The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-15 00:00:00

LATEST NEWS.

to commit the robbery by starvation. He was sent to
teeison for a week.
HAYMARKET THEATRE.—Mr. Dallas, the American
Minister, and a large party visited the theatre last night,
to witness the performance of Mr. Murdoch, as Charles
Surface, in " The School for Scandal," which comedy,
with its excellent cast of the Haymarket company, is
num attracting large audiences at this theatre.
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH BETWEEN IRELAND AND
NOUTH AMERICA.—It was announced at the Lirerpors
Underwriters' Rooms yesterday, by the secretary, the
the British Government guaranteed four per cent. upot.
the outlay for the Transatlantic telegraph, on the cone
pletion of the work.
An inquest was held yesterday at Abergavenny on
the bodies of Mr. Hands and Mr. Hinks, who met their
deaths by a collision on the Newport and Hereford
Railway, the facts of which accident have already ap-
peared in The Sun. A verdict had not been returned
when the post left.
On Thursday, Charles Lee, charged with garotting
a youth named Davis, a servant to a watch-maker,
in Oxford-street, Manchester, while he had 19 watches
in hie possession, was further examined, and remanded
in order to afford time to discover the missing pro-
perty.
Messrs. Thompson, the shipowners, have written to
the Times, replying to their letter relative to the date of
sailing of the James Baines, the Star of Peace, and the
Phoenician. The latter two ships they state sailer
from Sydney, the passage from whence to this country
is fully three days longer than that from Melbourne. Thf
Star of Peace, belonging to these gentlemen, arrived off
the Wight
i
n 97
days,
f t and not upwards of 100.
A correspondent he Times says Mr. Brett has beer,
named as the engineer who laid the first submarine
telegraph across the Channel. Mr. Brett, he says, ere
o
doubtedly obtained fr )m the French' Government the
concession for the submarine telegraph, but the honour
of stretching the coil, which has withstood the tugging
of ships' anchors, belongs to Mr. Crampten, assisted bs
Messrs. Wallaston, Statham, Wilkins, and Weatherby.
A French lady named Jeans Frutch applied yester-
day at the Bristol Insolvency. Coors for her discharg•
from prison. She was opposed by a number of jewel
lers, for articles with which they had supplied hie.; a,nii
she was also charged with concealing her property.
She attributed her insolvency to the presents she had
male to the Roman Catholic Church at Carmington.
She was remanded for nine months.
WESTMINSTER FREEHOLD LAND SOCIETY. The
police have received information that Mr. George
Edgar Dennes, of Grecian-chambers, Deveroux-court,
Temple, solicitor to the Westminster Freehold Land
Society, has absconded. He has had the custody of
the title deeds of several of the society's estates, and
the documents are at this moment not to be found.
He is also indebted to the society to the amount of
nearly three hundred pounds.
THE APPROACHES TO IHE MERSEY.—At the meeting
of the Liverpool town-council on Monday a committee
was appointed to take into consideration the present in-
sufficient means of aece-s to the river from Liverpool,
and the mode of remedying it proposed by Mr. J. B.
Hartley, engineer of the Birkenhead docks, by means
of a high level. The committee met yesterday (Thurs-
day) and passed a resolution ordering the production of
the whole of the correspondence bearing upon the ques-
tion, and they decided Ise to request the co-operation
of the Dock Committee in the matter.
THE PROPERTY FOUND ON Ronsoes.—Yesterday Ser
geant Coppin, who apprehended William James Robson,
at Copenhagen, attended at the office of Mr. Johnson,
official assignee, and delivered to that gentleman the pro-
perty found on and in the possession of Robson at the
time of his apprehension. It consisted of a valuable
gold chain, a diamond ring (for which Robson said he
had paid 601.), a set of diamond shirt studs, a set of
gold etude, seven gold buttons, a dozen of silver forks,
four teaspoons, a valuable dressing case, a purse contain
ing thirty-six dollars and some small coins, six coats,
Revere waistcoats, seven pairs of trousers, five shirts,
and other articles, amounting in value to about 1301.
They will of souse be aided to the other effects and
"state of t b. s convict, and sold for the benefit of his cre-
ditor&

CanaadiSalni4jllo'rurßnoay!,.—thell;arti?ilelllin
civgaupea,rahgarsaph from a
an interest
for our readers :—" A. merchant of it'oronto pint us
in possession of the following facts relating to a little
fellow, only fourteen years of age, who left Aberdeen
in Scotland, and arrived at Toronto on the Ist Sept.,
on his way to Chicago in g•Atuli a his father. This
intrepid
youth left lib o)d country with only one shil-
ling in bh tk peet. He engaged himself en board a
ship to o,l3ebec, and from thence worked his way, under
'Liao? difficulties, to Toronto, where he arrived penny-
I:tiss. He had been labouring in vain about the wharves
to work his way to Chicago ; and although hunger
had fastened hard upon him, his dauntless spirit
was not checked, and he began to apply his energies to
meet the emergency in so,ne other way, when his ease
became l''''''Ql- The St. Andrew's Society at once took
him under their care interceded with the Northern
Railroad to procure him a passage to Collingwood, and
from thence to Chicago, supplied him with necessary
funds, and sent him on his way rejoicing. If the father
of that boy has the faculty of discovering greatness of
character, here is an instance of filial affection and per-
severance in his son that, if properly matured, may, on
I this great continent of enterprise, lead him on to a
in life po-
fition lot of men. Laffitte,
beyond the ordinary
the rich banker, left his home at a similar age to seek
his fortune in ale great metropolis of France. The
history a single pin laid the
of that, boy is well known ;
foundation of his immense fortune; and who knows but
the single shilling in the pocket of that noble-hearted
Scotch boy rosy hereafi,er be marked as his starting
point on the road to wesdth, and we should hope to use-
fulness." [Tae name 'of this youth is, we understand,
James El.l..nett ; he bel on gs
, 4
bybirth to Fraserburgbd

Who does not know him ? That comical, capi-
tal, delightful, indefatigable, ridiculously-droll,
preposterously-variable mimic—W. S. Woodin, the
youngest, but in many respects the most gifted
and popular of all living Polyphonists. Don't we
know his merry face by heart—peering down upon
us, as we pass along the streets, from the
windows of the music shops ? A visage more
squeezable than the Whigs, more plastic
than Proteus, more changeable than the
Chameleon. A countenance absurd though it
may appear to say so—alternately lantern-jawed,
bloated, paralytic, apoplectic, goggle-eyed, jovial,
and cadaverous And all this—and a great deal
more—in the veriest twinkling. Like the features
of a head in a Phantasmagoria, 'dilating and con-
tracting at pleasure. As though it were the " hu-
man face divine," or the human face diabolic, just as
we may please to term it—appertaining to some
mysterious " body" having an incomprehensible
resemblance simultaneously to Daniel Lambert and
the Living Skeleton. Never was there really less
of a Wooden face than this amazingly unaccountable
weird, eyrie, eltritch face of Woodin ! A. face that
must have proved an inscrutable puzzle to Lavater
One that would be altogether invaluable to anyone
who happens to be an artist's " model " by profes-
sion ! One that would have appeared the strangest
riddle of the Sphinx to Mr. Bucket the Detective
One that might be accepted as a " study " for life
by the most industrious of photographers ! The
head of A Crowd rather than that of One Man !
A. laughing, talking, singing, substantial, palpable,
visible, positive argument in favour of the old wild
theory of Metempsychosis. A countenance alto-
gether as pliant and flexible as any one of the
" comic mugs" purchaseable for a few pence at the
toyshops and made out of gutta-percha. A visage
that at the whim of its owner's will can be elon-
gated to the u ttermost stretch of elongation, or puffed
out to the furthest limits of puffiness—fat, lean,
sour, gay, old, young, comely, or repulsive—all
in the wink of an eye ! A face so engrossing,
absorbing, monopolising our attention when view-
ing its possessor, that he of all public drolls has
about the very best right to the distinctive title of
he face-tious ! So conspicuously prominent a
nark of his individuality among men, that one
cotes to associate the idea of him somehow with
one of those hugeous Goblins of Fun—All Face, no
body (not even enough to swear by), and the most
ridiculously minute Legs in the World—accue-
somecl to gambol over the Stage about Christmas-
iine, to the screaming rapture of boys and girls in
allegorical opening of those dear delights of
;liildhood, the Pantomimes ! And yet Mr.
Woodin's slight, stripling Figure is really and
truly, after all, just about as "adaptable" as are
his mobile and erratic Features ! Insomuch,
that it comes to us, every now and then, iu such an
sxceedingly " questionable shape" that we are
more non-plussed than Hamlet himself, and find it
Efficalt to know how we ought to designate him !
"Adaptable" this slim agile figure is to that degree
—that it passes in a few minutes through all sorts,
An y kind, every kind of transformation. Sympa-
thetically, of course, and simultaneously with the
magical change, operating like a wizard's charm
upon manners, voice, and countenance.- Don't we
recollect—all of us—the marvel of this amusing
spectacle, from the first moment of W. S. Woodin's
memorable and exhilarating Apparition ? When,
a very young man, only two or three seasons back,
lie suddenly stepped out of private life before the
London public, and fairly took our admiration by
storm. Carrying in one hand, a charming Port-
folio of original drawings, and in the other a cer-
tain marvellous Carpet Bag 1 A bag much more
wonderful in every way than that famous one into
which the mountebank ,at a country fair dips for
wigs. A Carpet Bag, this one of W. S. Woodin's,
into which the Protean Polyphonist dipped at will
for faces, voices, forms, costumes, deportments,
perfectly distinct and separate identities 1 Coming
:orth again—" in a jiffy," instead of after a sleep
of a hundred years, like Rip Van Winkle—not Him-
eelf but Somebody Else. Triumphant in the first
epoch of success, Mr. Woodin—we all remember it
—very soon took occasion to prove his remarkable
sowers as a Polyphonist to be in no way at all
exhausted. Accomplishing this new wonder by
eis Second and, if possible, his still more extraor-
linarily varied and humorous Entertainment—
" The Olio of Oddities."
That proierbial desideratum of yOur true hustings
oolitician—your politician of claptraps and flum-
mery—" a clear stage and no favour" is all W. S.
Woodin actually wants by way of either arena or
introduction. A "clear stage"—with a pretty little
ereen reading-desk on either side of it—each desk
lit by a couple of gas burners mellowed to an agree-
able lustre by a globular shade of ground-glass--the
old traditional row of footlights of course invisibly
edging the front of the proscenium. There, flitting
about that stage—sometimes taking his position be-
hind one of the littlegreen reading-desks, sometimes
behind the other—occasionally stepping down to
the footlights—keeping up the ball of conversation
all the while himself, relating anecdotes, cracking
jokes, singing songs, Mr. Woodin—a veritable im-
personation of
" Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides"—
trails forth the wonderful coil of his magical "Olio of
Oddities." Stepping, every now and then, behind
the side-scenes to " come out " again the next in-
stant transformed—absolutely transformed—from
top to toe ! No longer the slight stripling figure
already alluded to—that of Mr. Woodin himself in
propria persona—a young gentleman elegantly
attired in full evening costume from the tips of his
glazed-leather boots to the tips of Lis white kid
;loves, from the delicate cambric of his necktie to
that that of his daintily-scented pocket-handkerchief
But in lieu of him—the most dissimilar personage
imaginable ! "Lady Esther Evergreen"—the most
charming of old ladies, her hair silvered, her voice
quavering, her rich velvet robe of most matronly
" Mr.
and venerable amplitude !
Gabbleton," obese and gluttonous, with a
gurgle of gusto in his throat, and a relish
for food in the very rub of his hands—a
portly comfort-loving, lip-smacking personage, the
very pink and pattern of a b,n vivant /, 0.. r, most
marvellous change of all—such a total "transmog-
rification" as that effected upon himself by the
Polyphonist when he steps upon the boards insteael
of W. S. Woodin—" Miss Clara Chattaway." A
young lady in ringlets and white satin—a low bod-
dice and a high voice—a coquette and a chatterbox!
A laughable rattle-brain " belle of the night," who
simpers, and plays the piano, and flutters her fan,
and walks, and talks, anddisposes the graceful folds
of her flowing skirts when she sits down—just for
all the world as any other young lady who is a
coquette might do—the young lady in pink glace
with whom we danced the polka just now,
or the pretty brunette over yonder who
is engaged to us—for the next quadrille !
Perhaps, however, still more astonishing than
these grand, complete, full-length impersonations
of other people, from the crown of his head to the
sole of his foot, by Mr. Woodin—are his kit-kat
portraits as we may call them, or, as he himself
terms them, his clague,rreotypes of this person, that
person, and the other, you, me, and everybody—
now behind this little reading-desk, now behind
that ! Creatures starting up in rapid succession
from under the momentarily uplifted lid of the
desk aforesaid. Doctor Johnson in his snuff-
coloured suit, his cauliflower wig, with his ore
rotunda and his verba sesquipedalia 1 Mr.
Vilian Vivid, the moustached exquisite, wit h
a smattering of critical quiddities anent
music and musicians ! Mr. Vandyke Brown
beards cl like the pard and jabbering with the
fluency of another Ruskin, the pattern and slang
of the atelier, all about the cant of the craft and
the mysteries of eesthhics ! The crabbed Old
Playgoer in the Pit—bristling even to his very
whiskers ! And best of all (incomparably) " One of
the Public" up in the threepency
Jack, or. Tom, ac the case may be, rapturous in
his shirt sleeves; determined upon having his full
threepen'orth of fun ; on intimate speaking terms
with the, Various occupants of the stage and the
orchestra; a jolly fellow grinning all over, not only
in his mouth and eyes, but in the noisy
clap of his red hands, in the very cock
of his old fur cap, and the slovenly un-
buttoning of his velveteen waistcoat ! The
triumph, however, of triumphs, in the way both
of glibness of utterance and rapidity of transfor-
mation, still remaining for W. S. Woodiu in his
latest "New Song," the grand loco-joko-motive
lyric, "Of' by the Train"—a marvel of visible and
audible vivacity. Remembering which, we hesitate
not to accord to our young Polyphonist the palm
of pre-eminence over each and all of the Mimes of
our acquaintance--what though among Past and
Presom he has had to dare comparison with
several very notable competitor",

A letter from Berlin, in the Nuremberg Corre-
spondent, says :—Russia, in order to hasten the
meeting of the second conference, Las declared
that she abandons her claim to the Island of Ser-
pents. The conference will, therefore, have to
decide only on the Bolgrad question."