The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-09 00:00:00

SUN

MAGAZINES, &c.—(CONTINUED)
BLACKW 0 OD

Ebony for January contains, ns usual, a variety of
attractive- and entertaining contributions. As a sort
of leading article we have a chapter entitled rather
quaintly "The Currency Extension Act of Nature,"
in which we fancy we can trace both the manner and
the arguments of Mr. Alison, the historian. Sir
Edward Bulwer Lytton furnishes Aiwa with
another instalment of his " Novel ; or, Varielies in
English Lite." The incident which reduces Doctor
RiceAocca to the stocks is deliciously conceived, and
told with the truest appreciation of pleasanterie. In
a paper headed " Biography," Miss Strickland ob-
tains an encouraging panegyric on the initial volume
of her very remarkable " Lives of the Queens of
Scotland"—a work which promises to vie in merit, as
well es in popularity, with her celebrated " Lives of
the Queens of England." All that is here said in com-
mendation of her research appears to us to be equally
merited in regard to both those great products of
erudition. " Tbe Lay of the Niebelungen" is ana-
lysed in a clear and judicious criticism. Where the
humour or point of the political satire called " Addi-
tional Chapters from the History of John Bull" lie, we
cannot fur the life of us conjecture. The whole contri-
bution seems to us as witless as it is unquestionably
coarse and exaggerated. It may be very funny, per-
haps, to designate Mr. Cobden by the soubriquet of
" Dick Devilsdu4 " (a name borrowed, by the way,
from the " Sybil" of Mr. Disraeli), but the fun of
the thing is to ourselves utterly invisible. So like-
wise throughout the whole of this heavy and laboured
pitce of facetiousness. Surprised as we are to find
a prose contribution so totally devoid of merit as the
one here particularised in the usually brilliant pages
of Blackwood, we are yet more amnzad to see in its
leaves (adorned (Sold by Delta, arid B. Simmons, and
Miss Barrett, and Thomas Hood), such insipid twad-
dle in the shape of versification as the lines on
"The Voice of Nature." A schoolboy in the fifth
form ought to undergo flagellation if he could
perpetrate nothing better or more original. For-
tunately the readers of the January number of
Blackwood are in some measure compensated for
this effusion by some fine stanzas, bight " The
Message of Seth," by our old favourite, Delta.
Basides the contributions already particularised,
the current number of Maga contains one on
" Hungarian Military Sketches," and another on
"British Labour and Foreign Reciprocity."

EXHIBITION OF 1851.

ORDER FOR FITTINGS. TO BE FILLED UP BY

THE EXHIBITOR.
TO DIESSRS. FOX, HENDERSON, AND CO., BUILDING,

HYDE-PARK.

Please to prepare the space aliotted me in the building
(counter and shelves) according to the accompanying
plan; cover the same with (calico, velvet, cloth. &c.), and
(prepare g►ass cases); and I will discharge the cost of
doing so when completed.
Exhibitors' signature

Address

Note—The Executive Committt e, upon receiving a
request and a copy of the plan and instructions sent to
Messrs Fox, Henderson, and Co., are prepared to send
a certificate that the fittings have been completed, to
those exhibitors who may not be able to superintend the
work themselves.

Her Majesty's Commissioners having decided that ex-
hibitors will be expected to arrange and fit up the spaces
respectively allotted to them in the building, and provide
glass moms for articles that may require proti °don from
dust, &c.. Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co, the con-
tractors for the building, have to announce that they
are primed to receive and unpack articles for exhibi-
tion, take charge e.f the packing-cases, fix work, and keep
in order machinery and models—to supply glass ca,eB,
stands, &c., of particular kinds, to furnish and fit open
cases or shelves, and decorate stalls according to the
wishes of the exhibitors, on conditions and at prices to
be agreed upon, and of which estimates will be given on
application—and to afford every facility generally in
those arrangements which devolve upon the exhibitors
themselves, and respecting which they are permitted
by the Commissioners to exercise their own taste and
judgment.
Foreign commissioners, local committees, and exhi-
bitors are r.questrd to communicate their wishes a 8
early as possible to Nlessrs. Fvx, Henderson, and Co.
Exhibition Building, Hyde-park, London,

Jan. -1, 1851.

A HEAVY SENTENCE.

At the general Quarter Sessions held at Reading last
week, Robert Dace, 22, a well dressed young man,
who had been a teacher of music at Abingdon, was
indicted for baying stolen a gold pencil-case.
Mr. Carrington conducted the prosecution; and Mr.
Wildarns defended the prisoner.
From the evidence adduced, it appeared that on the
3d of August the prisoner ♦isited the house of a Mr.
James Morris D ivis, for the purpose of tuning a
pianoforte. He was left alone tor some time in the
room where the pencil-case was. He left as usual,
and on the following morning it was missed from the
workbox where it had been deposited. About the
middle of the month the prisoner offered it for sale to
a Mts. Bickinsall, and she bought it of him for 103.
Some days after he had sold it he applied to have it
returned, as he feared that " the person from whom
he had had it had come by it di,honestly." The
police then got a knowledge of the affair, and the pri-
soner was apprehended.
Mr. IVill►ams, after addressing the jury on behalf
of the accused, called a lad named r 1 heeler, who
had been employed at the railway Hotel, Did-
cot, and he stated that on the 10th of August the
prisoner came into the smoking room. A strange
man, who wore a frock coat and green and black plaid
trousers, was present, and inquired if any one in the
room wanted to purchase a pencil-case. He pressed
the prisoner to buy it, who eventually bought it fur Bs.
Mr. Carrington having alluded to the inconsis-
tencies in Wheeler's statement,
The Chairman (Lord Barrington) summed up
the evidence, and the jury, after a short deliberation,
returned a verdict of Guilty.
Ev►dence was then gone into of two previous con-
victions for felony, upon which the prisoner had been
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment
The Chairman, in passing sentence, observed that
the defence the prisoner had adopted was a most abo-
minable one, for he feared that the lad had been in-
duced to state anything but what was true. The
Court did not thiuk that the prisoner, occupying such
a position as he had, would be likely (having been
previously convicted of felonies) to reform and become
an honest man. They therefore deemed it necessary
to inflict a severe sentence, and that was that the pri-
soner be transported fur the term of his natural life.
The prisoner seemed astonished at the sentence,
and a general feeling of surprise appeared to be felt
by the crowd which had assembled in the court.

MEXICAN AND WEST INDIA MILS.—AS much
anxiety may be felt respecting the non-arrival of mails from
:Mexico, we have made inquiry' and find that the Great
Western arrived at Vera Cruz, and landed there the outward
mails as usual, after which she proceeded to Tampico, where
she arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon of the 3d Decem-
ber, and there being but one hour of daylight left, the mails
were landed, and some passengers and specie embarked.
In the middle of the following night, however, a viclent
"Norther," or Gulf gale set in, when for safety the ship
weighed and stood out to sea, the wind increasing gradually.
Through all the next day it continued to blow with un-
diminished strength, and when the packet stood in towards
'Tampico, the bar was impassable. At night, on the 4th
December, the ship stood out to sea again. On the morn-
ings of the sth and tth steamed in again towards the bar,
but the storm continuing, and the surf on the bar render-
ing it still unapproachable, the Great Western at length
bore up to return to Vera Cruz; but on the 7th and Bth of
December, there being no appearance of any abatement in
the " Norther," the barometer remaining as before, and it
being eight hours beyond the proper time for leaving Vera
Cruz, the captain proceeded to Jamaica, and thence to St.
Thomas's, The Trent experienced such heavy storms on
her outward voyage in November, that she was forced back
into Torbay, and aid not finally reach St. Thomas's till so
long after the appointed or estimated time, that the usual
fortnightly.dispersion of the inter-c lonial steamers had taken
place, with the exception of that for Porto Rico, Jacmel,
Jamaica, Havannah, and Honduras; and, consequently, the
11, est India colonies, with those exceptions, would receive
their 1I th of November and 2cl of December outward mails
by the same delivery.

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY.—Tbe usual monthly
meeting of this society was held on Monday evening, G. It.
Waterhouse, Esq., president, in the chair. Mr. T. A.
Preston was balloted for, and elected a subscriber to the
society. Mr. Douglas exhibited, on the part of Mr. T. H.
Allis, a specimen of the rare 7, europterous insect Drepanyp-
teryx Pliakrnoides, taken by him at Bowness. Mr. S. Stevens
exhibited some splendid specimens of the rare Dynastes
Jupita from Columbia; also a foreign Bombyr, with the
larva•case of a Tinea attached to its head. Dr. %Vallich
read a translation from the elaborate Danish work of

Schiodte on the insects and other animals inhabiting the
caves of Cainiola : among the insects were some found in
the darkest parts of the caves totally destitute of eyes.
Papers by Messrs. Walker, Dallas, Douglas, and Stainton
were also read.

RUMOURED ARRIVAL IN LIVERPOOL OF CARDINAL
WisEmaN.— A rumour prevailed yesterday that his Eini•
neoce Cardinal Wiseman had arrived, per the London trait
vt the pi evious evening, in Liverpool, on a mission to Dublit
and Armagh. Credence was gained to the report by the fat
that a gentleman resident in Liverpool had ridden from the
Crewe junction with the supposed Cardinal, and had seen the
" illustrious" stranger received at the railway station by
the Rev. Dr. Brown, " Bishop of Liverpool." It turned out,
however, that the gentleman mistaken for his " Eminence"
was the Rev. Dr. Moore, Prircipal of 0..c0t College, near
Bit minghatn.— Liverpool Courier of yesterday.
THE BRITISH MUSkUM.—Yesterday the Museum
was re-opeued to the public; it will continue open every
londay, We.!itesday, and Friday, from ten till four o'clock,
until the 31st of April, and from the 7th of May until the
31st of August from ten till seven o'clock, a:td for the re-
mainder of the year from ten till four. The works not at
being complete in the western galleries, the Assyrian anti-
quities still remain in their t« inporary place of deposit in the
basement. Tie celebrated Great Bull of Nineveh is also for
the present placed in the vestibule. The idea of erecting a
wall in flout of the Museum, facing Great Russell-street, has
been abandoned. The building is now to be enclosed by an
ornamental iron palitaee, having a central and two other
lodges, fronting each wing.
ERRATA. —ln our leading article of yesterday on
strikes among coalminers, the word "principle" was mis-
printed for "principal ;" and the strike of 1844 was described
as causing "a loss to the collieries, in wages, of BW.OOO/."
What was meant was, that it had cost the oilier:, and not
1 the collierice, that muu 1 WPM