The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-04 00:00:00

mirror.

The Spectator has often wondered why so many men, not
vicious or luxurious or stupid, find it so hard to save,
whether it would be possible to implant in lads the spirit
of saving, as it is possible to implant the spirit of study,
or ambition, or, as we believe, though this will be denied,
the habit of calculation. No doubt a born instinct 1113
something to do with the matter, for there are races which
save while others squander, just as there are mice which
accumulate grains and mice which starve two days to
gorge themselves on the third. But much must be due to
training and circumstance, else the Saxon in Edinburgh
and the Saxon in Kent, the Frenchman in Brittany and
the Frenchman in Spitalfields would not differ so violently
as they do in the accumulative faculty. The evil, the
greatest of the economical evils in our society, must be
curable, and the first step to cure it is to ascertain its
cause. The Times said about a year since it was inability
to do multiplication, to remember that a shilling a day is
Xl.B 15s. a year ; and the suggestion was shrewd, but it
does not cover the whole case. Nobody saves less than
the man who is always worrying over the details of his
daily expenditure, fixed, as it usually is, by circumstances he
can hardly control. It is not love of luxury, for very
simple men very often do not save ; and it is not, like
extravagance, due to wilfulness, for the majority would
like to save if they only saw the way. Patience is, we
strongly suspect, the wanting faculty in non-savers ; but
that is a very dreary thought, for patience is one of
the virtues which cannot be instilled from the outside.
Is it, however, possible to secure the results of patience
without securing the virtue, if it be a virtue, itself ? We
suspect it is, and that a very slight adjustment of our
social system would develope the habit in unexpected
strength. The writer had once the fortune to live among
an English community in which every man either saves or
thinks he will save, or is slightly :annoyed with himself
for not saving, and repeatedly saw men instinctively
careless of money, born spendthrifts, succeed in the
attempt. It was always done in one way, a way anyone
with an ascertained income or salary can adopt, but which
Englishmen seem to dread as a sort of slavery. This was
to apply the life-insurance principle to the entire income.
Most men, indeed all men who begin it, find in themselves
the nerve and the patience to pay the premium on life
insurance, and they have only to compel themselves to the
same practice on a larger scale to make independence
certain. Let them pay away into a bank, month by month
or quarter by quarter, the sum they think they can afford,
or rather are determined to afford, as a first charge upon
income, a life insurance, and they live upon the remainder,
running into debt, if necessary, rather than break the rule.
It seems somewhat silly advice, and one to be defended
only by experience ; but the man who tries it will find in
two years that his ideas of his own wealth are contracted,
that he regards the " remainder " as his whole income,
just as much as if he were paying the same sum to a life
insurance or a mortgage.

The Imperial Review declares that the practical lessons
the Abyssinian expedition has enforced are of -no little
value and importance. In the first place, the tendency to
exaggerate difficulties and to under-estimate our capacity
for overcoming them, that is characteristic of many who
hold the position of public advisers, has once more been
displayed, and its want of justification once more mani-
fested by results. When future enterprises are rendered
necessary, and similar objections are urged against the
course that the national honour renders it imperative to
pursue, it will be well to remember the moral that the
present expedition offers on this point. The advantage 4
that a Government secures by desisting from any attempt
to direct the progress of a warlike expedition from home,
and by committing fu'l aulhoril y and unreserved powers
to one able man, have, too, been brought out in strong
relief by the conduct of the present Government. Tho
importance of More complete organisation in the army, to
render it possible for it to take the field at short notice,
has also been manifested. It is evident that the formation
of a transport corps cannot be left with safety to the eve
of a war. If the teachings of the Abyssinian expedition
in these, as wit ai in minor points, is profited by, our
experience will not have been too dearly purchased.

FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT AT WOMBWELL'S MENA-
GEBIL—The other evening a seaman, named John Brown,
belonging to her Majesty's ship Duke of Wellington, met
with a frightful accident at Wombwell's menagerie, which
is at present exhibiting at Portsmouth, through an act of
foolhardiness, lie was in company with several of his ship-
mates, and :by way of bravado said he would shew them
that he was not afraid of the lions. He accordingly thrust
his right hand through the bars of the lions' cage, when one
of the animals sprang forward and seized it in its mouth.
The avnised cries of the unfortunate man created a most
painful excitement in the menagerie, and it was not until
the keepers had beaten the brute off with an iron bar.that
the hand was released. The back of the hand and the
wrist were most horribly lacerated, the flesh having lite-
rally been torn off, As soon as he was extricated from
his pai▪
nful position Brown fainted away. He was taken
to the Landport Hospital in a cab, and it was found that
the inj▪
uries were of such a serious charac'er that it was
necessary to amputate the limb, which was at once done
MA Aft /UMW sozzegaiug favourably.

REMARKABLE TRIAL FOR POISONING,

The Berlin correspondent of the Daily News, writing on
he Ist inst., says :—" One of those causes celebres has just
)een tried at Posen which would almost justify the belief
hat men are occasionally born into the world as entirely
lestitute of all principle of conscience as others are of
ight or hearing. The trial itself presented no particular
,oints of interest beyond that of clearly establishing the
Hilt of the prisoner, whose crimes almost eclipse those
if the notorious Palmer of detestable memory. The
acts are shortly as follows. The master bookbinder
Vittmann, was accused of having poisoned six persons in
ix years, namely, his four wives and two children.
Vittmann had worked as a journeyman for a bookbinder
tamed Pirsch, oftWollin, where he made the acquaintance
)f Marie Gehm, Pirsch's housekeeper. Wittmann was on
visit at WoUiu a; the end of 1858 and beginning of 1859,
m January 1 of which year Pirsch died very suddenly, and
%larie Gehm, according to a previous arrangement,
tame into the possession of all his property. Soon
iftcr this Wittmann commenced business in

and in February 1860 married Marie
ehm, who in addition to Pirsch's property had
ilso inherited some money through the sudden death of
in aunt. Two sons, John and Paul, were the result
if this marriage. Mrs. Wittman died very suddenly
n 1862, leaving all her property to her husband and two
Phildren, of whom the eldest died in the same mysterious
nanner three months later. In June 1863 Wittmann
narried his second wife, Charlotte Hohn, who possessed
tome fortune. The latter made ber will in the following
December, leaving everything to her husband, and died
week afterwards. In April 1864 Wittmann married
Pis third wife, Augustus Kornotzky, who was richer
;han her predecessor. Her fate may be described in almost
..he same words. She died in August 1865, leaving her
Property between ber husband and her mother. Only
two months after her death, Wittmann married his fourth
Ind by far the richest wife, the widow Bose, who had
me child by her first marriage. This child sickened
mmediately after its mother's wedding, and died in a
lay or two, by which the fourth Mrs. Wittmann. in-
' Perited its property. Wittmann then removed from
Wollln to Posen. It is hardly necessary to add that the
'mirth Mrs. Wittmann's life was not of very long
luration, as she died in September 1866, having made a
will in favour of her husband a month or two before.
Under the pretext that she had died of cholera Wittmann
Pad made arrangements for burying her the day after her
leath. But the extraordinary mortality in the Wittmann
'amity had already excited attention. The police here
took the matter up, and their first suspicions were
strengthened when they found that Wittmann had
Palled in no medical advice. Witms.nn was ar-
•ested just as the funeral procession was about to
start, and the burial of the body was prohibited.
)n searching the house, a large lump of arsenic, suffi-
Pient to poison a hundred persons, was found locked
2p in a chest. All the bodies of Wittinann's former wives,
is also those of his two children, were then exhumed,
snd submitted to a chemical investigation. The
result was the same in all six cases ; a large quantity
)f arsenic was detected, and there could not be the
shadow of a doubt that Wittmann had poisoned hid
;our wives and two children. He has been found guilty
and sentenced to death. If we consider that the
notice for these crimes was no higher passim that
avarice, and then remember the relation in which he
stood to his victims, and the deliberate perfidy with which
ae entered upon those relations, I doubt if the whole
record of crime can show a blacker case. Indeed, it is not
'rnprobable that he committed eight murders, as the very
redden death of Pirsch during Wittmann's visit, and also
)f his first wife's aunt, are extremely suspicious coinci-
Ifences under the above circumstances."