The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-26 00:00:00

PIIGMISK

THE CHAMPIONSHIP.

RYALL, Or BIRMINGHAM, AND J. MACE,—At length a
match has been made, and the necessary articles duly en-
tered into, for these men to fight for £2OO a side and the
champion's belt, which after the memorable contest between
Tom King and Jem Mace, when King proved victorious,
was returned by King to the keeping of the stakeholder,
owing to his not being in a position to defend his title to
the same. Since then Mace has repeatedly intimated that
he (the affair with the Unknown having ended in smoke),
was ready to meet any one who might be ambitious of en-
tering the lists with him to contend for the highest of pugi-
listic honours. W. Ryall, the old opponent of Joe Goss, has
now come into the field, Mace having also a match pending
for £6OO to £4OO with Joe Goss. This event is to come off
at the end of September next, and for the purpose of mak-
ing matters smooth for Jam, the match between himself and
Ryall for the championship is made to take place in three
months from the day on which Mace meets Goss of Wol-
verhampton. From this arrangement it will be seen Ryall
has a good six months to wait before the arrival of the great
day. A deposit of £l5 a side has been staked.

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CHASING BLOCKADZ RIINNERS.—The following
is from the pen of an officer on board one of tier
Majesty's ships of war on the North American and West
India station :—" After a passage of little interest from
Matamoras to Havana, which we reached on Tuesday
afternoon, we found at anchor in the harbour there a host
of merchant vessels as usual, and among them several
blockade runners, two of which, the Ruby and
Neptune, being ready for sea, were closely watched by the
Federal gunboat Sanoma, which was anxious to make
a prize of one or both if she could ; but instead of lying out-
side the harbour, where no one could see her, and where
she could pounce down on a vessel just as she came out,
she lay up right in the middle of the harbour amongst
the shipping. The Sanoma is more of a sloop than
a gunboat, very heavily armed, and carries a great num-
ber of men. She is a paddle, black painted, with two
very small masts, schooner rigged. The blockade run-
ners are small steamers, rather low, and very long,
bows like a knife, with one or two lookout posts about
30ft to 4Oft high. They average on a passage 13 knots, and in
an emergency can be worked up to 16 or 17. I believe they
are painted a dirty stone colour, very difficult to distin-
guish at sea. It was arranged that the Ruby and Nep-
tune should both go out together, so as to humbug the
Yankee as much as possible. On the same night we
got into harbour, just a little before Sunset, the Nep-
tune let slip her cable, and before the Yankee knew
where he was, the little Neptune was clear of the harbour
and puffing away like old boots outside. The Sanoma
by this time had slipped her moorings ; but she is
a long craft, and having but small head sails with little
wind, and among a crowd of shipping, she took a long
time to get her head slowed round to the entrance of the
harbour. This done, she clapped on full speed and came
thundering down the harbour; but all this time the Ruby
had not been asleep, she slipped her cable, and, to tease
the Yankee, hoisted English colours and ran under her
stern, dipping her colours three times to her. She then
came under our stern and dipped her colours three times
to us ; her crew took off their hats and cheered us. She
then ran down across the Yankees bows, got into the
passage of the harbour, and stopped there on some
paltry excuse, and just at this moment a Spanish
brigantine under sail got right between the two—so the
Sanoma had to go full speed astern to stop her way and pre-
vent her running down the brigantine, and by the time she
got past the Ruby the Neptune was about five miles off
the land. When the Sanoma got clear of the entrance she
again clapped on full speed after the Neptune. The Ruby
steamed out half a mile to watch the Neptune increasing
the distance between her stern and the bows of the Yankee,
and just as it was getting dark I could barely make
out a speck on the horizon from the masthead, while the
Sanoma was vainly puffing after her. After dark the Ruby
steamed quietly away to the northward. On Thursday
morning, as we were steaming out of theharbour, we passed
the Sanoma coming in, accompanied by a corvette looking
very crest-fallen, returning from the chase without her
prize."