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

BIRMINGHAM, JAN. 9.

A WIFE SHOT BY HER HUSBAND.—A dreadful oc-
currence took place in Birmingham on the evening of
Friday last. The circumstances, as far as our reporter
is justified in giving them, are these:—A man named
Ezra Steapenhill, who is either beadle or sexton at St.
Matthew's Church, about a month ago, found a gun, as
hefstated, and a few days after he was showing it to a
friend, stating that it was unloaded ; his wife, Bassilesa
Steapenhill, was then present, and, in joke, pulled the
trigger over his shoulder, and it went otf, shattering the.
clock case to atoms. On Friday evening he was clean-
ing the same gun, and, roost unfortunately, did so whilst
it was heavily loaded and capped. His wife was sitting
at the end of the table on which the gun rested, and
when in the act of rubbing the lock it went off, and the
contents, unhappily, entered the chest of the unfortunate
creature, and she dropped down a lifeless corpse : she
was about thirty years of age, and was by birth an
Hanoverian. A. great sensation exists in the neighbour.
hood where the tragedy took place. The husband is
under the surveillance of the police. An inquest will be
held to-morrow (this clay).
THREE Boys DROWNED.—WhiIst a number of boys
were amusing themselves on a pool of water in ravel's.
street, Birmingham, this afternoon, thd ice gave Way?
and three of them sank to rise no more alive. The
awful event has produced the greatest grief and coaster.
nation in that part of the town. About the same hour
a young man, twenty years of age, named Crowley, ti
gold-beater by trade, fell through the ice of Edgbaston
Pool, and after struggling in vain a considerable time be
was drowned in the presence of a.nuMber of people, who
could render him no assistance. A young man was
drowned under precisely similar circumstances, on Sun-
day fortnight, in the same pool.

DEATH OF TIIE BISHOP OF CHICHESTER.
—Dr. Shuttleworth, Bishop of Chichester, died at his
Episcopal palace, in that city, at about eleven o'clock
on Friday night. Ilis Lordship, it seems, had been
slightly indisposed for the two or three preceding days,
but no apprehensions of danger were entertained until
within two hours of his death. Dr. Shuttleworth had
been Bishop of Chichester only fifteen months. He
was the only surviving son of the Rev. Humphrey Shut-
tleworth (Prebendary of York and Vicar of Preston
and Kirkham, Lancashire). He was born in 1782, and
was sixty years of age. In 1822, he was elected Warden
of New College, Oxford, and discharged the duties of
that office for eighteen years. •He was made a. proctor
in 1820, and a Bishop in 1840. He was educated at
Winchester, and subsequently moved to Oxford, where
he gained the prize for a Latin poem in 1803. His
Bishopric rendered him patron of seventy
his annual income was 4,200/. livings, and

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AND

OnWic Optnton.

" Who runs may read."

OR,ZI.
The French Journals are still N
occupied-with the reci-
procal insults offered to each other by the Sovereigns of
Russia and France. They could hardly be employed
upon a more contemptible theme.
Private letters from St. Petersburgh of the 22d ult.
state that the abrupt manner in which M. Peeler, the
Charge d'Affaires in the absence of M. Barante, ab-
sented himself from the fete day of the . Emperor,
had caused a great sensation, and the effect of it
had been to exclude M. Perier from all in-
vitations in society which had taken part with
the Czar. M. Nesselrode, on getting into his car-
riage to attend the Levee, had placed in his hands a
brief and stiff note of M. Perier, accounting for his ab-
.sence. The Emperor was furious, and at first was dis-
posed to order the passports for M. Perier and suite, but
on the representations of Count Nesselrode and others,
the retaliation was confined for the present to 'the in-
structions sent to M. Kisseleff, in Paris, not to attend the
Tuileries on New Year's Day.
Baron de Bourquenay, the French Envoy, arrived on
the 17th at Constantinople, in the Cameleon steamer,
which saluted the Seraglio by 21 guns ; the salute was
responded to from the batteries of Topkane.
The Court of Peers on Saturday enrolled the letters
of grace which save Quenisset, Golombier, and Brazier,
alias Just, from a scaffold, and destine the first to trans-
r o:tation or imprisonment for life in a fortress, and the
latter to hard labour for life in the galleys. The pri-
soners are indebted for their lives to the prayers of the
Dukes d'Aumale and Nemours.
The following singular paragraph is quoted from the,
Augsburg Gazette :—." The village of Madana, which is
about fourteen German miles (60 English) from Rusts-
chalt, in Wallachia, offers at the present moment
a curious ethnographical singularity, having- been
inhabited by women only for the last thirty
years. At one period this, feminine population
amounted to 2,000 ; the ladies did not live as war-
riors, like the Amazons of old, but they-avoided all con-
tact with mon, and drove away from their territories all
who approached with matrimonial intentions. • This
anti-social settlement is now supposed to be on the de-
cline ; at least, no more recruits are made from the dis-
appointed or the love-crossed, and the members of the,
population are rapidly decreasing. These women are
nearly all Mahometans."
The National Guards of Madrid were reviewed by the
Regent on New Year's Day. They were dressed in new
uniforms, and presented a very fine appearance.
PUIEILIC OPZNXON.
• The Times has a leading article on the subject of the
constitution of the Court of Bankruptcy, wherein it ex-
presses its opinion that the Commissioners ought not to
be entrusted with the power of commitment for contempt,
adding-, " the more we see the irritability in these gene-
rally useful and valuable administrators of the law, the
'greater is our repugnance to the project of increasing their
power over the liberty of suitor, spectator, or witness."
The Morning Herald contains some remarks on the
subject of the approaching Dublin election, in the course
of which it states that a great probability exists that Lord
Morpeth will be returned for that city. "It is impos-
sible," observes our Contemporary, " that the Conserva-
tive electors of the Irish metropolis can ever be taken la•-
surprise, except by their own supineness and intestinal
discords; and for them to permit the election of a Radical
candidate, when they have the ability to prevent it, is to
desert the cause of good government.' .
The Post is loud in its reprobation of the manufac-
turing system, which, it states, "is enough to bring a
curse upon any country," and observes, in addition, "that
what it looks to at present is a gradually increasing con-
viction of the:public mind that the system is fraught with
terror and inhumanity ; and that a set of men counte-
nancing one another in cruelty, and competing with one
another in cheapness, have degraded the English.work-
ing-people to a position in which they ought not to be
placed."
The Advertiser speaks of a project entertained by some
of the members of the Anti-Corn-law League, for uniting
the middle with the working classes, in an endeavour to
obtain sound Radical Reform, and • observes, "it is
more likely to succeed than any similar project we have
yet heard of."
The Chronith, speculating on the measures to be pro-
pounded in the approaching session of Parliament, states
that Sir R. Peel's ancient language of vague and nega-
tive generalities must now be exchanged for that of
positive and explicit explanation of practical measures ;
and that instead of amending and opposing, he, must
make his own suggestions, and propound his own plans:
Our Contemporary, however, expresses himself by no
means sanguine as to- the efficiency
,of. Sir Robert, Peel's

-
measures. -
Alluding to the deSperate efforts made by the Tories
to get ajory candidate for Dublin; the Dublin Evening
Post says :—" They have been scouring the empire.
they. have been refused by Attwood, by Crichton, by
Jocelyn, by Blackburne, by Colquhoun, &c. &c. And
now we are told confidently that the fraudulent -mana-
gers of the concern have actually laid violent hands
youth who has barely reached his majority, for the pur-
pose of delivering him over, pinioned and skewered, to
be plucked and excoriated by the famishing Orange free-
men of Dublin." "
In an article on the present state of the finances, the
Birmingham Journal makes the following remarks :
" The pinch is severe ; but it is not yet severe enough tc
produce that general and determined combination
amongst the suffering, which is essential to a thorough
and permanent change. Things must be worse before
they are effectively better. And we consider it not
merely probable, but almost certain, - that, before the
worst come, there will be a glimmering of revival."
We take the following from the Bolton Free Press :
" Partly from ignorance of the exact value of money,
and partly from want of sympathy, and of due respect
for human nature in the persons of the poor, our gran-
dees receive, with a degree of apathy which is fearfully
ominious, the appalling statements of misery arising
from low wages, now published throughout the length
and breadth of the land. In the relative position of
the. higher and lower classes of society- in this respect,
England, at the preSent moment, forcibly reminds one
of the intolerable state of things in France, which
brought forth her bloody revolution of half a cen-
tury ago."
The Manchester Times remarks, in reference to the
approaching struggle on the Corn-law question :
" There will be a desperate struggle, for the monopolists
are strong and firmly banded together, and will light as
if for life and death. In the meantime there is a strong
corps de reserve in course of organization for the Corn-
law repealers. Thousands of electors have already signed
the declaration issued by Joseph Sturge, of the right to
complete suffrage; and we have the fullest conviction
that this new movement will proceed with all the quiet
moral energy which characterised the efforts to abolish
slavery."
The Cambrian says :—" It will one day becothe in-
credible to the historian that such a monopoly, as now
exists in the article of its food, was endured by a nation
calling itself free. The Corn-laws have: worked well
only for the monopolists, without benefitinc, the farmer
in the slightest degree, and producing incalculable misery
to the people."
The Scotsman, speaking of the selfish conduct of the
landowners, remarks as follows :—" They have plun-
dered the class whom it was their du/ to cherish and
protect,
and, adding insult to injury, their orators and
journalists are now spitting out their malice and con-
tempt against it."
The Devonport Telegraph thus alludes to Sir James
Graham's address to his constituents :—" Nearly all
that Sir James Graham has to state, respecting the Mi-
nisterial policy, is that the Government win endeavour
to meet the wishes of the public.' Thus are stern
necessities put off by a paltry common place which
means anything or nothing ; it is, indeed, periectly in
keeping with the most unpopular Member of the Mi-
nistry. • Such gross apostasy as that of Sir James
Graham may meet with political success, but never
with respect."
MONEY—TIZADE—COMMEZECE.
The Canton treasure, brought by the Conway, is in
dollars of Sycee silver, ,and weighs upwards of 60 tons.
The dollars are ordered to be conducted to the Mint.
The distress at Paisley is on the increase. A letter
quoted by a Ministerial paper says—" The number of
claimants on our funds is increasing. The people are
actually dying of starvation—no beds to lie on, no cover-
ing even—the boards only to rest on. These are facts."
Dullness has pervaded the trade of Leeds and Hud-
dersfield during the last week. At Rochdale there has
been another failure of a manufacturer. At Bradford
the sales of wool, and other goods have been limited.
The total number of signatures obtained to the me-
morial of the women of England, for the repeal of the
Corn-laws, in Manchester, Salford, and Huhne, amounts
already to sixty-five thousand woman. In many large
towns, villages, and country districts the memorial -has
been adopted, and the canvass is carried on with spirit.
NAVAL AND rea za .a. rt.
The late chivalrous and unfortunate Don Diego Leon;
by his will has bequeathed his sword to General Evans.

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ECCLESZASTICAL.
The inhabitants of the city of Worcester are signing a
memorial to the Archbishopof Canterbury on the
sub-'
jut of the spread of Puseyism.
The Bishop of Chichester, who died on Friday, was
sixty years of age. In 1803 he gained the prize for a!
Latin poem at Oxford; and has enjoyed his Bishopric!
but fifteen months.

At the meeting of the Presbytery of Glasgow, held
on Wednesday last, Dr. DPLeod gave notice that, at
next meeting, he would bring under the notice of the
Presbytery the demoralizing effects of the Church agi-
tation, the formation of Church Defence Associations,
and other forms of the present controversy.
The parish of Kettle, in Fife, of which the Crown is.
patron, haVing become vacant by the death of Dr. Bar-
clay, ie father of the Scotch Church, certain parishioners
made application to the Home Secretary, with a view of
'submitting a list of candidates
.out of which he might
choose one, on the Non-Intrusion principle ; but they
received a sad rebuff. Sir James Graham directed the
Under-Secretary to write that he did not require their:
assistance in advising the Croon.

. .
I'ENE ARTS.
The King of Prussia has ordered his Court Jeweller
to take several decorations of the Red Eagle to London,
and a decoration of the Black Eagle, in diamonds, valued at
yearly 2,0001. is also making : but for whom it is in-
tended is not knon"i.

ZETERA7ELY AND sczzarlarr.c.
Miss Isabel, Hill, whose literary labours gave her a
good position in the world of letters, died on Thursday
at Brighton.

TEIMAT2IC.II7..
The Queen an rri Mb accompanied by the