The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-26 00:00:00

sons we say advisedly. For a relaxing autumn and
a humid winter have led the way to a spring of

unusual warmth. Of anything like the old-
fashioned Christmas weather we have not this last
time (1862 and 1863) had even, so b speak, the
merest passing taste. As for frost of any kind—all
the frost we have had has been that symbolized on
cur twelfth cakes. Nat once this season have we
had the fairy webwork on our bedroom window
panes, prettily called by some poet " frozen
dreams." The skates have only dangled tantaliz-
ingly by the cutlers' door posts. The street urchins
have not once had the luxury of extemporizing a
sly slide upon the pavements parallel with the
gutter, during the temporary absence of the local
policeman from his beat, and to the endangerment
of the equilibrium of the stout old gentlemen who
go in fear perpetually either of orange peel or of
slides. Christmas in effect upon this last occasion
came upon us almost like an anachronism. And
keeping up the apparent transposition of times
and seasons to the very last, only a day
or two since we had a March day, here in
London, as like as two peas, or rather
perhaps we ought to say as like as two pea-scup
fogs to a mellow, yellow, pattern London day
literally in the very thick of November.
It is because of all this, we doubt not, that the recent
return from the Registrar-General's office show, by
contrast with the average of the last ten years, so
deplorably. The aged and infirm, debilitated
constitutions, delicate children, and confirmed
invalids have succumbed under the influence
of the relaxing heat and moisture. A
shrewd autumn, a bracing winter, a tardy
spring, a spring so tardy that one might
have had a prospect even of winter lingering on
into the lap of May, would infallibly have been
far more salubrious. The transformation of the
seasons has set at defiance all our sanitary precau-
tions. The bills of mortality have numbered up
very heavily in consequence. They still show an
ugly increase upon the wrong side. The second
week of March, for example, was high in its returns.
The third (ending last Saturday) was higher. The
deaths in this last week amoanted upon the whole
to 1624. The average in the corresponding week
during the last decade being, on the contrary, 1,416.
This, remember, even be it said, with all due
allowance made for the increase of the population.
So that no deduction has to be made from the total
already given for last week, viz., 1,624, upon that
score. That same deduction having already been
made quite distinctly. Sa insalubrious has been
the season, as thus demonstrated by uncompro-
mising statistics, that the deaths are shown with
the clearness of a quotient to have been more
during the last week by 280 than they ought to have
been according to the average rate of mortality.
During the last three weeks the deaths have
been successively 1,370,1,561, and 1,624. Looking
to the average as it ought to have been,
under the head of pulmonary consumption we find
that stated at 315. As it was—we find on the con-
trary 366, or 61 too many. This for last week re-
member. Within the more fatal interval the deaths
by smallpox have been 45—despite the law of come
pulsoryvaccination. We find that there have breathed
their last during the week the unusual number of
seven nonogenariens. A mong the deaths of the week
particularized, this week ending on last Saturday,
it will long be remembered that there are especially
notified those of the six women who expired inlcon-
sequence of the night of the 10th, that of the Prince
of WALES'S marriage and the consequent illumi-
nations, "four at Ludgate-hill, and two at the Poul-
try, from suffocation in the crowds from heart disease,
accelerated by the great pressure and excitement on
' that occasion." That is the wording of the official
paragraph. A seventh victim (like the rest of
them, a woman) is also reported to have died on the
13th instant from disease of the heart accelerated by
pressure, not on the night of the 10th, but on the
morning of the 7th, the day of the entrance of the
PRINCESS. Altogether, the Health of London, be-
cause of the ill season, looks bet grievously when
examined into. All the more reason, however, for
solicitude and enterprize in regard to the carrying
out of our sanitary improvements, under the guid-
ance and direction of the responsible officers of our
Board of Health. Remembering the growth of
London, the increase of the population, and the
trying changes that have taken place in the most
trying of the four seasons, i.e., autumn, winter, and
spring, it is an immense satisfaction to bear in mind
that the main drainage of the metropolis is rapidly
advancing towards completion nd that the Thames
Embankment has actually been begun, and begun,
too, in earnest.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

1863.

The following is the House List of Governors and Direc-
tors of the Bank of England for the year ensuing :

FOR GOVERNORS.
Kirkman Daniel Hodgson, Esq., Governor.
Henry Lancelot Holland, Esq„ Deputy-Governor.
ron. DIRECTORS.
Thomas Baring, Esq. ; Thomson Hankey, Esq.
HenryWollaston Blake, Esq, I John Benjamin Heath, Esq.
John William Birch, Esq. John Gellibrand Hubbard,
Travers Buxton, Esq. I Esq.
Stephen Cave, Esq Charles Frederick Huth,Esq.
EdwardHenryChapman,Esq Alfred Latham, Esq,
Robert Wigram Crawford, , George Lyall, Esq.
Esq. I Thomas Masterman, Esq.
William Cotton, Fsq. I Alexander Matheson, Esq.
Bonamy Dobree, Esq. James Morris, Esq.
Charles Pascoe Grenfell,Esq. 1 Sheffield Neave, Esq.
Henry Hucks Gibbs, Esq. George Warde Norman, Esq.
John Saunders Gilliat, Esq. I Clifford Wigram, Esq.

The Election for Governor and Deputy-Governor will
be held at the Bank on Tuesday, the 7th April; and for
Directors on Wednesday, the thh April, from ten o'clock
in the forenoon till four in the afternoon.

ADMIRAL WILRES AGAIN.—It is stated in the
telegrams from New York that the Peterhoff private
merchant steamer of about 860 tons, from London to the
Mexican port of Matamoras, with British clearance and
Mexican consular manifest, has been seized by Admiral
Wilkes within sight of the harbour of St. Thomas, whence
she was steaming on her way
.to Mexico, after having put
in to coal. She was ordered in charge of a prize crew by
Admiral Wilkes to Key West, for adjudication before the
Federal prize court at that station, although it is affirmed
that she had not a single contraband article in her cargo.
The case is to be submitted to Earl Russell, and the result
is regarded with great interest by the mercantile commu-
nity, since it is said that Admiral Wilkes is thus dealing
with all vessels en route to Matamoras. It is assumed that
the reterholf must be ultimately released, but an adjudica-
tion at Key West occupies about six months, and there is
then an appeal to New York or Philadelphia. The avowed
policy of Admiral Wilkes is, it is said, to eeizo all vessels
under analogous circumstances, without any question of
right in the matter, since he can thus, owing to the delay
which must intervene before they can be released, prevent
the possibility of any supplies of goods reaching the Con-
federate States through Mexico. The value involved in
the ship and cargo in the present instance is about £70,000.
She had a British mail on board.

RAILWAY EXTENSION TO RAMSGATE.---The new
coast line to this popular watering•place (London,
Chatham, and Dover) will bo opened in the autumn. The
station is now in course of erection on the sand, close to the
pier and harbour, The extension of railroad accommodation
to Ramsgate, in addition to the already existing South-
Eastern line, has induced the board of the Conservative
Land Society to make its 47th purchase at Ramsgate
close to the sea, being the first property it has acquired
in East Kent. The society has now land in 22 electoral
counties.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.--.The ....e
i:
i second series of bal-
loon ascents for meteorol
grvioes
of
Mr. direction,
co as before,i o
observations is to
commence immediately midst. the dir
1111'. Glashier, F.R.S. The se
the mammoth balloon, which he constructed expwec°ial,u with
f
these high voyages, have been again retained, but
tohrthe
starting-point has been altered, the ground of the Crystal
Palace at Sydenham being fixed upon for this season's ex-
periments. The weather being favourable the first ascent
took place about noon to-day.