The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS. It is impossible to soknowlelge the mass of letters we reoehe, Their insertion is often delayed owing to a press of matter. and when omitted, it is frequently from reasons quite lade pendent of the merits of the communication. Vit :j rtgg. LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPT. 12, 1857. POSTSCRIPT. We have news from Constantinople to the sth September. The arms of the embassies of France, Russia, and England are uncovered to view, and the usual diplo matic intercourse resumed. Herat is evacuated. Troubles, excited by reli gious fanaticism, have followed the departure of the Persian troops. The Ottoman dignitaries have proposed to the Porte to name a ruler for the Principalities, either a brother or son-in-law of the Sultan. THE BELFAST RIOTS.—His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant has been pleased to appoint David Lynch, Esq., Q.C., and Hamilton Smythe, Esq., Q.C., Com missioners to inquire into the origin and circum stances of the disgraceful riots which commenced in Belfast in the month of July last, and have been recently renewed. The commissioners are not only to ascertain the facts, but to report their opinions on the measures necessary to prevent the future recur rence of such outrages. We understand that the commissioners intend to commence their inquiries on Monday next, and to prosecute them with vigour and without delay. In addition to this investigation the most effectual steps have been taken by Govern ment to repress these outrages by the strong-hand. A largo force of cavalry and constabulary, under active officers, have been concentrated at Belfast, to aid the efforts of the mayor. Two stipendiary magis trates have also been stationed there. CHAMOUNIX.—His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, accompanied by Prince Leiningen, Sir William Codrington, Colonel Ponsonby, Mr. Gibbs, and Dr. Armstrong, arrived at Chamounix on Saturday evening last from Martigny by the Tete Noire. It is the Prince's intention to pass a few days in the valley, which is crowded with visitors. On Monday the Royal party, accompanied by Mr. Albert Smith, who is now at Chamounix, and had the honour of acting as guide on the occasion, visited the Cascade du Dard, and afterwards traversed the Glacier du Bossons, returning by the other side. THE INDIA RELIEF FUND. CONTRIBUTION FROM THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon has placed his name upon the list of subscribers to the India Relief Fund. The following is a translation of a communication from the French Ambassador to the Lord Mayor;— Albert Gate, Sept. 7, 1857. My Lord Mayor,--I have received from the Emperor the following despatch I send you one thousand pounds sterling as my personal sub scription in favour of the officers and soldiers so cruelly afflicted in India, _ I also send you four hundred pounds, the result of the sub scription of the Imperial Guard. We have not forgotten the generous subscription of the Queen and of the English people at the time of the inundations. Receive, my Lord Mayor, the assurance of my high consideration. The Ambassador of France, (Signed) F. Da PERSIONY. I send herewith an order for fourteen hundred pounds sterling. The following is a copy of a telegraphic despatch from Colonel Phipps to the Lord Mayor, dated Balmoral, Sept. 0: You may announce subscriptions to the fund for the Indian sufferers of 1,0001. from the Queen. 3001 from the rrinoe Consort, and 1001. from the Duchess of Kent. Lord Palmerston has subscribed 1001. Public meetings have also been held at Batb, Coventry, Dorchester, and Norwich, and resolutions unanimously carried to support the fund. A peat meeting at Liverpool on the same subject is con vened for Monday next. IHE PATRIOTIC FUND. The following information respecting the Patriotic Fund has been published : NUMBERS ON THE BOOKS. Widows Children Orphans who have lost parents l3O THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857. The above are the only classes eligible for relief under the Royal Commission, which limits the ap plication of the fund to the widows and orphans of the soldiers, seamen, and marines whose deaths are attributable to their service in the war against Russia. There are still new cases coming on in consequence of men dying from wounds or from disease un doubtedly contracted in the Crimea. The present rate of expenditure is nearly 80,000/. per annum. PUBLIC MONEYS. THE Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons to consider the question of the efficiency of the present control of Parliament over the public moneys, have issued their report. It is dated the 18th August, and recommends some important changes. The committee find that the consolidation of the pay departments has been attended with " beneficial results," and they advise a further appli cation of the same principles—concentration of re sponsibility and simplification of procedure. They would adjust the payments under every head of ser vice every month, reducing the cash balances to the smallest amount. They think that the Paymaster- General should cease to be a political officer, and should perform his duties in person. They recommend that the payments of revenue should, as far as practicable, be paid direct into the Exchequer, and that those payments made into the Pay office should be transferred to the Exchequer account with as little delay as may be consistent with the public service. They further recommend that moneys in deposit in the Pay-office should be carried to a separate account at the Bank, as they neither form part of the public revenue, nor are voted by Parliament as ways and means. The payments may still be made through the general drawing account. That a statement of the receipts and payments included in this deposit account ought annually to be laid before Parliament. With regard to Exchequer Bills, they recommend that the bills be permanent in their nature ; that they shall carry coupons for interest, which is to be an • nounced annually; and that their capital shall be redeemable on demand out of the Consolidated Fund ; new bills, if necessary, to be issued in the lieu of those thus paid off. Then, with respect to the manner in which the public accounts are kept and audited, the committee recommend various changes, embracing important results. The " appropriation check " the committee re commend should be extended to the accounts of the income and expenditure kept at the Treasury, to the accounts of the revenue departments, and to the various accounts comprising the expenditure of the votes fur civil services, including civil contin gencies : For the latter service two accounts should be presented; one showing the final payments charged against the vote for civil contingencies, and the other showing a balanced account of the transactions of the year, including the out standing advances at the close of the year, and the balance unissued brought down to the following year The whole of these accounts, finally audited, should be presented to Parliament before the close of the year suc ceeding that to which they relate. All payments of the Paymaster-General to be checked from day to day in the departments in which they are authorised or made under an officer ap pointed by the Commissioners of Audit; these audited accounts to be annually submitted to the revision of a committee of the House of Commons, to be nominated by the Speaker. The Audit Board no longer to transmit accounts to Parliament through the Treasury, but to commu nicate them direct. And lastly, the reconstruction of the Board of Audit, as a great department of State, with a functionary at the head of it, not second in rank to any of the permanent officers presiding over other principal departments. The committee make some other recommendations, for bringing the adjustment of the civil accounts completely within the financial year; for substitu ting annual accounts based on actual receipts and payments, in lieu of accounts based on Exchequer credits ; and for applying the same principles to the regulation of "The Treasury Chest Fund," or fund for carrying on the public service abroad. Lord Canning's despatch and Act of Council sup pressing the liberty of the press has been pub lished. The act orders all printing-presses to be licensed, and gives power to search for and seize unlicensed printing materials. But the Govern ment retains the most important right not only to grant licenses and to revoke them, but also to pro hibit the circulation of particular books or news papers. Obituarg. REAR-ADMIRAL J. W. MAURICE expired at Plymouth on Friday week, aged eighty-two years, having been born 10th February, 1775. The vener able and gallant officer entered the navy in August, 1789, and in 1705 participated in Lord Bridport'a action. After seeing further active service, he was transferred to the Royal George, 100, flagship of Lord Bridport, who promoted him soon afterwards to the Glory, 00. Lieut. Maurice, in September, 1802, was appointed to the Centaur, under Commodore Samuel Hood, in which he served at the capture of St. Lucie, Tobago, Demerara, and Essequibo. In 1805 he commanded the garrison of the Diamond Rock, and surrendered to the French fleet after a brave and highly honourable resistance, which ob tained the admiration of Nelson. Ho commanded the seamen and marines at the island of Anholt, which he defended against the attacks of 4,000 Danes in 1811, which at the time rendered his name famous for defeating that strong force of the enemy ; he and his men taking prisoners more in number than their own strength of garrison. He remained at the island until Sept., 1812, since which the gallant officer has not held employment. SIR CHARLES CLARKE, BART., died on Monday, at his residence, on the Marine-parade, Brighton, in his seventy sixth year, after a lingering illness of nearly two years' duration. Charles Mansfield Clarke, the younger son of the late Mr. John Clarke, surgeon, of Chancery-lane, by a daughter of William Mansfield, Esq., of Thrapstone, Northamptonshire, was born in London, May 28, 1782, and received the rudiments of his classical education at St. Paul's School, where he was the schoolfellow, and, we believe, the playmate, or formfellow, of the late Lord Chancellor Truro and the present Chief Baron Pcllock. Having passed through the preliminary studies of a medical student, Mr. Clarke spent the two first years of his profes sional life as assistant-surgeon in the Hertfordshire Militia, which he subsequently exchanged for the post of surgeon in the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards. Subsequently, however, he was induced by his elder brother to give up the army, and to devote his whole attention to the diseases of women and children, and more particularly to the practice of midwifery. He associated with his brother as a lecturer on these subjects as early as 1804, and continued to deliver his regular courses of lectures down to the year 1821, during which time he could reckon almost all the eminent accoucheurs among his hearers and pupils. For many years he held the appointment of surgeon to Queen Charlotte's Lying-in-Hospital, which ho resigned about the same time that he ceased to lec ture, though the interests and welfare of that institu tion continued to the last to be objects of bis atten tion and regard. In 1825 he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society. Hitherto Mr. Clarke had practised only as an aecoucheur, in which capacity his rise to fame and celebrity bad been speedy, if not sudden, though not more so than he well deserved ; for no man ever threw himself more zealously into his pro fessional duties, or showed more tenderness and sym pathy in all his dealings with his patients, or more kindness and courtesy to his professional rivals. He always had a kind word for every one around him, and even when in the height of his London practice, and when carriages thronged his doors in Saville row, he would go on any distant visit to the wife or daughter of a medical gentleman, regardless of the consequences to himself. By these means, aided by his great sagacity and knowledge of the world and of mankind, he attained so solid and substantial a position that he was able to retire from the constant cares of his London practice at an age when most men are still climbing up the hill, and to purchase the estate of Dunham Lodge in Norfolk, when he had scarcely passed his fortieth year. Sir Charles Clarke married in 1806 Mary Ann, daughter of the late Wright Thomas Squire, Esq., of Peterborough, who died in 1858, by whom he had a family of five daughters and also two sons, the eldest of whom has now succeeded to the title as second baronet. He is in holy orders, and was appointed to the rectory of Hanwell, Middlesex, in 1847. THE MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF ELY expired at Hampton Court Palace on Sunday last. The de ceased Marchioness was the eldest daughter of the late Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, Baronet, of Kirt lington-park, Oxon, and married, in 1810, John, second Marquis of Ely, by whom she had a nume rous family. Her ladyship was Maid of Honour to her Majesty Queen Charlotte, and for some years Lady of the Bedchamber to her Majesty Queen Adelaide. She was born in 1785, and was conse quently in her seventy-third year. Her ladyship had been for some time past suffering from repeated attacks of chronic bronchitis, under which disease she eventually sank. THE HON. WM. HENRY HARE, second son of William, first Earl of Listowel, died a few days since at Stoke, Devonshire. He was horn Ist July, 17 6 2, and married, 17th July, 1806, Charlotte, only daughter of Mr. Isaac Baugh, which lady died in Oct., 1847, leaving issue an only sex