The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, 1866.

week last year, showing an increase of £442. The
total receipts from Ist of July to the above date
amounted to £179,265, and for the same period of
1865 to £173,108, showing an increase of £6,157.

tary condition of that district, the Rev. G. T. Drif-
field, rector of Bow, writes to say that the body
from whom those. statements emanated was not the
Bow and Bromley Cholera Relief Committee, of
which he is chairman, and in which representatives
of all religious denominations are combined to carry
out the work, but a comparatively small and pri-
vate committee connected with the congregation
of George-street Independent Chapel, Bromley, of
which the Rev. H. Lance is minister. Mr. Driffield
states that he makes this statement with a view of
vindicating in some degree the local authorities, and
also of avoiding confusion between the two Com-
mittees, as that with which he has the honour of
acting would not have been a party to some of the
allegations made. He and his Committee freely
admit the defective drainage of the locality, but the
remedy for this, he says, is simply dependent on the
completion of the low-level sewer. The poverty
and destitution prevailing in the neighbourhood, he
adds, are also undeniable, and this has been the
ground of their appeal to public sympathy, as well
as to the kindness of the Mansion-house Committee,
who on Tuesday made them an additional grant of
£lOO. It is right, he says, to add that the District
Board of Works have been most energetic in their
efforts to fulfil their duties during the prevalence of
the epidemic, and any complaint made to them from
any quarter as to the use of offensive materials in
roads, or of any similar nuisance, would have been
attended to without the loss of many hours.

On behalf of the Woolwich Local Board of
Health we are asked to contradict the statement of
the Registrar-General, that the authorities there are
negligent. We are assured that at the very first
outbreak of cholera in London the Local Board ap-
pointed a sanitary committee, which has since met
every alternate day, and which, aided by the Garri-
son Sanitary Committee, has been unremitting in
its exertions to remove every nuisance which was
calculated to injure the public health. Their deaths
up to Tuesday during the epidemic had been 12,
out of a population of more than 41,000. Of these
one was an imported case, and in nearly every one
of the remaining 11 some gross error of diet, or
long neglected diarrhoea, had been clearly estab-

lished. The few cases that had occurred had
been essentially sporadic, no second case having oc-
curred in the same house, nor even in the same
street. A cholera ward has been open for nearly
two months, but it has not received a single
patient ; and the house-to-house visitation which
had been projected has not been carried into effect,
simply because there has been no prevalence of
diarrhoea to justify its adoption. We are also as-
sured that the Registrar-General is wrong in stating
that " the deaths happen chiefly by the river," the
fact being that in Woolwich not one death has oc-
curred " by the river," and the majority has been
on the upper levels.

The following is the official return of deaths from
cholera and diarrhoea in London, registered on
Tuesday, Sept. 4:--

- -
Cholera. Diarrhoea.
West districts 3 ~. ••• 4
North districts 3 ... ... 4
Central districts... 1 ... ... 3
East districts 13 ... 2
South districts ~. 9 ..• ... 8

Total ...

... 31

... 21 •

The return for the sub-district of St. George's,
Bloomsbury, was not received in time for publica-

Lion.

Beaumarchais in London.

(From the Pall-Mall Gazette.)

It is stated in the newspapers that the alleged MS.
play in four acts of Beaumarchais, said to have been
discovered in England by M. Fournier some years
ago, will, after many delays, be actually produced at
the Theatre Francais. Its authenticity will no doubt
have been carefully ascertained by the proper autho-
rities, for the names of Beaumarchais and mystifica-
tion are by no means incongruous. The most amus-
ing scamp of the 18th century—concerning whom
M. de Lomenie has written rather a solemn book,
and who ought to be specially dear to this genera-
tion, inasmuch as he was the first man to whom was
revealed the great truth that everything which is
serious and everybody who is earnest are " slow"—
was certainly often in England, and manuscripts of
his are preserved here, some of them of rather equi-
vocal character. He came on divers Bohemian
missions, as an agent, to make matters smooth be-
tween Madame Pu Barri and the libeller Thevenot
de Morande ; as a spy, commissioned by the French
Court, to look after the epicene Chevalier d'Eon, and
on sundry contraband financial projects of his own.
What particular mischief he was after in London in
May, 1776, we do not know, but on the Gth of that
month he addressed a letter in French to the Morn-
ing Chronicle, which reminds one so much of his own
immortal " Figaro," that it may be worth translat-
ing and presenting to our readers. It is reprinted
in a collection of his works along with other jeux
d' esprit, but these works, except his two famous
plays, arelforgotten, and few will search for it there.
" To TIIE EDITOR of TIIE MORNING CHRONICLE (Or
MAY 6, 1776).

" Sir,—l am a foreigner, a Frenchman, and a man of
honour. If this information does not fully apprise you
what 1 am, at all events it shows what I am not, and in
times like these that is something.
" The evening before last, at the Pantheon, after the
concert and while the dance was going on, I found under
my feet a lady's cloak, of black satin, lined with the same,
and with a lace border. Ido not know to whom this cloak
belonged. I never saw tho porson who worn it—there or
elsewhere ; and all the inquiries I have since made have
failed in ascertaining anything about her.

" I beg you therefore, Mr. Editor, to announce the dis-
covery of the cloak in your journal, in order that it may be
faithfully returned to the owner. But, in order to avoid
mistakes, I have the honour to inform you that the lady
who lost it wore on that occasion pink feathers. I think
she had diamond drops in her ears, but of this I am not so
certain. She possesses a very good figure. Her hair is blond
argente. Her complexion is brilliantly fair. Her throat is
long ; her waist rather long also. She is tall, and has the
prettiest foot in the world. I have even satisfied myself
that she is very young, lively, and rather absent ; that she
is very quick in her movements, and that she has a decided
taste for dancing.

"If you ask me, Mr. Editor, why, as I observed her so
closely, 1 did not immediately give her back her cloak, 1
have the honour to repeat to you what I said before, that
I never saw this lady. I know neither her eyes, nor her
features, nor her dress, nor her demeanour.
"But if you persist in asking how, never having seen
her, I can describe her to you so closely, I, on my side,
must express myself surprised that so accurate an observer
as yourself does not know that the mere inspection of a
woman's cloak is sufficient to convey all those paiticulars
which are required to identify her.
" But without boasting of an accomplishment which is
scarcely one at all, since the late Zadig gave so admirable
an explanation of it, suppose, Mr. Editor, that on examin-
ing this cloak I found in the hood attached to it two or
three hairs of a beautiful light colour, and also a few ends
of rose-coloured feather adhering to the lining;. you per-
ceive that it required no great effort of genius to conclude
that the plume and the locks of this blonde lady must have
answered to the specimen. Thus much is plain.
_

"And inasmuch as such locks as these never grew on a
dark forehead, or even one of impeachable complexion,
analogy would have taught you, as it did me, that the per-
son in question must have possessed a skin of dazzling
fairness, which no observer can dispute without casting
discredit on his judgment.
"Again, a slight ebrasion or fraying on each side of the
interior lining of the hood, such as could only have been
produced by the continual rubbing of two little hard bodies
in motion, proved to me, not that she wore earrings with
drops that day, neither have I affirmed it, but that she is in
the habit of wearing them. Although, between youandme
it is not at all likely that she would have omitted to put on
such ornaments for a day of conquest. But never mind this,
if I reason badly, Mr. Editor, do not spare me ; rigour is
not injustice.
"The rest needs no explanation. It will be seen that it
wa.s enough for me to examine the ribands which fastened
the hood round the neck, and to tie them together in,.a knot
just at the length where they were crumpled by ordinary
tying, to satisfy myself that, the space encircled by the knot
thus formed being inconsiderable, the throat usually encom-
passed by it is very slender and elegant. No difficulty on that
point. Next, measuring attentively the spice comprised
between the top of the cloak behind, and tlp marks of
horizontal folds, formed just below the waist by the action
of the wearer in tightening the cloak about her in order to
bring the charms of ber figure into greater development and
exhibit the fall of its lower portion with the lace border at
bottom, no amateur would doubt for a moment, any more
than I did, that the lady was tall, rather long waisted, and
finely shaped. This is self-evident ; the form is visible
beneath the drapery.

"Now suppose, Mr. Editor, that in examining the body
of the cloak you had found on the black satin the impres-
sion marked in dust of a very pretty little shoe, would you
not have reflected that if any other woman had trodden on

the cloak after the fall, she would certainly have deprived
me of the pleasure of picking it up ? You would therefore
have concluded at once that the impression was made by
the shoe of the loser of the cloak. Then you would have
said if her shoe is very small her pretty foot is still smaller.
Ido not claim any merit for having ascertained this. The
simplest observer might have done the same.

"But this footstep, made in passing, and evidently un-
perceived by her who made it, indicates not only extreme
quickness of step, but also a preoccupation of mind, of
which grave, cold, elderly people are seldom susceptible.
Whence I simply conclude that my charming blonde is in
the flower of her age, full of liveliness, and distraite in pro-
portion.

"Again, reflecting that the spot where I found her cloak
was on the way towards the place where the most active
dancing was going on, I inferred that she was very fond of
that amusement, since no less attraction would have suf-
ficed to make her forget her cloak and tread upon it.
It was impossible, I think, to arrive at a different conclu-
sion. And, though a Frenchman, I boldly refer the ques-
tion to all the honnetes Bens of England.

"Also, when I remembered next day that in a place
where so many people passed I had picked up this cloak
without interruption (which proved that it had just been
dropped), and without being able to discover her who had
dropped it (which proves that she was already a long way
off), I said to myself, Surely this young person is the most
alert beauty in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and if I do
not add America, it is because people have become of late
diablement alert in that country.'

"Had I carried my researches further I might perhaps
have learnt in addition, from her cloak, what is her rank
and quality. But when ono has discovered that a woman is
young and handsome, does one not know nearly all about
her that one wishes to learn ? Such, at least, was the notion
in my time in some good cities in France, and even in some
villages, such as Manly, Versailles, and the like.
"Do not, then, be surprised, Mr. Editor, that a French-
man who has made the fair sex the object of his special
and philosophical study all his life should have found out,
on the more view of the cloak of a lady whom ho never
saw, that the beautiful blonde with the rose-coloured
plume to whom it belonged unites to the dazzling beauty
of a Venus the slender neck of a nymph, the figure of a
Grace, and the youth of Hobe ; that she is vivacious, ab-
sent, and so fond of the dance that she forgets everything
else as she hastens to join it, on the feet of a Cinderella,
with the swiftness of an Atalanta.

" And be still less astonished if, occupied all night with
the sentiments inspired in me by so many charms, I made
for her, on my awaking, the innocent little verses, for
which her cloak and your paper, Mr. Editor, will servo as
a passport."

We spare our readers the versos, which aro of the com-
mon-place order of gallantry. The writer signs himself,
"Amatur Francais," and says that a letter addressed to C.
8., at the coffee-house, St. James's, shall bo duly answered.
The Chronicle carries the romance no farther. The Pan-
theon, it will be remembered, was in 1776 the novel and
fashionable place for public balls.

Serious Forgeries by a Parish Contractor.

CIRCULATION OF FORGED BILLS OF EXCHANGE
TO THE AMOUNT OF £15,000.

Yesterday at the Marylebone Police-court, before
Mr. Burcham, George Curnock, a contractor, em-
ploying a large number of persons in the parish of
St. Pancras, and who has his offices at 250, High-
street, Camden-town, was charged with knowingly
uttering a number of forged bills of exchange.
Mr. G. Lewis, jun., who appeared for the prose.
cution, said that the prisoner had for a number of
years been the principal contractor for the scavenging
work for the parish of St. Pancras, and until latterly
had been a man of some repute in the parish. The
prisoner had a brother named Thomas Curnock, a
farmer, at North Hyde, Middlesex, and, as he would
show, the prisoner had forged his brother's name to
bills of exchange for a large amount, of which not
less than £5,000 worth had been dishonoured.
Mr. Wm. Aspinall said he was a stone merchant,
at 280, High-street, Camden-town, and had known
the prisoner about 14 years as being a contractor
holding a good position in the parish. On the Bth
March last Mr. Anderton, one of the prisoner's
clerks, came to him and asked him to discount a
bill for £198115., purporting to have been accepted
by Mr. Thomas Curnock. After some persuasion he
consented to discount the bill, and (less the usual
percentage for discount) gave a cheque on the Lon-
don and Westminster Bank, payable to Mr. George
Curnock. Feeling somewhat suspicious, he followed
the clerk to the door of his master's office, where he
met the prisoner, who, in answer to his inquiries,
said it was all right, and that he had drawn the
bill on his brother Thomas for some dung he had
sold him. The bill, which was due on the 11th
of June, was dishonoured, and on the following
day the prisoner came into his office, and on learn-
ing that the bill was locked up in the desk, he ex-
pressed his satisfaction, and hoped it would remain
there until he got some money from the parish,
when he would take it up. At that time he (wit-
ness) feeling ill, left town for about 10 days, and on
returning found that the prisoner had become a
bankrupt. Ile (witness) was chairman at the first
meeting of the prisoner's creditors, and had the pri-
soner called into the room, when he confessed that
the whole of the signatures to the bills of exchange
produced were forged. The prisoner's brother sat
at the table during the meeting, and at the same
time other creditors said that they held similar
forged acceptances for sums varying from £4OO to
£5OO. He (witness) knew that at the present time
there were forged bills of exchange out, signed by
the prisoner, amounting to upwards of £5,000.
Mr. William Johnson, a timber merchant, at
Kentish Town-wharf, spoke to having been swindled
in a similar manner, and was induced to discount a
forged bill for £2OO.
Mr. Richard llillsdon, another tradesman in
Kentish Town, who had known the prisoner over
20 years as a contractor in extensive business, also
deposed to having discounted a bill for £137 11s.,
the acceptance of which had been forged by the pri-
soner. The witness added that he held other forged
acceptances amounting to upwards of £570; and he
had ascertained that the prisoner had forged bills to
the amount of £15,000, about a third of which had
been met.

• Police-constable John Doudney, 172, said that in
consequence of information received he, at 5 o'clock
the previous afternoon, apprehended the prisoner at
Iligh-street, Camden Town, and conveyed him to
the police-station in a cab. On the way to the sta-
tion the prisoner said it was his clerk who had done
all the mischief.
Mr. Burcham remanded the prisoner for seven
days.