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

opium having been recently sold by pirates in the
north. It is rumoured that the pirates are in great
force off the mouth of the Min and about Namoa.
Her Majesty's ship Serpent left Hong• Kong for the
northern ports on the 19th, and will pr( bably give
some account of them shortly.
(From the Overland Bombay Times, Dec. 30.)
SUMMARY.—The home community have of late
ceased to look for a chronicle of exploits on the battle
field, such as was wont to be sent them by each mail
from India, and we trust that many a long year will
elapse before on this head expectation be again
awakened. But peace has its triumphs as well as
war, and of these we have at present some of the most
splendid that can be achieved to record. The laying
of the foundation-stone of the girls' school at Cal-
cutta—an institution brought into existence by the
Honourable Mr. Drink water Bethune, legislative
member of council, and specially patronised by Go-
vernment—may be regarded as the inauguration of
female education in India; henceforth, it is to be
hoped, destined to form a matter of public concern.
Mr. Bethune, besides bestowing on the matter an un-
bounded amount of attention and care, has subscribed
no less than 10,0001. from his own private purse to
the establishment. At Bombay the cause of native
female education is progressing quite as promisingly
as at Calcutta, though under widely dif-
ferent auspices. Here girls' schools have
been established in numbers by the members
of the Students' Literary Society, themselves all
natives, stimulated alone by the counsel of their in-
structors, and their own anxiety for the improvement
of their countrywomen. A meeting has just taken
place for the purpose of organising district schools
throughout the presidency, and of aiding and guiding
the efforts of those already in existence, with the view
of disseminating knowledge amongst the humbler
classes of the community. Of this, as of most of our
educational movements, the most active promoter is
our Chief-Justice—Sir Erskine Perry. Doctor
Hunter, at Madras, is at present projecting the esta-
blishment of a school of industry at that presidency on
the model of the Bombay establishment of that name,
which latter, we are glad to say, continues to prosper,
and begins to produce fruits. The Governor-General
of India is about this time at Peshawar, on a tour of
inspection. The Governor of Bombay has returned
to the presidency from Mahabuleshwar, where he had
been since the middle of September for the recovery
of his health. He appears to be entirely restored.
He is at present residing at Parell. The Commander-
in-Chief, Sir W. Cotton, is at Bombay, waiting to be
relived by Sir John Grey. Sir George Berkeley, the
Commander-in-Chief at Madras, has, it is said, sent
in his resignation, declining to serve under a junior ;
so there, as well as at Bombay, our troops must be
commanded by a major-general, Sir W. Gomm being
at the bottom of the list of lieutenants-general. Sir
George Anderson has arrived at Ceylon, but has not
as yet assumed the reins of government, having pre-
ceded his commission. The regret for his departure
expressed by the people of the Mauritius is deep
and universal. There is no longer any doubt
that Sir Charles Napier returns a month
hence to Europe, vie/ Sinde and Bombay. The
discussions regarding the value of his command
compel those in India to form an estimate of his ser-
vices and character, where they are known, as dif-
ferent as possible from that which appears to be enter-
tained at home. We value them highly, and regret
his departure—the monstrous exaggerations, emana-
ting apparently from fraternal pens, with which the
London journals abound, are here made matter of
ridicule and jest. We believe it is quite certain that
Mr. H. B. E. Frere, at present Commissioner at Set-
ters, succeeds Mr. R. K. Pringle as Commissioner in
Sinde ; and that Mr. Frere will be succeeded by
Mr. T. Ogilvy, at present political agent in Cutcb.
Sickness is still very prevalent throughout the Pun-
jaub, though much less so than it was a fortnight
since. The interview betwixt the Governor-General
and the Maharajah Goolaub Singh is to take place
at Wuzeerabad not, as origally intended, at
Lahore. The Noble Marquis was expected to
reach the latter city about the 26th ultimo. Ma-
jor Bartleman has been found guilty of all the
charges brought against him, and been cashiered ;
this is one of the first examples we have of an attempt
to seduce the affections of the wife of another being
looked on as a military offence. The Commander-in-
Chief properly declined attending to the recommen-
dation to mercy. To contrast with this, we have the
case in the Madras army of an officer convicted of
first having boasted that he had seduced an innocent
girl, a fellow-passenger to India, and then having
been compelled to confess that the imputation was a
sheer falsehood. He was allowed to resign to escape
a court-martial, and then again permitted to with-
draw his resignation ; and he is now doing duty with
his regiment, without any idea being entertained of
bringing him to justice
Ensign Hunter, of the 24th Bengal Native In-
fantry, has been dismissed the service for failing to
meet his liabilities, and fur gross prevarication on the
subject. Lieut. M'Dougal, of her Majesty's 28th,
was in 1846 convicted of an offence of like descrip-
tion, but infinitely more aggravated. He was sen
tented to dismissal, without any recommendation to
mercy, but returned to his regiment by Lord Gough.
The river steamer Nimrod mentioned in our last
as having been driven ashore on the coast of Kattia-
war, on the 26th of October, has been got off with
comparatively little injury, and has returned to
Bombay for repair. Commander Selby sailed a week
since in the brig Palinurus, with the view of continu-
ing the survey of the Malabar coast, a very small
portion of which has hitherto been examined by by-
drographers. Lieutenant Taylor is at present en-
gaged in a survey of the Gulf of Cutch ; this is
proposed to be carried round Kattiawar to Cambay,
and so southward by Surat to Bombay. The Gulf of
Cambay, which will be re-examined, was carefully
surveyed by Captain Ethersey fourteen years ago. A
defalcation to the extent of 12,0001. has just been
discovered on the part of ail officer of the North-
Western Bank of India. The Calcutta Legislative
Council have taken thirteen months to prepare an Act
to enable land to be obtained possession of, and yet
we are told that nothing can be more satisfactory
than our progress. It is satisfactory to those who
are paid by the time expended. Were they remu-
nerated by the work performed, it might be otherwise.
Bombay has of late been distinguished for the
number and atrocity of the murders that have been
been committed amongst us. At the July sessions, a
Portuguese was found guilty of stabbing with a knife
a young married woman in an advanced state of
pregnancy; she died of the wound, and the murderer
was hanged. At next criminal sessions of October 2d,
two men were tried and condemned for murder ; one
was hanged—the other was reprieved on the evening
preceding his intended execution. They had entered
the house of a kept mistress, by connivance of a fe-
male friend, tied up her head with a sarree, and se-
cured suffocation by sitting on her bosom. The
wretches seem to have been from ten to fifteen
minutes occupied in their murderous work, while the
woman who admitted them, lay, by her own ac-
count, bound on the floor. The robbery de-
sired to be perpetrated was then committed.
While the sessions were sitting, another murder,
equally cold-blooded and atrocious, occurred. A
poor old woman, an oil-seller, possessed some jewels ;
she was enticed into a dwelling-house, and, while
measuring out oil, was attacked by two Parsees and
strangled with a bucket-rope. These three last mur-
ders—all of women—occurred within a fortnight of
each other. We had now a little breathing- space—
amongst horrors such as these, the strangulation of an
infant by its mother is scarcely worthy of notice—
when, three weeks since, we find a Chinaman done to
death by two European sailors. We have next a horse-
keeper poisoned ; then four men butchered at Mahim in
a fit of fury by members of another religious sect ;
next a courtesan poisoned, three others narrowly
escaping a like fate, by a couple of men for the sake
of plunder—in all, in four months, nine human lives
cruelly destroyed by murderers, and nearly 40 indi-
vi,duals charged with murder, directly or as accom-
plices. The death of the Chinaman and slaughter at
Mahan were perpetrated in passion—the others were
cold-blooded atrocities, perpetrated by the most cruel
means, for the most paltry motives. While recent
acts of blood such as these are under investigation,
some further light is promised us on the slaughter of
the woman found a twelvemonth since cut piecemeal
and strewed in fragments around on the flats—so that
in reality for months on end scarcely a week has
passed where some matter connected with a murder
case has not been under investigation at the police-
office.

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
(From the Bombay Times.)
BOMBAY, MONDAY EVENING, DEC. 2, 1850.
The money market gets gradually tighter, but rates
of interest are the same as when we last wrote. Secu-
rities have fallen very considerably, especially those of
Government, and at the following quotations there is
difficulty in effecting sales:—Transfer Loan, 112; Sieca
Fives, 103; Company's Fives, 98; Sieca Fours, 85;
Company's Fours, 82. The following ars the quota-
tions for shares—Bank of Bombay, 19 premiam; Oriental
B .nk, 17 discount; Commercial Bank, 11 discount; Agra
Bark, 1 a discount. But at these rates very little bmi-
ness nould be dos::`. In tact, the orprchenrled sesrcity of
money induces more sellers than bujers.
Cotton Piece Goods—During the past fortnight a fair
amount of business has been done in nearly all descrip-
tions of piece goods—holders submitting to a further
slight decline in prices to enable them to take advantage
of the extretnely favourable rate of exchange now and
for a month back ruling in Bombay. Dealers aro also
ttking advantage of this state otulatters, by holding
back from purchasing unless on their own terms; so that
though large sales have had e ffcct, they have been so at
rather unfavourable rates for importers.
Grey Goods—Madapollams of low makes are in some
demand, while those of the better descriptions are ne-
glected. The sales amount to 22,172 pieces, at 2r. 2a.
6p. to 3r. 6i. per piece. Shirtings have sold to an ex-
tent of 26,100 pieces, at 3ir. to 6r. 10a. per piece. The
qualities above 60 reed are most in demand, whilst those
below that number have declined as much As 2a, a piece.