The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-25 00:00:00

NEW NAVAL LIGHT.

If the application of modern science to engines of
destruction renders war in solve respects more ter-
rible than of old, it serves to mitigate its dangers and
inconveniences in other ways. In naval warfare the
extraordinary improvements in lighting will greatly
assist the movements of commanders. Thus,
according to a French paper, it is intended
to supply several vessels of the fleet with
an apparatus fbr lighting up the line of
the horizon in dull weather, and for illumi-
nating any particular point of the sea coast
at which it is intended to disembark at night. An
electric light and a strong reflector are placed in the,
fore part of the ship, and the light is produced by
means of a magneto-electric machine. Fresnel's
reflector has great illuminating power, and will shew
a particular point of the coast two miles off without
the vessel bearing the
.light being distinguish-
able. The Austrian admiral who defeated the
Italians at Lissa declared that had he
possessed Fresnel's lights, he could have
annihilated the enemy while at anchor. The.
Austrian fleet, in fact, passed close by their adver-
saries at Ancona one dark night, but could not tell
how far they were conscious of the proximity. The
Russian Government intends employing these lights
for Cronstadt, and the British ironclad Heroine
already carries one. France herself will now be able
to profit by the invention of the clever Frenchman.

THE PECULIAR PEOPLE.

A trial which has just taken place at Chelmsford
Assizes is a sad commentcry on the civilisation and
enlightenment of the nineteenth century. A farm
labourer, named Isaac Finch, was put on his trial
for murdering his wife, to whom he had been mar-
ried twelve years. On the morning of the 29th of
'May last the woman was found in bed
with her throat cut, the infant lying
beside her being covered with blood. Front
the evidence given at the trial it seems probable,
that the murderous attack was made when the man's.
wife was asleep, and that a bill-hook was the instru-
ment used. There can be little doubt that the man
was insane at the time when he took his wife's life,
and it was mentioned that he had been in the habit
of attending the meetings of the "Peculiar
People." When apprehended there was found
upon him a Bible, with the leaf turned
down at Ist Samuel, chapter 17. In the
51st verse, the following words occur : "Therefore
David ran and stood upon the Philistine, and took
the sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof,
and slew him and cut off his head therewith." This
matter carries its own explanation. The fanatic
ravings of the " Peculiar People " had evidently
affected an already weak brain, and in a fit of frenzy
the man perhaps imagined that he was carrying
out the behests of duty.

•M. PAItADOL.

The esteemed politician, who has just died by his
own hand in America, to judge from a letter written
by him to a friend shortly after accepting the diplo-
matic position he had gone to America
to fill, left Paris for a variety of reasons,
the chief being his powerlessness to enter the Cham-
ber and his reluctance, even if he could have entered
it, to serve in the Ministry from which he considered
he could not have escaped " any more than M.
Buffet," while the Emperor's "ascertained tenden-
cies " were such as they were. His heart would have
chosen, he declared, to live in France and renounce
politics, but that would have been impossible.
Accordingly, seeing in the American retreat "some-
thing in the order of destiny," he accepted it for a
year or two to prepare him for Ministerial affairs, and
to keep him away long enough for the course of
events to be settled and determined. There is
a melancholy interest about M. Paradol's letter, the
whole tone of which bears witness to the extremely
conscientious scruples of the man. In its opening
paragraph he says " the regrets which my
resolution may have caused is more painful to me
than I can state." At its close he adds, " Thus far,
to those who know more than I do, I say only one
thing; it is that whatever it costs me I could not
and ought not to do otherwise."