The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-13 00:00:00

COAST OF AFRICA.

PLYMOUTH, Monday.—The African Steam Na-
vigation Company's packet Candace, Commander
W. E. Hawkesley, arrived this afternoon. She
left Fernando Po, Dec. 30 ; Lagos, Jan. 3; Accra,
5 ; Cape Coast Castle, 6 ; Liberia, 11 • Sierra
Leone, 16 ; Bathurst, 22 ; Gore., 23 ; ieneriffe,
30 ; and Lisbon, Feb. G.
The natives all along the coast at the dates of
her departure were peaceable.
His Excellency Colonel Hill, Governor of Sierra
Leone, has come home by this packet. Her cargo
consists of 500 casks of palm oil, 300 bags of
cochineal, 400 bags of pepper, 500 cakes of bees'
wax, 100 elephants' teeth, and 2,0000 z. of gold.
Her Majesty's sloop Antelope, arrived from La-
gos, was at Fernando Po on Dec. 30.
The brig Crane was at Lagos on the 3d of Jan.
The steam-sloop Prometheus and the brig Brito-
mart were at Sierra Leone.
In Bonny River the merchant ships Ensign,
Princess Royal, Cumberland., Hants, Cherokee,
Saracen, Grand Bonny, Paramatta, Saint Andrew,
Loodianah, Aligator, Swiftsure, and Turnout.
In Old Calabar River the ships Golden Age,
Lady Head, Sarah Tabley, Calabar, and Abenona.
Spoke, in lat. 15, long. 13 11 W., the bark St.
Lawrence ; Feb. 8, in lat. 42 45 N., long. 10 40
W., the brig Golden Grove ; Feb. 10, in lat. 47 6
N., long. 719 W., the ship Scindian. Feb. 7, in
lat. 40 23 N., long. 10 57 W., saw a large screw
steamer, with white painted ports, white funnel,
and no topgallantmasts, stooring S. ; and on tho
Bth, in lat. 42 45 N., long. 10 40 W., a large screw
steamer steering south.
It is probable that the Candace will discharge at
Plymouth, and sail with the next outward mail on
the 24th inst.
' '

—The Candace steam-packet, having coaled at
Lisbon, brings letters of the 6th inst., but no news
of political importance.
Her Majesty's frigate Meander and the French
stea•u-sloop Phenix. were the only foreign ships of
war in the Tagus.
The Iberia steam-packet, with the outward
bound Peninsular mails, had arrived at Lisbon on
the sth, after a rough passage, and, being unable
to go on to Cadiz and Gibraltar before the follow-
ing morning, will be two or three days behind time
upon her return to Southampton.
When the Candace left Lisbon nothing was known
of the steamer La Plata, expected with the Sonth
American mailsfor Lisbon ; nor had the Portuguese
steamer Donna Maria Segunda reached Lisbon
from the Brazils. Both vessels were anxiously
looked for.
Rain continued to fall abundantly in Portugal,
and the weather has been stormy, from the west
and south-west, for seine days before the Candace
left Lisbon.
The Calcutta, 84, Captain Stopford, left Ply-
mouth Sound for Portsmouth this (Monday) even-
ing, at 7 o'clock.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S BILL ON EMMA TlON.—Yes-
terd,ty, Lord John Russell's bill "to promote education
in England " was printed. The sube,tance of the mea-
sure is not stated on the introduction. There are 22
claeses in the bill, which is confined to England alone.
The council of a borough may submit a scheme for pro-
motion of education to the Education Committee. Two-
thirds of a town council to be present at the meeting at
which an order for laying the scheme before the Educa-
tion Committee is made. If the scheme is approved by
the Education Committee, the same may be carried into
effect. The expenses are to be paid out of tne borough
rate. The act may be adopted by parishes in England.
Any number of ratepayers, amounting at least to one-
fifth of the ratepayers f any parish, or to fifty pa-
rishioners, may deliver a requisition signed by them,
and describing their places of residence, to the
churchwardens of the said parish, or to one of them,
requiring the churchwardens to ascertain whether or not
a majority of the parish wish the act to be adopted
therein. 'Votes are to be taken, and notice to be given
of the adoption of the act. No similar requisition for the
adoption of the act is to be made for three years. Jf a
parish adopts the act, the scheme of education is to be
submitted to the Education Committee. The expenses
are to be paid out of the poor rate. The Holy Scriptures
are to be read at certain schools ; but Catholic and Jewil,
ish children are not to be obliged to be present during the
reading. Dissenting, Roman Catholic, and Jewish chil-
dren are to be released from learning catechism or at-
tending church without their parents' consent. The town
councils and vestries are to have the management of the
schools, subject to government inspection. The order
of the Education Committee may be recalled, and then
the authority of the council or vestry is to cease. There
is an interpretation clause as to the meaning of the ex-
pression " borough" and " vestry."
The Committee of the London Association of Mer-
chants in the Wine and Spirit Trade, after a corresce n-
ence with the London Dock Company on the meat
pillage of wines in the East Vault, have arrived at an
opinion that it was effected, not by any exchange of one
wino for another, but simply by the abstraction of a
small quantity from each of a number of casks sufficient
to render merchantable the worthless stuff to which it
was added. For the present they abstain from saying
more, the affair being under legal investigation. Mean-
while the Dock Company state that they have framed
some fresh regulations for the management of the wine
department of a very stringent char. cter.
A steam-vessel from Norway has arrived in the East
India Docks entirely laden with game from that coun-
try, consisting of black game, ptarmigan (or white
grouse), cock of the wood, capercalzie, and hazel hens ;
they are consigned for immediate sale. "As the seve-
r:ty of the winter approaches (says the heroic traveller,
'Lieut. Pym), myriads of ptarmigan, black game, rtc.,
which, till then, have been fattening on the juniper and
cronterry, descend into the woods and plains of Chris-
tiansand, w here they arc caught by the Norwegian
fishermen and peasantry, and sent to France, Belgium,
and England; they are reckoned by all epicures and true
lovers of game equal to the Scotch grouse or English
partridge."
THE MANCHESTER UNITY OF ODD FELLOWS AND THE
PATRIOTIC FUND.—The directors of this extensive
friendly society, at their meeting on Monday, agreed to
remit the sum of 2,0001., as the first instalment of the
society's subscription towards the Patriotic Fund.. This
large amount has been realised amongst the lodges of
the Utaity, by purely voluntary subser.p.ion , the funds
subscribed for the relief of the sick, and funerals, (or the
insurance features of the society) being septette and dis-
tinct from those collected for benevolent purposes, or
for the expenses of management. It is expected that a
further sum of :several hundred pounds will yet be realised
for the fund.
MINES im IRELAND.—A bill is now before the House
of Commons for the further encouragement of mines in
Ireland. It repeals so much of the Ist and 2d of Vic-
toria, chap. 56, as relates to mines, except coal nines,
and enacts that no mines in Ireland, save and except
coal-mines, shall hereafter be rateable for the rePef of
the poor. The bill is brought in by Mr, Fitzgerald,
Mr, Napier, and Mr. F. W. Rune%