The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

ON Monday the vacant professorship of geometry
in Gresham College was filled up by the election of
the Rev. Morgan Cowie, late Fellow of St. John's
College, and Hulsean lecturer in the University of
Cambridge. Mr. Cowie was senior wrangler in 1839,
and for Some years principal of the Engineers' Col-

_
lege, at Putney.
THE Head Mastership of St. Bees Grammar School,
Cumberland, has become vacant by the preferment

of the Rev. Miles Atkinson.
Os MONDAY the inmates of the metropolitan work-
houses were, as usual at this season, generally re•
galed on Christmas fare. The Christmas pudding
for the indoor paupers of St. Pancras parish was
composed of be cwt. of fruit, 1 cwt. of sugar, 31bs. of
spice, and 3 sacks of flower, 300 eggs, 9 gallons of
milk, &c. 84 stone, of 141b5., was the quantity of
beef cooked.

THERE were no papers published in Cork, Limerick,
or Tipperary, on Tuesday, notices having appeared
informing their subscribers that as Christmas-day
would fall on Monday, they would not publish till
the following Wednesday. The example, however,
was not followed in Kilkenny, Mayo, Belfast, or
many other districts and towns of Ireland.
PETER MATHIESON, for nearly thirty years coachman
to Sir Walter Scott, died at Abbotsford on Thursday
week, at the great age of eigthty-four or eighty-five
years. He was brother-in•law of Sir Walter's faith-
ful Tont Purdie, and was taken into the poet's ser-
vice about the year 1804, when Scott first set up a
carriage.
ABOVE 1,000 pairs of the new boots to be worn by
soldiers in the Crimea, extremely watertight and im •
penetrable to snow-water, and principally for those at
work in the trenches, have been sent to the Ord-
nance stores at the Tower by the contractors. The
boots are made of cowhide, manufactured on a pecu-
liar principle, being stretched to its full extent and
well hammtred ; there is then laid on a coating of
some fluid which renders the leather extremely
pliable; the soles are about three-sixteenths of an
inch in thickness, and the legs of the boots reach
above the wearer's calves. There are several thou-
sand pairs ordered, and those at present in the
stores will be sent out by the first conveyance to the
Crimea.
The steam-ship Himalaya, having made good the
defect which occasioned her detention at Malta, was
taken out of dock on Sunday week, and was to leave
in a day or two afterwards with about 000 invalids,
and 500 women and children, for England.
MISS STEWART, sister of Sir Michael R. Shaw
Stewart, Bart., has given 10,000/. to endow an episco-
pal chapel in Port Glasgow, securing 2001. a year to
a rector, and 1001. to a curate. A magnificent
church, having chancel and nave, and a rectory and
schools, will also be erected by the same lady, and
will be finished by Whit Sunday, 1850. The ground
will be given by Sir Michael. The Rev. T. Beau-
mont Walpole will be the incumbent.
THERE iS reason to believe that a large instalment
of the wooden huts and other comforts have by this
time reached the army in the Crimea. The Cosmo-
politan, the Cumberland, and the John Bowes, steam-
transports, laden with huts, left Gibraltar for the
East; the first on the 15th, and the two last on the
18th inst. The Aline, laden with stores, also pro-
ceeded to the East on the 18th, after coaling.
THE Isabella 11., a steamer laden with stores of
every kind, the contributions of the public, has
sailed from Irongate-wharf,i Tower, under the
auspices of the Committee of the Crimean Army
Fund, for Balaclava, where the comforts thus pro-
vided will be gratuitously distributed among the
troops.
IT is feared that an Inverness vessel, the Isabella
Anderson, has been lost during the recent storms.
She left Leith about three weeks ago, and has not
since been heard of.
UNCLE SAN IS DEAD. His name was Samuel
Wilson, and he died in Troy, New York, in August,
aged 84. He first labelled Government goods
" U. 5.," for which practice the soldiers originated
the name of " Uncle Sam," instead of "Jonathan."
THE HIRED STEAM-TRANSPORT Adelaide, Captain
Young, sailed from Plymouth on Thursday night for
Balaklava. She embarked at Deptford and Green-
hithe 44 large guns, ordnance stores, clothing, and
provisions for the land forces, ammunition for the
fleet, and 44 guns, shot, shell, and ammunition for
the Ottoman Government ; and at Portsmouth and
Plymouth detachments for the 10th, 34th, 38th, and
88th Regiments and 2nd Battalion of the Rifle
Brigade, comprising 13 officers and 438 men. The
screw steam-sloop Malacca left Plymouth under
steam and canvass on Wednesday, with troops and a
mail for the Crimea.

THE presence of the French imperial steam-
frigate La Reim Hortense, at Southampton, has given
occasion to a public meeting, at which the mayor
presided, and at which a complimentary address was
presented to M. Le Conte Excelmans, captain of the
vessel. The meeting was followed by a dijcuner,
accompanied by the usual interchange of loyal and
amicable toasts and speeches.

SATURD.

IAY,

LORD RAGLAN (writes a correspondent from the
Crimea to the Times) is getting into great disrepute
for want of proper attention to the comforts of his
troops. They say he receives news of the sickness,
misery, and death surrounding him with either an
impatient shrug of disbelief, or a petulant exclama-
tion of " Oh, you are merely exaggerating ; quite im-
possible things are so bad as all that." You will say
at once that it is an easy matter for himself to in-
quire into the actual truth of such reports by a per-
sonal inspection of each division ; the answer to this
is, that many of the regiments have never seen him,
or he them, since the Alma.

UPWARDS of 100,000 sand-bags, a great quantity
of salt meat and biscuits, in casks, a number of
tents and ovens, and other materiel for the army of
the East, have just been sent to Havre, to be tor-
warded to the Crimea.
THE GREAT GUN PRACTICE and trial of the Lan-
caster gun continuos at Shoeburyness, Essex. The
booniing report of the Lancaster is distinctly beard
on these shores' (Whitstable), a distance of about
26 miles, and is even much louder than that of the
32 pounder used in the drilling of the Coast Guards
at Seasalter, a distance of only a mile.
THE MISSES COLLINSON, of Bolden, sisters of the
Arctic navigator, have made 100 wolleu masks or
hoods to cover the face, similar to those used in their
brother's vessel in the Polar regions, which have
been sent off to the Crimes.