The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-18 00:00:00

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A MISTAKEN VOCATION.
Christian Urban, first alto of the Royal Academy of
Music, expired at Paris last week. He was a consummate
musician, and highly esteemed in the musical world. ' Short, _
ill-shaped, invariably wearing a sky-blue coat, and dining
every day at the same table at the Café Anglais, Urban;vrasli.R.
well known for his originality. But what, above awdiinn.;7c44-4
guished him was his extreme devotion, the minute practices
of which lie scrupulously followed. He want to mass every
day of the week, and on Sundays attended every service.
At night he brought with him to the Opera orchestra pious
books, which he read with unction whenever he was per-
mitted to quit his bow for a moment. Yon will ask why so
devout an artist had engaged at the Opera. He deplored it, but
had been obliged to enter the band. Urban hadatfirst devoted
his talents to sacred music, but it had not yielded him
enough to live upon, and necessity had thrown him into the
dramatic world a theatrical musician. All the resources of
his mind were employed in reconciling his ideas with the
exigencies of his profession. Whilst accompanying with his
violin the song and the dance, he had remained a complete
stranger to the spectacle, and to its pomp and fascinating
attractions. Ile had made it a rule to keep his head con-
stantly bent on his chest, and his eyes lowered on his music
or prayer-book. On no account would lie have infringed the
duty lie had imposed on himself, for the slightest infraction
would have been to him an enormous sin. Never did his
eyes venture across the proscenium ; never did he see the
end of the foot, or the lower part of the leg of a dancer, even
when she executed her liveliest pirouettes or most celestial
entrechats. He had a holy horror of such abominations. We
do not exaggerate; it is literally true that Christian Urban
was many years in the Opera orchestra without ever having
seen the stage. He was unacquainted with the cantatrices
as with the danseuses. One day, in a drawing-room, he
met a young and pretty woman, who 'addressed him as a
person whom one often sees, and complimented him on his
talents in flattering terms. " Who is that lady?" asked
Urban. "What, don't you know her?" replied the master
of the house. " I have never seen her." " Impossible!
look at her well." "In vain do I look at her," reiterated
Urban ; " I assure you that I have never seen her before."
He told the truth, and it was necessary to name Madame
Dorus, whom he actually saw for the first time, although he
had heard her sing for the last ten years. Urban knew no
faces on the Opera stage, and knew as little of the plays as of
the performers ; he carefully avoided paying the least atten-
tion to those works of Satan, and the pious meditations
into which he was plunged prevented his hearing the words
of the lyric drama. Several modern works have exhi-
bited on the stage the ceremonies and pomp of the
Church. Urban considered it a profanation, and shud-
dered when he heard the chorus utter Church music.
One evening, whilst a procession moved across the stage,
he was seen to kneel in the orchestra, cross himself, and
pray with joined hands, as if he had been at Notre Dame.
At the moment death struck him, Urban was about
to retire on a pension, and devote himself to monastic life,
which promised him unmingled felicity. He has died, leav-
ing the reputation of a very intelligent man, who, during 25 •
years never missed a single performance at the Opera, and
never saw Guillaume Tell, Robert le Diable, the Huguenots,
the Juice, Sylphide, nor Giselle—of a musician of the Opera.
band who was faithfully at his post every night during those
25 years, and who, though provided with excellent eyes,
never saw Mademoiselles Falcon, Nourrit, Taglioni, Madame
Stoltz, Duprez, Carlotta Grisi, or any other of the gods and
goddesses of either song or ballet. —Paris paper.

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BARBAROUS AND BRUTAL MURDER.—On Monday
evening, the evening of the Belfast fair day, while a number
of farmers were returning home, they were attacked on the.
Newtownbreda-road ; one of their party, named William
Crawford, was brutally murdered, and his brother, Hugh
Crawford, so seriously injured, that the doctor still conceives
him to be in a very precarious state. Immediately after the
perpetration of the murder, information reached the New-
townbreda constabulary station. The police lost no time in
arriving at the spot, and, having seen the bodies of the un-
fortunate sufferers properly disposed of, set out in search of
the parties implicated in the transaction. From information
they arrested the following persons :—James Spence, Thomas
Spence, John Cony, William Clarke, and George BPConnell.
—Northern Whig.
THE VINTAGE.—The most contradictory reports
of the vintage in the neighbourhood of Geneva have been
received. While from Wirtemberg but a middling wine is
expected as regards quality, and not very satisfactory in
quantity, accounts from the Pfalz represent the crop as
totally lost, but one-fourth of an average crop being ex-
pected in quantity, and in several places sourworm and rot.
have quite destroyed the grapes. The price for middling
table wines has already risen from 150 to 2008. the piece, to
300 and 4001 ; and for best qualities 500 and 6001 is asked-
In the Ahr, on the other hand, the vintage exceeds all ex-
pectations ; the quality is peculiarly good, and although the
quantity is not so great, it is yet much over that of last
year. Similar accounts have been received of the vintages
in other Rhenish provinces.—Rhine paper.
AN AMERICAN MANUFACTURING CITY.--The ten
manufacturing companies of Lowell consume annually
12,000 tons of coal, 3,070 cords of wood, 72,549 gallons of
sperm, and 19,000 of other oil. Of the whole population of
Lowell, 6,320 females and 2,915 males, together 9,235, are
employed as operatives, either in the mills, or connected with
other mechanic employments. There are 33 mills and about
550 houses belonging to the corporations. The capital in-
vested in manufacturing and mechanical enterprises is
12,000,000 dollars. There are made in Lowell every week
1,459,150 yards of cloth, or 75,868,(300 yards per year. The
cotton worked up every year is 61,100 bales. The printed
calicoes made annually amount to 14,000,000 yards. The
payment annually amounts to more than 1,500,000 dollars,
and the annual profit of this immense business has been esti-
mated at the same amount, or about 12} per cent.

THE STANHOPE MEMOIRS.—We are requested to
state that Mr. Colburn, of Great Marlborough-street, has
this day published a second edition of " Lady Hester Stan-
hope's Memoirs," Related by Herself, in 8 vols., with por-
traits, &c., price 31s. 6d. bound, which can now be had of
all booksllers. Mr. Colburn has also just published :-2.
Evenings at Haddon Hall, edited by the Baroness de Cala-
brella, and superbly embellished with twenty-four steel en-
gravings by the first artists, from designs by G. Cattermole,
Esq., 1 vol. Bvo., richly bound, 31s. 6d.-3. Confessions of a
Water Patient, by Sir Edward Bulwer Lvtton, Bart., 2s. 6d.
—4. The fourth volume of the Nilson Letters and
Dispatches, Bvo., 158.-5. Memoirs of Prince Charles Stuart,
commonly called " The Young Pretender," with Notices of
the Rebellion in 1745, by C. L. Klose, Esq., 2 vols. Bvo., 245.
—6. A third edition of the Crescent and the Cross, by Eliot
Warburton, Esq., 2 vols., 21s. bound.-7. Diary and Memoirs
of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George 1., now first published
from the originals, 2 vols. Bvo., with portrait, 28s. bound.
MILITARY DEFENCE OF CANADA.—We under-
stand that active preparations are now being made for the
military defence of Canada. At Port Sarnia, a fort is to be
erected, by order of Lord Cathcart. Penetanguishine is to
be made a place of great military strength. Colonel Hol-
loway, of the Royal Engineers, and Captain Boxer, of the
Royal Navy, have visited Port Hope, with a view to the
selection of a site for a fort and other military defences at
that beautiful and important position. Colonel Holloway
designs three batteries on that part of the Port Hope Hills,
called Fort Orten ; to be erected in a crescent form for
protection of the harbour and security of the town. The
engineers are now at work, surveying the narrow isthmus
which divides the head waters of the Bay of Quinte from
Lake Ontario, at Presque Isle, with a view to the construc-
tion of a canal at that point. At Kingston, the front of the
town, at present occupied by forwarders, as mercantile store •
houses, is to be pulled down, and a heavy battery erected in
their stead. Three martello towers, one on Cedar Island at
the east, and one on Stuart's Point at the west, and one oit
the shoal in the bay, are designed for the strengthening of
Port Henry, and the more effectual security of the city and
harbour. In Lower Canada a military general order has
issued, calling on all officers to report themselves to their
commanding officer, in the event of their wishing to retain
their commissions. We should deplore a war between the
two countries, and hope it may yet be averted. But ear-
nestly as we should deprecate :so great a calamity, we would
prefer even death to a dishonourable surrender, or the aban-
donment of justice and right. Give us peace by all means,
but let it be an honourable one.—Canada Statesman.
GENERAL CONSUMPTION or SUGAR.—The follow-
ing statistics relative to sugar appear in the Courrier de
Nantes, compiled from an elaborate table which is due to the
patient and indefatigable researches of Mr. Frederick Scheer,
a gentleman whose connexion with the sugar-producing colo-
nies has enabled him to procure the most authentic details.
The Zollverein, with a population of 29,066,000 souls, con-
sumes annually 70,000 tons of cane, and 10,500 of beetroot
sugar. Belgium, Holland, Oldenburgh, llamburgh, Bremen,
Lubeck, Hanover, and Mecklenburgh, with a gross total
population of 10,349,000, consume altogether 51,000 tons of
cane, and 5,000 of beetroot sugar. Russia, with a popula-
tion of 56,778,000, consumes 62,400 tons of cane, and 6,00(1
tons of beetroot sugar. France, with a population of
35,400,000, consumes 89,000 tons of French colonial sugar,
11,000 tons of foreign colonial sugar, and 28,000 tons of beet-
root sugar. Portugal, with a population of 3,412,000, con-
sumes 10,000 tons of sugar. Spain, with a population of
13,786,000, consumes 36,000 tons (36,100 tons of Cuba sugar
in 1844). Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, with a total popu-
lation of 6,509,000, consume altogether 12,000 tons of sugar.
Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of 28,323,000,
consume 240,000 tons of sugar per year; the lonian Islands,
Gibraltar, Cracow, and Switzerland, consume altogether about
46,000 tons of sugar ; Turkey and Greece, with a population of
10,700,000, consume only 4,000 tons of sugar; Canada and
other colonies, with a population of 4,544,000, consume, it
is estimated, about 15,000 tons ; and the United States, with
a population of 18,700,000, consume 150,000 tons of sugar.
The gross total population of the above sugar-consuming
countries amounts to 278,033,000 souls, and the total_annual
consumption of sugar to 845,900 tons. In the
.
the proportion of sugar consumed by each incU/laual per
annum amounts to 6 1-Bth lb.; inn the
German States, not
therein included, to 12 1-16th lb.; in RUASia, tO I 1-16th lb.;
in Scandinavia, to 1-10th lb. ;
in France, to 8 2-10ths lb.; in Portage!, t0t0646-10ths lb.;
in Spain, to 5 8-10ths
in Great Britain, to 191 b.; and, in the United States or
America, to 181 b.
THE KING AND THE BIRD-CATCHER.—A. few
years before his death, a dealer in singing-birds from the
Prussian part of the Hartz mountains came to Berlin, and
called at the palace to express, in what he thought the best
way, his thanks for the kindness which had been shown his
sons, who were soldiers, namely, by presenting to the King
a so-called piping bullfinch, which, with enduring patience,
he had taught to pipe the national air of "Hail Frederick
William," &c., throughout, and correctly—this being the
only instance of perfect success. The King smiled, and
ordered the bird. fancier to be shown up, who, having placed
the cage containing the interesting songster on the table, the
bird, after some kindly words from its music-master, went
through the practised air with all the solemnity of a cathedral
priest, to the surprise and amusement of the King, whose
delight increased when, on his saying "De Capo," the bird
piped the air again. To the question "What's the price?"
the pleased Papageno replied, " I won't take money for him;
but if my dear King will accept the bird, and love him, the
bare thought of his piping in the King's chamber will make
me the happiest man of our Hartz, and the first bird-catcher
in the world." The King felt good-will towards the honest
fellow, who stood before him unabashed in his linen jacket;
and Timm who had been summoned, received his Majesty's
commands to have a room prepared for the bird-fancier in
the adjoining wing of the palace, and was more than once
summoned into the King's presence, who inquired minutely
as to the localities of his part of the Hartz, and was amazed
at his sensible and frank replies. During this stay Timm
adroitly obtained such knowledge of his private circum-
stances and views as contented the King. When the time
for the man's departure came, Timm franked him by the
diligence. Arrived at home be found, to his utter astonish-
ment, that the mortgage of 500 dollars on his house had been
paid off by command of his Majesty. Thus was his unhoped-
for but highest earthly desire accomplished, whilst he was
enjoying the sights in Berlin.—Life of the late King of
Prussia.
MELTON MOIYHRAY.—On Monday, the 10th inst.,
Mr. Charles Frow, a Railway Surveyor, was brought up in
the custody of Superintendent Condon, before the Rev. G. E.
Gillett, and fully committed for trial at the next assizes foe
pointing a pistol and threatening to shoot William Biddle,
when he (Biddle) was attempting to prevent Mr. Frow from
surveying a field on the estate of the Earl of Harborough.
in the parish of Saxby, on Saturday, the Bth inst. Mr. Frow
was subsequently liberated on bail, himself in the sum of
100 L, and two others in 501. each, for his appearance to
11/14Yfer the charge at the anizee.—Leicestershire Jtercurg.