the coureur de nouvelles was extinguished. Since
hitn the news-hunter has degenerated. The Gazette
des Tribunaux has dealt a tremendous blow upon that
wandering industry. The other newspapers borrow the
day's doings in that able record of crimes. Scarcely
have three or tour of them got a coureur betwaen them,
whilst formerly every paper had its own.
Nevertheless, the coureur 'le nouvelles still wears a
broad hat, slim legs, and a little eye. He runs, listens,
and observes. Obsequious and good natured in his
ordinary intercourse with mankind, he becomes haughty,
cunning, and important whenever those vices can yield
him the information he wants. He is insinuating, and
sneaks into places to which he has no admission ; there
he walks with head erect, and from the height of his
greatness drops a wo"d that overawes sentinels and
door-keepers. He has passed himself off twenty times
far a Deputy, a hundred times for a Peer, and if he re-
grets anything, it is that he is not a Knight of the Le-
gion of Honour, to render his frequent usurpations more
probable.

There are common-place things which never escape
the coureur de nouvelles. His narratives prefer women
to men, and it is no fault of his if women be not rather
young than old, and eitceintes if possible, which renders
theni still more interesting. Bricklayers that fall from
a scaffolding are always married by him, and indebted
to his humanity for a large family. He neglects none
of those trifling artifices which prop the main fact with
secondary details. Conscience. in short, has deserted
the coureur de nouvelles. They have now more imagi-
nation than legs, and more ears than eyes. What
cares he if the profane know not how to appreciate his
merit. He passes as glorious as the sun, casting tor-
rents of news over his obscure blasphemers. He will
cheerfully reach the end of his life of self-abnegation ;
to his last gasp he will make himself useful to the un-
grateful paper which he feeds, and which so poorly ac-
knowledges that food. lie is the man to die in such a
manner as to supply his paper with a very curiousfait-
Paris. He will carry with him into the grave but one
re;ret—t hat of not having been able to announce first,
and in his own fashion, the news of h 3 death.,---Paris

THE LATE THUNDER STORM.

LIMERICK.—On Saturday night we were visited with a
tremendous gale of wind, blowing from the north-east,
which continued the whole of Sunday morning up to nine
a.m. The hurricane, at intervals, threatened to raze from
the ground tenemvids in our neighbourhood. It was one
of the most awful nights we ever remember ; not far short
of the late memorable storm, which unfor.unately destroyed
so much life and property. The vessels in the river and at
our quays suffered a good deal of damage ; but, had the
wind proceeded from the south, much greater injury would
have been done.

WORCESTER.-THUNDER-STORM.-Between five and six
on Sunday morning, this city and neighbourhood were
visited by a storm of thunder and lightning, accom_
panied with violent gusts of wind and showers of
hail. The terrific howlings of the blast, and pattering
of the hail weakened the effect of the thunder, though
some of the peals were very loud. The lightning
was vivid and frequent. \Vc have not heard of
any damage having resulted from the storm in our
immediate locality, or of much in the neighbour-
hood. At Upton the electric fluid struck an apple_
tree belonging to Mr. Merrell, rending it its pieces, and
setting a portion of it on fire, which, notwithstanding the
rain, continued burning till nine o'cl( ck. It is believed
the tree was struck about five. From the accounts which
have yet reached us, it may be surmised that the storm
was pretty general throughout England.
SurFoan.—On Sunday morning, between the hours
of four and five o'clock, this town and neighbourhood was
visited with a violent thunder-storm, accompanied with a
heavy shower of sleet and a strong westerly gale. The
peals of thunder were unusually loud and prolonged, and
the lightening remarkably vivid.

The Hon. Charles Hanbury Tracy has acceded
to a requisition calling on him to come forward for the re-
presentation of Monmouthshire, in place of Mr. Williams,
who retires shortly after the meeting of Parliament.

Not only divided parts re-unite, but even por-
tions completely separated and cold, and parts of different
bodies. A soldier's arm was struck off at the battle of
Arlon, with the exception of a piece of skin and the sub-
jacent vessels and nerves, and yet the muscles, bones, &c,,
completely re-united in about eight months. Garengot
saw a nose unite after being bitten off, trampled upon, and
allowed to lie in the dirt till it was cold. Dr. Balfour saw
a similar occurrence in the instance of a finger. One will
be found by Dr. John, others might be quoted. Trans-
plantation, for instance, of the cock's testes to the hen's
abdomen, as well as of the spur to the head, is very com-
mon, and the latter was mentioned nearly two centuries
ago in Bartholin, and by Duhamel, as very common in
poultry-yards,—Elliotson's Duman Physiology.