The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-09 00:00:00

854 Ebe Vress: TERMS OF Per Annum .. Half-Yearly .. Quarterly .. FOR .. /1 6 0 .. 0 13 0 .. 0 6 6 Palishle ift advance. Subscribers are requested to send their Orders through their News Agent; if direct to the Office, accompanied by a Remit• tance. 'Money Orders to be made payable to Mr. ALFRED Iva, 110, Strand, London. TO CORRESPONDENTS. It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive. Their insertion is often delayed, owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted, it is frequently from reasons quite inde pendent of the merits of the communication. We cannot undertake to return communications of which we do not avail ourselves. Ccmmunications should always be legibly written, and on one side of the paper only. If lung it increases the difficulty of finding space for them. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer, nut necessarily for publica tion, but as a guarantee of his good faith. Advertisements sent from the country must be accompanied by a remittance or a reference for payment in town. Ait :It)ritgg+ LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1854. POSTSCRIPT. THE WAR IN ASIA. The position of affairs in Asia seems to have im proved since the date of the disastrous battle of Buyukdere. Schamyl has made a descent into Georgia, where he is said to have destroyed 200 villages, worsted the Russian forces, and carried off a number of prisoners, including forty ladies, whom he keeps as hostages. In consequence of this irrup tion the Russians are reported to be covering their army with defensive entrenchments, and to have evacuated Bayazid, after blowing up the fortress in that place. General Guyon has been placed in command of the Turkish army in Asia. Mustapha Pacha is in disgrace. The Earl of Clarendon has appointsd Lieutenant- Colonel H. F. Williams, C. 8., Royal Artillery, to be her Majesty's Commissioner at Kars ; and her Ma jesty, by commission dated August 7, 1854, has been pleased to grant that officer the local rank of colonel while so employed. Lieutenant Teesdale, Royal Artillery, is appointed aide-de-camp to Colonel Williams ; and Mr. H. Churchill, lately attached to the Teheran Legation, has received orders to join him as secretary and interpreter. Colonel Williams, at the date of the last advices, had just returned from Varna, where he had been paying an official visit to Lord Raglan, and intended to embark in the next steamer from Constantinople to Trebizond, en route for Erzeroum. Several Russian agents disguised as Bedouins have been seized at Damascus, for exciting rebellion against the Porte. Advioes from Vienna, in the Fremden Blatta, state that a Greek conspiracy to assassinate Lord Raglan, the Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Napoleon had been discovered in Galata. The ringleaders had been arrested. The admirals have already made some experi ments in landing from the boats of the ships and frigates, and from the platforms which have been brought from Constantinople. It has been found that in less than one hour the fleets could put ashore 12,000 men, and that in two hours afterwards the number might he increased to 20,0(X) men. The landing, supported by the fire of from twenty-four to thirty guns, can be effected in this time upon any of the points supposed to be chosen for the pur- pose. A letter written from Varna by a French general says : "We are to embark on the 2nd September. Three days afterwaola the expedition will have landed on the coast of the Crimea. On the 7th (probably) a great battle will be fought, and on the 16th we will arrive before Sebastopol. The two armies are in excellent condition, and in the highest spirits." The particulars as to the numbers to form the ex pedition vary according to the authorities for the information, and it is not likely that the exact numbers of the whole force, or the proportion from each of the allied armies, can as yet be known at home. It is stated, however, on pretty good authority, that the expedition will consist of 100 steam-vessels, 300 transports, 36 sail of the line, 70,000 troops, and an immense materiel. When those troops shall have THE PRESS. been disembarked, the fleet will return to Varna for the rest of the expedition. The first division of the fleets will convey 14,000 men belonging to the French army, and between 400 and 500 horses, with seven batteries, mounting 36 guns. The second will convey the Ottoman army of about 10,000 men and SOO horses. The British army, a part of which is already on board the steamers which have come direet from Eng land, will also be thrown upon the coasts of the Crimea to the number of 21,000 men and 1,000 horses, with 36 guns. Thus, the first expedi tionary army will land about 50,000 troops, who, six or eight days afterwards, will be reinforced by an additional number of from 25,000 to 30,000 French troops, and from 4,000 to 5,000 English troops. A letter of the 20th ult. from St. Petersburg states that two terrible conflagrations had occurred in that city. One broke out near the Ismailoffsky barracks, where upwards of eighty, some say 200, houses, and property to the extent of nearly 500,000 silver roubles, aie supposed to be destroyed, partly insured. The other was on the Goutoueff island, where the quantity of property destroyed is large, but in value small, being principally bones intended for shipment abroad. The latest accounts from Spain speak of agitation still going on at Salamanca, Barcelona, Saragossa, and Galicia. Nothing serious, however, was appre hended. The Duke d'Abrantes, aide-de-camp of Prince Jerome, has just left Paris to join Prince Napoleon in the East. A letter from Copenhagen, of the 2d inst., says : " The King yesterday opened in the throne-room of the chateau of Christianborg the session of the Danish Council of State, decreed by ordinance of the 26th of July last. His Majesty, wearing all the insignia of royalty, having on his right the Hereditary Prince, and on his left the Ministers and the grand dignitaries of the Court, de livered a short speech, the text of which has not been pub lished. Ho immediately returned into his apartments, and the Council of State proceeded to their place of sitting in one of the royal palaces. The sittings of this Council are secret. Count de Moltke Bregentved, ex-President of the Council, has been named President of the Assembly." The quarrel between the French Opera and the newspapers is likely to be arranged. The Opera is disposed to give two free admissions to each paper instead of one, which was at first proposed. The journalists, while jealous of their own privileges, cannot but admit that the free-list aystem•had been greatly abused. It seems that in one way or another the gratis patrons of the Opera had swelled to the enormous number of 700. The lonian Parliament has beenprorogned till the 18th March, 1855. The arrival of the Hansa steamer, en route from New York to Bremen, furnishes us with two days' later news from the United States, which, however, is not important. Gold-dust to the amount of two million dollars had reached New York from California. Cotton was inactive at New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Yellow fever was had at Savannah. Owing to the favourable change in the weather the pestilence which has raged with such frightful seve• rity in the Soho district has abated, and it may be hoped that the inhabitants have seen the worst of the visitation. On Thursday there were very few deaths, and yesterday morning no new cases were reported. All the streets in the neighbourhood of Golden square, Soho-square, and the district between those places and Leicester-square, have been covered with amide of lime and zinc, a precaution which will be taken, at the suggestion of the Board of Health, in a►l other districts where there is reason to appre hend an outbreak of the disease. A numerous meeting of the licensed victuallers was held on Thursday afternoon in the saloon of Drury lane Theatre, with the object of forming an associa tion for the purpose of defending the licensed vic tuallers of the metropolis against the vexatious operation of the new Beer Act, by uniting the two societies already formed for that purpose. The room was crowded to excess. Mr. T. B. Simpson, of Cre morne•gardens, presided. Dr. Peithman, whose intrusion into the chapel of Buckingham Palace wo reported in the journals a few weeks since, was sent to Hanwell, after exa mination before the police magistrate. By the active interference of Mr. Perceval, son of the late Prime Minister, and the Rev. Dr. Emerton, Principal of Hanwell College, aided by the good feeling of some of the Middlesex magistrates, he has been liberated, but only upon the condition of leaving the country. This he did last Saturday, with Mr. Perceval, who will accompany him to Germany. A frightful fire was raging in the woods at Cleve land, and the soil was burning to the depth of one foot and a half. SATURDA Y, His Excellency Don Antonio Gonzalez, the new Spanish Minister in England, has arrived in London from Madrid. M. Gonzalez filled the post of Prime Minister and President of the Council during the regency of Marshal Espartero. A MEETING of the Romanists at Birkenhead took place a few days ago, presided over by the bishop of the district, for the purpose of adopting measures preparatory to the erection of a cathedral in that township, the expense of which is to be borne by the Earl of Shrewsbury, who has offered a grant of 15,0001. The price of the land is to be raised by subscription by the Romanists, and at the meeting upwards of 1,5001. was contributed. IN a London train which arrived at Warrington a few days since was a " lady " passenger, who called out for a glass of water, which when the porter fur nished, he was offered a sovereign to take pay for it. This he refused, and had the water flung in his face, accompanied by an oath. The porter, observing the carriage floor covered with sovereigns, called the station master, but, there being no time to wait, the poor drunken creature was looked in, and orders given to the guard to see to her at the next station. A handkerchief filled with sovereigns was observed on one of the seats. Front inquiries it was found she had just returned from the "diggings." THE amount paid to coroners last year for holding inquests in England and Wales was no less than 56,8801. 3s. 10d. In Middlesex alone it was 8,4581. Ils. THE performances of a new repeating-pistol, pa tented by Messrs. Dean and Adams, were tested on Tuesday at Woolwich, when 1,000 successive shots were fired from one barrel, without cleaning, oiling, or otherwise regulating, until the whole series was completed, and without a single miss-fire or the slightest derangement. LIEUTENANT GREER left Windsor on Thursday for his mother's residence in Ireland, where she lives on a little freehold farm, consisting of about 100 acres, meadow and arable. Mr. Greer now intends to turn his sword into the ploughshare." The 46th Regiment are in hourly expectation of the route to march for the East. A DIABOLICAL MURDER was committed last week at Trowbridge, in Wiltshire. The victim was an elderly man, named Daniel Napper, and after some dispute was brutally assaulted by his own son, iiho had recently returned from transportation, And so ill treated that he died soon afterwards. The wife of the murdered man was present and also struck him re peatedly. Both son and mother have been committed on the capital charge. REVOLTING DETAILS OF ANOTHAR IRISH MURDER are recorded in the Cork Examiner of Wednesday, the crime being perpetrated in a lane of that city. The victim was a woman named Eliza Warner. The murderer, a man named Cornelius Mullane, about ten years since, NM tzlinsported for robbery, but owing to bis good conduct his term was shortened to a period of two or three years. He then remained in Australia, where he realised a sum of from 5001. to 6001. On his return some time since to Cork he got married to the daughter of the deceased woman, and became a dealer in old clothes. On Monday evening he and his wife, who are both given to drink ing, had some quarrel, which ended in her leaving his house, and going over to her mother's, in Vanda leur's-lane. Next day Mullane came to the house, and had an altercation with his mother-in-law, on which he got into a violent passion and drew a knife upon her. Mrs. Warner's husband, however, inter fered and took the knife from him. Mullane then went out and purchased another, a sailor's large clasp knife, and returned to the house in a perfectly fu rious state, vowing he would stab any one that would come near him. The deceased got up and went over to pacify him, and endeavoured to take the kni fe from him, but he drew it across her hand, and nearly cut her thumb off. He then made a rush at her, and stabbed her three times in the abdomen, the last stab cutting her entrails. An outcry was raised, and a constable called in. He saw the unfortunate woman struggling convulsively at Mullane's feet, while he was standing over her, protesting, with oaths and curses, that if any one came near him he would rip him open. The constable, however, rushed at him and caught him by the neck and hand, and suc ceeded in getting the knife. Mullane was then lodged in prison. His victim died shortly afterwards. SOME EXPERIMENTAL GUNNER? PRACTICE was going on at Shoeburyness on Monday, when a large cannon, a 56 pounder, weighing 93 cwt., burst on being dis charged. The fragments were scattered in all direc tions to a great distance. One massive segment was thrown off laterally and struck successively three sergeants, who were so terribly injured that they all died, two almost on the spot and the third next day. The fragment weighed more than a ton. All the gunners engaged about the piece fortunately es caped unhurt, but three men employed upon another gun were struck.