The Sun. — 1839-12-18 (London, England)

APPREHENSION OF A CHARTIST.—On Saturday evening a young man entered a public house in this borough—took his seat among the company—and called for a glass of rum, with cold water. He was a very suspicious-looking youth—one of your lean, spare, wiry specimens of humanity, whom Shakspeare character izes as dangerous " subjects ;" and in these troeblous ti ,nes, when disloyalty is suspected to wander abroad, Paoth in broad-cloth and three-and-sixpenny narrow, the entrance of such a solitary, weasel-shaped fellow, could not fail to attract the observation of a knot of smoke-pipe politicians, in a public-house parlour. Therefore, as he sipped his " cold without." his fellow-tipplers eyed him attentively ; and one of them, more quicksighted than his neighbours, perceived a pistril. barrel gleaming under his coat, which was closely buttoned round him. The portentous discovery was whispered from one to another, till it made the circuit of the room. A sceptical chid ventured to breathe a doubt as to the nature of the secreted article. His .seepticism, however, was speedily removed. The stranger fell into a doze—or, at least, appeared to doze : for some suspected he was merely feigning sleep, in furtherance of a deep-laid scheme. But, at any rate, he c dosed his eyes ; and one of the smokers gently insinuated his pipe-shank into the pistol-barrel—withdrew it —applied the tip to his nose—and smelt gunpowd. Ir. There was then no further parley :—in an instant it was " the de'il tale the hindmost !" The company ru ;shed from the:room, leaving the armed Wight alone— th c timid topers precipitately paying the landlady's shot, to escape that of the dreaded Chaitist. She, having le, trued from her customers the cause of their flight, ixsti t qtly dispatched a servant for the stoutest friend that sh : possessed—a neighbour whom we will not point (suit more distinctly than to say, that his large bodily propcc rtions a little belie his name. On his arrival he was al r, prized of the emergency which required his aid ; but no ?. he could not think of interfering—the police were pi tid for such duties, and he would not meddle in their pi s wince. Not that he was afraid—but he stood upon p ri nciple—he would not pay the watch-rate, and do the v ICI rkofthe police into the bargain. And so saying, he made his escape from the vicinity of the alarming pistol, and v r as safe behind his counter in a twinkling. 'Fhealarmed 1; ndlady, unable to procure amateur aid, dispatched a messenger for professional policemen ; and, in a trice, or ie half of the whole police force of Gateshead—that is tt i say, two of the potent body who (like the Irishman) " surround" this borough with their protecting pre-9 3nce—came to her assistance, and received instructions ct o arrest the lonely tenant of the back parlour, but to t ako especial care that murder should not be done -.vithin the house, whatever might be done after they got the blood-thirsty villain to the door. Stealthily the policemen stole into the room, with an air of affected unconsciousness—and gradually they sidled round to the rum-and-water bibber ; till, watching a favourable moment, they pounced upon him ere he could grasp his pistol, and pinioned his arms to his side. Then unbuttoning his coat to get possession of his fire-arms, there • dropped to the floor a glittering—iron candlestick !!!