The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-02 00:00:00

DUBLIN UM VERSI7'Y MAGAZINE.

Under the title of "The White Lace Bonnet" we
find a pleasant prose tnle in the present Number of
this Magazine, one of the scenes in which is laid on
the Birmingham Railway. The principal incident
refers to the mishaps of a young man who has been
inveigled into matrimony by an artful woman whom
he accidentally encountered on board a Margate
steamer, and who shortly after her marriage con-
fessed to the fortunate husband of her choice, that
"she had been twice married before, and had heavy
misgivings that her two spouses were still living !"
In the notices of the "Leading State Trials in Ire-
land" there is an affecting account of the trial of one
Jackson, which took place in Dublin towards the
close of the last century, but was put an abrupt stop
to by the prisoner's death, which occurred while he
was in court listening to the proceedings against him.
The " Crescent and the Cross" is a review of a book
of travels in the East, which has lately made its ap-
pearance. From an amusing and somewhat whim-
sical essay on the " Nightmare," we quote the follow-
ing passage :

" Now, there is nothing elevated about indigestion: it
is neither saintly nor, in its unsaintliness, is it sublime.
In general, it comes from eating too much, which is not
a proceeding of a seraphic tendency, nor the first step of
a movement heavenwards. And these affections of the
epigastric regions are ordinarily the fruit of indigestion,
wherefore the "sleep-waking" state into which they cast
us—namely, that sleep of the outward and waking of
the inward man—reveals to the eye of the latter a base
neighbourhood. The nightmare does not come up into
our sphere, but we spiritually descend into Ins. He is
there already, while we are gorging ourselves, but we
are not aware of him until the outward senses be sealed
in torpor, and the inward world opens in its dim horror
on the troubled eye of the soul.
" We have met with people who believe that the
beasts characterised by the Mosaic law as unclean are
not so in a mere ceremonial sense, but in one that has
its foundation in nature ; in fact, that such beasts are in
a special wise liable to demoniacal possession. The cat
is a long-recognised minister of the darker powers.
Dogs and horses see ghosts, which, as we shall presently
see, implies a capability of being possessed, and is, in
fact, the next thing to it. What is more horrible than
to come into magnetic rapport' with a dog, through in-
fusion of the saliva of the latter into your blood? For
the saliva is a great medium of magnetic influences, a
conductor of psychic agency, wherefore, also, the moods
of the soul have a marked operation on its physical
qualities, making it a vehicle of sanatory virtue, or a
deadly poison. Armstrong affirms that the bite of
negroes, when enraged, produces obstinate ulcers and
hydrophobia. Gaubius tells of a soldier who, being bit
in the arm by a woman whom he had bitterly angered,
died in convulsions; as also of a young Italian, who in a
paroxysm of anger, bit himself in the finger, and forth-
with became rabid, and died. And Sauvage has re-
corded the case of a youn", maiden, who, by sheer inten-
sity of ireful emotion, without any bite at all, of herself
or another, man or beast, was thrown into a state exactly
resembling canine madness. Even the mere sight of a
person in hydrophobia has engendered the same affec-
tion in persons of susceptible temperament. Mease
relates such a case, wherein the sufferer was a priest. A
student of Wittenberg became hydrophpbious, after he
bad seen, with heartfelt sympathy, a violent paroxysm
of rabies with which a young maiden, already nigh in
the last agonies, was seized. Ile was indeed restored,
but fur years lalsoured under a great weakness and un-
certainty of the voice, as well as a pnni'ul dread of
rn
speaking in public. Theion experienced. something
of the same kind .
after attending a friend in hydrophobia.
and seeing him he. An inward Paralyzing terror took
possession of him as often as he recalled to his memory
the vivid picture of the suffering he had witnessed.
Peter Frank, having merely touched with his fingers a
person dying of hydrophobia, was, through the power
of imagination, presently affected with symptoms of the
diseese ; and a young physician, mentioned in the
Journal Genet al de Medecine, 1894, became rabid
through a similar operation of phantasy, after the dis-
section of a child which had died of the bite of a mad
dog. The like unhappy fate had a woman, through
attending the death-bed of her husband under similar
circumstances."

THE BANKERS' MAGAZINE AND JOUR-
NAL OF THE MONEY MARKET. No. X.
This able periodical continues to prefer fresh claims
on the attention and confidence of the commercial
world, by the general soundness of its opinions on all
monetary questions, and the careful accuracy with
which the data are collected that it brings to bear in

support of those opinions. The first paper in the pre-
sent Number, entitled " Effects of the Stamp Act on
Banking," is an able exposition of the positively, or
the possibly, injurious and unfair operation of the Act,
Tinder four especial heads, of " Banking Licenses,"
" Letters of Credit," " Cheques," and " Deposit Re-
ceipts." Some " Notes on Recent Bank Failures"
give a lucid illustration of the specifi,.: causes which
must have led to the catastrophe of the " Yorkshire
Agricultural and Commercial Banking Company."
Other articles, such as " Summary of the Arguments
for and against Restriction of Bank Issues," " l'resent
State of the Insolvency Laws," " The Law of
Cheques," &c., are much to be commended for the
amount of practical and valuable information they
concentrate. The money and banking statistics com-
prised in papers relative to the savings' banks at:d
joint-stock banks, are cleverly arranged. We have
no doubt that this Magazine will find a place in the
counting-house of every mercantile or banking con-
cern in the metropolis and the country, the dealings
of which habitually connect it with the money
market.

POLYTECH.NIC RE VIE W.
This cheap Monthly Periodical is devoted equally
to literary and scientific subjects, and contains this
month, in addition to several impartial notices of new
publications, an essay on the " Prevention of Rail-
way Accidents," by the establishment of electric
telegraphs and the use of signal fires, in which occur
several serviceable practical suggestions; and an in-
genious plan of a new life: boat, with the quaint
name of the " Kamptulicon." From an exceedingly
clever article on the Drama, we have given an extract,
detailing the proceedings of the " Prize Comedy "
Committee. It furnishes a complete answer to the
various attacks which have, at :sundry times and in
divers manners, been made upon them.
" It has been asked by various persons, and
ourselves amongst the number—why, granting that
Quid Pre Quo was the best of the competing
comedies, yet why, being so bad, the committee con-
sented to give it the prizu ? Ard Webster even has
been pitied for having so worthless an affair forced upon
him, and being made to ply 5001. for it, besides the ex-
pense of producing it. Why did they not re-open the
competition, or declin; to adjudicate the prize, ithas been
asked, and so save poor Webiter his 500/. ? A simple
statement of facts answers these questions, and in a
manner which dots equal credit to the judgment
and discretion of the :committee, and the liberality of
Webster. We know it to be a fact, that, when the com-
mittee had got through about half their work, having
examined some fifty or sixty plays, without finding one
that had any pretensions to dramatic merit, one, in fact,
that could possibly be put upon the stage, the idea struck
them, that it was ver3 possible the remainder might prove
as unavailable for the purposes of the manager, and his
intention in offering the prize. They then requested the
company of Mr. Webster, and put the question to him,
whether in case of such a result, the committee would
have the power to withhold the prize, and re-open the
competition ; a power wh:ch has commonly been exer-
cised on occasions by committees for such purposes. Mr.
Webster replied, that he felt the force and justice of the
suggestion, but that he was precluded from acquiescing
in it ; having been ltd by some communications which
had reached him through the public prints or by other
channels, to give a phitgso that. the prize should in any
case be given to one cf. the .IISA. sent in, in conformity
with the advertis-nie:.t, which one the committee had
to decide, and that if they declined to decide upon
one, he would be obliged to endeavour to appoint
another committee, and so to go over all the labour
and trouble again. Mr. We bster was then asked whe-
ther, supposing the idly selected should be such that
there would be no prohabiiity of its being acted on the
stage with success, er ertn listened to by the audience,
he would still consider himself bound to make the expe-
riment by producing it ? The reply was, that he ap-
prehended he should be so compelled, in consequence of
the • contingent advsntt:ges,' as the twentieth, fortieth,
and sixtieth nights, mentioned in the advertise-
ment, and the injustice which would be considered to be
done to the author of the play, after its being selected
by the committee, in not producing it. Under these
circumstances, the committee resolved to go on with
their labour; and to select the best of the lot, whatever
it might be, having regard as well to general literary
merit, and the possbility—the physical possibility—of
production on the stage. The result everybody knows."