The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-08 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

THE EUROPEAN BANK AND ITS DIRECTORS. —ln Vice'
Chancellor Bacon's chambers the case of the European
Bank against Colchester, was brought before Mr. Bloxam,
chief clerk, it being a suit instituted by the liquidators
against several gentlemen who recently acted as directors,
for the restitution of a sum of £50,000, loss sustained by
the alleged improper purchase of a number of shares in the
Union Bank of England and France, and the English,
Belgian, and Netherlands Bank. Messrs. Argall and
Rawlings were solicitors for the. liquidator ; Messrs. Link-
later and Co. representing defendants, one of whom,
Mr. Colchester, denied his liability, alleging that he
had protested against the transactions and directed the
secretary to take a note of his protest at the time. lie
also disputed that the directors of the European Bank
were the actual parties to the negotiations, which were
carried on at a time when the bank was about to be amal-
gamated with others. He was desirous of putting in a
voluntary answer to the suit, but could not do so in con-
sequence of the minute books and other important docu-
ments having been withheld. Mr. Argall denied that an
documents had been improperly kept back. The principle
branch of the bank was at Paris, and that being now in a
state of siege, the documents could be prot;ured. The
Chief Clerk ordered that all the English documents should
be placed at the disposal of the defendants within ten
days, and adjourned the summons for that purpose.
SELLING DISEASED MEAT FOR FOOD.—At Manchester,
a man named William Simmons has been sent to prison
for three months for dealing in diseased meat. He has
been in the habit of buying diseased cows from farmers,
on the representation that he was in the employ of a
horse slaughterer ; but upon obtaining the animals, he
has slaughtered them, and sold the meat in Manchester
for human food.

BURGLARY.—Henry Roberts, 17, and William Berry,
18, were charged before Mr. Knox, at the Marlborough-
street Police-court, with burglariously breaking and
entering No. 77, Berwick-street, Soho, and stealing some
monogram patterns, the property of Mr. Alfred Mitchell,
enammeller and engraver. Sergt. Bentley, 13 C, said
that about one o'clock that morning he received informa-
tion that some men were in a workshop at the rear of
No. 77, Berwick-street, and on going into No. 78,
with another sergeant, he saw two men with
a small light walking about the workshop. He
placed a constable at the door, and returned to the street,
and after standing there for a moment saw the prisoners
come out of the street door of No. 77 and run away. He
followed them, springing his rattle and calling out "Stop
thief !" and they were stopped in Noel-street. He asked
Roberts what he had been doing, and he replied " You
know ;" and on searching the prisoners he found on
Berry two cases of enamel patterns, and a knife. On
examining the shop he found that the prisoners had
effected an entry by getting over a low wall, and pushing
open a sliding window, there being marks on the wall and
the window being open. The place was in disorder,
drawers being pulled out and laid about, and tools also
strewn about. He found a mortice chisel and a box of
matches, which Mr. Mitchell said were not his property,
lying on a work-bench. The prisoners were remanded.

THE CAUSES OF DISEASE.
If further investigation confirms Dr. Moffat's theory of
the close connection between certain soils and certain
maladies, we shall have at our command a fresh means
for dealing with disease. His experience has chiefly lain
in Cheshire, and he says he has there found
that consumption and anemia follow in
very remarkable manner the course of the carboniferous
system, and prevail to a far less extent among the dwel-
lers in the new red sandstone district. So far this agrees
with what Dr. Buchanan and Mr. Simon observed in the
counties of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, where
phthisis was most fatal upon damp soils ; and it is
also §upported by the fact that in large towns
the disease has been the first to decline in virulence
after the ground has been rendered dry by the
introduction of main sewers. The novel part of Dr.
Moffat's theory is that which follows. Analysing the
wheat grown upon the two geological systems, he found
that in that produced upon the sandstone there
was a large proportion of phosphoric acid and of oxide
of iron, while in that of the carboniferous system
these constituents were almost wholly wanting.
He concluded, therefore, that the prevalence of consump-
tion and anaemia were mainly attributable to the deficiency
of these elements of blood in the ordinary diet of the
population. The theory is ingenious, but it would seem
that the data upon which it is based are at present too
scanty to admit of such generalisation.—Pall Mall Gazette