The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-17 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN RAILWAY SCHEMES

Yesterday the joint committee, consisting of Earl Gran-
ville. chairman, Lords Romney, Redesdale, Stanley of Al-
derley, Eversley, and Stanley, Right Hon, M. Gibson, Mr.
Massey, and Col. AV. Patten, took evidence relative to the
varions schemes now proposed for railway communication
in the metropolis. The principal witnesses examined were
Col. Yolland, R.E., one of the Government inspectors of
railways, and Mr. Booth, of tho Railway Department of the
Board of Trade, and the committee adjourned to this day at
12 o'clock.

SELECT COMMITTEE ON STANDING ORDERS.
Yesterday this committee met for the first time to consi-
der the cases of the various bills reported by the examiners
as not having complied with the standing orders of Parlia-
ment. The committee, after deliberation, decided that the
standing orders might be dispensed with in the following
railway bills :—Neath and Brecon Extension, Wellington
aid Drayton, Dublin and Baltinggass Junction, Lynn and
Sutton (Cross-keys Bridge), Severn Valley, Leeds, Brad-
ford, and Halifax, and Glasgow City Union.

The committee also decided that the standing orders ought
not to be dispensed with in the case of the Daventry, the
deposit of 8 per cent. on the estimated cost of the line not
having been lodged with the Accountant-General of the
Court of Chancery by the time prescribed.
Yesterday, before the examiners, the bills for the Bristol
and North Somerset (Extensions and Bath Extension) were
declared not to have complied with the standing orders in
some particulars.

SECOND-HAND BABY CLOTHES.—Here, too, are
baskets of second-hand baby clothes—layettes, as
our neighbours call them--the bows and ends of white
ribbon gone long ago, and the bright pink flannel washed
into a melancholy salmon-colour, as unlike the radiancy of
its first freshness as the hoary sinner is unlike the innocent
boy. Perhaps the basket of baby clothes has done duty
for a long succession of little strangers : so no wonder if
all the finery has disappeared, if the bows and tags of
white satin ribbon hare been cut off, if the worked frills
and flounces have more rents than broideries in them.
For the first, mamma thought it no hardship to strip her
yet young marriage clothes of half their prettiness, that:she
might make baby look the child of a prince at least. Older
mothers smiled in !their hearts when they saw mamma
snipping off her fineries ; they knew to what a peaceful
state of languid indifference in the matter of ribbons and
laces she would come by the time the sixth or even the
fifth had to be provided for; and how a lopsided strip of
old gray-bearded Saxony, if only serviceable to its purpose,
would be quite as acceptable in her eyes as the exactest
parallelogram of delicate rose-colour bound with inch-wide
ribbon exquisitely worked. At present, it is all the diffe-
rence between the now and the old, the strange and the
well-used, the instinct just awakened, and all blushing in
its emotion, and the instinct become quite comely and
matronly, and taking to its duties in a matter-of-fact kind
of way, slicitous only for the expedient and the actual ne-
cessity. Motherhood and baby clothes are not the only
things in this life that lose their sharpness by yearly wear I
—Dickens's " All the Year Round."

THE EXTRAORDINARY CLERICAL PROCEEDINGS
IN SUFFOLK.—It appears that the Bishop of Nor•
with has abandonel the proceedings which he commenced
against the Rev. G. Drury, rector of Claydon, Suffolk, for
his alleged anti-Anglican practices, which have attracted
so much attention of late. The confused state of the eccle-
siastical law is assigned as a reason for this step on the part
of the right TOT, prelate.