The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-15 00:00:00

FARM_ SERVANTS' ASSOCIATION.

I • (From the Inverness Courier.)
( We learn from a correspondent in Boss-shire, that a
meeting of a Northern Farm Servants' Association was
held for the purpose of taking into consideration the
measures attempted relative to the allowance of potatoes
(already guaranteed to tfi-e-m) for the current year,
when the following resolutions were unanimously ap-
proved of:-
1. That the meeting think it putting the cart before
the horse in the farmers of the North to call meetings of
their farmer societies, in order to suggest, recommend,
and lay down rules and regulations for converting the
guaranteed allowance of potatoes to an equivalent in
meal, seeing that, in this transaction, they are the par.
ties failing to implement, and, at furthest, have only a
right to come and ask us, the farm servants, what we
will take to give up "the bond."
2. That although they find that they have the " whip-
hand " of their masters at the present " bout," they are
noway disposed to lay on heavily, believing it to be the
want of experience, rather than anything else, that
would induce the farmer to propose a boll of meal in
lien of two bolls of potatoes. In order, therefore, to
enable the farmers to judge correctly in this matter, the
meeting suggest to them to try the experiment upon
themselves for the now current half-year : They would
then be enabled to state more clearly the amount of food
necessary for a working man, his wife, and family of
five or six children. The meeting here take the liberty
to remark, that the farmers in Scotland are proverbially
a feeding and experiment race. The horses, cattle,
sheep, pigs, and poultry, st agricultural meetings, are all
in exemplary condition. The meeting admire this' spirit
of experimental seeding with resppet to the lower
animals, as it invariablyb consists of something added
t 3 their daily fare, but they cannot help seeing
the discrepancy that prevails when human flesh is the
subject of experiment : this, somehow, always tends
(even at the present time, when farmers are obtaining
such enormous prices f'or their corn) to the elucidation
of the lowest diet that flesh and blood can hang toge-
ther upon. The farm servants of the north, therefore,
as far as they are concerned, discard all experimental
feeding of the human species, but they promise to give
every facility to others to ride their bobby. in trying
the experiment of feeding themselves, their wives, and
children for half-a-year, on four and a-half bolls of meal
each family.
_

3. The Meeting have no wish to oblige their masters
to purchase potatoes at an extravagant price, on their
account, if an equivalent in wholesome food is substi-
tuted, but they know that a boll of meal is not equiva-
lent to two bolls of potatoes in the consumption of a
family. They know, from experience, that a mixture of
food is more healthful and less expensive than living upon
a single species. They know that bulky food, like the
potato, goes farther in stilling the calls of a hungry
family, than the same amount of nutriment in a more
concentrated state ; besides, they know that the very
waste of the potatoes serves a useful purpose to them
in assisting to feed the pigs and poultry ; but more
than this, they see that a good part of their family's
subsistence will be :rendered null for the want of the
potato. What can one make of a salt herring without
a potato ? Why, the herring remains a deed letter,
end the whole of the family must be on the meal. All
these things considered, we, the farm servants of the
northern counties, at this meeting assembled, have, after
much experience and mature consideration, come to the
conclusion, that one boll of oatmeal is only equivalent to
one boll and a half of potatoes in the consumption of a
family, and we firmly believe that the great bulk of the
farmers in the north, if they would think seriously
over the matter, would come to the same conclusion.

4. That as this food agreement is a matter entirely
between each individal master and his servant, the far-
mers' societies had better leave it alone.

SWINDLING EXTRAORDINARY.
POSES PLASTIQITES.
This week the inhabitants of " the faithful city" have
been delighted by the performances of Professor Coli
and Company, who have been exhibiting very attractive
living statuary and poses plastiques, at the City and
County Library, and finished their exhibitions by the
most singular and striking tableau of all at our Police-
office, yesterday (Thursday) morning.
A week or two back a young man presented himself
at Mr. Sefton's, printer, Broad street, and stating that
he was secretary to Professor Coli, of poses plastiques
renown, requested that some bills might be printed, an-
nouncing the extraordinary things with which they were
about to please the people of Worcester; " and," added
he, in the most straightforward way imaginable, " I am
a perfect stranger, and therefore lam in the habit of
leaving a deposit." lie put down 10s. on the counter,
and said the great Coll himself would pay the remainder.
" You musn't be astonished," said be, " at his manner;
he will probably come into the shop, take a chair, say
you're the printer, I believe,' ask for the bills, put down
all the money, and walk out again without another word.
You'll be sure to know him, for he is a tremendous big
fellow, quite sufficient to smash both of us if he pleased."
With this pleasing intelligence the secretary departed,
the bills were printed, and as the bill-sticker, our own
veritable Quin, pasted them on the walls, gaping crowds
read of classical models such as " the Death of Denta-
tus,'' and " the Sleeping Beauty," &c. &c.; how Herr
Dobelli would recite this and Herr Bradigni spout that,
and how Boadicea would address the Ancient Britons as
in days of yore—till their mouths watered and their ears
tingled again. And what gave it all such an air of ge-
nuineness and authenticity was a line at the bottom of
the placards stating that all bills were to be sent to Mr.
s;eften's by Thursday morning at ten o'clock.
The Monday when these grand performances were to
take place arrived, and the company having taken up
their abode at Mr. Simmonds's, in Mealcheapen-street,
the secretary went to honour the various tradesmen of
the city with a visit, and to procure from them the things
necessary to their evening's doings. At Mcssts. Ililf
and Turley's he bought 25 yards of green baize, a quan-
tity of cambric, cloak lace, binding, &c. &c. The things
wore to be sent to the City and County Library and the
bill to Mr. Sefton's. Some inquiries were made at Mr.
Sefton's, and the articles sent. The same thing was
(Line at Messrs. Sidney and Hanson's, and several other
alaces. On the Tuesday, the secretary and Herr Do-
b. lli walked into Mr. Sefton's and narrated how the cur-
tesin would't act on Monday night, and how they hoped
to do better in future, and at last how they wanted
some fresh bills immediately. As soon as they were
gone, Mr. Sefton writes the gentleman a note to say
that it was not his custom to supply a second lot be-
fore the first was paid for. Down comes the secretary
in a trice, and in a nose, too. He had never been served
so in his life before. 'He considered he had been most
grossly insulted. Let Mr. Sefton make out his bill in-
stantly. His purse, and he pulled one out apparently
well filled, had enough in it to pay everybody, and fifty
or sixty pounds besides. The bill WS made out—Mr.
Seften didn't wish to hurt his feelings—the bill was folded
up and placed in the pocket along with the pulse—matters
were made smoother—the secretary was rather appeased,
and finally Mr. Sefton printed another let of bills, with-
out being paid for either. Soon, however, various
tradesmen, with long faces, came to Mr. Sefton, to
know something more about the Professor—who was
he? where did he come from ?—and, finally, some of
them determined to pay'him a visit at his rooms that
evening. Mr. Hanson accordingly went down just as
the large and respectable audience were about to as-
semble, and demanded his money. The consequence
was that the performers were brought to a dead lock.
Their last appearance was never made—they deserted
the rooms and fled. Then it was discovered that they
had got all their things packed up, and had ordered a
fly to be ready at the door as aeon as the performance
was over, to carry them, Heaven knows whither. The
Thursday morning would have dawned a blank, and Mr.
Sefton would never have been visited by the tremendous
bis; fellow of peculiar manner. The police, by and by,
apprehended the performers at the Mouth of the Nile,
on a charge of stealing a glass and a sheet from Mr.
Simmonds's, and the officer set off to Spetchley in quest
of the Professor himself, till at length, having kicked
his heels about till two o'clock in the morning, peeping
into the 'busses, and inspecting all the second classites
that were going off, he began to suspect the real truth
of the matter, that the Professor was, to use an expres-
sion of Jeremy Bentham's, a " fictitious entity," that is
to say, he had no existence save in the imagination.
On Thursday morning the five living statues, the poses
plastiques themselves, were brought up. They consisted
of three men and two young girls, among whom the
secretary figured conspicuously. He who formerly was
Mr. Ludovick, the secretary, was now Mr. Samuel Cole,
otherwise Professor Coli himself, it being usual, he said,
to adopt aliases in the profession. Herr Dobelli ap-
peared as plain Henry Dobell, and Herr Bradigni as
Henry Bradley, while the ladies, with high-sounding
euphonious appellations, sunk down into ordinary Mary
Ann Price and Mary Ann Roberts. The case, as de-
tailed above, was gone into, and at last the four subor-
dinates were discharged, while the active secretary, the
embodiment of the Professor, was kept in custody, on
the charge of obtaining goods under false pretences,
and upon which he-was committed for trial this morning.
Nothing could be made out of the charge of stealing
the glass from Mr. Simmonds's, as, though they had
taken it without leave, it had been returned again.—
Worcester Herald.

TIRE POLICE OFFICER, AND HIS VICTIM.—One
evening during the present week, a police officer acting
in a borough not more than 100 miles from Preston,
being on the night beat, brought to the station-house, an
unfortunate delinquent on a charge of being " drunk and
disorderly." Cruel to relate, the "keeper at the station-
house" thought the " preserver of the peace" as bad as
his victim, and both being lodged in "durance vile" for
the night, were brought before the magistrates the fol-
lowing morning, when they were respectively subjected
to the usual line of ss. each and costs.

FRIGIITFUL ACCIDENT TiII:MUGU THE FROST.—On
Saturday morning an accident of a most frightful cha-
racter took place at the residence of Dr. Dakins, No. 40,
Norland-square, Nutting-hill, Kensington. About eight
o'clock a female servant was cleaning the drawing-room
on the first floc.; she took a rug on to the balcony for the
purpose of shaking it, and while doing so, with her arms
extended over the balcony railings, owing to the frozen
state of the bottom en which she was standing, her feet
slid from under her, and she fell head 2oreinost over the
front of the balcony on the railings of the area beneath.
The noise of her fall and her cries wer, heard by
Dr. Dakins himself, who rfiaxueatouheet:,:es:it.hketnteoop,
tops o('
thecn
,getting outside found her hanf.,,ing with her head s
oe
Fr seriously lrya
il. injured
down-
wards, her ankles being
aetisonsetatoefdthtoe
hspacvaerhbeeacdns
aonretahreahilesa.
d,Sthb
pene-
trated her thigh, and that not the
slightest hope is en-
tertained of her surviving.
PROMOTION IN THE CIIIJRCH.—The Rev. William
Gabbett has been appointed to the incumbency of St.
George's, Sutton, Macclesfield, vacant by the promotion
of the Rev, John Buruet, LL.B , to the vicarne of Brad-
ford,