The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-23 00:00:00

BERNARD CAVANAGH CA.

OUT AT LAST
READING, SATURDAY.—This fellow,.. whose plausible
and successful duplicity completely deceived several of
the most eminent scientific and medical bodies in London,
has, at last, been detected in his imposture, and he is now
serving out his term of imprisonment of three months,
with hard at the tread-mill, in the gaol of this town, as
a rogue and vagabond, to which he has just been sen-
tenced by S. Chase, Esq., the Mayor.
Cavanagh arrived here on the 12th instant, taking up
his quarters at the sign of the Black Boy, a public-house
in Broad-street, accompanied by the same man, named
Tiernan, who assisted him in pursuing his various sys-
tems of hypocrisy and imposture, while he was levying
contributions upon the public in London.
The knave, immediately after his arrival, issued a
catching handbill, of which the following is a copy ;
" EXTRAORDINARY PIIENO3IENON.
" The celebrated Bernard Cavanagh (from the county
of Mayo); who has excited so much attention from the
medical and scientific world, on account of his excessive
powers of 'abstinence, which are attested beyond all
doubt, is now in this town, and invites all inquirers into
the cause of so singular a phenomenon to pay him a visit
at the Black Boy, Reading, during his stay. A few of
his philosophical friends in London, wishing to gain
some additional light upon this case, have advised him
to give this general invitation, and make no distinct
charge for admissions ; but as the expenses of travelling
about the country with his brother (who eats lihe other
men) will be beyond their means, any friendly donations
will be thankfully received."
Things went on swimmingly for some days, and the

I fellow and his companion were reaping a pretty plentiful
harvest, although there was nothing charged foradmission
to see " the fasting man," the impostor leaving the gra-
tuity he looked for to " the liberality of the curious ;" and
there is not the least doubt, had it not been for the timely
and, indeed, extraordinary discovery of the cheat, that he
and his worthy coadjutor would, before they left the
town, have walked off with a very handsome sum ga-
thered from the numerous visitors who flocked to the
Black Boy to see this " eighth wonder of the world."
He was apprehended with his "Man Friday," Tiernan,
on Thursday, through the instrumentality of a Mrs.
Hatt, the wife of a labouring man, residing in Crown-
street, by Mr. Houlton, the superintendent of the Read-
ing police, upon the charge of being a rogue and vaga-
bond, and a rank impostor. He was then taken before
the Mayor, and the following evidence was produced
against him

-Harriet Hatt being sworn stated, in substance, as fol-
lows :—On the preceding evening she went, accompanied
by some friends, to see the fasting man, at the
Black Boy. She asked him several questions on the
subject of his abstinence from food, which he an-
swered very unsatisfactorily, except that be stated
lie had not eaten a morsel of any one thing for
the last five years and a half. Witness bought one of
his books, containing an account of his life and abstinence
from food, for which he was paid 6d.„ and her friends
gave him-another 6d. before they left.' ' The next morn-
ing witness had occasion to go to a Chandler's shop in
Southampton-street (which is a long distance from the
Black Boy), and while she was sitting in a room behind
the shop she saw a man enter, who, notwithstanding his
disguise, she was certain was the prisoner. He had a
handkerchief tied round his forehead which nearly co-
vered his eyes, and a large patch upon his nose. As
soon as he came in he asked for a saveloy and a quarter
of a pound of ham, which he particularly wished to be
cut pretty fat, .and a small loaf. He was served with
these articles, for which he paid, and then went away.
Witness then directly proceeded to the Black Boy,
where she discovered that the prisoner had been gone
out a short time before, to take a walk; and after wait-
ing there for upwards of an hour she saw him return,
but he ;had then doffed his disguise and appeared as
usual. She mentioned her suspicions to the landlord of
the house, who then communicated with the police.
John Croaker, the landlord of the neck Boy, stated
that the prisoner came to his house very late on Friday
evening, and inquired if his brother (describing him as a
man who carried a pack) had arrived. Witness told him
that a man, answering that description, was in the house
and in bed. He then showed witness one of his bills, and
said that he was the man it related to. He asked if he
could be accommodated with a bed, and he was told he
could. lie and the man Tiernan had been living in
witness's house from that time until they were appre-
hended. The bill witness saw in the room (exhibited
by the prisoner) was placed there without his consent.
The impostor, upon being called on for his defence,
said it was of very little use his saying anything, as after
what had taken place he supposed he should not be be-
lieved ; and, therefore, perhaps he had better say nothing.
At last lie said, " I did eat, fbr the Lord caused me to be
hungry."
The iNfivon then addressed the prisoner, pointing out
to him the disgraceful conduct he had been pursuing in
deceiving and gulling the public by gross artifice and
imposture, and telling him that it was his determination,
at least for a time, to put a stop to his deceptions upon
the public.
The " fasting" impostor was then sentenced to three
months' imprisonment, and hard labour, as a rogue and
vagabond.
The fellow's worthy colleague, John Tiernan, was then
sentenced to one month's imprisonment for hawking
without a license.

The man with the pack, whom Cavanagh called his
brother, had, very fortunately for himself, taken his de-
parture from Reading, and thus escaped, very probably,
a similar punishment.

It will xiow be seen if the tread-mill will not bring an
appetite to the " fasting" man, and, at the same time, the
impostor to his senses.

PORTUGAL.

The Montrose steamer arrived at Falmouth on Satur-
day. 'We have received files of Peninsular papers, as
well as correspondence from Lisbon. The Montrose ar-
rived at Gibraltar on the 9th inst. ; the steamer Oriental
arrived there on the Bth, and left for Malta on the fol-
lowing day. The barque Magnet arrived on the 9th
from Vourla, and in bringing to went in contact with
her Majesty's ship Hastings ; the barque having no qua-
rantine flag flying, boat's crews of the Implacable and
Hastings with their officers went on board to render
assistance, when they were all placed in quarantine. Se-
veral meetings had been held at the health-office, and it
was understood that some means would be adopted to
remove the men to another vessel, the master of the
Magnet having died of plague before her arrival at Gib-
raltar. The steamer's dates are—from Gibraltar 11th,
Cadiz 12th, Lisbon 15th, off Oporto 16th, Vigo 17th. On
the 13th, off Lisbon, she passed a French Government
steamer going southward.
LISBON, Nov. 15.—The Finance Minister's budget,
which had already been approved of in the lump by the
Chamber of Deputies, has since undergone a pro forma
examination in detail, the result of which has been the
approval of every one of its items without the slightest
alteration. The following are in round numbers, the
principal heads of expenditure Contos.
Home department 1,326
Finance ditto
Justice ditto
Marine and Colonial ditto
Foreign Affairs ditto 232
General charges 1,428
Board of Public Credit for payment of interest
on home and foreign debt—viz., for home 2,215
debt
For foreign ditto 1,075
War department 2,953
Extraordinary charges (instalments on the Pal-
merston claims, and others) 694
The total amount of expenditure for the year is esti-
mated at 10,984 contos, and the revenue, supposing the
new taxes to produce the sums expected from them, at
10,332 contos. The deficit would therefore appear to be
only about 652 contos ; but considering that no new
source of revenue in this country has ever brought into
the treasury more than two-thirds, at the very utmost, of
its estimated produce, it is fair to presume that the same
will happen in the present instance, in which case of
course the deficit will swell to a much larger figure. One
of the opposition journals, in a series of calculations,
supported by very plausible reasoning, rates it as high
as 3,786 contos. In this, probably, there is some exag-
geration.

The Cortes were to have closed on the 13th instant,
but did not, as the budget question could not be got
through the Senate in time. They are, however, to be
closed to-morrow or the day after. The difficulty of
mustering a sufficientpumber of senators to form a House
has proved all along a great hinderance to the despatch
of business. Three days out of four nothing can be done
on that account.

The expected recognition of this Government by
Russia, Austria, and Prussia, has not yet formally taken
place by the appointment of diplomatic agents to this
Court. Russia and Prussia have not yet named any; but
Austria, I learn, is about to send Baron Mareschal as
Envoy Extraordinary to the Queen of Portugal. The
Ministers to be sent from hence, besides the Marquis de
Saldanha, who has already set out for Vienna, through
Madrid, are .Baron Renduffe to Prussia, and M. Ferreira
Borges to the Russian Court, both as Charges d'Affaires.
These new appointments have added considerably to the
expenditure of the Foreign Affairs department.
There have been several more failures here. The
English house of Roughton and Co., and two Portuguese
firms, those of Borges and Bastes, stopped payment last
week. A great proportion of the loss in all these three
cases, as in the preceding failures, has fallen upon the
British merchants here. This has, indeed, been a most
disastrous year in Lisbon.

DECREE RESPECTING THE PAYMENT OF THE

PORTUGUESE FOREIGN DEBT.

We publish the following translation of a Royal de-
cree, dated Nov. 9, 1841, respecting the nature of the
revenues to be applied to the payment of the Foreign
Debt in Portugal :
" We, Donna Maria, Queen of Portugal, &c., do
hereby make known unto all our subjects, that the Ge-
neral Cortes have decreed, and we have sanctioned, the
following law :
" Art. 1. The Board of Public Credit is to be hence-
forth charged with the payment of the interest on the
external Consolidated Debt, in conformity to the first
article of the law of the 15th of July, 1837, whereby
that Board was created.
" Art. 2. In order to meet this new charge, the Board
of Public Credit shall be endowed
interest
withter
etsht eu followingpo n t
ditional revenues—viz.,
head
s or other allowances of
" 1., The decinmoaenbit-mthpeostsa:rtihee
by the Board, or in departments sub-
Con-
solidatedheedmlelpcolimoni3e.ae d
persons
tee iStiza impost upon the sale or barter of real
porord;43e..ar;ylTe:he additional three per cent' to be collected at
the sea•port Custom-houses, and '
hus f.ouorpee)rofcLienstb.'oant. the
Sete Cazas ' (or land-port Custom
" 5. The annual sum of 100 contos paid from the cof-
ferr, 06. f ` S
The anentnenCl
sanzmas.'
of 340 contos, paid from the cof-
fers of the chief Custom-house of Lis
e bon.
" § If the revenues of which this article treats should
not produce sufficient for the full payment of the first
dividend to become due after the publication of the pre-
sent law, the Board of Public Credit shall, from the day
on which said dividend becames due, receive directly
one-third of the revenues of the Chief Custom-house of
Lisbon and Custom-house of Oporto, until the sum re-
quired for the said payment shall have been completed.
" Art. 3. The revenues which, in conformity to the
dispositions of the preceding article, are to form the
additional endowment of the Board of Public Credit,
shall be administered and collected by the same Board,
with exclusive application to the ends for which they are
intended, and shall not on any principle be diverted there-
from, under the same pains and penalties imposed by the
to
9th article of the law of the 15th Ju1y,1837,
the revenues applied to the payment of the interest
the Consolidated Home Debt. in regard
on
incumbent
lAnbretn.
t4.uplnunotrhdeerßtohnartdthofe
mity to thepaymentpnblbioe or
_f
dt.hte,_nienwecohnafrogr•e-
punctuality the Board is authorised to
presentindispenslaablshould Credit,
with the
issuee
abl
sl los
norrobnotnidl
esm payy a bdlies
oant
ntthirnee the months' d
money attnen,
rka no
td,
the sums required, provided such discount should never
exceed
half the annual interest on the respective loans.
•‘Art. 5. If this new incumbency should render it ne-
cessary for the Board to employ a greater number of
clerks, the Government will transfer to the Board, from
the Treasury or any other finance department, such
number of clerks as may be absolutely necessary, pro-
vided that there shall in no wise result therefrom any