The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-02 00:00:00

QUEEN-SQUARE.

IMPORTANT TO LICENSED VICTUALLERS.—Mr.
Smith, the landlord of the S•van public-house, at
Walhim-green, appeared before Messrs. GREGORIE
and BURRELL, to answer an information Itt;id ußainst
him by Byers, the informer, for serving liquors du-
ring the hours of divine service.

The informer's witness stated that on last Sun-
day week lie went into the defendant'• house during
the hours of divine service in the afternoon, and saw
three persons drinking there.
Mr. GREGORIE —What had you to drink ?
Wit-
nes,—N

Mr. GREGORIE—Did you call for anything ?
Wirne,s—The landlord refused to serve me.

Mr. GREGORIE—Do you !mow who the persons
were th:it you saw drinking ? Witness—l do not.
Mr. GREGORIE —Then, for aught you know to
the contrary, they mrght be travellers drinking?
Witness—l do not know who they were.
The defendant, in reply, said that his house was
a roadside house, and the greater part of his cus-
tomers were travellers who resorted to it, and he
was compelled by law to serve them. There were
certainly three persons in the house who had come
in previous to his house being closed, and ordered
dinner, which he served them, supposing them to
be traveller. No man could take greater care to
preserve order and regularity in his house than tie
did, and he made a point never to serve any per-
son during divine service without he thought he
was a traveller.

The Magistrates said that they did not consider
the case made out at all. It was quite evident that
the witness did not know whether the persons he
saw were travellers or not, and the case was there-
fore dismissed.

The German journals have given some tables
which prove that the distance between the earth and
the son is increasing annually by one-thousandth part
of that distance, and they argue from it that the in-
creasing humidity of our summers and loss of fertility by
the earth, is to he solely attributed to this circumstance.
In the course ~f 6,000 years from the present time, they
assume the distance will be so great that only an eighth
part of the warmth we now enjoy from the sun will be
communicated to the earth, and that then it will be co-
ver,d with eternal ice, in the same manner as we now see
the plains of the north, where the elephant formerly lived,
and have neither spring nor autumn. No credit has been
hitherto given to a tradition of the ancient Egyptians and
Chinese, according to which those people fortnerly saw
the sun's di,c almost four times as large as we now see it ;
for they estimated the apparent diameter of the sun at the
double of what it is seen in our days. If, however, we
pay attentio❑ to the continued diminution of the apparent
diameter of the sun, according to the best observations
for several centuries, we must suppose that the ancients
were not mistaken in the estimates which they have
transmitted to us.

CATHOLICISM IN SWITZERLAND.—The
following facts and observations from M. Brockeden's in-
t!resting '6 Excursions in the Alps," are calculated to give
rise to reflections applicable nearer home :—" It is impos-
sible (says this amusing writer) to notice the filth, the
laziness, and beggary of the inhabitants of the Catholic
cantons of Switvrland—of these the Tessin are, perhaps,
Le worst—without believing that the religion of the State
in which these unfortunate people live is either a direct or
the remote cause of their state of degradation, or that it
epera,es as a powerful check to their advancement to such
a state of social comfort and moral worth as their neigh •
hems enjoy, who are less under the terrors of the Catholic
Church, and the influence of its priesthood. Where the
coefes-ional subjects every one to the chance of the abuses
of its privileges. no m in's cottage is a sanctua, y from the
intrusions of the priest, whose violations of decorum, and
abuses of the confidence which he claims for his
become an ex imple which his precepts cannot check—so
much fur the minister. Then the Church demands, to
sustain its influence and prove its power, so great a portion
of the time of the labourin4 man, that fetes, fasts, and
proce-sions, in honour of the Virgin and the Saints, take
one-third of the hours God has given him for labour.
It
is not then to be wondered that a people controlled by such
religious observances as give a master to each man's mind,
and can claim, under penalty, the utter waste of so much
f his time, should lose the use of the energies they dare
not display, and be impoverished, by being robbed of that
time which, being usefully employed, would establish habits
of industry, and reward their exercise with health and
competence. It is not prejudice, but a fact, that the line
which separates a Catholic from a Protestant canton, is
more decidedly mat kcd by the squalid and porerty-stricken
appearance. of the people in one, contrasted Niththe look
of independence among Ithose of the other, t by any
geographical line of demarcation." •