The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-28 00:00:00

TEE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 28, 186 g.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,

NORTH BRITISH.

The half-yearly meeting was held at Dlinturgh on Thurs-
day—Mr. Hodgson, M.P., in the chair,

The report was taken as read.
The CHAIRMAN congratulated the proprietors on the suc-
cess of their late Parliamentary campaign, Parliament hav-
ing passed the measures submitted by the directors almost
iu their entirety. The only considerable alteration made
was one which would save this company a considerable ex-
penditure of capital—namely, by giving them running
powers over the Edinburgh and Glasgow line to Qucensferry
instead of authorising the company to construct that portion
of the direct line from Edinburgh to Perth by Dunfermline.
The second bill which the directors promoted was for the
establishment of steamboat communication between Silloth
and other ports. The House of Lords did not give them all
the powers they asked, and limited them to steamboats run-
ning between Silloth and Belfast, but he trusted the com-
munication which they desired with Dublin and other ports
would be afforded by some other parties. Their third bill
was a measure for placing the finances of the company on a
more satisfactory footing, and powers ;lad been taken in
that bill to amalgamate with a short line which was subsi-
diary to the North British system, running from Bellingham
to Morpeth. The fourth bill was for the amalgamation of
the Border Union capital with that of the North British,
which would come into operation on the vote of Border
-Union shareholders. Ho had also to congratulate the share-
holders on the increase in the traffic, which amounted to
£31,000 for the past half-year. In respect of the increase Of
the dividend from to 1 per cent. per annum he trusted
they had now turned the corner, and that from the develop.
went of the recent additions to their mileage the revenue
and dividend would rapidly increase. For the past eight
weeks their receipts had increased by L 1,145 per week over
the corresponding weeks of last year, or £2,223 over the
corresponding period two years ago. Though many obstruc-
tions were still placed in their way to the interchange
of traffic with the west coast lines, the directors hoped
to overcome them. The threat was held out that the direc-
tors of the Caledonian, Scottish Central, and Edinburgh
and Glasgow would again apply to Parliament for a bill to
amalgamate the companies, but the North British, in con-
junction with the public bodies of Scotland would again
steadfastly resist the attempt, and ho had no doubt success-
fully. Under certain circumstances there might be no great
objection to the amalgamation of the Caledonian and Scot-
tish Central, but the Edinburgh and Glasgow line was the
natural route of the east coast companies to Glasgow, and
he hoped that company would yet agree to join their natural
allies. He concluded by moving the approval of the report.
Admiral RAMSAY expressed his belief that the new direct
line to Perth by Queensferry would be run in 1 hour and 35
minutes, a saving of about an hour on the present journey.
Mr. ARKLEY complained that the increase of dividend
wet not proportionate to the increase of revenue, and he be-
lieved that the Qucensferry scheme would be a great burden
on the new shareholders.
Major HALL protested against the further issue of pre-
ference shares, and Mr. ROMANS objected to any further
extensions, leases, or amalgamations.
The Chairman put the motion, which was seconded by
Mr. Leishman and agreed to, Mr. Arkley dissenting.
A meeting of the Border Union shareholders was then
held, at which it was agreed that, in terms of the bill of last
session, the Border Union ordinary stock should be amalga-
trated with and held as ordinary stock of the North British.

THE LEECH HAYMAKING CASE.

The secretary of the Defence Fund replies in a
local journal to the letter of Mr. Marsh, the clerk to
the magistrates, which appeared in The Sun a
few days ago. He eays :—" It is not without re-
gret that I observe in the letter many misstate-
ments. Now, at the outset, may we not reasonably
ask wbv, in a case so rare, and under law so obsolete,
wire these persons not warned before they were
punished ? And if punishment were necessary at all,
why should not a small number have been selected
(thirty
-Onwerel believe, summoned), whose posi-
tion
a ud influence would have made the punishment
justices' clerk, who writes to
a landmark—for example, Mr Marsh himself ? And
whether in the years
IyoauskthMurs. Msanarosthim,
othueiously,
1861 and 1862 he did not get in his own hay
on the Sunday; and I further invite him to con-

tradict, if he can, my assertion, that in the present
year, 1863 (on the very Sunday preceding that for
which these poor men were punished), the hay was
actually got in from his own fields, and in his own
presence, o❑ the Lord's Day ? These facts are
notorious in the district and cannot be denied. They
were known to the magistr ates ; they were known to
the police; and with that knowledge men in the last
stage of indigence, who acted in unselfish aid of
their, neighbours, were convicted. Further than
this, it is equally notorious that workmen in the

employment of some of the justices might have been
equally punished, but that no prosecution was per-
mitted to touch them. Mr. Marsh states that in the
fields of each of the defendants the police found men
in a state of intoxication. This is simply untrue,
and no such evidence was given before the magis-
trates. Will Mr. Marsh have the goodness to ex-
plain, if he can, why the persons who were drunk
were not summoned ? and will he, if he can, name
any one of the defendants who was in a state of in-
toxication. Mr. Marsh says the weather was
settled and fair.
This is equally untrue, There
was rain in the morning. There was rain late in
the evening, and this was stated in Mr. Marsh's
hearing upon the trial. I shall not follow the
attorney's verbiage with which Mr. Marsh fills his
letter, but I have shown its worthlessness by his
own acts. The magistrates seem heartily disgusted
with their position, and now put their clerk for-
ward as their speaker and their scapegoat. The
whole thing was wrong. Many such wrongs have
passed without comment. Here the weight of pub-
lic indignation had fallen, and it has stayed the
extension of the injustice. The magistrates
threatened the poor houseless weavers and labourers
with the stocks. Will they execute their threat
and let their clerk and their colleagues escape ? I
say no more than that with the aid of the public
this strange and harsh proceeding will be further
investigated and its illegality punished."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

-4,-

ExAMINEIL—It is row five years and upwards
since the French Emperor produced a rifled field-
piece, the effect of which as tested in a stricken
field, and that one of the great battles of the pre-
sent age, proved it to be an invention of the highest
importance; and we believe t rmt we are peract!.7
borne out in saying that the grooved barrel, as
brought to bear on small arms and great guns, has
considerably changed the system and altered the
details of modern warfare. It would seem to us
almost a matter of necessity, that when all Eurcpe
at once seized upon the French idea and carried it
into effect in one and all of the countries from the
boot of Italy to Sweden, that England should have
taken a strong lead among the nations. Her vc.st
wealth, her extended commerce, the ingenuity of
her workers in the hard ores of the earth, at once
presented our country to us as one whose position
should at least be as much strengthened by all the
appliances of science as any of the less favoured
neighbouring nations; and there can be little doubt
that if due care and attention had been paid to this
most important matter, we should, in the event of
' a war breaking out, have had nothing to risk. We
believe, in reference to small arms—whether we
consider the weapon itself or the gallant men who
have studied its use—that we have muskets and
marksmen equal, perhaps superior, to those of any
nation in the world. Why is it, then, that the con-
current testimony of those best informed unites in
describing England as the most deficient of all
nations in her artillery ? At a dinner lately given
at Liverpool to Admiral Dacres and the officers of
the Channel Fleet, the admission was made by
Lord Stanley that a gun had not been found for
those wondrous ships then lying in the Mersey.
How painfully must the utterance of such a fact
have fallen upon the ears of all present. That the
old 68. pounder smooth-bored gnn is the only effec-
tive gun we can command seems to us almost in-
comprehensible. We need not go into detail, for
our correspondent " Caveto" has laboured long and
zealously at the subject, until the time has arrived
when he has won his deserved reward in finding
that the public are fast coming over to those
opinions which our valued correspondent was the
first to broach. The Times' Portsmouth corre-
spondent and the Army and Navy Gazette have
completely taken the same view of the
question; and the daily press generally agree
in deprecating the defenceless position in which we
are left. The Times of the 23d had an able article
on the subject, whereby many of its previous opi-
nions were recanted, but our able contemporary
does not come down with his usual force on the evil
which is at the root of the matter. There can be no
doubt that if the War Office had called forth the
talents of our engineers by permitting free compe-
tition, the result would have been that we should

long ere this have had two, three, or even five-
hundred pounders on our forts; and that we should
have had guns of five tons' weight, if that be the
maximum of weight of a sea-service gun, which
would have carried heavy charges of powder suffi-
cient to have propelled a shot through any coating
of wood and iron. What has the Ordnance Coen •
mittee been about, that we have had no trial of
Admiral Dehlgren's guns, or Parrot's? If guns
carrying 200-pound balls can beat down a fort at
two miles, what armour-ship could resist its force?
Why is Captain Blakely to be refused a trial in
England, and yet carry 800-pounders to Charles-
ton ? Why are weto find that Whitworth is more
honoured abroad than at home? Why, in the name
of all that is strange, are we to be called on to accept
Sir William Armstrong and his failing guns as our
patterns of excellence, and deny fair competition to
all others ?
LONDON REVIEW.—About a fortnight since a
small and curious little weekly paper, called the
Cheltenham Looker-on, and which professes to be
a "note. book of the sayings and doings of social,
Political, and fashionable life," for the benefit of the
loungers of the Cheltenham pump-rooms, took the
trouble in the leading article, which it significantly
terms "Our Whispering Gallery," to enter into the
following description of her Majesty's bedroom :
" It may be stated that no apparent abatement has
occurred in reference to the fixed melancholy which
appears to have taken possession of the illustrious
lady ever since the death of the Prince Consort.
The Royal bedchamber is still hung with crape and
personal memorials of the deceased Prince, to whose
death, however, she never alludes." The intelli-
gence about the crape and the Royal bed-cham-
ber is evidently addressed to that peculiar class
of readers who would be keenly pleased to
be informed which rooms at Marlborough House
were hung with chintz and which with damask. If
the " Looker-on" can accomplish the feat of know-
ing about the crape, there is no reason why his zeal
should not get as far the chintz. It is hardly neces-
sary to say that so accomplished and pertinacious an
eavesdropper is not satisfied with following royalty
into its bedchamber. The Cheltenham pump-rooms
demand that when the Court goes abroad the
Looker on" shall stand itself somewhere on board
the royal yacht, even if it be behind the boxes in the
cabin. By unheard of efforts the" Looker on" has
been able accordingly to discuver that her Majesty
has been sick at sea ; and ho proceeds to discuss the
relative capacities for suffering sea-sickness of the
different medical attendants upon the Queen. We
know from Mr. Thaekeray that in the Rev. Mr.
Honeyman's hours of social relaxation, he used to
indulge his audience with pantomimic imitations of
his uncle the bishop and his uncle's chaplain both
sick at sea together; and that he managed through-
out to keep them quite distinct and natural.
The Cheltenham "Looker on" performs nearly as
great a feat with respect to Dr. Baley and Dr.
Jenner, the Queen's physicians :—" The late medi-
cal attendant of the Court (Dr. Baley) was so pros-
trated as to be unable to speak or move while afloat.
The successor of the latter (Dr. Jenner) is a better
sailor; but still he has no inclination to leave terra
firma oftener than absolutely necessary, and is
heartily glad, when his marine expeditions are over,
to return to his quiet home in Harley-street and the
ordinary routine of professional life." It is pro-
bably difficult for social impertinence to go to
greater lengths than it does in this last paragraph.
We can imagine Dr. Jenner's feelings about the
coolness of the " Looker-on,"—if chance brought
him to Cheltenham Spa, when he learnt from its
columns how delighted he usually was when he got
back from the steamer to his " quiet home in Har-
ley-street." But the vulgarity of the "Looker on"
is not the moral to be drawn from the whole. The
oddest reflection is that there must be a number of
Cheltenham loungers who are really interested in
reading in their weekly paper an account of the dif-
ferent ways in which Pr. I3ayley and Dr. Jenner
are sick on board ship. Probably few of them
are acquainted with either of the two gentlemen.
They are, however, quite willing to learn all they
can of the details of the life of either; and to learn
them from a newspaper writer whose style of writing
is suck as to warrant us in thinking that he deserves
to L'A kicked oat of any drawing-room in London
which he may happen to enter, The Cheltenham
"Looker-on" has not, however, exhausted his
powers OW the sea sufferings of the Court. It
seams that the Morning Post has announced case ally
that the Hon. C. P. Villiers, M,P., has gone to Spa,
in Belgium, et paragraph about the movements of
anv London gentlemen whose name known, is too
good an opportunity for socia_, impertinence to be
lost. Upon the brief 44vvrtisernent the Cheltenham
" Looker-on" builds the tollewing extraordinary
and, we venture to think, somewhat infemoue site
perstructure :—" It is asserted that the Right Hon.
Charles Pelham Villiers, M P., has left town to
peso a few weans at Spa, in Belgium. Were it not
for the general veracity of your contemporary, 1
would be inclined to doubt the bona fiches of this an •
nouncement, as the Right Hon. C. P. V, has never
previously been known to go voluntarily more than
one mile from Pall Mall in the whole course of his
life. The right hon. gentleman breathes, moves,
and has his being in an unchanged atmosphere of
Cockneydom, and his friends are always quizzing
him abontthe feline pertinacity with which he clings
to his club and the Poor Law Board, and his
modest bachelor lodging, all of which may
be found within the charmed circle of one
mile. Now, however, that he has summoned cou-
rage to break through his accustomed habits, it
is to be hoped that he has not invaded Belgian ter-
ritory in the extraordinary costume in which he
appears in Pall-mall—that he has brushed his hat
so that the nap will lie close instead of on end ' like
quills upon the fretful porcupines' and that, above
all, he has emptied his pockets of the rolls of papers
with which they are usually filled to repletion, and
has denuded himself of the pieces of red tape which
dangle down either from the crown of his hat or
from the pockets of his ancient blue frock-coat with
the funny old-fashioned collar and the well-polished
sleeves." That the " Looker-on" should conclude so
unusual a production with an account of the Lord
Chancellor's dress on board his yacht, is not at all
remarkable. We can only be thankful that he has
left so many members of the Cabinet unassailed.
In time, however, there is no doubt that he will
come to the Duke of Argyle's hair, and the noses of
some of the leading bishops. It is a curious taste,
and one which we hope may long continue peculiar
to Cheltenham. Retired Indian officers, and retir-
ing belles, we presume, require this kind of exciting
intellectual food. There is no accounting for tastes,
and it is perfectly possible that absence of sense,
and continual want of employment, may produce in
men and women those odd likings and habits of
thought, which are generally supposed to be most
in place in the servants' hall.
THE READER.—.The newspapers have done right
in praising Cardinal Wiseman's Lecture on Self.
Culture, delivered last week at the Hartley Institu-
tion in Southampton. One does not Always like

the Cardina'l's asavo, 'whether spolsen or written.
They have, many of them, a sleek, H ibby, veal-like
texture both of thought and of expression. It is
partly Iron. the recollection of such eisceuises of the
Cardinal, partly from a general conviction that the
Cardinal's mode of thought must, from the inevit-
able circumstances cf hie training and position, be
a mode of thought utterly incapable of any whole-
some effect upon the national British mind, that one
is apt to take up any new discourse of his with a
predetermination against it. But one ought not
to let prejudice have its way, oven against a cardi-
nal ; and we must say that there were parts of
Cardinal Wiseinae's recent lecture which were really
ingenious and good. It is not so much those parts
of the lecture which were generally praised by the
newspapers that have caught our fancy as a certain
troin of abstract disquisition upon which the Car-
dinal entered at the beginning of the lecture, and
the application of which occupied the rest of it.
The Cardinal, indeed, treated his Southampton
audience to a neat little bit of psychology; and
newspapers cannot be expected to look utter the
bits of psychology that may occur in the lectures
which they report. Indeed they are seldom troubled
with them. There have been a few capital vacation
speeches within the last week or two by various
public men—Earl Russell, Lord Stanley, Mr. Grant
Duff, and others; and, all in all, perhaps the best
vacation speech of the season—that with most of
real thought and perception of the future in it—has
been Mr. Grant Duff's; but the Cardinal alone, so
far as we have observed, made his speech to consist
in a connected exposition, taken from what Univer-
sity men call the Philosophy of the Human Mind.
SPECTATOR.—The magistrates of Leigh have been
baited into a breach of the unwritten law, which
ordains that Englishmen sitting in judicial capacity
shall never defend themselves. The fact is remark-
able, for the accusation against them amounted only
to one of bigotry. It was said that certain farmers
of Leigh, fearing a thunderstorm, carted their hay
on Sunday, that they were summoned by the police,
that the magistrates fined them, under an obsolete
act, twenty-three shillings apiece, and that, the
yeomen resisting the illegal sentence, their goods
were distrained with many circumstances of insult
and oppression. So strong was the feeling created
by the narrative, that Lord Essex headed a subscrip-
tion in the Times, which speedily reached a most
respectable figure, and the magistrates were censured
so sharply by men to whose opinions they could not
affect indifference, that they have suffered their
clerk to publish a long and formal reply. We are
bound to admit, for we accepted the original story,
that it is on all important points conclusive. There
is a point connected with the amount of the
fines which is not yet cleared up, but on all others
little doubt can remain that the public have been
deceived. The farmers were not doing an occa-
sional work, but carrying out a system which has
already led to increased demoralisation ; they were
not carting their own corn, but hiring labourers
with drink and victuals to do seven days' work in-
stead of six; the distraint was only carried out in
consequence of a combination to refuse payment;
and in short, the farmers, and not the magistrates,
were guilty of a breach of the law. If it be true,
as asserted, though not by Mr. Marsh, that the
money subscribed was spent in a savage orgie, of
which races performed by naked men formed the
most conspicuous feature—those who have read
Mr. White's book will understand why we consider
this statement possible—they were guilty of some-
thing worse than excited misrepresentation, of en-
couraging a demoralisation which to men living in
Southern England seems almost beyond the range
of belief. Altogether apart from that statement,
however, the magistrates must stand acquitted, for,
whether the law be evil or good, they only carried
out its provisions, and in nounmerciful spirit. For,
and it is on this point that the gravest misapprehen-
sion exists, it is not the purpose or wish of those
who resist the bigoted Sabbatarians to abolish the
legal restrictions which protect the weekly rest.
Each of the extreme factions who on this question
abuse each other so savagely—the Sabbatarians,
who would make it a crime to " pluck the ears of
corn on the Sabbath day," and the party who would
abolish all restrictions on Sunday work—includes,
we conceive, in England a very small minority.
The great body, we take it, of educated men, while
doubtful as to the religious obligation of rest; the
rule laid down by Christ being clearly intended to
abolish the Jewish Sabbath, and not clearly intended
to establish any new one, still regard the legal en-
forcement of rest on one day in every seven with
the most cordial approval. The argument so com-
mon in Scotland, that the day is a necessity eaten
for animals is an argument merely, and a neer one
even for men who are reasoning on an ecclesiastical
point. Three-fourths of the world get along ex-
ceedingly well without any observance of the kind,
and if Chinese bullocks or Parisian horses die a
little the sooner they have got all the more work
out of the days of their lives. But no sane man
can doubt that in an age of excessive toil, when
the rush and excitement of life wear out the
nerves and bewilder the brain, one day of
peace in seven is an unmixed and enormous good.
And no man who believes with us, that the impor-
tance of things divine is to that of things earthly as
the infinite is to the finite, wtli doubt that some
short space of rest, during which the soul has time
to contemplate subjects unconnected with dinner,
worship may be exempt from the interruptions of
daily life, and meditation may be free from the
thought of work left standing, will doubt that the
Sunday's rest is of unspeakable moral value. It is
not a religious necessity any more than water is a
religious necessity to the man who thirsts. It may
not be to many minds a necessity of any kind, any
more than buttresses are necessary to support the
perfect arch. There are even minds to which the
strict observance of Sunday, as of any other rite or
ceremonial whatsoever, has that savour of formalism
which to such minds destroys all possibility of
spiritual life. But to the mass of mankind, and
especially of English mankind—Englishmen having
a tendency to crystallise their habits around their
beliefs,—one day of rest in seven creates un-
doubtedly the opportunity of spiritual, as well as
the fact of physical benefit. To abolish that time
of rest, in an age which is maddening itself with
work, in order to give the competitive strife
a monopoly of all life, or even to suffer avarice to
steal the little titre now exempt from its evil con-
trol, would be a course of procedure only less mad
than that on which Sabbatarians would have all
Englishmen enter. Toil shall halt one day in seven
—that seems to us the clear and the wise decision
of the mass of English opinion, which, while main-
taining that principle, still resents all external in-
terference with the use of the day so secured. If
this be at once a just and predominant opinion, it
only remains so to regulate legislation that the end
sought may be secured without religious oppression.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—No one can wonder that the
famous Woolley insurance cese should have pro-
voked some rather strong criticism on the conduct
of the leading offices. In coming to the determine,
tion to resist payment on the ground of fraud and
arsca, we have no doubt that the managers of the
companies in which Campden House was insured
acted upon a genuine suspicion that the fire was
wilfully caused. Unfortunately for them, all their
efforts failed to produce a fragment of evidence to
justify a defence which was equivalent in effect to
putting a man on trial for one of the gravest of
criminal offences, without any reasonable cause. It
is not, however, this—the really important aspect
of the matter—which has attracted most attention.
Most peasants who insure feel that the precedent of
Mr. Woolley's case is not likely to be followed
against them ; and though the fact of this gen-
tleman having, some twenty or thirty years ago,
occupied au unusual position at an hotel was
rather an insufficient reason for charging him
with crime, there is no doubt that the singularity
of his life bad more to do with the suspicions of the
offices than they would perhaps be willing to allow.
After the result of this famous trial, it is less likely
than ever that ordinary insurers will be exposed to
gratuitous accusations of setting fire to their houses;
but it so happened that there was one little inci-
dent in the history of the affair which touches in-
surers much more nearly. When Campden House
was totally destroyed, and a claim of of £30,000
wes made upon the petioles, the companies had the
audacity to ask Mr. Woolley how he made up this
imposing total of damage. The investigation proved
to the 6atieliCtiOn of a jury that the house was not
over-insured; but this conclusion was not arrived
at until a great deal of trouble and some expense
had been incurred in making out a priced inven-
tory of the stores of furniture, fittings, and pic-
tures with which this old curiosity shop was
crammed. It has occurred to sundry correspon-
dents of the Times that what was done in Mr.
'Woolley's oaee might be done in theirs also, and
that, when they call upon an insurance office to
replace the damage which a fire may have
caused, they may be asked in return to point out
what damage they have suffered, and to fur-
nish sufficient details to show how the
amount of their claim is arrived at. The most
affecting pictures have been drawn of the painful
embarrassneepts of a burnt-out proprietor when he
attempts to recall from memory the particulars of
his household goods, and to estimate the cost at
which they may be replaced. The difficulty of
making a perfectly accurate claim is no doubt con-
siderable; but as the claimant, however weak his
memory, must know more about the matter than
any one else, the difficulty is much more likely to
press hardly on the assurers than on the assured.
Still, the trouble of framing such an estimate as was
required from Mr Woolley is a Vary good grievance
for discussion at thin time of the year, and it cannot
be denied that the plan which the Times has advo-
cated in a slashing leader would effectually relieve
the sufferers. The proposal is that; if a 111411

sures his prop:,2.rty against damage not ezeeediog
(say 11,000), the office shall in all cases pay either
the whale 11,000,- or, at any rate, the full
amount of the claim that . may be sent in,
whether the damage sustained may be much or
little. It is easy to see how admirably convenient
this arrangement would be, H e total loss occurs,
the unfortunate victim of gas or varnish, as the
case may be, will not have his distress of mind
aggravated by the necessity' of pondering over his
lost treasures, and fixing a money price on articles
to which he may perhaps have attached a senti-
mental value. He will have nothing more to do
than to write to the office a letter (for which printed
common forms might conveniently be kept) stating
that he had insured against damage not exceeding
11,000, and that he would be much obliged by II
cheque for that amount. The office would reply
that they had much pleasure in forwarding the
sum asked for, without aggravating the troubles of
their unhappy customer by asking whether the
damage done did or did not reach the extreme limit
of the policy. The assured would thereupon buy a
new lot of furniture with the money, and if he
should find his house decidedly handsomer than
before, so much the better for him. Nothing could
be more comfortable than this ; and, indeed, such
an arrangement would take the sting out of the
most terrible of calamities, and make it a real plea-
sure to be burnt out.

Departure of the Channel Fleet from
Liverpool.

On separating from the pilots the Admiral signalled
" Admiral Dacres considers that the services of the pilots
have been creditably performed, and desires that all the pilots
be informed of it. At the Bell-boy 10,30 a.m." The officers
also thanked the Old Steam-tug Company for having placed
the steam-tug Resistance at their disposal during the visit
of the fleet to Liverpool. The following letter has been re-
ceived by Mr. S. R. Graves, from Admiral Dacres :
" Her Majesty's ship Edgar, Liverpool, Sept, 23.

" Sir,—lt would be impossible to express the universal
feeling of gratification prevailing throughout the Channel
squadron under my command at the kind and hospitable
reception given to myself, the officers, and men by all
classes in the town of Liverpool ; but I cannot leave the
Mersey without expressing to you and the gentlemen asso-
ciated with you yesterday in entertaining the seamen and
marines of the ships my own and their sincere and hearty
thanks, joined with those of the men themselves, for the
manner in which that entertainment was carried out. For
the unceasing personal exertions required in organising the
preparations necessary to bring such an .undertaking to a
successful issue, and for the kind attention shown them by
everyone, the men owe very much to you, and it is to me a
subject of real congratulation that they tried to show how
justly they appreciated it by the admirable manner in which
they behaved.—l have the honour to be, sir, your obedient
servant, " S. C. DACRES, Rear-admiral

Commanding

"S. R. Graves, Esq., Commodore,
Royal Mersey Yacht Club."

To this Mr. Graves replied :

"Liverpool, Sept. 24.

" Rear-Ad miral Dacres, Commanding Channel Squadron.
" Sir,—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of
your valued favour of yesterday, and have communicated
the same to the Executive Committee appointed to carry
out the entertainment recently given at St. George's-hall
to the seamen and marines of the Channel squadron under
your command, and I am requested to assure you that the
kindly sentiments expressed by you towards myself and col-
leagues are fully appreciated, and are most gratifying to us.
A gathering more unique in its character or important in its
results has rarely before taken place in this town, and it is
itipossible for me to convey to you any idea of the satisfac-
tion it has afforded to all classes of the community. The
admirable arrangements made by Commander Soady, of her
Majesty's ship Royal Oak, for carrying out the views of the
committee, and the unexceptionable conduct of the men,
contributed in no small degree to that marked success which
attended an entertainment not soon to be forgotten by the
inhabitants of the town. Permit me, in conclusion, to ex-
press the obligations we are all under to yourself, per-
sonally, for so promptly acquiescing in a proposal which re•
quired no little confidence in your men, and it must be very
gratifying to you to feel that your confidence has not been
misplaced.

" S. R. GRAVES."