The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-27 00:00:00

DESTITUTION" AND SUICIDE.

On Saturday afternoon an inquiry was held at the
Crown Tavern, High-street, Shadwell, bg tr. John Hum-
phreys, coroner, relative to the suicide of Mary Yems,
aged 30. Charles Yems, 6, Plough-alley, Wapping, de.
posed that he was a general dealer, and Sat the deceased
was his wife. He last saw her on Monday afternoon. He
had gone to market at eight in the morning, and he had
stayed there till 12 o'clock ; but he had so little money---;.
4s. W.—and things were so dear, that he could not find
anything cheap enough to buy. He came home, and
when his wife saw he had nothing, she said, " You have
bought nothing 1" He said, "My money would not allow
me." She cried, "Oh what will become of us ?" and
went away, and he never saw her again. They had gone
through great distress ; they had four children, and for
the last six months he could not make more than 6a.
a week. Out of the Os. they had to pay ls. Bd. a
week rent and ls. 3d. for the hire of the barrow. They
could not have lived but for two ladies, who were very
good to them. The coroner asked whether they had got
anything from the parish. The witness said he had never
applied. The deceased sometimes asked him to do so, but
he said to her always, " Perhaps there will be better luck
another day." A juror, who knew Yems, stated that all
he said was quite true. The family were very hard-
working and well conducted. Mary Yems, a girl, said
that her mother returned to the house at half-past ten
o'clock on Monday night, and made the bed and suckled
the baby. She asked whether the rent and the barrow-
men were paid. She then said she would go and get
some fancy shirts, and would sit up all night to make
them. She went away and never came back. She used
to work at making slop shirts for a penny a shirt. For
the better sort of shirts she used to get lad., 10., and
even 2d. She had to find her own needles and thread.
She could make three or four shirts a day. She used to
work for Mrs. Pickering, of Red Lion-street, Wapping,
They used to get no meat sometimes for weeks. They
lived on bread and dripping when they could get it. They
could not get anything when her father had no work. He
was kind to them, and willing to work when he could get
it to do. The youngest child was 18 months old. Witness
was the eldest. Her mother used often to say to her, " Oh
my, Polly, ain't it dreadful ? we have got nothing to eat
again to-day!" Richard Mallen proved that he found the
body of the deceased in the Thames, near the entrance to
the London Docks. She was dressed in clothes that de-
noted great destitution. The coroner, in summing up, re-
marked that the story, as told by the witnesses, was one
of the saddest of the many sad ones he had to hear from
time to time. The life of the poor woman, as she tried to

eke out her husband's scanty earnings by making shirts at
a penny a-piece, finding her own needles and thread, was
such as well might upset her reason, and cause her in a
moment of despair to throw herself into the river. He
was informed that the testimony of the juror as to the
good character and industry of the family was borne out
by that of the district visitor. The jury returned a ver-
dict of " Suicide while in a state of unsound mind through
distress." The man Yems was recalled, and asked what
he had had to eat that day. He replied, We have not
had a bit to eat to-day (it was then half-past two o'clock).
If you go to my plac3, you will find it is so." The little
girl was recalled and asked the same question. She said
that she had now been taken by a lady as a servant, and
she had enough to eat, but her sisters had only a bit of
dry bread, and her father had nothing. The coroner and
the jury made up a small subscription for the family.

A STRANGE AFFAIR.—The Waterford correspon-
dent of the Freeman's Journal writes that on Friday
morning one of the guns at the fort of Duncannon,
Passage West, near that city, was found " spiked." No
information wa-; procurAb!e on th, subject, and he under.
stands that no clue has been found to the " spiker."
THE ILLEGALITY OF LOTTERIES. —A case of im-
portance, as affecting- persons engaged in originating
lotteries, was decided by the county magistrates at Can-
terbury on Saturday. The Rev. Henry Geary, incumbent_
of Christ Church, Herne Bay, was summoned by direction
of the chief of the Kent county constabulary, " for that he
did, on the 6th of January last, at Herne Bay, in the
parish of Herne, publicly keep a certain place, there to
exercise and keep open, to be drawn by numbers, a certain
illegal lottery not authorised by Parliament, to wit, a
lottery for divers prizes of goods." The evidence adduced
by several witnesses on behalf of the prosecution went to
shew that a bazaar for the sale of fancy articles was
recently held at Herne Bay, in order to obtain funds to
assist in the cost of enlarging Christ Church. A
number of articles remained undisposed of, and
these the rev. defendant announced would be got rid of by
means of a public lottery, which took place in the school.
room attached to the church. The fee for a single chance
in the drawing was 2e. 6d., and persons who paid that sum
drew from a bag, held by a lad in the building, a ticket
entitling them to a certain article. Some articles were of
greater value than others, none being of less value than
the amount paid, and there were no blanks. Mr. Geary
did not dispute the facts of the case ; but urged that the
course adopted by him was in every respect similar to pro-
ceedings carried on almost daily throughout the country,
and he had no idea that he was infringing the law. The
bench, through their clerk, said this might be so, but if
proceeki.ings at law were taken in such eases, the parties
concerned would be equally liable to conviction. The de-
fendant was then convicted, and directed to come up for
judgment if called upon, and mulct in costs amounting to
21 4s. 6d.

FATAL PARISH NEGLECT. —An inquest has
been held at the Market House, Poplar, on the
body of Caroline Siddle, aged 45 years, the wife o!
a painter, living at 45, Augusta-street, Poplar. She had
been a healthy woman all her life, but, being seized with a
sudden illness on Tuesday week, an order for the parish
doctor was got the next day. A boy of 18 visited the
deceased and prescribed for her. He saw her again on
the following Saturday : another gentleman saw her on
Sunday, and on Monday she died.—Dr. H. Stanley
Gale, M. 8., the parish surgeon, said there were
120 parish patients to be visited at their own homes,
and over 400 to treat at his surgery. He had
two assistants, neither legally qualified. The salary
(added the doctor) is £lO5 a year, and the medicine is to be
found out of it. I remonstrated with the board of guar-
dians, but without result. I then wrote to the Poor-law
Board ; and they sent an assistant for a short time.—Dr.
James Edmunds said that the deceased had died from
strangulated hernia. The inteAine might easily have been
relieved by an operation, and thus the woman's life saved.
The amount of work cast upon the parish medical officer
was altogether overwhelming, and the £lO5 a year
would not pay for the necessary medicine for 600
patients—a number greater than that of all the sick
in the London Hospital.—Dr. Gale said that he bad
written to the Poor-law Board to say that he was sure
some accident of this kind would happen. The day this
woman died thirty-two fresh orders came in to him.
He would have seen the deceased himself if he had not
been engaged visiting cases which he believed to be more
serious. The stricture was so small that it could hardly be
detected. The jury returned a verdict " That the deceased
died from strangulated hernia, and that her death 'was
accelerated by the want of properly-qualified medical
attendance ; and that the board of guardians are to blame
in requiring the parish surgeon, Dr. Gale, to attend and
supply medicine to so many more patients than he can
personally see and prescribe for, while they pay him so
small a salary that he is not able to employ properly-
qualified assistants to help him."
THE FATAL STORM IN EDINBURGH. For
fully five hours on Friday (says the Scotsman) there
raged over a large part of Scotland, and part of England,
a hurricane of wind, rain, and snow, such as has not been
witnessed for many years ; and the sad effects are written
in grievous loss of life, in many painful accidents, and in no
small destruction of property. The fall of the barometer
dUring the previous night and 04 Friday morning gave
warning of some atmospheric change at hand ; the sky
had become by ten o'clock overcast and lowering ;
and by twelve o'clock the tempest had set in. It
grew in fury till about one o'clock, when there oc-
curred in Edinburgh the saddest of all the incidents
of the storm. A tall chimney-stack at the back of the
residence of Mr. John Keegan, S.S.C., in Duke-street,
was blown down, and, tumbling through the roof,
it threw down the whole of the back part of the house, six
storeys in height, burying six inmates in the ruins. It
was found that four persons had been killed. In the
upper part of the house a servant had been killed, and
another severely injured ; further down, Miss Keegan
had been killed ; and of three clerks at work in the
lowest apartment, two were killed, and one narrowly
escaped, and was extricated almost unhurt. Several
other accidents also occurred in Edinburgh, hut, fortu-
nately, in none of them were lives lost. Many narrow
escapes, however, took place from falling chimney-
stacks, cans, and bricks ; and the streets, strewed
with fragments of masonry and loose mortar, made it
appear as if the city had been visited by a siege rather
than a gale of wind. The area of the storm seems to
have been wide, but its fury was doubtless spent in the
southern counties of Scotland. In Glasgow the wind was
bvle,r)liymvioinleuatb,
out
and the roof
o'clock,roofo and a
fa house in
womaned wasford-lane
killed.m'as
From other quarters also there come reports of accidents,
thmeolowesgterv(a)efprht, 1
wires
,e
make
kihoeawvueepv ebtiejl of s
een fulldaialnmcaalgt
aeal,cloc,guoaunendto.f railllo s
sto iseals
losses,
Mourn
communica-
tion—with tion— with the north in particular—has been much im-
peded by trees and telegraph posts falling across the
lines, and also, in the central district, by a heavy snow-
storm. It may be expected that the disasters at sea will
prove to be numerous and serious—indeed, it is known
that four Newhaven fishing-boats and two Dunbar boats
are missing.

ROMAN AFFAIRS.

ROME, January 18th.
The representative ceremonies of the Epi-
phany in the various churches are too multi-
farious to be detailed in one letter. The most
primitive are those of the Ara Coali, that mys-
terious dedication which speaks of the strangest
aspiration of the old philosophy after the teach-
ing of the new. It is impossible now to dis-
tinguish which is true among the various
legends of the occurrences which induced
Augustus to dedicate an.altar to God's First-
Born on the spot over which it was subse-
quently built. That which ascribes it to his
regard for the oracle,
Me Puer llebraeus Divos Deus ipse gubernaus
Cedere sede jubet, tristemque redire sub orcum.
Aris ergo dehin tacitus abscedito nostris."

has been sufficiently often repeated for its terms
to have become household words, and thus,
to the present day in Italy (whence it has also
passed into Spain), " I will give you to
Orco ' is as common a means of frightening
a crying child into silence as " I will give you
to old Boguy " among us.
Another, which tells us that Augustus, hav-
ing consulted the Sibyl of Tivoli as to whether
he might allow the people to pay him divine
honours as conqueror of the world, after three
days' fast was shown by her the heavens
opened, and in the midst an altar, over which
a Child in the arms of a beautiful Virgin, the
stars making a crown of light round them,
while in the ears of the entranced Emperor
there resounded the words, " Haec ara Filii
Dei est," is commemorated in the antiphon
sung after Compline in the Ara Cceli.
" Stellato hic in circulo,
Sybilla tune oraculo,
Te vidit Rex in Cs' elo."

This popular tradition also received another
commemoration in an ancient marble altar
frontal of this church, at one end of which
Augustus, wearing his imperial crown, is re-
presented kneeling before the Blessed Virgin,
who stands at the other end with the Divine
Infant in her arms. Likewise in the presepio
(the representation of the Crib of Bethlehem,
which most churches, and private houses, too,
put up at this season) of the Ara Cceli figures
of the Sibyl and Augustus used to kneel in
the foreground, and symbolize the subjec-
tion of the Pagan to the Christian regime of
Rome. For a year or two past this significant
representation has been neglected.
In all other particulars it was as elaborate
this year as every other, and the mazy effects
of lights and clouds and heavenly hosts de-
lighted the infant visitors as usual. Among
the pictures, flowers, and fruit lay the oranges
from the Convent garden, which it is the
yearly custom for the good Frati to bring
round to those whose offerings they come to
seek. The life-sized shepherds kept watch
through the octave of the Nativity, and then
day by day of their three days star-led jour-
ney the wise men appeared, journeying on over
the mountains, in the distant recesses of the
scenic chapel, till ultimately, on the Epiphany,
they take their place in the foreground, and lay
their offerings before the young Child and His
mother. But the figure of that young child itself
is the wonder of the place. It was carved by
a saintly Zoccolante or wooden-sandalled Brother
in Jerusalem, out of an olive tree from the
sacred Garden of Gethsemane. Various won-
ders attended the manner of its completion and
its journey to Rome, and the veneration it
received on its first arrival seems never to
have cooled. It is literally covered with the
jewels offered to it chiefly on occasion of re-
coveries from illness, when its visit to the house
of the sick person has been sought.
After the Gospel in the third Mass on Christ-
mas Day, it is brought out from its little chapel
in the sacristy, and placed in the presepio already
prepared to receive it, and there it remains all
through this season, only hidden on the Feast
of Holy Innocents, in memory of the flight
from Herod. Opposite the presepio an estrade
is raised, from which the praises and perfec-
tions of the Divine Bainbino are spoken " out
of the months of babes." I believe seven years
is the age which must not be exceeded by
these infantine preachers. Then on the Epi-
phany, after Vespers, it is carried round the
church in procession, and finally restored to
receptacle.itsLaacsctusmtoomneddayshoNved
the Romans had lost
of none o ftheir a
being
pres present
for
deposition.
the popular
While
h ic.ul
es custom
their i
-
anbvrotheerh and all its approaches
s were yetsingi
ng
VFraesupceirssc, the hur
were already thronged. The semi military uni-
form of the volunteer firemen hardly enabled
them to enforce the necessity of leaving room
for the procession. The incensing of the pre-
sepio at the Magnificat is, indeed, one part
principal adjunct of the ceremony which they
come out to see. The Franciscans have a fine
organ and some excellent voices, andt no one
seemed tired tsirunekd
farof lbisetloewninthgetloevtheleoi' though the
in the church, and the proportions owiof the
shrouded in darkness. At last the begimiingchanting to be
gloomy ancient building were
ceased, and the band struck up the march
measures the steps of the procession whichTh j
thrown open, there poured in the gorgeous
ompt
the great western doors of the church. b •en
thegd settingng ebagkorgeeoinnsg
ofthsaunt roofrefl
the helmets and instruments of the Pc from•
•
raysand thofewas made
so gorgeous to celebrate the victory of Lepanto,
like a festal illumination to light
the Infant
King as he is laid to his rest. The whole Capi-
toline mount swarmed like a gigantic anthill,
bending in attitudes of devotion before the
venerable effigy of the Sa •
viour in His lowliness
as it was brought out from
the summit of
those
proud steps, to pour out His benedictions on
the meek and lowly of heart.
Having spoken of one of the oldest Epi-
phany celebrations, I may say a few words
about one of the most modern.
Not many years
ago a Roman priest, Vincenzo
Pallotti, by
name, instituted a
pions society of missions,
its members consisting not
only of those who
give themselves up to the ecclesiastical state,
but also comprising a sodality of persons living
in the world who help
the work of the mis-
sions by prayers or alms, or in any other
use man-
ner. The congregation has for general
very small church on the left bank. a !
of the Tiber, I
but at the Epiphany season
it has the use of
the noble church of St. Andrea della Valle,
which is festively draped and decorated for
the occasion, the whole east
end of the nave
being occupied by a presepio, with its attendant
magi, and lighted by the Star of Bethlehem.
Every day during the octave, from five in the
morning till the evening Ave, there is hardly
any cessation of the pious work. First there
is Mass according to the Latin right, with
sermon in Italian, and Benediction. This is
succeeded by a High Mass. Then follows
Mass, said according to the rites of various
Oriental communities in union with Rome ;
then a sermon every day in a different Euro-
pean language. Then Exposition of the Blessed
Sacrament, Rosary, Meditation, and Benedic-
tion, given by a Cardinal. Later in the even-
ing preachers go out attended by Confrater-
nity men—their black habits leaving only their
eyes uncovered—bearing crucifixes and lamps,
and taking up their stand in some piazza or
carrefonr, speak the word of God in the high-
way. Men are arrested by the sound as they
lounge or hurry by, and most stay till the few
fervent words are concluded, and follow the
missioner back to the church, where Rosary,
Instruction, and Benediction close the day.
If I had time I would speak of another in-
teresting commemoration—that of the return:
of the Holy Family from Egypt, which is kept
here on the 7th of January ; but I must leave
this now for another year.
From the Epiphany to to-day, the feastrof
St. Peter's Chair in Rome, there is a lull in
the functions which derive their lustre from the
presence of the Pope. In the interim we have
only the more, popular festival of St. Antony's
octave, which began yesterday with the usual
blessing of animals brought for the purpose
to his church near Sta. Maria Maggiore. To-
day is also a fester at one of the most interest-
ing churches of Rome, that of St, Prisca. It