The Express.
London, England, 1862-06-02 00:00:00

NAVAL ANI) MILITARY.

ADMIRALTY, MAY 31 ATPOINTMENIS.--Sur-
goons 1). N. Shaw, to the Medea ; sad J. Elliott, to be ad-
ditional to the Royal Adelaide.

PORTSMOUTH, JUNI 1.
The Megrere, 6, iron screw troopship, Commander
S. IL Henderson, arrived on Friday evening from Jersey,
having on board the headquarters of the 5.5 th Regiment.
She will convey the remaining division of the 18th Regi.
meat to the Channel Wanda _

The Norw ogTaTierieW corvette Noreen, Captain Smith,
arrived at Spithead yesterday morning from Chenapeake,
sad will sail homeward on Wednesday next.
The Prussian brig, probably the Elbe, is in sight, and will
anchor at Spithend.

CAPTAIN CROPTON. —We (Freeman's Journal)
have much satisfaction in being able to announce that his
Excellency the Lord• Lieutenant conferred the honour of
knighthood on Friday, at the Vieeregal Lodge, on Captain
Walter F. Crofton, C. 8., Director of Government Pnsons.
His Excellency, in conferring the distinction, expressed his
high sense of Captain Crofton's official services, and his sin-
cere gratification in being thus enabled to mark his personal
approbation of them on captain erotica's retirement from
duties he had so ably and so efficiently performed.

ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL.

We regret to learn that all the efforts of the
governors of the above hospital to emerge terms whereby
the patients might remain till a new hospital could be
built (subject, of course, to the occupation of any part of
the land required by the railway company) have ewtirely
failed. The company first demanded • rent of 18,000!. for
Cu. year, and that the hospital should pay all oasts of
arbitration, &c., them cons the railway company being
liable to pay, either under the Leeds Clauses Act
or by the &nee of the Vies.Claneeller Wood. The reply
of the governs/1 to this propositioa was to the effect
that they could not interfere with the enemies of meta
which must take the course determined by law, but would
give a rent of 12,00 W. per annum far two yam, subject to
• six months notice after the first year, this 12,0001. being
the interest of the total purcluaernoney for the whole
hospital at the usual rate of 4 per emit. This was refused
on Thursday last, but a further propositioa, at the request of
Lice hospital, was made by the railway company. This was
a rent of 18,0001. for oue yaw, coupled, at the same time,
with the payment of costs under certain condltioos, amount.
leg to about 10,000 i. more, the hospital to pay. also the
costs of the company is the eppml to the Lord Chaseellar.
The pied amputates of the hospital agreed to give the
16,0004 proansurn, but declined to Misdate with the meta
in any meaner whatever. The segotlatios then terminated,
and the gevences having made every effort in their power
for • counsissa mastics of the difoulty se above stated,
had hartunately sot minted theansagemeute with other
Leaden licipitals, and will sew remove all their patients
by the middle or end of :illy. These arrangements will
she allow, in nearly all ores, of their own Curses, surgeons,
sad paranoiacs attersdieg patients trees their distrient
Maces are also all ready . for a haw hospital, memo-
noodating out and is indicate is the seighbourhood of the
present building, and also for the receipt and care of oases
of 'accident.— Ofeener.

Gentlemen ;kg; requige .so id and fashionable
Dross an depe4 gm di, boa ataterials aid Wed 471* at
limilltoo sad liojeca* Mnbe, eppefille Rut* Mail
(10,41iiesmeat.1

gbmn oot+attlycted.
The land under water must be at least eight
ihousand sores, all now given back for a time to
Alm soh Iran which it was originally reclaimed.
-The broad sheet of clayey-coloured water—coloured
by the washings of the land underneath, sodded
here and there with the tops of cropped willows,
which look no larger than cabbages, showing at
some fete points a strip of hedgerow like a line of
watercress plants, and at other points the yellow'
ridge of a drowned hayrick, backed by the heavy
rain-charged clouds which threaten every moment
to increase the flood, forms a picture anything but
cheerful. In the middle of the waste are many
large farmhouses, floating like arks hall out of the
water, or more humble cottages, the deserted homes
of labourer!, with their red tiles just peeping above
the muddy waves. The strong westerly wind
swirls the water at the great breach in the bank,
until it presents the appearance of a harbour bar,
and the stoutest boatmen engaged to row over the
last meadows find a difficulty in getting clear of the
drain river. Broken bridges at different points
along the Middle Level Drain stand in helpless
splintered raggedness to attest the force of the
flood, and to show what it must have been before
the breach in the bank eased the swollen channel at
the expense of a small province. Those who have
gazed half-shudderingly upon Sir Edwin Landseer's
picture of "The Highland Flood " can now see a
similar scene standing in solid reality before them
by taking an easy journey of three hours to the;
ancient town of Lynn. A drive of seven miles will
take them to the great lake, and show them more
than a dozen newspaper articles can describe.
Two dams (alluded to in former numbers of our
journal) having been broken down in process of
construction by drifting barges, the hopes of the
Marshland farmers are uow centred upon the coffer-
dam which Mr. Leather, the contractor, is pushing
forward across the Middle Level Drain, about half
a mile abode the blown-up sluice. The framework
of this dal was expected lo be completed on Satur-1
day night, by which time 52 piles, of a length of
53 feet each,were driven to a depth of 20 feet into
the earth. To accomplish this about ten engines
have been used, and it has taken seven days to do
it. All them piles are girded together by iron
bolts, fixed into the bed of the river, by an expert
diver from Foetland' and Spithead, and similar
stays at the swim* of the water. The piles are
seven feet' spar% and in the grooves aro to be fixed
panels of wood, eight inches thick, eased with an
inch of sheet iron. The centre is to be filled up with
clink and puddle. It is intended to make the
coffer-dam a solid piece of work, and not to have a
sluice through it.
The effect of the work so far as it has proceeded
has been to reduce the level of high water within
the dam about a foot below its level outside ; and
the only question now is whether the immense
strain can be withstood until the process of filling
in is accomplished.
When, however, this primary step is gained, the
difficulties of the Middle Level itself (which have
at present been in abeyance) will commence in
earnest. When the sluice first gave way, the fear
was that the whole of that level might be flooded
by the overflowing or bursting of the banks ; and
that Whittlesey Mere (which within a few years
had been drained through the Middle Lloyd Cut and
converted into a fertile tract) would return to its
condition of a great inland lake, and a reservoir for
the drainage of the surrounding districts. But
as soon as an outlet was funned through the
breach into Marshland Fen, the Middle Level itself
was relieved of all danger.
The fears of the inhabitants of Marshland proper
having for the time been relieved by the continued
efficacy of the bank between that tract of country
and Marshland Feu, attention is for the time
transferred to Magdalen, Bardolph, and Downbam
Fens, which are imminently endangered (as we have
before stated) by the state of the east bank of the
drain opposite to the breach. The ravage in the
foot of this hank occasioned by the water from the
flooded lands pouring against it at ebb tide is of
serious extent and continually increasing. A cer-
tain amount of work, in the way of depositing clay
bags and cluncb, has, it is true, been performed
for stopping the damage ; but nothing would
less surprise us than to hear that this hank
has given way and laid under water the dis-
tricts just named. The broken ends of the west
bank, forming the boundaries of the breach itself,
have also been faggoted and strengthened, to pre-
veut their further erosion by the influx and efflux
'of the tidal water. By plumbing the breach it has
been ascertained that its depth is greater than that
which the drain itself bad previous to the accident;
and to a considerable distance from the margin of
the drain the soil has also been scooped out so as to
form a hollow which will be very plainly perceptible
when the water is drawn off.

When the dam is closed, the next step, it is pre-
sumed, will be to repair this breach in the bank, as
until this is done nothing can be effectually
attempted for the recovery of the 8,000 acres of
submerged lands, because they will still have poured
upon them the drainage waters of a tract of fen
country at least twenty times as large, besides all
that reaches that level from the upland district;
beyond.
The re-construction of the sluice bridge will be a
work of time, requiring great patience, capital, and
engineering skill. The loss to the district at pre-
sent is very great, although no reliable estimate can
be made. The land under water was generally let
at N. per acre, and the cropping was valuable.
The flood under the most favourable circumstances
may probably be pumped and sucked off the lead
by syphons in a mouth, but the large amount of
salt left will much check future vegetation. The
proposition to raise a fund by subscription has not
been very warmly received in the neighbourhood,
and popular feeling points to law proceedings
against the Middle Level Drainage Commissioners.
The Eastern Counties Railway Company, with
great public spirit, ran • special train to Lynn and
back on Saturday, which did the distance (99 miles)
in three boars each way.

LYNN, SIJIMAT Arnaroon.

The crisis of the spring tides is pest. Yesterday
they reached their highest, end Dow ter a week they will be
waning. The mdfrareleas minelsoi inn en ilaterday, not-
withstanding list the tide of Friary hod famed it about
• foot out of the perpendianier, sad was exported kr same
time to se ow*. The kat pile is the frame-reek was
driven at shoat deer *Week yesterday etternem• es 4
pasatione ware immerlialely made for tbsvpists is ens of the
p•sais nag are letaidly tr ilea the obeterde to the wanes

youth about to be exposed in the arena,
but yet sleeping tranquilly in his cell. A sieve
back the slide which separates him from the
irroh ellitiger which is to devour him, and the clawsand
glaring • eyes of the latter are just indicated
the rapidly dissolving shadow. The public gaze
on this picture with intense interest, and there is
no doubt that, if the painter could by any
mechanical contrivance have arranged that the tiger
should at intervals pounce upon his victim, the
moose of his work would have been complete.
Iran thence the refined visitors of a Saturday's
atteadanoe scattered over the galleries to gaze with
delight on the magnificent cases of laces which
nimble fingers all over the world had prepared for
their sole use. Brussels, guipure, point d'Alengoe,
eiVaienciennes are matters in which the
dailies whose interests we hive been sato/AA%
above have' o interest, but they here their uses In
stimulating the artistic instinct, and they have
their public, whose gratification mist be pro—
vided for as well as 'that of their poorer
neighbours. We do not prides" to be deep
in the mysteries of lace, but we must
confess that we Were struck with the beauty of
some • exhibited in the Brussels department,
and ich we were gratified to learn from the
'tickets attached bad, although •of enormous price,
found purchasers in the Loudon trade. Several of
the finest specimens, and marked at the most ter-
rific' prises, have been made to the order of Mr.
'Hayward, of Oxford-sheet, and groups of ladies
videit be heard Muttering wishes and intentions
round the case of that exhibitor, which induced
fathers and husbands to call off their attention to
leasrebjeses in which they had not so lively a per-
Geoid interest. Another case which was also our-
sensmied by a strong party was that in which
Mews. Grant and Gia, from the same fashionable
Issalihy, spread ova a magnificent specimen of
" Bruesela," contrived not only a double but a
quadruple debt to pay, as forming either a shawl,
a bournoua, a bridal veil, or a tunic. As the price
.01 this magic shawl is only 400 guinea, thaw
will no doubt be quite a competition for so scow-
laical as well as beautiful a piece of lace.
Next to the picture gallery and the lace cases,
the refnahment department was most extensively
patronised by the Saturday company. The con-
' tractors like Saturday best, because although the
company is less numerous they have either better
appetites or more mdney to spend, and make great
' havoc amongst the iota and other lighter refresh-
ments, from the sale of which the most profit is to
be looked for. A good deal of this fashionable
trade was however lost on this occasion, in con-
sequence of the drawing off of an immense section
of the company to Chiswick-house, in the beautiful
grounds of which Earl Granville entertained their
royal and serene highnesses the Duchess of Cam-
bridge, the Princess Mary, and the Grand Duchess
of Mecklenburgli Strelitz, and about 2,000 of the'
nobility, gentry, and elite of the literary and scientific
worlds, including nearly the whole of the jurors of
the Exhibition, both foreign and English. Its this
hospitality of his lordship, however princely and
magnificent, was entirely private and personal, it
will be sufficient to state that every one present
was charmed, equally with the urbanity of the
noble host, the attractions of the house and grounds,
and the elegant abundance of the refreshments.
The French visitors especially, differing entirely
from M. Assolant, declared that they had never
seen anything more charming even at St. Cloud—
we could hardly expect them to go further.
The public, and more particularly our conti-
nental friends, will learn with satisfaction that Mr.
Spielmann's Bureau de Change, to which we alluded
in a former article, will this day be opened at
the northern entrance, facing the Bortimdtural
Gardens.

The number of visitors was as follows :—By
MUM tickets, 11,130 ; by payment of 55.,8,152 ;
total, 17,282. Among those present were the
Duke and Duchess of Manchester, Sir Thomas
Troubridge, the Countess of &afield, Lady Taun-
ton, Lady Dillon, Admiral Walcott, and the
Japanese ambassadors.