The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-05 00:00:00

THE NEW STREET TO THE MANSION-HOUSE.

Alderman LAWRENCE said he held in his hand the annual
report to Parliament of the Metropolitan Board of Works
for 1862-63, in which it was stated that the bill for the for-
mation of the new street from Blackfriar's-bridge to the
Mansion-house would open up great facilities for commu-
nication, that the total length would be 1,150 yards, the
average width 70ft., and the total cost £624,000. He wished
to ask three questions—first, what progress had been made
in the making of that street ; secondly, had the Metropoli-
tan Board of Works determined not to commence the clear-
ing of the ground until they obtained possession of the
whole of the houses and lands from the Mansion-house to
Blackfriars-bridge; and, thirdly, what was the probable time
when the works would be commenced and completed for
traffic ? _ _ _

Mr. H. L. TAYLOR said it was extremely easy to put a
string of questions, but not quite so easy for any one to
answer them. His replies would be brief. To the first
question he was authorised by the architect to say that the
claims relative to 233 houses had been settled, and that
those respecting 111 othersremainedunsettled. His answer
to the second question was, that he believed the Metropo-
litan Board of Works would not pull down a small batch of
houses. When they went to work they would make a good
sweep at once. In reply to the third question he could only
say that the pulling down of the houses would be com-
menced with the new year, and that in the course of that
year some very magnificout buildings would be reared in
their stead. (Hear, hear.)
PRESENTATION TO MR. DEPUTY DE JERSEY.
Tho LORD MAYOR (addressing Mr. De Jersey) said that
the Court, through the General Purposes Committee, having
some few weeks ago voted to that gentleman, very kindly
and courteously, a distinguished mark of their appreciation
of his public services, in the shape of a silver candelabra
(then upon the table), he had great pleasure in presenting
him with it. The services and character of Mr. Do Jersey
were, he said, too well known and too highly appreciated
to require any eulogiutn upon his part. In fact, words in
his praise would be words of supererogation. Still, it might
be said that no man could stand higher in the estimation
of the Court than Mr. Jersey did. (Hear, hear.) True it
was that from time to time many of those who did not pin
their faith to him differed from his opinions. Nevertheless,
he (the Lord Mayor) was sure he expressed the views of
the Court at large when he said that of Mr. Do Jersey's
uniform truthfulness, honour, and intelligence there could
be no question. (Cheers.) He therefore presented that
gentleman with the testimonial, hoping that he might be
long spared to enjoy the greatest of all favours—the esteem
and respect of his fellow-men, and that the testimonial
might be considered the groatlul tribute of a body of work-
ing citizens to a man who had faithfully and honourably
served them. (Loud cheers.)

Mr. Deputy DE JERSEY, in reply, said, that on a former
occasion he had very feebly and imperfectly acknowledged
the resolution of the Court in which they had passed upon
him the most distinguished honour they could confer. He
was unprepared now to make a suitable response, but he
trusted the Court would do him the credit to believe that
he, nevertheless, sufficiently appreciated their great kind-
ness. For the honour conferred upon him—one which
until very recently was most unexpected on his part—he
was deeply grateful. He must say that during a quarter,
if not more than a quarter cf a centnry, he had been under
many obligations to the citizens of London for their kind-
ness and forbearance. He was thankful that during that
long period ho had been enabled to aid the oily in carrying
on its business, and he hoped that in his day and genera-
tion he had been instrumental iu doing some good. (Hear.)
The testimonial consists of a centre piece and plateau,
and was designed and made fur the Corporation by Mr. J.
W. Benson, at a cost of 100 guineas. Oa one side the City
Arms are engraved, on the second are those of the De Jer-
sey family,and the third bears the following inscription :
" Presented by the Corporation of the City of London to
Henry De Jersey, Esq., Deputy, in recognition of the valu-
able services rendered by him to his fellow-citizens as
Chairman of the Commission of Sewers. 1866."

The Court, then, after the transaction of some business
of little public interest, adjourned.

THE ALLEGED MURDER AT LANCASTER.---Wm.
Hewertson, who in August last was commited by the Lan-
caster magistrates to take his trial on the charge of mur-
dering his mother, has been admitted to bail—himself in
£2OO, and two sureties of £lOO each—by order of the Lord
Chief Baron, to whom an application was recently made
On behalf 91 the primier by Mr. Sleigh.

aurt cr,imfiar.

HER MAJESTY.

BA LMORAL, Wednesday.

The Queen, Princess Louise, and Prince Arthur,
attended by the Marchioness of Ely and Lieutenant-
General the lion. Charles Grey, drove to the Spital
of Glenshee on Monday, and rode on ponies over
the hill to Kindrogan, from whence the royal party
drove to Dunkeld.

Her Majesty remains at Dunkeld on a visit to the
Dowager Duchess of Athole.

The Drama in the Provinces.

It has become the custom, within the last few
years, to try, in some provincal towns, plays which
have been afterwards produced in London, but their
trials have been confined to such houses as Glasgow,
Liverpool, and Manchester. Bradford may now be
added to the list, as a new play, entitled "The Man
and the Shadow," has been produced at the Alex-
andra Theatre, which has met with extraordinary
success. The play, says the Bradford papers, is as
original as any of Shakspere's. The plot alone is
founded upon a German play by Carl von Holtei,
and the author, Mr. W. G.Wills, has greatly added
to the already high reputation whith his admirable
novels, such as "David Chantrey," the "Wife's
Evidence," and others have long earned for
them. Arthur Bruce, the hero, is a poet of
original genius, who has not yet acquired
that stamp which we call " a name," and
without which the solid success which money repre-
sents, is not to be attained. In that position he is
advised by most of his friends to abandon what they
consider an unprofitable taste, and to apply himself
to the prosaic drudgery by which very mediocre
minds may yet earn a living. Poverty compels him
to follow their advice, but his mind, deprived of its
natural food, poetry, gives way under the enforced
burden of prose to which it is degraded. His Pega-
sus, yoked to an ox, breaks down under the
uncongenial toil. Domestic troubles and an
unfortunate passion for a lady who had
excited his gratitude, by a heartfelt recog-
nition of his genius, complete the ruin of a
noble intellect ; and when for his mad conduct he
is expelled from his employer's house, he disappears
under circumstances which lead to the supposition
that he has committed suicide. Twenty years after
his supposed death, his works having become fa-
mous, a statue is erected to his memory in the pub-
lic park of his native town, and here we have a situa-
tion invented entirely by Mr. Wills, which is not
only completely novel and original, but unsurpassed
for dramatic effect. While the supposed dead poet's
friends unveil and inaugurate his statue, the poet
himself, now a mad beggar, appears, and is hustled
by the crowd at the foot of his own statue ; he is
protected from violence by his own son. His old
friend and townspeople sing a song of his, which
he himself had sung in the first act. The melody
and words strike a chord in the old man's disor-
dered brain, and bring back his senses. He takes
up the song himself, but breaks down through ex-
citement, and his identity with the original of the
statue is established. His friends crowd round him,
and welcome his return to life, but the joy has been
too much for him. His heart is broken, and he
dies on the day of his triumph.
Mr. Hermann Vezin, for whom this play has been
written, and who has already, by his performance
of Shakspere's heroes in the metropolis, placed him:-
self in the foremost rank of living actors, advances
his reputation by his rendering of this original part.

An excellent map with Metropolitan Raillvay and
its branches vividly defined in scarlet has just been pub-
lished. It will be found very useful for reference.

• FOX-UUNTING.—One of the greatest charms of
fox-hunting undoubtedly is that it disposes of all
the dirty weather which goes to make up three-fourths of
an English winter. Wet, and drizzle, and muggy fog (the
characteristics of our brumous and insular climate, accord-
ing to numerous French authorities) are the capital on
which it trades. To the hunting man a rainy morning
in winter, which to most other country folk can
promise nothing better than a long yawn with
book or newspaper in hand, and a prospect over a
miser►ble stretch of sodden country, means sport, and
society, and enjoyment. It is nothing to him that the
ground rides saddle-girth deep, and that he is splashed
with mud from hoad to foot, so long as the scent is good.
Ho will only enjoy the more by contrast the charm
of his own fireside, when he has cast his slough, and
makes his appearance in the drawing-room before dinner,
hungry, and happy, and a little tired. This, indeed, to
my mind, constitutes one of the principal benefits which
accrue from fox-hunting considered in an ethical light. It
enables certain rich people occasionally to realise some of
the conditions of poorer humanity, to feel themselves, if
only for a short time, to be men, and not only lords or
squires or great merchants and manufacturers. When he
gets off his horse after a long wet day in the clays, my
lord is very much in the same draggle-tailed condition
in which his labourer Hodge is, just emerging from
the oozing ditch in which he has been engaged for
some hours plashing a fence. The hardness which it
necessitates, together with a small amount of danger that
accompanies it, takes fox-hunting out of the category of
tame sports, such as battue-shooting, for example, than
which I know not any amusement more despicable and
inane. And one of the least favourable signs of the times,
to my mind, is the increasing fondness of the noble and
wealthy for this latter sport, if sport we must call it. For
the spirit of civilisation and refinement which has exor-
cised from the higher ranks of the community drunkenness
and swearing, and that roughness which still had some-
thing of hardihood in it, is not an unmixed gain to society,
if the English mind is to be emasculated thereby, and,
losing its coarseness, is to lose also its manliness and self-
reliance.-111acmillan's Magazine.

CLEVER CAPTURE OF £1,300 FORGED SCOTCLI
UNION BANK NOTES.—For some time past the officials
at the head offices of the Union Banking Company in Edin-
burgh have been aware that a number of forged Union
Bank £1 notes were being put in circulation, and on Wed-
nesday upwards of 20 wore intercepted at the various banks
in town. On that day forenoon two men, apparently
very "flush" of money, arrived in Dalkeith from the
north, and in the course of the day visited different shop 3
there, making small purchases, for which they tendered in
payment Union Bank £1 notes. In the third shop which
they called at the lad who served them bad luckily seen
paragraph which appeared in one of our contemporarise
this morning, calling the attention of the public to the
fact that it was suspected that a number of forged Union
Bank notes were at present in circulation; and on receiv-
ing a £1 Union note in payment of the goods purchased--
which only amounted to a few shillings—he took it to hie
master. On examination it was found that the paper on
which it was printed was much thinner than the genuine
notes, and the " one pound" so oft repeated in the body of
the note was just " dotted" up. Information was imme-
diately lodged with Inspector Copeland, of the county
police, stationed at Dalkeith, and he immediately went in
quest of the " two strangers," whom he found in a shoe-
maker's shop, each trying on a pair of boots. lie apprehe-
hended them, and upon them wore found about £3O in gold
and a few forged £1 Union notes. Later in the day it was as'
certained that they had left their luggage at the InverosX
Railway Station, intending merely to pay a flying visit to
Dalkeith on their way to Carlisle, for which they were to
leave in the evening. Inspector Copeland proceeded to
the railway station, and on opening their travelling case 3
found £1,300 of forged Union Bank notes tied up in
bundles of £5O, also about £6O of silver, and between £5O
and £6O of gold. The whole property was secured, and
the prisoners were locked up in the cells at Dalkeith, from
whence they will be conveyed to Edinburgh. It is thought
that the prisoners hail from Aberdeen, and in all probabi-
lity notes of the same kind may have been passbd at the
various towns and stations on the route.—EdinburghEveniq
Courant.

TIIE SOUTII WALES COAL TRADE.—Last year dig
coal trade of South Wales suffered materially from the
want of a sufficient number of skilled colliers, audit wag
with difficulty the increasing requirements of buyers were
met. This scarcity of labour was brought about mainly by
the emigration movement to the United States, a largo
number of the best hands having left for that country. I°
the spring of the present yjar there was every likelihood Of
the movement becoming still more general, and if the pro'
posed reduction in wages had been carried out there is no
doubt that a large number of the colliers and miners would
have left for the States and the colonies. The withdrawal
of the notice for a reduction had a most favourable effect
on the men, and many who had determined to emigrate if
wages were reduced then decided to remain in the land of
their birth rather than try their fortunes elsewhere. The
effect of the monetary crisis on the iron trade also placed
number of hands at the disposal of colliery proprietors, but
even with this assistance there is a diffidulty still in obtaill-
ing the requisite supplies of coal. It has been suggested
that the Cornish miners out of employ would find it (Nisi
to become skilful coal hewers, and steps are now being taken
at several Welsh collieries with a view of trying whether
the surplus labour of Cornwall and I)9Y9U can be turfed
to account in South Wales.