The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-04 00:00:00

946 class of men who had done more in the same space of time let their profession be what it might, than the tarmer At the ABINGDON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY Mr. Charles Duffield presided, and various addresses were delivered by the few gentlemen present, not more than thirty sitting down to dinner. At the STAFFORDSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY dinner, Lord Harrowby, Mr. Smith Child, M.P., and Mr. C. B. Adderley, M.P., were the principal speakers, but their remarks were entirely with reference to general topics of agricultural interest. (Court mto jas4ton. Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family continue at Balmoral. Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent has left the north for Frogmore. Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli have returned to Hugh endon-house, Bucks. Viscount Palmerston arrived in town on Monday from Broadlands. alttropolitan. THE ELECTION OF LORD MAYOR for the ensuing year took place on Monday, and resulted in the return of Alderman Finnis. The Lord Mayor elect, after the announcement had been duly made, then came forward and thanked his brother liverymen for their choice. He gave also a brief intimation of what should be his policy as Lord Mayor : Gentlemen, I have been taught from my earliest youth to respect the corporate institutions of this country, as I am inclined to believe that they are the strongest and the surest bulwarks of the liberty of the British people. Gentlemen, I recollect full well, some two and forty years ago, when my respected father brought me to this city and placed me as an apprentice in the very premises which I now occupy, that he impressed upon my mind that by an honest and faithful discharge of my duties to my em ployers, and by obedience to my superiors, I might at some future period rise, by the privileges which the citizens of London possessed, to its highest office. Gentlemen, how far this warning has been realised, your act to-day convinces me—and it is my intention, I can as sure you, as it is my duty, to devote my whole time and attention to the duties of the office, to uphold and main tain the rights, charters, and privileges of this city, to support by every means in my power the various charitable institutions of the city, and last, though not least, to endeavour, by every means in my power, to ameliorate the condition of the poorer classes of the com munity. A vote of thanks to Lord Mayor Salomons was then proposed aed unanimously carried. The Lord Mayor acknowledged it : I felt that I had great responsibility attaching to me; and now that by your voices—by your unanimous vote to- day—you have said to me that 1 have honourably and con- scientiously discharged my duty to you, I teel relieved from great responsibility, and only feel that 1 am wanting in the manner in which I have to empress my gratitude to you. I hope I at least may be considered now as one of those persons in this country who have done something for the nonconformists. I do not mean any particular class of nonconformists, but I mean that large class of nonconformists who are separated, some from the corn =union and some from the established religion of the country. I have endeavoured to show that a man may himself be a nonconformist without showing the least slight to the religious feelings of others. I have thought it my duty on all public occasions to pay that respect which is due from a man in authority to the established religion of the country ; for, unless a man founds his con duct upon the wide basis of a religious principle, he is utterly unfit to be a leader of others, or to hold high office in this country. I may, at the same time, here venture to say, in the fulness of my heart, that it has afforded me the greatest pleasure and delight to find myself so well sup ported as I have been by the clergy of every religious de nomination in this country. I have endeavoured to show that I respected their religion; and all the religious teachers of this country have shown that they respected me, because they believed that I acted upon principle. TIIE INAUGURATION OF SHERIFFS elected for the ensuing year took place on Tuesday, according to custom. The Lord Mayor, the day being a Jewish festival, was necessarily absent. The sheriffs came by water, as usual, and were received at Westmin ster by the Chief Baron. The Recorder, in intro ducing the sheriffs to his lordship, gave a sketch of the personal history of Mr. Mechi -- In the person of Mr. John Joseph Mechi, senior sheriff, and citizen and loriner, and who was connected with the eastern division of the metropolis, they had a gentleman of Italian extraction, but a man who was proud to be re membered amongst the merchants of the city of London. lilthough he had sprung from the Italian race, who were remarkable for their cultivation of the arts and sciences, he was proud, he repeated, to be enrolled amongst the mer chants and men of business of this country. His father was born in Home, b u t ear l y i n l i fe he transferred the scene of his pursuits, and was for a long time employed in THE PRESS. business in France ; but during the Reign of Terror he, in common with many others, quitted it, and took refuge in this country. In this country he subsequently attracted the attention of the royal family, and was soon afterwards taken into the royal household. His son, by early pursuits, in consequence of his great proficiency in the Italian language. was taken into a house in the City, and his studies might offer an example to the young men of the present day, and prove to them the advantages of becoming early acquainted with the modern lan guages. He pursued his business for twenty nine years, when he was selected to preside over a large banking corporation, and he now stood on the footing of one of the tirst citizens of London. Besides his occupation in busi- ness he devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture on a limited estate, where once a year he invited men of talent and skill to witness the combined results of capital and science. The Lord Chief Baron, in reply, alluded to the abolition of the office of Cursitor Baron, whose duty it was to receive the sheriffs : The act of Parliament had passed too recently to enable him to make any communication to the authorities of the city of London as to the arrangements for a substitution of the proceedings of that day. Finding that an act of Parlia ment was passed, and that there was no time to substitute any other method, or obtain the opinion of the authorities of the city of London, it appeared to him to be nothing but en act of proper respect to the corporation of London that he should himself personally appear, and perform in that place the office of the lamented Cursitor Baron. He would take that opportunity of saying that whenever the city of London required his services in any way he should be always ready to render them, for he had never spared any opportunity of showing that the city of London was well entitled to them. In the evening the usual turtle dinner took place at the London Tavern. The Lord Chief Baron, in proposing the health of the sheriffs, said : He trusted that Mr. Mechi would continue to exercise that energy which he so eminently possessed, and con tinue in the orbit in which he was at present moving. He was glad to see any gentleman of enterprise and skill, and ability and means, direct his attention to the improvement of agriculture—a theatre whereon perhaps more remained to be done than upon any of the arenas of practical improvement in the whole round of science. If, however, Mr. Mechi intended to give many such dinners as the present, he would recommend him to direct his attention to the catching of turtle by steam, the hauling in of fish by a stroke of electricity, the feeding of cattle, the collecting of crops, and the chasing red deer by an express train. Whatever direction his labours might take, there could be no doubt that they would be for the good of mankind. THE METROPOLITAN SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE Com menced their winter session on Tuesday. Inaugural lectures were delivered at Guy's Hospital school by Mr. T. Bell, F.R.S.; at the London Hospital, by Mr. Bentley; at Charing-cross Hospital, by Mr. Chowne; at Westminster Hospital, by Dr. Fincham ; at St. Mary's, Paddington, by Dr. T. K. Chambers, F.R.C.P. ; and at the Grosvenor-place school, by Mr. I'. Spencer Wells, F.R.C.S. A YOUNG WOMAN, one Emma Garland, threw her self off Southwark-bridge on Saturday morning, and a Mr. Parker did the same thing on Monday. Both were drowned. One of the moneytakers of the river boats also drowned himself last week. A CoLusioN occurred on the North Kent line cn Monday, near Charlton. A coal train on the down line was run into by the eleven a.m. passenger train. Several persons were severely injured. Colonel Tul loch, of the Arsenal, was much bruised and shaken. ONE OF THE LABOURERS employed on Saturday in repairing the roof of Messrs. Freemantle, Tilney• street, Park-lane, fell over the parapet, struck his head against a window-sill, and spiked himself on five railings. The poor fellow died in a few minutes. EXPERIMENTAL HANGING is dangerous. A boy aged eighteen, one Birt, in the service of Mr. Sutton, 21, Halfmoon-street, in the habit of indulging in this practice, tried it for the last time on Saturday; the knot slipped from his chin under the ear, and suf focated him in a moment. A PLAN FOR THE PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES was submitted on Wednesday to the Board of Works by Mr. J. R. M'Lea, civil engineer. His proposition was, to do away with the main drainage sewers and reservoirs on both sides of the Thames, and to con struct a conduit capable of conveying the whole sew age of the metropolis from the pumping station at West Ham, passing throu g h th e agr i cu lt ura l dis tricts of Essex to a point on the seashore between the estuaries of the Crouch and the Blackwater, this conduit to be made available for the purposes of sewage irrigation throughout its entire length, until it reached the German Ocean. The sewage of the whole of the southern district might be collected at a pumping station near Southwark•bridge, and be carried by means of pipes (2 feet 6 inches in diame ter) over the river to the Aldgate sewer, through which it would flow to the proposed main conduit. The expenditure for this work from West Ham to the outfall would not exceed 1,600,0001. THE Baum , 01 LONDON formally resigned on Wednesday last. THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL'S RETURNS for the week show a small increase in the mortality-1,106 deaths against 1,535 births being registered. SATURDAY, Vrobincial. A POWDER Mum at Mansfield, near Lewes, blew up yesterday week, and killed one workman. Fortu nately the rest were away at breakfast. THE HEAVY S.E. GALE OF SATURDAY AND SUNDAY NIGHT last proved very destructive to the shipping in the Channel. Several vessels have been totally wrecked. The Ida steamer, outward bound for Sierra Leone, was driven on shore to the eastward of Dungeness on Sunday morning, but happily the passengers and crew, with the exception of one life, were saved. At Dover the railway works for some fifty yards were washed away. On the Cornwall coast several wrecks occurred. The gale was also severely felt in the Irish Channel and on the coast of Scotland. A FREE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM is about to be erected at Liverpool. About two years ago Mr. W. Brown, M.P. for South Lancashire, made the libcral offer to the corporation of Liverpool of 6,0001. towards the erection of a suitable building for the Liverpool Free Library and Museum, on the con dition that they provided a suitable site, and took measures for obtaining sufficient funds to complete the structure. The council soon afterwards inti mated that upwards of 2,000 yards of land on Shaw brow, near St. George's-hall, should be devoted to this purpose ; and they subsequently obtained powers to borrow 20,0001. for the completion of the building. It was then resolved to advertise for designs, plans, and specifications, a premium of 150 guineas to be given to the successful competitor, and 100 guineas to the second best design. The number of designs sent in was no less than 115, and the Library and Museum Committee on Wednesday, at the meeting of the town council, recommended that the first prize be given to the architect signing himself " Con Amore," and the second to the competitor whose drawings bear the name of " Alma." Who these gentlemen are will not be disclosed until the council have made the final selection. " Con Amore's" design is a splendid specimen of classic style, and will not suffer by comparison with St. George's hall. Miss NIGHTINGALE replied lately to an address of congratulation on her return home, voted by the inhabitants of Christchurch at a public meeting, and forwarded by the mayor : I wish (she observes in her reply) it were in the power of words of mine to express the grateful pleasure with which I have received the mark of your sympathy with the recent labours of my companions and myself. Little as I am able to say what I feel, I yet greatly regret that my absence from the home where your kind communica• tion was addressed has caused so long a interval to elapse befure I could return the acknowledgment which I now beg you to accept, and to convey to the gentlemen whom you represent. To know, while engaged in a distant land, that there was for us an intelligent sympathy at home, was our most cheering support under many difficulties. To receive this feeling of expression of it on our return cannot but greatly enhance to all of us the happiness of home. FIVE MEN were killed last Friday while descend ing a vat full cf carbonic acid gas, in the Worcester distillery, Worcester. The men went down into the vat one after the other, and were each suffocated as they descended, and fell to the bottom ; when they were taken out they were quite dead. An inquiry was held, and a verdict of " Accidental death " re turned. A subscription is being raised for the families of the deceased. THE DANGER of purchasing wine-bottles second hand was shown last week at Woodham, near Chelmsford. An inhabitant of the place, one Lynn, some two years since, purchased some wine-bottles, filling them with home-made wine. Last week he treated his friends to some of this wine. They all became ill and sick at night, and Lynn himself died in a few days. One of the empty bottles was ex amined and found to contain the sediment of an arsenical preparation for a sheep wash. THE BRYN MLLLY MINES near Wrexham were flooded on Wednesday, and upwards of twenty men drowned. ptiank THE EARL or CARLISLE left Lismore for Dublin on the 29th ult. BARON DE ROEBECK has been missing from his residence in Dublin since Tuesday. For some time past he is reported to have exhibited symptoms of insanity, and is believed to have destroyed himself. THE HEAVY GALE of Saturday last had been severely felt on the Wexford coast. /Thai anb nttiligence. The following general order was issued on Thursday : Horse Guards, Oct. 2. The Queen desires to make known to the army her sincere grief at the loss of that great and eminent