The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 31, 1863.

WHERE CAN WE MEET AFTER THE
PANTOMIMES ? My dear Fellow, Gentlemen sup
at EVANS', Covent-garden.

KINAHAN'S LL WHISKY v. COGNAC,
BRANDY.
This celebrated Old IRISH WHISKY rivals the finest
FRENCH BRANDY,
It i 4 Pure, Mild, Mellow, Delicious, and very Wholesome.
Sold in Bottles, 3s. Bd., at the Retail Houses in London ; by
Abe Agents in the principal towns in England; or wholesale
at
8, GREAT WINDMILL-STREET, W.
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"Kinahan's LL Whisky."

THE best TROUSERS for gentlemen to wear
are those mad 3 by ELSTOB, of 60, New Bond-street.
They are neither so low in price as to necessitate their being
carelessly put together, nor so dear as to gain only the
wealthy purchasers. "In medio tutisimus ibis."
ELSTOB'S TROUSERS, TWENTY-ONE SHILLINGS
PER PAIR.

IVOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that the
WELLINGTON havincs been CLOSED for repairs,
&c., will be RE-OPENED THIS DAY, (THURSDAY),
the 31st December, at 5 o'clock p.m.
By order,
JOHN CATES, Manager.
The Wellington. St. James's-street.
Entrance, 460, Piccadilly, W.
December 30, 1863.

BBEAUTIFULWOMEN.—AIabaster Powder,
slid the Magietie TfOCIc Dew' Wafer from Sahara. Cir-
cassian Bloom, Arabian Soaps, and Alabaster Liquid. These
costly and inimitable toilet preparations render the hair,
teeth, and complexion beautiful beyond comparison.—Can be
had only at Madame RACHEL'S, 47A, New Bond-street,
where she can be consulted daily. An communications are
strictly confidential.

BANKRUPTCY AND COMPOSITIONS.-
Mr. WETHERFIELD. Solicitor, 35, Moorgate-street,
City, PRACTISES in COURT, and effects PRIVATE
ARRANGEMENTS with creditors, without publility.
Charges, the lowest possible, payable by instalments. Coun-
try cases economically conducted.
N.B.—DEBTS recovered on commission, free of law costs.
Divorce and Probate business conducted at moderato ex-
pense.

BENSON'S WATCHES, adapted for any climate
and country; wholesale and retail. Chronometer,
duplex, lever, horizontal, vertical, repeating, centre seconds,
keyless, astronomical, reversible, and chronograph watches,
from 200 to three guineas each.
An illustrated pamphlet and price list of every description
of watch post free for two stamps.
J. W. BENSON, by special warrant of appointment watch
and clock maker to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Manufac-
tory, 33 and 34, Ludgate-hill, E.C.

LIFEBOAT SERVICES.—During the recent
heavy gales some of the Loath of the Royal National
Lifeboat institution have been instrumental in rescuing the
crews of the following wrecked vessels:—Schooner Theophi-
lus, of Aberdeen, 5 men ; barque Tamworth, of Norway, 17 ;
schooner Northern Lights, of -Preston, 4' • pilot boat, of St.
Ives, 7 ; schooner Arlon, of Workington, 4; schooner Gipsy,
of Drogheda, 4 ; smack Saucy Jack, of Inverness, 1 ; barque
Marietta, of Lisbon, 1 ; fishing boat, of Filey, 2.•' Tenby
fishing boat, 3; and barque Providence, of Dantzic,7. Total
lives saved, 55. The lifeboats also assisted in bringing safely
into port, with their crews, consisting of 29 men, the Italian
brig Camoglino, the schooner Sir Colin Campbell, of Whitby,
the schooner Guilia, of Palermo, and the ketch Snip, of Am-
sterdam. The lifeboats also went off in reply to signals of
distress on fourteen oceasions, but their services were not
ultimately required. The amount of reward paid for all
these services was £216.

The Committee of the Institutionearnestly AP PEAL to the
public for ASSISTANCE to tenable them to meet the con-
tinued heavy demands on the Society's 125 'Rebut estab-
lishments. Contributions are received by all the London
and country bankers ; and by the Secretary, Richard Lewis,
Esq., at the Institution, 14, John-street, Adelphi, London.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, Dec. 30.

Our new Lord Mayor is resolved to bring out the
corporation on New Year's-day with a splendour
surpassing anything of the kind known in modern
times. It is intended to revive the warlike and
picturesque usages of the middle ages. All the city
functionaries will figure in the procession in appro-
priate costumes—from the Recorder and the Presi-
dent of the Curt of Conscience to the city turn-
cocks. There will be trumpeters in quaint dresses,
knights in brass armour, javelin men, mace-bearers,
and gallow-glasses in suits of mail, armed with
battle-axes, mounted police, hussars, B,:e. Of late
years the corporation seemed to be getting rather
ashamed of the antiquated mummeries of the Lord
Mayor's show ; but the splendours of which it was
shorn will now reappear, brighter than over after
the temporary obscuration. It would do Mr.
Ruskin's heart good to witness the renaissance of
mediaeval art in connection with civic displays; to
see the lumber of antiquity, the mouldering relics
of departed ages, brought out into the sunlight,
freshly painted and decorated, as if to shame the
bald utilitarianism of modern civilisation. Happily
the Saxon origin of the Irish corporations does not
detract from their antique charms to the Celtic
imagination. On the contrary, the intention is to
make the civic procession of Dublin resemble, as
nearly as possible, the same pageant in London,
with the addition of our tall gallow-glasses and
some other Hibernian variations. In fact, accord-
ing to the programme that has just been issued by
the secretary of the Lord Mayor elect, Mr. Michael
Angelo Hayes, there has been no procession to
equal this in poetic conception, richness of artistic
colouring, and theatrical effects, since the Highland
clans were marshalled in Edinburgh by Sir Walter
Scott to meet George IV, It is supposed that this
revival movement will greatly increase the circulz
tion among us of Mr. Carlisle's " Sartor Resartus."

The delay of the Galway mail steamer Columbia
is accounted for by the following facts : On her out-
ward voyage she suffered severely from the gales
which at that time visited the Irish coast and
Channel. Her boats are said to have been carried
away, her decks swept,and her paddleboxes stripped.
These damages had to be repaired in New York,
where she was a day late in starting, and was en-
gaged in taking in coal when the passengers were all
going on board. She was a day late at St. John's,
and was delayed 17 hours there in coaling again.
She is said to be a slow vessel from being too deep
in the water, which is caused by the weight of iron
put on to increase her strength.
The Commissioners under the late Fishery Act
are at present holding a court in Limerick, and are
engaged in defining the mouths and the boundaries
of the estuaries of the river Shannon and its tribu-
taries, the Maigne, Fergus, and Deel. The Shannon
Fishery Company, the Shannon Fishery Protection
Association, the Lower Shannon Protection Asso-
ciation, the Harbour Board of Limerick, the Lime-
rick Snap-net Fishermen, as well as Lord Annaly,
the Knight of Glynn, and other fishery proprietors
were represented by counsel.
Mr. Benjamin Whitworth, an eminent and
wealthy Manchester merchant, having recently
offered to erect a handsome town-hall in Drogheda,
his native place, a meeting of the inhabitants was
held in the Tholsel last Monday to hear the terms
of the offer and make all necessary arrangements.
A resolution conveying the thanks of the inhabi-
tants to Mr. Whitworth for his munificent offer, and
gratefully accepting it, was passed by acclamation;
and a committee of 24 (12 Protestants and 12
Catholics) was appointed to select a site for the
building and superintend the work. Another
public-spirited gentleman, Mr. Smith, offered to
give an extensive piece of ground (free of all
charge) for the site, which was provisionally ac-
cepted.

The Condemned Convict, Samuel Wright.

The execution of Wright has, we learn, been
postponed to Tuesday, 12th prox. Strenuous efforts
to avert the capital sentence are being made by
working men and others in the Lambeth district.
The all but universal feeling on the subject appears
ttohibsecatsheatwtahse veryincniosupmatmibale with a due regard forry course of procedure in
that fairness which has hitherto invariably distin-
guished British justice in dealing with offences in-
volving the life of the accused. There is some
reason to believe that Wright intended to apply for
the postponement of his trial; but it is said that he
was overcome and lost his presence of mind at the
last moment. This is not to be wondered at when
the extraordinary haste with which he was called
upon to plead, after being committed by the coroner
and magistrate, are taken into consideration.
A very general opinion appears to prevail that
Wright's sentence will be commuted, arising pro-
bably from the public feeling being favourable to
that course. Wright has himself memorialised Sir
George Grey, setting forth his account of the sad
affair which has placed him in his present awful
position.—Morning Paper.

FUNERAL OF MR. THACKERAY,

(From the limo.)

Yesterday at noon Mr. Thackeray was buried in
the cemetery of Kensal-green. The day was so
fine that, notwithstanding. the distance from town,
a vast concourse of his friends were enabled to sur-
round his grave, and to pay him the last honour.
Many hundreds must have been present of almost
every rank and class. Mr. Thaekeray had the gift
of associating with a wonderful variety of persons ;
to be in his company was in the case of most per-
sons to be entirely at ease with him ; and it was
impossible not to pass from easy intercourse to
affection and regard. Among the great throng of
mourners we noticed nearly all the foremost men of
letters and artists of the day, some of them having
travelled far to be present on the sad occasion. It
may be enough to state this in general terms, and
we forbear to mention names, because in so large
and promiscuous a crowd in which there were no
signs of arrangement or precedence it is difficult
not to overlook some eminent men who might be
entitled to mention. Only a ,very few of Mr.
Thackeray's most intimate Maids were expressly
invited to the funeral. The hundreds-on hundreds
who attended came of their own accord to bear
witness to the worth of a dear friend and a
much admired man ; and of all these we venture
to refer to but one name—that of Mr. Charles
Dickens. We do so because he is the author
most frequently remembered in connection with
Mr. Thackeray, and because he has sometimes been
regarded as a rival. In point of fact, there can be
no rivalry between these two great novelists, and
any special comparison between them must proceed
on superficial grounds. No one had a greater ad-
miration for Mr. Dickens than Mr. Thackeray
himself, or more unaffectedly rejoiced in his ex-
ceeding popularity. On the other hand, to no one
could all thought of rivalry with Mr. Thackeray
be more distasteful than to Mr. Dickens, who always
recognized Thackeray's genius, and yesterday came
a long journey to testify to the love and the honour
which he felt for his great literary brother.
For one so distinguished it has been suggested that
Westminster Abbey is the only fit resting-place. It
must be remembered, however, that Mr. Thackeray
desired to be interred in the simplest manner at
Kensal-green. He has been laid in a brick•built
grave beside one of his children, and his family
affections were so strong that we believe it would
have been a positive pain to him if, when he was
alive, he could have looked forward to being sepa-
rated from his children in the tomb. Those who
were nearest to him, and whom he loved best of
all in the world, were so mash in his mind that
even in the presence of casual acquaintances whom
he saw only at one or other of his clubs he could
not choose but let out somewhat of the strong feel-
ing which stirred within his heart for those who
were as the light of his eyes. It was ono of the
simplest and most winning traits of his character ;
and by those who could not help knowing what he
felt in this way no more touching sight could be
witnessed than that of his two young daughters,
veiled in crape, advancing from the crowd that
pressed about the grave, taking a last sad look at
the coffin, and then turning suddenly away. These
are reasons why Mr. Thackeray should be buried in
his own ground at Kensal-green. Mr. Thackeray
had a rarer distinction than that of being a great
writer ; he was a classical one. He is the greatest
master of English prose which the century has pro-
duced. There may have been men of greater genius
than he; there may been more forcible writers than
he ; but no one has approached him in the command
of polished idiomatic English in all its varieties, in
flexibility and richness and finish of style. At first
this was not fully understood, but now it is seen
more and more clearly every year ; and Thackeray's
English, notwithstanding the liberties which he
sometimes took with it, is coming to be regarded as
the model English. We may say of him, as John-
son said of another, the most classical writer of the
last century, " Whoever wishes to attain an Eng-
lish style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but
not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to
the volumes of Thackeray." Such a: man, who is
something more, something rarer than a great
writer, surely deserves a niche in Westminster
Abbey. But, in the darkness which for us and all
who knew him overshadows this festive season, it is
not of the great author and the brilliant wit that
we think most; it is of the warm-hearted, simple-
minded gentleman, honest in all his ways, trans-
parent in all his words, full of charity in his utmost
satire, and ready to give even when he had little
to spare. _ _ _

Among the mourners were Mr. Dickens, Mr.
Tom Taylor, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Mark Lemon
(the editor of the famous periodical in which were
laid the foundations of Mr. Thaekeray 's fame), Mr.
John Leech (a fellow pupil and friend), Mr.Tenniel,
11r. Horace Mayhew—in short, the whole staff
of the c antribators to Punch ; Mr. Robert Browning
(the poet), Mr. Anthony Trollope, Mr. Theodore
Martin, Mr. John Hollingshead, Mr. G. H. Lewes,
Mr. Dallas, Dr. W. Russell, Sir James Carmichael,
Mr. H. Cole, C. 8., Mr. Robert Bell, Mr. O'Neile,
R.A., Mr. Creswick, R.A., Mr. George Cruikshank,
Archdeacon Hale, Mr. E. Pigott, M. Louis Blanc,
Mr. llerman Merivale, Rev. W. Brookfield, Baron
Marochetti, A.R.A., Rev. Wm, Mitchell, Mr. Rus-
sell Sturgis, Mr. George Smith, Mr. Charles Collins,
Mr. Palgrave Simpson, Mr. Henry Thompson, Mr.
Seymour Haden, Mr. F. Fladgate, Mr. Reeves
Traer, Mr. Henry Reeve, Mr. F. Elliot, Mr. W.
Richmond, A.R.A., Mr. John Millais, A.R.A., Mr.
Richard Doyle, Mr. Valentine Princep, Sir Wm.
Alexander, Mr. Richard Redgrave, &c.
The coffin, which was exceedingly plain, bore
upon it the following inscription :
" WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY,
ESQ.,
DIED 24TH DECEMBER,
1863,
AGED 52 YEARS.

THE HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN, Soho-square,
founded in 1842, and designed exclusively for the
treatment of those peculiar ailments from which neither
age, rank, nor character exempt the female sex, was re-
opened on Wednesday, when a number of addresses were
given in the ward by several noblemen and gentlemen.
From the statement issued, it appears that, as the building
required extensive repairs, and the committee were desirous
of providing further accommodation for in-patients, it was
determined to add another storey ; but the walls being un-
equal to sustain the additional weight had to be taken down
and rebuilt. Prior to the alterations only 25 in-patients
could be received at once, with a yearly average of 135;
now 50 patients can be accommodated. The average
attendance of out-patients annually is 14,000. The com-
mittee are earnestly appealing for funds to enable them to
discharge their liabilities, and previde for the occupation of
all the new wards.
DUTIES ON PLAYING CARDS, —ln 1788, and again
in 1801, the duty on cards was increased on sixpenny
packs, till it reached the sum of half-a-crown a pack. The
traffic in cards not duly stamped was powerfully stimulated
by the high duty. Various evasive devices were invented,
and more than one speculator amassed a large fortune by
selling, under various pretences, cards on which no duty had
been paid. Under the then arrangements, waste aces of
spades could not be procured to any great extent, for the
damaged aces were returned to the Stamp-office,and allowed
for in the cardmakers' accounts. Packs, therefore, were
made up for sale with a blanle card in place of the ace of
spades. Cut-corner cards, as they were called, i.e , packs of
cards of which one corner wss cut off, and minus the ace of
spades, were sold in immense quantities. Cards with a
corner cut off were considered by Parliament sufficiently
mutilated to render them unfit to be used in play. The pub-
lic, however, put up with the inconvenience of using cut-
corner cards rather than pay the high tax. In fact, the law
was found powerless to prevent evasions ; every fresh enact-
ment produced some fresh dodge for driving through it. it
was therefore decided to diminish the duty, and to legalise'
under certain restrictions, the sale of second-hand cards. In
the year 1828 the half-a-crown duty was reduced to ono
shilling. The shilling duty was to be denoted on the ace of
spades. This was the duty ono shilling ace, called " Old
Frizzle," on account of the elaborate flourishes which
adorned it, with which all card pl;:yers were familiar up to
last year,—Onee a Week.

AUTHORS.

MR. TROLLOPE'S great glory is in the portraiture
of women: ,and his success in this walk, says the
7inies, has made him the pat of our drawing-rooms.
The women adore him. Nobody understands the
gentle dames and damsels of modern life half so well
as this modern Anthony. We do not pretend to
speak of him personally ; we are only speaking of
him as a book, he is the great lady-killer of the age.
He has attained this distinction chiefly by merit,
but partly—we were going to say, by demerit—we
shall say, by an appeal to the prejudices of society.
His merit lies in his charming portraiture of the
sex. He has studied all the wiles of the feminine
heart, and knows every fold of feeling—how in
fashionable life Mamma thinks of the jointure, and
how in humble life the worthy dame has thoughts
of buttered toast. Emotions great and small he dis-
cusses with equal facility—the emotion of a lady who
is moving heaven and earth to circumvent her lord,
and the emotion of a girl who in the midst of a ball
discovers that her back hair threatens to fall loose
upon her shoulders. He has really a great know-
ledge of womankind, and paints them lovingly and
tenderly, with all their passions and all their foibles.
Over and above this, however, he is the apostle of
propriety, and appeals to the prejudices of the
drawing-room of the exponent of its favourite con-
ventions. Far be it from us to despise the conven-
tions of society and to run down the proprieties of
life. Our conventions have their uses which no
man of sense will deride. The purity of manners
requires a ceremonial law which is sometimes as
hard to observe as anything in Leviticus. To our
thinking, however, Mr. Trollope is more conscious
than becomes a good artist of the importance of
conventional usage. Ladies, we believe, take a
different view. The ceremonial or conventual law
of society is their safeguard; and they rather like
the man who, without being exactly a prig, is osten-
tatious in his observance of established custom, and
knows exactly how far he may advance and when
he ought to withdraw. This is one of the weak-
nesses of feminine nature. It is pleasant for them
to see a great strong fellow like Mr. Anthony Trol-
lope seriously concerned to decide the precise moment
of time when Rachel Ray can allow Rowan to call
her by her Christian name, when Rowan can, with-
out a breach of the proprieties, snatch a kiss from
the lips of Rachel, or when it would be correct for the
pair to walk out alone together. The pages and
pages which Mr. Trollope devotes to the exposition
of what is proper in lovemaking seem to suggest a
period when ceremony was more conscious than it
is now ; and as we began this notice of him by
comparing him to Defoe among the writers of the
last century we might continue it by comparing
him to the great ladies' man of that century—
Richardson. He was the great painter of women,
the great master of the ceremonies in fiction of the
last age, and Mr. Trollops may -ee proud to be men-
tioned in the same sentence with such a man. He
may also, when he is inclined again to write on the
proprieties of love, remember with advantage a
remark of Walter Scott's, made in connexion with
Richardson. Richardson had little acquaintance
with the usages of high life, and Lady Mary
Wortley Montague mocks at him for making
people kiss who ought not to kiss, and who salute
at wrong times and in wrong places. Where-
upon Sir Walter observes,—" It was natural that
a person of Lady Mary Wortley Montague's
taste and rank should be shocked at the want of
decorum which she complains of, but at this dis-
tance of time we are not sufficiently acquainted
with the fashions of George ll.'s reign to share
her displeasure. We know in general that salu-
tation continued for a long period to be per-
mitted by fashion, and with this general know-
ledge it is of little consequence to us at what
particular year of God men of quality were re-
strained from kissing their cousins. On the same
principle many of Mr. Trollope's discussions on
propriety will one of these days be of little con-
sequence.

The Opening of the Charing-Cross Railway.

OFFICIAL INSPECTION BY CAPT. TYLER, R.E.

Yesterday the official inspection of this important
metropolitan railway was made by Captain Tyler,
R.E,, the Government inspector, previous to the
almost immediate opening of the line for passenger
traffic. The inspection, which was of a most rigid
character, commenced at the western extremity, or
Charing-cross end of the railway, a number of gen-
tlemen connected with the Charing-cross and South
Eastern Railways being present, among whom were
Mr. Eborall, the general manager, Mr. Knight, the
traffic superintendent, Messrs. Stanton and Barry,
for Mr. Hawkshaw, Mr. Wythes, the contractor,
the Duke of Sutherland, Major Malcolm, 1.E., in_
spector of Indian railways, Mr. Walker, the tele-
graph superintendent, Mr. Cockburn, the superin-
tendent of the Charing-cross station, &c.
About 12 o'clock the train left the Charing-cross
end of the line and proceeded gently along the
down rail to the junction at the Waterloo-road,
when a minute scrutiny of the signals (Saxby's
patent) and the points was made by the inspector.
After some time had been spent at this point the
train propeeded on its way to London-bridge, pass-
ing the rlw Blackfriars station, which is provided
with two side and one central platform. The whole
of the signals, points, stations, and permanent way
were carefully examined by Captain Tyler, who we
believe expressed his satisfaction at many of the
arrangements, and on the arrival of the train at
London-bridge the party alighted, and the inspector
proceeded to thejunction with the main line, which
was closely inspected, together with the working of
the points. The new line at London-bridge runs
into the Greenwich and North and Mid-Kent ter-
minus, from which platform the trains for Charing-
cross and the intermediate stations of Waterloo and
Blackfriars will be started.

It was nearly 5 o'clock before the examation at
this end of the line was completed, and the train
then made a return trip along the up'lino of rails,
pausing for a few moments at Blackfriars and
Waterloo, over the Thames-bridge, to Charing-cross,
and running up alongside the platform, which was
lighted for the occasion with the globular lamps
which have been supplied to all the stations. Here
the inspection, which lasted nearly six hours, ter-
minated.

Before leaving the officials who had accompanied
him, Captain Tyler expressed his desire to go over
the line once more, in order to see that some im-
provements suggested by him are carried out.
The first train which will be run will be between
the Charing-cross terminus and the Greenwich and
North and Mid-Kent terminus at London-bridge,
thus opening a communication between the country
intersected by those lines and the West-end of Lon-
don.
The length of the new line is about two miles,
and the distance between London-bridge and
Charing-cross will be accomplished by the trains in
about five minutes, though it can be done in three
minutes. The distance between Charing-cross and
the Waterloo station is about half a mile, Waterloo
and Blackfriars a quarter, and Blackfriars and
London-bridge one mile.

PRIZE DESIGNS.--"As affording the most striking con.
trast, Mr. Benson shows with these a fresh exhibition of
modern watches, with cases made from prize designs at the
South Kensington Museum, some of which are fine specimens
of engraving."—Times, Sept. 15, 1862. Chronometer, duplex,
lever, horizontal, repeaters, centre seconds, keyless, split
seconds, and every description of watch, adapted to all cli-
mates. Benson's illustrated pamphlet on watches (free by
post for two stamps) contains a short history of watchmak-
ing, with prices, from 3to 200 guineas each. It serves as a
guide in the purchase of a watch, and enables those who live
in any part of the world to select a watch, and have it sent
safe by post. Prize medal and honour dile mention, classes
33 and 15. J. W. Benson, 33 and 34, Ludgate-hill, London.
Established 1740. Watch and clock maker by speitil warrant
of appointment to 11.1 t, H. the Prince of Wales.