The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-09 00:00:00

SPAIN AND MORO! CO.

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
CA NIP IN FRONT OF CEUTA, I)Ec. 26.
Christmas Eve, !oche Buena, is a great festiial

n Spain, and is kept much as Christmas Day is

with us in England. Here the usual custom was

not departed from. A double ration of wine ant a

amall gratuity sufficed to put the Spanish soldier
in great good humour, and there was much sound
of mirth and jollity in camp during the evening.

Whether or not these sounds reached the ears of

the Moors, or whether the renegades dc cPived them,
and told them that on the following morning the
Spaniards would be sleeping off a debauch, and less

able than usual to defend themselves, I cannot say,

but soon after 7 on Christmas morning our friends

of the dark countenance and dirty white garments
showed upon our extreme left, descending upon the
beach, making use of our new r )ads, and apparently
aiming at enveloping Ros de Olano's camp. At the
same time they advanced towards his right, their
line assuming their favourite crescent form, and
came up to a very moderate distance from the
Alphonzo redot:ht (on the left of all), so called after
the Prince of Asturias. There ensued a very smart

Little fight, in which the enemy received a sharp
lesson. I perceive, by papers which might be sup-
posed_ better informed, that the Moors have been

giving out fantastical histories of their victories over
the Spaniards, of their having taken redoubts, which
they might have held had they thought it worth

. -
while, and in which they would have captured guns

if the Christians had not been so prudent as to
remove them beforehand. These are mere fables,

and it requires but one visit to our lint, of redoubts
and a very short acquaintance with the Moorish style
of manceuvring to feel certain that they are so. But
the agents of the Emperor of Morocco will hardly
have the audacity to represent the affair of the 25th

of December as a victory. The enemy was vigorously
received and promptly checked. From the redoubts
the artillery made good practice and punished him

severely. On the left the infantry were chiefly en-
gaged. The Moors had advanced in a reckless, im-
prudent manner, apparently thinking only of out-
flanking the Spanish position, and not considering
that they might themselves be cut off, or at least
brought within bayonet reach: The consequencd
was that they suffered not a little, and had to retire
with such precipitation that they left upwards of
40 dead bodies behind them, contra. y to their usual
custom. When the Spaniards advanced without
tiring, to charge them with the bayonet, they did
not ~,tand for an instant. In this manner a com-
pany of the Regiment of Zamora drove a lot of them
out of a position they had occupied, the Moors
being in such haste to decamp, and having such
very long legs, that only two or three were caught.
It seems nearly impossible to make them prisoners.
In one encounter (most of these little actions are
made up of a number of small fights between a few

companies of Spaniards, and detached bodies of the
Moors, who seem to have no idea of attacking in
battalion or otherwise than irregularly), in which
a number of Moors were killed, one of them was
surrounded by four Cazadores, who came down upon
him with fixed bayonets, shouting and signing to
him not to fire, and that they would give him quar-
ter. The Moor took no heed of their overtures,
levelled his long gun, and shot one of them, where-
upon ho was, of course, put to death by the others.
The enemy had been driven back and seemed dis-
couraged, but still showed in considerable force at
some distance in front of our lines, when a battery

of long rifled 4-pounders opened upon them from
the Alphonso redoubt. There was a wood which
they evidently thought out of range, and in which a
large number of them had assembled and remained
spectators of the little skirmishing that was still
going on. The first shot pitched beyond them, and
produced an instant commotion and a tendency to
move to the rear, and two or three more, which just
got their range, sent them rapidly to the right about.
The slopes and hills in their rear were dotted with
them, making off in all htste and looking, in the dis-

tance and in their whitey-brown baicks, like so
many frightened. sheep. Before 2 o'clock they had
all disappeared, and no more shots were heard.
The Spanish loss was six killed aid 31 wounded.
some compauics went out to see if they could
find any wounded Moors, but discovered none but
dead. The bodies of a number who had been
killed in the ravines near the sea were burnt

Lere.

The general opinion in camp is that the
Moors aro getting cowed at finding themselves
invariably repulsed with heavy loss and without
gaining an inch of ground. They had been ac-
customed to harass Ceuta and to skirmish with the
handful of men which the garrison could send out
against them, until they came to form a most con-
temptuous idea of the value of ;Spanish soldiers.

Against the force now opposed to them they find
they can do nothing, and the artillery, especially,
seems to be an arm of great terror to them. Mean-
while the Spanish recruits are getting practice, and
are learning to think little of the enemy who had
been represented to them as formidable, and whose
appearance to young soldiers must unquestionably
be so. The Moors are generally tall powerful men,
of ferocious aspect and great agility, and their mode
of coming on, like so many howling savages, is not
calculated to encourage and give confidence to lads
who for the first time find themselves in action.
Most of those whose dead bodies we have seen were
men of mature age, seemingly 40 years old, or even
more, although, perhaps, we take them to be older
than they aro. They are horribly dirty, and few of
them have anything on but their haick. Among
the things brought in yesterday, besides arms, were
some leathern pouches, with a strap to sling over
one shoulder, the pouch falling under the opposite
arm. In these they keep their powder loose. Load-
ing must be a long process with them, and if all
their guns are of the same kind as those I have
seen, with flint locks of an antiquity of construc-
tion that entitles them to a place in a museum of
old arms, they must speecily become unserviceable
in wet weather.
We had some squalls of rain during the skirmish
yesterday, and at nightfall these were changed for
a driving torrent, while a violent gale sent against
the tents with such force that they were speedily
wet through. It was a very " dirty" night indeed ;
there was scarcely a tent in camp through which
the water did not make its way in greater or less
quantities. In short, it was a repetition of the pre-
vious Sunday, the 18th, and rather worse than bet-
ter. Even for those who were so lucky as to have
a dry couch (and those were very few) it was
scarcely possible to sleep, owing to :the roaring of

Major-Gcn. Echague, who commands the Ist
corps, which was the first to land in Afri.,!q. pn&
who was wounded in the sharp action of Nov. 25th,
before the remainder of the army came oves, has
been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-genefal.

The Spanish Caccia .211ilitar states the number of
men who have volunteered from various regiments
to join the arm fft Africa to be upwards of 6,000.

The rain has tecoannencecl as heavily as before,
and there is every appearance of its lasting all clay,

- -
THE BLACK DOCTOR.

M. Vries, who has attained a certain degree of
notoriety under the above name, appeared yesterday
before the Tribunal of Correctional Police to at.-

swer the charges of illegally practising medicine
and pharmacy, and of swindling. The accused.
stated his age to be 65, his profession that of a phy-
sician, and his birthplace Surinam. In reply to
questions of the President, he stated that it was in
1834 that he had left his country, and that he had
. .

visited Holland, America, and England, to intro-
duce foreign medicines. It was true that in Eng-
land he had endeavoured to set up a new religion,
had preached against the idolatry of Rome, and had
proclaimed that he feared neither the poignards of
the Jesuits nor the thunders of the Vatican ; but

that affair was now ended, and he occupied himself
no more with it. At Lon lon, his system of medi-
cine had not succeeded, because there, as at Paris,
he had been unr, irk treated. He lost an "enor-
mous sum" at Lon.don. "You came to Paris in

1853," said the Presi,:ent. " What did you come
for ?" "To int reduce foreign medicine, and
to propose means of replacing steam in loco
motivea." " You are, then, a universal genius ?"
"Erery
.physician is a chymist," "You are a phy-
sician, chemist, and religious reformer; hare you
not also discovered perpetual iru ?" " Per-
petual motion does not exist, Sir." "I know that
very well, but you gave out that you had dis-
covered it. In fact, you represent yourself as a
wonderful genius in all things." The accused
then went. on to say that he had been put into the
Debtors' P: ison in the Rue de Cliche for non-pay-
ment of 500 francs, and that be had lived
there in comfortable style. Ina prospectus he had
convoked all tire architects of all nations to send in
plans for a temple of Solomon, to be erected in the
Champs Elysces, and had promised ft prize of
2,500 f. for the best. One plan had been sent to
him, and he had suspended it in his dining room ;
but it was not a good one, and he had not paid'the
money. " You did all that," said the President, " in
order to attract public attention ; and to obtain
that object all means appeared good to you. Thus
you took the name of the Black Doctor, though you
are not what may be called black; and you wrote
to the President of the Academy of Medicine a
letter, in which you undertook to cure persons
afflicted with cancer, dysentry, and dropsy. Pray,
who made you a physician ?" "I, myself, sir,"
answered the accused. "But you represented that
you were a physician of the university of Leyden ?"
" Ilippocra.tes had no diploma; and if the Lord
himself were to ret urn to earth to cure men. the
Faculty of Medicine would prosecute him!" "When
you had obtained a certain degree of notoriety, did
you not obtain permission to exercise your system
of curing cancer in the Hopital St. Louis ?" "Yes ;
but when Dr. Bazin, of that hospital, saw that I
was likely to succeed, he xouid not let me continue."
" We now arrive at an eventful period of your career.
In 1858 you pretended that you cured M. Sax of
cancer ?" "I believe that I did cure him." "In
oonsequence of the notoriety which you gained
medical men deemed it right to ascertain
whether or not you really had the means of curing
cancer, and Dr. Velpeau introduced you to the
Hopital de la Charite ?" "Yes ; and if I had been
allowed to continue my system I should have ef-
fected cures." " Sce'enteen persons afflicted with
cancer were there placed in your hands, and 'on
undertook to cure them in six months; but at the
end of two months seven were dead ? ' "loot one!"
" Dr. Velpeau and Dr. Fauvel affirm the contrary..
The former analysed 'your remedies, and found in.
thtm nothing peculiar—nothing that is not to be
obtained everywhere. But as to your patients—
they are at this moment all dead, except two, and
those two are dying !" "At the end of two months
none were dead, and since then it is not I who
have attended them !" "On the demand of Dr.
Velpeau you were excluded from the hospital, and
you then caused puffs on your skill to be inserted in
the newspapers, and had your portrait published.
Did not this publicity bring you in money ?"
" Your bad faith is evident," said the public prose-
cutor, "as a year ago the law authorities warned
you that you could not practise without a diploma,
but you took no notice." "You always told the
people who eo.isulted you," said tLe President,
" that you were certain to effect a cure ?" " The
promise of a cure gives moral force to the patient."
"You always stipulated on being paid before you
commenced operations, and you did not always ad-
here to the bargains you made. Thus, a Spanish
lady came from her own country to consult you,
and you undertook to cure her for 10,000 f., of
which 3,000 f. were paid in advance. But after you
had got this latter sum you learnt that the lady
was rich, and you wrote to insist on having 40,000 f.
with 10,00011 down. She complied with your re-
quest, but she died!" "I demanded payment
from my patients according to their means." [The
President here mentioned several cases where the
patients died after the pretended cures of Dr.
Vries.) Witnesses were then called. Several de-
posed that Vries had professed to be able to cure
members of their families offected with cancer, but
that he had failed, in some cases the patients dying.
M. Redot said that after the accused had treated
his wife for some time, he (Redot) had asked him
whether he thought he could effect a cure. " Cer-
tainly !" said Vries, and yet at that very moment the
poor lady was dead ! His (M. Redot's).servant was
so exasperated at the man's presumptpn that she
had called him an ass aid a thief. In his case, how-
ever, defendant had restored the money which had
been paid. M. Sax was then called, and his pre-
sence excited much interest. lie said that he had
been afflicted with such a terrible cancer in the lip
that Dr. Iticord had not only told him that an
operation was necessary, but that it would most
likely end fatally, and had accordingly advised him
to put his worldly affairs in order. Nevertheless,
in eight days Vries had perfectly cured him, and
what was more, had taken 2,000 f. instead of 3,000 f.,
which had been promised. Several other witnesses
were then called, and among them was Dr. Fauvel,
who described what took place in the Hopital de la
Charite, and who declared that the defendant did
not even know what a cancer was ; also, the direc-
torof the School of Pharmacy and some apothe-
caries, who deposed that the substances which the
accused had pretendedwere remedies from unknown
plants, and to which he had given fantastic names,
were simply alum, sulphate of potass, opium, B.x.
The evidence for the prosecution having been closed,
numerous witnesses were called on behalf of the
accused, and they declared that he had cured them
of core ,elaints more or less grave; one of them, a
workwoman, who had been in the Hopital de la
Charite, even said that he had cured her of cancer.
At this stage of the proceedings the further hearing
of the case was adjourned for a week:—Cia/ignani's
Messenger.

An extensive failure has taken place at Melbourne,
that of a provision contractor named Graham, for £BO,OOO.
STAFF COLLEGE.—At an examination recently
held to supply vacancies in the senior class at the Staff
College, Captain the Hon. W. Fending, Coldstream GuaNds;
Captain Hartman, half-pay, formerly of the 15th 1111 V are ;
and Captain Norris Goddard, 2d battalion 17th. Iteg;.raent,
were successful. These officers will accordingly proceed
to join the senior class at Sandlittrst,—driny 2\ravy
Gazette.