The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-05 00:00:00

Uhe Proposed Prize Fight in Ireland.

THE PUGILISTS " FIGHTING SHY."
DUBLIN, Tuesday Night.

Owing to the parties not being able to agree on the choice
of a referee, the intended fight between Mace and Coburn
did not take place. It was however thought that as there
was a promise given to have Coburn in the ling, Mace
would also appear, and a referee would be chosen on the
spot, This, however, was not the case. Shortly after 1
o'clock to-day Coburn and his party proceeded to a demesne
near Cahel, and staked out the ring, in which Coburn ap-
peared, in order to be able to claim forfeit. Au agent ap-
peared on the part of Mace to protest.
Ample provision had been made by the authorities
for the preservation of the peace, and it is probable that
if the pugilists had met the fight would have been pre.
vented.

DUBLIN, Tueslay,

The expected baqlo between Mace and Coburn did not
come off. It was, according to Coburn's nomination on
Friday, to take place between Goold's-cross Station and
Cashel, but the representatives of the men disagreed yes-
terday about the selection of a referee, and those acting for
Mace stated that they would return to England that even-
ing. Coburn's agent declared that his man was anxious
for a fight, and would appear et the proper hour at the ring
side. Neither Mace nor any of the pugilists who visited
Dublin came d iwn by any of the trains yesterday cr to-day.
Coburn is believed to be in the vicinity of Geold's-cross,
but he has not shown, nor does his agent appear to know
his whereabouts. The match therefore is bdlieved to be
off. On all the stations from Kildare to Limerick Junc-
tion the police aro on the alert, and several persons, mis-
taken for Mace and .Coburn, have, it is said, been arrested
on the line.

The Limerick Chronicle states that Coburn, accompanied
by his friends, faced the spot intended for a fight amidst
tremendous shouts from an immense multitude assembled.
It is expected he will claim the stakes, owing to the non.
appearance of Mace.

DUNDRUM, Tuesday.

Coburn, it appears, was stopping at a farmhouse near
Goold's-cross. The police searched for him, but he escaped.

The following- letter, addressed by Archbishop Cullen,
to the clergy of his diocese, is published in yesterday's
Freeman :

Dublin, Feast of the Angel Guardians, 1861.

Very Rev. Breftren—My attention has been oalled by
some respectable gentlemen to a report very widely circu-
lated that this city, or its vicinity, is to be made the theatre
of a single combat between two foreign pugilists, who are
about to expose the:r lives to imminent danger for a certain
sum of money. This report must be the source of great
regret to everyone who is embued with the spirit of Chris-
tian charity, and who recogniees in his fellow-man the
image of the great Crea'or of the universe. It is not neces-
sary to call on you to use all your influence to preserve this
Christian country from an exhibition so disgraceful and so
well calculated to degrade nature. I shall merely request
of you to publish as soon as possible from your altars that
such combats in which human life is exposed to danger aro
prohibited under the severest penalties of the holy Catholic
Church. Passing over the decrees of the Council of Trent,

it will he sufficient to state that tho learned Pontiff Benedict
XIV. excommunicates the principal actors in such fights,
their seconds, all who encourage them, and all who designedly
become spectators of such unworthy scenes. If you announce
these penalties from the altar, I am confident that the faith-
ful of this diocese, who are so devotedly attached to th
holy Catholic, Church, and so obedient to its law, will listen
with contempt to the invitation of those who would impli-
cate them in the misdeeds of foreign gladiators, and will
abstain from countenacing or encouraging anything con-
demned by our holy religion, and contrary to the dictates
of the Gospel. PAUL CULLEN.

ARCEIXOLOGY.—Ia a letter addressed to M. Elie
de thanment, Father Secehi of Rome gives an ac-
count of two interesting monuments discovered by him near
Alatri, in the Campagna Romano. This town, of Pelasgic
origin, and celebrated for its Cyclopean walls, is situated on
the top of a mountain, and being at the time of the Romans
ill provided with water, the Censor L. Betilienus Yarns, as
a celebrated inscription tells us, caused an aqueduct 340 feet
high to be constructed between Alatri and the neighbour•
ing mountains—it being expressly 'stated that he built it
with arches, and provided it with strong pipes. The
present researches ordered by Pope Pius IX., in order
to renew the supp'y of water to the town, have led to
the discovery of a large portion of the old aqueduct. From
the survey made by Father Secchi, it appears that the lowest
point of the aqueduct lies 110 metres below the highest
point of the town, a figure which concide■ with the 340 feet
of the inscription. Here, therefore, there is an aqueduct
built 160 years before Christ, in the shape of a reversed
syphon under a pressure of eleven atmospheres. It is
difficult to say how much water was convey ed by this aque-
duct, but it evidently was sufficient for the consumption of
the town, since the piers of the arches measure no less
than 5 ft. 9 in. in breadth. The total length of the syphon
is about six kilometres. The other discovery is a field under
which a complete system of drainage was executed by means
of long pipes made of brick clay, and ore an average a foot and
a half in diameter. They are now stopped up with sediment
and are 2i metres below the surface of the soil. This field
was probably the parade-ground mentioned in the inscrip-
tion as having been laid out by Betilienus, whose attention
to the interests of his city was well rewarded, since he was
twice appointed Censor, and a statue was ereoted to his
honour.

PERSONAL ERRCRS IN ASTRONOMY.—It is an
ascertained fact that if two or more astronomers
simultaneously observe the same celestial phenomenon, the
passage of a star for instance across the meridian, none of
the results will be perfectly alike, there always being a dif-
ference of several lengths of a second and sometimes of
more than one. As the instruments now employed in
astronomy are as perfect as art and machinery can make
them, the only way of accounting for these discrepancies
is, to attribute them to some inaccuracy in the eye or ear
of the observer, and this is what is culled the personal
error. In a paper addressed to the French Academy of
Sciences, M. Faye discusses •the subject, showing that
the cause of the error does not lie in one sense alone,
but in the simultaneous use of two senses. This is, in fact,
what the astronomer has to do doing an observation of
the kind above alluded to—he must follow a luminous
point, successively passieg behind the threads stretched
across the field of the telescope, and he must at the same
time count the tickings of a pendulum clock, marking at
each thread the moment of the disappearance of the lumi-
nous point behind it. These are two simultaneous actions,
and their combination is the cause of the person& or physiolo-
gical error. Several contrivances have been had recourse to
in order to diminish it:—First., every astronomer has been
made to sign his observations, that those of one individual
may not be mixed upwith those of another in the same ealcu
lation—then astronomers have been made to change places,
and do the operation over again from a new place,
_this
being founden on the supposition that the personal error is
constant; and lastly, a system has been invented in which
the astronomer, while looking through the telescope, has
only to touch a key in order to stop the clock. This latter
method is by far the best hitherto known ; but M. Faye
announces that MM. Pantamour, of Geneva, and
Hirsh, of Neufchatel, have, in determining the re-
lative longitudes of those places, followed a better
plan, by an apparatus which registers the install:
of the star's passage telegraphically on a given chrono-
scope, while the observer himself registers the moment
when he thinks the passage has taken place. The difference
of the two periods registered determines the personal error,
which turns out to be variable, and dependent upon the
state of digestion, circulation of blood, or fatigue of the
observer at the time. M. Faye, in conclusion, proposes a
better pian still, that of suppressing the observer alto-
gether, by taking the photograph of the star at a given
instant and registering the latter electrically, both at one
stroke,

THE LAW OF THE SEA.—Congress passed an act
last session creating a new set of rules with relation to lights,
fog-signals, and the navigation of vessels when approach-
ing each other. All vessels,whether steam or sailing vessels,
except pilot boats and open boats, are now required to carry
the green and red ligh s, Nhich have heretofore been con-
fined to steamers. Different lights are provided for steam-
tugs, for pilot boats, and open fishing boats. Fog-signals
are required to be sounded on all vessels every five
minutes during a fog. Some of the common rules of naviga-
tion for vessels when approaching each other have been put
into the form of positive regulations of law, but there are
variations enough in them to require every navigator to
thoroughly familiarise himself with them. We understand
that these rulesare similar to the newrules recently adopted
in England. We have not been able to compare them all,
but those which we have seen are in the same words ; and
the importance of having the same rules of navigation apply
to the vessels of one nation as well as of another is so obvi-
ous that a change could hardly have bean made. Beth
nations should at once exert themselves to have the same
rules adopted everywhere, in order that the uniformity of
the law of the sea be maintained.-2ctv York limes
TIIE FRENCH FRIGATE AT SUNDERLAND.—The
rejoicings at Sunderland, evoked by the presence in
that pert of the French frigate Pantie, reached their climax
on Monday. The great feature of the festivities was th;
grand banquet given to the commodore and officers of the
vessel, and which came off, under brilliant auspices, in the
Queen's head—the Mayor (Mr Jas. Allison) presiding on
the occasion. In the toasts, there was a happy combina-
tion of France-Anglican sentiment, expressive of the bond
of unity existing between the two countries, and the pro-
ceedings throughout were characterised by the greatest
harmony. here, however, the hospitalities of the inhabi-
tants did not stop, for " while they feasted all the great,
they ne'er forgot the small." Fur the crew of the frigate,
who were joined by a proportionate body of men of the
Naval Reserve now under training on board the Active, a

substantial dinner was provided on board that kliip, an;.'
here, too, the utmost harmony and good feeling prevailed.
The French man of war was again an obj:!ct of attraction
and was honoured by lists of visitors, the unplcasau
disorder and contusion of the previous day being -haPpii3
abaent,--11ewcase,4 Chronicle.