The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-28 00:00:00

BURNS' ANNIVERSARY.

The members of the Caledonian Society met on
Saturdly last, the 25th inst., to celebrate Cie anniver-
sary of the birth of their national bard. About forty
gentlemen sat down to an excellent dinner. served up
with great taste, and every attention to comfort. The
chair was ably filled by J. Boucher, Esq., who was well
supported by George Rose !Imes, Esq., as croupier.
Both were elegantly attired in the Highland costume,
including the pistol, dirk, and skein dbu, as were also
several others of the party. The richness and
beauty of the Highland dresses were much
admired by the few guests and strangers who were pri-
vileged to be present. After the usual loyal and pa-
triotic toasts had been drunk with Scottish enthusiasm,
the Memory of Burns was proposed by the Chairman in
a feeling and appropriate speech, and responded to in
solemn silence. The following song, written for the oc-
casion by Mr. Park, was sung with great spirit by the
author. National toasts and songs followed in quick
succession, and the hilarity of the evening was kept up
till a late hour. The Caledonian Society exists for the
double object of promoting social intercourse among
Seotehmen in London, and ultimately establishing a
fund for the relief of distressed natives of Scotland :
Brave Scotland—Freedom's throne on Earth !
A bumper to thy glory !
This day thy matchless Bard bad birth,
So famed in song and story
Where'er thy mountain sons may stray,
Thou'st thrown thy magic round them,
And on this ever-hallowed day,
In kindred love bast bound them.
He nobly walked behind his plough,
And gazed entranced on nature ;
While genius graced his lofty brow,
And played in every feature 1
For then, inspired by glowing songs,
Of " Bruce," or Highland Mary,"
The minstrel-birds in joyous throngs,
Around their Bard would tarry I
But waes my heart I he sings nae mair
Its strains o' joy or sorrow,
Though on the bonny banks o' Ayr,
His spirit smiles each morrow
And Scotia's muse—enthroned on high—
The great, the gentle hearted I
Sits with the tear-,ltop in her eye,
And mourns her Bard departed !
0 sacred laud of gallant men !
Of maidens unassuming
Who dwell obscure by loch and glen,
Where still the thistle's blooming !
How well has Burns rehearsed your praise,
Among your cloud.crowned mountains,
In never-dying tuneful lays,
Pure as your native fountains
Then fill the sparkling goblet high,
And let no discord stain it;
Let joy illume each manly eye,
While to the dregs we drain it 1
To Burns! to Burns! the King of Song 1
Whose Lyre shall charm all ages 1
Mirth, wisdom, love, and satire strong,
Adorn his deathless pages !

STRANGE YET TRUE.—In the year 1803, a
Regiment of the line was quartered in Dublin, the name of which
it is unnecessary to mention. The Hospital to which invalids
were sent was situated a little way outside the city, and among
other patients within its walls there was a soldier (H. B.) of
whose case the Doctor had a bad opinion, and who was believed
by the nurses, and others around him, to be rapidly dying. An
" orderly" ( A.M. ), served in the same corps, upon whom de-
volved the duty of carrying coffins to the Hospital when a death
occurred. For this office he received a fee of one shilling, and
perhaps, like the officials who come after him, rejoiced inwardly,
though not outwardly, when a bit of coffin employment fell in
his way. But while thus engaged in a favourite l►ne of duty,
he was summoned to town on some other errand, and, lest some
interloper might step in between, he hit on the following re-
markable expedient. " Incoffining" was an office thirled to him-
self, and, rather than be baulked, he conveyed a mournful piece
of carpenter-work to the bedside of his afflicted comrade ; and
after divers awkward apologies, explained how he was situated,
and then hinted that as a few hours or minutes could make but
little difference, and no human aid avert a fate which left so
many unshrouded on the battle field, he hoped no abjection
would be made to lifting him from the bed on which he lay to
the coffin at its side, where the only service he could now re-
ceive—moistening with a sponge his parched lips—might be as
well performed as anywhere else. The soldier, though sick,
was by no means insensate, and the reader may easily imagine
feelingi in listening to a proposal so outrageously revolting
—feeling. never better described than in the poem of " The
Grave" :

" Enough to rouse a dead man into rage,
And warm with red resentment the wan cheek."
And so it was with the supposed dying man ; the blood that
fast retreated from, returned to the heart, and rousing every
latent enery, he exclaimed, more in a soldier than a Christian
phrase—" I'll see you d—d first!" Thus emphatically re-
buked, your worse than resurrectionist sneaked off, but, to all
appearance, as unwillingly as the felon so graphically described
by Prior:—
" He fitted the halter, he traversed the cart,
And often took leave, yet seemed loath to depart."
But the scene seems to have had a good effect on the invalid, who,
to the astonishment of all, shortly after recovered, and joined
his regiment; and, whet among his comrades. it was impossible
to resist denouncing the rascally Orderly, the very sight of
whom, as he said, often tempted him to draw his bayonet. Nor
could the offender, when challenged, deny the fact; and from
that moment he became so hateful, and such a butt for ridicule,
that he was Wad to hide his shame by deserting the service.
The invalid lived for more than twenty years subsequent to the
above event, was called abroad, served in various campaigns,
and, though a frequent sharer in the battles of the Peninsula,
survived them all—as can be well attested by a military gentle-
man now in Edinburgh, who related the circumstance, a few
years ago, to a party of friends, one of whom communicated it
to the Editor of this paper.—Dumfries Courier.
The memorial from the inhabitants of Bath and
its vicinity to her Majesty, on behalf of Frost, Williams, and
Jones, has received 9,000 signatures. Many of the middle
classes attached their names to the memorial, and, among
others, it contains those of one alderman and one Magistrate of
the city, with numerous gentry and ex-officials. The same
memorial, having been adopted by other towns, has received in
Trowbridge 4,000 signatures; in Frome, 1,500 ; and in Brad
ford, 1,400. The numbers are immense, considering the short
time the memorial has been prepared. It has also been adopted
in other towns, from which the numbers have not yet been col-
lected. It is not, as was expected, to be presented to the
Queen by Lord Brougham ; it is, however, finally arranged
that it shall be taken to the Secretary of State, by Mr. Leader,
M.P. ; and Mr. Roebuck, the late representative of Bath. is
expected to accompany him. The Chartists still anticipate the
success of the objection taken by Sir F. Pollock, to the proceed-
ings in Monmouth ; but their zeal would not allow them to be
satisfied with that reliance alone.

-
DREADFUL THUNDER STORM..--On Monday
morning, about six •'clock, the neighbourhood of Bude was
visited by a most awful storm of thunder and lightning, which
did considerable damage to a house about a mile from Stratton,
on the Kilkhamptou road, belonging to Mr. R. Cornube, of
Stratton, and occupied by a labouring man of the name of
Hicks. The poor man's pig was struck dead in the sty by the
electric fluid ; and it was quite a miracle that the inhabitants
escaped unhurt, as the house is much shattered, the doors and
windows being smashed to atoms.— Cornwall Gazette.

Last week, the landlord of the Ram Inn, Dork-
ing, gave, according to annual custom, a luncheon to his
his guests ; and amongst the good things placed in a corner of
the room, was a loaf of bread, measuring 8 feet high, and 3 feet.
in circumference, which was soon sliced to nothing by the knives
o fthe Surrey yeomen.
THE DANGERS OP EAVES DROPPING.—A
trio of ladies, hight Mistress Rhoda Walford, clothed in the
matronly dignity of wife, Miss Emma Thorogood, fat, if not
fair and forty, and Miss Mary Ann Philpott, who appeared as
if she had been plundering a rainbow for a head-dress,_pre-
sented themselves before the Magistrates at the Braintree Petty
Session, on Wednesday, to settle a question of blows said to
have been dealt about too freely in the parish of Stebbing.—lt
appeared that Miss Philpott had domiciled her fascinating form,
with all its gay appendages, either in the "two-pair front" or
the " one-pair back," in the very house which Mrs. Walford
inhabited with her lord; and that mischievous imp, known by
his sallow complexion and green eyes, who is often to be found
disturbing the water in canals, or meditating on halters and
horse-pistols--called jealousy, had been whispering certain little
suspicious circumstances in Mrs. W.'s ear ; in consequence
thereof she was a few evenings ago readily, Mr. W. an admo-
nitory lesson by the side of his own hearth —a sort of prologue
to the tragedy of a curtain lecture which she was brewing,
when Migs Thorogood's ear stumbled against the window, and
(quite accidentally, as she seemed to think) the angry words of
the conubial accuser, and the soothing expressions of the head
of the household dropped therein as regularly as black and
white beans into a balloting box. Ac this momenta bundle of
curls made their appearance at the chamb^r window, with
the face of Miss Philpott in the midst thereof, anti Miss Thoro-
good being thus discovered, the fists of Mrs. Walford fell upon
her in due course, for carrying off her matrimonial secrets by
stealth, necessarily warmed her, and, said the complainant,
" she hot me five lumps on the head and three on the back,"
the price of which eight lumps she now beseeched the Magis-
trates to estimate in hard cash. The Bench put them at IV.
each (being at the rate of eighteen-pence a dozen) which, with
the costs, amounting to 12s. 6d. more, Mrs. Watford was or-
dered to pay in fourteen days ; and Miss Philpott sailed out of
Court with her colours streaming, like a British ship on the
Queen's birthday, followed by the fat lady and the jealous
lady in due order.— Chelmsford Chronicle.

PETITION FOR THE REMOVAL OF HER
MAJESTY'S MixisTEits ! ! !—At a nocturnal meeting held at
Lincoln last Wednesday by a little knot of Tories, whose
names even we never heard efore, a petition was got up for the
dismissal of the present Ministers! ColonelSibthorp, we see,
is to have the honour of presenting this precious petition.
During the night of Sunday last, some miscre-
ants cut off the manes and tails of no less than 17 horses be-
longing to lour farmers living adjoining, between Chard and
Yarcombe. Part of the hair, weighing about ten pounds, has
been sold to a sadler at Axminster, by a fellow who was taken
into custody at Honiton, with a bag of old metal. The parties
are in search of another person, who was concerned in the
transaction. The horses are sadly disfigured. Western Times.
Lord William Fitzgerald has arrived at Carton,
Maynooth, on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Leinster, from
an extensive tour on the Continent.

THE CHARTISTS.—A public meeting was an-
nounced by the Chartists to be held at Banbury on Tuesday
night last, to raise a subscription in aid of the funds for de-
fending Vincent upon a second indictment found against him in
the Court of Queen's Bench. The speakers confined themselee
principally to the subject of the meeting, but took occasion to
denounce " physical force."
THE CHARTISTS AT BURL—This week a
memorial to the Queen. praying that the capital punishment of
Frost and his companions may be remitted, has been in course
of signature by the Chartists of Bury. At the same time the
stupid fellows maintain an alarm in the neighbourhood, by c-in-
tinuing to held their secret class meetings. The same also
prevails in several of the country districts around Manchester.
—Manchester Guardian.
The Synod of Ulster are about to join the Irish
National Board of Education, and accept grants from that body,
for
the instruction of the children of Presbyterian parents.
Conferences on the subject were held last week in Dublin
Castle,
which promise a satisfactory conclusion of the affair.
SPORT EXTRAORDINARY.—A kw days ago,
Charles Morewood, Esq., of Alfreton Park, shot in one day
in Codnor Park no fewer than 54 snipes, and bagged them all
but eleven or twelve. This day's execution is unequalled in
sporting annals.—Derbyshire Courier.