The Press. — London, England, 1854-07-08 00:00:00

l THE PRESS. SATURDAY, 634 THE total number of deaths registered in the metropolitan districts last week was 1,290—an excess of 201 above the estimated amount. Scarlatina ap pears to be gaining ground, the deaths referred to it numbering 72. The births of 920 boys, and 844 girls, in all 1,764 children, were registered in London. In nine corresponding weeks of the years 1845-53 the average number was 1,453. THE HALF-HOLIDAY MOVEMENT has been joined by the merchants and brokers engaged in the tobacco trade, who have agreed that business shall cease in future at two o'clock on Saturdays. IT was stated in the House of Lords last week, on the authority of Lord Coke, that a marriage had once been set aside because the husband had upon one occasion stood godfather to the second cousin of THERE are 136 newspapers in the United Kingdom, a portion of which is published without stamps, viz., 106 in England, 23 in Scotland, and 7 in Ireland. Of the English papers mentioned 34 are published monthly in London, and not liable to duty ; and 25 in the country, and exempted for the same reason. THE sixth annual report of the Poor law Board was published on Monday, and forms an interesting par liamentary volume. The amount expended for the relief of•the poor during the year ended at Lady-day, 1853, was 4,939,0041., being an increase of 41,3791. as compared with the sum expended fur the preceding year. The year ending Lady-day, 1853, is the first since that ending March 25, 1848, which shows an in crease in the expenditure. The Poor-law Board believe the increase is mainly attributable to the higher price of provisions, and not to an increase in the amount of pauperism. The number of persons of all classes in receipt of relief on the lst July, 1853, was 743,639, being a decrease of 56,532, or 7.1 per cent., as compared with the number in receipt of relief his wife! THE LATE THOMAS KANE, Old Brentford, London, deceased, having died intestate, and without known relatives, his property was claimed by Mr. Maule for the Treasury. A poor family in Skibberoen have, however, just succeeded in establishing their title to the estate, which is worth 1,0001., after much opposi tion in the English Chancery Court. THE LAST FLORAL SHOW OF THE BOTANIC SO CIETY took place on Wednesday in their gardens in the Regent's Park. The unfavourable state of the weather prevented the attendance of visitors ftom being so numerous as usual, scarcely more than 6,000 or 7,000 persons being present, but it is stated that upwards of 24,000 visitors had passed the gates on the occasion of the preceding exhibitions. The collection in the great tent was one of exceeding beauty, and the general effect produced by the con centration and grouping of the choice flowers exhi bited excited universal admiration. The bands of the Royal Blues and the Ist and 2nd Life Guards were in attendance. THE EARL OF BANTRY has been chosen by a majority of votes to be the Irish representative peer to sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom in the room of the late Viscount Doneraile. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE HON. GEORGE ANSON was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the East India Company's Forces on the Fort St. George establishment, and second member of council at that presidency, at a Court of Directors held on Wednesday at the India-house. MR. JOHN HILL BURTON, advocate, is to be ap pointed Secretary to the General Board of Directors of Prisons in Scotland, in room of the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. THE REV. THOMAS A. POPE, M.A., incumbent of the church and district of St. Matthias, Stoke Newing ton, has resigned his benefice, for the purpose of joining the communion of the Church of Rome. VERY great improvements are in progress in Chatham dockyard. A. spacious new slip has been completed, with the exception of laying a few massive blocks of granite on the wharf wall, which has been carried out a considerable distance into the Medway, and will give a great depth at high water. The slip has also been carried further inland than was originally intended, in order to meet the requirements for the great length of modern screw steam-ships of war. An hydraulic crane has been put up on the wharf wall on so simple and powerful a principle that ahoy can manage it, and remove a piece of timber of four tons from a ship in the river to the waggon for convey ance to any part of the yard. On the north-east side of the new slip a spacious tunnel has been made, extend ing its entire length and beyond into the mast•pond. Another powerful hydraulic crane, capable of raising ten tons, has been put up on this side of the wharf wall to remove the masts and other heavy timber from the ships in which they may arrive, previous to being taken into the mast-pond. There is also a large convict prison being built, capable of containing 1,000 convicts for the heavy work of the yard. A PUBLIC MEETING to discuss the present war with Russia was held in Camden-town on Wednesday evening. Mr. Urquhart addressed the assembly for two hours, and denounced the war as unnecessary, rash, and inconsiderate. It had already in one year cost ten millions, and the people submitted to it like sheep led to the slaughter. It was palpable that the people of England in 1854 were as stupid as they were in 1806. Resolutions were adopted to the effect that, all treaties being abrogated by the fact of the war, the continuance of the payment of the Russo Dutch Loan is a treasonable offence, to be visited by impeachment, and condemnatory of the whole of the arrangements with respect to Greece and the Ottoman empire, the schemes of Russia having been adopted in all their movements. A petition to Par liament and an address to the Queen were also agreed to. _ _ on the Ist Jtily, 1852. THE MEMBERS OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY held their last meeting for the session on Monday, at the Trafalgar, Greenwich, Sir Roderick Murchison in the chair, supported by Lords Sheffield and Over stone. The annual grant of 5001. to the Royal Geo graphical Society was also voted by the House of Commons on the same evening. THE CENTENARY FESTIVAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS was celebrated on Saturday last in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Nearly 800 guests sat down to dinner, under the presidency of Lord Granville. Among iem were the representatives of 355 affi• listed institutions scattered through the whole coun . ------- - ALL the European Governments, according to the Moniteur, are unanimous in proscribing the public negotiation of the Russian loan. The reprobation is so great in Germany that the house of Bentham has intimated that it took part in the loan merely on as count of the correspondence in which it was engaged with the St. Petersburg house charged with the affair. The authorities at Hamburg, the Dutch and Belgian Governments, have declared that they will oppose, as far as they are concerned, everything connnected with the loan. In England the advocates of the Crown have declared that all participation in the loan would be considered as treason. The Moniteur adds : " In presence of such unanimity it is useless to add that the new Russian loan has been from the com mencement struck with discredit, and regarded in itself as an operation without solidity." THE REv, W. G. WARD, who was formerly fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and who was stripped of his M.A. degree in 1844 on account of the Romish tendencies of certain passages in his "Ideal Church," has been engaged for three years as one of the pro fessors of dogmatic theology in the Roman Catholic College of St. Edmund's, near Ware. The Pope, besides creating Mr. Ward a M.A. of Rome, has re cently conferred upon him the cap and ring of a doctor of philosophy, with which Mr. Ward was solemnly invested a few days since by Cardinal Wise- man. THE anniversary dinner of gentlemen educated at Harrow took place on Saturday evening at the Freemasons' Tavern, under the presidency of the Lord Bishop of Ripon, formerly head master of the school. A TREASURY WARRANT published in Tuesday's Gazette establishes the sixpenny rate of postage for half-ounce letters, the book post, and various other advantages to the colony of Newfoundland. FROM THE BOARD OF TRADE RETURNS it appears that the declared value of the exports for the month ending the sth of June was 8,422,1901., being an in crease of 1,300,0001. over the corresponding month of last year. For the five months ending the sth of June the amount is 40,425,6891., or 5,330,0001. more than in 1853. THE QUEEN has appointed the Hon. John Henry Thomas Manners Sutton to be Lieutenant-Governor of the province of New Brunswick. LORD GRANVILLE, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan caster, was on Monday appointed a member of the Committee of Council on Education. A PzTinox against the admission of Dissenters to the Oxford University has been unanimously signed by members of the Convocation, and will be pre sented to the House of Lords in a few days. The pe titioners " implore the house not to alter by compul• sory legislation the relations which have litherto subsisted between the University and the Established Church." THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER has ac knowledged the receipt of ball a Bank of England note, value 2(01., from "A. 8.," for unclaimed in • come tax ; also the receipt of 13s. 2d. in postage stamps for unpaid armorial bearings, from "T. M. C." DURING the last fortnight eight thousand letters for the English fleet have passed through Dantzic. A LONG LIST OF INTESTATES' EFFECTS which hr s been administered in the course of last year ate curator at Adelaide, the parties having died at various periods between 1851 and 1854, appears in the colo nial Gazette. The most considerable sum unclaimed is 1,0001. left by Hugh Rankine, from Ayrshire, in Scotland, who died on the 13th June, 1853. Among the other amounts are 1501., Alfred Hownam, for merly of Rouen ; 301., William Simms, formerly of Ascot ; 501., Robert Herrell, of Dartmoor ; 1501., Fred. Retch, a German, who died in October, 1852 ; 4001., Robert Monteith, from Dublin ; 721., Henry Billington, of Southport; 1501., James Colman; 33/., Nicholas Thomas ; 701., R. Dagger, formerly of Leith. AT THE SYDENHAM CRYSTAL PALACE the numbers who paid on Saturday last, a ss. day, were 1,390. During the present week, although the weather has been showery and disagreeable, the number of shilling visitors maintains a fair average. On Monday there were 12,888; Tuesday, 14,810 ; Wednesday, 13,006 ; and Thursday, 14,040. Total for the tour days 53,710. The number of season tickets now sold is 20,352, of whose holders some 1,200 or 2,000 visit the palace daily. Mr. Deane, to whose energy much of the success of the Dublin Exhibition may be ascribed, has been appointed head of the exhibitors' depart ment. Her Majesty honoured the palace with a visit on Thursday morning. A DEPUTATION, consisting chiefly of gentlemen in terested, more or less, in the trades of artificial manure makers, manufacturing chemists, tanners, size and glue makers, tallow melters, soap makers, animal charcoal makers, bone crushers and boilers, varnish makers, vitriol manufacturers, horse slaughterers, &c., waited upon Lord Palmerston on Thursday, at the Home-office, for the purpose of inducing his lord ship to make some alterations in the Nuisances Removal Bill which would relieve them from the in justice with which they were at present threatened by the said enactment. try. The banquet was followed by the customary speechmaking, in which compliments were copiously interchanged between the spokesmen for the society and those for the palace, which two institutions, was confessed, stood somewhat in the relationship of parent and offspring. Lord Granville in courtly terms acknowledged the patronage of royalty to the latter undertaking, and trusted that the Crystal Palace would assist in the education of the Prince of Wales. Mr. Laing, for the Palace Company, hoped that the edifice would tend to modify the habits of London life, " and that the introduction of the best part of continental habits would be effected by the presence of a continental climate, which their glass roof now assured them." In proposing the toast of the day, "The Society of Arts," Lord Granville eu logised it as a powerful instrument for education. Many plans, he said, had been devised fer the pur pose of making education universal, but the Go vernment found it impossible to overcome the re • ligious scruples which stood in the way of their adoption : " He feared that they must be content for the present to pursue their great object, education, through every ave nue they might find open, and he believed tbatthe Society of Arts would be most useful for that purpose. That so ciety contained among its members some of the most dis tinguished men in every line of life in this country ; but what he admired it most for was the energetic, bustling manner in which, iu a good cause, it thrust itself into corners in which it had no business at all, and where, if Government attempted to follow, the most sturdy resist. ance would ensue. At one time he almost regretted that the society had mixed itself up with the vexed question of strikes, but the beneficial results that followed the attempt quite reconciled him to its prudence." Amongst the subsequent speeches was one from Mr. E. Barnes, on behalf of the 355 mechanics' institu tions in union with the Society of Arts; and another, in excellent English, from M. Milne Edouard, for "The Foreign Visitors." THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ROYAL WEST MINSTER OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL for the relief of poor persons afflicted with diseases of the eye took place on Saturday, the Marquis of Westminster in the chair. The number of persons admitted to the benefits of the charity during the year was 5,650. Of these 137 were received into the hospital, and 5,522 treated as out-patients. Since its first establish ment in 1817, 08,859 had availed themselves of the benefits of the charity, of whom 2,137 had been re stored to sight. The hospital had been supported for the past year at an expense of 1,6231., leaving a deficiency of assets for the current year of 661. Os. MR. PARK, the sculptor of Manchester, member of the Royal Scottish Academy, was presented last week to the Emperor of the French, at the Palace of St. Cloud, and exhibited his bust of Sir Charles Napier, with which his Majesty expressed himself much gratified, being well acquainted with the charac teristic features of the gallant admiral. Mr. Park has been entrusted with the execution of a bust of the Emperor, the first sitting for which took place on Thursday week, after which his Majesty invited him to lunch with the imperial circle. Two other sittings have since taken place, and already the likeness pro mises to be a striking one. THE misunderstanding which occurred between the Earl of Erroll, of the Rifle Brigade, and his colonel, at Varna, has been amicably arranged to the satisfaction of all parties, and Lord Errull has re turned to his duties. MR. EDWARD AUCHMUTY GLOVER has issued an address announcing himself a candidate for the re presentation of Canterbury, whenever it pleases the House of Commons to permit a new writ to be issued. This gentleman was an unsuccessful candidate for Beverley in 1852, when he came forward as a Liberal Conservative, in opposition to the Hon. F. Lawley, now secretary to the present Chancellor of the Ex chequer. Ili.