The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, ), _ FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 1, 1847

DREADFUL CONFLAGRATION.
Yesterday afternoon one of the most extensive confla-
grations that has occurred in the metropolis during the
past year broke out at Irongate-wharf, and, from the
combustible nature of the property, the whole of the ex-
tensive building and its contents, as well as two vessels,
the Busy, of Bridport, and the Hawk, of Montrose, were
consumed before the devouring elemont was subdued.
The loss is stated at from 150,0001. to 200,0001.
Previous to entering into an account of the fire, it may
be well to describe the locality of the premises which
have been destroyed. The wharf was formerly known
as Downe's-wharf and afterwards as the Irongate-wharf,
and is separated from the Tower by what are known as
the Irongate.stairs. The front faces the Thames, while
the back or entrance department is opposite the north
wall of the St. Katherine Docks. The eastern end is
bounded by a large public-house known as the Marquis
of Granby. The building was isolated, and extended
about 250 feet by a depth of about 50 feet, and latterly
has been the place of debarkation for goods brought by
vessels and steamers from the northern partsof Scotland,
as well as from the western coast and other parts of
England. The different departments of the warehouses
were well stocked with goods. and this circumstance no
doubt added greatly to the conflagration which it is our
painful duty to record. The wharf is the property of
the St. Katherine Dock Company, but was rented by
Mr. Coleman, who brought the entire trade, which was
formerly carried on at the Aberdeen wharf, to the above
establishment.
From the information obtained by the reporter, it ap-
tpears that the numerous men employed at the wharf
were busily engaged in following their different occupa-
ons, when, about twenty minutes to four o'clock, a loud
'"nd unusual report was heard at the eastern end of the
building, and before the cause could be ascertained a
thick heavy smoke was seen to rise from the lower parts
or cellars of the wharf. Within five minutes after the
first discovery a flame burst forth, the alarm of fire was
instantly given, and a detachment of guards from the
Tower rendered prompt assistance. The engines from
St. Katherine Docks and the Tower were speedily upon
the spot. It was also found necessary to get the floating
engine of the St. Katherine Docks. The flames had by
this period obtained such an ascendancy as to be visible
from London and Blackfriars-bridges, and the various
engines of the fire brigade, as well as the floats from
Rotherhithe and Southwark-bridge, at once proceeded
to the scene of destruction.
Within half an hour after the outbreak there were on
the spot the Wellclose-square, Jeffery-square, Watling-
street, Southwark-bridge•road, West of England, and
Farringdon-street engines, as well as others from more
distant stations, independent of those belonging to the
Tower and docks, and the floats. Unfortunately it was
low water at the time, and there was some difficulty in
obtaining a supply of water for the engines. By the
time the engines were got into play the whole building
was in flames. It was evident that all attempts to save
the building and contents would be fruitless, and the
firemen directed their efforts to prevent the flames from
extending to the St. Katherine Docks.
While the work of destruction was thus going on on
shore, a still more fearful scene presented itself at the
water's edge. Alongside of the wharf were moored the
Busy, of Bridport, and the Hawk, of Montrose—the
former had arrived on Sunday with a general cargo, and
was nearly unloaded, while the Hawk had only come to
her moorings in the course of the day. Directly after
the alarm of fire had been given, both vessels were cut
away from their moorings, but it being low water, it was
found to be impossible to get them away. The Busy
speedily caught fire, and, although'the floating engines
were immediately brought to play upon her she
burnt, as the reporter understood, to the water's edge;
while the masts, spars, and upper part of the Hawk were
also consumed.
About five o'clock the fire had obtained its greatest
height. The rapidity with which the beams and joists
burned caused a good deal of alarm as to the safety of
the outer walls, and Mr. Braidwood gave directions to the
police to keep the place clear. Mr. Braidwood antici-
pated th at the gable end, next to Iron-stairs, would fall
outs ands; fortunately his fears were not realised, but
had le not given the orders we have mentioned life
would probably have been sacrificed.
We Lave already stated that the fire began at the east
or lower en 1 of the premises, and at this part a great
body of the devouring element was concentrated. About
50 feet frtm this point, Loader, the engineer of the
Farringdun-street engine, was stationed; and, while be
was engaged in holding the branch, the whole length of
the front to where he stood fell with a tremendous crash.
Loader, on hearing the wall crack, ran towards the wall
of the St. Katherine Docks, and he had scarcely got
there before the branch and hose were buried beneath
the burning mass.
During the period the fire was at its height, consider-
able alarm was manifested for the safety of the docks,
and several men were sent to the roofs of the sheds,who
kept pouring water down the walls, for the purpose of
keeping the brickwork cool, and being ably assisted by'
the engines they succeeded in preventing any ignition
taking place. The same exertions were made with re-
gard to the Marquis of Granby public-house, which,
with the exception of a portion of the roof, was pre-
served from material injury.
Too much praise cannot be given to the police. 150
men, under the direction of Inspectors Harris and Valen-
tine, of the H and K divisions, were on the spot, and
rendered all the aid in their power, while a strong force
of the Thames police performed the same duty on the
water.

The cause of the fire could not be ascertained, nor
could we learn whether Mr. Coleman, and those to whom
he subletted, were insured. From the large quantity of
property in the warehouses, &c., the loss is stated to be
little short of 200,0001.
By eight o'clock all danger of the further progress of
the fire was at an end.

FURTHER PARTICULARS.
ELEVEN O'CLOCH.—A considerable body of fire still
remains amidst the immense heap of ruins, and the fire-
men are exposed to the greatest danger by the con.
tinual falling of the walls. The building, from end
to end, was exactly 212 feet, and nearly 70 feet wide.
At the time of the outbreak the several floors were
well stocked with goods of nearly every de-
scription. In the lower rooms were casks of tallow,
saltpetre, sulphur, oil, turpentine, and naphtha. The
tenant of the premises is Mr. Coleman, but although he is
insured we understand that his loss will be considerable.
The building, belonging to the St. Katherine Docks
Company, is insured in several of the London offices.
The goods destroyed belonged to sundry persons, a
great number of whom hold what are termed floating
policies in the London and country fire-offices; but it is
to be feared that a vast quantity of property was not in-
sured. Although every inquiry has since been made,
no information that can be d.epended upon can yet be
obtained respecting the origin of the calamity. One of
the workmen, it seems, whilst passing along the eastern
end of the wharf, first discovered the flames, at which
time they were feeding upon a number of casks filled
with spirits. The first thing done after the alarm was
given, was to commence throwing the bales of cotton
goods, casks of spirits, and other large packages into the
street, and in the course of a few minutes the street was
literally covered with goods. Upon the arrival of
the engines of the London Brigade they were
unable to
pass along to get to the water plug, Tail
the street was cleared. This took some time,
and meanwhile the fire travelled along the
various compartments of the front warehouses, so
that by the
,time the engines could be set to
work the principal portion of the place was completely
enveloped in flames. At one period the destruction of
the eastern portion of the Tower stores appeared quite
certain. Mr. Braidwood, however, had two or three of
the engines so stationed that the water could be scattered
over the walls, and by that means the fire was cut off in
that quarter. The only portion of the immense range of
premises left standing is the gable end nearest the
Tower, and even that is expected momentarily to fall.
The massive wall adjoining it has just fallen into the
road with a crash resembling a clap of thunder. For
some few minutes it was believed that three of the
firemen had perished, but upon calling over the roll they
were found uninjured. It appears that they had entered
the ruins to cool the further end but a minute or so
before the wall fell, and by that means escaped a hor-
rible death.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS.
TWELVE O'CLOCIL—Since the above report was written
several outbreaks have taken place, and the house be-
tween the Irongate-wharf and the Marquis of Granby
tavern has sustained serious injury. About eight o'clock
a large piece of wall, about twenty feet in length, fell
with great force into the street, to the imminent danger
of three or four firemen who were stationed near the
spot directing the hose towards the burning building.
Some other persons, who had made their way amongst
the firemen, notwithstanding the exertions of the police
to keep the place perfectly clear, narrowly escaped with
their lives.

It appears that the vessels which have been injured
are a Scotch schooner, a brig, and a cutter. They were
loading at the time with goods from the wharf which is
now destroyed.
The warehouses destroyed, although called Irongate-
wharf, consist of St. Katharine's-wharf, St. Andrew's-
wharf, and other buildings connected with the principal
range.
Not a vestige of property has been saved, with the
exception of two or three bales of leather, but these are
so scorched that they are rendered almost useless. So
fiercely did the fire rage immediately after its commence.
ment, that it was found to be impossible to rescue any
portion of the property from the flames.
It is a most providential circumstance that this great
calamity did not occur at night, or at an hour when the
persons employed in St. Katharine Docks had left the
establishment. Had it not happened that when the walls
of that extensive building became charred the goods were
removed, it is impossible to anticipate what might have
been the result of the conflagration.
The damage, it is feared, is much larger than was first
expected ; 200,0001., it is said, will not cover the damage.

LATEST PARTICULARS.—(THIS DAY.)
Throughout the whole night the engines have been
playing on the ruins, which, by the morning, enabled
some of them to be sent back to their stations, but as to
its being entirely subdued, that cannot be possible till
to-morrow. The walls have been falling throughout the
night, and the firemen have had many narrow escapes,
but not the least accident has been heard of. The river
front is considered quite safe, and the consequence has
been the removal of the two London Establishment
floating engines to their moorings.
At the outbreak of the fire, as is usual on such occa-
sions, the exertions of every person near was called into
requisition for the engines ; and, our informant was told
this morning, that great fears are entertained that some
are yet under the ruins, but as no inquiries had been
made, it is hoped that these fears are without foundation.

The Bishop of Newfoundland bad an interview with
Earl Grey, yesterday, at the Colonial-office.

MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACKWOOD.
A Ipleasant gossipping paper about " The Court of
Louis I mlippe" commences the present number,
which commences the present year of Grace
MDCCCXLVII. As a foretaste of what may be ex-
pected from Blackwood during the course of 1847, it
is acceptable and promising. Particularly at this
moment, when the foreign policy of the French
monarch has attached to his administration so much
odium, anything appertaining to his private character
and his domestic habits is fraught with interest. The
article is suggested by a work very recently published
in Paris, entitled Dix Ans a la Gour du Roi Louis
Philippe, et Souvenirs du Tems de r Empire et de la
Restauration, and written by M. Appert, for ten years
the Almoner to the Queen of the French and Madame
Adelaide. If' the details of this production required
any authentication beyond that afforded by the
author's name, a very sufficient authentication would
be found in his career, his character, and his philan-
thropic pursuits. Besides obtaining the friendship of
his own sovereign, M. Appert has latterly received
the countenance of the Kings of Prussia, of Belgium,
of Denmark, of Bavaria, of Saxony, and of Wurtem-
berg. His whole existence appears, in one way or
other, to have been devoted to the cause of benevo-
lence and to the diffusion of knowledge. It has been
chequered too in a remarkable degree. During 1811
there was a prospect of his being invested with a
noble responsibility, namely, that of sharing in
the education of the King of Rome. The
casualties, however, which have been al-
ready recorded in history, entirely dissipated
these expectations, and the future Almoner of Queen
Marie Amelie was in 1822 confined in the same dun-
geon of La Force in which the poet Beranger was
afterwards imprisoned. This was for conniving at the
escape of two non-commissioned officers implicated
with General Berton. The devotion displayed at
this time, and indeed throughout his life, by M. Ap-
pert for the memory of the Emperor Napoleon is
beautiful and touching. Although he did not, like
M. Arnault, preserve in his garden a tree grown from
a branch of the willow at St. Helena, he lost his sub-
professorship at the school of drawing, " because,
whilst giving a lesson in mathematics, he employed,
to mark the curves and angles of a geometrical
figure, letters which made up the words Vice r Em-
pereur"—a remembrancer of the days of greatness
most displeasing during the days of littleness under
the Bourbons. Among the many agreeable remi-
niscences of M. Appert are conspicuous those referring
to his royal mistress—the good Queen Amelie, whom
the illustrious Lafayette called " the best of women."
Her numberless sufferings would alone enlist our sym-
pathies in her favour, were our admiration not elicited
towards her by charities as unostentatious as they are
splendid and profuse. That she has had
miseries cannot be discredited, says the
writer in Blackwood, " when we contemplate
her careworn and suffering, but benevolent
and interesting countenance." A moment afterwards the
same writer utters a magnificent panegyric upon the
wife of King Louis Philippe, where he says—" In
unaffected piety, and in charity that blushes to be
seen, this excellent Princess finds consolation." The
following is a beautiful illustration in point :
" Imposture, ingratitude, even the insolent form of
the petitions addressed to her, fail to discourage her in
her benevolent mission. Madam,' an old Bonapartist
lady one day wrote to her, if the Bourbons had not re-
turned to France—for the misfortune of the nation—my
beloved mistress and protectress, the Empress Maria
Louisa, would still be upon the throne, and I should not
be under the humiliating necessity of telling you that I am
without bread, and that the wretched mattress upon which
I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit,
because my year's rent is unpaid 1 I dare not ask you
for assistance, for my heart is with my real sovereign,
and I cannot promise you my gratitude. If, however,
you think proper to preserve a life which, since the mis-
fortunes of my country, has been so full of bitterness, I
will accept a loan : I should blush to receive a gift. I
am, madam, your servant, Ch—r.'
" Here was a pretty letter to set before a Queen ; a
mode of imploring alms that might well have disgusted
the most charitable. But what was Marie Ani6lie's re-
ply to the precious epistle. She was accustomed to open
all the petitions addressed to her—and numerous indeed
they were—with her own hand, and to write upon many
of them instructions for M. Appert. When the imper-
tinent missive of the Bonapartist reached that gentle-
man, the following lines had been added to it She
must be very unhappy for she is very unjust. A hun-
dred francs to be sent to her immediately ; and I beg
M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady's cir-
cumstance.' M. Appert, indignant at the tone of the
letter, ventured to remonstrate ; but the Queen insisted,
and even tripled her intended donation, in case it should
be required by her singular petitioner, whom her almo-
ner accordingly proceeded to visit. I knocked at a
worm•eaten door, on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue
St. Andt6 des Arts, and a lady dressed in black (it was
her only gown), opened it.
" Sir,' said she, much agitated, are you the commis-
sary of police come to arrest me for my shameful letter
to the Queen ? You' must forgive me : I am so un-
happy that at times I become deranged. lam sorry to
have written as I did to a princess whom all the poor
call good and charitable.'
" Be not alarmed, madam,' I replied, taking her pe-
tition from my pocket. Read her Majesty's orders ;
they will enable you to judge of her better than any-
thing I could tell you.'
" Madame C. read the affecting words added by the
Queen; then, bursting into tears, she pressed the paper
to her lips. Sir,' she exclaimed, give me nothing, but
leave me this holy relic. I will die of hunger with it
upon my heart.'
" Madame C. proving in all respects worthy of the
Queen's generosity, I left her the three hundred francs,
but had much difficulty in prevailing on her to give up
the petition, which I still preserve with respect and ve-
neration. This trait of the Queen of the French is only
one of ten thousand."

As a companion sketch, we transcribe a few sentences
descriptive of the household arrangements of her ex-
traordinary husband :

" The life of Louis Philippe is one of incessant toil
and anxiety ; his leisure is less, his work harder, than
that of his meanest subject. Late to bed, he rises early,
rarely sleeping more than four hours ; after a careful,
but rapid toilet, his day's labour begins. He seldom
breakfasts with his family—it would take too much
time—but has his frugal repast brought on a tray to the
room where he happens to be. When he was Duke of
Orleans he read all the letters and petitions addressed to
him, writing upon each an opinion or an order for the
guidance of his secretaries. This practice he was of
course obliged to discontinue when be became king. At
the commencement of his reign, the numbers of letters
and applications of various kinds, sent to the different
members of the Royal Family, amounted to the astonish-
ing number of a thousand or twelve hundred a-day. Al-
though, upon an average, not above fifty of these pos-
sessed the least interest, or deserved an answer, the
mere reading and classing of such a chaos of correspond-
ence gave employment to several secretaries. After a
while, the flood of petitions abated, but M. Appert esti-
mates them, in ordinary times, at six to eight hundred
daily. Of the letters, only the important ones are laid
before the King, who answers many of them himself.
He examines the reports, projects, and nominations
brought to him by his Ministers, and, at least twice or
thrice a week, presides at the council board. Private
audiences occupy much of his time ; his conference with
architects, with the intendants of the civil list and of
his private estates, are of frequent occurrence. The gal-
leries of Versailles, and the improvements at Fontaine-
bleau—all made after his plans, and in great measure
under his personal superintendence—court-balls and
dinners, diplomatic audiences, correspondence with fo-
reign courts, journeys of various kinds, visits to the
castle of Eu and to military camps—such are a portion
of the innumerable claims upon the time of the King of
the French. But, by a clear-headed, active, and earnest
man, endowed with the faculty of order, which Louis
Philippe possesses in a very high degree, much is to be
got throt.c.,n in a day of twenty-four hours ; and, after
doing all that has been enumerated, and many other
things of less importance, the King still finds time to
devote to his family, for the necessary healthful exer-
cise, and for the perusal of the principal newspapers
and publications, both English and foreign. Each
morning, either before or after breakfast, all the news-
papers, political pamphlets, even caricatures, were laid
upon the table, and the King and the Princes were the
first to read aloud the articles published against them.
They examined the caricatures, and passed them to
the bystanders, saying, What do you think of this?'"

We are not so infuriated by the shameless deceits
practised by Louis Philippe upon our most gracious
Sovereign Victoria; by his paltry trickstering in
relation to the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula; by
his contumacious rupture of the entente cordiale the
instant he found that entente cordiale interfere with
his own private interests; or by his shuffling policy
towards the imperial robbers of the North, as to re-
main blind to his eminent qualities as a man. His
rare accomplishments; his munificence in the culti-
vation of arts, sciences, agriculture, and manufac-
tures; his magnificent promotion of works calculated
to adorn his country; and, above all, his equanimity
during many years of penury, and sorrow,
and banishment, render him a worthy sub-
ject of our respect and admiration. As
Blackwood well observes—"Bven those who least
admire the public conduct of Louis Philippe, who
dislike his system of government, and blame his
tortuous foreign policy, may, whilst censuring the
conduct of the King, admit and admire the good
qualities of the individual." " Mildred" i 8 pursued
with the same simplicity and naturalness which were
remarkable on its commencement. Then comes a
paper headed " Eugene, Marlborough, Frederick,
Napoleon, and Wellington." lye would advise the
writer to write a sequel to it, called " Tom Thumb,
Jack the Giant Killer, the King of Lilliput, Alex-
ander the Great, and Captain Weazle." Why, the
jumble of great and small in this article is preposte-
rous. One might as well trace an analogy between
the genius of the King of Macedonia and the talent
of Ilepho2stion, between Nelson and his coxswain,
between Julius Cmsar and the standard-bearer of the
tenth legion, between Achilles and Patroclus. Every
admiral is not a Nelson, every painter is not a
Raphael, every poet is not a Shakspere, every
composer is not a Beethoven, every warrior is not a
Napoleon, elf-evident as these truths may ap-

pear, they are manifestly forgotten by the writer
of the article we refer to. In one page
of the magazine there are some simple and plaintive
verses by Delta, and in another there are a few
miserable doggrels about General Mack, by somebody
else unnamed. " Lays and Legends of the Thames"
are sprightly enough, but execrably vulgar. There
are two good reviews of " Prussian Military Me-
moirs" and of " Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxons," be-
sides a very long rigmarole, styled " Reflections sug-
gested by the career of the late Premier." Whoever
wrote the article has been wonderfully garrulous
about his small self. The personal pronoun I
marshals every sentence like a bare flag-staff. The
whole paper is founded upon a gross, and we do
believe, a wilful blunder—the liberal portion of the
Press did not maintain that personalities should not
be indulged in in Parliament, because the character
of a Minister is not the proper subject for investiga-
tion, but because the savage disposition evinced by
the Protectionists rendered Sir Robert Peel liable to
the most unseemly vituperations and the most inso-
lent abuse. Fair inquiry into the conduct of a public
man let there be—but no Billingsgate.

FRASER.
Fraser opens the new year with a paper, poetical
and political, on the "Past, the Present, and the
Coming." With regard to the coming,' Jie expresses
a hope that there will be more church and more edu-
cation, provided always that such education shall
have " for its foundation religion," by which the
writer means what Jeremy Bentham was wont to
call " Church- of Englandism." "We want," says he,
"no Godless theories of making boys scholars."
Never, surely, did nickname do greater service, than
this same nickname of " Godless education." Utterly
defeated in argument, the opponents of a national sys-
tem of education were about to surrender at discre-
tion, when Sir Robert Inglis, inspired for the nonce
by the genius of a Taper or a Tadpole, bethought him
of raising the cry of " Godless education." Straight-
way the cry was taken up by all those who,
hating the light because their deeds are evil,
are yet afraid to avow openly their desire to keep
the people in darkness. "A gigantic scheme of Godless
education" was a famous cry—a cry in which Lord
George Gordon would have revelled—a cry in obe-
dience to which an ignorant mob would have again
hunted down a Priestly—a cry in which every bigot
of every sect and of every denomination would join
—a cry which even a quarter of a century since
would have availed, but a cry which now avails no-
thing, as those who have attempted to raise it will
find to their cost, because we have now no mob,
but a people—a people " who know their rights,
and, knowing, dare maintain"—a people not to be
bamboozled by a cry a people who per-
fectly understand that there can be no such
thing as "a Godless system of education," who know
that "a Godless system of education " is a contradic •
tion in terms, inasmuch as any education must, by de-
veloping the intellectual faculties, teach its recipient
to believe in, to venerate, and to love that Deity from
whom he derives all his powers—a people who are
perfectly aware that it does not follow, because edu-
cation is exclusively under the superintendence of
ecclesiastics, that recipients of it should be there-
fore " Godly," as witness the state of religion and
morality in our two Universities. The cry of " God-
less education" will not do ; the people yearn for
education, secular education, without the interfer-
ence of the clergy, and whatsoever the people yearn
for that they will obtain. But while controversies
rage on the subject of education, there is one subject
in which all men of all parties are agreed, and that
is on the necessity of improving the physical condi-
tion of the people. In the sentiments expressed in
the following passage we fully concur :
" Many proverbs have less truth than the common
one, that cleanliness is next to godliness. We regard
all well-conducted efforts for improving the dwellings of
the poor as favourable to the advancement of religion
and education—of the Church and the school. Paley
said that the planting of a rose-tree was an item of
human happiness. In towns and great cities, where it is
impossible for the mechanic to enjoy the privileges of
the cottager, and sit under his own tree, or listen to the
hum of his own bees, public walks and parks—we believe
Arboretum is the word—form a serviceable substitute.
By what means soever it be accomplished, the love of
rural things ought to be cherished and deepened. It is
the only tradition of paradise that lives in the memory
of the vulgar."

If we cannot agree on the various schemes pro-
posed for the education of the people, at least we are
all agreed as to the necessity of improving their phy-
sical condition, and therefore we hope to see some
measures for securing "cleanliness " passed during
the next session of Parliament. The next article is
entitled " Scenes in the Wilds of Mexico," and the
hero of the present sketch is " Cayetano, the contra-
bandista," a melo-dramatic hero, who would make the
fortune of any minor theatre. At the present time
when the public attention is alive to every thing con-
nected with Mexico, the following sketch of the
Mexican manners will be found not uninteresting :
" The sea-coast of Mexico has at all times been in-
fested with smugglers. This mode of obtaining a live-
lihood is not there, as in Europe, monopolized by a few
audacious adventurers. According to the more or less
impoverished state of the finances, every government
officer is more or less busy in indemnifying himself at
the expense of the state, because the state does not pay
him. The soldiers loudly demand their pay, the civilians
join the soldiers. The state, as may be supposel, turns
a deaf ear, and each then endeavours to find a resource.
The administrator of the customs gives full power to the
searchers (vistas), the searchers to the custom-house
officers, these to the porters of the administration, and
the latter are assisted by all who can lift a weight, ma-
nage a boat, or, in case of necessity, use a dag-
ger. Then, according to the humour of the
president of the republic, or the severity of the laws
promulgated, smuggling goes on either in the open day,
or under cover of the night, in the seaports or on the
isolated coasts; but, whether far or near, every one lends
a helping hand. It may easily be conceived, therefore,
that in the dull season of the pearl and tortoiseshell
fishery, the divers and harpooners, who follow those
trades form valuable auxiliaries to the smugglers. As a
natural consequence of the poverty of the treasury,
whilst the government officers smuggle, soldiers—even
officers—join the highway robbers. Robbery is not the
sole profession of these highwaymen (scdteador de
comino). They are fathers of families, often protected
by the alcade of their village, and blessed by their
priest—men who disdain to set forth unless their spies
have announced some rich prey. After having piteously
massacred a traveller who attempted to resist, or treated
with exquisite urbanity one who quietly allowed himself
to be despoiled, they regain their village, not forgetting,
in the division of the booty, the innkeeper who sent
them mysterious advice, the alcade who signed their
permissidn to carry arms, and the priest who gave them
absolution. Such is the singular toleration of opinion,
that robbers and smugglers do not in Mexico live apart
from society, or form a distinct caste possessing its own
peculiar customs and regulations."

We have two classical articles in the present number
of Fraser. The one a Roman novel, founded on the
story of Curtius, and entitled the " Sacrifices"—the
other "A Word or Two about Mark Antony," which
might pass for a supplement to the Philippics. In a
paper on literary legislators we have the commencement
of an elaborate, and, at the same time, a most just
criticism on Mr. Disraeli, considered as a litterateur,
an orator, and a statesman, and the number winds
up with "A Grumble about the Christmas Books," by
M. A. Titmarsh, in which the writer, acting
as high priest to Dickens, immolates all the
writers of Christmas books, at the altar of his idol,
and closes his paper just in time to save himself from
the fate of poor Mathews' savage, who "cut off his
own head leaving all the spectators in wonder and
darkness."

DOMBEY and SON. No. IV. By Charles Dickens.
In his description of the growth and education of
little Paul Dombey, Mr. Dickens has revived a world
of recollections anent schoolboy days, besides giving
an exquisite delineation of the mind, the habits, and
the affections of childhood. There is no puerility in
the manner of our author when he speaks about
children ; there is no mere sentimentality in his inci-
dents connected with children. He speaks in the
language of truth, and that language is most beauti-
ful. He writes about children from the depths of
his memory and from the fulness of his heart; he
views their little world with the eye of a poet;
while he is lingering over the portraiture of a child
he is a child again himself. We cannot sym-
pathise with those who rejoice in ridiculing this
peculiarity of one whose imagination has conjured up
such beings as Tiny Tim, and Little Nell, and Paul
Dombey. In some respects Paul is better conceived
and better depicted than the others. His "old, old
face," his thirst to know what it is the sea is "always
saying, always saying," even his quaint notion con-
nected with Dr. Blimber's clock, namely, that when
its pendulum clicked it repeated the monotonous
words of the pedagogue," how, is, my, lit, tle, friend,
how, is, my, lit, tle, friend," are all most natural. The
drollest touches imaginable are scattered plentifully
through these pages, as usual. Mrs. Pipchin,
horrible Mrs. Pipchin, notwithstanding "the
toughness of her constitution, "is expected to
go off suddenly, like a powder-mill." Then
Mr. Dombey is described as having, beheld
" Master Bitherstone in his collar of state,' and as
having made " Miss Pankey cry by patting her on
the head, in which region she was uncommonly tender
on account of a habit Mrs. Pipchin had of sounding
it with her knuckles like a cask." The quarrel be-
tween the last-mentioned personage and the weak-
eyed young man who opened the door at Dr. Blim-
ber's is a rich piece of absurdity. Here, however, is
an account of the Doctor's establishment at Brighton,
and it is doubly commendable (the account, not the
establishment) as a protest against a grievous abuse
of a very popular system of education, viz., the
" forcing system :"

" Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by
Doctor Blimber, ho might consider himself sure of a
pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the
charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, Always

ready, a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest
estimate; and it was at once the business and delightof
his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
" In fact, Doctor Blirnber's establishment was a grea I
hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus in-
cessantly at work. All the boys blew before their times
Mental green peas were produced at Christmas, and
intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical
gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at un-
timely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under
Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of
Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs
of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was
of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gen-
tleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him I
bear to pattern, somehow or other.
"This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the
system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvan-
tages. There was not the right taste about the prema-
ture productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover,
one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an
excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had
"gone through" every thing), suddenly left off blowing
one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk.
And people did say that the doctor had rather overdone
it with young Toots, and that when he began to have
whiskers he left off having brains.
" There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of
the gruffest of voices and the shrillest of minds; stick-
ing ornamental pins into his shirt, and keeping a ring in
his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by stealth,
when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in
love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his
existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world over the
little iron bars in the left hand corner window of the front
three pairs of stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly over-
grown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long.
" The doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of
black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below
them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a deep
voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder
how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had
likewise a pair of little eyes that were always half shut
up, and a mouth that was always half expanded into a
grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were
waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch,
that when the doctor put his right hand into the breast
of his coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a
scarcely perceptible wag of the head, made the com-
monest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a
sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
" The doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the
sea. Not a joyful style of house within, but quite the
contrary. Sad-coloured curtains, whose proportions
were spare and lean, hid themselves despondingly be-
hind the windows. The tables and chairs were put away
in rows, like figures in a sum; fires were so rarely lighted
in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like wells, and a
visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed
the last place in the world where any eating or drinking
was likely to occur; there was no sound through all the
house but the ticking of a great clock in the hall, which
made itself audible in the very garrets ; and sometimes
a dull crying of young gentlemen at their lessons, like
the murmurings of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
" Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid,
did no soft violence to the gravity of the house. There
was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept
her hair short and crisp, and wore:spectacles. She was
dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased
languages. None of your live languages for Miss
Blimber. They must be dead—stone dead—and then
Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoule.
" Mrs. Blimber, her mamma, was not learned herself,
but she pretended to be, and that did quite as well. She
said at evening parties, that if she could have known
Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It
was the steady joy of her life to see the doctor's young
gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gen-
tlemen, in the largest possible shirt collars, and the stiffest
possible cravats. It was so classical, she said.-
" As to Mr. Feeder, 8.A., Dr. Blimber's assistant, he
was a kind of human barrel-organ, with a little list of
tunes at which he was continually working, over and
'over again, without- any variation. lie might have been
fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life,
if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been;
and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round,
it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of Dr.
Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were
prematurely full of earking anxieties. They knew no
rest from the pursuit of stoney-hearted verbs, savage
noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and
ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams.
Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually
took leave of his spirits in three weeks. He had all the
cares of the world on his head in three months. He
conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guar-
dians in four; he was an old ,misanthrope, in five; en-
vied Quintius Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth,
in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had ar-
rived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards
departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of
the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar,
and had no other meaning in the world.
" But he went on, blow, blow, blowing, in the doctor's
hothouse, all the time; and the doctor's glory and repu-
tation were great, when he took his wintry growth home
to his relations and friends."
Having been duly installed at the boalding school,
Paul witnesses a ludicrous scene at the dinner table.
So wonderfully depressing is the influence of the
" forcing system " upon the "young gentlemen "
that Master Briggs is heard to declare that he should
certainly " wish himself dead if it wasn't for his
mother, and a blackbird at home." Paul is so im-
measurably puzzled by the crowd of books submitted
to his perusal simultaneously that it soon becomes an
open question with him " whether twenty Romuluses
made a Remus, or bin hmc hoc was troy weight, or a
verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or
three times four was Taurus a bull !" We
are delighted to think that Mrs. Pipchin has at
last found her match in Miss Nipper. Miss Nipper,
indeed, is said to have " thrown away the scabbard
the first morning she arose," to have given no quarter,
and to have carried on the war against the ogress so
unrelentingly, that Mrs. Pipchin was at last per-
petually subject to " surprises, harassings, and defi-
ances ; and skirmishing attacks that came bouncing
in upon her from the passage, even in unguarded
moments of chops, and carried desolation to her very
toast!" Here is a faithful picture of a great mercan-
tile establishment in the City :
" Mr. Dombey's offices were in a court where there
was an old-established stall of choice fruit at the corner ;
where perambulating merchants, of both sexes, offered
for sale at any time between the hours of ten and five,
slippers, pocket-books, sponges, dogs' collars, and Wind-
sor soap ; and sometimes a pointer or an oil painting.
" The pointer always came that way, with a view to
the Stock Exchange, where a sporting taste (originating
generally in bets of new hats) is much in vogue. The
other commodities were addressed to the general public;
but they were never offered by the vendors to Mr.
Dombey. When he appeared, the dealers in those wares
fell off respectfully. The principal slipper and dogs'
collar man—who considered himself a public character,
and whose portrait was screwed on to an artist's door in
Cheapside—threw up his forefinger to the brim of his
hat as Mr. Dombey went by. The ticket-porter, if he
were not absent on a job, always ran offieiously before,
to open Mr. Dombey's office door as wide as possible,
and hold it open, with his hat off, while he entered.
" The clerks within were not a whit behind-hand in
their demonstrations of respect. A solemn hush pre-
vailed, as Mr. Dombey passed through the outer office.
The wit of the counting-house became in a moment as
mute, as the row of leathern fire-buckets, hanging up
behind him. Such vapid and flat daylight as filtered
through the ground glass windows and skylights, leav-
ing a black sediment upon the panes, showed the books
and papers, and the figures bending over them, en-
veloped in a studious gloom, and as much abstracted in
appearance, from the .world without, as if they were as-
sembled at, the bottom of the sea ; while a mouldy little
strong room in the obscure perspective, where a shaded
lamp was always burning, might have represented the
cavern of some ocean monster, looking on with a red eye
at these mysteries of the deep.
" When Perch, the messenger, whose place was on a
little bracket, like a timepiece, saw Mr. Dombey come
in—or rather when he felt that he was coming, for he
had usually an instinctive sense of his approach—he hur-
ried into Mr. Dombey's room, stirred the fire, quarried
fresh coals from the bowels of the coal box, hung the
newspaper to air upon the fender, put the chair ready,
and the screen in its place, and was round upon his heel
on the instant of Ms Dombey's entrance, to take his
great coat and hat, and hang them up. Then Perch
took the newspaper, and gave it a turn or two in his
hands before the fire, and laid it deferentially at Mr.
Dombey's elbow. And so little objection had Perch to
doing deferential in the last degree, that if he might
have laid himself at Mr. Dombey's feet, or might have
called him by some such title as used to be bestowed
upon the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, he would have been
all the better pleased.
"As this honour would have been an innovation and
an experiment, Perch was fain to content himself by
expressing as well as he could, in his manner, You are
the Light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my Soul.
You are the Commander of the Faithful, Perch. With
this imperfect happiness to cheer him, he would shut the
door softly, walk away on tiptoe, and leave his great
chief to be stared at, through a dome-shaped window in
the leads, by ugly chimney pots and backs of houses, and
especially by the bold window of a hair-cutting saloon on
a first floor, where a waxen effigy, bald as a Afu
in the
ssul
m
in the morning, and covered, after eleven o'clock
day, with luxuriant hair and whikers!nthe atest Chris-
tian fashion, showed him the wrong side of its head for
ever."
It is decided that Walter Gay is to be dispatched
to Barbadoes as a junior clerk. The passages relating
to Mr. Carker the junior but really the senior, and
Mr. Carker the manager but really the junior, are
cleverly and touchingly written. Nothing about Miss
Tox, or Major Bagstock, or Captain Cuttle in this
number. We miss them.

CIIILD DROPPING.—Lust evening, about five
o'clock, a male infant, about four weeks old, was found
abandoned on the step of a door in Bit d-street, near
Wapping Church. The infant, who suffered very
severely from the cold, was wrapped in a striped worsted
hood and black stuff cloak. It was conveyed by the
police to Wapping workhouse.
The new drama at the Adelphi of Colonzba, or the
Corsican Sister, increases nightly in attraction, com-
bined with the wonderful performances of Lees and his
pupils, and the delightful snio- burlesque of The Phan-
tom ancers. By-the-way, the beautiful little pony,
Comi Bachee, which performs so cleverly in the drama
of Colonzba, is the pet pony of Master Banjamin
Webster, the lessee's eldest son, and is one of the true
Shetland breed.