The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-26 00:00:00

r AUGUST 26, 1854. ptianb. THE works of the new packet wharf in Kingstown harbour are progressing, and it is expected, now that the diving bells can be worked to advantage, that the operations will be expedited. The storms of the last year have had but little effect on the outer slopes of the east pier. The traders' wharf at the west side of the harbour has been completed, and affords great accommodation to the colliers and vessels trading to Kingstown, which can lie afloat when discharging or taking in cargo. THE TREATMENT OF MR. CARDEN IN GAOL has been the subject of many rumours. It is now authoritatively stated in the Observer that " the sentence of hard labour' is being carried into execution in the ordinary way. The unfortunate culprit was, immediately after his conviction, attired in the common gaol dress, his head was shaven, and he was set upon the treadmill for the usual space of time. He is locked up every evening at six o'clock, and rises in the morning at six." It seems, how ever, to be found quite consistent with the " ordinary" carrying out of his sentence to allow the convict the attendance of his man-servant, to give him a whole cell to himself, and to permit him to eat what he pleases, as he is allowed to supply himself with food, bat all wines and spirits are strictly forbidden him. Ho goes, we are told, on the treadmill at ten o'clock, and remains at it, with usual rests, until two. Tbis monotonous and severe toil he actually goes through without murmuring ! The poor fellow looks very , ill," but has not formally complained to the gaoler that he is suffering in health. He prefers the long continued toil at the mill to walking in the gaol-yard amongst the other convicts. THE Hibernia steamer, which left Dublin harbour on Tuesday night, ran down a small smack about half-a-mile from the Pigeon-house. It is feared that the crew were all drowned. Tan Cork Examiner reports the death of Mr. N. M. Stack, who was one of the celebrities of that city. He Was at one time an actor of some mark in London, but quitted the stage and became professor of elocution at the Colleges of Maynooth and Carlow, and subsequently at the Roman Catholic seminary at Oscott, in England. HER MAJESTY has appointed Dean Walter Meyler and Mr. Henry George Hughes to the two vacant Commissionerships of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland. THE Loan LIEUTENANT met with a slight accident on Saturday last at Baron's-court, the residence of the Marquis of Abercorn. While riding with Lord Claude Hamilton, his horse stepped into a hole hidden by the grass and fell, throwing his rider to the ground, by which his thumb was dislocated and Ins face considerably bruised. Happily, however, no serious injury was sustained, and it is believed that in the course of a few days his excellency will have quite recovered from the effects of the fall. THE HARVEST REPORTS lately received are of a mixed character, for, while they describe the grain crops as being in a most promising state, they all admit the existence, more or less extensively, of the potato disease, although even in the latter case they speak hopefully, owing to the great productivess of the crop, which, it is expected, will compensate to a considerable extent for the ravages of the blight. THE Munster News announces that Mr. Smith C'Brien has arrived in Belgium to join his family. THE EARL OF KENMARE has made a free gift of fiurteen miles of the laud for the Tralee and Killarney lailway, following the footsteps of his predecessor, vho gave twenty. three miles to the Killarney junc ion. THE SYNOD OF ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS AND (ANONS OF THE CHURCH, convened by Archbishop N'Hale, was brought to a termination on Sunday. ?he concluding ceremonies took place in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Tnam. THE site chosen for the erection of the National 3allery for Ireland is the lawn in front of the Royal Dublin Society's house, Merrion-square. The build ng is to consist of two extensive wings, running in parallel lines at the extreme verge of the lawn on itlier side, and terminating at the Dublin Society's House, one of which will be set apart for a national zallery, and the other as a national museum. The Daily Express says :--" With this object Mr. Sidney Herbert, M.P., has granted a new lease to the Dublin Society for 999 years, and the Dublin Society will grant a similar lease to the trustees and directors of the National Gallery." Tux Stark County (Ohio) Agricultural Society is Meting premiums for the finest specimens of young Americans. Here is the list :—For prettiest baby, five dole. and diploma to mother; for second prettiest baby, three lola. and diploma to mother; for third, two dols. and liploma to mother ; for largest and heaviest child under weave months old, age to be considered, five dols. and liploma to mother ; for second largest and heaviest child inder twelve months old, three dole. and diploma to pother; for third, two dole. and diploma to mother. - ^rr THE PRESS. -~ THE CHOLERA. THE number of deaths from all causes returned for the week ended last Saturday was I,B33—nearly the same as that of the previous week. In the ten cor responding weeks of the years 1844.53 the average number, if raised in proportion to increase of popu lation, was 1,224. The present return exhibits an excess of 609 above the estimated amount. Cholera was fatal last week to 720 persons, of whom 214 were children under 15 years of age, 426 were 13 years and under 60, and 88 were 60 years old and upwards. The deaths from diarrinea last week were 192. The tabulated returns show that cholera has prevailed with great irregularity over London, and that in several sub districts the ravages of the epidemic are inconsider able. Imperfect drainage, proximity to the dirtiest parts of the Thames, bad water, and poverty, are still, as they were in 1849, the chief circumstances that make cholera fatal. It is on the banks of the polluted Thames, in the lower parts of the London basin, that the people die in large numbers ; for on ground less than an average ten feet above Trinity high-water• mark 1,212 of the deaths from cholera have happened out of 595,111) people; while on the next terrace, of 10 feet and under 40 feet of elevation, 493 in 648,619 have died ; and on the higher grounds, above St. James's-square and the Strand, only 213 have died of cholera out of 1,070,372 inhabitants. The mortality at the three elevations, commencing at the lowest, has been at the rate of 204, and 70, and 20, to every 100,000 inhabitants. The people on the low grounds have suffered ten times as much as the people living on the grounds of a moderate elevation. A PROFOUND feeling of gloom pervailed in the con gregation of St. John's Church, Notting-hill, on Sunday last, in consequence of the announcement that the cholera had taken off the Rev. Edwin Proctor Denniss, 8.C.L., the incumbent minister of the district. Notting-hill does not appear to have been visited with many severe cases of cholera, but notwithstanding its reputed healthfulness it is very liable to severe attacks, being situated immediately above the filthy Kensington potteries, so frequently made the subject of complaint in sanitary reports. IN consequence of the spread of cholera, Cardinal Wiseman has granted permission to his flock to eat flesh meat on Friday and other days of abstinence. CAPTAIN R. F. ROWLEY died almost suddenly at Woodlands on the morning of the 18th, from an attack of cholera. The gallant officer was the fourth son of the late Admiral Sir Charles Rowley, Bart., G.C.8., G.C.H., and was a well-known and warm supporter of the different professional charities. THE Gazette des 114itaux of the 19th publishes a re markable cure of cholera by mistake. Dr. Roger (de l'Ore), having been called on to visit a patient in the worst stage of cholera, prescribed, but with scarcely the slightest hope that it would be efficacious, an emetic of 14 gramme of ipecacutuffia, to be taken in three doses (prises), at inter vals of half-an-hour. The person who was charged to ad minister the ipecacuanha, seeing the word prises, and finding that the medicine was a powder, imagined that it was a kind of snuff, and that the liree prises meant three pinches. He consequently made the patient sniff up the drug. The ipecacuanba thus administered, instead of making the patient vomit, caused him to sneeze with such force, and for so long a time, that a violent reaction took place. Heat returned to the surface, all the symptoms of cholera ceased, and when the physician paid his next visit he found the patient cured. THE REPORT OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL StateS the total number of deaths in England and Wales for the year 1852 at 407,138 deaths, being of males 207,042, and of females 200,096. This mortality is from a gross population of 17,027,609 persons. Hence it appears that about 1 in 44 of the population expires every year, and that, while in 1852 there were 14,082 more males born than females, their deaths only ex ceeded those of the females by 6,046. By far the most fatal quarter for both sexes is that between the end of December and the beginning of April, and the healthiest is that between the Ist of October and the 31st of December. The largest amount of deaths was in the north-western division, where there were 71,117 out of a population of 2,400,827, being about 1 in 35 ; and the smallest in the northern division, where there were 22,235 out of a population of 969,126. In the south-eastern, the south-midland, and the eastern divisions the deaths average about 1 in 50. In the London division they are about 1 in 43. From the whole report we find that there were, in 1852, 317,564 persons married, or 158,782 marriages, 623,990 births, and 407,138 deaths. Or 100,000 children born in Liverpool, only 44,797 live to the age of 20, while in Surrey that age is attained by 70,885 out of the same number of children born : the pro bable lifetime is about six years in out unhealthiest towns, rt 2 years in Surrey and other comparatively healthy parts. GRAB, right-hand man of the Prussian King's company, Ist Foot Guards, died at Potsdam last week. He was the tallest soldier in Europe, taller almost than any of King Frederick William I.'s gigantic " blue children." He stood 7ft. lin., and his coffin was Bft. 7in. long. . e7.o^ THE ELECTRIC LOOM. EXPERIMENTS are busily making in Sardinia for the completion of the ingenious machine invented by Cavaliere Bonelli for the application of electricity to weaving. This invention is more simple, less em barrassing, and, what is of far greater importance, more economical than the invention of Jacquard, which, amid the general progress •of the age in mechanical and technical matters, has undergone but slight modifications in its material construction, while no one has dared to make *change in its prin ciple. By the present invention, instead of the num berless and expensive cartoons, either full or hollow, you see small iron bars magnetised only when in vested with the voltaic current, so that, while at every passage of the shuttle it was heretofore necessary to change a cartoon, it now suffices to vary the wires which give passage to the electric fluid, and the load stones change their action every moment according as the teeth of the comb under which the design passes, and with which they correspond, rest upon the conducting or insulating substance. As the point of the pantograph reproduces a design dimi nished or enlarged, and as the point of Barn's tele • graph exactly copies a signature at the distance of hundreds of miles, so the loom of Bonelli reproduces woven the designs which pass under the comb, and all this without rendering necessary a change in the 1 thousands of Jacquard looms now existing, which, if desired, may be worked alternately with electricity and with cartoons. urin first, then Genoa, Lyons, and Paris, saw iu operation this ingenious innovation, and unani mously admired the simplicity and reliability of the means with which it is carried into effect. In these cities a loom on a small scale has been shown, but the inventor intends shortly to exhibit in Paris and London a loom on a scale worthy of the places and the invention. After having secured the property in his discovery throughout Europe, he has just sold his patents to three eminent banking-houses, two of them in Turin and one in Lyons, and very soon several looms, which are now being constructed, will be sent abroad to serve as models for the system of electric weaving in most of the manufacturing coun tries of Europe; and for its introduction into the United States of America 'n agent is now on the point of starting. It is difficult to foresee the changes which may spring from the application of this new agent to the business of weaving, as not only the economy consequent on it must lead to a decline of prices, but the new means afforded by this invention will render easily attainable results such as are now only reached with difficulty or with great expense, as Gobelins tapestry, dc., and others utterly unattainable by any means hitherto known. Even in the present age, so rich in useful and im portant inventions, no doubt this will rank among the first. ACCOUNTS of a sharp encounter with some Greek pirates are given in the Dania in a letter from Samos of the 6th inst. Two days reviously an attack had been made in the little island of Lero, near Samos, on a band of Greek pirates by the crew of the screw-corvette the Chapial, Captain I'oultier. Having landed at daybreak, under the command of Lieutenant Laurent and M. Souza Carrea, an officer of the Brazilian navy in the service of France, the assailants found the pirates about nine o'clock iu the morning, and forced them to seek refuge in a strongly built house, where they barricaded themselves. In those parts houses, being at all times exposed to pirates, espe cially those on the seashore, are built like blockhouses, without exterior openings, by which they can be attacked, provided with loopholes for musket-firing, and capable of resisting musketry. It was in a building of this kind that the pirates took up a position. It could not be hoped to expel them with muskets, and it was necessary to send a detatchment on hoard for a howitzer. The combat then commenced, the pirates opposing the most energetic re sistance, which would have done them the greatest honour if their cause had been honourable. After about five hours, ammunition having begun to fail the French detachment, the commander gave orders fur an attack, and his sailors rushed on the house, and, amidst a shower of balls, bloke open the door with hatchets. Some seconds after the affair was at an end ; the pirates were all shot, with the excep tion of five of them, who were hanged the next day to the yards of the corvette. The French had in this affair, which was a very sharp one, one man killed and several wounded. THE SPANISH AUTHORITIES, after the subsidence of in surrection, are again at the old work of rehaptising the streets of Madrid and Barcelona. This is among the smaller miseries of revolutionary periods. The fine street known as the Calle Alcala, from the gate which terminates it opening on the road to the town of that name, has within the last fourteen years undergone various changes of the kind. In 1541.2 it received with all due solemnity the name of Duque de la Vitoria, in honour of Espartero, then fresh from the termination of the civil war. When the regency of the duke was overthrown the obnoxious appellation was effaced, and it resumed its primitive and more proper one; and now again it seems it is to be metamorphosed. The Calle Maria Christina will also undergo a change, and will be called Calle O'Donnell — until lion Leopoldo gets into a scrape. A Costvier named Swinbum, under sentence of trans• portation for life, effected his escape on Saturday afternoon front Woolwich Dockyard, leaving all his convict clothes behind him, and has not since been apprehended. He re ccived his sentence at Newcastle. - 807