The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-10 00:00:00

FROM THE FRENCH PAPERS.

In October last the Police of Toulouse seized a consi-
derable number of poinard-knives, and cited the cutlers
who sold them before the Correctional Tribunal. They
were, however, all acquitted, on the ground that their
knives, though sharp, opening with a spring, and having
a guard like a poniard, had only one edge. The Procu-
rein. du Roi appealed to the Cour Royale, which decided
that these knives came within the Royal Ordonnance of
23d March, 1728, and Article 1, of the Law of 24th May,
1834, and therefore condemned the cutlers to pay a tine
of If. each, with all the costs of the prosecution, and to
forfeit all the knives seized. This is contrary to.a deci-
sion given some time ago by the Cour Royale of Paris,
which declared such knives not to come within the terms
of the law.
A tariff has been issued at St. Petersburgh of a more
rigorous kind than the old one. It is said that many
articles, especially woollen goods, hare now to pay the
double duty. The Ukase for effecting their modification,
the details of which are not yet known, declares that
certain duties shall be augmented, others diminished, and
some prohibitions taken off. The additional duty of 12i
per cent. is maintained as a general and absolute regu-
lation ; but the mode of levying it is changed, the addi-
tional duty and the quarantine duty being added to the
fundamental customs duty.
A whale, upwards of 60 feet long, and 40 feet in cir-
cumference, was found at Berck, near Montreuil, on the
29th ult. It was killed, and was to be sold on the Ist
inst. Immense numbers of persons flocked from the
neighbouring districts to see it.
The Gazette de France states that the Duke de Bor-
deaux is to pass the whole of the winter at Vienna. The
Marquis de Pastoret has left Paris on a visit to his Royal
Highness.
. _

A letter from Vienna, in the Swabian Mercury, says :
—" The Emperor has written to Baron de Kubek, Dime--
tor of Railroads, and to the President of the Aulic
Council of War, urging them to expedite the comple-
tion of these undertakings. From this it is inferred
that soldiers will be employed upon them, and some
persons say that 20,000 men will be put upon the Prague

lA. Toulon letter states that the two corvettes ordered
for the South, Seas were kept in sight of the mouth of
the harbour during part of the preceding day, in conse-
quence of telegraphic orders from Paris. The Com-
manders have got -sealed orders, which therare not. to
open until they are outside' the Straits of Gibraltar. It
was said in Toulon that they would touch at eight or
nine particular places on their voyage.
The Government of the Swiss canton of, Tessino, imi-
tating that of Argau, has just suppressed a convent of
Cordeliers.

The Swabian Mercury states that the authorities of
the city of Cassel have published the following curions
clause from the will of .the late Electress I bequeath
to-the town of Cassel the portrait of my son between two
Hessian peasants, which .1 had painted in commemora-
tion of the reception given to us when we returned to
our cduntry, in 1813 ; also a small silver hammer, which
was used in nailing the flag of the Burgher-Guard ; and
likewise the arm-chair embroidered by thirty young ladies
of Cassel, and presented to me on the 52d anniversary of
my birth-day." The Princess also left 1,000 crowns to
the poor fund.
..
On Sunday last, a man entered the house of the cure of
Neylen, in Mgium, during Divine service, intending to
rob the house, and thinking that the cure was at church.
The cure, however, being unwell, was at home, having got
a friend to officiate for him. A struggle ensued between
the cure and the rufigan, who struck him several times on
the head with a hatchet. In endeavouring to protect his
head, the cure had three of his fingers cut off, and, would
have been murdered, if his cries had not brought some
peasants to his aid, who secured the assailant.
The Post-office has published a notice that the mail
with the letters. sent from Paris to St. Petersburg on the
23d, 24th, and 25th November, has been lost between
Riga and the Russian capital, and that all efforts of the
Russian Government to find it have hitherto been un-
successful.

The Quimperois, the journal of the chief town of the
Finisterre, after noticing the application reported to
have been made to the English Government for the ap-
pointment of professors at the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge in the Celtic language and literature,
says :—" We ourselves have long ago made a similar
demand for Brittany, arid for the Faculty of Letters at
Ronnes. How desirable it is that the ancient language
of the Celts, which two or three departments in Brittany
as well as Wales have preserved, should not be lost.
The Council-General of the Pouts et Chaussees had
yesterday to decide between three plans for a railroad
between Marseilles and the Rhone. Those lines which
were proposed to run along the Valley of. the Rhone,
being considered as too difficult of execution, if not im-
practicable, the third, presented by M. de Moutrich et
Lancon, which will unite Marseilles with Avignon, and
cross the Valley of the Durance, with a branch to Beau-
caire, was almost unanimously adopted by the Council.
M. Henry Herz, the eminent pianist and composer,
has just been married to a young foreign lady of dis-
tinction •

A vol a l'Americaine was practised, the dAy before yes-
terday, on a collecting clerk, of the house of Delamarre.
The usual expedient of getting the victim into a wine-
shop, and leaving him there, while the confederates
went out to verify the silver he had given for the sup-
posed rouleaux of Napoleons, was practised with per-
fect success; but the robbers had not only carried off
the clerk's silver, they had also abstracted froth his note-
book a bill of exchange, payable that day, and duly re-
ceipted. On becoming aware of this, the victim has-
tenedoff to the house by which the bill was to be paid,
and fortunately arriving there before the thieves, was
secreted until one of them made his appearance with the
bill, and was thus the means of having him immediately
apprehended. The rogue thus caught has been recog-
nised as one of a gang of depredators in this line, but he
persists in not impeaching his associates.
A suicide attended with some carious circumstances of
determination was committed the day before yesterday in
the Passage de Tivoli by a middle-aged man in a re-
spectable station of life. He had insulted in the most

Unpardonable manner a young girl, his brother's child,
and on being warmly reproached for it determined to
destroy himself. He wrote to his brother more than
once to announce his intention of so doing, but his let-
ters were considered as mere -bravados ; at length, how-
ever, the latter went to his residence, and tried to get in
at his door, which was fast shut. Just as an entrance
was being forced, he shot himself through the head with
a horse pistol, and the brother on making his way in, as
soon as the report was heard, found his corpse lying on
the ground with the head dreadfully disfigured. The
furniture was all arranged in particular order, several
letters to his brother were found, and on a plan of the
room was traced out the figure of a man lying prostrate
with the head represented as divided into two parts, and
which gave an exact idea of the manner in which his
body was discoveredi as soon as the fatal shot had taken
effect. It appears that he had carefully studied the
manner in which his body would fall before committing
the act of self-destruction.

Several females were detected on Sunday last, in the
Church of St. Poch, stealing handkerchief§, purses, &c.,
from the congregation. On their lodgings being searched
a considerable quantity of articles thus obtained were
found. They have been committed for trial.
The following details, from Odessa, on the autumn
campaign of the Russians against the Circassians, are
given by the Moniteur Parisien :—" The diseases which
put the Russian troops collected at Adler out of condi-
tion to march, added to an insurrection in the Gurial,
prevented General Aurepp from undertaking the expe-
dition which had been projected for September. The
tribe of the Djiguettes, lying between the river Kami-
cheliar and Ga.ora, seeing the weakness of the Russians,
did not keep the treaty it had entered into with them,
but remained neuter. In the first fortnight of October,
General Aurepp, having received fresh reinforcements,
and a portion of his sick being recovered, left Adler
with about 12,000 men, with the purpose of fighting the
Babouiches between the Kamicheliar and Pchad ; but
being attacked on the sea-shore during his march, in a
narrow path shut in by almost impenetrable wooded
mountains, the column was decimated, and the rest had
great difficulty in reaching the fortress of Jatcha. It is
affirmed that 500 men, 27 of whom were officers, fell by
the hands of the Circassians. Diming the campaign, the
Russians have lost between 6,000 and 8,000 men, most of
them carried off by disease. Tho hospitals of the Crimea
are so crowded, that 300 sick have been transferred to
Odessa, and 400 more were expected. General Zest has
not been more fortunate in the Kuban and the Laha."

RUSSIA AND POLAND.
(From the Journal des Debuts.)
The last news from Poland announces that the system
for uniting this unfortunate country with the Russian
empire has reached its last period. The German papers
unionhave aolfrelaadnyguapgueblaished the
ndofe measures
inTency inth
eretlwatv
oiceout t
no
triebe
s.
The Augsburg Gazette of the 27th of November con-
tains an article which shows the opposition which exists
between the policy of the King of Prussia and that a
the Emperor with respect to the Polish provinces. A
decree inserted in the Official Gazette of St. Petersburg,
suppressing the Supreme Court and Council of State of
that ancient kingdom, which it replaces by two. sections
called departments of the Russian Senate, has proved the
last and final blow to Polish nationality. The Senate in
Russia is not, as is believed, an aristocratic Chamber, an
independent power, intermediate between the throne and
the nation. The real Russian aristocracy, the territorial
aristocracy, lives at Moscow, or on its lands, exercising
no influence over the affairs of the country. The Senate is
compos ed ofeo u r tiers and generals, the mostpart foreigners;
it forms a superior tribunal, which, although it is not a
tribunal of appeal, is in some sort at the disposal of tilt.
Minister of Justice, who acts as its Attorney-General.
The Senate is at present composed of ten sections, six of
which are at St. Petersburgh, the seventh and eighth at
Moscow, and the ninth and tenth at Warsaw. The first
section is destined to register and preserve the ukases o
the Emperors. The other sections are kinds of tribunals
judging all civil affairs unanimously. It is a strange
and remarkable fact that the famous liberum veto 01
Poland, which disturbed so many political assemblies, is
found in the Russian Senate to disturb private affairs.
The opposition of a single member of a section is suffi-
cient to annul a judgment ; it is then sent to the Gene-
ral Assembly of all the sections together, which judges
these questions by the majority of votes. Nevertheless,
an affair' judged by the Senate in the sections and in the
General Assembly is not ended; on the appeal of the
Minister Procureur-General it may be sent into the Bu-
reaux which give their advice ; from thence it is trans-
mitted to the Council of the Empire, composed of all the
ministers, the dignitaries of the Court,and the oldest gene-
rals, where it is again judged but this is• not yet all.
it is sabmitted at last, to the decision of the Emperor,
Vi hose will is above the law, Yet the affair is not always