The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-09 00:00:00

GR.

,EAT EVENTS FROM LITTLE

CAUSES SPRING."

A curious incident, which occurred a day or two ago,
in the market of Brussels, has led to a discovery of some
importance. A woman, whose appearance was that of a
workwoman in easy circumstances, had taken an apple
from the stall of a fruiterer in the market, without pay-
ing for it, when she was taken before M. Lenoir, magis-
trate of police. The woman, who gave the name of
Chariot, said, in jastification of her conduct, that she had
no thought of stealing the apple, and that there was
some mistake on the part of the fruit salesman. In-
quiries were made respecting her character, which
was excellent, and as the delinquency was of so
trifling a nature, the magistrate was on the point of dis-
charging her, but first thought it his duty to ask her
some questions : he inquired the name of her family, to
which she replied that her parents' name was Glatigny.
This name struck M. Lenoir, who continued his inter-
rogatory and at last elicited that Madame Chulot had
already been condemned for theft, and that she was
the widow of an individual_ who, after having followed
the trade of a currier at Millers Cotterets, had be:
arrested at Paris on a charge of assassination, in
September, 1844, and was even suspected of being an
accomplice in the murder of M. Donon Cadot. Char-
iot, after his arrest, had attempted to commit sui-
cide. He was taken to the hospital of la Cheri* and
there succeeded in accomplishing his project of self-
destruction by a somewhat singular trick. The physician
had prescribed opium pills for him. Chariot, instead of
taking them singly, as ordered, concealed them till he
had collected a large quantity, when he swallowed them
all at once, and thus poisoned himself. This information
decided M. Lenoir in remanding Mme. Chariot, and on
paying a visit to her apartments to make a search,
where, to his great surprise, he discovered a complete
stock of stationery, ticketed and carefully arranged in
cases, as if prepared for sale. In fact, for about 12 years,
Mme. Chariot had been at work with the principal sta-
tioners of Paris, who all considered her as an honest,
clever, and intelligent workwoman, and during all that
time she had abstracted, unnoticed, goods enough to
set up herself as a stationer. This was a project she
was about to realise, when the ill-fated apple of the
market-woman destroyed her prospects. She possessed,
besides, 14,000 francs in Bank of Brussels shares, and
400 francs in silver and gold coin. She was, moreover,
very parsimonious towards herself, and although she
earned good wages, frequently took from the houses in
which she worked crusts of bread, which she toasted for
her, own use, in order to avoid purchasing at the bakers.
lied not the trifling incident of the theft of -an apple led
to her detection, Mme. Chariot would doubtless have
continued her delinquencies undiscovered, and enjoyed
the reputation of an honest shopkeeper.

PORTUGUESE FRUlTS.—Theimportation of onions
and grapes from Portugal has continued to take place to
an extent quite unprecedented. One vessel had an
entire cargo, comprising the large number of 843 boxes
of onions ; another, from Oporto, in addition to a cargo
of wine, 372 boxes of onions ; a third, from Lisbon,
340 packages of onions and nearly 500 boxes of grapes;
a fourth, the Pravidence, from Lisbon, a large quantity
of onions and 650 packages of grapes ; the Worthing-
ton, from Oporto, 668 packages of onions ; the Wysen,
from Lisbon, the extraordinarily large number of 1,509
packages of onions and 831 packages of grapes ; and
the Charles, from Oporto, 919 packages of onions ; all
of which arrivals took place in one day, the vessels by
which they were imported being more or less laden with
wine and other Portuguese productions. To enumerate
the whole of the importations of the kind is impractic-
able, but the above list of such supplies in one day will
suffice to illustrate the extent to which they are now
carried.
INTRODUCTION CF THE CULTIVATION OF RICE
INTO FRANCE.—The design has been formed of intro-
ducing the culture of rice into the delta of the Rhone.
According to experiments made on a surface of 25 hec-
tares, the rice plant promises a plentiful yield of about
50 per cent. In the sitting of the Scientific Congress,
atMarseilles.
to which above 20,000 hectares (about
43,500 acres) of the salt land at the mouths of the
according on the 9th ult., a calculation was pre-
sented,
Rhone, and which is capable of being flooded, could be
turned into rice fields. The whole area, at an average
of 50f. per hectare, is now scarcely worth 2,000,000 E,
while if rice were grown upon it, it would be worth
3,000 f. per hectare, (the hectare is a trifle less than 21
acres), and thus the landed property of the department
would be increased in value by 120,000,0001., and even
:00,000,000E, if this branch of agriculture were also
introduced into the neighbouring departments. The
cost of preparing a hectare of rice plantation, rendering
it productive, sowing-, watering, weeding, and reaping
is at most 350 E, the average produce is estimated at
1,500 kilos. per hectare of cleansed rice, which, at the
rate of 401. per 100 kilos., would give 600 f., being a net
profit of 2501.
The Congress hereon unanimously re-
solved to declare their wish that the Government would
take measures to aid, by every means in its power, the
improvement of the salt and marshy lands of the Medi-
terranean departments, so that the cultivation of rice
might be generally introduced therein. If the failure of
the potato continue, rice and maize are destined to form
an,important portion of the food of the people of Europe.
The entire domestic economy of the people would
thereby undergo a profound and radical change.
MINERAL WEALTH OF TILE UNITED KINGDOM.—
Wednesday Profissor 'Ferment delivered the first of his
course of lectures for the present session of mineralo-
gical geology to a very numerous_class at King's Col-
lege. Having commenced with a review of the history
of the science from the period when the facts upon which
it was founded first attracted attention, until the present
time, in describing the interesting chemical analogy
observable in various geological formations, and parti-
cularly as instanced in coal, plumbago, and the diamond,
ho referred to the very satisfactory arrangements of the
collections at the British Museum, of which this forms
the basis. In the course of his observations the lecturer
stated the annual amount of the mineral wealth of this
country to exceed 25 millions. Of this, 9.100,000/. was
from coal, 8,400,000/. from iron, 1,200,0001. from copper,
920,0001 lead, 400,000/. salt, 390,000/. tin, 60,0001. man-
ganese, 35,000/. silver 29,0001. alum, 8,000/. zinc, and
25,0001. the var. - lolls other metals, as antimony, bismuth,
arsenic, &c.

ARREST OF MENDELSSOHN, THE COMPOS ER.-1 he
Warrant issued, on
political grounds, for the arrest of
the advocate Dr. Alendelssohn, has given rise to a curious
mistake. At Herbestahl, a little Prussian town near
the Baltic frontier, the gendarmerie arrested the a,dve-
cate's cousin-german
the celebrated composer, Felix
Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who was returning from Bel-
gium by the railway, and who is also a doctor, but in
music, while his kinsman is a doctor of laws. The artist
vainly showed his
and mentioned his office of director-general al religious
music in Prussia :
~S6' to elude the
, the officers found the description in
gr)t by some i.
the passport passport, which was perfectly regular,
to apprehend, aria imagined that the passport had been
very similar to that of the person they were
rities. Dr. Mendelssohn Bartholdy was conveyed to
prison, and was not released till the following evening,
after he had obtained the attendance, from Cologne,
vigilance of the autho-
of two respectable witnesses to his identity.—Grzeite
Ma,./011e.
LIGHTING AND IT
---.EATING BY CARBONIC OX IDE.—
A patent has been taken out J Constable, of
, y r. .
London, for
a method of preparing carbonic oxide gas
from anthracite, in blast furnaces, by aid of heated steam
ard air ; as---
n sin
; .I', fur illumination, through oil of
turpentine, to increase its brilliancy ; and for heating
purposes, mixing it widi air supplied by gasometer to
the burner. Materials valuable as manure are obtained
from the ashes—cyanide of potassium by washings, and
arnmoniacal products by aid of steam ; the scarcity and
high price of guano thus, as in Dr. Play fair's researches,
and in the scheme for condensing sewage, leading to a
fair prospect of tt ehequivalents.
eaP supply of ataficial
—r/te ,euikfer.