The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-04 00:00:00

THE MOABITE STONE.

Tho discovery in Palestine, announced a little while
since, of a stone with Moabitish inscriptions upon it, ar-
rested general attention. The public curiosity was raised
still more when M. Ganneau published a hastily
made interpretation of the hieroglyphics. His
deciphering was evidently not perfect. He made
the stone speak to us after the manner of the
Hebrew scriptures, though it told a different
story. The children of Moab are said, in the Bible, to
have been defeated by the rsraelites. " And Jehovah "
said this stone (according to M. Ganneau) " fled before
Chemosh "—Chemosh being the Moabitish Deity. There
has been a general demand for further information about
this strange monument. Captain Warren and Dr.
Deutsch, the well-known Eastern scholar, were appealed to
to lighten our darkness. They have done so : in the Timei
of yesterday letters appeared from both the gallant
explorer and the learned Oriental investigator. The first=
named deals with the history of the stone ; the latter with
the stone itself and its inscription.
Captain Warren relates how he heard in the summer of
1868 of a stone at Dhiban, with characters upon it. There
seems to have been general curiosity awakened, and the
natives became suspicious—so much so that be-
fore the explorers could take an impression of
the writing, the stone had been broken up and
distributed, so that the Franks miht not get
it. Capt. Warren at first tried to get `?squeezes "of
the stone, and failed ; but hearing afterwards that
M. Ganneau had been more fortunate, he tried
again, and got impressions of some of the broken
pieces. M. Ganneau meanwhile published his attempts
at deciphering. _

Witli'his pi:eduction Dr. Deutsch does not agree. lie
points out the needfulness of almost microscopic accu-
racy in such matters, and shows that no such accu-
racy was obtained by M. Ganneau. The
text which he forwarded to Paris, so far
from being an almost photographic fax simile, w*s
avowedly but a lithographed reduction to the third of the
size of those characters which M. Ganneau had sent to
Paris as his ' own readings. Dr. Deutch reads also the
text very differently from M. Ganneau. "Jehovah" is
not to be found in his tracings at all, and most of the words
are different. Count de Vogue, who received M. Ganneau's
lithographs, says that further information has thrown new
light on the whole stone; and Dr. Deutch asks everybody to
wait for further information. "At this moment there is
but one thing certain—that, whether we recover the whole
of the stone, the fate of which is still uncertain, or must
remain satisfied with but half intelligible fragments, the
gain to Palaeography and Semitic science is already enor-
mous. It is unquestionably—whatever the precise
date of this King Mesha—the very oldest Semitic lapi-
dary record of importance as yet discovered. And,
apart from certain geographical and other data given
in it which are already incontestable, it illustrates to a
hitherto undreamt-of degree the history of our own writing
—I mean that which we all use at this hour. Nearly the
whole of the Greek alphabet is found here, not merely
similar to the Phoenician " shape, but as identical with
it as can well be. And another thing will become
clear—viz., that the more primitive the characters, the
simpler they. become ; not, as often supposed, th
more complicated, as more in accordance with some ria
tonal prototype."

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: THE NEW LAW
FOR UNDERGRADUATES.

At a Congregation held on Thursday, the following
graces having received the sanction of the Council, were
recommended to the Senate ;-1. That the degree of
Doctor of Divinity be conferred upon the Rev.
Thomas Dale, M.A, who has peen appointed to
the Dea,hery of Rochester, under chapter 1,
sec. 5, par. Bof the statute of the University. 2. That the
edict proposed in the report of the Council of the Senate
dated 1 ebruary 14, 1870, and amended February
21, 1870, be confirmed. The edict provided
that persons in statu pupillari arc forbidden to
take part in gaining transactions in any way,
to have dealings with money-lenders ; to resort to or
take part in meetings for the purpose of pigeon-shooting;
to take part in steeple chases ; to ride in a horse-race, or
otherwise promote horse-racing ; to drive " tandems " or
"four-in-hand" carriages ; to discharge firearms, air-guns,
saloon-pistols, or any small arms of the like nature within
the precincts of the University, excepting in the way of
military duty ; to give or join in giving an entertainment
at a tavern without the permission of their college tutor.
Members of th 3 University in statu pupillari who are
guilty of any of the foregoing practices render themselves
liable to be punished by suspension, tustication, expulsion,
or otherwise. Members of the University in statu pupil-
lari who may be convicted of resorting to any unfair
means, by copying or othprwise of passing any public
examination, shall be punished by suspension, rustica-
tion, expulsion, or otherwise.

TENNYSON'S W ORKS.—An application was mad.
on Wednesday before Lord Gifford, in the Court of Session,
Edinburgh, at the instance of Alfred Tennyson and
Messrs. A. Strahan and Co., publishers, for an Interdict
against five Glasgow booksellers importing and selling any
reprint or edition of Tennyson's Poetical Works printed
in the United States and published there by Ticknor and
Fields, and by Fields, Osgood, and Co., Boston. His
Lordship pronounced the following interlocutor :—"To
see and answer within eight days, meantime grants in*.
diet as craved, and to be intimated."

STRIKES IN VIENNA.—The printers' strike
Vienna still continues, and the leaders seem amply pro,
vided with funds. The employers held out because to
grant their demands would be to entail ruin on tho
Vienna journals. Women are being instructed to do cora-
positors work, and the plan has been carried out with
success. The Frenidenblatt says that the printers' strike
has set an example to others, for the waiters at the hotels,
restaurants, and cafés, the journeymen bakers, shoe,
makers, and tailors, will shortly go on strike. At a meet-
ing of the proprietors of printing-houses and letter,
foundries a revision of the tariff of the workmen's salaries
took place, and the new scheme was to commence on gig
Ist of March, simultaneously at all the workshops,

- -
*THE ALLEGED CONSPIRACY W PARlS.—Thenq
are murmurs among the Democrats of Paris that the Go-
vernment has unduly delayed the examination of a great
number of the persons arrested during the disturbances of
the beginning of February. The Journal de Paris has an
article on the subject, demanding either that the accused
should be set at liberty, or that the charges against them
should be substantiated. It is now said that a voluminouti
correspondence has been discovered at the house of ax;
agent of Mazzini's, which will supply the missing evil
dence of the conspiracy suspected by the police.
The Independance Beige puts little faith in the report, anti
remarks that Mazzini is in the habit of carrying on an,
extensive correspondence, and is undoubtedly constantly
labouring to organise a general revolutionary movement ;
but that is very different from a direct consvirac7 filach aft
that indicated in the Parisian story.

THE Ex-QUEEN OF SPAIN AND HEE FORTUNE.—.
Queen Isabella of Spain, as is generally known, retired
from her kingdom with a comfortable fortune, and this
fortune is likely to give rise to a cause celibre before
the Parisian tribunals. Her husband, Don Fran)
cisco de Assis, wishes to take the admi-
nistraiton of this fund out of the hands of t
Queen, and her trustees, contending that they are
git in useless expenses, to the prejudice of the future
fortunes of the family. Isabella has already expended
large sums in trying to regain her Grown, and
the ex-Bing Consort appears to apprehend that
future attempts of the kind will be equally futile, and
equally expensive. • There has lately been a large sale of
Spanish stock which has exasperated Don Francisco into
taking legal action. The court has prohibited the Queen
and her officers from all acts of administration pending
the decision. Don Francisco has left the Queen's resi-
dence in the Avenue du Roi de Rome, and has taken up
his abode with a friend.

MURDER IN PARIS.—Last Sunday night a hor.
rude murder was committed in the Rue Annelot. A car
penter, named Maillot received a letter from Praise, *
porter who lodged in the same house, to say that he had
killed his wife. On the door of Frame's room being forced
open, the woman was discovered on the bed with her head
nearly cut off. She had been murdered in her sleep.
The woman before her marriage had been in the service
of M. Humbert, and on the afternoon of Sunday sho had
been attending on Madame Humbert, who was ill. rlt
appears to have been jealousy. of M. Humbert which led
Fraise to the commission of the crime. The husband
and wife had dined with their neighbour, M. Maillot on
Sunday evening, to keep the fdte of the °rival
and had made pancakes for the occasion. When t ey
re-
tired they appeared to be on good terms with each other.
M. Claude, the police agent, spared no pains to seek out
the fugitive, and they made special researches in the
neighbourhood of Vincennes, because the letter sent
to Maillot bore the post snarl of that place. At last
the Commissary of Police found the body of a man sus-
pended from a tree, and this proved to be the assassin.
He was taken to the Morgue. and placed tear the bocisT A
his victim.

EBAUD BY TRADESMEN.—Vice-Chancellor Malins has
given judgment in the case of " Borwick v. Neale,"
Plaintiffs, a well-known firm in London, had manu-
factured a composition called " Borwick's Baking
Powder." The defendant was a grocer at Nor-
wich. The motion was for an injunction to re-
strain the defendant from selling a deleterious article
for that manufactured by them for more than 20 years.—
For the defendant it was alleged that the sale of the
article in question was done inadvertently by his shopmen
and without his knowledge.—His Honour severely cen-
sured the conduct of the defendant. He had adopted the
course of occupying a considerable portion of the time of
the court in endeavouring to vindicate conduct that was
most fraudulent and indefensible. He made an order for
a perpetual injunction against the defendant with costs.

A subscriition is (says the Western Morning News)
in progress among the recently discharged established
dockyardsmen at Devonport, with a view to obtain
legal assistance and test the question as to whether
their compulsory superannuation is not contrary to both
the letter and spirit of the Superannuation Act a 40,