The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,

LARGE SEIZURE OF BASE COIN.
APPRELIENSION OF A GANG OF COINERS.—In
cansequence of the many complaints from shopkeepers
and others which have of late reached the police, as
to the immense quantity of base coin in circulation
in Manchester, the chief superintendent of police,
Mr. Ihswick, had for some weeks past been actively
engaged in attempting to detect the whereabouts of a
notorious gang which he had every reason to believe
was located in the town. To insure the detection he
put himself in communication with the superinten-
dent of the London and North-Western Railway
station here, having reason to believe that the spurious
coin in circulation in Manchester (chiefly half-crown
and crown-pieces) was forwarded by railway from
head-quarters in Landon to one or more accomplices
here. Yesterday (Friday) morning, acting on some
intelligence brought to him by three of ids officers
(la,p.ctor Buckley and his assistants), who had been
watching at the London-road Railway station, he went
to an eating house in Lever-street, and there appre-
hended three prisoners, named Wm. Brown, John
Thompson, and L vaisa Thompson. On visiting the
house he found B:ovvn in bed, when he placed him in
charge of an otficer, and passing through that room
into an adjoining one he arrested Thompson and his
wife, who sat conversing by the fire. In the lap of the
female he found a base half-crown, and underneath
the bed-clothes, near to where Tnompson sat, he
found a lot more, wrapped up in papers containing
20 each, in all what purp aqed to be of the value of
14/. IW. After securing the parties, Mr. Beswick
gave orders to his men to make a thorough search
over the place, when Thompson said 'it was no use,
they (the police) had got all in the house. The
brown paper in which the base coin had been
wrapped, and which had only come by railway from
London that morning, was found in the room di- j
rected to Thompson, in care of the person keeping j
the eating-house in Lever-street. The coins, which
are the best of the kind we ever saw, are most admir-
able counterfeits, and would indeed puzzle many to
discover that they are base. They are principally of
the reigns of George 111. and IV., and bear date
1817-19, and George IV., 1826. They are, we be-
lieve, made of zinc and- bismuth, which latter metal
makes them ring like genuine coins, and they have
been afterwards coated with silver by the electro
plating process. As a proof that the spurious coins
are difficult of detection, we may mention that a gen-
tleman whom our reporter met in Mr. Beswick's office
was comparing one of his own genuine half-crown
pieces with a handful of base ones, when the lot got
so mixed together that he could not pick out his own
coin, and was obliged to leave it with Mr. Beswick
until that gentleman had leisure to find it for him.—
Manchester Paper.

DIFFUSION OF DEMOCRACY IN
THE FRENCH PROVINCES.
The Journal des Debats publishes an interesting
letter from a gentleman just returned from a tour in
the French provinces, containing an account of the
rapid spread of democratic and social opinions in those
parts. The writer begins by deploring the folly of
the Conservative or anti-Republican party in wasting
their time and provoking internal dissensions by mi-
serable dynastic disputes and old worn-out "contests
cf factions. " You forget," he says, "that in order
to have a king you must possess a kingdom, and that
France, before asking herself whether she shall don a
crown or a Phrygian cap, ought, in the first instance,
to assure herself that she has a head on her shoulders."
He goes on to denounce the apparent tranquillity
which France now enjoys as utterly delusive. "We
have not changed ; only let the National Guard have
three months' repose and we shall again hear them
raise the cry of Vice la Reforme r—we shall once
more behold them giving 100,000 votes to M. de
Causidi6re." Describing the state of public opinion
in the provinces, the writer pourtrays a
picture in the highest degree discouraging
to the supporters of " order." " I am only now
translating what I have heard in the heart of our pro-
vinces, and I can assure you that the inhabitants of
those districts are far more attentive to the progress
of the demoralization of the rural districts than to the
process of fusion on the question of Ti Plata. It is,
doubtless, a good thing not to he an alarmist, but it
is still a better not to be blind to the tru`h. Now, it
is certain that the work of destruction has recom-
menced more actively than ever in the bowels of the
earth ; that the same hands are digging the mine
anew under the feet of society, and that the Propa-
gandists, hunted out of the towns, have transferred
their strength to the rural districts. They enter and
infiltrate their doctrines through all their pores; they
sow in every thatched roof, in every truss of hay, in
every sheaf of corn, the invisible seed of their poison ;
they penetrate every where with the very instruments
of the Government, with the instructor, the agent,
and the garde-champetre. The Almanack, become a
dictionary of atheism and materialism, is everywhere
replacing the catechism of infancy in the hands of
the poor. It is not the small treatises of the Aca-
demy of Moral Sciences that will supplant it; they are
too well written. The doctors of destruction' go to
work more brutally. Tney have recognised the
fearful force of the axiom and the amphorism ; they
plant in the mind masses of monstrous proverbs which
we re-echo ourselves in contending against them,
and which, so to speak, carry with them their own
memoria technica." And whence (asks the writer)
are the forces to be derived for the resistance of this
propaganda ? Authority and unity are nowhere to
be found ; the Assembly is split up into sections,
and its power is a nullity. The party of order is
dispirited, and has no heart for the struggle. "Do
Sou remember," concludes the writer—" Do you re-
member the words of the ancient orator quoted by
Miraheau, Catiline is at your gates, and yet you de-
lib mate 1' Just so ; barbarism is at our gates, and
yet we are divided and disputing with each other.
Believe what I say, you must not cease either to
unite, to hold together, or to act. Society has not
changed during the last two years, and it is still the
same mass of combustible material to which a cynical
braggart one day boasted that he could set fire with
a lucifer match !"

DRY PROCESS OF PREPARING FLAX.—In the
year 1810 a new method of dressing flex Ras rat.nt-id
by which the woody matter was separat ad from the fibre
without steeping it, by me acs of mechanical action
and teen the flax was bleached by simply washing it
in es a-in water. It would appear tEat the colouring
matter is not chemically combined with the fibrous
matter while the plant is vegitating, or after it is pulled,
but that the chemical combination takes place while the
plan• is et 'geed in water. The object of this steeping is
to induce a fermentAtion, which loosens and destroys a
cemeet which bound the fibres ( f fl Ix to each other and
t the wood. The ferment Idea weakens considerably
the strength of the flax fibres, and even destroys many
f teem. This dry preparation, thenfore, if it be prac-
ticable on a la-ge scale, would be a prodigious improve-
ment. It would render the flax fibres much stronger,
,t would increase their quality, and it would save the
expense r f the materials employed in bleaching the
linen. It has been stated that the dry process has uni-
formly failed of success, when tried in Ireland. If
this account be true, it is extremely difficult
to explain About the time when the 1 atent was
taken out the process was performed by workmen,
under the direction of the patentee, at Old Bow, near
Loedov, with the most complete success, tact merely
upon handfuls of flex, but upon whole fields of ie ln-
dee4, the whole is so extremely simple, that it is diffi-
cult" to explain how it should fa', if properly conducted.
It is, theref,re' highly probable that the prejudices of
the Irish, with which it would have had to contend at
that eae, were too powerful for it; but, that as soon as
it shall meet with fair play, it will be found just as
prat icable, and certainly much cheaper and better,
than the methods at present in use. It is during the
steep, then, that flax aequires its permanent dad;
colour; and four processes in bleaching are requisite to
restore it to its original white colour, or to separate the
colouring matter, which is chemically combined with the
fibre of the flax.

INTERESTING DISCOVERY. About three weeks
since, three quarrymen, while at their labour at Lanyon
quarry, discovered a couple of gold coins almost as per-
fect as when they were issued from the mint. A gentle-
man of Penzance to whom they were taken has furnished
the following description of the coins:—They are aurei
of Theodosius the Great, and of his son Arcadius, or
rather solidi; as the aureus in later times was called
solidus, and by Byzantine writers numisaaa, or the coin;
chrysinos, because of gold; and hyperpyros from its
being of bright gold, flaming like fire. It was also called
bezint in Europe because it came from Btzantium. The
coin of Theodosius, who reigned from 379 to 395, has on
the obverse the diademed head of the Emperor. legend
Dominus Noster THEODOSIVS Pius Felix AVGustus.
On the reverse, the two Emperors (Theodosius and
Arcadius) in the toga, seated, holding in their hands a
globe (the emblem of power), behind them a figure of
Victory with raised wings, legend VICTORIA
AVGGustorum. In the exergue COM Constantinopoli
,loneta. The coin of Arcadius, who reigned from 395
to 408, has also on the obverse the diademed head of the
Emperor, legend—Dominus Nosier ARCADIUS Pius
Feli
xAVGustus. On the reverse the Emperor standing
with his left foot on a prostrate foe, holding in his right
hand the labarum (the sacred standard) and in his left a
figure of Victory, Iegend—VICTORIA AVGGustorum.
COMOB Conflate Monete Obryzo.—The
In the exergue •
letters which occur in the exergue generally mark the
e the
place of coinage, but in this instannce.
name of a city, but is from Obryzin ,
in-
scription, therefore signifies, money- struck from
of
athe
o
the purity
purest gold. This mode of marking °thberYez; i
rsgnuoati
piece is not unknown to the modern mint. The silver
coins struck by George 111. for his Hanoverian domi-
nions are inscribed NDRFFSILB, that is, Nach den
Retells Fuss Fein Silber, according to the Imperial
standard of fine silver. A similar inscription is also
found on the coins of Jeromp Boniparte (Westphalia).
—Cornwall Gazelle.
APPOINTMENTS.— The Queen has presented the
Rev. W. J. Poole to the living of Aberffraw, Anglesea.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Brodie Fraser, commanding
the Royal Artillery at St. Helena, is appointed a member
of the council of that island. James M`Nab (receiver-
general), W. Stairs, and Jonathan M'Cuddy, Esqs., are
nominated members of the legislative council of Nova
Scotia. Benjamin Simpson Houghton, Thomas Rudelle,
and Alcide Cayron, P
—Ns-, are appointed mcrobera of
cewscil g; ;he Nouritio.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, Jan. 14.
:Sittings in Banco, in llllary Term, before Lord
Chief Justice WILDE, and Justices 11.--uLE, CRESS-

WELL, and WILLIAMS.
lIILCOAT V. TUE ARCHBISHOPS or CANTERBURY AND

YORK.

Thi3 was an action tried before the Lord Chief
Justice on the 14th of December last, in L radon, in
which a verdict was found for the plaintiff, damages
to be assessed on the second count of the declaration
at 1,5411. This case was very fully reported at the
trial.
Sir F. THESIGER (with whom was Mr. Tomlinson)
now moved for a rule to show cause why the verdict
should not be entered for the defendants, upon the
second and seventh issues, or why judgment should
not be arrested, or for a new trial, on the grounds of
misdirection, of the improper admission of evidence,
and because the verdict was against evidence. Tne
action was brought under the provisions of the 9th
and 10th Victoria, chap. 312, which was a private
Act for making a railway from Liverpool to Berwick,
and by this statute it was provided that the railway
was not to interfere with the church or chapel of St.
slatthew's, at Liverpool, or with the c'iurchyard and
ground and pas:age conm.c.ed therewith, without the
consent of the Bishop of Chester and the Archbishop of
York, and on payment of such a sum of money as
should be agreed upon by the archbishop and bishop, in
ascertaining which some regard should be bad to the
cost of a site of equal dimensions, and for complet-
ing a new church capable of accommodating 730
persons, and, if the defendants should think fit, for
the purchase of the surplus pew rents beyond the
annual sum of 951. reserved thereout for the minister,
clerk, and sexton. The declaration in the first count
set out this statute, and averred that the passage and
part of the ground near the church did not form the
site of the church, and that the plaintiff was entitled
to the value of that land taken by the railway com-
pany ; that the value of this land was 2,0001., which
the railway company refused to pay. The second
count alleged it to be the duty of the defendants
under this Act of Parliament to ascertain the value
of the ground taken by the railway company adjoin-
ing the church which did not form part of the
site of the church, but that they had not
used proper care in ascertaining its value, and
that the railway company had taken possession of
the ground without paying the plaintiff its proper
value. To this count there was a plea of " Not
Guilty." The seventh issue denied that the ground
and passage adjoining the church did not form part
of the site of the church. It appeared that in 1798
the present church, which was then a dissenting
chapel, was purchased by bargain and sale, and con-
veyed to trustees to be consecrated for the use of the
Established Church, and the land to its use for ever,
and that the chapel was afterwards consecrated by the
name of St. Matthew's church. In 1836 Dr. Hil-
coat, the plaintiff, purchased the church and ground
for 1,2001., and in 1846 the Act of Parliament in
question was obtained, the plaintiff getting inserted
into it the clauses on which the present action was
founded, constitutine, as the Learned Counsel con-
tended, the Bishop of Chester and the Archbishop of
York statutable arbitrators to settle the value of the
church and ground between the plaintiff and the rail-
way company; that they were bona fide to use their
best discretion and judgment in so doing. Having
been called on under this Act cf Parliament to
act, the defendants bad heard evidence as . to
the value of the ground. On one side it
had been estimated for the plaintiff, by Mr.
Holmes, of Liverpool, as building land, worth
31. 10s. the yard ; for the company the land was
valued, as land which could not be built on under the
deed of bargain and sale under which it was held, at
8111. The defendants awarded for the land and pew
rents above 951., 1,5001., which sum had been ten-
dered to the plaintiff and refused by him. The rail-
way company, having indemnified the defendants,
took possession of the ground, and the plaintiff
brought his present action against the defendants.
The Learned Counsel contended that the matter was
submitted to the defendants as arbitrators, and that
they had exercised their judgment with bona fides,
and that they were not therefore liable, even if mista-
ken, to an action of tort. It was also contended at
the trial that the plaintiff was at liberty to call other
evidence as to the value of the land, and submit that
to the jury, and if the jury thought the judgment of
the defendants wrong, that then the plaintiff was en-
titled to a verdict for their breach of duty. That
evidence was admitted and objected to. The Learned
Judge who tried the case directed the jury that it was
the defendants' duty to ascertain the full value of the
land, and if they failed in that, the plaintiff had a
right to go to the jury to ascertain it. This was the
misdirection complained of. On these grounds he
moved for the rule.—Rule nisi granted.

COURT OP EXCHEQUER, Jan. 14.
(Sittings in Banco.)
BOSANQUET V. STIORTRIDGE.

This action was brought to recover a very large sum
of money against the defendant, as ono of the pro-
prietors of the Newcastle, Shields, and Sunderland
Union Joint. Stock Banking Company. which stopped
payment in 1848, and it was tried before the Lard
Chief Baron at the last sittings in London, when a ver-
dict was taken by consent for the plaintiff, with liberty
to move the Court above.
Sir F. TIMMER now moved for a new trial, in
accordance with leave reserred on the ground of the
improper reception of evidence, and that the
verdict was against the evidence. The defendant,
who resides at South Shields, was possessed of
100 shares in the bank, and in July, 1847, he agreed to
sell 50 of them at 51. 103. each, and the remaining 50 at
51., to a person named George Pringle Few, of Ness-
castle. The transfer was approved of by the manager
of the bank, and a certificate was drawn out and signed
by thn e of the managing directors; net at a !meting of
the board, but separately at their residences, and the
question arose whether the transfer was a legal one
under the deed of settlement. It appeared that pre-
vious to this transaction the bank had been
suffering from the effects t f the recent commercial de-
pression, and found it necessary to apply to the Baak of
England for a loan of 50,0004, which is as ail anted on
the condition that no transfers ef stares should take
place until it was retard. In January, 1848, the alleged
transfer was declared at a meeting of the board null aid
void, and the rame of Few was struck out a the trans-
fer-book, and that of the defendant re-inserted. The
hank subsequently stopped payment, and it was sought
to attach the eltfenea; t with liability as a proprietor in
respect of the present debt.—The Court granted a rule.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
GUILDHALL.

A young man, named William Anderson, Blue
Lion-court, Aldersgate-street, was placed at the bar
before Mr. Alderman Carden, charged with robbing
his ready-furnished lodgings, under the following un-
grateful circumstances :
Mary Ann Myrtle, Beaumont's buildings, Alders-
gate-street, said that the prisoner, who is a tailor, and
his wife took a furnished room at ss. per week, about
eighteen months egc', where they remained until
Saturday night, when they removed to their present
residencein 13;ue Lion-court. After they were gone
she went into their room, and missed a blanket worth
45., besides crockery to a similar amount, as well as
about 101bs. of feathers, which had been taken out
of the bed. On making this discovery she gave the
prisoner into custody, as she thought both him and
his wife had beha.ved in the most ungrateful manner,
after all the kindness that had been shown to them,
and the money they owed. . _

Alderman CARDEN asked how much rent was due
Mrs. MyrtlP replied that it amounted to 11. 19s.
_ .

Alderman GARDEN inquired the value of the missing
articles ?—Mrs. Myrtle said they would cost about 14g.
Alderman GARDEN wished to know what the kind-
ness was that prosecutrix had alluded to? Mrs.
Myrtle said that, in the first place, when the wife was
confined she supplied her with clothes for the child,
and paid such attentions as were necessary to a female
in such a situation.

The wife exclaimed, "That's false."
Mrs. Myrtle went on to say that for a long time the
prisoner was out of work, and necessarily fell into ar-
rears of rent, until an offer of employment occurred in
August last, but security was required. Her hus-
band at first refused to become the prisoner's security,
until she almost went on her knees to him before he
consented. Since then he had been in constant work,
earning, according to his master's books (with the
aid of another man), from 2/. Bs. to 2/. 12s. per week,
and yet during the whole period he had not the
honesty to pay what he owed.
Alderman CARDEN—And this was done out of
kindness to them ? Mrs. Myrtle—Yes, because I
thought that being young people, it was a pity they
should lose such an opportunity of getting on.
Alderman CAUDEN—What amount was your hus-
band liable for ? Mrs. Myrtle—For any amount that
he got from the shop. .

.
Alderman CARDEN—Then for the future never let
your husband be security without having the amount
fixed, for he may be ruined, and might have been in
this instance.

The prisoner, in defence, denied knowing anything
about the blanket or feathers, but admitted all the :est.
Alderman CARDEN sail. it was a most ungrateful
act on the prisoner's part to rob his benefactors in the
manner he had done, independent of his having com-
mitted a very serious offence, for which he might be
sent to the Old Bailey for trial.

The prisoner's wife here stepped forward, and said
they had tried their best to pay the rent, and as for
the kindness of becoming security, Mr. Myrtle only
did so to secure what was due to him. She was pro-
ceeding in the same strain, when she was ordered to
be removed out of court, which was instantly done.
Alderman CARDEN remanded the prisoner until to
morrow.

CLERKENWELL.
A respectably dressed middle-aged man, who ap-
peared on the police-sheet as George William Dow-
ling, Clarendon-square, was placed at the bar charged
with having been disorderly.
It appeared from the evidence of kolice‘constAble