The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-13 00:00:00

THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.

CELEBRATION AT WOOLWICH.

It was quite natural, and a thing to be expected,
when, after an arduous, lengthened, and long dubious
struggle success has at last crowned the efforts of our
troops, and those of our gallant ally, that the triumph
should be celebrated at our principal arsenal, where
many of the arms and munitions are manufactured by
the instrumentality of which that suceess has been
achieved. Accordingly it was appointed that such cele-
bration should take place last evening. To give greater
eclat to the occasion it was arranged that Lord Panmure,
the Minister of War—the sun of our military system—
and his two principal satellites, Mr. Monsell, the clerk
to the Ordnance, and Mr. Frederick Peel, the Secretary
at War, should be present. Preparations•were made
at the arsenal for their reception. The employes, hear-
ing of what was about to take place, of their own accord
decorated their workshops in such a manner as their
means and their limited time enabled them. The
trees in the neighbourhood were denuded of some of
their spare branches, which were cut off and hung up in
the various workshops, and they were interspersed With
Union Jacks and the tri-coloured banner of France, pre-
senting quite a gay appearance. For some distance be-
yond the entrance-gate there was a line of the flags of all
the allies, and prominent amongst them was one bearing
the sign of the crescent and the cross. Over the gateway
was an illumination, the design being the crown and the
letters "V. N." The main entrances to the different
workshops were also illuminated.
Lord Panmure, Mr. Monsell, and Mr. Frederick Peel,
arrived at the Arsenal about half-past eight o'clock, and,
accompanied by the heads of the departments, they im-
mediately commenced an inspection of the works, or,
rather, they made a run through the different workshops,
for the time at their disposal was too short to do more.
First, they went into the gun factory, and witnessed the
process of boring ; then they looked at the moulds which
were in preparation for casting. Then they passed into
the shell factory, where, for their edification, a quantity
of metal in a state of fusion was run into the moulds.
The forges were next visited ; in one, Nasmyth's ham-
mer was welding white-hot iron with fifty elephant
force ; and in another, men were drawing white-hot
iron through machines, elongating it into long strips
and twisting it and turning it about and doing appa-
rently just as they liked with it. The metal working
shops were next visited, and after them the saw mills
and wheelery, but no great step was made in them, but
in one of them they remained to witness a wheel being
closed by ,hydraulic pressure. That done they passed
into the carriage departments. In it alone more than
two thousand workmen are employed, and many are the
objects on which their industry is exercised—gun-car-
riages, waggons of all sorts, carts, ambulances, cap.
stuns, powder cases, shell boxes, and a host of
other things, too numerous, as the auctioneers say,
to mention, are here made, and great must be the
requirement for them, seeing that so many men,
aided by so much machinery, are here kept
constantly at work. Here were ambulance carts,
bread carts, water carts, electric telegraph carts, and
several other kinds of carts, all necessary in warfare.
There was also a grinding machine, a cart, the axle of
which by its turning can be made to grind coffee or corn.
One could not help wishing that our poor fellows in the
Crimea had had a few of these machines last winter to
grind their coffee with. But we must not digress, though
there is.some temptation. With the carriage department
the " inspection" ended. Thereupon the officials got in
their carriages and rode, and other people walked to the
Marsh, where the real celebration 'was to come off. Here
many thousands of persons had assembled. A low plat-
form had been erected, and a most magnificent pyrotech-
nic display took place ; rockets were sent up simultane-
ously by the score and the hundred, some with red lights,
some with blue, And eons with whito-so intense that ..they
dazzled the sight, and the golden spargs were so nume
rous and spread so wide that they almost for the moment
seemed to create a vast starry firmament. Parachutes,
too, were fired from coborns, and they illumined
the sky each of them for minutes before they descended
to the earth. At length there was an end to this, as
there is to all things, and then a huge bonfire was seen
apparently near a mile off. It was on the Butts, and
when it was well lit a salute of 101 guns was fired from
a battery near it. The fire blazed high, and must have
been seen far many miles round.