The Press. — London, England, 1857-04-25 00:00:00

410 TERNS OF SUBSCRIPTION Ebe lOress: ( STAMPED ) Per Annum .. half Yearly.. Quarterly .. 6 0 0 13 0 .. 0 6 6 PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. Balmer:berg are requested to send their orders through News Agents; if direct to the office, accomoanied by a remittance . Advertisements also must have a refe re n ce or rem i ttance Money Orders to be made payable to Mr. ALFRED Ivi, 110 . Strand, London. TO CORRESPONDENTS. It is impossible to acknowle Ige the mass of letters we receive Their insertion is often delayed owing to a press of matter, and when omitted, it is frequently (ruin reasons quite inde pendent of the merits of the communication. We cannot undertake to return communications of which we do not avail ourselves. Communications should always be legibly written, and on one side of the paper only. If long it increases the difficulty of finding space for them. Whatever is intended for insertion mustbe authenticated by the name and address of the writer, not necessarily for publics• tion. but as a guarantee of his good faith. Advertisements sent front the country must be accompanied by a remittance or a reference for payment in town. Cljt .I;)rvgixi+ LONDON, SATURDAY. APRIL 25, 1857. POSTSCRIPT. (By Submarine Telegraphic Despatch.) PARIS, Fiiday Night. Prince Dunilo, of Montenegro, has just left for Vienna. The journal Le Pays asserts that the British forces will commence their operation a against China by the capture of the valuable island of Formosa. The Upper House at Berlin has rejected para graph 1 of a bill imposing an additional duty on salt, by a majority of 95 to 21. The Government therefore abandoned the bill, the first paragraph containing the entire measure. The Government of Athens has determined to oppose the French proposition for the establishment of credit institutions in Greece. Dr. Kern was received on Thursday by the Federal Council of Berne. LEITRIM ELECTION. CLOSE OF Pots. FIRST DAY. 1,110 Montgomery Brady Tennison • • The Globe of last evening states:—" We have reason to believe that, on the meeting of Par liament, on Thursday next, the motion that Mr. Evelyn Denison be the new Speaker, will be moved by Lord Harry Vane, and seconded by Mr. Thornely." 616 407 HEALTH OF THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. The following bulletin of the health of her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester was issued yesterday morning . Gloncester•house, April 24, 9 a.m. Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester has passed a quiet night, and has not been so much oppressed in her breathing. FRANCIS HAWKINS, M.D. ROBERT FEROUSON, M.D. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge has consented to take part in the inauguration of the public park presented to the borough of Birmingham by Lord Calthorpe. GREAT FIRE IN LIVERPOOL. A fire was discovered yesterday morning in a warehouse in Sparling•street, belonging to Messrs. Malcolmson and Son. The building is seven storeys high, and the fire broke out on the fifth floor, used as a cotton store. Upwards of 2,500 bales of that material, worth 131. per bale, mifst have been destroyed. The property is fully insured. Con siderable apprehension WM felt for the lower part of the building, which is stocked with wine and rum. THE NIGHTINGALE FUND is about to close. A meeting or the committee will he held at the office, 5, Parliament-street, on Friday next, to prepare the report, call in outstanding subscriptions, and to transfer the entire bum to the trustees appointed 'EI Idiss Nightingale. THE PRESS. ptiaitb. THE Evening 3lail states that, after all, the resig nation of Mr. Horsman is an accomplished fact, and that the responsible office of Irish Chief Secretary is at the disposal of Lurd Palmerston. Except Mr. Bernal Osborne, no other name has been mentioned as Mr. Horsrnan's successor. According to the Mail, the appointment of the member for Dover has been all but protested against by Lord Cariisle. The Freeman's Journal of Thursday denounces the choice as highly objectionable in consequence of the hon. gentleman's speech in reference to the Irish Court when the question of its abolition was last under the consideration of Parliament. THE REv. WILLIAM LEE, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, and author of "Lectures on the Inspiration of Holy Scripture," has been elected to the Profes sorship of Ecclesiastical History, vacant by the promotion of Dr. Fitzgerald to the see of Cork. The professorship was recently founded by the Lord Primate, the Chancellor of the University, who sub scribed 1,0001, towards its endowment. Saunders's News-Letter contains an account of a riot at Parsonstown on the day previous, owing to a Mr. Atkinson, of Boscrea, having by his extensive purchase!, of potatoes sent up their price. No lives were lost. THE ANNUAL CATTLE SHOW OF THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY is now open. The exhibition of stock and farming implements is not inferior to that of any previous year. Lord Carlisle and the Viceregal suite arrived at three o'clock Wednesday afternoon, and stayed in the yard for fully two hours. His Excel lency was again present at the evening meeting, and the Earl of Clancarty having proposed a vote of thanks, Lord Catlisle, in the course of his reply, alluding to the usual effects of an electoral contest, said he trusted that all classes would unite to advance agriculture:— Parties and Governments may be subject to vicissitudes and change ; but you, my lords and gentlemen, have the green soil of Ireland lying fresh beneath you--firm and fresh beneath you. There it ib—do justice to it, cultivate it, enrich it, adorn it—for you will find it ever ready to reward and to repay the skill and industry which shall best develop its abounding resources. THE MOUNTGARRETT PEERAGE CASE was cbcided on Thursday, six of the eleven judges sitting in error deciding against the application for a new trial. The previous verdict in favour of the present Lord Mountgarrett retaining possession of the Kilkenny property therefore stands good. THE LORD LIEUTENANT IN COUNCIL has commuted the sentence of death passed on Norris and Power, who were to have been hanged on Monday next for the Spike Island murder. AN EMIGRATION MANIA has seized the people of Galway. Accounts state that the progress of emigra tion there has not slackened, notwithstanding that the recent accounts from America are discouraging. The daily trains to Dublin are crowded with emigrP.nts of the better class bound for the United States, and as the season advances it is feared that the drain of population will be further increased. wEsni INSTE It BONDS. THE Westminster Bondholders held a meeting at the Victoria Hotel on Tuesday, to hear the state ment of the Commissioners. The document was read by Mr. Wright, and in it the bondholders were called upon to support a bill proposed by the mort gagees, with a view to make the property available. By this bill, though no power is sought for any new work, the Commissioners desire to borrow 99,000/. by preference mortgage, in order to complete con tracts already made for the purchase of certain properties, and also to be enabled to sell lands free from incumbrances. The other object of the bill is to open a street communication between Victoria street and St. James's. It was arranged, on the application of Mr. D. Cunningham, that this statement of th e Commis sioners should be printed and circulated amongst the bondholders at a charge of Is. per copy, Mr. Wright having stated that the Commissioners could not pay fur the priming of the document, being entirely out of money. A BONDHOLDER asked if the power of the Com missioners were confirmed, where was the money to come from Mr. WRIGHT replied that in that case he had no doubt Sir Benjamin Hall would waive his objection. If they could get the powers sought for, they could easily obtain a workable capital. Mr. BEAUMONT complained that the bondholders had been shamefully treated. If the bondholders were to be protected, let them propose a bill that would give them some control. The Commissioners had borrowed enough money, and the bondholders were not going to let them borrow more without some security. The acts of the Commissioners had been in systematic opposition to the Acts of Par- liament. After some further discussion, the meeting ad journed to Wednesday, 29th instant. SATURDAY, Nalral an 'tiiitarrr ntelligtatt. REAR-ADMIRAL SIR MICHAEL SEYMOUR, K.C.8., has been nominated to the vacant good service pension, for his ►oss of an eye by the explosion of an infernal machine in the Baltic. MAJOR-GENERAL MATHIAS EVERARD, C. 8., K.H. has just died. He entered the service in 1804, and served in South America (leading the forlorn hope at Monte Video), in the Peninsula, at Corunna, in the Walcheren expedition, and at Bhurtpore. The death of General Everard reduces the list of general officers to 234, the number fixed by the royal warrant of 1854: but as a promotion will take place in con. sequence of previous deaths, a step will not occur on each vacancy until the list shall have been reduced by two more. THE Royal Sovereign, 131, screw three-decker, will be launched from Portsmouth Dockyard this day. This magnificent leviathan will be christened by one of the daughters of the Port Admiral, Sir George Sey. mour, K.C.B. Upwards of 10,000 persons are expected to be present at the launch. THE LARGE NEW TIDAL BASIN in course of construc tion at Chatham Dockyard is progressing rapidly, and, as soon as completed, will afford accommodation for line•of-battle ships, which have hitherto seldom been sent to that establishment fur repairs, owing to the want of sufficient dock accommodation. THE Camperdown, 104, and the three•decker Princess Charlotte are to be fitted for immediate com mission on the China station as hospital ships. THE Agamemnon, 91, is being rapidly expedited for the service of laying down the Atlantic telegraph cable. Tho Terrible is destined to assist the Agamemnon in laying down the telegraph wires. It is in consequence of her being fitted with the most powerful engines in our navy that she has been selected for this undertaking. THE HON. NEIL Dow, the originator and strenuous advocate of the Maine Liquor Law, arrived i❑ Liver. pool on Monday last by the Royal Mail steamship Europa, having been invited by the United Kingdom Temperance Alliance to visit this country•, for the purpose of making known the principles of the law, and of detailing its operations and the present state of the principles of temperance in the United States. " OF THE CONING COHET t " says the eminent Ger man astronomer, Von Littrow, who writes to the Vienna Gazette— Only this is certain, that it is possible, although it is anything but certain, that we may see the comet between the present sear of 1837 and that of 1860. The greatest astronomical authority of this century, Gauss of Gottingen, has always been of this opinion. Hitherto, therefore, so far as the matter has publicly transpired, the whole sub ject would be reduced to a little useless talk and expecta- tions prematurely excited. But recently a certain indi vidual, having nothing better to do, thought proper to invest it with renewed interest by giving out, absurdly enGugh, that the comet would reappear on a certain day, the 13th of June this year, and at the same time he con nected the event with some piquant predictions about the destruction of the world, and the like. Unfortunately our nineteenth century, notwithstanding its much vaunted enlightenment, still contains a great deal of soil only too favourable for the growth of such seed. The false prophet has found credulous listeners, and, what is yet worse, called forth unbidden comforters. Now, upon this last•mentioned question let us remark in a few words that, from facts which fortunately render the vacillating argu- ments of the physicist Babinet quite supettluous, it 15 irrefutably certain that the matter of which comets consist forms an extremely loose texture; that comets are in reality not coherent meioses, but mere agglomerations of small corpuscules, separated from one another by large inter stices. Highly improbable as it is, because it could only take place by a concurrence of circumstance hardly con ceivable, that a collision of the earth and the nucleus of a comet should ensue, such an event, far from entailing de struction on this world, could only he compared at the most with the fall of a meteor, and in its effects would barely equal those produced by our thunderstorms and hurricanes. A mere passing of the earth through the luminous appen dages of one of these bodies, which it is true might more easily happen, would be unattended by any injurious con sequences, since the matter of which comets consist is not coherent substance, nor is it even an atmosphere such as we could nut inhale. Incredible as it may appear, we hear it from too trustworthy a source not to believe it, that in Austria, ton, the country folks, in expectation of what is to happen, have ceased to till their fields, and are wasting their time in idleness. Such a delusion might provoke a smile, if it were not too lamentable. Whatever the use of comets may b e i n th e un i verse , assure dly it is not that of liberating us men from the care of the future. Besides, a man must be very young who has not already outlived without injury many similar destructions of the world. THE IMPERIAL PRINCE (says a recent Paris letter), besides going most at ternoons in state, escorted by Guides, to the Bois de Boulogne, is now taken out at eight or nine every morning on the reserved terrace . of the Tuil er i es gar d ens ov e r looking the Seme. Sometimes he may be seen in his Lilliputian goat garriage, the goats led by two little footmen, a nurse walking on each side and a tall lacquey behiud, ~-