The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-26 00:00:00

THAMES.

WESTATINSTEIL
1
VIOLENT ASSAULT IN A PRlSON.—:Margaret grape of t,,_.
wad charged with assaulting Mr 4. Charlotte IJowe, gate..

A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES.—SamueI Crosby, a
seaman, was brought before Mr. Paget, charged
with assaulting David Crutchley, a police-constable,
No. 188 K.

The complainant said that on Satnrday night
the prisoner met him in the Back-road, Shadwell,
and represented that he had lost his way, and
wanted to reach Green's Sailors' Home, in
Poplar. He directed hiim which way to go.
The prisoner said that he wished him to act as pilot
and convey him to the Home. He told the pri-
soner he could not leave his beat, and the prisoner
departed. Some time afterwards the prisoner re-
turned to him on another part of his beat, and
again demanded that he should conduct him to the
Sailors' Home. He again refused, and the prisoner
knocked off his helmet. He picked it up and took
the prisoner into custody.
Mr. Paget—You say this occurred on Saturday
night, why was not the prisoner brought before the
magistrate sitting here on Monday ?
Witness—This is Monday.
Mr. Paget—No, you are wrong.
Witness—Yesterday was Sunday.
Mr. Paget—No, you are wrong again.
Witness, throwing his arms up with a sudden
burst of recollection—l beg pardon, yesterday was
Christmas-day. On Christmas-eve the prisoner
accosted me.

The prisoner said he was on a voyage from Pic-
cadilly to Poplar, and found himself at the Horns,
Kennington. That was not his latitude or longi-
tude. He tacked about, and steered again for
Poplar. He found himself in Shadwell, and spoke
to the police constable, who was drunk, and he
could tell him the exact position in which he stood.
The prisoner then went into a long harangue, which
the magistrate patiently heard, and then sentenced
the prisoner to seven days' imprisonment.
TERRIFIC GAS EXPLOSION.—Last night, about
10 o'clock, there was a tremendous explosion of gas
in the dwelling-house of Mr. Samuel French, No.
46, Exmouth-street, late Holmes-street, Stepney.
There was an escape of gas in the back parlour,
and Mr. French, instead of carefully open-
ing all the doors and windows, went into
the apartment with a lighted candle. A loud
report followed, the front door was blown
off the hinges into the street, nearly every pane of
glass in the window smashed, a panel of the shutter
covering the front window shattered, and the
back of the house blown out. Mr. French,
who is upwards of GO years of age, was
seriously injured by the explosion, and
his face and head were scorched. Great fears are
entertained that the calamity will prove fatal. He
is a most respectable and worthy man, and has been
in the service of Gusler and Co., the wine mer-
chants in Fenchurah-street, for 35 years.

BILLIARDS AND CIIESS.—It is somewhat humili-
ating to reflect that eminence cannot be attained, even in
the art of knocking about three ivory balls with a stick,
without the devotion of a lifetime. It is the more humi-
liating when we consider that in the prosecution of this
art not the slightest mental of urt is required. Neither
chess nor whist can be played, even moderately well, by
an arrant fool ; but a billiard-table will be found in every
well-conducted lunatic asylum iu the kingdom. Billiards
require a well-strung and well-disciplined condition of
body, so that between hand and eye the most perfect
sympathy may exist. Chess is a contest of brains ; bil-
liards, of steady nerves and correct eyesight. Chess is a
great mental, billiards a great manual, effort.—Saturday
Review.

RARE CAITHNESS BIRDS.—The John O'Groat
Journal describes a unique collection of Caithness birds to
be seen at present in the office of that paper. The speci-
mens are ten in number, forming eight species (there
being a male and female of two of the species), and belong
altogether to the insectivorous order of birds. First in
interest aro a pair of pied flycatchers, migrants from
African to British shores, and so rare even in
the more congenial climate of England, that the Rev.
F. 0. Morris says concerning them—" Like the majority
of ornithologists, I have never seen this species alive."
There is also a specimen of the spotted flycatcher, a
female, which was shot in a garden in Wick, on the 15th
of May last. Only a few specimens of the cole tit (Parses
ater) have as yet occurred in the county, and the indi-
vidual here shown is the first recorded example. A pair of
common redstarts, male and female, aro here shown ; but
the former has not acquired the full adult plumage, the
colours being less brilliant than those exhibited by_ the
adult male in his nuptial dress. There is a fine example
of that curious little bird, the tree creeper, and another of
the whinchat, a bird closely allied to the wheatear, a nu-
merous and well-known Caithness species. An extremely
rare bird in these northern parts is the tree pipitt shown
here, whose song is described as possessing considerable
"compass, variety, and sweetness." Last, but not the least
lively and graceful, is a specimen of the willow warbler,
one of a family of birds but little known iu this, for the
most part, treeless county.
THE POACHER.—We may picture him to our-
selves, if we like, lurking in sequestered den—half cave,
half cottage—built into the hillside, and protected by a
spreading oak, and there will be no one to disturb our
vision. We may imagine him a good sportman, a self-taught
naturalist, sober, and, in his own eyes at leas', honest and
industrious. Last, but not least, let him stand 6 feet high,
be a model of strength and activity, with a frank, bold
countenance, a merry blue eye, extremely white teeth, and a
smile that would subdue a duchess. Our fancy may paint
him as we like, and nobody, we repeat, can contradict us.
T hat is a poacher of the golden age, before modern preserves,
modern battues, or percussion caps weere invented. But
as we do not believe in the "starving peasant" theory of
poaching, still less do we believe in that romantic and pic-
turesque ideal which modern novelists do still oecaiioualTy
present to us. The poacher of the old school, if Ito over
existed, with his Allan-a-Dale swagger and Robin Hood-
like generosity, is as extinct as Dick Turpin. To him has
succeeded.the poacher of tthe iron age; member of a ruf-
fianly gang, whose business is to fill the dealers' shops in
town and country, and to get drunk on the proceeds. These
gangs vary in number and daring, from the to -sawyers of
Loudon down to the provincial art:sts,who are shoemakers
or ratcatchers by day, and poachers only by might. The
cream of the profession, we fancy, sully not their hacds
by any meaner occupation, not at least during the days of
their glory—" in the season of the year." These men,
making some large town or village in a good game cowl-
' try, or perhaps London itself, their headquarters, carry
on operations in a systematic and wholesale fashion.
They have their spies and underlings in the neighbour-
hood of all the larg.: preserves, from whom they receive
:I-curate information as to the quantity of game, the
likeliest covers, the movements of the keepers and the
character of the local police. In fact, their precautions
and their organisation are exactly the same as those
'v regular gang of housebreakers.—Cornbill Ma-