The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-20 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.-SUN OFFICE, DEC. 20.

THERMOMETER, Lowest, 31 ; Highest, 40 ; Noon, 32.
BAROMETER, 30.33.—W1ND, E.

NOTE.—The figures which follow the words "Lowest" and
" Highest" denote the lowest and highest state of the
'Thermometer during the preceding twenty-four hours. All
the other observations are made at noon. Water freezes at
52 ; 55 on Thermometers is marked "Temperate," and on
_Barometers "Fair" is generally placed opposite to 30, and
Rain" at 29; but there is no certainty of dry weather
when the mercury falls below 30.

111011 WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE THIS DAT.
140,3 mg ... 34 minutes after 1011 livening 0 minutes after 11.

land, the gallant author says—" Their stupid,
selfish policy, was to injure agriculture, to check
commerce, to oppress the working man, and to accu-
mulate riches for their own selfish pleasures. What
are the people to us ? was the foul expression of Noon
11011ANIED to Lieutenant EASTRICR. Poor or rich
what do we care ! If they pay us our revenue, give
us our hunting-grounds and enjoyments, that is all
we require. The most fertile districts was made a
wilderness to form their hunting-grounds. Their
Zenanas were filled with young girls torn from their
friends, and treated when in the harem with revolting
barbarity. In fine, the life of an Ameer was one of
gross pleasures, for which the labour and blood of
men were remorselessly exacted, the honour and hap-
piness of women savagely sacrificed." As regards
their observance of treaties, we are told that " con-
stant evasions or direct violations of every article
attended the conclusion of every treaty. Forged
letters, false seals, secret forms of instruction, false
assertions as to promises which had never been made
by the opposite party—such were the means dili-
gently, systematically, and not unskilfully employed
by the Ameers at all times in their intercourse with
British political agents." Truly it was high time
that such a fertile territory as Sinde, peopled, too, by
inhabitants, simple, hardy, and industrious in their
habits, should be freed from the grinding oppressions
and cruelties of rulers like these ; and we can well
believe that the vast mass of the Sindian population
bless the hour when they were ;first liberated by
British policy and valour from the heart-withering
despotism of their Ameers. The present part of
General NAPIER'S work is, as might be expected,
merely introductory, and is principally devoted to a
consideration of the many causes which rendered it
absolutely indispensable in Lord ELLENBOUOUGII to
take the bold step of occupying Sinde with a
British army. Of that Noble Lord's system of
Indian policy the gallant author expresses himself
in warm terms of approbation, and hints indirectly
that he fell a victim to a tribe of jobbers and selfish
civilians, by whom he was uniformly misrepresented
to the Court of Directors, who have themselves a
lurking taste for " nepotism," which the Governor-
General did all in his power to suppress. The
gallant author's work is written in a style of manly
glowing eloquence, and as a record of military
achievements, is worthy to vie with the ablest that
has ever appeared in England. Perhaps the follow-
ing particulars respecting the Conqueror of Sinde
may amuse our readers :
" Sir Charles Napier embarked at Bombay in the
Zenobia steamer on the 3d of September; thus com-
mencing his new career upon Oliver Cromwell's fortu-
nate day, a coincidence which he did not fail to note
with some satisfaction as a good omen. Yet the augury
seemed at fault in the beginning; for scarcely had the
vessel, which was full of troops, gained the open sea,
when cholera broke out in the worst form, and the
hideous misery of the voyage, which lasted until the 9th,
shall be given in his own words:—
" 'ln those six bitter days. and nights we cast fifty-
four dead into the sea, just one-fourth of our com-
panions! One passenger, it happened, was a surgeon,
and he was assisted by two native apprentices belonging
to the hospitals: fortunately, only two of the sailors
died, or we should have been lost for want of hands.
The engineer perished the third day, but happily, there
were amongst the passengers two others going to the
steamers on the Indus. Since landing, ten more soldiers
have died, and one captain, making sixty-four in all !
This pulls down the spirits of men. It was the worst
description of blue cholera. The agonies, the convul-
sions, the dreadful groans, were heart-rending: and then
the screams of the poor women who lost their husbands
and children! And, amidst all this, in the ciarkness of
the night, the necessity of throwing the dead ov,rboard
the instant life was extinct, to make room for the living!
Then also, added to this scene of human wretchedness,
the violent effects of the disease could not be cleaned,
and extreme filth increased the misery. ! God he
praised! it has ceased, but more troops are on this
voyage, and I dread to hear
,of similar sufferings, for
most of it has been caused by neglect. I have made a
formal complaint to Sir George Arthur, who, I sin
sure, will :air about the matter. The Commander of the
Zenobia, Mr. Newman, is a noble fellow. I behave all
that were saved owe their lives to him; and we, the
officers, have given him a gold snuff-box in token of our
gratitude.'—' On making the land both mates got
drunk, and such a night-scene of confusion
.I never saw.
We were muariy as possible on a reef of rocks; we fired
guns and rockets, but no help came. Had we struck, all
must have perished; at least, all the sick, eighty in num-
ber: at last we cast anchor, and luckily on good holding
ground.'
" His first care was to provide comforts for the sur-
vivors of this dreadful voyage, which he ailected by the
10th, bat further mishap awaited himself. On the 131 h,
while observing the practice of a rocket train, one of the
fiery missiles burst, rocket and shell together, and tore
the calf of his right leg open to the bone, but neither
the bone itself nor the great artery was injured; tle
wound was instantly stitched and dressed, and then a
life of temperance, aided by a patient spirit of endurance,
was repaid with a surprising cure. The hurt, jagged as
it was, healed by the first intention, and in four days he
was out of his tent: the fifth saw him free from fever,
on horseback, travelling with an escort of wild troopers
towards Ifyderabad.
" Some superstition the human mind, whether strong
or weak, seems always to lean towards, and several of
the greatest have rested thereon; those who deal in war
seldom reject predestination, and Sir Charles Napier's
life, one justifying Lord Byron's remark that truth is
more strange than fiction, encourages this sentiment
though reason should recoil. In infancy he was snatched
while at the last stage of starvation from a vile nurse;
while a young boy, attempting a dangerous leap, he
tore the flesh from his leg in a frightful manner; a few
years later he fractured the other leg. At the battle of
Corunna, struggling with several French soldiers, he
received five terrible wounds, and but for the aid of a
generous French drummer would there have been killed;
he was made a prisoner, and his fate being long un-
known, ho was mourned for as dead by his:fa.mily. IA
the battle of Busaco, a bullet struck his face and lodged
behind the ear, splintering the articulation of the jaw-
bone, and with this dreadful hurt he made his way under
a fierce sun to Lisbon, wore than one hundred miles! Re-
turning from France after the battle of 'Waterloo, the
ship sunk off Flushing, and he only caved his life by
swimming to a pile, on which he clung, until a boat
carried him off, half drowned, for the pile was too large
to climb up, and he having caught it during the reces-
sion of a wave, was overwhelmed by each recurring
surge. Now, escaping cholera, and a second shipwreck
off the Indus, and marvellously recovering from the
stroke of that unlucky rocket at Kurrachee, he was
again on horseback, and hastening to conduct with
matchless energy a dangerous war—and he did conduct
it to a glorious termination; for neither age, nor acci-
dent, nor wounds, had quenched his fiery spirit; but
how the spare body, shattered in battle and worn by
nearly fifty years' service in every variety of climate,
could still suffice to place him amongst the famous cap-
tains of the world, is a mystery. his star was in the
East !

The meeting of paper manufacturers and others
concerned in the important trade in that commodity,
at the London Coffee-house, Ludgate-hill, yes-
terday, were unanimous in the expression of
their support to the resolutions submitted to
them, calling on the Government to repeal
the whole of the existing duty on paper. It must be
evident to every observant mind that the necessary
tendency of a tax upon paper must be injurious to the
interests of even elementary education—and oppressive
and pernicious in respect of its bearing on the general
literature of the country. It is, therefore, originally
vicious in its nature. But when we find it demon-
strated in the exceedingly able speech of Mr. DICKEN•
sox, the eminent paper maker (who was voted into
the chair of the meeting), and corroborated by the
personal experience of Sir WILLIAM MAGNAY, the
late Lord Mayor, that the duty " at present presses
on some branches of the paper manufacture so
heavily as to amount from 60 to 150 per cent.," and
that for the collection of this revenue, on the one
hand, " the Excise regulations adopted greatly im-
pede trading operations ;" and on the other, " the
damages done to packages (of exported English paper)
at the Custom-house," by vexatious opening and care-
less repacking, are such as to cause large parcels to be
put aside and sold as waste and refuse on coming to
hand at their destination :—we can scarcely imagine
a branch of trade which could establish a juster claim
upon the consideration of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer. But the case of the paper makers is strong
in every point of view ; and we agree with Sir W.
MAGNAY, that the entiro repeal of the duty offers the
" only adequate remedy." The depression of price ac-
cording to the Chairman, " had been occasioned partly
by the reduction of duty," (a reduction of 14d. per lb.,
or one-half in the year 1836), " but partly by the
evasion of payment of any duty by the fraudulent
traders." How easily these frauds are practised, and to
what extent, can only be judged by a careful notice of
the facts detailed in the speeches we have referred to,
which also show the enormous extent of the contra-
band importations of glazed and other papers from
France, under the present defective system. Mr.
GAUSEEN said that the revenue derived from the pre-
sent duty was 620,0001., there having been an IN-
CREASE of 60 per cent. since the reduction of duty in
1836." Can any fact more strongly establish the
wisdom and policy of repealing the whole duty ; from
which repeal, by parity of reasoning, an increase of
just 120 per cent. on the whole consumption of paper,
and therewith the immensely extended employment

of labour (especially of female hands) in the manu-
facture, may be confidently anticipated ?

A public meeting—the first annual one that has
yet taken place—of the Association for promoting
the Relief of Destitution in the Metropolis, was held
yesterday, at the Hanover-square Rooms. The report
which was read at this meeting, gave, on the whole,
an encouraging account of the prospects of the
Society, for it appears, that within the ten months
which have elapsed since its organisation, upwards of
fifty new societies have been formed, for the visitation
and relief of the poor at their own dwellings; and
upwards of a hundred societies, in different parts of
London, have been brought into connexion with the
metropolitan Association. Moreover, nearly a thou-
sand visitors of the poor have been called into exist-
ence since January last; and, with scarcely an
exception, the whole of the most destitute parts of
the diocese of London is now under a course of
visiting, more or less perfect, by societies supplied
with the means wherewith to meet the temporal
wants of the poor. The Bishop of LONDON—who,
by the bye, is far more usefully employed in advocat-
ing the objects which this Association has at heart,
than in advocating the erection of new churches in
the metropolis, when the old ones are only half-filled
—observed, at the meeting, that the fundamental and
most excellent feature of the Society in question was
the system of district-visiting which it had established
—a system every way calculated to induce the middle
and upper classes to overstep the chasm which di-
vided them from the lower, to descend from their
elevation into the vale of poverty, and hold out the
right hand of charity to their distressed fellow• crea-
tures. "It was undeniable," said his Lordship, " that
the present age was sadly deficient in that intercourse
between these classes which once prevailed through-
out the country, and which was so conducive to good
feeling towards one another." No one can doubt the
strict truth of this remark, or fail to perceive—if he
be endowed with only ordinary faculties of observa-
tion—the lamentable results that have ensued from
the gradual haughty estrangement of the higher and
middle classes from the lower. Of late years the
mischief has been .one of rapid progress, and its
fruits are now before us in the increasing demoralisa-
tion of the poor, and their conviction—a conviction
which tends to increase their recklessness and
sense of degradation—that those who, from posi-
tion and circumstances, should be their guardians and
benefactors, are utterly indifferent to their interests,
and careless whether they he in a thriving condition,
or rot and die in cellars, garrets, or workhouses.
But within the last year or two a more generous and
Christian spirit has begun slowly to develop itself
in the upper and middle ranks of society. The sig-
nificant warnings thrown out by " Swing," by "Re-
becca," and by Chartism, have not been without
their effect ; and it is now at length discovered that
the vast masses of the overworked and underfed poor
are no longer to be neglected with impunity, for the
iron has entered deep into their souls, and if they can
feel a kindness, and be grateful for it, they can with
still greater acuteness feel a slight, and sternly bide
their time to retaliate. But it is not enough, in the
anxiety to benefit their condition, simply to relieve
their temporal wants, and toss alms to them with
an air of supercilious commiseration ; the kindly in-
tercourse, the encouraging smile, the word of friend-
liness and sympathy spoken in season ; the frequent
visit paid in an unassuming spirit to their cottages or,
it may be, their hovels—these are quite as effective
instruments in their way for doing good, and are
even more likely to raise the poor and destitute in
their own esteem, and win them back to the classes
from whom they have been too long estranged, than
the mere act of coldly and ungraciously subscribing
to public associations for their relief. " The rich,"
said the Reverend T. DA LE at the meeting
to which we have been alluding, " had no idea
of the mine of moral wealth to be found often in the
dwellings of the destitute, nor of the noble traits of
character which were constantly displayed by them
in their conduct to wards each other." Numerous
instances of this inherent nobility of nature, flashing
out in the gloomy depths of squalor and destitution,
have from time to time been recorded in the columns
of the public Press, and surely a class, large bodies of
whom can be capable of such conduct as Mr. DALE
hints at, are well worth conciliating, even at the
cost of some personal trouble and inconvenience to
their superiors in station
6111.

Madrid journals of the 12th inst. have been received,
but they add nothing to the intelligence which we
have given from the Paris papers.
:MADRID BOURSE, DECEMBER 12.—Three per
Cents. 32i- cash, and 32i at sixty days. Five per
Cents. 22 1-3 at sixty days. Floating Debt, 78 at
sixty days. Coupons, 26 at fifty-seven days. Ex-
change on London, 37 546.

The two leading Ministerial journals of Paris have
taken different sides in regard to the affairs of Spain
and the conduct of the present Government ; the one,
we suppose, with a view to conciliate the CHRISTINA
party at Madrid, and the other to screen the Court
and Cabinet against the attacks of the Opposition in
, the Chambers. The Globe expresses great admira-
tion of the conduct of NARVAEZ in pardoning the
persons lately condemned to death, and asserts that
he was only waiting for an opportunity to show
clemency, without at the same time compromising
' his duty to the throne and public order. This is
carrying flattery too far. While NARYAEZ could do
nothing less than spare the life of REITGIFO, without
exciting universal execration, he has obtained his
banishment for life, and his agents in the north are
carrying out his murderous system to his heart's
content. The journals announce that three more
of the unfortunate men taken at Hecho and Anso had
been shot at Huesca—a striking proof of the cle-
mency of the Spanish Government 1 The Journal des
Debats, on the other hand, denounces the atrocious
system, and calls upon Spain to take warning from
the melancholy example of France during the Revo-
lution. " We have declared a hundred times," it
says, " that we are not the enemies of the present
Spanish Government. On the contrary, we desire to
see it gaining strength, realising its promises, and
producing order and prosperity in that unfortunate
country. If, to arrive at that end, it is absolutely
necessary to reform the Constitution, be it so. But
we cannot have two weights and two measures ; we
cannot laud in General NAIVAEZ, or cover over with an
indulgent silence cruelties which, with all well-think-
ing persons in Europe, we have stigmatised in
General ESPARTERO. The blood of ZURBANO'S
sons, shed without trial, and for their father's
crime rather than their own, has not cried more
loudly to our ears than the blood of the un-
fortunate DIEGO LBON. The first principle of
our politics is humanity; without it, all the
fine names which
.parties give each other are only
odious lies ; without humanity, there is neither liberty,
nor progress, nor veritable order. What is it we de-
mand from the men who at present triumph and
govern in Spain ? To justify their title of Moderadoes.
What sort of moderation is that which would effect its
objects, like tyranny itself, by placing beyond the
law, and by executions without trial. We are re-
minded that France has passed through these acts.
No doubt she has, and it is that which renders us
mere severe towards those who, with our cruel
good ex-
periencesen sbee before
rue
us
tr
et
vo t
ya
e
ghaovode,
hinadplarcee
of imitating .
volutionary prevotal. courts, placing men out of the
pale of the law, and executions en masse.
We, alas ! left nothing to be invented in these
i hteeas: use
w ie neithern sufficient
points; all our parties have reciprocally shot,
banished, guillotined each other. Blood has flowed in
torrents, at one time of the Royalists, at another of
the Republicans. Yet, what party has saved itself
by such execrable means ? The Convention killed
enough, and did it not perish in its turn ? But we
have also given another example to the world. Was
not the first act of the Government of July to save
the lives of the Ministers who had issued the ordi-
nances ; and who can tell what blood that first act
of courage and humanity has spared our revolution ?
Blood is not arrested by blood, is ut by clemency.
Such is the example which we propose to Spain and
her Government ! As long as the Government shall
shoot in Spain, it will have to fear being shot. As
long as it shall act revolutionally, revolution will
threaten it. A pardon granted to ZURBANO'S sons
would have caused their stern father to drop his
arms, or would have rendered him the execration of
the whole world ; at present he is an unfortunate
man, whom it is difficult not to pity."
One of the Opposition journals at last adverts to

some of the grievances to be discussed in the ensuing
session, but unfortunately they are already stale.
Most of them have been brought forward repeatedly
in the Chambers, and the journals have written about
them till even French readers have become nauseated
with the endless repetitions. Our readers, of course,
will presunie that these subjects are the affairs of
Otaheite, Morocco, the right of search, and the royal
visit to Windsor Castle.

The KING, by a royal ordonnance, dated Dec. 16,
has conferred the title of Duke on Baron PASQUIER,
Chancellor of France, and President of the Chamber
of Peers. The National thus ironically points out the
services of the Noble Peer, which entitle him to this
distinction :

" This morning's Monileur contains great news. Baron
Denys Etienne Pasquier has just received the title of
Duke I Most people will laugh ; as for us, we think it
woful. Devote your whole life to notoriety—court the
muses and danscuses—become the favourite of Camba-
ceres—rise, under the protection of an imperial wing,
into the prefecture de police—tumble down under the
hand of Mallet—then be ready to salute an invasion,
and to order the Emperor's statue to be torn from the
top of his column—let the hands of the Austrians and
Prussians raise you again to power—be a fluent orator,
an elegant teller of trifles, an inevitable Minister, a De-
puty, a Peer, alternately President of the two Legisla-
tive bodies, and an unexpected member of the French
Academy—weather every storm by seasonably lowering
and raising your head—serve nine Governments in fifty
years—keep a store of compliments ready for every
dynasty, mad sugar-plums for every royal christening—
exhaust yourself to attain glory and master fortune, and
when years shall have frozen your blood and weakened
your faculties, a man shall take you at random and make
you a duke. Poor Denys Etienne Pasquier I"
The same journal contains some unwelcome intelli-
gence for Spanish bondholders. The Madrid cor-
respondent of that paper says—
It appears that the foreign creditors of the Spanish
Government are to share in the ruin that is being
effected by the Government; whilst despotism is insured
to the country, bankruptcy is imposed upon the State
creditors. You have seen by the late decree relative to
the Three per Cent. Stock, that no notice is taken of the
old Five per Cent. Debt, which principally affects
foreigners. Now, on the one band, there is no longer
any payment of interest ; and, on the other, the securi-
ties which were to guarantee the debt are destroyed.
It is clear, therefore, that the interest augmenting the
capital, and no resource being created for this augmenta-
tion, the stock will fall to a low price, and the holders
of bonds will have in their hands only so much waste
paper. Is this what had been stipulated ? Certainly
not ; the Cortes and the Crown had solemnly pledged
themselves in the face of Europe to make national pro-
perty the guarantee for the creditors. By the fol-
lowing table you will see how they have been
deprived of this guarantee. The securities taken
away from them are :—lst. 1,200,000,000 reels, the
estimated value of the property of the secular clergy.
2d. 300,000,000 reels, the value of the nunneries which
remain unsold. 3d. 200,000,000 reels, the value of the
convents of the monks remaining unsold. 4th. 800,000,000
reels, the amount of the census of the secular clergy, and
of the religious orders of both sexes. Total 2,500,000,000
reels (25,000,0001.) Here then is a total guarantee of
2,500,000,000 reels taken from the creditors of the

,
State, and particularly the foreign creditors. With this
sum, and by respecting the mortgages solemnly appro-
priated by the Cortes to the public debt, there
existed the means of wiping off in a period of eight
years the sum of seven thousand five hundred millions
of reals (1,875,000,0000 By the dispositions of the law
regulating the sale of national prof erty, a third of the
passive debt, at the rate of fifty per cent., was admitted
in payment of national property ; and two-thirds of the
active debt, the first third not bearing interest, and the
second a debt bearing interest at four or five per cent.
By this means, then, and by continuing the sale of na-
tional property, admitting foreigners as well as Spaniards
as purchasers, and the law making no distinction
between them, Spain might in eight years have com-
pletely paid off her old debt, and have had no other bur-
den titan her three per cent. debt. The advantages of
this sale of national property were so considerable, both
for the State and the purchasers, that since 1836 there
have been disposed of in Spain 210,000 properties. The
sale is now suspended, to the prejudice of the treasury
and of the public auditors, and to the exclusive profit of
the counter revolution. Now look at the difference
which is made between the various creditors. Spaniards
who had contracts with the Government during the civil
war are paid with three per cent. rentes, at the rate of
32, 35, and 40 per cent. But foreigners, who lent to
the State in 1834 and 1835 400 millions of reale
(100,000,000 f.) at 60 per cent., and who have not had
any interest since the end of 1836, are now offered three
per cents. in payment of the interest due to them, but
are required to receive the stock at par. And are
their interests guaranteed for the future ? No. All
that is proposed is to pay them in this way for what is
due from 1836 to 1840. They are at the same time de•
prived of the mortgages which had been granted to them
of the only means which they possessed of one day re-
coveting their capital."
THE BOURSE--WEDNEsDAY, DEC. 18.
First Highest Lowest Last
Price. Price. Price. Price.
French Five per Cents.. • . 120 15 .. 120 29 .. 120 .. 120 15
Three per Cents..... 84 25 •• 85 .. 84 93 .. 85
New Luau •• • . 86 40 .. 86 40 .. 86 30 .. 86 30
Bank of ..... 3275 • • 3275 • • 3270 ..3270
Gaftitte Bank, 5,000 f. SharessG92 50 —5092 50 —5085 —SCBS
13e1g;ian Bank 650 • • 660 .. 650 .. 660
Belgian Fives, 1440 . • • • .... 104 • • 104 .. 104 .. 104
1842 .• •• .. 1061 • • 1061 .• 1061 • • 1061
Two-and-a-8a1f.... 62 60 62 GO .. 62 60 .• 62 CO
Spanish Threes•• •• ..... ••• 371 • • 371 • • 371 • • 371
Active •• •••••• •• •• 324 •• 331 .. 33i
Passive.••.•• •••••• 6 •• G 6
Neapolitan ••••••• • • • • • • • • 95 65 .. 98 70 .. 98 65 .. 98 70
koman 1041 .. 1041 .. 1041 .. 1041
RAILWAY SHIRES.

Versailles,R.P.• •••••• • • • • • SCO • • 515 .. 500 .. 500
400 •• 400 .. 392 50 .. 392 50
... lO4O • 1040 —1034 75 ..1038 75
Rouen to Havre ••• • • • 802 50 805 802 50 .. 802 50
1120 ..1123 75 ..1120 ..1123 75
Strasburg to Bale 312 50 .. 316 '25 . 312 60 .. 312 50
Ayignou to Marseilles ••• • • • 920 .• 930 .. 920 .. 927 50
RAILWAYS FOR THE ACCOUNT, J.u.t. 3.

St. Germain • • •• •• • • ••••••1022 50 ••1922 50 —lOl6 25 ..1016 25
..
400 •• 400 .. 392 50 .. 395
1037 50 ..1045 ..1037 50 ..1040
Roues! toinavre••.
Orleans
......... ..... ••••1112 50 ..1127 50 ..1112 50 ..1123 75
strasburg to 8a1e......•••• 312 50 .. 312 BO .. 312 50 .. 313 70
Avignon to liarseillee•••••• 922 50 .. 932 50 . 922 50 .. 927 50

MORTALITY IN TUE METROPOLIS. - The number
of deaths during the week ending Saturday, Dec. 14,
far exceeds that of the preceding week, and probably
is the highest of the whole year. The average is 946,
and the return for the week ending Dec. 7, 988, while
the last return is 1,201. The increase has taken
place chiefly from diseases of the throat and lungs,
the total number under that head being 444, while
the average is only 286. The deaths from bronchitis
are 43, average 14; pneumonia (inflammation of the
lungs), 145, average 79 ; asthma, 65, average 24.
The deaths from small-pox are also very high-51. Of
these fifteen died under 1 year, thirteen 1.3, ten 3-5,
nine 5-10, two 10-15, and two 30-40 years. The
suicides were five ; and seven persons, chiefly chil-
dren, were destroyed by burns or scalds.

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
allow me to avail myself of a place in your
columns, to express my astonishment at the Editor of the
Times having admitted into that paper an attack upon
the management of this theatre, on the mere report of an
anonymous correspondent. There has never been the
remotest idea of repeating The Revolt of the Harem, that
ballet having been withdrawn from the play-bills by Mr.
Bunn's express orders, immediately after the late mourn-
ful circumstance.—l have the honour to be, Sir, your
obedient servant, _ _ _

J. COOPER, Stage-Manager.
Theatre Royal Drury-Lane, 12 o'clock A.M., Dec. 20.

STEAM-BOAT WHISTLE.

The following letter has been addressed to the editor
of the Times :

Sir—Will you allow me through your columns to
suggest a simple plan to prevent collision of steam-vessels
in foggy weather, and which would have prevented that
awful catastrophe at Greenwich on Tuesday with the
Sylph and Orwell ? The railroad engine has its whistle,
and why not the steam-boat ? which might be kept up
during the whole of the passage in a crowded river during
such a fog.—l am, Sir, yours respectfully, G.
Long-acre.

PRESENT OF BLOOD HOUNDS PROM THE PRINCE
CONSORT TO THE REIGNING PURE Of SAXE COBURG
AND GOTHA.—At the sale of the Hon. Mr. Bagot's cele-
brated pack of Blithfield blood hounds, which took place
at Derby, last week, five were purchesed for Prince Al-
bert, by an agent of his Royal Highness, viz., Countess,
for 11 guineas ; Forester, 15 guineas Needwood, 6
guineas ; Rummager, 22 guineas , and Vengeance, 9
guineas. Two of these hounds were presented by Prince
Albert to his brother, the reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg
and Gotha, who took them with him in the Black Eagle
to Ostend, on Tue, day last.
By the will of the late Colonel Olney, who died in
1836, the sum of B,OOOL is given to the Corporation of
Gloucester on the death of his wife, upon the condition
that the Council should, within ten years after the testa-
tor's demise, provide a suitable site for building some
almshouses. Of the principal sum of 8,0001., 1,3001 is
to be spent in the erection, and 100/. in furnishing,
leaving the interest of 6,6001. to support the establish-
ment. The providing of a site has lately engaged the
attention of the Council, and in order that the poor may
not lose the benefit of the bequest, some of the members
have offered to subscribe towards the purchase of land
for the building. It is curious, however, that the weekly
allowances to the number of inmates, clothing, &c., pre-
set ibcd by the testator, exceed in amount the interest of
the money, so that it will probably be necessary to apply
to the Court of Chancery for a new appropriation. The
rase offers a serviceable hint to benevolent individuals,
either to see their bounty laid out properly during their
lifetime, or to leave their wealth unclogged by condi-
tions which may swallow up the principal portion in li-
tigation.
FATAL CAB ACCIDENT.-011 Wednesday evening,
between four and five o'clock, a fine little boy, named
Thomas Appleby, the son of highly respectable parents, ,
residing in Crescent-place, New-road, was run over by a
cab at the end of Judd street, and killed on the spot.
The driver was called on to stop, but refused to lend the
least assistance, and drove on towards the City at the
same furious pace, and has since then escaped detection.

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SECOND EDITION.