The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-22 00:00:00

A Heartless Impostor.

The Glasgow Herald says :—" A person calling
himself James Walters, an Englishman, professing
to be a travelling lace merchant, known in Glasgow
from having made occasional purchases of lace here,
and also in Aberdeen, found his way recently to a
town not a hundred miles from the latter city, and
took lodgings in the house of a respectable unmarried
female, where he remained for several weeks. He
employed his time to some purpose, for he succeeded
in effecting a lodgment in her heart as well as in
her house, and made a proposal of marriage,
which was accepted. He managed this by dint
of great plausibility, and by representations
which were, unfortunately, believed to be true.
Ile seems to have been an adept in attacking the
sensibilities of the female heart, for he, as it now
turns out, feigned illness for some time, so as to
become an object of sympathy and attention, know-
ing, doubtless, that "pity melts the heart to love."
Banns of marriage were duly proclaimed in the
parish church, and the confiding bride-to-be ad-
vanced to her successful wooer some £2O for
clothes and other articles preparatory to the mar-
riage. She was naturally anxious to be married
in her own house ; but a strange whim had ap-
parently taken possession of the now convalescent
bridegroom, for he expressed a strong wish to be
married by the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of the U.P.
Church, in this city, as that gentleman, accord-
ing to the statement of the veracious vendor
of lace, was a particular friend of his. It is hard
to shake a woman's confidence when once it is
fixed, and the lady did, what probably a good
many others similarly placed would have done—
she consented. Before leaving for Glasgow she
endorsed a deposit receipt for £2O, with the view
of cashing it in one of the local banks; but as it
happened to be a bank holiday, she put it in her
pocket-book, intending, if it were necessary, to get
it cashed in Glasgow. This was not unobserved by
Walters, who managed to possess himself of the
receipt before the train arrived in Glasgow by ab-
stracting it from her box. On leaving the railway
station the lady expressed her anxiety that they should
at once go to Dr. Taylor and have the ceremony
performed ; but this was not exactly the intention
of Mr. Walters. He stated that the rev. doctor
might he from home, and to save her the fatigue of
walking to his house to no purpose, it might be, he
would in the meantime go himself and make the
necessary arrangements if he were at home, and re-
turn to a refreshment-room to which he had taken
her, and where she was to await his return. The fel-
low never came back, but lefthis unsuspecting victim
penniless in a strange city to find her way back as
the best might. In her distress she applied to Mr.
Miller, of the Guardian Society, who took a state-
ment from her, and furnished her.with means to get
home. The deposit receipt has been traced and
payment stopped. Walters had gone to a re-

spectable whole,ale house in this city and bought
lace to the amount of some £l4, which he received
on handing over the deposit receipt, getting the
difference in cash. Of course the house referred to

had not the least suspicion of the way in which the
document had been obtained. Mr. Miller having
furnished the necessary information to the Pro-
curator-Fiscal, a warrant was immediately issued
for the apprehension of Walters, but as yet he has
not turned up. Walters is about 30 years of age,
and is believed to be a married man. He ought to

be well known in the eastern and northern counties,
as it is understood he called upon private families
with lace and articles of a similar description."

PETROLEUM AS FUEL.

Public attention in the United States has recently
been directed to generating steam by means of
petroleum. Colonel HENRY IL FOOTE, of Ten-
nessee, has patented a process by which this new
steam generator may be used for ships. A board
of three chief engineers, appointed by the United
States Navy Department, examined the patent and
reported favourably. The gunboat Palos was fitted
up, and after several trials in Boston harbour the
system was declared to be successful. The new
apparatus consists of a small iron box placed on the
grate bars, having burners. Beneath it are burners,
by which it is kept hot. The oil is carried to the
box by a small iron pipe and becomes gas as
it enters. Steam is then introduced through a
coil of iron pipe filled with filings placed over the
burners, and its gases enter the retort, into which air
is forced, and the whole forms a gas which supplies
a multitude of burners with a clear blue flame, fill-

ing the furnace, and extending through the flues
emitting an intense heat. There is no smoke, and
the fire is entirely at command, instantaneously in-
creased or decreased, or extinguished, by merely
turning a stopcock. Any man of ordinary intelli-
gence, after an hour's instruction, can superintend
the furnace. Any mechanic can repair the appara-
tus if broken. The labour saved in coalheavers, in
taking in fuel, in discharging ashes, and keeping the
fires going, though enormous, is but a portion of
the economy. The inventor believes, when his
apparatus is perfect, that one-tenth the weight or
bulk of the anthracite coal required. ill be sufficient
in this fuel. Ships can with ease carry enough
to steam round the world. Although of lesser
interest, SPENCE'S burner for adapting this fuel
to the locomotive is likely to prove of great utility.
It was lately tried on the Warren and Franklin
Railroad with the most encouraging success. The
apparatus consists of a pan covering the bottom of
a fire box in the locomotive and taking the place of
grates. On the pan are placed heaters or gas gene-
rators, six in number, consisting of inclined plates
of cast iron, supported at an angle of 45 degrees ;
opposite to each heater is an injector conveying the
oil to the heater, where it is instantaneously con-
verted into gases, oxygen being also furnished to
the gases iu their nascent state for combustion.
The oil is contained in a tank on the tender,
from which it is conveyed by feed pipes to the
injectors, each pair of injectors being con-
trolled by a throttle, by means of which the
fire is regulated as readily as the light of a lamp.
" After a whistle to clear the track," says the writer
in the Titus-ville Herald, " we backed down the road,
the velocity of speed gradually in greasing, and with
about 85 pounds of steam, running the distance of
four miles in less than eleven minutes, or at the
rate of twenty miles an hour ; the experiment ex-
ceeded all expectations, and has suggested such im-
provements to the parties, as will before long bring
petroleum into general use on all railroads, it being
estimated by a careful comparison that oil will be
a much cheaper fuel at sixteen dollars a barrel than
wood or coil, even in this region." There are few
subjects of more wide importance than these simple
experiments which have hitherto attracted so little
attention. The prodigious and increasing consump-
tion of coal has caused fears on the part of scientific
men lest the supply should be exhausted, and the bare
idea has raised a feeling of horror as to the fate of
coming generations. It is the undoubted duty of

those now living to economise the world's re-
sources for those who may come hereafter, and
perhaps no greater economy could be exercised
than in thus utilising petroleum. But a short time
ago, dismay reigned in the oil regions of Pennsyl-
vania. The oil was there in abundance, but the
question was, what to do with it. The price had
fallen so as scarcely to pay its working expenses.
Over a region which in the United States alone ex-
tends upwards of 62,000 square miles the springs are
found. In Kentucky, Ohio, and Western Virginia
the oil is in the carboniferous group, in Pennsylvania
in the Devonian. It has been discovered in over
300 localities beyond the oil districts of these States.
California, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan,
and lowa, all furnish petroleum. In the Oil Creek
Valley, Pennsylvania, there are 500 wells, yielding
a daily average of about 4,000 barrels. The total
exports of petroleum were in 1862 upwards of
10,000,000 gallons ; in 1863 more than 28,000,000 ;
in 1864 in excess of 31,000,000; in 1865, 42,000,000 ;
in 1866, 1,700,000 barrels; while the shipments for
the first six months of 1866 are exceeded by the
same period of 1867 by about 50,000 barrels. The
average price of refined oil during 1866 was from
40 to 45 cents per gallon ; and the average price for
the first six months of 1867 has been from 24 to 26
cents per gallon. Prices are now rising rapidly
after this heavy fall, and petroleum will cer-
tainly tend strongly upwards, if its value for
generating steam can be established. It is spread
over the world, obtained with great facility, and at
a small expenditure of labour. The United States
produce about 10,000 barrels daily, a quantity
which could be largely increased if the demand
arose. " BACON'S Handbook," to which we are
indebted for some of the above statistics, de-
scribing the ease with which fortunes have been
made in this oil, says Here somebody has
punched a hole in the ground, thrust in an iron
tube with a spout, erected enormous reservoirs,
and straightway up the tube, through the spout, and
into the tank, there flow $ll,OOO every day. Ho
does nothing ; he may go to Europe or to Halifax,
but the work goes on just the same." Emphatically,

this man has struck ile. If those whose work benefits
mankind deserve a fortune, it may soon be proved

that the strikers of oil are among the best of this
class. Tie petroleum from the wells of "West Vir-
ginia can be handled and stored as safely as coal.
Its gravity renders it non-explosive, which is the
objection to the light oils of Pennsylvania. Pre-
suming this fuel to be deprived of its dangerous
qualities, it requires little effort of the imagination
to understand the advantages that steamers will
derive from its use. It is not the expense of en-
gines that forces shipowners so generally to rely
on sails ; but the cost of fuel, which necessi-
tates the main part of the cargo to be stowed
away in the ship for her own propulsion.
Reduce this to one-tenth, and scarcely a large sail-
ing ship will ever afterwards be found on the high
seas. If sails are rendered almost useless, if the
heavy outlay for stokers be unnecessary, an im-
mense saving will be effected in the number of
hands necessary to work a ship. The power of war
vessels will be greatly increased, coaling stations
become useless, and vessels will glide along with no
black train of noxious smoke behind them, passing
from ocean to ocean, from continent to continent,
relieved from the uncertainty of the weather, and
lightened from their black burden of coal. These
are experiments better worth a nation's while to
test than the destructive force of projectiles or the
resisting power of Warrior targets—Anylo-American
Times.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

HIILL.-T UESDAY.

At our market to-day there was a small show of Eng-
lish and foreign wheat, and the demand was not active for
either. Spring corn of all descriptions was slow, but made
fully last week's prices.
English white wheat, 64s to 70s; red, 60s to 70s ; Dant-
sic and Konigsberg, 65s to 728 ; Baltic red, 62s to 67s ;
Danish and hamburg, 60s to 66s ; Russian, 57s to 595•
Barley, English, 408 to 425; grinding, Mediterranean,
31s to 35s 6d. Oats, new English, 26s to 28s; Russian,
26s to 278. Beans, old English, 58s to 60s; foreign, 43s
to 4 is. Peas, English blue, 42 <to 44s Od ; foreign white,
4.1 s to 455; grinding, 43s to 44s Od per qr.