The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

34 respective employments; that committees for finance, for conference with district boards, f r appeals, for the preparation of a code of by-laws, and for the establishment of a committee under the Metropolitan Bindings Act should be appointed, and that for the effectual despatch of business the chairman should have the power to take the necessary steps for dis posing of such matters, reporting the same to the board at the next meeting. With the exception of the appointment of the committees these recom meidations were at once adopted, and the reports of the engineer in-chief and other officers were read. Toe salary of the secretary was then fixed at 8001. a year, an.i after a brief discussion upon the device for the office seal, and the future temporary place of meeting, the board adjourned till Monday next. Taa b AGAL EXAMINATION of members of the Inns of Court, desirous of studentships, or honours, or of b fing called to the bar, commenced on Tuesday, at the Benchers' Reading room, Lincoln's-inn. Con • stitution law and legal history, with equity, formed the first day's subject; common law and the law of real property, the second; and jurisprudence and civil law, the third. We have in a previous number indicated the various authorities with which every candidate will be expected to be acquainted. The result of the examination cannot be known for several days. At every call to the bar those students who have passed a public examination, and either obtained a studentsliip or certificate of honour, will take rank in seniority over all other students who are called on the same day ; and no student will be eligible to be called to the bar who shall not have attended, during one whole year, the lectures of two or the readers, or have satisfactorily passed a public examination. THE COMMENCEMENT OF CHANCERY TERM occurred on Tuesday, when a new order, compelling the date and reference to the letter or number by which the cause is distinguished to be written on the first page of every decree used in court came into force. T.ie clerks of records or writs are also, in entering such decrees or document, to make note of the date a td reference, and to add a further reference with respect to the register's book, in which such decree shall have been entered. AT THE COURT OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF SEWERS, on Tuesday, Dr. Letheby stated that City churchyards, including that of St. Andrew's, Holborn, were now definitively closed to be re-opened no more. In the course of conversation the City engineer stated, that the boarding around the Peel statue would be cleared away and the work completed in the course of three weeks. A NEW STEAM HAMMER has been invented by Mr. Naylor, the Superintendent of the Norwich Locomo tive Department of the Eastern Counties Railway. The peculiarity of this invention is, that by a certain regulation in the application of steam, the hammer, at its greatest velocity of 200 blows a minute, can be so managed as to strike alternate light and heavy blows. Mr. Naylor has patented the principle of this hammer, as applicable to a riveting machine for boiler-making and iron shipbuilding, as well as for iron making, smith's forging, stamping ore, and, indeed, fur all purposes requiring the process of hammering. It can be worked r.y elastic gas, corn pressed air, steam, or vacuum. THE REGISTRAR GENERAL'S QUARTERLY RETURN OF DEATHS shows 13,480 as occurring in London. The births for the week amount to 1,062, against 1,217 deaths, a number both above and below the average of past years. THE ROYAL HUMANE SOCIETY held their annual meeting on Wednesday, at their offices in Trafalgar sqoare, Out of 198 persons immersed within reach of the officers of the society, 180 had been success fully treated, although 25 were suicides. THE CITY IMPROVEMENT COMMISSIONERS are now actively progressing with the new street which is to continue the line of Farringdon-street to Coppice row, and which will connect Clerkenwell and Isling ton in a direct line with the City. The Fleet sewer is finished, and men are now employed in the con struction of cellars for the houses. There is no doubt that in a very short time the thoroughfare will be completed. Dn. CUMMING delivered his first lecture of two on the Concordat at Freemason's hall on Thursday evening. The rev. doctor upon this occasion con fined himself to a definition of the provisions of the Concordat, and an examination of the privileges it restored to the Romish Church. In the second lec ture the rev. gentleman announced that he should reply to the arguments of Cardinal Wiseman and Mc. Bowyer. THE EARL OF ELLESMERE at the late meeting, of the Geographical Society spoke with marked feeling of the services and fame of the gallant Sir John Franklin. "So long," concluded the noble earl, "as the name of Flanklin shall he bright in the annals of British heroism, will the unweaned devotion and energy of his wisdom be remembered and honoured." THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMERS held a meeting on Thursday at Southwark. Mr. Morley addressed the meeting at some length, observing " that the day 16, • THE PRESS. would come when the people would have to settle their account with the aristocracy, for he believed that the public had been plundered for years past," while a resolution embodying a petition to the House was unanimously agreed to. Sir 'Aeries Napier, who was present, addressed the meeting, and, in speaking of the war, observed that a bar with only tour feet of water over it was known to exist, and had been suffered to remain, at Cronstadt, though out of range of the batteries' guns. This year the bar would probably be impassable, and the Government was bound to have an investigation into the matter. Vroliturial. THE BOARD OF TRADE have published the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Wynne, R.E., upon the condi tion of the permanent way and bridges of the Eastern Counties and Norfolk Railway. Colonel Wynne states that the under-bridges and viaducts of this line are mainly constructed of ti►nber, or of timber and wrought iron, upon the simplest plan, and that upon a careful examination he found them all " in an advanced state of decay and general deteriora tion": The piles were deeply rotted between wind and water, or where they enter the ground.; their heals decayed and the parts exposed to the weather more or less gone ; the cap sills very rowili decayed, especially on their under sides, and in some instances crushed down on the heads of the piles; the longitudinal timbers likewise much decayed throughout their length, and greatly gone where they rest on the capsids. The planking of the superstructure of all was so rotten as to make it dangerous in many places to walk over them. _ . All the larger bridges that I examined appeared to have undergone repairs, and to have been strengthened, some years since, by having half timbers added to the longi tudinal timbers, but whether these repairs were done with old materials or very inferior timber, the fact is that they are now the most decayed portion of the bridges. Extensive repairs are at present in progress, Colonel Wynne admits, but the magnitude of the works to be undertaken render immediate renewal hardly pos sible over the whole portion of the line; and hence Colonel Wynne is of opinion that the condition of affairs is such as to cause "the most serious appre hension," and to lead him to believe that the public cannot travel over the line between London, Cam bridge, and Norwich "without incurring serious risk." With respect to the permanent way, although in not so bad a state as the bridges, Colonel Wynne is of opinion that until the sleepers are renewed it will he necessary to limit the speed of the trains. The Board of Trade forwarded copies of the repor'. to the secretary of the railway and the Mayor of Norwich, and called upon the directors to give the subject their immediate and careful consideration, cud to state as early as possible to the Board of Trade what steps they intend to pursue to remedy the evil. This report has elicited letters from more than one official connected with the line. Mr. Waddington himself is far from finding fault with Colonel Wynne, though he regards his report as " exaggerated" and expressing undue apprehensions. Mr. Braithwaite and Mr. Ashcroft, engineers, both (I,iny its statements with reference ;o certain parts of the line; while the Investigation Committee see in it only another proof of that mismanagement and pecu lation with which they cha ged Mr. Waddington. Mr. Bruce this week has published his remarks on Mr. Waddington's answer, and reiterates his charge of culpable negligence, or an amount of fraud, beyond conception, but he does not materially controvert Mr. Wadilington's statements, or shake his position. Mn. SAMUEL WARREN, Q.C., Recorder of Hull, delivered a lecture last week at the local Mechanics' Institute upon "The Rights, Difficulties, Dignity, and Consolations of Labour." The learned gentle man, taking his text from the opinions of Adam Smith and Turgot upon the practical value and upon the sacred and inviolable nature of labour to the pour, proceeded to point out at great length the practical meaning and consequence of the freedom of labour in England. MAJOR-GENERAL WINDHAM, to whom a vote of thanks for his distinguished gallantry in the field was given, in October last, by the magistrates of Norfolk, has acknowledged the honour conferred upon him in a few brief but manly words. "There were many at the Redan," says the gallant general, " who did their duty as well as I did—few that had such providential protection—none that had such reward." MAJOR ROBERT MANLEY, of the 6th Inniskillen Dragoons, on his return from the Crimea, was wel corned by his father's tenantry, last week, with a public dinner, at which a sword or honour was presented to the gallant major by the Hon. J. Stuart Wortley, M.P. Loma DYNEVOR, who as Colonel Trevor in the House of Commons has represtnted for the last thirty-two years the county of Carmarthen, was last week presented with his own portrait, as a mark of esteem and respect by the gentry and inhabitants of the county. The ceremonial took place in the Shire- SATURDAY, hall of Liandilo, Sir Jolm Mansell, Bart., Visconti Emylin the Earl of Cawdor, and a numerous assembly of the most influential inhabitants, being present. Sir John Mansell, Bath, in an introductory address, paid welt-deserved and high compliments to the marked integrity and unflinching energy and impar tiality which for so lung a period have distinguished the noble lord in the discharge of his parliamentary duties, and to that active and munificent promotion of all charities, and especially of the Welsh charity schools in London, dispensed by the noble lord upon every opportunity. Lord Dynevor in reply eloquently acknowledged the honour, and begged as a personal favour that the original signatures of the subscribers to the testimonial might be given to him. The portrait was painted by Mr. Lucas, and is highly spoken of. AT THE COURT FOIL THE RECEIPT OF RENTS due to the estate of the late Sir William Molesworth, the Cornish tenantry of the late baronet spoke in high terms of his conduct to them as a landlord who never sought to interfere with the political ()Onions of his tenantry. Amor g other statements made, it ap peared that at the time of the repeal of the corn laws Sir William did not abate his rents so early as other landlords, but when he found the agricultural interest did not recover its depression he ordered an entire readjustment of his rents, and the abatemer t to continue to the end ofthe respective terms granted. THE BISHOP OF EXETER has addressed a letter to Dr. Lushinzton in reference to his recent judgment in the late Pimlico church case. The bishop, though agreeing in the main with the opinion of Dr. Lushs ington upon the points in dispute, takes exception to the learned judge's decision that "credence-tables" are illegal, feeling impelled, he. says, openly to avow his dissent from this decision, inasmuch as agreat doctrine of the Church is implicated. Dr. Philpotts then enters into the question of the mode of placing the elements before consecration, and gives his opinion that, although the term " credence " is ob jectionable as applied to a second table near the altar, he regards it as "more fitting" that the bread, before the oblation of it is made ",by being placed by the priest on the holy table, should be within reach, on a sideboard or any other unpretending piece of furniture, rather than it should be brought from the vestry." "In the Greek Church," adds Bishop Philpotts, "it is brought in a ceremonial manner, 1 believe by the priest and deacon, from the prothesis, in which I see no harm." The bishop then points out that Dr. Lushington's reliance on a former judg ment of Sir H. G. Fust (in the case of Faulkner v. Lichfield) in suppert of his, Dr. Lushington's, recent condemnation of credence tabl s was clearly un founded, as the question under the consideration of Sir H. G. Fust was not whether any table within the rails for the purpose of holding the elements before the oblation was illegal simpliciter, but whether a stone table, standing near a stone altar, should have the express sanction of the court at the desire of the churchwardens, in opposition to the will of the mi nister. The bishop next refers to the question of covering for the communion-table : To a variety of covers for the holy table, carried to a fantastic or great extent, I am (observes 1)r. Philpotts), speaking of myself personally, opposed in taste and judg ment. But I know not when or where the excess can be said to be culpable. You cut the knot by saying there shall be only one. Now this condemns a black cloth in Lent no less than ever-varying exhibitions of covering. I frankly say that I do not assent to the entire propriety of such a decision. If anything of this sort is carried to such an extent as the consistorial court of the bishop shall deem inconsistent with due solemnity, that court will very pro- perly restrain the usage. But the absolute prohibition of all variety, on all occasions, seems to me of very question able fitness. After pointing out the 82nd canon as distinctly stating that the covering for the communion-table shall be " a carpet of silk or other decent stuff— tupete ex eel-leo," the bishop argues that the richest materials in the spirit of both the Old and New Testament would always be congrua et decora in ornamenting the holy table in the House of God; and in support of his argument quotes the invento ries of Lincoln Cathedral in the last year of Edward VI. reign, where fourteen costly altar-cloth~, besides silver crosses, were in use, though he would alway s be inclined to leave the " sense of fitness " to parties themselves. Finally, the bishop states that although he regards all ornamental novelties of any kind not proved to be in use in the second year of Edward VI. as prima facie illegal, ho would still have the Church's law observed, that the bread and wine be not placed on the communion-table till the priest makes —and in order that he may make—an oblation of them : To those (concludes the bishop) who direct the worship in those noble tamales—to our deans and dignitaries — shall I be forgiven if, wi bout making special reference to any, I venture to address a word of reminiscence to all ? Cathedrals are not merely places of ornate, elaborate, sumptuous worship ; they were designed to be, they ought to be, exemplars to the dioscese at large. Now, care lessness in those who undertake the duty of setting an ex ample of dutiful obedience to the orders of the Church, is something worse than carelessness—it is positive neglect of