The Sun. — London, England, 1865-01-02 00:00:00

The Poor-law Board have just offered a sort of explanation to the public of the manner in which Mr. Villiers's Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act of last session is now working. This explanation, or rather statement, for very little is really explained, is, we presume, offered as a reply to the appeals with which our columns are now crowded for aid from the benevolent to shelter the starving and bouseless. That such a statement was necessary, and should perhaps have been given even earlier and in'a more extended form, will, we think, be ad mitted. Late, however, as it has come, and small as is the amount of information which it affords, there is nothing whatever in Mr. Fa.rnall's paper which does not tend to confirm all we have urged in connexion with this subject on the general ineffi ciency, want of regular system, and often total mis management of the wards for the relief of our casual poor. We contend that the Refuges for the desti tute are now doing poorly and irregularly what, ought to be done well and syStematically by the workhouses. Our complaint has been that the workhouses could do this duty and ought to do it, but that they did not, and left to charity and public benevolence the discharge of one of their first duties. We carefully pointed out how with the withdrawal of sufficient accommodation at casual wards come a proportionate increase of Refuges for the destitute ; how a few years ago there were only three small Refuges in London. and how there are now twelve large ones, and how, above all, it was becoming a most Jemsnus - ipestion for the public to consider the support of this mass of destitution should be left to their private and uncertain charity, or be, relieved by the proper carrying out of established laws especially framed to meet the necessity. That these statements regarding the workhouses, at least, were true Mr Farnall him self proves when he says that the result of the inquiry made by tlif# Poor-law Board last year. showed that in some' London. Unions the provi sion made for casual poor and wanderers was manifestly inadequate," and that "the attention of the Poor-law Board has on several occasions been previously directed to the same subject, and the Board had frequently referred to the defects in. the mode of administering relief to vagrants and houseless poor in the metropolitan district, and had endeavoured to induce Boards of Guardians to dis charge the obligation which rested on them in regard to thiS class of poor." Mr. Farnall, however, seems now to think that all these evils are either remedied or about to be so shortly. That he may be justified in the latter belief is earnestly to be hoped, though scarcely to be expected till the calculations as to the number of destitute nightly in the metropolis and the.conse quent estimate of provision to be 'made for their relief are based upon the real facts of the case. In their estimate of the 1,400 persons homeless and destitute every night in the metropolis the Poor-law Board exclude those provided for by the Refuges, which, at the lowest calculation, amount in number to at least 1,000 more. Here, then, we have 2,400 destitute casual poor, for the shelter of whom the aggregate accommodation of all the metropolitan workhouses would-only admit at the beginning of last autumn -of 997 persons being relieved. Is it to be wondered if tinder such a state of things Refuges for the destitute increased, and their cry for . aid, with 1,400 people thrown upon & them every night for food and shelter, Was incessant and alarm ing in its urgency? At present, Mr. Farnall says, almost all the metropolitan Boards of Guardians have heartily co-operated in carrying out the pro visions of Mr. Villiers' recent Act, and of the 39 Unions or parishes forming the metropolitan district :;o have proper and sufficient casual wards, seven have wards which are still inadequate, and the total accommodation now provided will shelter 1;490 persons. But nothing is said of the surplus 1,000 destitute who must still go to the Refuges, just as nothing is said of the two workhouses which will not be troubled with casual poor. ; and, therefore, in cool defiance of the act, decline to have casual wards at all. Even, however, this great extension of the casual wards will be worthless unless the poor are permitted-toavail themselves of them. It is of nort::;e that the Poor Law Board ltisovides the..--legal accommodation of the various si. : Oikhouses throw harassing difficulties in the 'way of the poor - getting at. it. TLC PC , Or 1, - ;11" 130tIrd Cate build casual words, but they cannot be at the elbow of every relieving officer to see that they are per mitted to be filled with proper applicants. Mr. Farnall'S own figures will best illustrate our mean ing. There was shelter for 997 destitute provided' by the united metropolitan Unions at the beginning of last summer, and this amount of accommodation the Poor Board knew to .be insufficient, and have insisted on its extension till as now the workhouses can take in 1,400. Yet Mr. Farnall says the largest number of destitute permitted in one night to use these wards was last month, when 712 beds were allowed to be occupied ; the lowest number admitted was 607, the average was about 650. Yet still Mr. Farnall and the Poor Law Board are calling for more and more accommodation in the face of these figures, which prove that the permission given to the poor to avail themselves of it is still as limited as ever, and the old 997 beds would have been suffi cent and to spare. The Poor Law Board, as we have said, can build the wards, but cannot make the relieving officer fill'them as they would wish, for it is needless to say that if the Poor Law Board directions were carried out we should hear no more of these fearful cases of destitution or death from starvation. A very common error is committed by supposing that the accommodation offered by a Refuge is superior to the accommodation offered by a casual ward: The very reverse of this is the fact, except in so far as regards the diet, which is mostly alike in both cases, generally a mere meal of dry bread. In warmth and in ventilation the casual wards are superior to the Refuges, while the beds at the former places are couches of luxury compared with the hard, plain boards and thin rugs provided at the latter. At all the Refuges the dietary is the same. It is not so at the casual wards, almost every - one of which is managed on different prin ciples. - Some have labour tests--that is, a task of work exacted in return for the night's shelter, and some have none whatever. Even those which have, however, differ as much as they possibly can. In -- seam the labour is so excessively severe as almost to amount to a, refusal of relief when exacted in return for it ; in some it is not so heavy as painful, as when poor needlewomen and others are made to pick enough oaktun to keep their fingers raw for a week ; in some it is so slight as to be almost nomi nal, and as a labour test literally so. It is this want Ist uniformity the vstem of casual reli e f which is ire root Ot . thii whOle ea — The Board of Guardians who are so kind and considerate in their treatment of the casual poor have to expiate under a costly load of vagrants the faults of those who elsewhere rule their homeless wards with merciless severity. It may, however, be taken as a safe ge neral rule that the pauper who passes the searching cross-examination of the relieving officer before he is granted his one night's shelter, for he must not come again, must be a very faultless pauper indeed, and if once the final words are uttered, as uttered they often are before the applicant has half told his tale—" No ; it's nd use. You must have got some work to-day. You Must be off," they are never rescinded. . It is this excessive strictness, the late hour at which the casual wards are opened as corn pared with the Refuges, the distance at which they are often situated from the places where only the tickets for admission are to obtained which combine to account for the smallness of the num bers that try to gain their shelter, and the still more extraordinary smallness of the numbcr3 of those that succeed hi doing so. Here, then, are the facts of the casse;:—According to the figures of the Poor Law Board and the Refuges there are 2,400 casual poor destitute and honieless every night in London. The Poor Law Board has provided shelter for 1,400, and still calls for' more - accommodation, yet the largest number of poor permitted to avail then/gels - es: of this shelter any one night during this winter was, according to Mr. Farnall, 712 ! Whether it Was, therefore, that the Poor Law Board are providing very much more accommodation than there is any necessity for, or whether it is that the relieving officers are refusing shelter to very many that ought to be housed, our readers can judge for the mselves. One of these two things is certainly the case if Mr. Farnall's figures are to be relied on if they are not reliable, then his explanatory defers T of the good effected by the Act of last Session is - worthless. Under the mismanagement which it is thus evi dent must be going forward somewhere, is it sur prising that the Refuges are as clamorous as ever in their appeals for sympathy and support ? The relief afforded by Refuges is not good as a system, and as charitable institutions they are necessarily hampered with extraneous expenses which would make their system of relief, even if it was the best, costly beyond proportion to others nearly as good. But their inefficient system is very much better than no system at all. To refuse help to the Refuges till the workhouses did their duty would be acting very much like those who should refuse their aid towards restoring animation to a half-drowned man because the legally qualified practitioner would not or did not come. The real doctor is, of course, infinitely preferable, but, in the meantime, we must do the best we can till he arrives. It is, perhaps, travelling beyond the record on this occasion to refer to the question of outdoor re - - lief, yet there is no doubt that, as our correspondent "W. D. B." pointed out, the ill-judged parsimony with which this is accorded is, as a rule, productive, not only of misery to the poor, but productive also of heavy permanent burdens on the poor rates. The poor have an intense dread of " the house " until they have been forced to enter it, when they find it so far from uncomfortable that it is often after wards difficult to keep them out of it. There is, however, scarcely any amount of privation which a family will not endure rather than enter "the house" at first, and the miserable cases of death from desti tution which so often shock us are mostly to be traced to this cause. "The house or nothing" is the answer in very many cases to the applicants for even the smallest amount of outdoor relief, and the ofitict produced in a poor neighbourhood when a family is starved into submission and enters the house is very much the same as if they had all been swept off by cholera—they have such a horror of it. This feel ing of horror, however, is soon overcome by those who do enter, and it is unfortunately tootrue that a large propo r ti on o f t h ese get to like cpfiet warmth with.scarcely any labour. Certain it is that a family that has been forced in for one winter seldom fail to force themselves in for many winters after wards. If a more comprehensive view of the very ob ject and purpose of outdoor- relief were taken, and it were more generally allowed than it now is, it would not only relieve an immense amount of suffering, but would effect a considerable saving in the poor rates. Anyone who is acquainted with the condition of the poorest classes of the metropolis knows that one• inmate of a workhouse represents. from four to five poor outside who have more or less need of its relief. Yet the utmther in the receipt of even the smallest outdoor relief seldom exceeds double the number of those whom the workhouses are com pelled to take in, and often compelled for the very reason that they will give no other relief. To return, however, to the homeless poor, we ven ture to think that there is no scheme which promises so well for checking idle vagrancy and for insuring uniform and economically -provided shelter to the really deserving destitute as that which has been so often proposed—namely, placing them under the care of the police, to be by the police lodged for the night in district asylums in various parts of the me tropolis. The main features of such a plan were attempted to be carried out by the Poor Low Board in 1846, and all the Unions of the metropolis were for'this purpose divided into six great districts. In each of these districts an asylum was to be built for the homeless, and two districts, which were obedient to the Poor La* Board, actually' bought the land on which to build them. The other four districts, however, declined to do anything of the kind, and, as it was .no good going on with two, the land was resold, and the scheme came to the ground. If this plan were revived, and the care of these district asylums intrusted to the police, the maintenance of the buildings might be met out'of the general police rate, and this expense, it is calculated,would actually not exceed £6,000 a year for the whole metropolis. The labourer on the tramp for work would in such asylums readily find a night's lodging; the really destitute would be forwarded from the asylums to their prn.wr 4parish workhouses. Ida, the regular vagrant, 1 the- - idle, drunken, and pro- ] fligate, would be lodged where they ought to be—first in the station-house and afterwards at the House of Correction. In the many parts of England where this system has been adopted 'regu lar vagrancy is as unknown as dearhs from 'destitu tion. In London, unfOrtunately, we are but too familiar with both these extremes which make so painfully the shortcomings of our present system of casual relief. Under a well-organised police system, such as has been so often suggested, it is believed by those best competent to form an opinion on this subject That most of those evils connected with our homeless poor would 'disappear, and what is now becoming a costly, 'as it 'has long been a scandalous, instance of mad-administration would be unknown among us. St, Paul's Cathedral. Last evening, for the first time in . the present winter, the special services were resumed in the dome area of the metropolitan cathedral, and there was as large a congregation as on any previous occasion. Nearly 3,000 people, it is said, can be seated below the dome and be brought within the compass of a preacher's voice. The great body of the congregation, as on previous occasions, entered by the great western door, for which no tickets nor any pass of any kind are ever required, and probably about a tenth of the whole number were admitted by tickets by the south entrance to the reserved seats and the choir. The grand organ played as usual by Mr. Goss, the organist of the cathedral, was again brought into requisition, ac companied by a choir of about 400 voices, led by Mr. Buckland. From the first 'the choir at the Special Services has been mainly, if not wholly, composed of amateurs, many of them being young women. The building was lighted as usual, and most effectively, by a single row of gas jets round the base of the dome throughout its whole eircurn ference. The respobses were sung to the Music by Tanis, and Mercer's Church Psalter and Hymn Book were again in use, as they have been from the very first of the Special Services. Of this standard work a new, or, as it is designated, the Oxford edition, has just been published, with many improvements, and containing about 50 tunes newly introduced, in place of some of less beauty. The Lord Bishop of London preached the sermon on - tlitt l oecasioxi, taking-for his text, front tlhe-hook of Isaiah, the words, " In quietness and confidence shall be thy strength." The discourse was specially designed to influence the thoughts and feelings of the congregation at the commencement of a new year. Towards its close the right rev. prelate thus adverted to existing dissensions within the Church : Was it true, he asked, as was said, that faith was endangered by an: evecactive reason ; was it true, as some said, that conviction was imminent ; were there faint-hearted men who feared lest the two could be reconciled ? God watched over all his people, and certainly watched over their Church. The Church of England had a great trust from its Lord and Saviour. The very position of our na tion put us in the fore front of the battle for Christ's Gospel. It had to proclaim that Gospel, to spread the Scriptures wherever the British name was known, and here at home how overwhelming the responsibilities, how great and glorious the work which the Saviour had committed to His Church ! And shoal they not trust in Him who laid these responsibilities on them to bring them safe through every trial? Who brought that Church through the great crisis of the Reformation 300 years ago, rearing it up to be the defender of the old faith while Ile gave it at the same time a heart to sympathise with the world's growing intelligence ; who brought it safe through those tri a ls, an d to re sults of which the unworthy human instruments whom He employed, and who thought only that their own purposes were good, never dre am t ; who saved that Church again from a wild fanaticism beating down the Throne and Altar, or from the worse scourge of an Atheistical reaction ; who, 180 years ago, brought them safe through that treacher ous atrempt to give them up again, 'bound hand and foot, to the old tyranny ; who, 100 years ago, saved them from an insidious Arianism eating into the heart of Christ's Gospel, while . men, in the deadness of a formal morality, cared so little for the Gospel that they would not have missed it if it had disappeared; who, 50 years ago, brought by the Holy Spirit new life, new love of Christ, with an appreciation of Gospel doctrines, new care for souls, and new missionary zeal throughout the Church and nation; who, within their own memory, had saved it from being torn asunder by inevitable differences of sentiment and opinion which must burst forth when zeal abounded ? God had kept them safe hitherto. They had known greater trials, and God to these, too, would put an end. God had great things for that Church to do, and for all its .I sons and daughters. They would be saved from j anxiety if they would do their work quietly and calmly as in His sight, not prating of controversies, not anxiously carping at their brother faith, but looking carefully to their own, doing their own, work as in God's sight, seeing that their own hearts, their own families, and their own neighbourhoods were made to reflect the pure and eternal Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If they did that in quiet ness and confidence and as faithful Christians, for the Church, for the nation, or for themselves, there need be no anxiety. Naval and Military Intelligence. Advice.% from the West India and Pacific stations, received by our Southampton correspondent by the present mail, report that her Majesty's ships Aboukir, 80, Commander Cracoft, C.B. ; Shannon, 39, Capt. Jones ; Nimble, 5, Lieut. Hallowes ; Ro sario, 11, Commander Palmer, Cygnet, 5, Com mander De liantzou ; and Lily, 5, Commander Heneage, was It Port Royal, erarnaiCa. A naVaT court-martial has been held on board the Aboukir, at which the surgeon of the Nimble was convicted of certain charges preferred against him, and sen renced to six months' imprisonment in England and to be dismissed from the service. The screw sloop Cordelia, 11, Commander John B. Scott, from Bar badoes and Granada, arrived at St. Thomas on the 12th December. The frigate Leander was at Callao. - • The corvette Charybdis arrived at San Francisco on the 14th November, on her way to Vancouver's Island, in 35 days from Panama. The Jamaica Guardian of Dec. 9 has the following : " We learn from a private source that a lament able occurrence took place on board H.M.S. Steady, between Bermuda and Halifax. 'The surgeon, who was unwell, took a sleeping draught, which, from the disordered action of the heart or the too large quantity taken, proved fatal, for on a brother officer going to call him the next day the unfortunate man was found dead. The Steady, we learn, is ordered for a cruise in the Caribean Sea. Com mander Harvey and Lieut. Cameron have been ap pointed to another ship." The screw steamship Achilles, 20, Capt. E. W. Vansittart, attended by the paddlewheel steam ves sel Medusa, arrived in Plymouth Sound at 10 yes terday morning. She will probably go into the North or Queen's Dock at Keyham, as the New Long Dock at Devonport, in which she was last placed, is now occupied by the Prince Consort. The iron cased screw steamship Research, 4, Capt. Arthur Wilmshurst, will, after her compasses are adjusted, leave Plymouth Sound for Portsmouth or Cowes, to succeed the Achilles. Me crew of the steam gunboat Shamrock (tender to the Fisgard, were paid off and dis charged at DevOnPort on Saturday. She will be placed in the fourth division of the Steam Reserve in Iramoaze. The War Department screw steamer Balaklava left Plymouth on Thursday evening with con demned stores for Woolwich. The 'repairs and alterations - in the ironcased screw steamship Prince Consort, 35, Captain Geo. 0. Willes, C. 8., at Devonport, may be completed by the 2d of February next. In order to facilitate the progress of the works connected - i.with the construction of the ironclad vessels at Chatham Dockyard, the Lords of the Admiralty iave given directions for the introduc tion at t tablishmenti-by way - of experiment; of one of the r go steam traction engines man ufactureci h by S'foss Aveling itn(t Porter, Rochester, with 1h view of - ing the advantages which would resin froth the a option Of that description; of engine hi the dockytird. In accordance with their lordships'' instruction*, the firm mentioned has just completed the „construction of a traction engine of great power and capacity, in which have been introduced seve- , ral valuable improvements to adapt it for the de scription of work to which it is intended to be ap plied. The engine will make its appearance in the dockyard for the first time to-day, and for the next few weeks will be employed in the heaviest descrip tion of work, in order to enable the authorities to judge and report upon its capabilities, prior to the formal introduction of this kind of motive power into the Royal dockyards in place of horse and manual labour. The naval transport Bonnetta is ordered to load at Chatham dockyard with stores for Woolwich Dockyard. A naval court-martial assembled on board her Majesty's ship Victory, at Portsmouth, on Friday, and continued its sittings through Saturday fore noon, for the "trial of George Walker, a private, Royal Marines, serving on board her Majesty's ship Edgar, on a charge of breaking into the gunroom steward's berth on the night of the 17th of December, and stealing therefrom a quantity of wine and spirits. The Court was composed of Capts. Preedy, C. 8., of the Hector, president ; Vansittart, of the Achilles ; Seccombe, of the Duke of Wellington ; Pasley, of the Highflyer ; and Hen derson, of the Urgent. Capt. G. P. Hornby, o f the Edgar, prosecut e d, an d M r. E. Hoskins offi ciated as Deputy Judge-Advocate. The Court found the charge proved, and sentenced the pri soner to be imprisoned in Winchester Gaol for 12 months with hard labour, and afterwards to be dis missed from her Majesty's service. Mr. James P. Peake, master shipwright of Devon port Dockyard, was last week superannuated with an allowance of £670 per annum. In order to re duce the expenditure at this establishment, 100 men are to be discharged. The reduction commenced on Saturday. The large caisson at the entrance to the third dock at Chatham requiring some repairs, opportu nity will be taken to remove it and float it into No. 4 dock to-d a y, f or t h e necessary defecti to be made good. The advantages resulting from the use of iron as a material for the caissons are so great that in future the whole of the caissons required for the dockyard -atx to be of iron instead of wood. The tenlers of Messrs. Beert - and 6's' .7:Gabriel and Son, and Peter and Rolt, for the supply of Riga and Dantsic timber for the service of Chatham Dockyard, have been accepted by the Admiralty, the prices ranging froM £4 ls. 6d. to £5 per load. Leave of absence 'from the camp at Colchester has been granted to Col. Dickson, of the 16th Lancers, until January 21. Leave of absence has also been granted to Major Swaffield, of the 9th depot battalion, until March 14. The following appointments were made on Sa turday at the Admiralty : — Commander E. S. Meara and Commander E. F. Lodder to be Inspect ing Commanders in the Coastguard ; Chas.Wotton, master, to the Indus for the Sphinx ; Sub.-Lieut. Harry T. Grenfell to the Edgar; Adolphus F. Turner and Richard C. Massie, midshipmen, to the Cadmus ; Chas. G. W. Aylen, midshipman, to the Prince Consort ; James :E. Russell, midshipman, to the Revenge ; Chas. C. Stuart, naval cadet, to the Cadmus ; Geo. F. Banks, surgeon (additional), to the Meander ; Thos. Craig, surgeon, to the Rattle snake ; and Michael W. Cowan, surgeon, to the Zebra. THE BISHOP OF BRITISH COLITMBIA.—The Rev. Dr. Hills, Bishop of British Columbia, is to be married this month to Miss King, of Madingley, near Cambridge. The right rev. prelate will leave England shortly afterwards for British Columbia, which. he quitted in June, 1863. During his stay in England Dr. Hills has been collecting funds with which to carry on his diocesan operations with increased vigour. Address to the King of Prussia. BERLIN, Friday. The following address, furnished with 1,708 sig natures, has been forwarded by the inhabitants of Konigsburg to Herr von Bismarck for presentation to the King. It has also been transmitted direct to his Majesty from the province of Prussia, where copies are still circulating for further signature : " Most illustrious and Most Mighty King, " Most Gracious King and Lord, " The elevating consciousness which the most recent occurrences have called forth in every Prus sian breast, coupled with rejoicing at the grand ex ploits of the Prussian army and Prussian diplomacy, impel us respectfully to lay before your Majesty's throne the expression of our thankfulness for the brilliant results gained to the Prussian State through your Majesty's wise guidance, with the assistance of Almighty God, and to state further the wishes which animate our hearts as Prussians. " The exploits of the Royal army—and especially the admirable storm of the entrenchments at Duppel and the incomparable crossing to the island of Alsen —have woven a new garland of fame for the history of Prussia, and given a fresh impulse to our feeling of pride in the Prussian name, The labour of your Majesty, to which future generations wilt pay the tribute of inexhaustible thanks—the reorganisation of the army—has proved a brilliant success. Prussia, mindful of her traditions, has again won for herself an honourable position in the council of the Great Powers. The connection of Prussia with Austria, her natural ally, has acquired new consecration and the guarantee of firm endurance by the battle-fields of Schleswig-Hol.itein, where Austrian troops have again fought side by side with the Prussian army for the first time since half a century, and by their common diplomatic action. " Nor have the sons of Prussia, true to their oaths, so joyfully shed their blood in vain. The glorious war has been followed by an honourable peace, which more_tinveg2tils the hopes and wishes so long cherished by the German nation —nay, even far surpasses the boldest expectations entertained at the commencement of the war. Schleswig, Hol stein, Lauenburg, are now fully and for ever freed from the yoke of the Danish rule. "Henceforth the Duchies will participate in all the blessings which German life, trade, and com merce bring with them. But a series of the most advantageous prospects, hardly yet fully appreci able, is also to be expected in future for Germany herself. The acquisition of this coast land, with its excellent harbours, and population accustomed to a seafaring life, secure a new and brilliant rise for the maritime position of Germany. " But, most gracious King and Lord, this new acquisition can only truly become a blessing to Ger many, the increase in.territory will only become an increase in power, when the Duchies shall closely ally themselves with the North German great power of Prussia, and unite their fortunes with those of our state. It is the historical mission of Prussia to be a strong guardian of Germany in the North, and it is only by permanently establishing her power by sea also that she is in a position to fulfil this lofty task. Connection of the Duchies with Prussia in military, naval, and diplomatic affairs, is the very least that our state can must demand as the fruit of the war, if she will not prove untrue to her historical traditions, and repudiate the base of her position as a great Power established by the famous Elector and Frederick the Great. But we almost apprehend that even such a result would hardly suf fiC3 truly to satisfy the interests of collective Ger many. " Most illustrious King and Lord,—YourMajesty will very graciously permit us—urged by love to the ruling house, which we revere as subjects, filled with sincere devotion to the Prussian father land, and in firm reliance upon your Majesty's paternal cOnsideration—respectfully to lay the wishes • of our hearts regarding the future of Schleswig- Holstein at the foot of the Throne, without thought of arrogating .to ourselves thereby any influence upon the policy of the Royal Government. We are' unable to see any other issue in the Schleswig-Hoh stein question, to recognise any other solution satis fying in equal measure the interests of Germany, of Prussia, and of the Duchies, than that which the legitimate representativ(li of the population of -Lauenburg have recently proposed for that countity \, Al) the three Duchies in the hands of the King of 'Prussia, united with the. Prussian monarchy under the; sceptre of ,the iitusti cxis nonenzollern ; the ex cellent harbours and the hardy population familiar with the sea utilised for all time in the Prussia navy to the increase of the power and reputattV of Prussia and the effective protection - of entire Ge rmany ; what a glorious elevating prospect for every Prussian heart is tot here opened for the entire future of the fatherland. "An occurrence in ancient Prussian history pro videntially points out the way to this future. The marriage of the Danish Princess Elizabeth with your Majesty's illustrious ancestor Joachim 1., of Brandenburg, has given the issue of that union eventual heredifai.y tights - to the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies which have /lever been abandoned, but on the contrary have frequently been recognised in later times, and have been especially confirmed by the German Emperm—rights which now awake out of their long slumber to new historical life. The Prussian nation hopes that these chartered rights will now receive , conscientious examination, and that the Almighty, whose hand so visibly directs the history of Prussia, may grant that the illustrious Royal IkuSe of Hohenzollern may acquire legiti mate possession of the Duchies, to the fame and glory of Prussia and the honour and power of col lective Germany. "May. God preserve and bless your Majesty God bless our Prussian fatherland ! " Konigsberg, Deconber, 1864." M. Mon and the Emperor. PARIS, Jan. 1. M. Mon had an aldience of the Emperor yester day at the Ttiileries to present his credentials as Ambassador ExtraWinary and Minister Plenipo tentiary of the Queen of Spain. The Emperor was surrounded by the great officers of State and of the 'household. M. Mon addressed his Majesty as follows : " Sire,—l have the honour to remit into the hands of your Majesty the letter of her Majesty the Queen of Spain, which again accredits 'me as Am bassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to your Imperial Majesty. " In resuming the functions which the august kindness of your Majesty has rendered so easy, I esteem myself happy in responding tope wishes of my Sovereign, who knows my devotion the com mon interests of two great nations, and in,showing, at the same time, my profound gratitude tor your Majesty's-good, "Deign, sire, to 'permit rtte to hope that under such happy auspices it will again be possible for me to be useful to my country by labouring to draw closer the tie of esieeni and friendship which unite her, to France." The Emperor replied that he rejoiced at the choice which the Queen had made of M. Mon to represent her; that the reminiscences, still fresh, which M. Mon had left in France should assure to him the most cordial reception, and that no one could contribute better. than he to maintain the in timacy of the relations between the two countries, to which his Majesty attached so great an import- ante. M. Mon and his suite were conveyed to and from the Tuileries in Court carriages. MEAT 1 MEER'S 11.1 - 310IIIS are preparing, we believe, under the hand of M. Gruneisen in the shape of " Recol= iections"- of that great composer, by•a musical critic ear itle of appreciating him. • itiADVERTIKEMENTI— Holloway's - Pill s . Worn-out su erers may hope or relief from these purifying and strengthening fills after physic and physicians have failed to effect a cure. In all disorders 'of the stomach, irregula rities of the bowels, derangement of the liver, and diseases of the kidneys these Pills will be • found espeCially useful in reinstituting order and restoring health. Holloway's Pills clear away obstructions, remove poisonous particles from the blood, secr4ions, and system generally, give purity and regularity.to the circulation, tone and power to .the s tomach, energy and vividness to the brain. Hello-. way's Pills can be confidently recommended as restorailves of constitutions shattered and broken up by excessive mental labour,. intemperance, inordinate indulgence and other hardshirs which make the young man old. Mr. Gladstone on the Coal Resources of the Country, On Friday evening, Mr. Henry Beckett, F.G.S., of Wolverhampton, delivered a lecture in the As sembly Room, Mold, on " Geology in its applica tion to the coalfields of North Wales, Sir Stephen Glynne presided. The Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, and moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer. He congratulated the au dience on the justice which Mr Beckett had done to the coalfield of Flintshire, stating that he (Mr. Gladstone) was not satisfied with the treatment which that coalfield had received in a variety of publications. It had been assumed that because that was an old mining district—a district where for a long period of time their forefathers had been scratching and grubbing, as it were, the surface of the earth—the coals there were ex hausted, and there was no more occasion to think about them except just by way of gathering up some scraps and leavings which those Who came before them had not been able to extract from the bowels of mother earth ; but he himself had cherished a hope, which had strengthened from year to year and which was now coming to a state of great confidence and vigour, that it might likewise be considered as a very young coal mining district --that it was a district to the real character of which people were only just beginning to awaken. He thought the signs had already appeared that this was a true conclusion, and he confidently looked for the multiplication of those signs from year to year. The general rule in that district had been in former times to stop at the main coal. It was assumed for some reason or other, that that was the ne plus ultra, the very farthest point downwards of the coal measures, and the workings in any seams under the main coal had been very insigni ficant. But when they came to compare what had taken place in adjoining districts—going, for ex ample, down the bend of the Dee to the extreme of the t estuary—they found great clusters of 'coal mea sures cropping up at different points, and it had never been proved yet that the whole of those coal measures were not lying undisturbed and tranquil under the main coal, waiting to be dug up. It was a district in which they might hope that before long deep shafts would be brought into operation. They had now every reason to believe that the coalfield of that district passed under the estuary of the Dee and connected itself with the Lancashire coalfield ; and he was sanguine enough to believe that the day was not far distant when the estuary of the Dee, which now meant a vast surface lying ahnost entirely useless, would be recovered from the usurpation of the sea and brought under cultivation, while the mineral enterprise of this great country was at work underneath. Refer ring to some observations by the lecturer on the dismal prognostications supposed to have been made by Sir W. Armstrong in regard to the probable ex haustion of the coal supply of this country, Mr. Gladstone said he had been told that in those spe culations Sir W. Armstrong referred simply to the district within whiCh he spoke. He hoped that 200 years were not to see the exhaustion of the mineral wealth of England, for—having immense confidence in the resources of this country as 'well as in the character of the people, which under God was the best of all its resources—he did think that there was nothing certainly which lie for one should contem plate with such apprehension as the exhaustion of its mineral wealth, and especially of its supplies of coal. He backed Sir W. Armstrong's recommenda tion of economy in the use of coal ; and he could not help mentioning that a' very intelligent gentle man had informed him that they were cheapening the production of gas in Manchester at such a rate that it was highly probable that after the lapse of a few years all houses occupied by the labouring part of the population in particular would use no coal at ,all, but would have all the functions of light, warmth, and cooking performed by gas. This opened a most important source of economy to the working classes, while it also indicated a hope that we might' be permitted to economise our stores of coal, and at the same time see removed that which was like a great blot on the face of creation—viz., the mass of smoke which disfigured large, districts of this country. SPIRIT OF TBE PUBLIC JO - i i RNALS -" TIM SATURDAY kEVIEW" ON THE STAMI .PARTIES. ---111 , , prospr-f!tr , of the variona political parties s ' • rernain i . e at the close of the ,year, in - their long-e-tab • ed state of uncertainty and'inf;pcnse. Tile ' unfortunat ' - ffCn.t made in the last session, by the OppoSition, to giv a premature coup de grace to the Ministry has ended in p:•olonging its life ; and Mr. Disraeli, with his usual geulurt, has once more enjoyed the privilege of conducting his followers to a splendid strategical defeat. Chance blunders may at any hour bring about the fall of a "dovetailed and tesselated' , Cabinet, but no great change is to be looked for in the re- lations of English parties so long as Lord Palmerston pre serves his health and his hilarity. The Premier is, indeed, to English politics what the rope is to the Italian ques- .on—an excuse and a reason for inaction. During his tenure of office the ultimate-tug of war stands adjourned by tacit consent. There is a pleasant and general under standing in the Hotta, of Commons that the veteran Mini ter is to be allowed, in his declining years, the inestimable political luxury of having no programme at all. Every awkward- sea-monster that rears its head to look at the progress of the Ministerial vessel disappears at once as soon as the English Nereus of the waves has pronounced the magic and simple word " To-morrow." The Manches ter party lie down again for a little longer, and Mr. Bright spares the aristocracy for one more year. The Irish Church goes once more to sleep, and is even heard snoring across the Channel. The Church-rate and the Ballot, it is true, come trotting annually out, but they trot in again contentedly and happily after having had their customary gallop across the downs. Lord Derby translates Homer. Lord Stanley hardly takes the trouble to raise his head from the absorbing pages of his blue-books. Mr. Disraeli, anxious to make the Most of his time among the country gentlemen, is either piping his pastoral pipe with Arcadian simplicity over the Cotswold 'sheep, or else busy in confirming the religious faith of churchwardens and of rural deans. If Lord Russell could be kept from writing letters, if Brother Ignatius or some enterprising Bishop could operate on the stony heart of the Lord Chancellor and turn him into a shining candlestick,' and if Mr. Gladstone would cease to aggravatethe opposite benches by airs of superior sanctity, the Ministry might, with fair good fortune, be secure against the annoyance of even a serious reconnaissance in force. " So long as there is nothing to be done, Lord Palmerston and his colleagues will - probably succeed as well as any one else in doing it to the complete satisfaction of the country. And for the next year or lwo the- prospect of Ministerial sloth is not likely to be considered, by any section of the political world as a national misfortune.,; While the head of the present Go vernment continues in power, the thought, indeed, that.he is understood by all alike to be the comfortable embodi ment of the principle of political adjournment will as little disturb the.mass of the House of Commons as it-will cer tainly not detract from his own capacity for enjoying life. He will doubtless end his career charmed with its pleasant ness, and bequeathing to hie successors a stormy voyage, 'and no particular policy by which to guide their course. It- is not perhaps easy to train a crew of practised seamen in still waters, but there is some truth in the, charge brought against the Premier that ho has laboriously abstained from educating a school of_future,atatesinen. one suspects Lord Palmerston himself of feeling discom posure at the fact that he is chiefly tolerated by the Con servatives because they distrust' Mr. Disraeli, and by the extreme Liberals because they have hopes of Mr. Ghtdstone. But the noble lord—if his countrymen rightly read him L.-. is not the man to agitate himself by brooding over the idea of a posthumous deluge, or to trouble his quiet age by won dering whether he might . not have done better in his youth. A jovial politician of eighty need not be overwhelmed by melancholy, even if he is only a .stop-gap after all ; and the convenience to Englishmen of having a stop-gap of the :kind is acknowledged on all hands. Neither of the great parties in the House of Commons can be anxious to preci pitate a hasty though inevitable struggle ; while it is clearly for the advantage of the country to postpone for the pre sent the consideration of many problems, the discussion of which will be tumultuous and the result obscure. Mean while political prophets may amuse themselves with guess ing at the details of the unhappy hurricane which, it is to be feared, will sweep over the Liberal party after Lord Palmerston's retirement. Heaven only knows what will become of the 'Liberals ; and, abut for fear of irreverence, we might assert that not even Heaven could say what will become of the Whigs. The hopeS which both Whigs and Liberals smite years'ago might have entertained of an able and acceptable substitute have been lately scattered to the winds by more than one premature and melancholy death. What hopes of the kind might still have survived in Mr. Gladstone have been dissipated by that accom plished and versatile orator himself. That hereafter, at some future date, Mr. Gladstone may yet lead a consi derable party in the country, is both possible and probable. That he can tieVe i r lead the present House of Commons, is absolutely deaf: Putting aside the many brilliant foibles which mar his political character, it is only too evident that he is born with what M. Louis Bittuo calls a geniu for creating implacable enmities. The storm of antipathy which his personalappearance excites upon the Conserva tive benches might be explained in part by natural causes. But the Whigs themselves would as little consent to serve under the generalship of Mr. Glitdstone as the extreme Radicals would tolerate the mild and feeble sovereignty of Sir G. Grey. As for Lord Russell, since his translation to the Lords, he has, to the Liberal 'party, become a sound ing voice. Occasionally, like the;defied Romulus, ho may Appear, in spite of his apotheosis, to a stray and admiring senator. But the mass of the country, if not of the House of Commons, are chiefly convinced Of his existence be cause they heard him continually—as a Roman poet heard Jupiter—thundering at a considerable height above ihem in the clear and cloudless sky of an English House of Lords. In a few years, the great difficulty of the Liberals will be, not who shall give his name to a Cabinet, but who shall lead the party in the-Commons, and it is to be re gretted-that Lord Russell's translation has bereaved his natural associates of an honest, though egotistical, general. THE "Lois-Box REVIEW" ON BQXING DAY.—" Boxing Day," as it is elegantly designated, has been a great occa sion with tho humbler orders from time immemorial ; with them its due celebration is no innovation, as it is with the middle classes. To get in subscriptions in the morning, and to be " glorious" in the evening, is - the old prescriptive way of keeping this yearly festival ; and to the present time, though the asking for gratuities is greatly on the wane, as a result of better education and the proportionate increase of self-respect, the other feature of the day's cere monies is maintained with a persistency with which we should be very glad to dispense:. It is a melancholy and humiliating fact that the season in which we celebrate the chief festiVal of our religion —a religion remarkable for the ,severity of its opposition to all forms of sensualism and grossness—is the very one that developes in the highest degree the peculiar vice which wo appear to have derived - from our Gothic ancestors, who, in the old heathen times could not imagine a Valhalla without perpetual fighting, `or a Paradise without ever-flowing streams of beer and 'meed. It has been shown by statistical returns that we are the most drunken people in the world ; and it is but too Obvious from police reports that Christmas is our most drunken season. The debauchery begins on Christmas eve ; it grows faster and more furious on Christmas-clay it culminates on Boxing-day ;it returns like a ground swell on the eve of the New Year, and for a week or two later it troubles the regular flow of industrial life with its muddy and brawling .current, We last week quoted in I)urhiterztrrevitnrcitte4t4,easage4o,4 fc-work oa ixieritals in which it is stated thatihrou g h ou t th e fi rs t h a lf of. Janu ary the number of cases of delirium tremens arising from ChriStmas drinking bouts is largely increased in all our charitable institutions for the sick and wounded. . Anyone who was about the streets of London last Monday will readily comprehend the truth of this assertion. From an early hour of the day to a late hour at night the pavements were rendered offensive by staggering bacchanals—some of them mere youths, others grey-headed men—all loud and open in their degradation, as thOugh it were an understood thing that the day excused the deed. The emptiness in other respects even of the most crowded thoroughfares was remarkable. Decent people, with those few excep tions whom necessity called forth, were in their homes, enjoying a quiet day with their families, or a merry day with their friends. The eating houses and coffee houses, which were compelled to keep open for the sake of the few regular customers who might be expected, looked dull and cold with nearly empty rooms, in odd corners of which solitary and depreSsed men, with a spite against the world for that particular-occasion, consumed plates of turkey in moody seclusion, and execrated their destinies for bringing them to that pass. But the public houses were alive and roaring with trade and, clamour. Policemen knew that a good day's work was cut out for them, and were not dis appointed. Rows set in steadily with the early after noon, and were at high-tide by midnight. In the hours of the evening, between the admission of theatre-goers to their respective places of amusement and the salient flood of the departing crowd, the Strand itself would have been a desert but for parties of inebriate explorers, bound for nowhere in particular, and not infrequently finding that dubious locality passing, by some mysterious process, into the very positive fact of a police-cell. Drunk hUsbands wrangled with drunk (or sober) wives, and miserable children wept impotently at the brawl. The police were in-requisition in a variety of ways; and next morning, at one police-office alonc--Worship-street—nearly fifty charges were disposed of, arising principally from the ex cesses of the previous day. Christmas-day itself,'however, had been scarcely less prolific in the fruits of debauchery. The cells and the gaoler's room at Bow-street would hardly hold all the prisoners it was fouud necessary to cram into them. "The charges against these persons," says a report in the daily papers, "varied in degree, as drunk and riotous,' drunk and disorderly,' drunk and assaulting the police' (or others), and simply drunk,' which usually means so utterly imbecile and helpless as to be incapable of riot, assault, or indeed of anything but lying iu the gutter." There is . a tendency on the part of magi strates generally to accept the excuse of the 808:- son " urged I.y offenders, who modestly confess - next morning to .having taken "a drop too much" overnight. This is a very- mistaken kindness. The , season is no excuse • whatev e , ntiless the fact of cele brating a Christian festival to be r dcd as a natural in eentisT to getting filthily intoxic4 , .11 We do not say th a t the Most elan - apiary of inagista.7aAntdd " put .down " drunkenness, any more than Sir or ',Laurie -could " put down „ suicide; but the bench sirs Id at least refrai n froo t 10 1 4-ng - it on the back. - That the s el llipost:3 Of ' l . l ~,,-11 , ,n , sometimes have )11° f: A tragical sea ~ is :town by a stotl reported in the pup; l .l.l 7 is we e k.. 4 woman turned middle life invited some of herfeinale fr*ls to a merry-making. They all got dead (ironic; the "hosfe '. reeling about ti, room, fell on to the , bars of the: . .gmete; bet' clothes were ablaze in a moment; the guests, tkre too helpless to do anything but scream ; 'and when . as;3istance arrived, the poor wretch was past the reach of aid or hope Such is the dark side of an English Christmas ! THE " EXAMINER" ON TILE END or 1864.—We cloSe the historic ledger Of 1864 with a shrug rather than a sigh. _lt may sound ungracious in ears pious and polite to say that it was upon the whole a good-for-little year, and that we are glad to have done with it. But in truth and can i dour, what else can - We.say ? Neither abroad nor at home have any of the high hopes cherished at its commencement been realized. TwelVe months ago hUmanity foLdly, per suaded itself that enough of blood 'and treasure had been squandered in:the American Civil War, and that one wgy or other. it -must soon terminate ; yet here we are on another New Year's Eve, and with unabated slaugh ter the end' is not yet, nor does it even . Seem to be in sight, A twelvemonth since Poland was still in arms; and Denmark still was an unpartitioned realm. Our diplo macy and our public opinion had fed the 'expectation in both of help or interposition or succour of some descriptlOn, but we have stood by and seen both victimssof rapacious despotism hewn down and rifled in broad day in spite of our :vain protestations and calls on heaven to witness the injustice done. Then, by way of a finish, Mr. Cobden ex .. ults in the unsatisfactory figure England has cut in these transactions; and Lord Napier, 'on quitting St. Peters burg for Berlin, congratulates the Czar upon England's renewed acquiescence in his merciless treatment of Poland, as calculated to cenient . the: mutual confidence and friend ship of the two empireS. A twelvemonth ago some san guine people imagined .tha:t. under the . advice of France Italian freedom and the Papacy might somehow , be recon ciled, and thafeavoiir's dream of a Free Church in a Pree State WAS about to be fulfilled. We say the royal Go vernment consent to waive indefinitely its claim to call a Parliament at Reins ; and We saw the French Einperor pledge himself to withdraw his troops from that city. Italian :pride and ambition nauseated the compact, at first refused to swalloW it, and only did so even- Wally, making making wry faces. No sooner is it ratified, however, than the Vatican • breaks forth in terms of denunciation of all concerned, and of every principle and postulate of civil freedom recognised in Christendom. It unfurls the old banner of reaction and of eccleSiastical supremacy over all temporal privileges and powers ; and calls on the faithful everywhere to sustain its antiquated pretensions to civil and :religious supremacy. • Such is the net result of that French . diplomacy so Ling described as equally subtle and profound, far-sighted and invincible. A twelyemonth ago we hoped against hope that the mad scheme 14 setting up a European throne in Mexico would not be persisted in, fraught as it must inevitably be with the seeds of a desperate and sanguinary struggle between republicanism and monarchy in the New World. No man of any party in America affects to conceal the spirit in • •Which this sinister project is tiniversatirregarded thertyor 'to doubt that whenever the Civil War is ended, compensa tion will instinctively be sought for its troubles and humi liations in a national movement for the expulsion of Maxi milian the Inipostor and his foreign myrmidons. Nevertheless we find the stupid cabinets of Europe, ono after another, acknoWledging his - make-believe Majesty, just as if he Were a real king by hereditary des Cent or popular 'elec tion. At home we have now our fill of industrial prosperity and an uninterrupted span of public health, for which let us be thankful. A few great crimes and two or three signal scandals have ruffled the surface of our self-satisfaction "but upon the whole; the year has passed without any notable disturbance, f public tranquillity. In two or three places numerous bodies of workmen 'have stru.ek . for higher wages, and lost a great deal of valuable time in an unavail ing struggle to obtain them—but it is a good sign of head way made in the path of popular improvement that so few symptoms of a desire to resort to violence manifested then:- selves on the occasion. Even Ireland, otie.e so restless and excitable, has, save in one sad instance, been true to its re-: pentant vows of peace and order.• It is only sad to think that there seems so little chance' of its improved-habits being rewarded with •concessiondtb right and justice for merly refused on the plea of not yielding to insubordination. When persons were shot and glebe-lands harried once a month,. Parliamentary prilificians declared that' the law must be vindicated before any, question of sectarian equality was even considered. Now that there is not a shillelah flourished it a fair, our conservative scribes and hypocrites tell us the people are content, and that theY haVe come to regard an alien " Church establishment as a blessing. The legislative records of 1864, we are sorry to Say,' are only too well fitted to teach the Irish people that in not being troublesome there is no hope for theni. Pretty much the same leSson is inculcated in like manner regarding our own grievance, that of exces. SiVa taxation. The tone of grumbling has been so defer entially low that no regard whatever seems to have been paid to it. We have allowed our Franco-phobists to'go on pitching our money into the sea to try and find founds-. tions there for marine fortresses, which, if they could even be built, we should never be able to man, and which, if manned,_ an invader would, as a matter of course, simply avoid. We have allowed the War Office to go on manu facturing colossal guns at huge cost that are only certain on trial to burst, because job-ocracy says it cannot make out what better to do. In all departments, as Mr. Glad stone confesses, we are spending far more than we get any value. for; . and no serious attempt has been made during the 'year to turn over a new leaf in fiscal or financial economy, .to abate taxation or to. pay off debt. As for any extension of popular rights, the thing has not even been whispered. The pledges which the Parliament of 1859 took at its baptism it impu dently'forswore in its youth, and has half forgotten in its decrepitude. Nobody would believe it now if it said the contrary. So long as it cumbers the grokmd at Westminster thedisfranchised industry and intelligence of the country have no chance of .even a serious consideration of their clainui, and in certain quarters that is an additional motive for keeping it there as long as possible. But the day of reckoning cannot be much longer delayed, and it will assuredly be rigorous and resentful the longer it is postponed. COUNTRY MARKETS. _r.__._.~~__~~r LEICESTER —SATURDAY. There was less than an average supply of wheat, the, condition of the samples being fair. Buyers could only supply their wants at an advance of is. per quarter. YORK—SATITRDAY. The supply was limited, and the attendance of the trade was fair. Sales were made to a tolerable extent, and late rates were exceeded about ls. per quarter. For white samples prices ranged from 40s. to 455. for red 365. to 395., per 36 stone. There was a fair demand for barley, and a good share of business was done at quite as much money as last week ; malting 28s. to 30.; grinding, 255. to 275. 1 per qr. Oats were a tolerable sale, and easily maintained.- their value ; new 20s. to 22s,,per 24 stone. OXFORD—SATURDAY. There was a good attendance to-day, and a large quan tity of corn offering ; the sales made were at an ituprore , ment on last week's rates ; the advance was reluctantly .complied with and onl: . samples. NORIVICII-SATuRDAr. • There was a fair supply of wheat at this market to-day, but the damp weather of the past, few days had affected the condition of many samples ; all good and dry samples realised an advance of ls. per quarter, but other sorts met dull sale. The supply of barley was fair, and in somei instances a trifling advance was obtained for the best sam- , . ples. Secondary and grinding sorts met a limited talc outj late terms. ROCHES TER--SATunDAY. There was a fair attendance at this exchange, and bust ness, on the whole, was rather more active. For the be parcels of white wheat an impr o vem en t o f 6d. to 1 8 . quarter was obtained, the terms being 40s. to 445. for beBt, 4 l Ind 365. to 40s. for secondary and inferior parcels; bead red samples were 375. to 408., and others 335. to 375. peV. quarter. NOT TINGIIAII—SATunDAY. 41 There was a moderate quantity of w h ea t on off e r f ro the growers. Th e d eman d was s t ea d y, a t l s. per quarte more money. Old w hit e so ld a t 43 5 . t o 46 5. ; o ld red, 39.. to 41s. ; new white, 41s. to 445. • new red, 375. to 40s. pe 36 stone.. The demand for barley ruled steady, and Hi' best sorts sold at a small advance ; other - kiuds fully a dear. Railway Traffic Returns for the Week. Mlles Opened. Receiptq. Railways. .‘,.. -.% 1863. 1864. 1863. Belfast and N. Counties 136 136 1,971 2,303 Belfast and County. Down 49 49 778 752 Blyth and Tyne 2B ' 2 ; 1,114 1,161 Bristol and Exeter l2ll 121 i 7,651 6,671 Caledonian 2Bll 2621 20 .99 18,F5 ) Cambrian Cockerrnouth& Workington Bl .81 - -- Cork and Bandon 2O . 20 335 383 Cork, Blind:rock, & Pa.ssage 6} 6} 131 223 Cork and Yonghal Cornwall 6s} 654 1,828 1.61 1 ' Deeside l7 17 298 22 i ' Dublin & 13e1fastJunction 63 6.3 1,301 1.431. Dublin and Drogheda 7 5. 75 1,519 1,44 Dublin and Meath Dub. & Wicklow and - Wextd 9l} 912 2,691 2,6 01 Furness, &c 5O . 5 1 2,913 2,478 '` Glasgow & South- W estern GLEastern,Nrlk.,&E.Union Great Northern 787 353 10.143 ..11.910.. Great North of Scotland -58 tal 2,553 2.311. lit.Northn. & Wes tn. (Ire!.) 7ll 714 829 48/ qt.Sontlin.& Westn.(lrind.) 3Bl 373 i 8.21/ 793 Great Western 1225 1100 7zo 1;2 65,2 3 I lull and llvrnsea l3 - 98 Inverness & Aberdeen Jinn 1174 I(s} 1,111 1,01 Inverness & Perth .Jun...tion 1194 119} ~313 1,0 S. Irish North-Wcsteru 145 145 1,511. 1.5.3" Kent Coast 27 27 &0 4 Lancashire & Yorkshire 413 401. 37.3.:6 37,97.1.; Limerick and Ennis.. Limerick and Foynes 262 262 82 07 Mallet ly Llynvi Valley London & North-Western London and Blackwell al 5 .1.793 3,773 London & South-Western Loud. Brighton, &S. Coast 2671 2611 18,(38 18 ; 14 London, Chat ham, & Dover 724 22f 0,135 6.127 Do. Metropolitan Extension 116 104 1,426 7,1 10 Low. Tllbtuy, & Southend-.. . 42* 4:} 1,‘.12 1,0/7' Ilitn.,Slieffield,& Lineoli 11, 2424 212} 18.191. 37 i", - 6 Mann. 5../ un.&Altrinch -- • llaryport and Carlisle .... 47, - - .28 28 1,619 1_ _69 , ;I.jet ropolltan 1"-.1 - - '34 , 34 2,192 2,4 .4 minan , .: (iiici. N.-ll'veterto :' ,- W.i . , .1... i :1 - 3,:',33 15.131* Midland Gt... - Westn. of.lrindc.. !:...:: - , - ,.2-%114 5.. 67 4 ' 1 . 6 , Monkland ~ ....,.... ....... .14-44 . 711 • 711 _ 1; 5 1. I.'''' Mon mouths h. Bail. & Cabal:. 4 . . 4, ,A 4 274 2,418' _ Nouli 11ritish,-.l , :din., 11;rth . 4 and Dundee .....,. 6154 58 . 34 20,738 2. 11 1 4 N;-Eastern and-Stock.. & Dan. ; 1025 1095 61;6211 65,85; North London - 9 3,1:61 3,)81 North Staffordshire 251 .... .25i 8,964 8,9 6' Ethymney l9l • - ~ 191 1,• 69 . 99 Scottish Central Scottish North-Eastern . . 138 . - .138 4,931. 4,17.3 Somerset and Dorset .66 68 845 10 South Devon South-Eastern 306 306 23,330 23,: 0 2 Tali Vale 57 •. 67 • •6,611 6,0 , Ulster Vale. of Clwyd Vale of Neath 431 434 2,815 2.13 3 Waterford emil Kilkenny 3l 31 323 . 20i Waterford and Limerick 77 .. 77 1,223 1.09 8 West Cornwall ' 274 274 800 750 W.llaftlepoolliarbr.&ltall 521 s:} - 4,009 3,4 21 A rhaven.Cleator,&Egrnint lO 10 714 0 8 Whitehaven Junction l2 It 1.010 92 3 Whitehaven & Furness Jun 35 85 929 893 FOREIGN AND COLONIAL. Austrian .• B2B Bahia and San Francisco Belgian Eastern J unction 26 Bombay, Baroda, & Cen. India 1854 Detroit and Milwaukie lB9 Dutch Rhenish lOB4 'Crown of France Eastern Bengal East Indian Grand Trunk of Canada 1342 Greet Central of Belgium.- -22.1 Great Indian Peninsula 5',3 Great Luxembourg 134 Great Southern of trrdia Brent Western of Canada 315 Madras Madrid, Saragossa &Alicant (81 Northern of Canada .. Northern of France 697 Norwegian Trunk Ottoman .. 4B} Paris, Lyons. & Medlterrn 1967 Paris and Orleans 1616 Pernambuco 77} Scinde.... Do. Punjab, ..t.c South Austrian Southern of France .... 823 Victoria Welland 25 West Flanders 75 West & N- %Vesta Of France lOll 1864. 826 40,205 3%139: 76 1 6iB 3 2 281 , 36,5 i 2,833 .2,T27: I,s 5,n71 - 5,6 ,4 ; 1031 5,516 3 978 1128 67,352 GO fif 110 2,112 1,191 037 • -- • 1333 220 '.t2l 538 i 131 4,6:0 3.7 79 5t2 or t v 3 5 11,6 t 3 12,: 448 h.OZO 7 fif 660 18,072 11,711 r, 91 --"11 614 53,376 5014? 44 3,0 3 1. 3 2 481 538 351 17 - 31 140,817 135,.7 3 1614 6 , ,751 C6; 4 1 1 77) 688 519 105 32 1505 5 ,079 49,33 t 770 27,804 f,7,279 198 9,483 twit 75 1,014 9 6 031 4 ,443 3F,331 Foreign Mail Packet List. Australia and New Zcaland, via Southampton Jar. 18. Ditto, via Marseilles Jan. 12. Brazil and Cape Vcrds, by British pac. et Jan. 4. Ditto, by British packet Jan. 21. Cape of Good Hope, Ascension; and St. Helena FeD. O. China, Penang, and Singapore, via Son hampton Jan 2. Ditto, via Marseilles Tan. 11. , Falkland Islands . Jan. --. Gibraltar, via Southampton Jan. 2. India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Scutitatnoton...,Jan. 2. Ditto, via Marseilles India (B,,mbay), vla Southampton .....Jan. 11. Ditto, via narseilles Mauritius, via Southampton .Jan. 12. Ditto, via Marscil e , ...,.Jan. 5. Newfoundland Portug 1 Jan. 4. Ditto, by private s hi p • • Tan. to Lisbon.. ,United States and British North America, by-1:H - tish'packet ..........Jan. -4. - - America, by British p ac k e t Jan. 4. Ditto, by United States packet, via Southarap t n Ditto,.via Cork Ditto, by Canadian packet, via Londouderry..Jan. ---. Births. MONTA.GIT.—On the 31et ult., at 72, loverileiz_lerrac, , , the Lady Robert 31outagn, of a (laughter. OonvrE.—On the 29th ult., at Bognor, near Petwerth, ,Sussex, the .wife of Lieutenant -Colonel Patrick Ogilvie, of twins. Marriages. JAUCOURT—STEINER—On the 27th inst., atSaltrarn, Doe, shire, Le Comte de Jan cour t , to' Lena Victoria, riaugh-j ter of Frederich Steiner, Esq., Tryndburia, Lancashire. 5TO'Cli-INNES.--on the -29th ult., at Aberdeen, Edwardi W. Stock, Esq., of Lincoln's-inn, to Barbara Forbes, thO eldest daughter of Sir janieslne limes, Bart., of Ball veny and Edingight, county of Banff. Deaths. BANNERMAN.—On the .30th qlt.,.at.his ..rec,idence, ChorleA Alexander Bannerman, Esq., aged H. DEBENHAM.--On the 30th tilt, at Theydon Bois, EsseX Robert Debenham, Esq., aged 61. • FELLOWES.—On The 30th ult., Mi.. Sohn Fellowes, of Sussex-street, but late of Tottenham-court-road. A. ranch respected member of the news trade for upwards of forty years. Nicitous.—On the 31st ult., at 71, Piccadilly, Mr. llenryi Nieholes, aged 75. London: Pt! led and Publldhed by IVIL LIAM ANDREWS, of No. 11?, StrAnd, Printer, at THE SrN Office, No 112, Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the County of Middletex.—Monday, January 2, 18:76. THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 2, 1865. ..•._ • ,~