The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-16 00:00:00

THAMES,

A JUVENILE SMUGGLER.—Edward Mitchell, a boy, was
brought before Mr. Selfe, charged with smuggling 311bs.
of foreign manufactured tobacco. A Custom-house officer,
named Alfred Gullington, had his attention called to the
prisoner as he was leaving the Batavier, a Dutch steamship,
trading between Rotterdam and London. The prisoner
was carrying a bundle, which the officer opened, and found
it to contain a small quantity of tea and tobacco. The
officer said to him, " Have you any more tobacco, or any-
thing else about you liable to duty ?" to which the boy
replied, " Nothing at all." The officer placed his hand
upon the lad's breast, and found concealed under his shirt
311bs. of foreign manufactured compressed tobacco. Itwas
liable to a prohibitory duty of 9s. d. per lb.
The prisoner, in defence, said he had to bring the tobacco
on shore for a sailor who was on board another steamship,
called the Duke of Cornwall, in the river.

Mr. Selfe—You are a young smuggler, but if sailors think
they can escape by employing youngsters to bring contra-
band tobacco on shore for them, they are very much A.Liis-
taken.

A respectable woman, the mother of the boy, implored of
the magistrate to be merciful, and aid her son was only
fourteen years of age. _ _

Mr. Selfe—He told fibs. Respectable mothers shall not
save juvenile smugglers. The old Batavier many years ago
was a regular smuggler. _

The officer—lt is little better now with the now Batavier.
Mr. Selfe fined the boy 345., the simple value of and duty
on the tobacco.

ALLEGED ROBBERY AND ASSAULT ON A POLICE-
CONSTABLE.—A STRANGE CASE.—Jonathan Smith, the
chief engineer of a screw steam ship called the Balderey,
lying in the West India Dock, was brought before Mr.
Selfe, charged with stealing two gun barrels, the property
of J. and E. Barnett and Son, of the Minories, and vio-
lently assaulting Francis Kelly, a polico constable, No.
130 H.

It appeared that last night, between the hours of 9 and
10 o'clock, the prisoner knocked loudly at the door of the
private dwelling of the constable, Kelly, in Tenter-street,
Goodman's-fields, Whitechapel, and upon Kelly inquiring
his business he said ho wanted a lodger in the house. Kelly
said, "We keep no lodgers here," and observing that the
prisoner wai rather the worse for liquor, advised him to go
away. The prisoner then became very noisy and abusive,
and told Kelly he could not remove him. Kelly, however,
soon did so, and the prisoner then turned round upon him,
and hit him under the ear. A struggle took place, and the
prisoner violently assaulted the police-constable, and
marked his face. The prisoner, who had two gun-barrels
in his possession, was then taken into custody. lie gave
several accounts of the way he became possessed of the
barrels.

The prisoner said ho was an engineer, belonging to Hull,
and that he was " very fresh" last night. He was in a
public-house, and a man said he had gun-barrels to sell,
and asked him Ns. for the two produced. Ho offered him
4s. and a pot of beer for one, which was accepted. The
man followed him out of the house, and said he would take
3s. for the second one, and he bought that too.
Mr. Selfe asked the prisoner if he would state what he
wanted with gun barrels.
The prisoner—l am sure I don't know, sir; I was by the
head, and did not know what I was about.
Benjamin Naylor, foreman to Messrs. Barnett, gun-
makers in the Nlinories and Wapping, identified the gun
barrels. They were two of 26 sent to the proof-house in
Whitechapel on Thursday. The gun barrels had not yet
been returned from the proof-house, and he could not say
how many were missing.
Mr. Selfe remanded the prisoner until Tuesday, but soon
afterwards, at the earnest request of Mr. Charles Young,
solicitor, adjourned the case until Monday, and accepted'
bail for the prisoner.

Captain Alexander Scott, master of the Balderey, became
the prisoner's surety to the amount of £5O.

The Rhone overflowed its banks at Lyons on
Sunday last, and the Saone, swollen by the waters of the
Rhone, rose three feet the same day. Some slight injury
was done to the works constructed to retain the waters in
their bed. The Rhone, however, began to fall during the
night, and the Saone, freed from the pressure acting on it
by the waters of the Rhone, began to WI, but more slowly.

WILLS AN!) BEQUES2S.

(From t 1 Illustrated London Neu's)

The will of Charles Prater, Esq., of 71, Portland-
place, was proved in the London Court on the sth
instant by the executors, Charles Prater, Esq., and
the Rev. Thomas Prater, the sons of
the testator. The personalty was sworn under
£200,000. There are also two trustees appointed
namely, James Leach Ridgway, Esq., of Piccadilly,
and George Taylor, Esq., of Scotland-yard, and to
each of them he has left a legacy of £2OO, free of
legacy duty. The will bears date the 14th August,
1856, and was attested by Stephen Gerrard, Esq.,
solicitor, Suffolk-street, Pall-mall, and George Steb-
bing, his clerk. The testator died at his residence
on the 3d ultimo. The will is of considerable
length, being necessarily so from the minuteness of
the directions given in it. Amongst the specific
bequests are the following :—To his son, Charles
Prater, Esq., he has devised the freehold at Char-
ing-cross ; to his son, the Rev. Thomas Prater, vicar
of Leighton, Salop, he has left certain leasehold
estates and the advowson of Leighton. To his un-
married daughters he leaves the household furni-
ture, jewellery, ornaments, carriages, &c. ; and to
two granddaughters equally between them the sum
of £lO,OOO. To his butler £2OO, and legacies vary-
ing in amount, according to length of service, to all
his domestics, clear of legacy duty. The residue of
the property, both real and personal, he has directed
to be divided in five equal parts, leaving to his two
sons and three daughters one-fifth each.
The will of John William Sturges, Esq., of Don-
caster, York, was proved in London on the 18th
ult. by his relict, Mrs. Harriet Sturges, sole execu-
trix, the personal property being sworn under
£lB,OOO. The will bears date July 21, 1851, and
the testator died on the 9th of August, 1861. Ed-
mund Baxter, Esq., of Doncaster, is appointed trus-
tee in conjunction with the relict. The testator has
directed that his property may be insured in shares
or otherwise in the Bowling Iron Company, in
which concern he was connected, or in such other
securities as they may think proper. To his relict
he has left a life interest arising from his real and
personal estate, with a power of disposition ; but
should she not make any disposition the property
is then to devolve to the testator's daughter. An
immediate legacy of £5OO is bequeathed to his re-
lict, with the furniture, plate, carriages, and other
effects.

The will of Thomas Newnham, Esq., of Chapel-
street, Grosvenor-square, was proved on the Ist
inst. by two of his executors—Arthur Morgan, Esq.,
of Stamford-hill, and William Farquharson,
of the Oriental Club, Hanover-square—Thomas
Law Blane, Esq., the testator's nephew, having
renounced. The personal property was sworn
under £30,000. After directing his real estates to
be sold and invested with the personalty, and
securing annuities amounting to £4OO, he bequeaths
to his sister, the relict of the late Hon. William
Cust, a life interest in the dividends accruing from
the remainder of the property, the principal, upon
this lady's decease, to be divided amongst her chil-
dren and the sons of the late Mrs. Blane, also a
sister of the testator.

THE REPRESENTATION OF FIN SBURY.—Yester-
day some of the leading electors of Finsbury waited upon
the Lord Mayor, at the Mansion-house, for the purpose of
inviting him to stand as a candidate for the vacant seat in
the representation caused by the death of Mr. Duncombe.
The invitation took him by surprise, but he did not hesitate
to give a decisive answer. From their knowledge of the con-
stituency, and having regard to the public esteem in which
he is generally held, they were led, they said, to believe
that his return would be extremely probable, and they
urged him to afford the electoral body an opportunity of ex-
pressing their sentiments. The Lord Mayor said, flattered
though ho was by the application, implying as it did a
fresh proof of good-will towards him, he regretted to have
to decline entertaining it. He added that he should not
have thought of retiring from the representation of Ando-
ver, which he had shared for 14 years, to seek the suffrages
of any other constituency, but for the pressing requisition
of so large a proportion of the electors of the city of London
to allowhimself to be put in nomination for the seat vaeated
by Lord J. Russell. He expressed himself to that effect at
the time in an address to the electors of Andover, in which
he took leave of them, and to that resolution he should
always adhere. The deputation are understood to have
asked the Lord Mayor to give the matter some further con-
sideration, at least, before deciding, remarking that the case
of a man asking to be returned to Parliament was different
from that of his being solicited to stand. Mr. Cubitt said
they must excuse him ; he felt himself bound, not only by
the terms, but by the spirit of the communication he ad-
dressed to his former constituents. The deputation then
left.

REPRESENTATION OF EAST WORCESTERSHIRE.—
Mr. Harry Foley Vernon, of Hanbury-hall, has been put
forward by the Liberal party to succeed Mr. Hodgetts
Foley in the representation of East Worcestershire. The
hon. gentleman is at present en the Continent, on his mar-
riage tour. Unless Sir John Pakington himself could be
induced to come forward, the Conservatives have no chance
in the division.

THE METROPOLIS AND TAXATION.—The net
valuation of property in the metropolis to be assessed to
the property-tax under schedules A and B (land and houses)
amounted for the year 1859-60 to £21,205,753, the year's
income or value. In a single parish, that of St. Pancras,
the valuation exceeded £3,000,000, but then railways stood
for above £2,000,000. The railways that paid income-tax
in the metropolis paid it upon £5,458,082, rather more than
half the taxable income of all the railways in England and
Wales. The valuation for poor-rate in the metropolis in
1856 amounted to £11,167,673, and the amount collated in
the year 1859-60, from the 2,800,000 inhabitants, was
£1,349,598; not, however, all expended upon the poor, for
the polico and county rate is included. In estimating the
net annual ♦alue of property for poor-rate assessment, the
metropolitan parishes differ so greatly that while in several
the deduction allowed from the gross valuation is only 10
per cent., in others it is double that rate, in some it is 30
per cent. and upwards, and in one—St. Mildred, Bread-
' street—it is returned as being " about 45 per cent."

POPULATION OF THE GLOBE.—A professor of
the Berlin University has been making curious researches
respecting the population of the globe. The following is the
result :—" Population of Europe, 372,J00,000 ; of Asia,
720,000,000 ; of America, 200,000,000; of Africa, 89,000,000;
of Australia, 2,ooo,ooo—total population of the globe,
1,283,000,000. The average number of deaths per annum
in certain places where records are kept is about 1 to every
40 inhabitants. At the present time the number of deaths
in a year would be about 32,000,000, which is more than
the entire present population of the United States. At this
rate the average number of deaths per day is about 87,861,
the average per hour 3,653, the average per minute 61.
Thus, at least, every second a human life is ended. As the
births considerably exceed the deaths, there are probably 70
or 80 human beings born per minute."—Glasgow Morn2ig
Journal.

_ .
THE DEBT OF EQUADOE.—The annexed com-
munication respecting the debt of Equador has been re-
ceived from the Equatorian Commission of Agency :
" The mail from Guayaquil has brought a remittance on
account of the dividends on the debt of Equador of £3,000.
Intelligence has been received by the same opportunity of
the failure of Messrs. Gutierrez and Co,, who held the
agency for receiving from the Custom-house and remitting
to England the :funds for the dividend until the 28th of
July last, when, in consequence of the delay in making re-
mittances by Messrs. Gutierrez and Co., the agency was
transferred, by order of the Commission of Agency, to the
hands of the British Consul at Guayaquil, Mr. I% Mocatta.
The amount remaining in the hands of Messrs. Gutierrez
and Co. not remitted is 42,521 dols., to which is to be added
the draught on Messrs. F. Huth and Co., not accepted, for
£3,G97, making in sterling about £10,075. A meeting of the
creditors of the house had been held on the 11th Oct., at
which it was proposed, in consequence of the high personal
character of Mr. Gutierrez, that the estate should be liqui-
dated under his management, placing all funds collected in
deposit until a dividend should bo made."
PRACTICAL JOKING•--A few days ago a man
employed in the gas factory of Woolwich Arsenal, having
been saturated with rain while employed in out-door duty,
entered the furnace-room, and having stripped off his wet
clothes and wrapped himself in a thick covering of tow corn.,
monced drying his garments before the furnace fire. One
of his fellow .labourers, perceiving him thus attired, heed-
lessly cast a live cinder at him, which, adhering to the
flimsy anti combustible matter, rapidly ignited the entire
mass with which he was enveloped, blazing furiously nT or
his whole person, and defying every exerf;oi, to quench it.
Remedies were applied. ..d thu sufferer, although burnt in
a severe manner, is now in a fair way of recovery. The
aggressor, who acknowledged his culpability and expressed
his sorrow for the consequence, voluntarily engaged as a
part compensation to allow the patient 12s. per week from
his own earnings (255.) until enabled to return to his work
FRENCH EPICURES.—At Algiers a few days
back a considerable number of high public functionaries,
superior military officers. judges, and clergy partook, in the
saloon of the theatre, of a grand banquet, the greater part
of the dishes of which were composed of horse and ass
flesh. The object in getting up the feast was to combat the
popular prejudice against such food. The different dishes
were dressed in the French style, and were declared excel-
lent. One of them consisted of a young ass roasted whole.
After the dinner several toasts and speeches were delivered.
One of the latter was by M. Decroix, veterinary surgeon of
the Ist Mounted Chasseurs, who maintained that horse
flesh is very nutritious, and that the general adoption of it
as an article of food would present many advantages.-1