The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-30 00:00:00

1242 The thanks voted to our army and to our fleet, as well as to their commanders, could not but deeply affect the Government of the Emperor. The thoughts of his Imperial Majesty are di- rected with unceasing solicitude to the scene of the contest in which the allied armies are engaged; it is, therefore, with the utmost satisfaetion that he observes the esteem which the sol diers of the two countries mutually entertain for each other in. creased by the courage and perseverance which they display in the service of one and the same cause. The Government of the Emperor especially congratulates itself at perceiving iu the vote of the Parliament an evidence of the intimate union which, con. fleeting together the policy of France and England, blends also in one and the same expression the encomiums to which glorious efforts and toilsome labours so justly entitle the two armies and the two fleets which the two countries have sent to share the same perils and the same fatigues. Lady Raglan and the Hon. Misses Somerset, who aro passing the holidays in Great Stanhope-street, we understand, received letters on Monday from the gallant field marshal commanding our army in the Crimea, dated from head-quarters at Sebastopol, when his lordship was in excellent health. Volituat nub Oentral. - THE INNKEEPERS OF PORTSMOUTH are about to hold a meeting to organise some means of redress for the injury they are likely to sustain from the inter pretations of the law in the late case of Collas v. Bascombe, with respect to the responsibility of land lords for luggage lost in their hotels. COMMERCIAL ADVICES FROM NEW YORK report the failure of J. W. Blodgett and Co., of Boston, for 400,0001.—the largest among the suspensions of the year. The firm were importers of manufactured goods, and are believed to owe heavy amounts in England. Several New York houses suffer to the extent individually of 30,0001. and 50,0001. Further stoppages are also announced in the Western States, among others that of Taylor and Cassilly, of Cincin nati and New Orleans, for a considerable sum. VICE-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES NAPIER, Commander in-Chief of the Baltic Fleet, having bad an interview with Sir James Graham, has returned to Portsmouth. At sunset on Saturday last his flag was struck on board the Duke of Wellington. It is reported that this is but a temporary cessation of the gallant ad miral's command, the Baltic fleet being now dis persed, and engaged in conveying troops and other service till the spring. ON Saturday Sir B. Hall gave notice in the House of Commons that, immediately upon the reassem bling of Parliament after the Christmas holiday, he should move for leave to introduce three bills, respectively designed to amend the Public Health Act and the Nuisances Removal Act, and to provide for the better local management of the metropolis. ANOTHER militia regiment is to be raised in Lan cashire. AN ORDER has been received by the colonel and other officers of the second regiment. of Cheshire Militia to hold themselves in readiness, together with the men under their command, for immediate embo diment. THE DUKE OF CLEVELAND has expressed his rea diness to accompany the South Durham Militia to any quarter and on any service which her Majesty may require. THE Opinione OF TURIN states from Berne that orders have been received there for the manufacture of 20,000 wooden shoes for the English troops in the Crimea. A VERY LARGE QUANTITY OF CH AIRS for the Bri tish railway in the Crimea have been manufactured and despatched by Messrs. Butler, of Stanningley, near Bradford. BAYONETS have hitherto been made by hand, prin cipally in Birmingham, but an ingenious spindle and flyer manufacturer of Manchester hasdevised means for making them much more rapidly and quite as well by machinery. He is now executing an order from the Government for 80,000 bayonets and 130,000 ramrods to be thus fabricated. THE TRONMASTERS held their usual preliminary meeting at Wolverhampton on Wednesday, when a reduction of 20s. per ton upon all descriptions of manufactured iron was agreed upon. Upon sheets there was a drop of 30s. Prices are, therefore, now as follows :—Bars, 10/. ; hoops, 11/. ; and sheets, 111. 10s. Ordinary common hot blast pigs are at 41. 103. to 4/. 155., at which prices a large amount of business has been transacted. MR. BAGSHAWE, of the Chancery bar, has been appointed one of her MNiesty's counsel. The learned gentleman was sworn in on Saturday last. A GRAND MILITARY CONCERT took place at the Crystal Palace on Wednesday, and was attended by 7,597 persons, of whom 6,047 paid at the doors. THE MORTALITY RETURNS FOR LONDON show the deaths of 1,291 persons during the week ending Saturday last. This number is very nearly the same as has been reported by the Registrar-General for two preceding weeks, and is slightly below the corrected decennial average. IT has been determined by the bar on the Oxford circuit to place the bust of Mr. Justice Talfourd in the Crown Court of Stafford. MIWPF THE PRESS. ON Monday the vacant professorship of geometry in Gresham College was filled up by the election of the Rev. Morgan Cowie, late Fellow of St. John's College, and Hulsean lecturer in the University of Cambridge. Mr. Cowie was senior wrangler in 1839, and for Some years principal of the Engineers' Col- _ lege, at Putney. THE Head Mastership of St. Bees Grammar School, Cumberland, has become vacant by the preferment of the Rev. Miles Atkinson. Os MONDAY the inmates of the metropolitan work houses were, as usual at this season, generally re• galed on Christmas fare. The Christmas pudding for the indoor paupers of St. Pancras parish was composed of be cwt. of fruit, 1 cwt. of sugar, 31bs. of spice, and 3 sacks of flower, 300 eggs, 9 gallons of milk, &c. 84 stone, of 141b5., was the quantity of beef cooked. THERE were no papers published in Cork, Limerick, or Tipperary, on Tuesday, notices having appeared informing their subscribers that as Christmas-day would fall on Monday, they would not publish till the following Wednesday. The example, however, was not followed in Kilkenny, Mayo, Belfast, or many other districts and towns of Ireland. PETER MATHIESON, for nearly thirty years coachman to Sir Walter Scott, died at Abbotsford on Thursday week, at the great age of eigthty-four or eighty-five years. He was brother-in•law of Sir Walter's faith ful Tont Purdie, and was taken into the poet's ser vice about the year 1804, when Scott first set up a carriage. ABOVE 1,000 pairs of the new boots to be worn by soldiers in the Crimea, extremely watertight and im • penetrable to snow-water, and principally for those at work in the trenches, have been sent to the Ord nance stores at the Tower by the contractors. The boots are made of cowhide, manufactured on a pecu liar principle, being stretched to its full extent and well hammtred ; there is then laid on a coating of some fluid which renders the leather extremely pliable; the soles are about three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, and the legs of the boots reach above the wearer's calves. There are several thou sand pairs ordered, and those at present in the stores will be sent out by the first conveyance to the Crimea. The steam-ship Himalaya, having made good the defect which occasioned her detention at Malta, was taken out of dock on Sunday week, and was to leave in a day or two afterwards with about 000 invalids, and 500 women and children, for England. MISS STEWART, sister of Sir Michael R. Shaw Stewart, Bart., has given 10,000/. to endow an episco pal chapel in Port Glasgow, securing 2001. a year to a rector, and 1001. to a curate. A magnificent church, having chancel and nave, and a rectory and schools, will also be erected by the same lady, and will be finished by Whit Sunday, 1850. The ground will be given by Sir Michael. The Rev. T. Beau mont Walpole will be the incumbent. THERE iS reason to believe that a large instalment of the wooden huts and other comforts have by this time reached the army in the Crimea. The Cosmo politan, the Cumberland, and the John Bowes, steam transports, laden with huts, left Gibraltar for the East; the first on the 15th, and the two last on the 18th inst. The Aline, laden with stores, also pro ceeded to the East on the 18th, after coaling. THE Isabella 11., a steamer laden with stores of every kind, the contributions of the public, has sailed from Irongate-wharf,i Tower, under the auspices of the Committee of the Crimean Army Fund, for Balaclava, where the comforts thus pro vided will be gratuitously distributed among the troops. IT is feared that an Inverness vessel, the Isabella Anderson, has been lost during the recent storms. She left Leith about three weeks ago, and has not since been heard of. UNCLE SAN IS DEAD. His name was Samuel Wilson, and he died in Troy, New York, in August, aged 84. He first labelled Government goods " U. 5.," for which practice the soldiers originated the name of " Uncle Sam," instead of "Jonathan." THE HIRED STEAM-TRANSPORT Adelaide, Captain Young, sailed from Plymouth on Thursday night for Balaklava. She embarked at Deptford and Green hithe 44 large guns, ordnance stores, clothing, and provisions for the land forces, ammunition for the fleet, and 44 guns, shot, shell, and ammunition for the Ottoman Government ; and at Portsmouth and Plymouth detachments for the 10th, 34th, 38th, and 88th Regiments and 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, comprising 13 officers and 438 men. The screw steam-sloop Malacca left Plymouth under steam and canvass on Wednesday, with troops and a mail for the Crimea. THE presence of the French imperial steam frigate La Reim Hortense, at Southampton, has given occasion to a public meeting, at which the mayor presided, and at which a complimentary address was presented to M. Le Conte Excelmans, captain of the vessel. The meeting was followed by a dijcuner, accompanied by the usual interchange of loyal and amicable toasts and speeches. SATURD. IAY, LORD RAGLAN (writes a correspondent from the Crimea to the Times) is getting into great disrepute for want of proper attention to the comforts of his troops. They say he receives news of the sickness, misery, and death surrounding him with either an impatient shrug of disbelief, or a petulant exclama tion of " Oh, you are merely exaggerating ; quite im possible things are so bad as all that." You will say at once that it is an easy matter for himself to in quire into the actual truth of such reports by a per sonal inspection of each division ; the answer to this is, that many of the regiments have never seen him, or he them, since the Alma. UPWARDS of 100,000 sand-bags, a great quantity of salt meat and biscuits, in casks, a number of tents and ovens, and other materiel for the army of the East, have just been sent to Havre, to be tor warded to the Crimea. THE GREAT GUN PRACTICE and trial of the Lan caster gun continuos at Shoeburyness, Essex. The booniing report of the Lancaster is distinctly beard on these shores' (Whitstable), a distance of about 26 miles, and is even much louder than that of the 32 pounder used in the drilling of the Coast Guards at Seasalter, a distance of only a mile. THE MISSES COLLINSON, of Bolden, sisters of the Arctic navigator, have made 100 wolleu masks or hoods to cover the face, similar to those used in their brother's vessel in the Polar regions, which have been sent off to the Crimes. election nttlitgtnte. Annum—Captain Thomas Pakenham, brother of the late lamented Colonel Pakesthata, of the Guards, was on Wednesday elected without opposition one of the members for the county of Antrim. The pro poser and seconder of Captain Pakenham were Sir E. W. MiNagliten and Mr. John M'Neile, of Park. mount. _ AYRSHIRE.—The election of a member to fill the vacancy caused by the lamented death of Colonel Blair commenced on Wednesday. Two candidates were nominated, Sir James Fergusson, a Conserva tive, now absent on duty with the Guards in the Crimea, and Mr. Oswald, on the Liberal interest. The poll took place next day, and resulted in the return of the Conservative candidate. The final numbers were—Fergusson, 1,510; Oswald, I,3Bl—majoray, 129. _ _ 'LIMERICK.Mr. Stephen de Were was on Tuesday elected representative for the county of Limerick, in the room of the late Mr. Wyndham Gould. There was no opposition, and the whole proceeding was of a routine character. . NORWICAL—The nomination took place on Wed nesday, the rival candidates being Sir S. Bignold (Conservative), and Mr. A. Hammond (Liberal). The polling, which came otf next day, exhibited the sign of a strenuous contest, but terminated, as in Ayrshire, in favour of the Conservative, who headed the poU throughout. At four o'clock the list showed—for Sir S. Bignold, 1,809 votes; for Mr. Hammond, I,629—majority, 270. gain au Volict. AN ACTION FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT MIS tried in Dublin on the 21stinst., before the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and a special jury. Mr. Richard Byrne, a merchant of Dublin, sought to recover 2001. damages against the Magnetic Telegraph Company for neglecting to send a message to Scotland which they undertook to do, and from the non-transmission of which the plaintiff lost a large sum. The jury found for the plaintiff-201. damages. CAPTAIN JAMES TALUS PEAT, late of the emigrant ship Golden Era, from Melbourne to Liverpool, was convicted at the Liverpool borough sessions on Saturday, of drunkenness and neglect of duty on her last passage home, thereby endangering the lives of the crew and passengers, and sentenced to be impri soned for eight calendar months. ClintsrmAs was celebrated on Tuesday by an Irish row of rather formidable character in Islington, whither it seems a populous colony of bricklayers' labourers and other natives of the sister isle have emigrated since the demolition of the rookery in St. Gil ts's and other former abodes of tbat class of the population. The event was thus described by In spector Thatcher whenpresenting a stalwart prisoner named Tim Xelly for examination to the Clerkenwell bench : Inspector Thatcher : All tbe morning of Tuesday, the High street in Islington was kept excited by the conduct of the Insh (men and women), who live In the Gomm and alleys of the neigh. bourhood. At two o'clock a most fearful rush was made along the street by several hundred men and women, armed with sticks and other missiles, hallooing and screaming, and calling on the Murphy's" to come out and tight. Mr. Tvitwitirr : I presume the parties called did not answer the appeal? Inspector Thatcher: Not at the time ; but when we managed to quietly disperse the first party, the Mnrphys came oat in full force, and made the same appeal to the other aide indeed the same game was carried on to such an extent up to eight o'clock in the evening that all the shops in the neighbourhood bad to W abased, and hotness was quite at a stand-still. A/