The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-08 00:00:00

ESCAPE FROM A TIGER.

The following account of a narrow escape from a tiger
is contained in a letter from a townsman of Macclesfield
to his parents. The position of the writer will be evident
from the language of the letter, which is dated " Camp,
near Deesa, September 17, 1845:—" On the 28th of July
I and three more of ray comrades made up a party to
get four days leave of absence to go to a place called
Palempo, the residence of a native Prince. It is about
thirty miles from Deesa. We got leave from the com-
manding officer, and hired tattoos, or horses, and bor-
rowed four fowling-pieces, as we were told there was
plenty of game, pheasants, deer, pea-fowl, wild ducks,
boars, &c. The country is infested with robbers and
wild beasts. We started on the morning of the 29th of
July, about three o'clock, from Deesa. We were not
dressed in our regimentals, but we had on white dresses,
being the coolest for the day time, with very large
hats with broad brims to keep .the sun off our
faces. We had a man to guide us on the way, it being
a very mountainous country, and jungles all about.
Just about daylight we had got about fourteen
miles, the guide had taken us a short cut across
a mountain, and our horses had hardly room to pass one
abreast, it being so very narrow. When we got nearly
to the top, we saw a tiger in the act of making a spring
at us. I cannot describe the fright I was in—for we
had all got our guns slung to our backs, and we could
not get at them in time ; and as I was in the rear
about twenty yards he made a spring at my horse, but
it turned on one side and he missed his mark, and
tumbled over the rock into a gulph below, on the
other side of the pass ; for there was a large ravine
just alongside, about 200 feet, and the tiger fell to the
bottom, my hat falling with him. As soon as I got
my senses, for I was nearly insensible with fright, I got
off my horse and saw the tiger deep below. I fired at
him, and I am sure I hit him, for he began to howl
most piteously, and go under a piece of rock, so that we
could not get at him, and it was too steep to go down. I
had lost my hat and I did not know what to do; for the
sun was very hot, and in the fright the guide had run
away and was nowhere to be found. I said it would be
best to go back, but the rest would not; so I put my
handkerchief round my head, and we went on till we
got to a native village, and then we got something to
eat and another guide, and I bought a turban of one of
the natives. I put it on my head, but it did not keep
the sun off my head like my hat. Nothing more oc-
curred to us on the road, and we got to Palempo that
night. We had plenty of sport at Palempo ; we
shot deer, wild ducks, pea-fowl, and two wild boars."
The result, however, was, that the writer was laid up
with fever from exposure to the sun, and had only just
recovered at the time the letter was written.—Mac•-
clesfield Chronicle.

The general order against smoking in the army
has occasioned a deep sensation in every mess-room in the
kingdom, and created such a panic in the cigar market, that
good cheroots were done at an unsually low figure, and the
Manillas were down at a penny, which had been command.
ing threehalf-pence, with a fair sprinkling of buyers, for the
last eight months. The cabbage rowers are in despair, for
the young officers had been the chief consumers of the hardy
winter savoy, which must now be sold as food for the lower
classes, instead of being packed in ivory cases fi r mess-
room tables, as the best Havannahs, imported direct from
Havannah by the Hammersmith 'bus. As to the military
themselves, meetings are being called in every regiment to
consider whether the officers shall coolly submit to allow the
Duke of Wellington to put all their pipes out. The Duke of
Wellington has blown a cloud over the whole of the army by
his inconsiderate endeavour to banish the cigar from the mess-
room. The officers naturally ask what they are to do when
they meet ; for they are to be restrained from boxing, wrest-
ling, leap-frog, blind-man's-buff, as well as prohibited from
smoking, and they dread the possibility of being thrown
upon their conversational resources, which must have a most
dreary effect. Under their present trying position we can
offer no consolation to the inmates of the barracks, except
such as they may derive from taking it by turns to read
Punch aloud to the whole mess.—Punch.
ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS.—Mankind are indebted

to the wisdom of Queen Elizabeth:and the prudence of Bur-
leigh for the first printed newspaper. It was entitled the
English Mercurie, and was, by authority, " imprinted at
London by her Highness's printer, 1588." The earliest
number, preserved in the British Museum library, dated July
23, in that year, contains the usual intelligence, given after
the fashion of the London Gazette of the present day. In
these 211-ercuries we meet with advertisements of books, and
they differ not very much from the announcements of oar
own time. During the civil wars, periodical papers, the
champions of the two parties, became more generally circu-
lated, and were edited by writers of ability; among the
principal we may name Marchamont Needham, Sir John
Birkenhead, and Sir Roger L'Estrange. At the Restoration,
the proceedings of Parliament were interdicted to be pub-
lished, unless by authority, and the first daily paper after
the Revolution took the popular title of the Orange Intelli-
gencer. In the reign of Queen 'Anne there was but one daily
paper, the Daily aurant. The first provincial journal known
in England was the Norwich Postman, started in 1706, at the
price of a penny, but " a halfpenny not refused." The
earliest Scottish newspaper made its appearance under the
auspices of Cromwell, in 1652.—The Patrician.
WAKEFIELD CORN MARKET, FRIDAY.—We have
fair supplies of wheat and barlay, and moderate of other
grain. There was a very limited business done in wheat to-
day, and to effect sales a decline of is. to 2s. per quarter was
submitted to. Fine barley fully as dear, other sorts Is. per
quarter cheaper. Beans in slow request, and prices of new
must be quoted Is. per quarter less than last week. Oats
sold at a reduction of id. per stone, and shelling 6d. er load
Malt firm, at late rates.