The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-30 00:00:00

LICENSED VICTUALLERS' SCHOOLS.

The anniversary dinner in support of the above
schools took place yesterday at the lillibbury Barn T
and wu one of the most sumessfuefestivals known formally
years past. Considerably upwards of 2,000 penons sat
down to dinner in an immense marquee on the lawn, and
nearly the same number of ladies wu accommodated in a
gallery which ran round the whole of the interior. The
chair wu taken by LZ7IIOII ELLtorr, Esc., supported by
several of the most influential members of the trade.

I-- iiiTiii.iiiiir,ihe secretary, tienieadtieiiii of sub-
scriptions, from which it resulted that the society was
enriched by donation, &c., to the amount of upwards of
2,0001.

THE SOAP lIIITY.—On Wednesday next the duty
will be taken off soap, and not on Tuesday, as erroneously
supposed. The words of the repealing act are—" from and
after the 6th July," making Wednesday the 6th, the
operation day.
LORD WORCESTER'S " INVENTIONS."—Oar noble
friend jumps about from ono subject to another with an
alacrity truly remarkable ; his projects are as numerous
and varied as those of Uncle Jack, in Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton's novel. A way to level and shoot cannon by night
as well as by day ; a quick mode of weighing an anchor ;
a way to make a boat work itself against wind and tide ;
how to make " • little engine, within a coach, whereby
a 'child may stop it, and secure all persons within it,
aid the coachman himself, though the horses be so
unruly, in full career ;" how to raise water constantly with
two buckets only, day and night, without any other force
than its own motion ; how to " increase the strength
of a spring to such a degree as to shoot bonabasses and
bullets of • hundred pounds weight • steeple height ;" how
to " light a fire and a candle, at what hour of the night
one awaketh, without rising or putting one's hand out of
bed ;" how to make an artificial bird fiy which way, and as
long as one pleueth ; a way to make ' a complete light
portable ladder, which, taken out of one's pocket, may be
by himself fastened an hundred feet high ;" how to make a
pistol to discharge a dozen times with on.. loading, and
without so much as once new priming requisite ; a way,
" with a flask appropriated into it, which will furnish
either pistol or carabine with a dozen charges in three
minutes' time." Such are some of the inventions, nearly
in the order in which they are placed. Many of the
marquis's projects altogether defy one's penetration;
but others point curiously to ideas which have
fructified in men's brains in latter times. We do not know,
and probably never shall know, how much these later in-
ventors owe to him. In an age of Colt's revolvers, one would
almost give a little finger to know how the marquis made
" a pistol to discharge a dozen times with once loading."
The tiring of cannon, as well as the sinking of ships, seems
to have been a cherished subject with the noble inventor.
His fifty-fourth item is a bouncer; "tried and approved
before the late Kiog (of ever bleucd memory) and a hun-
dred lords and commons, is a cannon of eight inches and
half a quarter, to shoot bullets of sixty-four pounds weight,
and tweuty-four pounds of powder, twenty times in six
minutes; so clear from danger that, after all were dis-
charged, a pound of butter did not melt, being laid upon
the cannon hitch, nor the green oil discoloured that was
first anointed, and used between the barrel thereof, and
the engine having never in it, nor within six foot, but one
charge at the time." If the reader can solve this riddle,
welland 'ad.—Dicke/Ws "Boufehold intros."