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

WOLVERHAMPTON *ADDRESS
TO SIR ROISERT PEEL

(Frollthe Wolverhampion Chronicle.)
The address to Sir Robert Peel, decided upon at the
town's meeting, held at the Public Office, some time ago,
was last week transmitted by Mr. I. Fellows to the
Right Honourable Baronet. The following are copies
of the letter accompany ing the address, and of Sir
Robert Peel's reply
" Wolverhampton, Oct. 1, 1846.
" Sir,—With much satisfaction I fulfil the duty of
transmitting to you the accompanying address, from in-
habitants of Wolverhampton, expressing their grateful
sense of the sacrifices and exertions made by you in
promoting the cause of Free Trade, and more parti-
cularly in effecting the recent change of the Corn Laws
—a change involving in principle the total repeal of all
prohibitory or distinctive duties on necessaries of life,
and which they believe will greatly promote the com-
mercial intercourse and prosperity of the empire.
" The inhabitants of Wolverhampton, sir, may justly
claim the credit of having long given their supp-)rt,
through the medium of their representatives in Parlia-
ment, to the principles of commercial legislation, which
they now have the pleasure to behold generally recog-
nised and extensively adopted ; and it adds much to
their confidence in the soundness of their views, to find
them embraced by a statesman like yourself, distin-
guished for the caution and practical character of his
legislation.
" The proposition for this address was unanimously
adopted et a town's meeting, and it would have been
presented at P n earlier date had not the illness and sub-
sequent decease of Richard Fryer, Esq., who presided
as chairman, operated to produce delay.—l sm, sir,
your's very respectfully, " ISAAC FELLOWS.
" To Sir Robert Peel, Bart., Drayton
Manor, Staffordshire."
" Drayton Manor, Oct. 5, 1846.
" Gentlemen,--I return to you my grateful acknow-
ledgments for the address which you have transmitted
to me.
" There is no constituency in the United Kingdom
more honourably conspicuous than that of Wolver-
hampton for a zealous support of the principles which
are favourable to the freedom of commercial intercourse
between nations. They are entitled to a share of the
credit which is justly due to one of their representatives
in Parliament (Mr. Villiers), by whom those principles
have been advocated for many years, under adverse as
well as prosperous circumstances, with great perse-
verance and singular ability.
" I am little disturbed by the imputations which have
been cast upon me, because I know that in the course
which I have pursued I have been influenced by no
other motive than a sense of public duty, and the con-
scientious belief that the mes.sures I proposed for the
relaxation of restrictions upon commerce, and the early
repeal of taxes on the import of food would be con-
ducive to the general welfare.
" It cannot fail, however, to be very gratifying to my
feelings to receive such cordial assurances of approbation
and esteem as those which are conveyed in your address.
" I have the honour to be, gentlemen,
Your faithful servant,
" ROBERT PEEL.
" To Isaac Fellows, Esq., &c."

GREAT EVENTS FROM LITTLE

CAUSES SPRING."
A curiots 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 justification 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 tad at last elicited that Madame Chalot had
already betn 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 been
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-
lot, after his arrest, had attempted to commit sui-
cide. He was taken to the hospital of la Charite, 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 Mine. 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,
Mine. 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
GOO 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
whicohwsnheusweo,
in ordercrustsrkedto avoid
of bread, which she toasted for
her
pnrehaciag at the bakers.
Had not the trifling incident of the theft of an apple led
to her detection, Mine. Chariot would doubtless have
continued her delinquencies undiscovered, and enjoyed
the reputation of an honest shopkeeper.

PORTUGUESE FRUITS.—The importation 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 Providence, 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 or 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,
at Marseilles, on the 9th ult., a calculation was pre-
sented, according to which above 20,000 hectares (about
48,500 acres) of the salt land at the mouths of the
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 f.,
while if rice were grown upon it, it could be worth
branch of agriculture were also
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 120,000,000 f., and even
departments. The
cost of preparing a hectare of rice plantation, rendering
it productive, sowing, watering, weeding, and reaping
ffnOtor ,oodouo,
introduced
0 fi .n, t
o i f
the this
neighbouring
is at most 350 f., the average produce is estimated at
1,500 kilos. per hectare of cleansed rice, which, at the
rate of 40f. per 100
kilos.,
would give 600 E, being a net
profit of 250 f. 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 THE UNITED KINGDOM.—
Wednesday Professor Tennent 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,
he 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, 8,400,0001. from iron, 1,200,0001. from copper,
920,0001. lead, 400,0001. salt, 390,0001. tin, 60,000/. man-
ganese, 35,0001. silver, 22,000/. alum, 8,0001. zinc, and
25,000; the various other metals, as antimony, bismuth,
arsenic, &c.

ARREST OF
MENDELSSOHN, THE COMPOSER.-The
warrant issued, on political grounds, for the arrest of
the advocate Dr. Mendelssohn, has given rise to a curious
mistake. At Ilerbestahl, a little Prussian town near
the Baltic frontier, the gendarmerie arrested the advo-
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 passport, which was perfectly regular,
and mentioned his office of director-general of religious
music in Prussia ; the officers found the description in
;
the passport very
similar to that of the person they were
to apprehend, and imagined that the passport had been
got by some ruse, to elude the vigilance of the autho-
rities. Dr. Mendelssohn Bartholly was conveyed to
prison, and was not released tilt the following evening,
after he had obtained the attendance, from Cologne,
of two respectable witnesses to his identity.—Gazette
AlliviGule.

LIGBTING AND HEATING BY CARBONIC OXIDE.—
A patent has been taken out, by Mr. J. Constable, of
London, for a method of preparing carbonic oxide gas
from anthracite, in blast furnaces, by aid of heated steam
and air ; Passing it, for • illumination, through oil of
,
turpentine, to increase its brilliancy ; and for heating
pnrposes,
mixing it with air supplied by gasometer to
the burner. Materials valuable as manure are obtained
from the ashes -..cyanide of potassium by washings, and
arnmoniv.cal products by aid of steam ; the scarcity and
high price of guano thus, as in Dr. Playfair's researches,
and in the scheme for condensing sewage, leading to a
fair prospect of a cheap supply of artificial equivalents.
—The Bulkier.