The Sun.
London, England, 1824-01-31 00:00:00

SHOCKING OCCURRENCE,

TAUNTON.—On Monday, about two o'clock in
the afternoon, High-street became a scene of confusion and
alarm from a report that the house of R ICHAND MEADE, Esq.
the solicitor, had just been the scene of the most shocking events.
It appears that Mr. Meade's servant man, who had lived with
him fourteen years, and was about thirty-six years of ege,
had suddenly destroyed himself by cutting his threat,
after having, in the most barbarous manner, attempted ,
the murder of Frances Towning, a female in the same family,
to whom he had paid his addresses four or five years, and with
whom he was shortly to have been married, by heating her
head most inhumanly with a hammer ! On the unfortunate
girl screaming out for assistance, Mrs. Warren, the mother
of Mrs. Meade, ran to her assistance, upon which the wretch
struck Mrs. Warren with the hammer so severely, that
both her life, and that of the young woman to whose aid
she had flown, are in a lamentably doubtful state. The .
shrieks of the sufferers reached Mr. Meade, who was in his
office ; he ran down stairs, followed by Mr. Bailey, his
managing clerk, when Mr. Meade met MrS. Warren in the
passage, who was bleeding profusely from the head, and who
could only paint to the spot where the scene of destruction hal
taken place. On Mr. Meade's entering the nursery-room, he
encountered the dreadful spectacle of his man servant lying on
the ground bleeding, with a pistol on his right, and another at
his knees, and the servant g'rl in a,chair senseless, with her head .
leaning against the wall, and covered completely over with blood. '
Mr. Meade's conclusion was that the man was dead, but on
his exclaiming, " Oh, Joseph !if the assassin leaped up and
endeavoured to quit the room, which Mr. Meade at first pre.:
vented, by holding him violently by the arm. He however got
away, and ran up a two pair of back stairs into his room, into
which he was quickly followed by his master and others. Mr.
Meade burst open the door which had been fastened, and found
the wretched man with his face towards a looking-glass which
stood on a small dressing-table., in the act of holding his throat
with his left hand, and with his right hand saw him make two
desperate cuts at his throat with a razor; he then turned cc-.tircly round towards those who had entered the room, and im-
-4 mediately fell backwards. The arteries were entirely divided,
1 iaid he died in twelve or fifteen minutes.—An Inquest was held •
lon the body the following day. Verdict—" Insanity."

COAL AND GAS.
IMPORTED' IN TIIE YEAR 1823
Coals, 1,425,662 chaldrons.—King's Duty, 9s. 6tl per chald.
Orphan Dtity paid into the Lord Mayor s Office,
1,425;662 chaldrons, at 14d. - - J.:84,163 10 .
West India Dock Company, at ld. - 6,440 5
being an increase of, import over 1822, of 172,225 chaldron.;.
atts.—The length of streets now lighted with gas in London •
extends over 215 miles,—the main pipes alone belonging to the
four Gas Companies reaching to that distance, from which
ramify the smaller pipes conveying the light to alleys, shops,
private houses, &c., which are calculated to run a distance
much greater than the mains. The London Gas Company
supply 125 miles of main pipes, consume annually 20,678
chaldrons of coals, sad light 27,635 lamps. The City -Gas..
Company supply 50 miles of main pipes, consume 8,840 chal-
drons of coals, and light 7,836 lamps. The South London`
Company supply nearly 40 miles of main pipes, consume 3,640
chaldrons of coals, and light 4,038 public lamps.—The
rial Gas Company in Hackney. road was :but recently established„.

BIRTHS ExTaAortnucAttY.—Last week, the
wife of a labouring man, at Frome, named HUNT, was de-
livered of three children—all well and. hearty !
During the tempestuous weather of last mono►,
a fine specimen of the Procellaria Pelagira of
Linnaeus, or the stormy Peterel, was found dead
under a cedar tree, at Beckenham, in Kent, a
distance of 60 miles from the coast. This little
bird is the smallest of the webfooted tribe, being-
not much larger than the sky lark. It is rarely
seen inland, and at sea is looked upon by ma.
riners as the sure forerunner of a storm.

THE LONDON JOURNALS.

DAILY

'::tracts from the Morning Papers, Jan. 31.

[MORNING CHRONICLE.]

have- been confidently assured by a person
of some political consequence, that in the Treaty
entered into for the occupation of Spain by the
:French troops, it was stipulated, that they were
to commence evacuating in the month of July,
and if at that time any alarming symptoms were
observed, it was further agreed, that they were
to take up a position near the Pyrenees. This
stipulation, it is added, was extorted through
the remonstrances of the British Government ;
mt, in our opinion, notwithstanding the-wishes
of the French to get clear of this mill-stone
rounil their neck, they will not be able to quit
the Peninsula so soon, unless they give up King
Ferdinand to the fury of the Church Party,
whom he begins to fear more than he lately did
the Liberals. General Contreras, the new Go-
'senior of Corunna, has very candidly acknow-
ledged to his master, that the moment the
French garrison leave the place, he can no longer.
he answerable for the maintenance of public
tranquillity, so great is the fermentation in
:he public mind, more particularly since the ar-
rests he had been ordered to make. Similar re-
ports have reached Madrid from other provinces,
so that terrified, on the one hand, by the de-
signs of the clerical party, who have become
furious since some of their leaders were sent out
Of Madrid, and o❑ the other by the imposing
attitude of those opposed to the Clergy and
hating the French, the King is hi a very serious
dilemma. Apprehensive of some catastrophe,
we understand he has written a very pressing
letter to his Royal Cousin, the Duke d'Angou-
levee, belting him to watch over his safety, and
to suggest some means of protection.—ln conse-
quence of a long and serious deliberation on the
affairs of Spain, the French Ministry have de-
termined to send M. Marcellus to Madrid, with
come wholesome advice, and among other things
he is to recommend an amnesty in favour of
political offenders. In this respect, how-
ever, the French consult a little their own
pockets as well as public opinion. There
are at present in France several thousand
Spaniards, either refugees or prisoners of
war, who would literally starve if the Govern-
ment did not feed thew ; and in their favour also
great sympathy has been excited among the in-
habitants of the towns where they are quartered.
This has excited some jealousy on the part of
the Bourbons, as the Prefects of the' Depart-
ments where the prisoners are kept have sent up
special reperts to Paris on this subject. To re-
lieve themselves from this burden, the French
are therefore disposed that the King of Spain
should adopt some more conciliating line of po-
licy ; but whether the instrument chosen to urge
this is the most fit that could have been pitched
on may perhaps be questioned.

[THE TIM ES.]

We observe a disposition to involve our rela-
lations with the newly established trans-Atlantic
States in obscurity. It is asserted, that if we
ie7e with or assist these in casting off the yoke
Or government of the mother country,—that is,
of Ferdinand VI we are practising jacobinical
deectrines, and teaching nations to rise against
their rightfui sovereigns. A slight attention to
o:ates and facts will set this matter clear. It is
Cow more than'fourteen years since the war first
sprung up between Spain and her colonies ; and
so long as the contest continued, we, though so-
licited by both parties, most religiously abstained
from assisting either. The disposition of the People
of. this country being favourable to the South
Amer:cans, our Government, in order to check that ,
disposition, to invalidate and render it useless,
paSsed the Foreign Enlistment Bill, by which
it became illegal even for individuals to engage in
the service of the revolted provinces : so that a
neurality more severely rigid than that observed
by England -during the continuance of the con-
test between the European and American Spa-
niards cannot be conceived. But the affair has
now been lone decided ; the South Americans
have prevailed by their native strength ; peace is
practically established between the contending
parties ; the independence of the South American
States has been acknowledged by Foreign Powers,
—of whom,be it observed,we were not the first. We
are, therefore, as free to form alliances, whether
offensive or defensive, with those new States, as
with any of the old ones of Europe. However,
the policy of England, so far as it has been ex-
plained by one of her Ministers, is not likely to
assume this decisive character, as Mr. Canning
only said, that England would not suffer Spain to
tranfer to another that right which she had her-
self lost, over her late colonies or possessions.—
And certainly, the colonies having, by their own
long anti wearisome exertions, contrived to rend
themselves from the mother country, and stand-
ing, however faint and feeble, in the character of
independent states, it would be barbarous in a
third Power to rush forward, snatch them up,
and appropriate them, or any of them, to itself,
merely because they are faint and feeble ; and it
would be base in us to suffer such an act to take
place.