The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-03 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING. SEPTEMBER 3, 183

THE LATE FIRE in MONMOUTH-STREET.

Yesterday afternoon an inquest was held before
Mr. STIRLING, thf- Coroner, at St. Giles's work-
house, on the remains of James Higgins, aged M) ;
Thomas Collins, aged 30; Mary Collins, his wife,
about the same age; and Thomas Collins, their in-
fant child, who were burnt to death at the fire which
took place on Thursday at the house of Mr. Josephs,
in Monmouth-street. .

The fist witness examined was Catherine Tobin,
a middle-aged woman with an infant at her breast,
who occupied the back room on the first floor of the
house where the fire took place. She said—l, my
husband, and ,hree children, went to bed about nine
o'clock on Thursday night. My baby awoke me
shout eleven o'clock, and I then heard two of the
Messrs. Josephs say to their sister, "Mary, shut the
door ; we are going up stairs to bed." They could
not have ascended two flights of stalls when the
rattles were sprung, and an alarm of fire given.
Suspecting there was fire, I opened the door, and
observed a great smoke, and saw the banisters ors
fire. The tire appeared to come from the shop. I
instantly alarmed my husband, and he got out at the
hack window. I gave him the baby out at the win-
dow, and he put it into the yard of the next house.
I then handed him the other children, at two dif-
ferent times, and then got out myself. I had scarcely
left the room, when I observed the wainscoting on
fire. My husband was severely wounded, and is a
cripple.
Have you any suspicion of what manner the fire
commenced ?—Oh dear no, Sir I

Do you know in what part of the house it com-
menced ?—No, I do not.
What business was carried on in the shop 2—Mr.
Josephs bought and sold goods—he kept a clothes
shop.
How long was it after the Messrs. Josephs wished
their sister rood night, that you were alarmed by
the fire ?—Not more than five minutes.

Had Miss Josephs retired to bed ?—I don't
know. There were three of the Messrs. Josephs,
and they slept in the back attic.
Mary Robinson, whose husband is a carpenter,
said they and their six children occupied the front
attic in Josephs' house. I and the children went
to bed about 11 o'clock, and I was awoke by my
daughter who was standing at the window. One of
the Messrs. Josephs soon after entered the room,
and drawing► my husband's bench across the floor,
assisted us in making our escape by the trap-door
over the roof of the house. Taro of my children
were severely burnt. I d:d not Fee the deceased
persons. The flames were at the top of the house
when we escaped.
William Harland, of 15, Monmouth-street, said,
on Thursday night, about a quarter past eleven
o'clock, I was standing at the door of my house,
and I thought I smelt tire. In a few minutes after
I observe some smoke come out of the holes in the
window-shutters. I advanced to the house, and
heard a crackling noise, and saw a great blaze.
Being convinced that the shop was on fire, I
knocked at the door as loud as I could, and called
" Fire." In about three minutes one of the Mr.
Josephs opened the street-door and came out. He
was full dressed. I said, "Mr. Josephs, your house
is on fire." He said " Where ? where ?" and went
into the house without calling any one. He did not
shut the door after him. Shortly after I saw some
one look out at the second floor. I said, " For
Goa's sake make your escape, for the house is on
fire." The person returned, and I did riot see
them again. The house was in a short time one
mass of flame.

Mr. Court, landlord of the Blue Pests in Mon-
mouth-street, about twenty minutes past eleven at
night, after he had retired to bed, was alarmed by
the cry of fire, and on proceeding to the front of the
house he observed Josephs' house in flames. About
a quarter before eleven the same night, one of the
Mr. Josephs, who is a hatter, came to his house
and borrowed a newspaper, which he was in the
habit of doing. Josephs generally closed their
house at ten. At a little before eleven he saw Mr.
Josephs leaning out at the window reading the
paper by the gas light; all the lights in his house
appeared to be extinguished. He had not on any
former occasion-seen Josephs lean out of the window
to read the paper. The witness was asked if he
knew in what part of the house the fire broke out,
and he gave it as his opinion that it commenced in
the shop. Josephs had been in the shop about a
month or six weeks. The business was apparently
carried on as usual on Thursday.
The Coroner and Jury here proceeded to view the
bodies which lay in the bone-house. The woman
and infant were placed in one shell. The woman's
body was burned as black as a coal, but her features
were perfectly distinguishable, and her body was
unmutilated. Her arms were thrown across her
breast, as if to protect that part of her body from
the flames. The child was burned as black as its
mother, but the thighs and legs were quite destroyed.
The bodies of the men were placed in different
shells. They were severely scorched, and appeared
to have died rather from suffocation than from any
other cause.

William Hubert, of Monmouth-street, tin-plate
worker, after identifying the bodies of the two
deceased men, said he went to the house on hearing
the alarm of fire, and saw one of the Mr. Josephs
come out at the street door, He was full dressed.
Witness said to him, " Mr. Josephs is it your house
that is on fire ?" Mr. Josephs made HO answer;
he seemed stupefied with fright, and waving his
arms walked up the street. He saw a female come
from the front part of the house, and thought she
also ce.ine out of the front door.

John Simmer, of 71, Monmouth-street, opposite
to Josephs' house, said that on heating the alarm of
fire he went to the spot, and saw flames come out
of one side of the shop-door (it was a double-sided
door) and the other side was fastened. Thinking
they heard a groaning inside the private door, wit•
ness and some uthers who were with him burst it
open, and found two little boys, one five years old,
and the other a little older, in the passsge They
brought them out and placed them on the opposite
side of the street. Did not know whose boys they
were. Witness went back to the house, which was
then all on fire, and it was impossible to go into the
house. lie had made inquiries of several persons
since, but could not ascertain to whom the children
belonged.

INCORRODIBLE ARTIFICIAL TEETH FIXED
WITHOUT WIRES OR OTHER LIGATURES,
AND FILLING DECAYED TEETH WITH MI-
NERAL SUCCEDANEUM.

ONSIEUR Al ALLAN and SONS, Sur-
gent] Dentists, No. 9, HALF MOON-STREET,
PICCADILLY, and 32, GREAT RUSSELL-STREET,
BLOOMSBURY, grateful for the high and EXTENSIVE
PATRONAGE which has so eminently distinguished their
pi ,sessional exertions since their arrival in the British Me-
twpolis, beg leave to announce to their Friends and the
Public in general, that they still CONTINUE co RE-
S CORE DECAYED TEETH,with their CELEBRATED
MINERAL SUCCEDANEUM, so universally recom-
mended by the Faculty of London and Paris. The Ope-
ration is PERFORMED IN A FEW SECONDS, with-
out the SLIGHTEST PAIN, HEAT, or Pressure, and
allays the must EXCRUCIATING PAIN, and lasting
for many years ; they also FASTEN LOOSE TEETH,
HETHER ARISING from AGE, NEGLECT, or
DISEASE in the GUMS. INCORROI)IBLE MI-
NERAL and NATURAL TEETH, from one to a COM-
PLETE Set, which are INCAPABLE of DISCO-
LOUrtATION or CORROSION, and fixed without the
incumbrance of Wires or any other LIGAI URES, and
answer every PURPOSE of ARTICULATION and
NIASTICATION.—Charges as in Paris.
All Operations performed on the Teeth.

The CORONER directed Miss Josephs to be called.
Miss Josephs was accordingly sworn, and the
Coroner directed her to explain any thing she knew
respecting the fire. She stated that she slept in the
first floor front room. On Thursday night she went
to bed about 10, it might have been half-past 10.
She spent the evening in the parlour, and afterwards
went to see a young friend who had visited her part
of the way home. She returned home about a
quarter past nine, and then stood in the shop a short
time talking to her brothers. She then went up
stairs to the first floor, intimating to her brothers
that she was going to lay the cloth for slipper.
They went up immediately, after having closed the
shop and put out the gaslight. She went to bed
in the same room where they had supped before
Solomon,
her brother, left the apartment; he was
then reading the newspaper, and had a candle in
the room. Charles, another brother, went out, and.
Simeon went to bed. The first alarm she heard of
the fire, was by her brother Solomon calling her,
and she got up and went to a friend's house in
Monmouth-street. She had nothing on but her
night-clothes, but she did not recollect whether her
brothet had hie clothes on. The property in the

We understand that as soon as the Slave
Emancipation Bill had passed the House of Peers, Sir
BETHEL Con RINGTON addressed a letter, of which the
following is a copy, to his Majesty's Colonial Secretary :
" Sir,--As the Bill, more fatal, in my opinion, to the slave
than even to the West India planter, whoa.. property is to
be wrest,d from him, and which Lutist make every West
ladia proprietor desirous of realizing as much as he can
from the wreck of that property which is as yet left to
Lim, is now about to become a law, I beg to offer the
immediate manumission of every slave on the island of
Parbuda (upwards of 500), on the receipt of my plopor.
tion of that sum SO inadequately termed compensation. I
have the honour to be, &c, " Co BETHEL CoDatvaTor."

( PRICE 7D.)

stop b,4onged to her. It was insured, Her eldest
brother generally avoided to see the gas was turned
out. She was not aware that any of the gas-burners
were out of repair. She had no idea whatever how
the fire occurred.

Solomon Josephs was a tailor. When the alarm
of fire was given, he run up stairs to alarm his sister
who was in bed, and the door was fastened by a
spring lock, which could not be opened on the out-
side without a key. He burst the door open, and,
she then jumped out of bed. At that time the
passage was on fire. He and his sister run through
the flames, and he then wished to return to his bro-
ther Simeon, whom lie left in bed in the three pair
room. He had just began to pull off one of his
boots when he heard the knocking. He sat up later
than the other parts of the family reading the paper.
He believed he read the piper tit the window, as his
brother Simeon had taken the light up stairs to see
to make the bed.

The Jury returned a verdict—" That the de-
ceased persons were accidentally burned to death at
a fire which took place at the house 19, Alonmouth-
street, but how that fire originated there is no evi-
dence."

INCENSED TAILORS.-THEATRE IN AN

UPROAR.

About the year 1805, a sort of burlesque tragi-
comic piece, entitled " The Tailors," was brought
out at one of the great theatres in the metropolis,
we believe at Covent-garden, which piece exhibited
a very lar4!hable representation of the wars between
the " dungs" and " flints," as " knobsrick," and
" turn•outs" are called in that trade. The knights
of the shears, in that day residing in London, felt so
much insulted by the libels which this extravaganza
charged upon their profession, that they mustered
at the Theatre in considerable force, and a tumult,
inferior only to the celebrated 0. R rows, was the
result. We believe that the piece was for miny
years laid upon the shelf, and that a short time
back, it again saw the light, having been remodelled,
with the part of the hero, Abrakamides, recast ex-
pressly for Mr. Reeve. and the title of the piece
changed from " The Tailors," into " The Quad-
rupeds." Thus seamed and mended, the piece was
a few weeks ago brought out at the Queen's
Theatre, in this town, under the management of
Mr. Henry Beverly, and, we believe, had been per-
formed for about thirty nights without any marks of
disapprobation having been manifested at its repre-
sentation by the audiences, and it was announced in
the bills of Wednesday last for repetition that even-
ing. In the course of the day, Mr. Thomas, the
deputy constable of Manchester, having received in-
formation which led him to suppose that some sort
of disturbance would take place at the theatre, pro-
ceeded thither in the evening. The two first pieces
passed over without any attempt to disturb the per-
formance, but in the second scene of the Quadrupeds,
when Mr. H. Beverley made his appearance as
.4braliainid:s, he was saluted with hissing, flowing's,
and howlings from a great body of tailors who had
congregated in the gallery to the number of upwards
of a hundred. After enduring the " goose" from
them quietly for some seconds, Mr. Beverley ad-
vanced to the front of the stage, in order to address
the audience, and inquire into the cause of the up-
roar, when apples, pears, eggs, potatoes, turnips, and
even stones, were thrown in great numbers at him
and the other performers then upon the stage, the
infuriated, tailors yelling the while most hideously.
Mr. Beverley folded his arms and stood still, until
the stage was literally covered with these various
descriptions of missiles, arid, we suppose, having
some notion of the nature of his assailants,
according to the tradition which declares that
nine tailors make only one man, he cried out to
them, "Ah ! you're all cowards, and not seen." Mr.
Thomas, at the commencement of the outrage, seat
for Beswick and Sawley, and on the arrival of these
officers they proceeded into the gallery, and with
the assistance of the Messrs. Phenix, the gas-
lighter, and other persons, they succeeded in appre-
hending seven men, and conveying them to the
lock-ups. Order was at length restored; the pit,
which had been nearly deserted, in consequence of
the volleys of missiles which were hurled over the
heads of its occupants, gradually refilled, and Mr.
Beverly came forward arid said that he had of
course not the least desire to do anything that was
held to be offensive to his good friends the public;
and, understanding that the fracas had been caused
by the piece, he should after that evening withdraw
it. The remainder of the piece was then got
through in a very curtailed form, and no further an-
noyance was offered to the performers. There is
some reason to believe that but for the timely in-
terference of the police, however, the outrage would
have assumed a more violent character. The priso-
ners offered considerable resisiance to the officers,
and it was with great difficulty they were taken
from their companions in the gallery. They were
taken before the Magistrates, and ordered to find
good bail.-111anckester Guardian.

wards Went abroa(% During nig.esence, a foreign
conjuror or fortune-teller came to EdiribLtlgh profess-
ing, among many other wonderful accomplishments,
to be able to inform any
_person of the present con-
dition or situation of anylother person, at whatever
distance, in whom the applicant might be inteiisted.
Lady Primrose, who had lost all trace of hir hus-
band, was incited by curiosity to go, with a female
friend, to the lodgings of this person in the Canons
gate, for the purpose of mqiiiring regarding his
motions. It was at night ; and the two ladies
went, with the tartan screens or plaids of their see_
%%rite, drawn over their faces by way of disguise.
Lady Piimrost- having described the individual in
whose fate stie was interested, and having exiyesssti
a desire to know what he was at present dote g,
the conjuror led her to a large mirror, in which
she distinctly perceived the appearance of tile
inside of a church, wits a marriage parry arranged
nsar the altar. To her infinite astonishment, she,
recognised in the shadowy bridegroom no othersthan
her husband, Lord Pi imrose. The megical scene
thus so strangely displayed was not exactly like a
picture; or if so, it was rather like the live pictures
of the stage than the dead and immovable delinea-
tions of the pencil. It admitted of addition: to the
persons represented, and of a progress of action.
As the lady gazed on it, the ceremonial of the
marriage seemed to proceed. The neces.ary ar-
rangements had, at last all been made; the prie•t
seemed to have pronounced the preliminar*
vice; he was just upon the point of bidding !thA-;
bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly a
gentleman, for whom the rest seemed to hare
waited a considerable time, and in whom Lady
Primrose thought she recognised a brother of her
own then abroad, entered the church, and made
hurriedly towards the party. The aspect of this
person was at first only that of a friend who had
been invited to attend the ceremony and who had
come too late ; but as he advanced to the parry,
the expression of his countenance and figure was
altered very considerably. He stopped short ; his
face assumed a wrathful expression; he drew his
sword, anti rushed up to the bridegroom, who also
drew his weapon. The whole scene then becastee
quite tumultuous and indistinct, end almost imme-
diately vanished entirely away. When Lady Prim-
rose got home, she wrote a minute narrative of the
whole transaction, to which she appended the day
of the month on which she had seen the mys-
terious vision. This narrative she sealed up in the
presence of a witness, and then deposited it in
one of her drawers. Soon afterwards her brother
returned from his travels, and came to visit her. She
asked if, in the course of his wanderings, he hap-
pened to hear or see any thing of Lord Primrose.
The young man only answered by saying, that he
wished he might never again hear the name of that
detested personage mentioned. Lady Primrose,
however, questioned him so closely, that he at last
confessed having met his Lordship, and that under
very strange circumstances. Having spent some
time at one of the Dutch cities—it was either Am-
sterdam or Rotterdam—he had became acquainted
with a rich merchant, who had a very beautiful daugh-
ter, his only child, and the heiress of his enormous
fortune. One day his friend, the met chant, informed
him that his daughter was about to be married to
a Scottish gentleman, who had lately come to reside
there. The nuptuals were to take place in the course
of a few days; and, as he was a countryman of the
bridegroom, he was invited to the wedding. He
went accoidingiy, was a little too late for the com-
mencement of the ceremony, but, fortuna'ely,
came in time to prevent the union of an amiable
young lady to the greatest monster alive in human
shape, his own brother-in-law, Lord Primrose ! Al-
though Lady Primrose had proved her willingness
to believe in the magical delineations of the mirror
by writing down an account of them, yet she was so
much surpr:sed and confounded by discovering them
to be so consistent with fact, that she almost fainted
away. Something, however, yet remained to be
ascertained. Did Lord Primrose's attempted mar-
riage take place exactly at the same time with her
visit to the conjuror ? To certify this she asked
her brother on what day the circumstance which he
related took place. Having been informed, she
took out her key, and requested him to go to her
chamber, to open a drawer which she described, and
to bring her a sealed packet which he would find in
that drawer. He did as he was desired, when, the
packet being opened, it was discovered that Lady
Primrose had seen the shadowy representation of
her husband's abortive nuptials on the very evening
they were transacted in reality. The story, with
all its strange and supernatural circumstances, may
only excite a smile in the incredulous reader. All
that the narrator desires to say in its favour is this—
It fell out in the hands of honourable men and
women, who could not be suspected of an intention
to impose on the credulity of their friends; it re-
ferred to a circumstance which the persons concerned
had the least reason in the world for raising a story
about ; and it was almost universally believed by the
coatemporaries of the principal personages, and by
the generation which succeeded.

BRIGHTON, SEPT. I.—A strange repor
reached us last evening of ti man having attempted tht:::
life of a girl six years old, by tying a heavy atone round
her neck and casting her into the sea off Seaford. The
miscreant was observed by the Preventive men, who got
the child out, and took the man into custody. A long
,ime elapsed ere the child recovered. She said she had
been stolen from her home at Brighton by the man who
attempted to destroy her. She had no marks of violence
about her. A day or two ago, as some boys were gather-
ing nuts in a fi •Id near Hurstperpoint, a small village
about eight miles from this place, one of them fell from a
bough into a ditch, in which he discovered the skeleton of
a human being. About six months ago, a pauper named
Jupp was missing front the parish of Hurstperpoins, and
the skeleton has been recognised as that of Jupp's, by a
a handkerchi'f which he was in the habit of wearing
round his waist being found fastened to it. He occasion-
ally left the poorhouse, and obtained a scanty subsistence
by begging, and when he was refused •food he usually
threatened to starve himself, and it is supposed he carried
his desperate threat into execution. He bad no relations
residing in the parish. The bones were put into a coffin
and decently interred.
" MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE LATE
EDMUND KKAN."—And now the public began to grow
discontented with the notoriously libertine life which
Kean led. He bad never, I believe, yet disappointed a
London audience, but on one occasion. The circum-
stances of this one he often related to me. He had gone
to dine somewhere about ten miles from town, with some
friends of early days, players, of course, fully intending to
It at the theatre in time for the evening's performance.
But temptation and the battle were too strong for him ;
he outstay. d his time, got drunk, and lost all recollection
of Shialopeare, Shylock, Drurylane, and the duties they
entailed on him. His friends, frightened at the indiscre-
tion they had caused, dispatched Kean's servant with his
empty chariot, and a well prepared story, that the horses
had been frightened near the village where Kenn had
dined, by a flock of geese by the road side; that the car-
riage was upset, and the unfortunate tragedian's shoulder
dislocated. This story was repeated from the
stage by the manager; and the rising indignaiou
of the audience (who had suffered the entertainments to
be commenced by the farse) was instantly calmed
dawn into commisseration and regret. The following
morning Kean was shocked and bewildered at dis-
covering the truth of his situation. Bit' how must his
embarrassment be increased on learning that several gen-
tlemen had already arrived from town to make anxious
inquiries for him! He jumped out of bed, and to his in-
finite affright, he saw, amongst the carriages, those of Sir
Francis Buadett, Mr. Whitblead, and others of his leading
friends. whose regard for him id-ought them to see into his
situation in person. Luckily for hm, his old associate,
the actors, had, with great presence of mind, and pract;s.;d
Effrontery, carried on the deception of the preceding night.
Die village apothecary lent himself to it, and with a
grave countenance confirmed the report; and Kean him-
self was obliged to be a party, noleas relens, in the hoax.
His chamber was accordingly darkened, his face rt;
Appeared, in
ui
raer,ns bandaged,were
admitted A few of
hiso fb
dureLst.,d,. i sot irianeg ui.,hseld
discoveredin -
the cheat ; and to crown it completrlY,
on,e,
again, U ors
an incredible s:,ort time, on tl+e boards la
int'r"lhe,:i% to risk tile exertion,
c.v. his .i!spect and
gratitude eonvalescen,e, and to go
natwithstanding his ert:ol Richard, Macboh, and
through the arduous pat
I rue successive nights, with his arm in
oihaby, on t
a sling. .
tghre.itpittuthdleictobw",inrg,iscartehieumilYurg

SIORY OF THE COUNTESS OF STAIR.

(From Chambers' Reehiana.)

This house was occupied by the Dowager of the
celebrated General arid statesman, John, second
E irl of Stair, who died in 1717. Her Ladyship,
after long exercising a se-ry over the haul ton of
the Scottish capital, died here, November 21, 1759,
at a very advanced age. The late Mr. Mackenzie,
author of the " Man of Feeling," informed the au-
thor that he recollected her Ladyship living in this
house. The close takes its name from her Lady-
ship. Some remarkable circumstances in the early
life of this lady formed the groundwork of a tale by
the author of Waverley, under the title of " Aunt
Margaret's Mirror." They are now related here in
a more ample form. She was the youngest daugh-
ter of James, second Earl of Loudourt, arid conse-
quently was granddaughter to that stern old Earl
who acted so important a part in the affairs of the
Covenant, and who was Lord Chancellor of Scot-
land during the troublesome times of the civil war.
While very young (about the beginning of the
eighteenth century), she was married to James, first
Viscount Primrose, a nobleman of extremely bad
temper, and what was worse, of very dissolute
character. Her Ladyship, who had a great deal
of her grandfather in her, could have managed
most men with great ease, by dint of superior in-
tellect and force of character; but the cruelty of
Lord Primrose was too much for her. He treated
her so barbarously, that she had even occasion to
apprehend that he would some day put an end to
her life. One morning, during the time she was
labouring under this dreadful anticipation, she was
dressing herself in her chamber, near an open win-
dow, when his Lordship entered the room behind
her with a sword drawn in his hand. He had
opened the door softly, and, although his face indi-
cated a resolution of the most horr►ble nature, he
still had the presence of mind to approach her with
the utmost caution. Had she trot caught a glimpse
of his face and figure in her glass, he would, in all
probability, have approached her near enough to
execute his bloody purpose, before she was aware,
or could have taken any measures to save herself.
Fortunately, she perceived him in time to leap out
of the open window into the street. Half-dressed
as she was, she irnmediatel.,, by a very laudable
exertion of her natural good sense, went to the
house of Lord Primrose's mother, where she told
her story, arid demanded protection. That protec-
tion was at once extended ; and it being now
thought vain to attempt a reconciliation, they never
afterwards lived together. Lord Primrose soon after-

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