The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-12 00:00:00

THIRD EDITION.

SUN OFFICE, 7 o'CLocK.

LONDON GAZETTE—This Evening.

The London Gazelle had not been published up to the
hour of our going to press.

COURSE OF EXCHANGE—This Evening.
Amsterdam Short. 11 17
Ditto 3 Months. 12 11
Rotterdam
Antwerp — 25 45
Brussels
Hamburg
Paris Short 25 10
Mar seDittoilles
40
Frankfort on the Maine 120/00
Vienna,
10
Trieste — 10 90
Petersburgh
Berlin
Madrid 46}
Cadiz
Leghorn
Milan
Genoa
Naples — 25 60

11 IS
12 2
12 2
25 55

25 55
13 91
25 17/.
25 47i
25 47/
121
10 95
10 95
6 28
47/
48.
25 65
25 65
25 62/
25 65
25 65
25 65
511
511

Palermo
Messina
Oporto
Lisbon

25 60
25 60
513
511

Foreign Mail Packet List.

MAILS DUE.
Australia and New Zealand, via Southampton Deo. 19.
Ditto, via Marseilles Dec. 13.
Brazil and Cape Verds. by British pacLet ...... Jan. 1.
Ditto, by French packet Dec. 22.
Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and St. Helena Dec. 22.
China, .Penang, and Singapore, via Southampton Dec. 19.

Ditto, via Marseilles Dec. 13.
Falkland Islands
Gibraltar, via Southampton
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton Dec. 19.
Ditto, via Marseilles .Dec. 13.
India (Bombay), via Southampton. Dec. 12.
Ditto, via Marseilles . Dec. 21.
Mauritius, via Southampton Jan. 11.
Ditto, via Marseille3 .Jan. 5.
Newfoundland
• • , Dec. 20,
Portugal Jan 4.
Ditto, by private ship to Lisbon...
United States and British North America, by Bri-
tish packet
Ditto, by United States packet, via Southamp-
ton
Ditto, via Cork . .;
Ditto, by Canadian packet, via Londonderry.. Dec. 15.
West Coast of Africa. Madeira, and Tcneriffe Jan. 10.
West Indies and Pacific (exceptßahamas, Cuba,
and Mexico • • . ........ ...Dec.‘l4.
Cuba and Mexico Dec. 29.
Bahamas, via New Y ork. Dec. 14.
Bermuda, ditto Dec. 20.

THE UNITED STATES MONITOR MONADNOCK.-
A correspondent of the London Standard, writing from St.
Thomas, gives a description of the monitor Monadnock, one
of the United States Pacific squadron. The writer says:
—" As this monitor is the first of her class which has
made a long sea voyage, it may not be uninteresting to
your readers to have a short description of her. As she
now lies in the harbour • with her low, rusty sides, about
eighteen inches out of the water, funnel and two turrets,
she certainly does present a most curious appearance, and
one cannot but admire the ingenuity of the Yankees for
inventing such a ship, but also must allow them credit for
the pluck they display in trusting themselves on board of
her for a voyage of some 15,000 miles. She is about 250
feet long, 1,200 tons register, and has engines of about
250-horse power. She has stowage-room for 350 tons of
coal, of which, when steaming full speed at a rate of about
eight knots an hour, she burns from 22 to 25 tons per day.
I was informed that she has two screws. On going on board
you are most courteously received by the officers, and al-
lowed to go over the whole ship, when the first thing that
strikes one is the immense solidity of the whole concern.
You at once perceive that you are on board a war vessel,
which would not be easily destroyed either by the new
system of 'ramming,' or by good-sized guns. All along
the deck holes about 6 in. in diameter, covered with thick
glass, serve to give light down below, and some
can be opened when in harbour for the sake of air.
The Monadnock has two revolving turrets, each con-
taining two 20-ton 15-inch guns, which throw a solid
steel or iron shot of 5001 b. three miles with an immense
charge. They are muzzle-loaders and not rifled. The car-
riage of each one weighs eight tons. They are certainly
fine pieces of -ordnance. When in action the guns are
loaded inside the turrents, the rammers and sponges being
constructed on the telescopic principle ; then run outside
the porthole and fired. The gun at once recoils, and a
piece of solid iron, the same thickness as the turret, in-
stantly fills up the porthole, which both prevents the
smoke getting inside and keeps the shot and shell of the
enemy from entering. The turrets revolve, one in every
three minutes, and the tops of them are covered with
gratings of the strongest iron in order that any smoke
may escape that way. The inside of the turrets is lined
with a thick padding covered with canvas, so that no con-
cussion may be felt from shot striking it outside. I was
told on board that when the turret is struck by a ball the
concussion is so great that if any one is touching the iron-
work he is at once thrown down. On the top of the
turrets are placed the pilot-houses, from which the
Captain issues his orders and fights the ship. These
houses are of a great thickness, eleven inches I
was informed, and have small holes all round,
through which the commander takes his observations.
It is so arranged that the monitor's anchor is weighed
on the main deck, in order that at no time may any of
the crew be exposed to an enemy's fire. I noticed that
the ship was constructed of 1-inch iron plates, the sides of
these being composed of six of these plates rivetted
together. She bears the marks of her late engage-
ment at Fort Fisher, Wilmington, ono 10-inch shot
having struck her, just at the top of her side, making
a good dent in the plates ; another struck her forward.
After going all over her, and seeing what an enormous
mass of iron and wood she is composed of, one cannj'
really help being convinced that tho Monadnock is an
ugly customer, and a vessel that would do great destruc-
tion amongst a fleet of wooden vessels ; at the same time
I must acknowledge that she is not the ship one would
choose to make a Transatlantic passage in."

" PRESENTED" TO GENERAL GRANT.—Part of
the scene of the 20th ult. at the levee held at the Fifth
Avenue Hotel by General Grant is thus described by the
New York Times:—The presentation business was really
very absurd. In front of the flowers stood General Grant,
with the committee all about him, like bees about a lump
of sugar; just by and at his right were Mrs. Grant
and other ladies mentioned ; at his left were Mrs. General
Hooker, Mr. Ethan Allen, General Wool, John Van Buren,
Miss Dix, General Cook, occasionally General Hooker and
the members of the press. In the front was the multitude
shouting, jostling, hot, tired, cross, weary crowd, badgered
and bullied, and pueled and pulled by the infelicitous
committeemen. As each couple approached a little mall
asked their names ; he generally managed to get them
wrong, and announced to the General all queer kinds of
cognomens, which were as amusing to the parties pre-
sented as they were unintelligible to the General. Some-
times a couple would go by without a name being given,
the consequence being that in his commendable effort to
keep up with the crowd the gentleman who presented
them would give lir. and Mrs. Robinson the appellation
by which Mr. and Mrs. Jones were ordinarily known, and
the direst confusion of course existed. Every man and
woman insisted upon shaking the General by the hand, so
that by the time the affair was ended his right hand wr.c
shockingly swollen and shapeless. Some pious and
reverent people offered little prayers for him as he passed,
and others judged it a good opportunity of making
pretty little speeches like these:-,` ram, glad to see you,
General. God bless and preserve you many years."
youilli a ms a
yM fora s o
himn—W everyi Mason—Willie, ie,
tell"G eGneenraelr,atlhGrant my
thed little eldest
prayeron William
night." (Willie attempts to do so, but is moved on sud-
denly by the active committeemen.) " I always knew you
els
would be victorious, General. I told Dr. Vinton that God
would
surely crown so good and great a man with success.
May I not kiss you, General ?" (The General declined.)
" You remember we met last fall at West Point ?" (The
General smiled vacantly, as if he did not like to tell a
story.) " Quite a crowd here to-night. All deserved,
sir; all deserved! God bless, God protect you, dear, dear
General ?" " I want to talk with you, old fellow, about
Chattanooga." " I had a brother in the 29th Connecti-,
cut. I wonder if you knew him ?" These and scores
besides were said to the General, who solemnly permitted
his hand to be pumped up and down at the will of the merci-
less populace. So far as we could see, besides a tendency
to blood in the head, there was no fatigue or change in
him from the time of commencement until the close. He
rarely spoke, save when some old army acquaintance or
some particularly charming lady made a remark, and then
his words were brief and to the point.
THE OVERLAND 'TELEGRAPH.—Application was
made recently to the United States Navy Department, by
Ethan Allen, of New York, in behalf of the Russian and
American and Overland Telegraph Company,
fora
naval
vessel to aid in laying the cable across Behring's Straits.
The application was refused by the Assistant Secretary of
the Navy, on the ground that it was exclusively a private
enterprise.

In the British West Indies there are about
980,000 souls. Of these fully 800,000 aro nog-roes ;of the
remaining 180,000, more than 120,000 aro mulattoes. Of
nearly one million, there are only about 50,000 white
people. It requires but scant gift of prophecy to foresee
that one or two more outbreaks like that of Jamaica will
considerably reduce oven this small proportion ; and that,
in one or two generations, the entire population of those
colonies will consist of black and coloured people. What
is to be their future—what their government ?