The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-29 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 29, 1855.

SALE BY AUCTION.

TO RAILWAY CONTRACTORS AND OTHER LARGE
CAPIT ALISTS.
Gloucestershire and Moninouth.hire. The Hotel, Gardens, Lawn, sill
New Passage Ferry, 11 miles from Bristol.
R. LILLY is instructed to SELL, by
AUCTION, at the Commercial Sale Room, Bristol, on FRI-
DAY, the 2d November, 185 e, at One o'clock precisely,
The Betel, Garden, Bowling Green, extens ve Stabling, Coach-
Louses, and Outbuildings, at the New Passage, with two Cottages
and Gardens, and about eight acres of Meadow and Pasturo Land,
all in the parish of Henbury, in the county of Gloucester, adjoining
the chore of the River Severn, and about 11 miles from the city of
Bristol.

And at the same time and place will he sold,
The ancient Passage or Ferry, across the river Severn, frcrn the
New Passage on the Gloucestershire side to the Black Rock Hotel
on the Monmouthshire side of the river, within a few furlongs of the
South Wales Railway; together with the Quays, Piers, and Landing
Places on the Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire shores, and the
Pill, called Chissell Pill, and all the Tolls, Fines, Payments, and
Emoluments receivable on account of the said Ferry, Piers, Quays,
and Landing-places.
A reference to the Map of England will immediately show the
important positron of this New Passage Ferry. It affords the
shortest route between the West and South-West of England,
Bristol, Bath, Salisbury, and Southampton; and Monmouthshire and
South Wales; and also between Bristol, Herefordshire, Shropshire,
and Liverpool ; and a railway of about ltßy miles would connect the
Ferry with the Midland Railway, the Great Western Railway, and
the Bristol and Exeter Railway. Steam-vessels upon the system in
me between the Cheshire and Lancashire shores at Liverpool, be-
tween New Holland and Hull, and at the Frith of Forth, could con-
veniently ply across the New Passage Ferry; and an immense traffic
in passengers and goods now carried onwith Monmouthshire and South
Wales, across the Bristol c hound, or by the circuitous route of
Gloucester, would be the immediate result of such an improved com-
munication.

The South Wales Line would be reached at a point only fifteen
miles from Bristol, which, via Gloucester, is upwards of sixty.
The above Property well leserves the attention of Railway Con-
tractors, or of any Capitalist wit() is disposed to secure the command
of one of the most Important Railway routes in the kingdom, and
whtch must at an early period be adopted as an indispens.ble mode
of communication between Bristol and Monmouthshire and South
Wales.
NOTE.—The Hotel, Lands, and Ferry will be offered for Qale in one
Lot or in several I.ots, as may be announced at the time of Sale.
To view the Premises apply to the Tenant ; and for further parti-
culars to the Auctioneer, at Bridge-street; or to SAVERT, CLARK,
and FUSSELE, Solicitors, 12, Corn-street, Bristol.

BRITISH COLLEGE of HEALTH, New-
road, London.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the LIST for 1g55 of
HYGE CAN AGENTS duly appointed for the Sale of Mr. Mori,on's
(the Hygeist) Vegetable Universal Medicine throughout the world is
now printed, and may be had gratison application as above.

1110HISON and Co., Hygeists.

QIR WM. BURNETT'S DISINFECTING
►.77 FLUID, for destroying all Offensive Smells and purifying Sic]:
Rooms, &c. Its cost is less than One Farthing per Gallon when
,fluted for use.
Sold by all Chemists, and at 18, Cannon-street, City.
Gallons, ss. Quarts, 2s. Pints, Is. Half-pints, 6d.

THE STORM OF FRIDAY.

The following letter has been addressed to a contem-
porary :-
Sir,-The gale which commenced yesterday and ter-
minated this morning has been accompanied by so many
interesting and important phenomena, and its different
features have been so well marked, that it seems pro-
bable its path, speed, &c., may be traced. The wind,
which had been W.S.W., moved to S.W. at 10 a.m. on
the 25th, and the gale commenced, the direction remain-
ing the same up to 5 15 a.m, of the 26th (the oscillations
reaching W. and S.S.W., and twice S.). The main-
taining minimum pressure for this lengthened period
was Boz., and the maximum pressure 31b., on the square
foot; at 8 30 p.m. it increased to 41b. 70z., but at 8 45
bad decreased to 21b. 15oz. ; at 9 30 it became 311 b., at
10 15 p.m. 41b. 3oz. ; at 11 45 41b. 10oz., and at mid-
night decreased to 31b. 10oz., at 1 a.m. (of 26th) was
21b. 140 z., at 2 15 became 31b. Boz., then immediately
receded to 21b. 10oz , at 3 30 a.m. 41b. 3 tz., then re-
ceded to 21b., at 4 30 was 41b., and at 4 45 became 51b.,
at 5 a.m. 21b. 140 z., 5 5 41b., 5 15 21b. 50z., 5 30 Boz.,
5 45 4oz. ; the wind then remained at a pressure of
4oz. till 11 a.m., when it again became rough ; at 5.1 k
the wind changed to W., and a tremendous storm of
hail and rain commenced, and continued for nearly a
quarter of an hour. At Beeston 0.379 of an inch in
depth of rain fell. At 5.45 a.m. the wind became
W.S.W., and at 6.15 a.m. S.W. At midnight the tem-
perature of the air was 55 deg., and from this hour till
5 a.m. it slowly increased to 56 deg. ' • from the time the
storm of rain and hail commenced the temperature fell
rapidly, becoming as cold as 48.8 deg. in the air and
48.3 deg. on the grass, yet the temperature of the rain
which fell so suddenly was only 32.1 deg., •r 16.2 deg.
lower ; this had the effect of lowering the temperature
of the air 8.7 deg. During the night there was a dif-
ference of 2 deg. between the wet and dry bulb until 5.15
a.m., when the air became much more saturated
with moisture. Between 11 pm. and 10 a.m.
the greatest cold of the wet bulb was 48.7 deg.,
and the greatest heat of the wet bulb 55.2 deg.,
being 0.1 deg. and 0.8 deg. lower than those of the dry
bulb. The mean angle of the air during the gale was
an upward current of about 45 deg. ; before the gale
the air had for three days been moving almost hori-
zontally over the surface of the earth, and at the ceesa-
tion of the gale was only an upward current of 5 deg.
The electricity was positive and feeble until 5 15 a.m.,
when it became negative and powerful-after the storm
(at 6 a.m.) again positive. For ninny days there had
been very little electricity, except at 5 p.m. on the 24th,
when it was negative and powerful, while a hailstorm
passed N.W..of this place at the distance of about a mile.
During the gale the distant prospect had been remark-
ably clear, becoming hazy from the commencement of
the rain and hailstorm. Prior to the gale the ozone had
been feeble ; during its continuance the amount was 4.
The sky was for the most part overcast, with occasional
showers of rain from the commencement of the gale until
10 a.m. of the 26th. The clouds were low, and moved at
a fearful rapidity. At midnight on the 25th there had oc-
curred a beautiful lunar corona, accompanied by a halo
more perfect than I had ever witnessed before. From the
commencement of the gale up to 5 a.m. the barometer fell
rapidly (corrected to the altitude of 181 feet) ; it was at
10 p.m. 29.158 inches, at 2 a.m. 28.963 inches, and at
5 a.m. 28.813 inches ; at 5 15 a.m. it had risen to 28.860
inches, and at 10 a.m. was 28.863 inches.
The amount of rain fallen at the Highfield-house
Observatory was 0.524 of an inch, and the amount of
ozone 8.

It will be unnecessary to occupy additional space with
the state of the weather at Highfield-house, as it will
appear in the daily table in these columns.
Any information as to the time of occurrence of this
rain storm, &c., will be very acceptable, and may prove
of great value to these inquiries.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
E. J. LOWE.
Observatory, Beeston, near Nottingham, Oct. 26.

Spirit of the Public Journals.

THE NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
(From the Times of this day.)

It is now certain that General Sir Wm. Codrington is
to succeed to the command of the British army in the
East. He has, no doubt, by this time received the intelli-
gence, and, possibly, is already installed in his position. A
few days may probably bring us news of important opera-
tions directed by him. Now, therefore, at the close of the
second year of the war, the long desire of the country is
gratified, and its troops are led by a man who belongs not
to the last but to the present generation. When Lord
Raglan and the first race of Generals of Division were se-
lected for a distant and hazardous war, a thinking man,
but moderately read in history, might have presaged the
result. To ago and infirmity were intrusted the destinies
of our only army. Its commanders had doubtless fought
gallantly in their youth, and perhaps had rendered not un-
important services during 40 years of peace; but that the
dimly-remembered lessons of the subaltern should more
than counterbalance the weaknesses and unreadiness of age
was what England, after a century of bitter experiences,
should have been the last to believe. An old General is,
indeed, sometimes found who has retained unwonted
vigour, but that a dozen such should fortuitously come
together iu the same army is a prodigy on which it was
folly to count. That the appointments passed without
censure only shows that the nation had little knowledge
of military affairs, and was content to trust to its rulers
with a blind confidence too ill rewarded in the end. A
whole generation of veterans has in twelve months passed
away, the rapid progress of events has cured an evil that
in former wars lingered for years, the reminiscences of th e
Peninsula are no longer heard in the camp, and now the
highest post is intrusted to an officer who was a child when
Waterloo was fought.
General Codrington entered the army its 1821, and is,
we believe, not yet 50 years of age. His first commission
was as ensign in the Coldstream Guards. He attained to
colonelcy in 1846, and his appointment as Major-General
is dated June, 1854. As to his services, it is sufficient to
say that he has held a command in the army of the Crimea
ever since it landed, and fought, always with distinction,
in every battle. His conduct in the attack on the Redan
has been sharply criticised, but it has been amply and
satisfactorily explained. We believe that the experience
of war gained in one such year as has just passed away is
worth all that half a century could teach a military secre-
tary in Spain or at the Horse Guards, or that could be
learnt by any length of warfare against Asiatic moun-
taineers. General eodrington has witnessed all that we at
home have heard of with pride and with regret. It is in
his power to profit by past calamities—by the faults or
misfortunes of his predecessors. On the other hand, he
has seen what English officers and men can do. He has
seen them in the dreary watching of the trench, in the
sharp conflicts of sortie or assault ; he watched the devo-
tion—the more heroic because it was in vain—which
marked the last fatal day. Ho knows his officers, not
vaguely or incorrectly through a despatch, but personally
and by his own judgment ; he has learnt their deeds or ca-
pabilities from his own eyes, or from that general consent
of comrades which is seldom at fault. He alone will be to
blame if he is ill served, for the trials of the campaign
have brought to light genius in many, good soldier-like
qualities in still more ; all are there for the commander to
choose from. It is not as in the beginning of the cam-
paign, when seniority or relationship might be called fair
titles, because merit could not be known. The meritorious
officer is now both known and honoured by those around
him, and neither Government nor people will deny any
powers to a General by which he can reward such a man
and benefit the country. The relations between the French
and English armies have always required a man of tact and
courtesy, yet with a due rege.rd for the honour of his own
country and for the feelings of those he leads. Those rela-
tions will become even more delicate when a campaign in
the field leads to extensive and complicated movements,
and the safety of each army may depend on the other's
punctuality or success. In such a case more frequent dis-
cussions must take place in order to produce that unity and
exactitude without which success may be purchased at tee
high a price. Every movement of either army must re-
ceive the consent of two if not more commanders, and it
will demand no small judgment in a General to unite pro-
per regard for a colleague's views to a due confidence in his
own. On other points, also, caution will be necessary.
It is perhaps commonplace to say that a Commander-in-
Chief should preserve the mean between rashness and
timidity—that he should not undervalue the enemy or
form an excessive estimate of their skill and strength. But
this plainly necessary quality is one of the rarest in a
General, and will be greatly tried iu the present case by an
unknown country and by au artful and secret foe.
It is certainly dangerous to predict success, and difficult
to judge what a man will be in the highest position from
his achievements in subordinate rank. Chance must have
its place in the results of military appointments; all that
a Government can do is to select the man who appears the
fittest, and support him to the utmost. There is at least
a presumption that General Codrington will succeed, for
we know that he has done well as yet, and there is no as-
sertion of his incapacity for a higher post. The Govern-
ment is bound to give hire the fullest powers of appoint-
ment and dismissal, to furnish him speedily and continu-
onalpwith material means, and to support his authority
against all opponents, at home or abroad. ' As they have
given him their confidence, they are bound not lightly to
withdraw it ; conclusive proof of incapacity can alone
justify the reversal of their present favourable judgment,
and incapacity is net to be presumed so much from any in-
dividual mistake as from the general course of a campaign.
Shoeld events prove that the confidence of the country has
been unfortunately bestowed, we have a right to ask that
the Government will confess its mistake without waiting
for the reiterated demands of the press and the public ; but
it will be for the Government more especially to consider
how far any ill-success is due to incapacity or only to ad-
verse circumstances; bow far a partial failure was con-
cerned in producing a general success ; how far a course of
conduct was forced on the British Commander by causes
_ .

which controlled his own judgment. The duty of the public
is analogous to that of theG'overnment,for it criticises where
the Government executes. The people and their represen-
tatives have to see that the materials and sinews of war
shall not fail their General at the crisis of the contest. It
is, perhaps, a misfortune for a military man in high posi-
tion that his remonstrances and complaints are unknown
except by a few officials, while the discontent of his subor-
dinates is communicated to half the households in the
country. So far as the nation discovers that any reason-
able wishes of the Commander-in-Chief have not mat with
compliance it will be its duty to interfere strongly and at
once. Having given to their General all the means of sac-

cess, it will'bO the duty of the public to add patience and
forbearance to their active exertions in his behalf. If
General Codrington's natno inspires confidence, lot not
such a sentiment be too suddenly changed to upbraiding.
Where, as in recent cases, an ill-result might have been
from the first predicted, a calamity only confirms the pre-
vious apprehension ; but now, with a general whom wo
think we may trust, we may without danger consider that
temporary want of success may have arisen from causes
which bring on him no discredit. It is necessary to the
preservation of his influence that General Codrington
should have the esteem of his countrymen, and we trust
that it will not bo lightly taken from him.

THE CASE OF STRAHAN, PAUL, AND CO.
( Front the Times of this day.)
The cause of public justice and commercial morality has
at length been fully and completely vindicated by the
trial, conviction, and sentence of Sir John Dean Paul and
his partners, Messrs. Strahan and Bates. Against the
first of the three the evidence was of a nature quite over-
whelming, and nothing was left to his counsel but to urge
technical objections in his favour. Against the ether two
the evidence rested rather on general presumptions and
probabilities, but these proved also too stronc, to be over-
borne, and no one who has perused the trial will, we think,
doubt that Strahan and Bates were accomplices in the acts
of Sir J. D. Paul, and therefore justly subjected to the
same condemnation. The fact that they were partners,
all carrying on the same business, and actively eneaged in
ifli
a tot,e show
securities at
Nv thea s
it,—their access to the hooks of the firm, which it was
their duty to make themselves acquainted with, their ad-
missions of subsequent guilt, and the absence of any at-
tempt moneyap p
applied d to
the be
separate
themt Saloe purposes o fD r.
ar r
of Sir J. D. Paul, all tended with irresistible force to
the same couclusion. Nor can we imagine anything more
unfortunate than the attempt which was made to bring
the case within the section of the act which exempts front
criminal liability persons making disclosures in the Court
of Bankruptcy. The prisoners determined, if they could,
to bring themselves within the meaning of this section,
and for this purpose handed in a deposition which the
Court of Bankruptcy, rather incautiously, as we think, re-
ceived. The Judges seem to have been unanimously of
opinion that such a document, so prepared, was a fraud on
pargono nialting inn CI It. lint, cvcii had this not been so,
the set of Parliament, and could not possibly avail thu
the deposition was so unskillfully framed .that it did not
relate at all to the offence for which the prisoners were in-
dicted. The prisoners were charged with selling without
authority and appropriating to their own use the proceeds
of Dr. Griffith's Danish Bonds, in 1854, while the deposi-
tion confessed the pawning, in 1855, of certain other bonds
purchased by the firm to replace the bonds of Dr. Griffith
sold in the former year. This was not the offence charged,
and was, indeed, no offence at all ; for the bonds purchased
to replace those fraudulently abstracted were not in point
of law the property of Dr. Griffith, but of the firm that
purchased them. Thus has ended that wonderful legal
quirk which was, we were told, to deprive justice of her
prey, and give to the most undeserving of mankind a shame-
ful impunity for crime.
We never remember a case in which we were able to
acquiesce in the proceedings of a court of justice with
more entire satisfaction. Hero were men trusted with a
large amount of property, who lived in the most unprin-
cipled extravagance, and, at the expense of their dupes,
revelled in every luxury that money not their own could
procure. Not content with this absorption of borrowed
funds, they laid their hands upon securities intrusted to
them merely for safe keeping, and supported themselves
latterly upon the proceeds of theft, reaching to the almost
incredible sum of 113,0001. ; and, while thus subsisting on
wholesale plunder, these men assumed to be pious and
charitable far beyond their neighbours—to be the leaders
in every subscription, the presiding and directing geniuses
at every meeting for pious or eleemosynary purposes, the
polished corners and the shining pillars of the temple.
They were net content with impunity in the plunder, they
aspired to excite the veneration and admiration of man-
kind at the very moment when they were most richly de-
serving their contempt and hatred. Never was there a
more revolting combination, never more hypocrisy joined
with mole knavery.
We trust that the fate of these three great delinquents
will be a salutary lesson to the commercial community.
From extravagance to fraud, from fraud to theft, from
theft to transportation, is a law of progression which many
a man trembling on the narrow verge between right andwrong will do well seriously to consider. There have not
wanted indications, to which we will not more distinctly
allude, of a very low tone of commercial morality. inon
of
quar-
ters where it might least have been expected, and 6'v a
cognisance and reticence dictated by motives of
self-in-
terest of the most serious offences. The truth E;, h
own at our
de-
fects, in producing a most defective tone ofich
one man
morality. There are so many cases in yv hr .0 a
mannec
iu highest can make away with the property of an .othe 1
the degree fraudulent aPI t
moral, Witilnt
criminal law has been instrumental, through its
commercia,