The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-17 00:00:00

NEW STRAND THEATRE.

Last evening the infant prodigy, Master Ht;Gm Ed, a
Welch child, not five years of age, made his first appear-
ance on these boards as a performer on the pedal harp,
on which instrument he played several popular airs with
variations in a style that showed great talent, which was
rendered the more astonishing in a child of such tender
years. Indeed it is scarcely credible, but we state
it as a fact, that his fingers ran over the chords of tho
instrument (which was nearly twice his own height) with
as much ease as those of many very old practitioners. He
was most deservedly applauded by a very crowded audi-
ence. A piece was produced here for the first time, en-
titled the Triumph of Fidelity, in which Mr. RAY-
NER supported the character of farmer Robin; it
was a piece that seemed to have been written al-
most exclusively for that gentleman, who supported
his character with his accustomed success; except-
ing his Tyke and Giles we know of no character in
which he has an opportunity of displaying powers which
we believe have not developed themselves in any other
actor since the days of JOHN EMERY. MrS. WAYLETT
iilayed in two pieces, Mystification and The Four Sisters.
In the latter she displayed her versified talent to great ad-
vantage, and during the evening she sang some very favou-
rite songs, in which she was moat enthusiastically ap-
plauded.

CHOLERA.—The town this morning w,.:5
'brown into the most dreadful state or alarm, by the an-
nouncement that a travelling bookseller, named Mutt-
nocll, had died, in New Sneddon, of cholera morbus, and
that other two women had died of the same dire disorder.
En the case of Illuanocx, the whole of our Medical Fa-
culty, except one, were in a state of doubt as to the real
nature of his malady ; but Dr. LAWRIK of Glasgow,
who came here this morning about two o'clock, at once
pronounced that it was spasmodic cholera. One of
he other cases is that of a woman residing in the same
land with the deceased Munnocrr, and is comparatively
,if a mild nature. The third one is likewise that of a
fetnale, resident not very far from the place where the
tither cases occurred, and is of the most virulent
description. The body of Muanocit was this afternoon
put into a common cart, and interred, not in any
of the common burying grounds, but in a part of the
lands called the Moss, belonging to the community, to
which quarter it is contemplated to bring all those who
may hereafter fall victims to this wasting pestilence. It
was a new and a mournful sight for the inhabitants of
Paisley to see a fellow mortal consign-d to the grave,
without any of the decent observance common on similar
occasions. It is impossible, however, to banish appre-
hensions that such painful scenes are about to become
familiar to us. We may just add, that all those hitherto
affteted have been in abject poverty, but as this is no
uncommon pestilence in these visitations, and affords
no guarantee to the rich, so it is not to be wondered at
that one of our affluent merchants, residing in the neigh-
bourhood of the disease, has already sent off his family to
the country.—Paisley Advertiser.
The sources of the greatest rivers are not the-
most remarkable for the features that surround them. The
sources of the mighty rivers of the Western Hemisphere
or even of the great rivers of Africa or Asia, have not, as
far as is known, been visited by the traveller, with the
single exception of the Nile; their sources are probably
placed amid those unapproached solitudes, where the foot
of man has never yet wandered ; what appearances of nature
may preside over their birth we have no means of knowing ;
but it does not appear from the narrative of BRUCE that
the source of the Nile afforded any example of extraordi-
nary sublimity. The sources of the large rivers of the Eu-
ropean continent arc many of them well known ; but the
sources of neither the Rhine, the Rhone, nor the Danube,
present those majestic and imposing features that distin-
guish the sources of some of the smaller class. Nor is
this difficult to explain; the large rivers have not one,
but many sources ; and as the source, par excellence,
we mount to the highest, which invariably lies among the
upper fields of snow. The smaller rivers, on the other
hand, may gush at once from a single spring, placed per-
haps among the rocks, and ravines, and precipices, which
lie lower than the line of congelation. It is, at all events,
a fact, that the most sublime sources are those which be-
long to the smaller rivers. Of these I may mention the
Soane, the Gave, and the Sourgue—the two latter espe-
cially. The Gave rises in the magnificent amphitheatre
of Marbore ; and the Sourgue bursts at once, an imposing
torrent, upon the immortal fountain of Vaucluse.—From
article upon " Rivers" in the Monthly Magazine.

PRESENCE OF MlND.—During Lord Ex-
' mouTies attack on the batteries of Algi,re, in 1816, the
Algerines used a great number of red-hot shot, particu-
larly in the early part of the action. On board his Ma-
jc.sty's bomb Infernal, one of those comfortable articles
came in, through Wattus's, the purser's cabin, in the after
cock-pit, and having bundled a shelf full of books on the
top of the assistant-surgeon, JONES, who was lying in the
purser's cot, given over with the Gibralttr fever, it rolled
across into the opposite cabin, and was there got into a
bucket of water, by the gunner and some others stationed
near the spot. This interesting amusement was but just con-
cluded, when the men in the magazine, the door to which was
close by, heard a desperate smash among the powder barrels,
and were almost covered with a cloud of loose dust and
powder, which was thrown all over them. Knowing the
business which had employed the gunner in the cock-pit
but just the instant before, they naturally enough, in the
c,mfasion of the moment, called out to him, "A red-hot
shot in the magazine !" and were rushing out of it to cir-
culate wider the same cry, should their new red-hot ac-
quaintance permit them. The ill consequences of this
may be easily conceived ; the only chance for any one on
such an occasion being to jump at once overboard. The
gunner in an instant saw that if the cry was false
it', was folly to spread it ; and if true it was useless ; for
to kingdom come we must inevitably go. He flew to the
no igazine, shoved the fellows back into it, and turning
the key on them, stood there, with his hand on the lock,
till he knew all danger must be past : rather a queerish
situation, gentle reader ! The chaps were afterwards a
little laughed at ; for, strange to say, we could not find
this intruder on their equanimity of temper any where ;
and many doubted at last if any shot had come into the
magazine at all. To be sure there were the broken bar-
rels and the spilled powder in favour of the narrators of
the story ; but this seemed still not fully to convince;
for even the worst of dangers generally get laughed
at when they are over, by our happy-go-lucky 8008.
eo:
Neptune. When, however, she came to return
powder into store, after arriving
tery was solved ; it was then found that t“es
a itself very
gone through four barrels of powder, lodgedandhe
was Coostas:; and the last time I saw i
in 1b24:
shoWn sucb an unexampled pre.enee of mind, wan
he was then mending shoes in a solitary room in the b.- el
stho't bad
comfortably in the middle of a fifth. The gunner's in the Ti,hameids,

.lums of Deptford, to help out a precarious existence :
"Sic lrurisit gloria United Sercke jotanal