The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 1, 1861•

LAW INTELLIGENCE—(Thus Day).

SHERR,IFS' COURT.
(Before Mr. Sergeant Wheeler.)
AUCTION SALES.-CURIOUS DISCLOSURES.-JACKSON V.

MINT.

This was an action to recover £5O, plaintiff being a gen-
tleman of property, and defendant an auctioneer.
Mr. Layton, for the plaintiff, said his client, having been
to Italy, brought home with hitn a number of very fine
paintings, which he lodged with defendant for the purpose
of sale by public auction. An agreement was entered into
by which :defendant was :to have 7} per cent. on all sales
over £lOO, but in addition to this sum defendant had
charged most exorbitant rates, and plaintiff sought to re -
cover the overplus.
Defendant was called to prove the set-off which had been
pleaded (£ll3 odd), and said that he was to sell the pic-
tures. Sold by auction, £l4l 12s. 6d.; and privately, £2O.
Plaintiff removed remainder of pictures. They were to
have been sold without reserve, but plaintiff employed two
brokers to bid for him, and so keep up the prices. (A
laugh.)
Mr. Buchanan cross-examined his client as to the items
of the set-off, and as to the charge of £34 for three weeks'
hire of rooms.

Defendant said the charges were fair and reasonable, and
it was customary to charge (under certain circumstances)
hire of room in addition to commission.

Plaintiff was called, and said that he marked the cata •
Logue with a reserve price of £960. He never sanctioned
the employment of brokers to bid on his behalf.
By Mr. Buchanan—Do not swear I mentioned the word
" reserve to defendant.

The witnesses as to the custom of charging for hire of
rooms flatly contradicted each other ; and upon the subject
of the £2 2s. for the " bonnets," or brokers, Mr. Buchanan
called one Asherford, who said he suggested the employ;
ment of the brokers to the plaintiff, and that gentleman
acquiesced. It was customary to employ these men in all
the rooms in London.

Mr. Laxton—To make mock bids.
Witness—l protect the seller. It is done everywhere—
even at Christie and Manson's.

His Honour—Don't mention Christie and Manson's
name.

Mr. Laxton—lt is a mock auction then.

Mr. Buchanan then contended that defendant had made
out his case, inasmuch as the charge for room hire was
warranted by plaintiff breaking his contract of sale without

BORNEO.--Her Majesty's steamer Charybdis re-
-1 turned to Singapore on the 15th of June from Muka. Mr.
St. John, the British Consul-General to Brune, proceeded
up the river accompanied by the armed boats of the
Charybdis, and delivered to the chiefs of the place, Pan-
gerans, Diepa, and Wahar, the Sultan's firman ordering
them to throw down their defences, and receive Sir James
Brooke as his representative. Mr. St. John was received
with great respect, and implicit obedience to the behests of
the Sultan promised. The forts are said not to be so strong
as was supposed, and the feeling among the chiefs, as well
as people, was in favour of submission. It was thought
that Scheriff Massahore would give himself up if he re-
ceived a promise that his life would be spared.—London
and China Telegraph.
SHOCKING INHUMANITY.—On Monday, at the
Dewsbury petty sessions, the bench were engaged in in-
vestigating a charge of shocking brutality to a child by its
father. The child, a girl not 6 years of age, was brought
into court by its mother, and it was patent to all that it had
suffered from gross ill-usage for a length time. The right
arm and left thigh were crippled in consequence of their
not having been set after being broken by the father's
brutal treatment some time ago. Its face was bound up
with linen cloth, and the appearance of the little sufferer
was that of a child not 3 years old, it being much stunted
in growth. The father, Alfred Shepley, labourer, of Robert-
town, near Dewsbury, was charged with brutally kick-
ing it on the face on Saturday, the 20th ins t., whereby he had
caused a wound which had entirely penetrated the left
cheek. The evidence showed that Shepley went home on
the afternoon of the day above named, in a state of partial
intoxication, and seeing the little girl playing on the floor
of the kitchen, deliberately kicked it on the face with his
iron-shod boot. The mother, who was in the house at the
time, hastened to the child, and having rescued it from her
husband endeavoured to stanch the blood which flowed
copiously from the wound, but being unable to do so she
took it to the house of Mr. Thos. Dransfield. Mr. Drans-
field deposed that the child, who was the illegitimate
daughter of the prisoner, was brought to him on Saturday
evening by its mother. He found its left cheek entirely
cut through, the wound being rather two inches in length.
He applied the proper dressings. The child he knew had
been grossly ill-treated since its birth. Cn examining its
body ho found that both its right arm and left thigh had
been broken, and that they had never received surgical at-
tention. The clothes of the child when it was brought to
him were quite stiff with blood. Police-sergeant Stevens
said the child was the offspring of the prisoner and his
wife, but it had been born before their marriage. The
prisoner had often ill-treated it, and had caused the in-
juries not only to its arm and thigh, but to its cheek,
though the former had been done some time since. The
child did not weigh more than 181 b. There was proof to
show, if necessary, that it had been grossly neglected by its
mother also. The little girl's mother, who behaved in a
very flippant and unfeeling manner in court, was severely
censured by the bench ; and her husband, the prisoner, who
pleaded guilty to the charge made against him, was com-
mitted to the Wakefield House of Correction for six calendar
months with hard labour, and ordered, at the expiration of
that term, to find sureties for his good behaviour for another
six months.—Manchester Examiner.
THE DEVIL' AT CORFIT.—About a fortnight ago
the quiet town of Corfu was startled one night by the ap-
pearance of his Satanic Majesty. Men fled in all directions,
women fainted, and children cried, but there the devil was,
and nobody dared go near him. The superstitious Greeks
attributed his arrival either as a consequence of their comet,
or else a punishment of the late conduct towards England,
or else as the beginning of the end of the world; but, as to
its being a hoax, that was out of the question. But it was
a hoax, and carried too far, for some women became dan-
gerously ill, and it is said one died of fright. The police,
who are remarkable in Corfu for their stupidity and cowar-
dice, were ordered to take him, end succeeded in surround-
ing him, on which he blew fire from his mouth, and the
police vanished in every direction. The officers of the
garrison watched in the streets for him, but he did not care
to come across them, and kept out of the way till they had
retired. This went on for three or four nights, when he
suddenly disappeared, and at the same time an officer of
the navy who had been turned out of the service for mis-
conduct and who was waiting at Corfu for a passage home,
left the island in a steamer. There is now very little doubt
that he personated the devil ; at least he is suspected of it.
The " get up" was capital—the usual horns and tail, and
an apparatus on his feet by which he was able to increase
his height to seven feet, and diminish it again to his ordi-
nary stature. The police, although armed with swords, are
cowards. A short time after the disappearance of the devil
an officer, Capt. Douglas, oth Regiment, and Mr. Tyndal,
a gentleman travelling in those parts, were returning home
at 11 o'clock at night, having been playing at billiards.
Capt. Douglas was saying good night to Mr. Tyndal at the
door of the hotel, when a policeman came and stood close
to them. They told him to go away; he gave a whistle
and was immediately joined by 10 or 12 other policemen
armed with swords, and by a small crowd of blackguards ;
they surrounded these two gentlemen, abused and beat
them, and on their attempting to run up the stairs of the
hotel, dragged them back, drew their swords, cut Captain
Douglas's lip open to the chin, and inflicted a good many
stabs on Mr. Tyndal's body. Neither of these gentlemen
was armed even with a stick, otherwise the police would
have fared badly. Having committed this unprovoked
assault they left them on the ground. Both Capt. Douglas
and Mr. Tyndal are seriously hurt. A Military Court of
Inquiry assembled, but had no power beyond giving its
opinion, which was that an unprovoked attack had been
committed on these two gentlemen by the police. The
civil authorities did not seem to think much about it as
the sufferers were English, but probably will be compelled
to do something. And so ends the story of the devil's visit

to Corfu.
ARTIFICIAL SUGAR.—It is well known that sugar
is a widely-spread substance in nature, and that it may be
obtained in a variety of ways. Thus starch, moderately
heated with sulphuric acid, becomes gum ; but if the tem-
perature be increased, it is turned into sugar—these
three substances, starch, gum, and sugar being iso-
merice—that is, having the same chemical composhion,and
only differing from each other by the arrangement of their
particles. In a recent communication to the Academy of
Sciences, M. Boutlerow announced the synthetical for-
mation of a substance which bears great analogy to
common sugar. The iodide of methylene, treated with the
oxalate of silver, produces di-oxy methylene, a substance
which is easil) dissolved by the aid of heat in a weak solu •
tion of potash or soda, barytes or lime. When boiled
with the latter, the solution, which is colourless, soon
assumes a yellowish hue, which ultimately turns
to a brownish yellow, and the characteristic
odour of di- oxymethylene is replaced by a smell
of burnt sugar. The solution is then evaporated,
and the residue treated with alcohol, when a formiate of
lime is separated from an uncrystalisable substance which
M. Bonne row calls methylenitane, and it is the new
saccharine substance, possessing a taste of liquorice and a
smell of burnt sugar. Its other chemical properties tend
to confirm the opinion that it is a kind of sugar.
THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SHOW OF IRELAND.
—lt is believed that the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart.,
M.P., Chief Secretary for Ireland, will accompany his Ex
cellency the Lord-Lieutenant to Belfast on the 7th August.
The present arrangements of the vice-regal party are to
attend and lunch at the show on the 7th, leaving for Lord
Lurgan's ball same evening. On the evening of the Bth
they will again come into Belfast for the banquet, and on
the 9th, after lunching with Lieut-Colonel Hobbs and offi-
cers of the 15th depot battalion at the barracks, will attend
the flower show in the Botanical-gardens and public ball at
the Court. house. His Excellency will return to Dublin
from Brownlow •house, the seat of Lord and Lady Lurgan,
on Saturday the 10th August.
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD AT THE DOCK GATES—
But, hark ! a stentorian voice shouts " Men wanted." The
effect is magical. The listless demeanour of the crowd
changes in a moment to one of bustle and activity ; and it
speeds with desperate head-long haste to the dock gate,
where it blocks up the road, and renders the pavement totally
impassable. Perhaps only a dozen hands are required, but
there are already two or three hundred applicants beseiging
the sturdy determined •looking man, to whom is entrusted
the unenviable duty of selecting the necessary men, which is
instantly done by his practised eye. The labourers thus
picked out have—despite their energetic and sometimes fistic
remonstrances—to fight their way through the dense, heav-
ing mass, which commences a terrific clamour. Shouting,
wrestling, struggling, fighting, kicking, and swearing, the
disappointed men strive to prevent their successful compe-
titors from approaching the gate, and for a few moments
cres, curses, groans, imprecations, and hisses commingle in
deafening discord. The strongestdash aside the weakest, all
friendship is forgotten, and the animal passions predominate
in the breasts of those who compose the crowd ; as they push
and grapple with each other in the frenzied, savage excite-
ment of disappointment and despair. Then the loud clear
voice of the foreman is heard threatening the foremost of the
refractory, and instantly the tempest subsides, and all is com-
paratively silent. The men with scowling, sullen looks slowly
retreat to the old nooks and corners to await another chance.
A few strive to obtain liquor on credit at the beer shop, ethers
retreat slowly homewards, while the remainder settle down
into the old attitude of listless expectancy ; and the careless
pedestrian passing by would perceive few traces of the recent
agitation occasioned by the " battle for bread," as one of the
men graphically descrited it. So the men wait, wait, and
wait till they drop off one by one, and leave :Their Maces to
be filled by others, who in their turn go through the same
dismal, heart-crushing routine.—Once a Week.
MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY.—Count Batthyany occu-
pies a bed-room at the New Steine Hotel during Goodwood
Races and the Brighton meeting. Yesterday morning when
he arose he missed from his dressing-table a scarf-pin, some
gold sleeve links, a purse containing a few sovereigns, a
blotting case, &c. An inquiry was immediately instituted,
and not ono of the servants was suspected of committing
the robbery. The hotel was opened at six o'clock in the
morning, and a boy who has to rise early speaks of seeing a
gentlemanly-looking man in the passage on the first floor,
and supposing him to be one of the visitors to the hotel he
took no notice of it till after the news of the robbery obtained
circulation. Just at this period of the races thc wn is
usually visited by persons of loose character, and it behoves
our hotel keepers and others to be on their guard,Brighton
Gazette of this day.