The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-25 00:00:00

VICTORIA THEATRE.

An excellent melodrama, teaching a most important
moral lesson, was produced at this theatre last evening,
with most triumphant success. It is entitled the Tempe-
rance Pledge, and we doubt not but that the members of
the Temperance Societies alone will fill the theatre
every evening for the next month. The drama repre-
sents the career of two individuals, one, Richard
Farrell (Mr. Meld), at the commencement of the
piece, a miserable, squalid drunkard ; and the
other, George O'Meara (Mr. James Vining), a
young man of fortune, who is fund of his bottle.
Farrell has reduced his family to starvation ; his son
Henry (Miss Arden), a young boy, in order to procure
food for his mother and her family, commits a petty
theft, and is apprehended ; his father, horror-struck at
the crime to which he has driven his child by his drunk-
enness, takes the temperance pledge, keeps it, and by his
industry acquires an independence, restores his boy to
society, and redeems himself and his family from the
misery and degradation into which be had plunged
them. O'Meara, on the contrary, becomes a
confirmed sot—neglects his wife, who elopes with
one of his boon companions ; and after en-
during every variety of wretchedness, ends his miser-
able career by murdering his wife and her paramour,
and then poisoning himself. There is a comic under-
plot, supported by Gardner as a publican ; Paul, as a
drunken tailor ; and Seaman, as an Irish servant, which,
by its fun and humour, affords a seasonable relief to the
more tragic portions of the drama. James Vining's deli-
neation of the character of O'Meara was very fine, and
the other actors exerted themselves to the utmost.
The scenery is excellent, and the manner in which the
drama has been put upon the stage reflects the highest
credit on the management. At the fall of the curtain,Miss
Vincent spoke an appropriate and well• written epilogue,
which, we believe, is from the pen of the manager.
The lively operetta of Our Lady of the Willow followed;
after which Hamet Bey, a Creole posture-master, exhi-
bited some of the most astonishing specimens of flexi-
bility of limb we have ever seen. It is no exaggeration
to say that lie can " tie himself up in a knot." The
house was very well attended.

LARGE VIPER.—The other day a large viper was
killed in the Bishop Woods, the property of R. L. Watson,
Esq., of Calgarth, by Jonathan Stalker, woodcutter, which
measured full three feet in length, and neaely five inches in
circumference. On making an incision in the belly twelve
young vipers made their appearance. Its colours were vari-
ous and beautifully mottled. These animals breed in the
month of May, and are supposed to be about three months
before they bring forth. They have seldom more than eleven
eggs at a time. They usually bring forth in the month of
August.— Wectmoreland Gazette.
[ADVERTISEMENT.]—HOLLOWAY'S OINTMENT AND
PlLLS.—Debtors' Prison Infirmary, Whitecross•street,
London.—Extraordinary Cure of Scrofula by the use of
one large pot of Ointment and a Box of Pills.—Captain
Jarvis, an inmate of the above prison, had for two
years past several dreadful scrofulous ulcers on his legs
and other parts of his body, which resisted every other
kind of treatment. His case was so desperate as to con-
fine him for several months to the infirmary, until ho
was miraculously cured by the use of these medicines.—
Sold at Professor Holloway's Establishment, 244, Strand
(where advice may be had gratis), and by almost all re-
spectable Vendors of Medicine throughout the civilised
world.

MYSTERIOUS FIDDLER.—This ingenious son of
Orpheus, who has for some time been fiddling in the
Fife villages, under pretence
.of winning a wager of
5,0004 to be given to the Antt:Corn-law League, has
fallen into the hands of justice and the police. On
Wednesday last he was apprehended in the act of pur-
suing his patriotic labour in the streets of Leven, and
straightway carried as a vagabond before her Majesty's
justices at Kirkcaldy. On being questioned, he gave his
name as John Wotherspoon, from Perth, a pensioner of
the Royal Artillery, and felt it his duty to disown all
connexion with the League. The justices dismissed him
with a severe reprimand, and gave directions to the
police to see him out of the county.—Fife Herald.
The contemplated alliance between Lord Charles
Wellesley, M.P., Clerk Marshal of the Household, and Miss
Pierrepont, only child and heiress of the Right Hon. H. M.
Pierrepont. and niece to the Marqnis of Exeter, and Earl
Manvers, is fixed to take place next Thursday se'nnight.
Dispatches were received yesterday, at the Colonial-
office, from the Governors of the West India Colonies.