The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-07 00:00:00

RXILWATe.

Cash. Account.
Orleans 975 .. 975
Northern
New ditto
Lyons and Mediterranean 927 50 .. 932 50
New ditto
SJuthern 676 25 .. 680
Western
Eastern
Sardinian .. 390 ~ 395
h.ustrian
Lombard
North of Spain
Saragossa .. 617 50 .. 617 50
Ditto to Barcelona .... 295 .. 290 —,

Lord Stanley, yesterday, distributed the prizes
and certificates awarded to the successful candidates in the
Oxford Local Examination for the district of which Man-
chester is the centre. His loidship delivered an address on
the occasion, in which he explained the general purpose
and working of these examinations, and dwelt upon the
success with which they had been attended.
COAL IN BRAZIL.—An important coal-field has
recently been discovered in one of the southern Prqvinces
of Brazil.

Tantalising References to L. E, L.'s Death,

" No one lands at Cape Coast Castle without pilgrimag-
ing to the ' last resting-place of the poetess L. E, L.,' and,
of course, without inquiring into her sad, eventful history'
which has, however, nothing of romance. For L. E. L.'
is known where Miss Landon is not, and her fate has been
the subject of curiosity to many that have never read the
' Improvisatrice,' or Romance and Reality.' The graves
of Mrs. Maclean and her deeply-injured husband are on the
large triangular drill ground of the Castle. It is a local
practice to bury dead in dwelling-houses, and the custom
is not confined to pagans—the floor of the surgery, the kit-
chen, and the medical store-rooms of the colonial hospital
have all been used for interment. The tramping of soldiery
upon the pavement had well-nigh defaced all traces of the
tombs, when the pious hand of Grosvenor O'Connor re-
stored them.

" The true history of Mrs. Maclean's death is known to
many, but who in writing the life of L. E. L.' would dare
to tell it? Owning that de snortuis nil nisi verum should
be our motto, how would it be possible to publish facts
whilst actors in the tragedy are still upon the stage of
lite ? And after their death it will be forgotten. The
author of a certain report on the Gold Coast during his
short and feverish residence as Commissioner, a guest of
President Maclean, succeeded in casting upon his host's
public efficiency a serious slur, which was afterwards satis-
factorily removed by a select committee of the House of
Commons. On the other hand, the author of ' Eighteen
Years on the Gold Coast,' showed himself an injudicious
friend, far worse than any foe, by asserting that after a
certain esclandre, the household was very successful. But
enough of these private matters. Mr. Forster, M.P. for
Berwick, the warmest of President Maclean's well-wishers,
openly asserted that the flood of calumny poured upon him
arose from the enmity of an individual in the Colonial-office
who was pettily jealous because affairs at the Gold Coast,
with a miserable pittance ot LlOOO, were managed wore effec-
tually than at the pet S'a Leone, where economy has never
been the order of the day. Hence the President of the Coun-
cil of Government, than whom a better servant of Govern-
ment was never known on this coast, was charged with
having encouraged slavery under the local name 'pawning'
—a fatal accusation in those days,—and with neglecting
official duty for private correspondence.
" Standing by graves we heard the story of Mrs. Mac-
lean's death, and nothing could be less probable than the
popular version. A homeward-bound vessel was preparing
to sail. At 7 a.m. she left her husband's room, and pro-
ceeded to write letters before dressing in the little room
opposite, once used as an observatory. A Mrs. Bailey, her
servant, had been sent to the store. room to fetch some
article ; she returned after a few minutes, and found against
the door a weight, which proved to be the corpse of her
mistress. The servant distinctly asserted what has been
since denied, that a phial was still in the dead woman's
hand, and that the phial contained a preparation of prussic
acid. But here comes the rub. The authoress's spirits
had been weakened, she had ceased to play at ball, and she
was suffering from a heart disease which produced fits or
spasms. The local account, however, is that she was in
the habit of taking prussic acid to stimulate her energies, a
use probably unknown to Scheele. At any rate, calumny
found its way home, and the President was reduced to the
secondary positionof JudiciallAssessor at Cape Coast Castle•
There he died in May, 1847, to the deep and lasting regret
of the whole population, black and white."— Wanderings
in Western Africa.

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.—On Monday
evening next, at half-past 8, Sir R. I. Murchison, K.C.8.,
president, in the chair, the following papers will be read :-
1. " Mustakh Glacier;" by Capt. Edwin Austin. 2. "Re-
port on the Non-auriferous Character of West Australia ;"

by E. H. Hargraves, Esq.
BATH ABBEY is to be restored by Mr. G. G.
Scott, preserving, we hope, the corrupt, but very curious
west front, which is decorated with a representation of
Jacob's Dream, angels going up and down ladders, carved
on the whole facade.

THACKERAY can never be placed among the pure
satirists, it has lately been remarked, like Dryden,
or Swift, or Pope, or even Byron—(Byron scarcely ever
shows real genius, except when the gleam of the cynical
steel, or at the least his delight in the destructive forces of

nature, bares itself to us in his poetry)—nor even among
the pure humourists, like Addison, or Lamb, or Sterne, or
Dickens—nor among the pure artists, like Miss Austen, or
Sir Walter Scott, or George Eliot—but he will always form
a class by himself as a great satirical artist, blending almost
equally the poignant and destructive•venom of the satirist
with the genial fertility of the creative imagination in which
all sorts of life-like images spring up like flowers, and spring
from germs which seem quite independent of the peculiar
bias of the artist's own character.

CHURCH OF TORCELLO,—A correspondent of the
Builder describes the present condition of the famous
and beautiful basilia at Torcello, Venice, as a melancholy
one. The Austrian Government, it is averred, about four
years ago commissioned a mosaicist to restore the invalu-

able and almost unique mosaic representing the Resurrec-
tion and Day of Judgment at the west end of this build-
ing," a process which he understood, as restorers are
wont. to be best accomplished by ripping off the
old mosaic by wholesale, and substituting his modem
antique in its place. The result was, as may be guessed,
impending ruin of perhaps the whole." But tue Govern-
ment, discovering that the process was taking this unfor-
tunate form, and that the ancient work, as well as
time-
worn, was being removed, stopped the business, and, it is
said, incarcerated the operator. From that time to this the
mosaic has remained untouched; it is bulging, tattered'
falling, and threatening destruction.
A MORGANATIC FAUX PAS.—The brother of the
King of Portugal, Prince Leopold Francis of Saxe-
Coburg-Gotha, born in 1824. and for some time general in
the Austrian service, gave his hand, in April, 1861, to a
'Miss Constance Geiger, the daughter of a poor teacher of
music at Vienna. The marriage made a great noise at the
time, being doomed an insult, not only to all the high rela-
tives of the prince, but to German royalty in general. It ap-
pears that Prince Leopold, in the first instance, intended to
make the matter as respectable as possible, by getting a

title for his young bride—the easiest thing, under ordinary
circumstances, in Austria, titular honours and dignities
being plentiful in the market, and cheap as blackberries—
but that, in his case, he met unexpected difficulties, aris-
ing in high quarters, it being expected, probably, that ho
would give up his morganatic ideas on finding himself
driven to unite his lot with an absolute and un-
disguised plebeian. But Prince Leopold, either fairly
in love or with a soul above buttons, thought other-
wise. He not only married Miss Constance Geiger, but
made the ceremony as grand as possible, riding to
church, at the side of his fair bride, in a State carriage
emblazoned with the world-famous arms of Saxe-
Coburg, and with lackeys and out-riders innumerable.
Behind, in a long file, followed all the Geigers, great and
little, and half the personnel of the theatres of Vienna : old
and new acquaintances of the happy faMily, whose previous
business had been chiefly with the stage and stage melody.
The word " Geiger" in Geman signifies fiddler, and there
being in the bridal procession several other persons with
equally conspicuous names, such as "Horn," "Piper,"
and "Singer," the _Punch of Vienna had a good time of
it for weeks to come. The error of their ways was im-
mediately discovered by the imperial authorities,
who then granted unasked the title and dignities
which they had before refused. Prince Leopold's morgan-
atic spouse is now a Baroness von Ruttenstein, duly en-
rolled in the long list of Austrian noblesse, comprising a
notable portion of the population of the empire.—Spectator.
A WORKHOUSE TREAT.—It is pleasant to find
that the genial festivities of this holiday season
extend even to our paupers, who might certainly be sup-
posed to be beyond the pale of Christmas mirth and merri-
ment. A very interesting gathering took place at the
Strand Union on Monday last, when, thanks to the guar-
dians, and • the benevolent exertions of Mr. Acres, the
chaplain of the institution, tea and refreshments were pro•
vided for all the able-bodied inmates, followed by a little
rational entertainment. The inmates were assembled in the
large room of the workhouse ordinarily used as a chapel,
where the chaplain and his friends amused them with
music, recitations, the exhibition of a microscope,
&c., with very great success, It was gratifying to
see the warmth with which Mr. Thom, the able
and popular master, was greeted when appearing
before them, as it proved how powerful is the influence of
kindness and good feeling, even amid the roughest and
least cultivated classes. In proof that Mr. Thom is no less
effective as a disciplinarian than popular as a master, the
order maintained throughout by the large body of men and
women assembled was perfect, no voice being taised except
in applause or laughter, when something in the perfor-
mances especially delighted them. An interesting feature
in the evening's entertainment was the presentation of a
handsome volume to the labour-master, who was on the
eve of leaving the establishment. The bo, k in question
had been subscribed for by the inmates of the house, who
wished to present him with some token of gratitude and
esteem. In the sick, infirm, and convalescent wards,
Miss Twining and some friends had also provided
tea and cake to the great delight of the poor
sufferers, so that no part of the vast establishment was left
uncheered or uncared for. Several of the guardians were
present, and altogether the affair went off most satisfactorily.
We hope it will not be the last of its kind; since such acts of
spontaneous kindness and evidences of sympathy are
warmly appreciated by those whose existence is at best but
a dreary and monotonous routine, while anything that tends
to humanize them, to remove the feeling thst they are out-
laws and outcasts, for whom anything is good enough, is a
real and substantial benefit. The experience of the other
evening, too, may convince lookers on that these classes are
capable of enjoying rational pleasures, and will, we hope,
induce the managers of other workhouses to emulate the
kindliness and good feeling shown by the authorities of the
Strand Union.
Now that the winter has set in with more than usual
severity, it will be a great boon to the thousands who are
suffering from coughs, colds, asthmas (all which affections
are intensified by the great change), to know that the best
remedy and the one which alone has stood the test of time is
Erwell'e Balsam of Aniseed. Whoso is suffering from
asthma, coughs, or colds, &c,, will find a safe and speedy
remedy in this specific.—ADYT.

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HER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, JAN. 6.

The Queen, accompanied by Prince Arthur and
Prince Leopold, walked in the grounds yesterday.

The Prince and Princess of Wales.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, ac-
companied by the equerry in waiting and atten-
dants, went out shooting yesterday morning. In
the afternoon the Prince of Wales tend suite went
skating on the ice, which now covers the canal or
ornamentai water at Frogmore. The increasing
frost of Tuesday and yesterday has rendered the ice
extremely thick, and it is now in first rate condition
for the skaters. The Prince and the suite enjoyed
this healthy recreation for some time, and were on
the ice till a late hour in the afternoon.

PRINCE ALFRED.—His Royal Highness Prince
Alfred, accompanied by MajorCowell,arrived in Edinburgh
on Tuesday morning, having travelled from London by the
night train. It is expected that his Royal Highness will be
the guest of Lord and Lady Belhaven, at Wishaw House,
to-morrow and on Saturday next. •

Tne Duke of Hamilton left the family mansion
in Arlington-street, Piccadilly, on Tuesday, for his seat,
Easton Park, Suffolk, where his grace and a select party of
friends intend to have a few days' shooting.

The Earl and Countess of Day, are entertaining
his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge and a distin-
guished company at Knowsley Hall, Lancashire. The Duke
and Duchess of Manchester, the Earl and Countess of
Hardwicke and Lady Agneta Yorke and the Hon. Elliot
Yorke, Viscount Hamilton, M.P., Lord Henry G. Leunox,
M.P., Sir Henry and Lady Siphia Des Venus, and Colonel
Clifton, in waiting on the Duke of Cambridge, are of the
party enjoying the hospitalities of the noble earl and
countess.

The Earl of Lonsdale is expected to return to
town to-morrow, from Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
The Earl and Countess of Yarborough, accom-
panied by the Ladies Hare, passed through town on Tues-
day, for Sutton Place, near Staplehurst, Kent, on a visit to
Sir Edmund and the Hon. Lady Filmer, from Brocklesby,
Lincolnshire. _ _

Viscount Hinehingbroke has left town to join
the party visiting Sir Edmund and Hon. Lady Filmer, at
Sutton-place, Kent.

Lady Bloomfield is expected to return to the
Dowager Lady Bloomfield's residence, at Rutland-gate, to-
morrow, from Mr. and Lady Elizabeth Adeane's seat in
Cambridgeshire, where her ladyship has been staying since
Monday last.
DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL WALPOLE, R.E.—
We have to record the death of Major-General John
Walpole, who died on Monday last at his temporary resi-
dence in Charles-sheet, St. James's. Gen. Walpole had
been in active service since 1816. His commission as
lieutenant bore dee 24th Sept., 1825; captain, 28th Nov.,

1839 ; major, 15th Sept., 1848 ; lieutenant-colonel, 7th
Feb., 1854; colonel, 28th Nov., 1854; and major•general,
9th March, 1863.

A MUNIFICENT GlFT.—Lady Cotton Sheppard
has presented £250 to the National Lifeboat Institution,
£5O of which she has collected in various sums amongst her

Friends and neighbours, for a lifeboat to be stationed at

Porthdiullaen, on the Carnarvonshire coast. Her ladyship,

who takes the warmest interest in the National Lifeboat
Institution, has herself already given £lOO for two boats,
one of which is stationed at Port Rush, and the other at
Porthcawl. The latter boat was instrumental a short time

since in rescuing, during a heavy gale of wind, the crew of

LO men from the schooner Champion, of Liverpool, wrecked

off Pcrthcawl.

INQUIRY INTO THE CONDUCT OF A LIFEBOAT
CREW,—An important inquiry into charges of

cowardice and inefficiency made against the crew of the
Holyhead lifeboat has just terminated at Holyhead, before

the Hon. W. 0. Stanley and a large number of magistrates

and other influential persons. The readers of :the Sun

will remember that thie lifeboat was the means of rescuing

48 during the gale of the 3d Dec. last. Notwithstanding
this, the largest number ever saved by one lifeboat on a
single occasion, the above charge was made by the father
of Captain Armitage, master a, d owner of the brig West-
bourne, who perished with all his crew. Captain Priest,
R.N., honorary agent to the Lifeboat Institution at that
port, was also accused of sending incorrect and garbled
reports to the committee of that ins itution. From the ex-
amination of a number of witnesses it transpired that nine
out of the 13 men who constituted the paid crew of the boat

refused to go out on the morning is question, but in two
hours nine other men volunteered to take their place, and
during the 3d and 4th Deo they Wei t 1 out repeatedly in the

height of the gale. The zesult of the investigation was that

the nine men who held back were censured, and the 'Mon-

teer crew highly commended for their gallantry, The
charge against Capt. Priest was declared unfounded, and a
report to that. effect was forwarded to the National Lifeboat
Institution. The latter has rewarded the nine men who
volunteered with £3 each, and the old crew who stuck
to their colours with £4 each.

STUCK IN THE MUD.!—In 1862 Lord Derby for-
mally proclaimed an armistice for the year ; and
_ .

when, in 1863, hostilities were supposed to be resumed, the
course of events was precisely similar. Mr, Disraeli himself
has almost ceased to organise party combinations since the

Galway contract subsided into its character of a professed

Irish job. There is no use in attacking Lord Russell, because
the country has not the smallest desire to restore Lord Mal-
mesbury to the Foreign-office. Sir C, Wood is practically
exempt from criticism in a house which knows nothing
about India, and for the present he is covered from attack
by the popular nomination of Sir John Lawrence as Vice•
roy. If, indeed, the frontier warfare should assume larger
proportions, India would, as in 1856 and 1857, once more
become the centre of political interest; but in ordinary times
the smallest European transaction is more attractive to
popular curiosity, The Home Department may perhaps
occupy a portion of the time of the House of Commons with
unexciting questions of prison discipline, but Sir G. Grey
will scarcely run even the trifling risk of bringing forward
another abortive bill for the reform of the City Corporation.
When Parliament, or any political party, cares as much for
abolishing the Mansion House as the Aldermen and. Com-
mon Council for defending it, it is probable that modern
municipal theories will at last be too powerful for Gog and
Magog. To hirer politicians, a powerless dignitary who
employs himself in giving splendid dinners seems an insti-
tution, or fiction, which is neither intolerable nor wholly
useless. The vitality of the Government depends on Lord
Palmerston's health far more than on his measures. Per-
haps, half a dozen years hence, the standing commonplace
of conversation may be the obvious remark that a Minister
of 85 cannot be expected to last much longer,—b'aturday
Revzew.
USELESS SELF-SACRIFICE.—The authoress of the

" Chronicles of Carlingford," says a critic in the .
Saturday Review, furnishes in one of her latter stories, a
very apt and truthful illustration of the complicated wretch'
edness of a half-consummated, fruitless self-sacrifice. In
"The Doctor's Family, the sharp and bustling little Nettie,
sister of the indolent and childish handsome wife of the
Doctor's indolent, spritless, and drunken bi other Fred. hot
almost as a matter of courise,appropriated to herself the duty
of governing, providing for, clothing, educating, and, in
fact, keeping alive the whole establishment. Out of sheer
kindness of heart and energy of spirit, she has taken the
burden off the lazy baCks of those who wore bound by laW
and by nature to bear the responsibility of maintaining
themselves and their children. She sacrifices to them day
by day her money, her strength, her brain, and almost
her heart , and her sister and brother-in- law take it equal)l
as a matter of course, and day by day become more helplesas
and dependent, and more incapable of gratitude. When'
poor Fred tumbles into the water in a state ot tipsy stupi"
dity, the task of dragging the whole family back from Bug"
land to Australia falls upon the shoulders et Nettie, wbije
the pretty widow can do nothing but sit maundering over
" poor Fred's" eminent virtues ; and, but for the reappear
ante of an old Australian flame, who soon obliterates the
remembrance of Fred, and consoles the widow into a second
marriage, the story must have ended by the disappearance
of its heroine to another hemisph. re, leaving behind eyed
gleam of personal happiness, and carrying with her a hope'
less and ceaseless burden. Probably the Netties of real life
seldom have the luck to find a willing and able-bodied sub'
stitute, happy to walk jauntily off with the weight nude:
which their bruised faculties and disappointed feelings are
staggering. People who, by the common consent of their
acquaintance, are called " pour Freds" at the best of tirat°'
generally contrive, either living or dead, to oppress the cell:
scientious victims of their unprincipled imbecility to the en'
The natural consequence, in nine cases out of ten, of such
a self-immolation as Nettie made, would be for her to Per;
form the journey back to Australia, and there work herself
to death in apathetic energy under the insane worryinge f
the sister for whom she had given up everything, bullie'
and neglected by the naughty children (of whom only
th
naughtiest seems to have repaid her devotion with geneille
love), and with the dull consciousness that she might Per
haps have acted more wisely and more rightly in 811004
herself free before the suttee of her own independent 0.0"
ence had been entirely accomplished.
ST. CLEMENT AT RoME.—Father Mtillooleyt
the Irish Dominican Convent ot St. Clement, !
prosecuting with great zeal his subterranean researches
under that venerable basilica, and has had the satisfacti°a
to discover a fresco painting illustrative of the life
martyrdom of the saint, accompanied by many details "t
ritual and costume, which are most prrcious to the stud
of Christian archanta
logy. With regard to the date of t t
painting just exhumed, the Cavalicre De Rossi, the grl,
authority in such cases, does not allow it a greater 09`
quity than the eighth century.

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