The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-24 00:00:00

ROYAL poLyTEcHNio INSTITUTION.

It is the privilege of talent to give to common-place
things au air of novel-y and a flavour of interest, and in
illustration of this fact Mr. J. H. Pepper has made so
familiar a matter as a scuttle of coal the subject of as
unique and entertaining a lecture as has ever been de-
lieered in the theatre of the Polytechnic Institution.
The discourse is divided into two parts. In the first,
the lecturer treats of coal in a mineralogical sense, de-
scribing the various processes of its formation, and
explaining the geological circumstances connected with
its discovery ; in the second he enters into a minute
detail of the manner in which a coal-mine is worked,
describing with interesting particularity the succ:.ssive
stages through which the mineral is made to pass in its
journey from the pit to the scuttle, and enlivening the
story with anecdotes illustrative of the social character
' and the domestic habits of the miners. Ha analyses
the "antecedents" of a block of coal with surpas-
sing ingenuity and research, showing that for a
shilling a hundred the London costermonger can
warm himself with the petrified pines of pre-Adamite
forests—can burn the bones of the Mammoth
to cook his chop, boil his pot with the fossil Masto-
don, and broil his herring with the carcases of the
grandfather of the whale. The sketches of life and
mauners in a coalenine are not derived from books, but
have all the freshness and fidelity of personal obe rye-
tion, the lecturer having qualified himself for the task
of description by spending a day is one of the large t
Durham mines. Among many other droll stories, show-
ing the delight which the miners take in " astonishing '
a Cockney when they can catch one in their subterranean
realms, he tells an anecdote of a London tailor who was
bundled into a basket, and down into the pit while in a
state of intoxication. On recovering his senses, after the
lapse of some hours, he fancied himself in Tartarus, and
being addressed by a tall, stern man, as black as ebony,
who asked him, " Who are you ?" he fe'l upon his lenses;
and, supposing his interrogator to be Satan himself,
replied, "Please your Majewy, I was a tailor up above,
but I'll be anything you please down here."
Mr. Pepper delivers his lecture in a forcible and im-
pressive winner, illustrating it very effectively as he
goes along by means of diagrams and dissolving views.

MR. ALBERT SMITHS ENTERTAINMENT.

This very popular and amusing catrrar to public
amusement commenced his season last night at the
E4yptian Hall, Piccadilly, and it we are to judge from
what took place on his first re-opening, there is no doubt
that be will reap a rich harvest 13( fore its termination.
The stalls were crammed ; the gallery was announced
to " be filled" before the doors were five minutes opea ;
and as to that portion of the house which is called "the
area," it uas crowded t 3 excess in a very few minutes.
Mr. Smith was, as usual, lively and entertaining, but
his exeassive popularity in the scenic and descriptive
department of his representations, inclines him in many
re: peas to indulge in
great exaggeration. We pass over
his views of Mont therm, for, heaven knows, everybody
has seen and heard enough of them ; but in his de-
ecii,tion of Naples he really seeens to be inspired
wore by a desire to please his audience and to amuse
then, than any desire to give a jut and correct de-
script.. on of either the city or its inhabitants. It is
not our intention to enter into a hypercritical review
al: his statements ; but everybody who has visited
that (I,l!ghtful city, and seen its popu!asi )n, must have
been, highly amused at the caricature presented before
an English audience in the Egyptian Hall last evening.
Fluency of speech and a certain recklessness of asset teen
do not conduce much in assisting the enquimer to arrive
at the exact truth. The only novelties brought forward
are this visit to Naples, and his description of the country
and its inhabitants. Afe at songs are introduced, which
are meant to amuse the audience, given as they are with
that exquisite drodi
ery for which Albert Smith s so
remarkable. Hie panorama of Mount Vesuvius, and the
grotto in its neighbourhood, really
magnificenle and !t
certainly is no bad clinpluneet to him to say, that his
descriptions are more characteristic for the wit—and,. in
seine cases, recklessnes of assertion which characterise
them—than for their accuracy of dAineation.