The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-10 00:00:00

STRAND THEATRE.

ATEStE NEWS.

Miss Swanborough produced last evening for the
;first time a new and original comedietta, by Mr.
J. P. Wooler, entitled " Sisterly Service." The
piece, which is a mere trifle in one act, derives its`
title from a sister doing a service to a brother, who
is an officer in the Musqueteers, by keeping guard
for, him in the palace of the Dauphin ; and no little
Merriment is occasioned by the contretemps which
ensue in consequence of the false position in which
the lady has placed herself. Mr. James Bland,
Mr. W. H. Swanborough, Mr. Parselle, Mr. W.
Mowbray, Miss Maria Simpson, and Miss E. Turtle
sustained their respective parts in a manner which
left a gratifying impression on the audience. It is
but due to the manageress to say that she does
wonders with a very small stage, there being some-
thing surprising in the getting up, mechanically
and artistically, of a gorgeous set scene, represent-
ing a corridor in the palace of the Dauphin. The
dresses were also rich and costly. The piece went
off satisfactorily, and is likely to keep its position
for some short and convenient period.

The following telegrams have been received at
Mr. Reuter's office :

PARIS, FRIDAY.

The Constitutionnel, in an article signed by M.
Giandguillot, declares that the signs announced
from all parts of France concerning the deplorable
effects which had been produced by the letter of the
Bishop of Orleans (Monseigneur Dupanloup), which
the Siecle insists should be brought beforetho tri-
bunal, imposes on it the duty of not aggravating
the existing excitement by such a polemic, and
therefore M. Grandguillot says he does not intend
publishing the said letter in his principal edition
for Paris.

PARIS, FEB. 10.

/7. The Moniteur of to-day publishes the usual
'monthly return of the Bank of France, which show
the following results as compared with the previous
return :

INCREASE.

Cash in hand

Current accounts 7 „
DECREASE
Bills discounted not yet
due

Advances

Bank notes
ft
Treasury balance 29 ff
The ifoniteur does not publish the treaty of com.
merce with England.

TUAIN, FEB. 9.
Count Arese left last night fotj Paris, charged
with an official mission.
The MarqUis d'Azeglio will go to Milan next
Saturday.

COPENHAGEN, FEB. 9.
The two Presidents of the Diet have been sum-
moned by the King.
The present Ministry is provisonally carrying on
public business, M. Blixen being President of the
Council; M. Westenholz, Minister for Holstein
and M. Gessen for Justice. The Faderlandet,
announces that M. Madwig has been summoned by
the King.

FRANCE.
The Paris correspondent of the Times' Second
Edition, says :—" A circular will soon be issued by
the new Minister for Foreign Affairs to the French

diplomatic agents abroad, and which may be consi

dered as in some sort the programme of the Impe•
rial Government on its foreign policy. It will, I
hear, be couched in a sense eminently pacific and
friendly to all, and may probably be a paraphrase
of the celebrated Bordeaux speech. Alluding to
M. Thouvenel, I may add that the members of the
diplomatic body speak in very high terms of his
punctuality, his courteous bearing, and especially
of his business habits. The foreign Ministers
were formerly received but once a week, and, fro m
whatever cause, the practice was most incon-
venient. They came at the same time, and lost
nearly the whole •of the day waiting for their
turn. Napoleon I. certainly had at one time a
parterre of kings in his theatre when Talma played;
M. Walewski,. in like manner,' could indulge in the
luxury of an ante-ehaimber full of their representa-
tives waiting to catch a glimpse of him. It appears
that, according to the present arrangement, foreign
diplomatists have . intervie' s four times a week
with the Minister, to their great convenience, and
to the more satisfactory despatch of business.
It is reported that the orders for. the French army
to be ready to march at a moment's notice, as men-
tioned two or three days ago, have been counter-
manded—at least so • say the people at the War-
office. . .

No doubt the pressure exercised on. Savoy to'
squeeze her into " voluntary annexation" looks
rather a strange proceeding after the highflown •sen-
timents of the magnanimity and disinterestedness
of France in doing bath merely for the glory of
liberating Italy from her oppressor. If this expro-
priation take effect, we will never again believe in
wars for "an idea." It is true that the Powers of
Europc disapprove the act; but the opposition will
most probably be confined to words, and .the. re-
sistance of Savoy be passive. Verbal opposition, or
mere censure, will, I fear,. have little effect, if, as is.
pretty certain, there is •a. fixed determination to
annex Savoy—wit, of course, for the sake of the ter-
ritory, but to perpetuate the , peculiar " idea" in
question ; and, 'against such a determination of
what avail is disapprobation :or blame ? • '
There was once a cabman, cocker defiaere, brought
up to the Police Court in Paris, to answer a charge
of " annexing" a small article or two, which had
been forgotten by a fare, and were too tempting to
be resisted. The charge of " annexation" was,
however, not sufficiently proved to. justify the ma-
gistrate imposing the penalty prescribed for such
offences in the Code Penal, though' the man's con-
duct was very suspicious. He* was informed that
he had a narrow escape, but that he could not be
allowed to retire without the Court formally blaming
him. "Blaming me !" cried the metier. " What
does that mean ? Will it prevent me,' Monsieur le
President, from continuing to drive my cab ?"
" No, it is only meant to touch your moral sense."
Eh bien !" was the reply. " I don't care a straw
for your Maine or your moral sense." He left the
court with a laugh, went back to his stand, and
very probably went on with his ;."-annexations,"
though carefully enough to save him from any worse
penalty than "blame."
'The' Three per Cents, closed to-day at 67f. 75c.
for the end of the month, and the Four-and-a-Half
per Cents. at 97f. 40c. ; Orleans Railway Shares,
1,355 f. ; Great Northern, 907 f. 56c. ; Strasburg,
637 f. 50c. ; Paris to Lyons and the Mediterra-
nean, 877 f. 50c.,; Western of France, 577 f. 50c. ;
Bordeaux and Cette, 492 f. 50c. ; Lyons and
Geneva, 492 f. 509. ; Bank of 'Credit Mobilier,
742 f. 50c. ; Austrian Railways, 495 f. ; Roman
Railways, 355 f.
Exchange on London, at sight, paper, 25f. lOc. ;'money,
25f. 9c.; three months, paper, 241. 871 c. ; money, 24f. 85c.

TILE iNcodita-TAX.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—There are thousands of people who at
this time are paying no less than three Income.
taxes. Thus—

Ist. Their own tax, as assessed upon them.
2d. The tax as assessed upon some poor relation
or employee who cannot pay it himself.
3d. The self-imposed tax upon their income, in
the shape of contributions of money or service, or
both, to the rifle organisation.
Now, Mr. Editor, it is high time, as I glean from
the excitement on the subject in all social quarters
that I frequent, that the two former of these lia-
bilities should cease, and be allowed to expire,
without Any chanee of resuscitation: I, myself,
have, for years past, paid my own Income-tax, and
also that assessed upon a poor clerk, at L 2 2s.
a-week, who never could pay it himself.
I am, Mr. Editor,

ANTI-INCOME-TAX.

Feb. 7, 1860.

DEPARTURE OF THE COURT FROM WINDSOR.-
To-morrow (Saturday), at half-past three o'clock, her Ma •
jesty and the Prince Consort, with the junior members of
the royal family, and suite, will take their departure from
Windsor Castle and proceed to 13uckingharn Palace. The
royal party will travel to Paddington by special train on
• tie Great Western Railway. The membersof the Windsor
Volunteer Rifle Corps, who hare been honoured with royal
commands, will form the guard of honour, under the com-
mand of their captain, the Honourable Leslie Hoare Ruth •
Nen. They are to present arms on Castle-hill as her Ma-
jesty passes through the town to the Station in George-
street, where another guard of honour of the Grenadier
Guards will be on duty. The Court will not return to
Windsor before the Easter holidays,

Viscount Cranbourne and Lord Eustace Cecil
arrived at Ake Pavilion Hotel; Folkestone, on Wednesday
last.

SUN,r,MONDON, FRIDAY EVNING, FEBRUARY 10, -1860. 1:

LITERATURE'.

Travellers' Tales Re-told. By Theta. Thompson
and Co., 111, Strand.
This is a very pleasant little volume of tales and
sketches, reprinted from the various magazines and
serials in which they originally appeared. They
are simple and unpretending in their style and
subject; but the general reader will probably find
more entertainment in their pages than in more
ambitious works. Many of them are humorous in
their character, such as the one entitled " Fiction
in Fact and Romance in Reality," where a ro-
mantic author cannot find a suitable mode of killing
his heroine ; others are melodramatic, such as " The
Autobiography of an Unrecognised Genius," which
shows 'forcibly the evils of desultory habits and
want of definite application. The lovers of tragic
and exciting narratives will be enthralled by the
story called "A Life Chase," is which the unfortu-
nate hero is left alone, with a madman, who an-
nounces his intention of cutting his throat. The
sketches are lively and amusing. The paper en-
titled " Why do young men marry ?" should serve
as a warning to all who rashly take the chains of
matrimony upon them. The sketch of " Social
Converse" has a good deal of truth mixed with its
pleasant satire. The author draws an amusing
picture of an English railway carriage, full of tra-
vellers, with "such a curious combination of gra-
vity, dignity, and suspicion overspreadipg every
countenance that you would imagine you had
stumbled upon a grand jury, or rather a bench of
judges assembled to hear some very important case
argued." He proceeds to give the following valu-
able advice :
"If any adventurous Wight design to inveigle his fellow-
travellers into a little pleasant intercourse during their
ride, let him be advised to give no quarter, but to com-
mence the attack at once on entering the carriage.
We have heard the very profound and original, not to
say exciting remark, that the train was two minutes and
a quarter behind time in starting, give rise to quite an
interestingly-animated conversation. But let the critical
moment pass, and it is to the last degree improbable that
there will be a nice opening for a young man again during
that journey. Every minute the coolness chills, soon it ar-
rives at the freezing-point, and how many degrees below
zero it reaches by the time of separation we possess no means
of ascertaining. Indeed, if silence has been preserved lentil
the first station be reached, he must be a courageous mortal
who would then attempt to break it. Such an attempt
would seem to argue a presumptuous confidence in one's
own power of pleasing or of communicating information,
that would naturally arouse the opposition of every right-
minded Englishman. And then, what can be said at such
a stage of the proceedings which shall not wear the appear-
ance of having been studied ? And how can the mostsimple
observation be at all appropriate ? Should any singularly
magnanimous person on the first starting hazard the state-
ment that the weather is very fine or wet, as the case may
be (though, by the way. let us advise our readers under such
circumstances, always to omit the intensive adverb, and to say,
' The weather is fine, sir, or madam,' which omission gives the
person to whom your remark is addressed the opportunity of
carrying out your idea, and of not only acquiescing, but of
avoiding a servile agreement with you by adding `very'),
this remark will appear quite natural and disinterested, if
made just as you are elbowing yourself into your seat; but
how strange, how uncalled -for, how almost absurd, would
it appear after you have sat staring through the window
for a quarter of an hour to make such a reflection on the
weather Of course it would sound as though you had
just made the discovery, or had suddenly waked up out of a
nap, or had some special end in view or interested motive in
saying so. And, in fact, whatever idea you might venture
to propound to interrupt a silence of fifteen minutes' con-
tinuance, would necessarily have such an air of sudden in-
spiration as would render the utterer of it an object of
unpleasant observation for some considerable period. Be-
sides this, to whom are you to address yourself? There
seems to be something almost invidious in singling out any
individual in particular to be the butt of your wit, malice,
or kindness, as it might be variously considered ; while,
should you address yourself to your audience generally, it
is more than probable the prevailing opinion will be, that
you are thinking aloud, or talking to yourself."
In another amusing sketch on the." Vagaries of
Invention," we meet the following passage
:
"Indispensable superfluities 1 'Who cannot, on a second's
reflection, from within the narrow range of inventions fall-
ing under his own observation, select half a dozen examples
of these unneeded necessaries of life ; prisoner-taken Tartars
which will not let you take them off, nor will suffer you to
go without them ; tormenting comforters, wasteful save-
ells, miserably delusive specimens of tremendous ingenuity
tremendously misapplied Turn your eyes from fantastic,
cumbrous, and unsuccessful chimney-pots and cowls above,
to angular, triangular, quadrangular, but never right-
angular blocks of wood forming the pavement on which
unfortunate cab-horses plunge and slide to and fro, below I
and how many such witty intentions meet your view.
" Take up the advertising pages of a newspaper, and you
discover that you have lived for half an age ignorant of the
very existence of hundreds of articles, duly patented and
registered, which it was next to impossible you should live
without. Don't you feel prodigiously thankful to a kind
Providence for preserving you unharmed, and unarmed too,
in the midst of dangers against which you should have de-
fended yourself ? A semi-petrifyingsensation of fear should
pervade the man who believes the announcements to which
we have alluded. It is quite clear that nothing but John
Smith's Dentifrice, or a miracle, can preserve the teeth in
the case of the adult human animal. You have not used
that article, indispensable to the toilet of health and com-
fort, yet your teeth—incisores, eanini, molares—have most
perversely, and in bold defiance of the laws of nature as
enunciated by J. Smith, kept their places in your gums ;
Ergo—You are the subject of a miracle. Your poor in-
fant, too, has had a narrow escape from a premature
grave. You knew not of the health-preserving robe, or, in
your unwarrantable confidence in Nature and her qualified
and authorised ministers, you neglected to administer the
life• sustaining syrup ; you treated with reckless contempt
the pretensions of Jones's Infantine Elixir Vitae, and
Williams's Quadruply-distilled Essence : and your infant
still lives :"

Thom's Almanac and Official Directory for the
year, 1860. Thom and Sons, Dublin. Longman
and Co., London.
This useful publication has reached its seven-
teenth annual volume, and maintains its character
for general utility and careful compilation. The
editor remarks in his preface, that when first pub-
lished, in the year 1844, the Directory related
almost exclusively to Ireland, but encouraged by its
increasing circulation, and by the information ar_
assistance readily afforded him, he has endeavoured
to extend its sphere of action. It has a general
character, possessing some distinct directories refer-
ring to other portions of the United Kingdom and
to our colonial possessions. Among these more
general branches we find a Civil Service Directory
for the United Kingdom ; a Navy, Army, Militia. and
Volunteer Directory, giving full information on
these very important topics ; and an enlarged Colo-
nial Directory, giving lists of Government officers
and local authorities in our foreign and colonial
possessions, corrected by the colonial authorities.
The President of the American Republic and the
Ministry of the United States are also included.
One of the most remarkable featureg of the work is
the collection of statistics of the United Kingdom,
especially. of Ireland. The compiler states that he
has been induced to give a prominent place to this
division of the work, thinking that it would be
valuable not only as a record of commercial transac-
tions, but as a means of testing the social condition
and progress of Ireland, as exemplified by the com-
parison of the yearly statistics. The wide range of
information which the work offers to our notice,
and the care and labour which have been expended
in its compilation, merit the continuance of the
encouragement and support it has hitherto received
so deservedly from the public.

Ernest and Charlie, or Play and Work. A Story
of Hazlehurst School. By M. Betham Edward.,
Author of "The White House by the Sea."
Edinbargh : Edmonston and Douglas.
In nothing is the improvement of literature more
manifested than in the great increase of admirable
little works written for the especial benefit of the
young. They are highly to be prized on many
accounts, as they afford es easy mode of im-
pressing on these dawning minds the most striking
examples and the most important truths, The pre-
sent little book will be found an exoellent addition
to the juvenile stores, and many children may de-
rive profit, while they glean alcusement, from its
animated pages. The character of Charlie is very
well described ; he is none of thoso models of per-
fection which exist only in imagination, neither is
he shown to us as altogether bad, but he is a fair spe-
cimen of a good disposition, marred by many grave
faults which lead him into the commission of most
dangerous actions ; at the same time there is talent
and worth in his nature, which finally triumph over
the evil tendencies. Ernest is of a totally different
character, full of those gentle and attractive qua-
lities with which a beneficent Providence so often
endows those afflicted with a grievous deprivation.
Ernest was blind—he was of a poor family, but his
many drawbacks were in some degree compensated
for by his wonderful gift for music; He bad come
to London to endeavour to make his fortune by the
exhibition of his precocious talent, and he was intro-
duced at Charlie's school. Practical lessons always
make the most impression on the young, and the
sight of this blind boy, alone, in a foreign land,
about to struggle to support himself among stran-
gers, powerfully affected the generous nature and
warm heart of Chailie Steward. There are many
little scenes in this book; that are very amusing,
and that are most likely to gain the attention of
young readers, to whom it may be presented by
their friends in the confident hope that its perusal
will be attended with present pleasure and future
profit.