The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

ARREST OF A SWINDLER 1N

PARIS.

A person who is charged with having succeeded in
obtaining in London rather more than 2,000/. upon
forged bills, has been arrested. He is a Spaniard, a
handsome, gentlemanly
man, between 30 and 40 years
of age. He went to London about six weeks ago, in
company with a highly respectable Englishman, to ne-
gotiate the sale of a patent for a new steam-paddle, of
which a French nobleman is the inventor, and for the
experiments respecting which he is said to have ad-
vanced all the requisite funds, the patent in England
being :taken out in his own name. Not having
succeeded in the object for which the parties went
to London, the English gentleman left the Spaniard
in London, and went into the ,country. It ap-
pears, that immediately after the departure of this
gent' ernan the other party discounted these forged
bills by means of a forged letter of introduc-
tion, and started immediately for France with his
plunder. He had not been here long, however, before
bills announcing the fraud, and giving the numbers of
the notes which had been paid to him, were distri-
buted among the bankers and money changers. A few
days ago he called upon a money changer in the Pa-
lais Royal, and presented six hundred-pound Bank
of England notes for change into French money.
The bill announcing the robbery was hanging in the
shop, but before the money changer could compare
the numbers the other caught sight of it, and imme-
diately grasping the notes, which he had laid on the
counter, ran out of the shop, and was out of sight
before the money changer could procure the means
of arresting him. He was afterwards taken at his
lodgings in the Rue Lepelletier. He denied being
the party charged with the fraud ; but it appears
that no doubt is entertained of his identity. Whe-
ther he can be prosecuted - here for the forgery
in London, or whether the Government will con-
sent to his extradition, is a question. In a recent
case the Government refused to give up an offender to
the police officer who came from London to apprehend
him, and there is in this affair the additional difficulty
of the offender being the subject of another State. If
the French would not give up an Englishman to his
own Government, how can they give up a Spaniard
The best thing the parties can do is to terrify the eri-
, mina out of the money which he has obtained, and the
greater portion of which is probably still in his posses-
sion, for only a few notes have been traced, and they
are of small amount. I understand that he moved in
a very respectable sphere here, and the gentleman
whose name he forged to the letter of introduction
states that he had so good an opinion of him that if he
had applied to him for an introduction as for himself,
he would have given if-. It would seem, however, that
by taking a false name the offender hoped to escape de-
tection.—Letter from Parie.

DEATH OF DR. JAMES BROWNE.

Many of our readers will be grieved to hear that Dr.
James Browne, of this city, died on Thursday. For
about two years, Dr. Browne's health had been much
shaken, and none of his friends expected that he could
long survive. His name is well known in the lite-
rature of his country, for the extent of his learning
and research, and the rhetorical and argumentative
energy with which he brought his acquiremeats
to bear on the many subjects waichi, during a life
of almost ceaseless literary exertion, he discussed.
He was for several years Editor of the Mercury ;
but he is perhaps more widely, and will be more
permanently, known for the many valuable arti-
cles he communicated to the " Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica," particularly on the more abstruse branches
of early history, grammar and etymology, the arts of
war, and biography. His acquirements as an isvesti-
' gator of Egyptian history and hieroglyphics arc also
widely known. He possessed a powerful fund of
eloquence, which he was always ready to devote to
the cause of humanity and liberal opinions—often
with more regard to his feelings as a public man,
than to his interests as an individual. He carried
like qualifications into social life, where his con-
versation was distinguished by much eloquence of
sentiment, and brilliancy of wit. It is unuvaal
on occasions like the present, to talk of failings ;
but those of Dr. Browne were not unfrequently the
subject of rallying remarks with his best friends, be-
cause they were not of a character for which they had
occasion to blush. They were those of a warm heart,
and, perhaps, somewhat excitable temperament, and in
all quarters they were admitted to have no leaven of
selfishness or malignity. For about a year Dr. Browne
enjoyed a small pension from Government. It is ear-
nestly to be desired that in this case the Royal bounty
may be continued to those for whose sake it must have
had its chief value in his eyes.—Scotsman.