The Sun.
London, England, 1824-08-25 00:00:00

PROGRESS OF TOWNS.

In the case of country, towns, where a High-
land laird or a speculating society has pot inter-
fered, it is matter of analysis, for the fashionable
science of political economy, to discover how one
of them has grown, or by what Cement it is
united. There is a church ; that is` the ordinary
foundation. Where there is a church there must
be a parson, a clerk, a sexton, and a midwife.—
Thus we account for four houses. An inn is re-
quired on the road. This produces a smith►, a
saddler, a butcher, and a brewer. The parson,
the clerk, the sexton, the midwife, the butcher,
the smith, the saddler, and the brewer, require a
baker, a tailor, a shoemaker, and a carpenter.
They soon learn to eat plum-pudding ; and a grocer
follows. The grocer's wife and parson's wife con-
tend for superiority in dress, whence flows a milli-
ner, and, with the milliner, a mantua maker. A
barber is introduced to curl the parson's wig and
to shave the smith on Saturday nights ; and a
stationer to furnish the ladies with paper for their
sentimental correspondence ; an exciseman is sent
to gunge the casks, and a schoolmaster discovers
that the ladies cannot sisell. A hatter, u hosier,
and a linen-draper, follow by degrees ; and as
children are born they begin to cry out for rattles
and gingerbread. The parson becomes idle and
gouty, and gets a curate, and the curate gets
twenty children and a wife ; and thus it be-
comes necessary to have more shoemakers and
tailors and grocers. In the mean time a neighbour-
ing apothecary, hearing with indignation that there
is a community living without physic, places three
blue bottles in the window ; when, on a sudden, the
parson, the butcher, the innkeeper, the grocer's
w►fe, sad the parson's wife, become bilious and
nervous, and their children get water in the head,
teeth, and convulsions. They are bled and blis-
tered till a physician finds it convenient to settle :
the inhabitants become worse and worse every
day, and an undertaker is established. The
butcher having called the tailor prick-louse over
a pot of ale, Snip, to prove his manhood, knocks
him down with the goose. Upon this plea an
action for assault is brought at the next Sessions.
The attorney sends his clerk over to take depo-
sitions and collect evidence: the clerk, finding a
good opening, sets all the people by the ears, be-
comes a pettifogging attorney, and peace, flies the
village for ever. But the village becomes a town,
acquires a bank, and a coterie of old maids ; and
should It have existed in happier days, might
have gained a corporation, a mayor, a mace, a
quarter sessions of its own, a county assembly,
the assizes, and the gallows.—(Maccullock.)

EXTRAORDINARY CRIME.—The Journal of
Calvados of the 19th inst. furnishes one of the
most frightful crimes of the present age. Friday
last an individual of the name of SURMONT,
after having been brought before the Court
o(Assizes us a fraudulent bankrupt, appeared
again before the same Court on a new charge
the
ttAhewNicfle,.e
oPrursuEitt..,
‘;iri;lxlr.Atthocree ka'cocuPomEpalsi,cesan:r
MONT.', *One of the witnesses, Sieur ra-
m:we FnAstcFoaT, declared . that giving way
to the entreaties of the wife of SI/lIMONT who
told him that she had something of importance
to communicate to him, he, repaired to her on
the.. 31st of May last, when she induced him
to go into a room, at the back of the house
and at the • bottom of the court. No sooner
were they met together than StitutoN'r's wife
locked the door. Sieur FRANCIPOILT, who be-
gan to be alarmed, seized the key and opened
the door : all at once, two persons, clothed
as sailors, threw themselves upon him, saying,
in an under tone, " Ali, scoundrel ! we have been'
waiting for you these three or four days." At the
same moment they threw a rape round his neck,
beat him violently, held his arms, and tied his
legs together, and stuffed his mouth with a hand-
kerchief ; and, kneeling upon his body, declare d
that he must accept certain bills or forfeit his
life. After more than an hour had expired, the
Sieur FaANcroaT, being no longer able to endure
his torment, consented to his own injury. SUR-
MONT and iltprEr. then placed him on a chair bt-
forea small table, when they loosed his hands and
compelled him to sign ninety cheques or WEN the
greater part'not tilled up. They afterwards com-
pelled him to subscribe to a paper, by which he
was made to acknowledge that these documents
were given in compensation for an adulterous in.
tercourse with Madame SURMONT. This frightful
stole lasted from eight in the evening till one in
the morning.. Soumowr was sentenced to 20
years hard. labour, PETTSL to 15 years, and Suit-
MoNT's wife to five years. The prisoners have
appealed against the sentence to the Court of
Cam Lion .—( Paris Paper.)

SEDUCTION AND SIIICIDE.—Extract of a letter
from St. 'Thomas's, June Yesterday evening a inelan-
choly circumstance occurred here : A Danish gentleman named
Gardiner, received information that his wife, a beautiful yoUng
woman, of 20 years of age, bad formed an improper connexion
with a young Englishman, or German, of good appearance
and respectability, and he therefore • made arrangements for
proceeding to Copenhagen, in order to place the lady in Charge
of tier mother.. He was to sail on the 6th instant, and the lover
had also taken his passage for Puerto Cabello. Every thing
was settled, and nothing remarkable occurred till yesterday
evening, when the wife of Gardiner took advantage of flis
being occupied in dressing at four o'clock, left his house, and
proceedtd to that of the young man, which adjoined her
husband's. On entering, she locked the door, and immediate.
ly afterwards two shots were heard. The people of the house
forced open the door, and discovered the young lady a corpse
on the bed, with a pistol wound in the "lower part of her face,
and the pistol at-e considerable distance, whilst the young man
was on the ground, likewise mortally wounded, having dis-
charged his pistol through his mouth. It is.presumed that he
first destroyed her, and afterwards himself. It would seem
also, from the position of the bodies, that she urged hini to the
act, as well as from the circumstance of a letter having been
previously written by her to her husband, confessing her infi.
delity, commending him and desiring him to marry a woman
more worthy of him, and more capable of rewarding bis vii-
tues. This is the more probable, as the young man had mani-
fested -no previous disquietude, but conversed cheerfully with
some filends in his warehouse, until within half an hour of the
fatal m more especially as a predetermination to die on
the part
l
tolfetle woman is obvious from her letter."---(New York
Adveriiscr, July 26.)

TIIE CAMERA OnscunA.—A visitor linpmned
to be examining, with great interest, the various lively and
ever shifting figures which veerepourtrayed upon the white
tablet of a Camera Obscure, during the exhibition, when he
beheld with amazement the appearance of one man picking
f t another'.ig,,e
ri;oacpkse,t.unPneerefeescstarlyyatwoaaracdo,f ttihmetreiai
el iuty.:fitalli
mis
eadpiptiet:iry.
ance, lie opened the door, anti recognizing the culprit at a short
distance, ran up and seized hint in the very act of depredation.
-
handed over to the police.—(Glasgon, Paper.)