The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-24 00:00:00

DREADFUL EXPLOSION AND PROBABLE Loss OF
FIVE LIVES.—This (Wednesday) morning an ex-
plosion of a serious character took pla.::e on the premises of
Mr. Laidlaw, china firework manufacturer, Shirwell's-yard,
Mile-end. At the time of the explosion four young women
and a man were at work in the preparing shop. From
some unexplained cause a p6rtion of the fireworks ex-
ploded, prostrating the females and the man, setting their
clothes on fire, and blowing up several parts of the build-
ing. The whole five were found to be terribly injured,
and were removed to the hospital, but there is not the
least hope of the recovery of any of them.
WIG STEALERS.—The reason why Racine put off
ordering his son's wig is obvious enough, when we find
that the price of one of the fashionable colour was 1,000
French crowns. The gentleman whom Sidney Smith, in
reference to the length and redundancy of his curls, ac-
cused of growing hair for sale, might have driven a profit-
able trade at that time. Down to the period immediately
preceding the French Revolution, which introduced crops
a la Brutus, the wigs commonly worn by English gentle-
men in the streets cost from 30 to 40 guineas ; and Rogers,
appealing to Luttrell in our hearing, thus described a
mode of theft as practised in London within their common
memory. The operator was a small boy in a butcher's
tray on the shoulders of a tall man ; and when the wig was
adroitly twitched off, the bewildered owner look round for
it in vain—an accomplice confused and impeded under the
pretence of assisting him, and the tray-bearer made off.—
Edinburgh Review.
BARRED'S BANK.—Yesterday the case of Barned's
Banking Company, which carried on business at Liver-
pool until the recent financial crisis, was again before
the Chief Clerk attached to Vice-Chancellor Stuart's
Court. Mr. Emmanuel stated that on a previous occa-
sion an order had be en made that the shareholders
might inspect the books and accounts of the company,
and make certain other investigations which they con-
sidered, necessary for the purposes of their defence
against the call which bad been made. The official
liquidators had promised to give certain information, but
up to the present time it had not been supplied. It was
this which led the applicants to ask for further time to
carry out the spirit of the order they had already ob-
tained, and make a searching investigation for them-
selves. A Clerk from Messrs. Freshfield, Newman, and
Co. who are the solicitors to the official liquidators
asked that the whole matter might be adjourned until Mr.
Church, the chief clerk to the Master of the Rolls, in whose
court the cause was set down, returned. The defendant
had delivered to his clients a set of interrogations rat her
than a request, as stated, for examination of the books. In
addition to this, they had had for an entire month the
result of the investigation of the special examiner. Mr.
Emmanuel said that if the information was not supplied to
his clients, then they require time for further researches.
The Chief Clerk, after some discussion, adjourned the con-
sideration of all three summonses till the 22th October.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.—At the last sitting a

letter was read from Father Sacchi, of Rome, on the
spectram analysis of stellar light. In examining a large
number of stars, he says he was struck with the uniformity
of their luminous constitution. He distinguishes three
different types : one commonly called the type of white
stars like Sirius, dre. ; another comprises the stars whose
light produces red or orange-coloured bands in the spec-
trum ; and to the third belong the stars producing very
narrow bands. In the first type he has found an excep-
tion : Gamma Cassiopeia, which, instead of having a dark
band at F (a point of the spectrum well known to those
who possess a map of it) has a luminous one instead. Of the
stars pertaining to the second type, Alpha Herculis is the
most remarkable. It is of the third magnitude, and yields a
spectrum, the hands of which appear in relief like the pil-
lars of a long colonnade. The stars of the third type might
be appropriately called solar, their spectrum bearing the
strongest resemblance to that of the sun. Another re-
markable circumstance is this, that each of these types
appears to bo dominant in some one or other of the celes-
tial regions. Our readers may remember our giving an ac-
count of M. Grimaud De Caux's papers, in which ho main-
tains that cholera is contagious, and ought to 14e prevented
by means of strict quarantine. We also gave abstracts of
the replies which his papers elicited, and in which every
one of his arguments was demolished ; besides which, we
suppose our readers are themselves personally aware, as we
are, of facts in direct opposition to M. Grimaud's views.
Nevertheless, ho has thought proper to &biros another
paper to the academy, in which, after attempting to cover his
retreat by means of a quibble of dates, he expresses him-
self as follows : —" If, in regard to cholera, science has ad-
vanced a step through the now unimpeachable demonstra-
tion of the transmissibility of that terrible malady, it is
owing to me." This, in summer, would be refreshingly
cool.— Galignani.
A TOWN COUNCILLOR CONVICTED OF POACHING.
—At the County Police-court, Macclesfield, yesterday,
William Carr, soap and candle manufacturer, and a mem-
ber of the ,Macclesfield Corporation, was charged with
trespassing in pursuit of game on land in Marton, belong-
ing to Mr. A. H. Davenport, of Capesthorne Park. Richard
Davenport swore that he was ploughing in a field on the
afternoon of September 26, when he saw the defendant
and Mr. JamesHodgkinson, of Congleton, got over a fence
into a clover field, with a dog, when they spread them-
selves out and started a hare, which the dog killed, and
the two men took it away with them. The defence was
that Mr. Hodgkinson, against whom a similar charge had
been withdrawn, was the guilty person, and that the
defendant had permission from the tenant of the land (his
relative) to pass over the clover field, as the nearest way
to some land held by him. The bench said they considered
the case proved ; and, as the defendant had bee n convicted
before, he would be fined 40s, and costs, or to be impri-
soned for one month.
THE LONG VACATION.—Yesterday the long vaca-
tion ended, and this day declarations will be served in
actions in which the parties appeared. The Chancery vaca-
tion will end on the 28th inst.