The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-21 00:00:00

TILE

SUN,

LON DON,

-----
SINGULAR TRIAL. crucifix. There were a great many police standing
An extraordinary trial took place lest week before around, but none attempted to interfere with this ille-
the Court of Assize of the Seine-ea Marne. In tlie
gal procesesion."
month of January of the present year a female, named I Or course the license which is conceded to Cardi-
Petit, the wife of a miller at Nemours, near Fontaine- :
nal Wiseman will not be denied to Ebenezer Brown.
bleau, was at breakfast with her two children. One The sincere Jumper has quite as much a right to
of the children, about seven years of age, after taking
promulgate his d
a small portion of chocolate, refused to take any more octrines in tite streets as the zealous
Roenauist. It is not because Mr. Brown is a shoe-
on account of its disagreeable taste, and the other maker, or indeed a repairer of shoes, that he is to be
child did not touch it. The mother, fancying that the compelled to " move on," and the Cardinal permitted
child who had refused to take any more was actuated to proceed. Should either disobey the roaudate to go
by caprice, drank some of the chocolate herself, and about his business, the oleaginous collar of Ebenezer
soon afterwards she and the child were attacked with is no less and no more sacred from the clutch of the
severe vomiting. The husband, who came in at this policeman than the what-d'ye-call it at the poll of
time, went immediately for medical aid; and the Nicholas; and British Justice contemplates with
doctor, on arriving, was so convinced from the symp- equal eye the rusty sables of the former, and the pan-
toms that his patients bad been poisoned, that he titicals of the latter (with all his properties to boot) in
administered antidotes and saved their lives. The the station-house.
chocolate which remained was subsequently examined
Toleration for ever !—but let it be universal tolera-
by a chemist, and found to contain a considerable tion. In field preaching let there be a fair field, and
quantity of arsenic. No suspicion fell for a time no favour. If the Roman saints are to have a hear-
upon the husband, for he lived on good terms with Now that the example has been set by Card of the "Latter Day "
ins, let those have the same.nal
i
wife and almost adored his children. The only other
person in the house was a girl named Boulay, only Wiseman, we may expect that the Reverend Bo ' s'n
Smith will re-enter on his itinerant mission. The
itP years old, who had lived with Petit and his wife
Cardinal may consider himself to be a commissioned
as servant for fifteen months. As this girl appeared
to be fond of her mistress and of the children, she was officer of the Ship of Peter; but the law of England
takes no more account of him than it does of the
not suspected. Many days, however, did not elapse
I3o's'n. The wisdom of anybody has as much right
before she cast suspicions on Petit, and being interro-
to cry in the streets as the wisdom of Wiseman.—
gated by the examining magistrates, declared that
Punch.
Petit illttreatsti his wife, and had expressed a desire
to get rid of ;her. At another interrogatory she, - -
finding that her former depositions had created some
suspicions against herself, declared that Petit bad had
criminal relation with her, and bad resolved to de-
stroy
his wife in order that they might be able to ,
carry on their intercourse without control. He, she i
said, had given her the poison, and had instructed her :
to put it into the milk, which was to be mixed up
with the chocolate. A surgeon who had examined
the girl Boulay declared that she was no longer a
virgin, and this fact seeming to confirm the girl's
statement, Petit was arrested, as was also the girl.
Petit, when taken from his home, was much agitated,
and declared that, although innocent, he was a lost
man. His wife behaved with great tenderness, and
implored the officers of justice not to believe the
statement of the girl, for Petit was a kind husband
and doating father, and never could have contemplated
her destruction and that of his children. The girl
Boulay, after her arrest, changed her story. At four
or five examinations she said she had been guilty of
falsehood, that her master had never had any criminal
intercourse with her, and that, knowing-where he
kept arsenic for the destruction of rats,
she had taken it, and nut it into the milk. When
asked what motive she had fur this horrible act,
she replied that she wished to get rid of her
mistress, in.order that she might possess her fine
clothes and jewellery. In these examinations she de-
clared that her seducer !Ails a man who worked at
the mil!. At her tivelf‘h and thirteenth examination
'he Equivocroed a great deal, hut still admitted that
she had ad ministered the poison without the know:
!edge of her master, and (het her seducer was tot the
journeyman miller as she at first sid, butauother :seems
man, whom she married. Her motive fur attemptieg
to poison her mi-tre.o;, she now said, was not to ob-
tain poss,lon of her clothes, but in order that her
death might put an end to her servituie, and enable
he: to return home; and this there is reason to be-
lieve was the true motive at the crime, for it was
ascertained that she had frequently entreated her
mother to hove her home and had been refused, On
account d thei inability of the mother to support her.
Notwithstanding these confessions it was thought
right to keep Petit in prison, and even to bring aim
to trial; for as the first charges of the girl had
been made so positively, and as she had so
frequently equivocated, it was difficult to de-
cide as to what part of her statement was to be
believed. She and her master were, therefore,
both put to the bar. It was naturally sup-
posed that her interrogatory by the president of the 1
tribunal would produce the same nettle as her last
examinations, but to the astonishment of the court
she declared that her first account was the correct
one—that her master had repeatedly slept with her—
that he had given the poison to her, and desired her
to administer it, and as an inducement had assured
her that after the death of her mistress they should
live together as man and wife. Petit underwent his
interrogatory with great firmness, and the whole of
his demeanour was such as to carry a conviction of
his innocence to the crowd who heard the trial. The
witnesses who were called were to establish the fact
of the poisoning, and to speak to the character of the
two prisoners. A few persons deposed to rumours of
ill-treatment of the wife by her husband, but several
persons who knew him intimately, and had frequent
opportunities of observing his conduct towards his
wife, deposed that he was a kind and indulgent hus-
band. Madame Petit, who appeared as a witness, as-
sured the Court that her husband had always behaved
in the kindest manner, and that he was passionately
fond of his children. It was utterly impossible,
she said, that he could ever have harboured a criminals
,design towards her or them. As to the girl
Boulay, it was proved that she was utterly un-
educated, and was precociously wicked. The Pro-
cureur of the Republic, in addressing the court, said
that as he could not believe the prisoner Petit to be
guilty he could not ask the jury to convict him, but
of the guilt of the girl he bad no doubt. The jury,
however, might think that, from her youth, she had
acted without a full consciousness of the crime she
was committing, and if their verdict was to that
effect it would enable the Court to order her imprison-
ment in a house of correction for the purpose of im-
proving her morals and restoring her to society, cured
of the wretched propensities of her mind. The jury
withdrew to deliberate on their verdict, and, to the
astonishment of the people in the Court, and perhaps
of the judges, who had made up their minds as to the
merits of the case, and supposed that much &libera-
tion was not necessary on the part of the jury, an
hour elapsed before the verdict was delivered. Thi•
verdict created greater astonishment than the delay
which preceded it, for it pronounced the acquittal of
both prisoners. The girl left the court immediately.
As to Petit, he was not able to move for some time,
fer his wife fell into his arms and his friends
crowded round him to congratulate him on h
escape.

A CURIOUS WELSH PETTICOAT.

Among many specimens of the unnoticed industry of
Welsh peasants, which have been unable to find their
way to the Great Exhibition, a knitted woollen petticoat
attracts considerable attention in the principality. It is
described as being a very unique garment, about 3i
yards in width, of the proper length for an ordinary
person, with beautiful t,rnamental scallops at the bottom.
Every turn has one thousand six hundred stitches, which
took the industrious knitter exactly one hour to com-
plete. There are in the knitting twelve different pat-
terns, and the waist is so constructed that it admits of
being adjusted to the body without any stitching what-
ever. This industrial curiosity is the production of
Elizabeth, wife of Nat. Evans, of Pennent, Montgomery-
4hiro, North Wales, a labouring mac, with nine children.
Her poverty is so great that, in order to complete her
design, Elizibeth Evans had to obtain a few ounces of
3 ern on credit, from which she knitted a pair of stock-
logs, which, being sold, paid for the first supply. and
obtained credit to the good woman for the second.
The remainder of the yarn was each tune applied to the
petticoat, and thus, at last, it was completed; but, un-
fortunately, too late for its admission among the wonders
of the Crystal Palace. It is the present intention of the
poor woman's friends to have her carious workmanship
exhibited at a bazaar, to be held in connexion nith the
Tremadoc Bardic Congress in October next.

STEAM-BOAT EXPFIMIENTS.—On Monday, the
18th, and two following days, we had the gratification of
witnessirg a series of experiments on the Serpentine, Hyde-
park, to test tt:e qualitiks of a model steam•ves.el, invented
by a gentleman near Colchester, named Vire, who has, we
under,tand, been occupied many years in its c-mpletion,
atte.ialed tot course with much lab.mr and expens'. The
model is taken from the Feb y, its length being 10 wet, beam
14 inches, ti•ted with submarine paddles, of 41,‘, inches, at-
tached to her quarters below the water line, worki.•g under
water. The engine is also placed in a similar situation, and
consequently protected from slifd, and all other mi,siles. The
ex;2elitnentc; were Lai quire suet sstul, and proved the inven-
tion to be of great value and consequenc", the speed per-
formed by the model being as near as could be ascertained
five knots. We have b,eri informed that he model wilt in
future be shown at the Polytechnic Institution.

MISS AZvNA ZERR.

The question has often been raised, how far the
Ministry of Schwarzenberg-Bach is responsible for
the atrocities perpetrated in Hungary under the sway
of Haynau; whether the hal!-crczy marshal acted
upon his instructions from Vienna when he had
ladi'-s flogged and ministers-and generals banged, or
whether all moral imputation rests upon him alone.
Public opinion condemned him ; and, after all, it
seems th'it he was but' tly3 tool of the reckless Pre-
mier, and of the once liberal Dr. Bach, for whom the
birricades of Vienna were the stepstone to the Mi-
nistry. It is true that since Haynau' dismissal from
office there have been no more executions, that even
a great many of the superior Hungarian officers have
been released from prison ; but the spirit of persecu-
tion is still alive, and the recent case of Miss Anna
Zirr is a new instance of the fact that the Austrian
Ministry
whichtakeslenistryGovernment
bee otoefeassau re in prosecuting women in a
agrpeaetttriefoaglmgi.ng lawyer, and not
Miss Anna Zerr, one of the most distinguished
opera singers of the Imperial Theatre at the Carin-
thian gate, got several years ago the patent of im-
perial chamber-singer (kammer-sangerin), a dis-
tinction often conferred on celebrated virtuosi. She
never meddled with politics, but she was too proud
and too honest to cringe before the powerful. Several
of her former friends have been compromised during
the revolution, but she did not forsake them ; and
when, in the months of June and July, she made
a trip to London, she visited two of the exiles re•
siding there. About this time the committee for the
relief of the
Hungarian refugees got up a concert
at Willis's to )ms, and Miss Anna Zerr was
invited to lend her distinguished talent for this charity.
She readily consented to sing, but a sudden indispo-
sition prevented her from taking part in the concert.
Shortly afterwards she left London and returned to
Vienna, where, to her greatest surprise, she was com-
pelled to return her diploma of katemer-sangerin,
and forbidden to appear on the stage; nay, she was
even put under the surveillance of the police, and
cannot leave the town without a special permission
and all this because she was ready, to aid a charity
which is under the chairmanship of Lord Dudley
Stuart, and is patronised by a great number of
Members of Parliament. It is a petty vengeance
upon an artist, but it is at the same time an insult to
Hungarians; and the Ministry should keep it in
mind that the Hungarians more readily forgive cruelty
1 than insolence.—Daily News.

WISDOM PREACHING 1.2‘ THE STREETS
A few year' ago it was a frequent spectacle in and
about London to Fee a concourse of persons collected
in some open space, listening to the exhortations of a
preacher in shabby black, with a rubbish-heap for his
pulpit, and the sky for lvs se unding-board. The po-
lice authorities appear to have suppressed a practice,
which probibly occasioned fewer conversions than
eves of pocket-picking. We may, however, antici-
pate a revival of iierm,)ns sub Jove, if there ba triuh
in the statement of the currespcmdent of a morning
,
COntem.:
r rsry, who says—
" As 1- w 44 Tissing along Orchard-street, Portman.
.
`Crlare, htst (Nlonda) evening about nine o'clock, I
v, BurPris,d to see a
Cardinal Viii,era"nii:
. K-11 Mi-11 buil V g . .
gnat crowd assembled routri
and on inqairy, I tound that
in the open air.4"Thwr preaching from a platform
court, through which there is
a thoroughfare into
Duke-street W2.5 illuminated,
t t
fur
waiting some little
while, the C4rdintl camAettier
o
be street, to 3
1 carriage, which wgs waiting him, attended by
boys and min wearing white surplices, and bear-
ing lighted candles, banners, and also an immense