The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-12 00:00:00

211 E IVAVI.

On Wednesday Vice-Admiral the Hon. S. F. W.
Grey, K.C.8., one of the Lords of the Admiralty,
and Rear-Admiral Robinson, the Surveyor of
the Navy, paid an official visit to Chatham dock-
yard for the purpose of inspecting the progress
made with the iron and iron-cased vessels under
construction. On reaching the dockyard his lord-
ship was received by Capt. Fanshawe, the superin-
tendent; Mr. Lang, master shipbuilder; and the
other heads of departments. After transacting
some private business Admiral Grey and Admiral
Robinson proceeded to inspect the works connected
with the iron frigate Achilles, 50, 1,200 horse
power, over which they were conducted, and the
principal parts of which were minutely inspected.
They also inspected the Royal Oak, 50, in the ad-
joining dock, where she is being rapidly prepared
for sea. His lordship and Admiral Robinson spent
some time in the inspection of the vessels, and, after
transacting official business with Capt. Fanshawe,
left the dockyard for the Admiralty early in the
afternoon.

Her Majesty's screw steam frigate Amphion, 36
guns, 1,474 tons, 300-horse power, Capt. Alex. C.
Gordon, arrived at Sheerness from the Mediter-
ranean station, last from Portsmouth, on Tuesday,
to be dismantled and paid off into the third-class
steam reserve at that place. She underwent inspec-
tion the same day by Vice-Admiral Sir W. J. Hope
Johnstone, K.C.8., Commander-in-Chief at Sheer-
ness, and staff, who mustered the ship's company
and exercised them for upwards of two hours, dur-
ing which time the after-quarters, topgallant yards,
and masts were hauled on deck, sails unbent, and
topsailyards sent down. The ship's gear was in such
a bad state that the maintopsailyard and maintop-
sails came down by the run, but, fortunately, no
person was injured. At the conclusion the gallant
Admiral expressed great satisfaction with the acti-
vity and efficiency of both officers and men. The
vessel's powder was taken out on Wednesday, and she
will be paid off about the 20th inst. The Amphion has
been in commission about three years and a half, and
was:for a time flagship of Rear-Admiral Talbot, C. 8.,
at Queenstown, after which she proceeded to the
Mediterranean. She was cruising on the coast of
Sicily during both the Garibaldian revolutions, was
present at the bombardment of Palermo, and has
rendered efficient service on the coast of Syria and
other places. She left Malta for Gibraltar on the 2d
November, and left Gibraltar on the 15th, arriving
at Portland Roads on the Ist December, and Ports-
mouth on the 4th,bringing home 35 invalided troops.
Since her last commission four captains and one
commander have been appointed to her, and of the
wardroom officers who went out with her only three
have returned. She is very leaky.
The line-of-battle screw steamer Meanee, 80, 400
horse power, Capt. Wodehouse, fitting for the Me-
diterranean, will be out of the hands of the dock-
yard authorities to-day. She is under orders to
proceed from the Nore to Plymouth on Tuesday next,
and on her arrival in the Sound she is to be stripped,
in order to have wire lower rigging fitted.
An Admiralty order has been received atChatham
directing that Lumley's patent steering apparatus
is not to be fitted to the Columbine, 4, 150 horse
power, the vessel selected by the Admiralty to be
experimented upon, until after she has made her
trial trip at the Maplin Sands.
edn esda
y Mr. attended
kin
nance -
nance survey of the iron cased frigate Royal
dockyardOnW
for theapurp Napieroseofm
g the usual
50, 1,000 horse power, and laying out s
theradius
•
plates and sections for the Armstrong pivot guns.
The Royal Oak is the most forward of the squadron
of armour plated frigates now under construction,
and from the manner in which the work on hand is
being pushed forward by several hundred workmen
there is every prospect of the vessel being out of the
hands of the dockyard authorities and ready to pro-
ceed on her trial trip at an early date in the en-
suing s
which remain
With the exception of some 50 or 60
p
hieh remain to be bolted to the stem and
sternlate portions of the frigate, her armour plating
the entire length of both her broadsides may be
said to be complete. The workmen employed on
those portions of the vessel are now engaged in
finishing and trimming off the plates, so that
both broadsides will present a smooth unin-
terrupted surface of iron, of an uniform thickness of
41 inches, the plates extending several feet below
her load water line. The number of plates already
fixed is about 200, the entire number required be-
ing rather less than 300. The contract price paid
by the Admiralty for each plate delivered and finally
approved at the dockyard is .£37 per ton. The
plates have an uniform weight of 4 tons, making
the cost of each £l4B. Taking the number required
to encase the Royal Oak at 280, the total cost of
the armour plates alone may be set down at upwards
of £40,000, in addition to which the most powerful
machinery is required to bend, shape, polish, and
otherwise prepare the slabs of iron before they are
fit to be bolted to the vessel's side, thus raising the

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cost of each to nearly double its original *cell- S'
With the exception of some of the minor portions
of the machinery, L'le engines of the Royal Oak—
the largest of the kind jet constructed for ships of
this class—have already beep fixed on board by a •
numerous party of workmen front the establishment
ofMessrs Mandslay, Son And Field, ti':e firm engaged
by the Admiralty to construct the Royal• Oak ma-
chinery, and provided the other parts of the vessel
were complete, there is nothing to prevent her
steaming out of the harbour, as far as the Nore, any
day in the course of the ensuing week.

COMMON COUNCIL.

Yesterday, at 12 ~'clock, a Court of Common
Council was held at Guildht:ll for the despatch of.
business, the Lord Mayor pres,.:iing• Alderman
Cubitt, who attended for the first 1..10e since the
close of his mayoralty, was cheered on ent‘2riag the
Court.

ST. THWAIAS'S HOSPITAL.

Aldermen LAWRENCE presented to the Cour!' a
ant moritti from a committee representing the ves-
tries and boards of guardians of parishes on the
south Bide of the Thames, appointed for the pur-
pose of taking such measures es may be necessary
for preventing the removal of St. Thomas's Hospi-
tal from the vicinity. They stated that,--
"The Charing-cross Railway Company having pur-
chased and obtained possession of the site of St. Thomas's
Hospital, an Act has been passed (the 25th and 26th of
Victoria, cap. 4) for the removal of the said hospital to
another site, and that the said hospital is now temporarily
situated at the Surrey-gardens, St. Mary, Newington.
That the said hospital was on its original foundation de-
livered over by charter (the 6th and 7th of Edward VI.)
to the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, and was
named the House of the Poor in Southwark, to be situated
in London or Southwark for poor, sick, infirm, wayfaring
eo.4lifh. That in certain., memoranda, references, and :-
dociunents relaling to the Royal Hospitals of the laity
of London, printed in 1836, under the direction
of your hen. Court, the trust is repeatedly and dis-
tinctly recognized "as for the poor of this city," as " for
the relief and aid of the poor within the city of London
and borough of Southwark," as A, an hospital belong-
ing to the city of London and borough of Southwark," and
"that this was according to the godly intent, will, and pur-
pose of the founders." That in an Act (22 George 111., c.
77) the Lord Mayor and aldermen, together with 12 other
gentlemen, elected by and from your hon. Council, were for
the time being and for ever after appointed Governors of
St. Thomas's Hospital, and that, in fact, 38 of the governors
of the said hospital, about one-sixth of the whole body, are
members of your hon. Court, and are so because the said
hospital is a Royal Hospital, founded by and at the cost of
the citizens of London. That there is great reason to fear
that the said hospital may be removed entirely out of Lon-
don ; and that at a small meeting of the governors lately
held, it was resolved to secure a space of ground so large
that it cannot be obtained within a reasonable distance of
London or Southwark. That the medical staff of the said
hospital have twice publicly advised and protested against
the removal of the said hospital away from the population
accustomed to use it ; and that, although, in their opinion,
it would not be now objectionable, but, on the contrary,
beneficial to remove the hospital to another and more open
space not far off and equally central for the population, yet
that it would be highly objectionable and would, indeed,
subvert the intentions of the founders if the said hospital
would be removed to a distance ; and that such is
also the opinion of your memorialists. That in 1631
the Lord Mayor counted 16,880 persons in Southwark,
and that now Southwark and the neighbouring parishes,
all of which are obliged to avail themselves largely of the
aid of this hospital, contain more than half a million per-
sons, the great majority of whom are poor hardworking
people. Your memorialists feel that to remove a great charity
from the neighbourhood of the poor it has for three cen-
turies aided, 'and which expends among the poor £30,000
annually—soon to become, by the falling in of leases, pro-
bably as much as £50,000 annually—would be a great grie-
vance, and, indeed, considering the rights and usages of
centuries past, a great wrong also. Your memorialists there-
fore earnestly and respectfully pray that your honourable
Court will use all your influence, so that the new St.
Thomas's Hoipital may in its new situation be not less cen-
tral and not less convenient to the poor than the site occu-
pied by the former hospital. On behalf of the said commit-
tee, which is constituted as follows :—Far the vestry of St.

George the Martyr, Mr. Wm. Rendle; for the guardians of
ditto, Mr. Thos. Park ; for tho vestry of Bermondsey, Mr..
Wm. Darnell; for the guardians of ditto, Mr. John Harris;
for the vestry of Newington, Mr. H. R. Silvester ; for the
guardians of ditto, Mr. B. Evans ; for the vestry of Cam-

berwell, Mr. Denny; for the guardians of ditto, Mr. G. S.

Freeman ; for the vestry of Lambeth, Mr. J. W. Stratton ;
for the guardians of ditto, Mr. 'M. Goddard ; for the vestry

of Rotherhithe, Mr. J. W. Barrett; for the guardians of
ditto, Mr. E. G. Dannell ; for the vestry of St. Saviour's,

Mr. J. E. Newsom.

" WM. RENDLE, Chairman."

Alderman LAWRE.NCE earnestly recommended
the subject to the consideration of the Court.
There was, he said, no doubt that the hospital
was originally established for the benefit of the
poor of the city of London and Southwark.
The petitioners only asked that the new building
should be at a convenient distance and easily acces-
sible. He reminded the Court that the tendency of
improved means of locomotion had been to leave the
great majority of the poor in the old centres of
population ; the rich were gradually moving away,
and the people who remained were becoming poorer
and poorer. (Hear, hear.) The inhabitants of the
southern parishes regarded with great alarm the
prospect of this valuable institution being removed
to a distance. It was absolutely necessary that such
an institution should be located in a district where
the population was most dense and was likely to
remain so from local causes, where injuries to life
and limb were of most frequent occurrence, and
where it could be conveniently accessible to people •
desirous of comforting their poor afflicted relations.
(Hear, hear.) To show the extent to which the:dis-
trict of Southwark was inhabited by poor people,
he said the poor-rate in the parish of St. George
the Martyr was 4s. ld. in the pound; in Christ-
church, 3s. 10d. ; in St. Saviour and Liberty
of the Clink, 3s. 11d. ; and in St. Olave,
3s. 2d. Me might add, in comparison with
Lancashire and Cheshire, that that was the normal
state of things in the Borough. There was much
in the argument that such an institution should be
in an open neighbourhood, surrounded with green
fields, but nothing in comparison with other con-
siderations. The true policy, as it appeared
to him, was that the hospital should be
brought to the people, and not the people
to the hospital. (Cheers.) The inhabitants of Lon-
don would suffer a grievous wrong if the institution
were removed to an inconvenient distance ; and it
would be an unpardonable supineness in them, the
Common Council, who had an over-ruling power in
the matter, to lend themselves to such a course.

Later in the day Mr. Deputy ELLIOTT, pursuant
to notice, brought forward a motion on the subject.
He urged the Court, which had so powerful a voice
in the matter, to express an opinion upon it, with-
out delay. The uniformity of opinion an this ques-
tion among professional bodies, and among the pub-
lic at large, was so marked that, if the Court would
say Aye" to the resolution he was about to move,
the result would be to settle the matter once for all,
and the small, well cemented, powerful inner body
which had hitherto governed the hospital would
yield to public opinion, and never again dare to ask
the governors to assent to a proposition to buy 30
acres of land, on which to erect a new hospital,
some six or eight miles from the metropolis. He
moved that—" Whereas St. Thomas's Hospital was
originally founded at the cost of the Mayor, com-
monalty, and citizens of the city of London, in whose
management it was invested by royal charter, and
did so continue for two centuries ; and whereas,
by a subsequent Act of Parliament, the Corporation
is still required to take part in the government of the
hospital, by appointing 38 members of its own body
to act as governors on its behalf, this Court deems it
needful at the present time to declare its opinion that
having regard to the local duties for which the great
charity of St. Thomas's Hospital was originally
founded, chartered, and endowed, and which have
been fulfilled for three centuries, the new hospital
ought, as far as circumstances permit, to be built in
a situation no less central than that which the ter-
mer hospital occupied." (Cheers.)
Dr. ABRAHAM seconded the resolution, and was
proceeding to speak to it, but the' feeling of
.the
Court was so unanimous in its favour and so tm.
patient for expression that he desisted.
The resolution was then put and carried with
acclamation ; and on the motion of Mr. De Jersey,
the Town-clerk was instructed to forward a copy of
lit, bearing his official signature, to the hospital
authorities.

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