The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-17 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

AN OFFICIAL LIQUIDATOR.—In Vice-Chancellor Stuart's
Court a motion has been made that Richard Davis, the
official liquidator of the Granine and Hardstone Working
Company, should be removed from his office, and ordered
to pay into court the sum of £772, and £2OO for interest.
The winding-up order was made three years ago, but nothing
it seemed had been done. The applicant was almost the
only creditor, and had acceded to the plant being sold for
wbioi ne complained the liquidator had not paid
into court, and he now required the liquidator to pay the
interest allowed by the Act, 10s. per week for every .£lOO.
The Vice-Chancellor directed an inquiry as to what was
due to the liquidator for costs and from him for interest,
and as to who was entitled to the fund in court, with
liberty to apply as to the applicant's costs.

COMMITTAL OF Two GENTLEMEN FOR CONTEMPT.--A
singular case has been brought under the notice of Vice-
Chancellor Malins. A clerk of Mr. Linklater's was sent
to Mr. Hutchinson, the assignee in bankruptcy of a Mr.
Cowart, to serve an order for an injunction to restrain an
action at-law. On the clerk going up stairs to
Mr. Hutchinson's room, he found Mr. Cowart
and several other persons with him, and was
told he must take the papers to Mr. Hutchinson's
solicitor. The clerk replied that personal service was
requisite, but was told that he should not leave the
room without the papers. The persons in the room
were very violent, and threatened to throw the clerk
out of the window. A clerk in the office below
hearing the noise ran out and called the police. When
they arrived, Messrs. Hutchinson and Cowart gave the
clerk in custody for a trespass, and the clerk invoked the
assistance of the police, telling them who ho was. The
policemen released him and he left, the papers being
thrown down in the confusion. The Vice-Chancellor
denounced the conduct of the defendants in the severest
terms, and said he hoped that an application would be
made to remove Mr. Hutchinson from his office of assignee
in bankruptcy, for which he was totally unfit. He com-
mitted both defendants to Whitocross-street prison for
contempt of court.

SUNDAY TRADING.—Four tradesmen have been charged,
at Marylebone Police-court, with infringing the Lord's
Day Observance Act of Charles 11., by Sunday trading.
Evidence having been given, Mr. Mansfield said that he
must convict under the Act, but fined each of the
defendants a penny, without costs.
THE AFFRAY AT ROCHDALE.—MichaeI Lardner has been
committed for trial by the magistrates, at Rochdale, for
wounding two men in the stabbing affray at that place on
Saturday night.

Admiral Rona is now able to leave his room, and a
speedy recovery may be confidently looked for.
➢lr. Cawley and Mr. Charley, the members for
Salford, addressed a meeting of their constituents last
night. A vote of confidence in the hon. gentlemen was
uassed.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. The vacant minor canonry
has been conferred by the Dean on the Rev. John Trout-
beck, M.A., Minor Canon and Precentor of Manchester
Cathedral.

The Rev. Sella Martin, the minister, late of
London, who claims to have a small portion of negro blood
in his veins, has won his suit in the United States for the
admission of his daughter to a white school.

A notice was posted on a Roman Catholic Chapel
at Carrick, county of Donegal, on Sunday, cautioning the
tenants against paying any increase of rent to the Messrs.
Musgrave, of Belfast, who lately purchased some property
upon which they were e:cpending large sums in improve-
ments.

A royal residence in Ireland, a national Parliament,
and no suspension of the constitution—these are the true
remedies for disaffection in Ireland, according to a reso-
lution unanimously adopted on Thursday by the Board of
Guardians of the North Dublin Union. The mover of the
resoluticn—a Protestant—suggested the abolition of the
office of Lord-Lieutenant, but this evoked dissent. A
copy of the resolution was ordered to be forwarded to his
Excellency.

DRUNKENNESS IN AMERICA.—An American jour-
nal has quite lately published the following figures as to
the statistics of drunkenness in the State of New York.
pton, founded some five The Asylum of Birghampton, ve years ago,
near the " Empire City," for the reception and treatment
of drunkards among the well-to-do classes, has during
that period had under its surveillance 8 magistrates, 39
Protestant clergymen, 40 merchants, 226 medical prac-
titioners (!), 510 gentlemen of no profession, and 1,387
ladies.

The Leeds stipendiary magistrate has had before
him a local brewer charged with selling beer off his pre-
mises without a license from the justices. The defendant
pleaded that an Act of George IV. allowed brewers to sell
their own beer on an Excise license. Mr. Bruce admitted
that this defence was good ; the Act of George IV. had not
been repealed in the Wine and Beerhouse Act of 1869.

We are threatened with an epidemic of falling gas-
ometers. One accident took place at Cambridge on Monday;
now another has happened at Gloucester. During tho gale
two chains LI oke attached to a gasometer containing 240,000
feet of gas. The gasometer began to fall ; and while it was
descending one of the large iron pulleys fell over and broke
a bolo in the crown. Very shortly the gas was all gone. The
Gas Company have issued an appeal to consumers praying
that they will be as economical as possible.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, at a
Church meeting just held at Newark on Trent, condemned
very strongly the Ritualistic tendencies of the present day.
He approved the growing feeling in the House of Commons
to avoid the discussion of religious questions. The Bishop
of Lincoln also stoke, and deprecated the interference of
tho Legislature in ecclesiastical affairs. As to Ritualism,
Dr. Wadworth said that of all destructive things the most
destructive was to obtrude any novelty on an unwilling con-
gregation.

The French treaty formed one of the subjects of
discussion at a special meeting, yesterday, of the Directors
of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. In January last
the board passed a resolution affirming that the treaty had
proved highly beneficial, but it was agreed to memoralise
the Government to make an effort to obtain reductions
of the very high duties imposed by the French tariff on cer-
tain English manufactures. At the meeting yesterday Mr.
Hugh Mason moved that the resolution adopted in
January should be confirmed; and tho motion fur.
thet committed the Chamber to an expression of opi-
nion that any inquiry into the working of the treaty
would " confirm the proof already given of its beneficial
operation,
and lead to a further extension of Free-trade
principles." Mr. Malcolm Ross seconded this proposition;
but an amendment was brought forward by Mr. Cheetham
and Mr. Platt, the member for Oldham, declaring that fur-
ther inquiry was unnecessary. The original resolution was
carried.

VANITAS VANITATUM.—If anything were needed
to show the dangerous temptations to which those who give
way to personal vanity arc exposed, it will be found in an
incident related by a Scotch newspaper. A farmer near
Kinglassie, in Fifeshire, was much annoyed last week to
find that his cows' tails had been shorn Of their hair. As
he was not conscious of having made an enemy, he was
at a loss to conceive who could have disfigured the
useful animals in this barbarous manner, until his
wife discovered on the dairy-maid's dressing-table,
a chignon manufacturel out of the hair of the cows' tails.
Further concealment being useless, the culprit confessed
that not only had she furnished herself with this adorn-
ment at the expense of the cows, but that she had sup-
plied a select number of her friends with materials from
the same source, for tae purpose of manufacturing head-
dresses of a similar nature, in anticipation of a social
reunion to tarn Aarul at the comMeneement of the' new