The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-17 00:00:00

If ILLS AND BEQUESTS.

The will of Lady Frances Knox, of Park-street,
Grosvenor-square, and 4, Rue de Cinque, Paris,
was proved in London by the Hon. John Henry
Knox, her brother, power being reserved to her
brother, Admiral the Hon. Edmund Sexten Pery
Knox, the executors. Ile personalty was sworn
under £B,OOO. Lady Knox, the testatrix, was a
daughter of the late Earl of Ranfurly, an Irish peer,
Her ladyship died at Nice, France, in December
last, and her will was made and executed at Feria
in June, 1859. Her ladyship has died possessed of
property, both real and personal, in England and
France, the entire bulk of which, with the excep-
tion of some legacies, she has bequeathed to the
executors, her two brothers. The legacies, exclu-
sive of . £2OO bequeathed to her niece, Mrs.
Dundas, are confined to the servants of
her establishment, consisting of £B5O, with
the benefit of survivorship, to her butler, Le
Briton, and his wife; to the latter is also left her
ladyship's wardrobe and household linen. A legacy
of £lOO is also bestowed upon an old servant of her
ladyship's late father. All legacies to be paid free
of duty.
The will of Sir Peter Laurie, Knight, of 7, Park-
square, Regent's-park, was proved in London on the
30th ult. bylthe executors P. Northall Laurie, Esq.,
of Park-square, John Laurie, Esq., of Hyde Park-
place (the nephews), and Robert Peter Laurie,
ii freeholds,d u e
are bequeathed. The
Esq. (his greatnephew.) The personalty was sworn
under £160,000. This well-known gentleman and
popular civic alderman attained the advanced age of
83, and died possessed of a large fortune, both real
and personalo.Tthoewlieltinhstiraneeplehgeawcy Peter N. Laurie,
jptaehelflert StOthrnoeeashis
niece, Miss M. Tof LlO 000 and
his
insd
nephew, John
h estate, both real and
sum of 50 00 -
and othere
effects. . Laurie,l who resided
£ , 0 is
fravecetss.theArleesgidaecnycoef,
furniture, carriages,
£svsit,OhoOhitmo, Laurie ; also, £5,000
to his grandnephew, Robert Peter Laurie (the only
child of his late nephew, Peter Laurie, Esq.), and
there are several other
legacies to nephews, nieces,
and other relatives, and to personal friends ; and a
legacy of £5O
to the Scottish Hospital, Crane-court,
Fleet-street.

The will of Samuel Oxenham, Esq., of Chester-
terrace, Regent's Park, was proved in the London
Court by his son, Henry Oxenham, Esq., the sole
executor. The personalty was sworn under £70,000.
The will bears date the 29th of January, 1861,
and he died on the 26th of December last. This
gentleman, who realised a handsome property as an
auctioneer and estate agent, died leaving real and
personal property. He has bequeathed to his two
sons his premises in Oxford-street and Blenheim-
mews. To his son Hugh he leaves ten shares in
the Auction Mart, city of London, and a legacy
hyoaf
£10,000; to his son Henry he has bequeathed
entire residue of his estate real and personal; to 1 i
s
grandson, Thomas Hugh Oxenham,
_amlielygameyaroiaf
£lO,OOO ; and to his granddaughter, -11;
,thwi so
othersist e r
Oxenham, £5,000 (the son and daughter
Hugh). To his nephew Hugh
sniece,arah3,lllswodoHa'hi,s of
nhdi s son
gardener
London News.
servants, £lOO each.-17h/s
aeeach
Hobbs;ta (the children
rde ner aonfd

Alexandrian
have
vs telegraphsea arrivedg efrom isinlLatrohgneedlsoyhniontro:
amounts to between GOO and 700
The Malta Observer reports that the number of
tcerleeagsriallmg,s sent by the .
Alexandria
ritTliisela2vheoraugres,trutesefvureraalnhi
space of four,

THE WEATHER.—STN OFFICE, FEBRUARY 16, 1862.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
40—highest since noon yesterday.
32—lowest this morning and during the night.
38—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.98; falling.
WIND—S.-Easterly; fresh, with bitter cold weather.

FEB. 17.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADS.
39—laighest since noon yesterday.
33—lowest this morning and during the night.
39 —this day at:noon.

BAROMETER-29.50.
WlND—Easterly ; light, with dirty rainy, hazy weather.
3 o'Clock—Wind changed to North and North-west,
moderate, with very dark hazy weather, amounting to fog,
with continoua rain. Barometer—Down to 29.47. There
is a storm not far off.

\\,
i.„..L
•
t
41t.

THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, FEB. 17, 1862.

It may seem of small consequence to England
whether an Austrian Archduke be installed Emperor
of Mexico or not. Lord RUSSELL was, however,
perfectly right in making inquiry as to the truth
of the alleged rumours, which assigned to France
so large a share in the proposed scheme. The only
thing in his Lordship's way was that such negotia-
tions as had taken place lay in such a form that a
French Foreign Secretary could easily give them
an official denial. M. THOUVENEL could doubtless
reply with perfect truth that no negotiations were
pending between the French Government and that of
Austria. Mad he been asked whether any conver-
sations had occurred on the subject between the
French EMPEROR and the Archduke MAXIMILIAN,
he might not, it appears, have been able to reply
with so unconditional a negative; unless, indeed,
official etiquette enabled him to answer on behalf
of the EMPEROR with the same amount of literal
truth as is contained in the very frequent words
" not at home

If a
ell-informed " correspondent" be right,
the some-what
whimsical as well as clever Emperor
of the FREwelt, _
making a mexicann as long cherished the idea of
Emperor of the Archduke. It
appears he was
personallyßpleased with the man,
and, according to M. ,rEt
OTIVENEL, Mexicans have
come to Europe and
gone
object. Whether the to Vienna with this
Mexicans suggested the
idea to the EmPEnon, or
to the Mexicans,
can, of course, never be
known till one
of the parties chooses to tell tm. Certain it
is that it were better for those who wi
iseed to attain
the object, that the Mexicans should appear pro-
minent in the business. M. TnonTENEL well
knows that when, through Lord Rt7Q
-sELL, he
put before the diplomatic world the statement
that the negotiations had been carried on by
Mexicans only who had come over for the pur-
ruse and gone to Vienna, he was best serv-
ing the object. What the French Foreign
Secretary would have said could a reply
have been obtained from him to the question—at
whose suggestion did the Mexicans come over for
purpose, or was it a purely spontaneous journey—
"re may easily guess ; but of course we are not in
it Position to assert.
One thing seems to be certain that the Arch-
duke found some very reasonable difficulties in con-
senting. Re did not reply to the offer without hesi-
tation. He properly observed, " That he could not

accept or refuse a throne which was not yet in 1
existence. When rival factions in Mexico were put
down, the wrongs of the contracting Powers re-
dressed or avenged, brigandage crushed, and public
tranquillity restored, then, indeed, if the Mexican
people turned towards him and invited him to rule
over them as a constitutional Sovereign, he did not
think he should hesitate."

With such views actuating the chief per-
sonage concerned, England has little to say
in the matter. Her rulers would all of them be
well pleased enough to serve Austria if Aus-
tria thought the acquisition of any service,
and we imagine the people of this country would
be most profoundly indifferent to the question,
whether the Archduke, or th 3 Arch-anything
was at the head of Mexico. They would be glad
to see the Central American Empire well governed,
freely governed if possible—civil and religious
liberty there, as everywhere, would be most
pleasing to them ; but after we had got what is due
to our subjects we certainly would not tolerate
the expenditure of a cartridge to give this per-
son or that, one party or the other, the supre-
macy in Mexico. We should not like to see the
priest party triumph, nor should we like
to see this ',fair country delivered over
to the Confederate States, and slavery ; all we
desire is, that the Mexicans sheuld freely
choose what Government they will, provided it be
a real Government, not a faction and its leaders.
The Vienna papers have all along scouted the
notion of an honourable banishment of one of their
invaluable Archdukes. They have, however, sup-
posed that a Mexican throne was to purchase the
surrender of Venetia to Italy. This adjustment has
not yet been mentioned in any way to lead to the
supposition that it is any part of the bargain; It
would be a pleasant way of squaring things,
but Austria has got quite another idea into
her head. She proposes, we are now told,
to offer to the Italian Government recognition
and Rome itself, so far as she can give it, in ex-
change for Italian recognition of her right to Venetia.
This latter proposal can, however, never be accep-
ted. VICTOR EMMANUEL would cease to be King of
ITALY from the day that he gave up the Italian
claim on Venetia. The hearts of all Northern and
Central Italy would be alienated from him at
once. Be the cost what it may he must create and
maintain an army, which at the first favourable
opportunity should be able to commence the great
work of driving out the justly detested oppressors
of Venice and the Quadrilateral, and of uniting in
one kingdom all who claim to be brother Italians.

The French and Spaniards are taking the course
to make themselves jointly masters of Mexico;
England refuses to have anything to do with the
work of internal pacification, the EMPEROR refuses
to be behind Spain, and the Mexicans decidedly
prefer the French to the Spaniards. The EMPEROR
has sent to the scene of action some of his
ablest men, and we shall be little surprised
to see that French counsels are far more accep-
table to the Mexicans. The establishment of
the ruler and kind of rule, therefore, in
Mexico, which the EMPEROR sees fit graciously to
recommend, is one of the likeliest results of the in-
tervention. The Washington Government, with
their silly and arrogant MUNROE doctrine, are com-
pelled, under their circumstances, to bite their lips
and witness European intervention on the sacred
soil of America. And, whether they like it or not,
European aid will probably settle the case.

The principal enactment of last session, as we
all very well remember, was the one relating to
Bankruptcy and Insolvency. The probability is,
already, that the principal enactment for the pre-
seLt session—that is to say, if the sittings in Lords
and Commons be only adequately propitious—will
be an act regulating anew the Transfer of Land.
This evening the Lord Chancellor, the ablest
lawyer living, will bring before the Legislature the
whole of this carefully elaborated scheme as pre-
pared (under the supervision of the chief officers of
the Crown) by her MAJESTY'S Government.

It is perhaps as well, all things considered, that the
bill should work its way downwards from the Lords
to the Commons instead of vice versa—if only for
three several reasons very readily to be particularised.
Firstly, because the scheme cannot by reason of the
late Lord CAMPBELL'S death be brought nowadays
under the consideration of the House of Commons
by the Attorney-General of last year, Sir RICHARD
BETHELL, as erignally designed. Sir RICHARD
having been advanced to the Upper House as
Baron WESTBURY, and to the Woolsack as Lord
Chancellor, if he is to bring it before the Legis-
lature in the first instance (as is in every way
desirable) must perforce do so from his supreme
position at the head of the hereditary legislators of
the United Kingdom. That is the first of these
three reasons. And it is visibly so good a reason
in its way, that it might be regarded at once
as all-sufficient. But there are two others almost
equally good and forcible in their way also. For
example, in the second place—there, in the House
of Lords, are assembled together the chief landed
proprietors in the realm. It is their property espe-
cially that the projected enactment will affect the
most directly, by facilitating upon all future occa-
sions (if the bill only be passed into an enactment)
its transference. Again, there is a third and final
reason, which is so —merely by addressing
itself to the sense of good taste, or the sentiment
of delicacy, or however we may phrase it, in
either House, is still a reason that ought to have
some weight among our legislators, whether
hereditary or representative as bearing simply upon
the order of procedure in regard to the supervision
of the new Government Transfer Bill to the two
Houses of Parliament. It is a third and final rea-
son this, that many will doubtless, upon the instant,
have already guessed at, and that if they have
guessed at they will, as a matter of course, have
instantly appreciated the force of. By introducing
the new Transfer of Land Bill to the Lords first
through the authoritative mediation of the Lord
Chancellor WESTBURY, the Government allow of
their scheme being calmly taken into considera-
tion by the Upper House before it can, in
the natural course of things, come under
the eagle glance of the projector of this great legal
improvement, the Solicitor - General, in Lord
DERBY'S last Government. In effect it were almost
invidious to introduce the scheme proposed by the
present Cabinet in the presence and hearing of the
hon. and learned member for Belfast, Not that any
one can anticipate for an instant that Sir HUGH
CAIRNS could by any possibility treat a theme of
such magnitude and complexi, y, as well as of such
severe and grave importance, in anything like a
party spirit, or with any perverse predetermination
to-be antagonistic. Only with measures in them-
selves remarkable, as this one in contestibly must be
instantly
recognised to be, for its enormous diffi- .
culty and all but bewildering complication—
there are, we may say
and blurs, and errors of almost all kinds, errors of
omission and commicspsriionneitphaai
inevitably, numerous flaws
scrutinised Clause by clause in
that e
Iva vh ee
nt ot
bbee
bill
t comesri d o f
tboy
bo ,carefuldisoo
sr
seevdi s i(4):4
committee) before the draft of the enactment can
fairly be recognised, so to speak, in its integrity.
And all things considered; we cannot but feel as it

were instinctively, that this preliminary labour of
revision will come with better grace from the Com-
mittee of Lords, particularly of some of the law
lords—before the measure can be laid upon the
House of Commons, where Sir HUGH CAIRNS will
now await its advent, no doubt, in a mood worthy
in its serene impartiality both of himself and of
his own cherished legal improvement.
Scarcely will these remarks of oars have gone to
press when the Government Bill relating to the
Transfer of Land will be explained in all its bear-
ings by the Lord Chancellor WESTBURY. For that
explanation, therefore, we have but the briefest in-
terval to tarry—and we are certainly enabled to
do so with an equanimity all the more assured
from its being based upon the prevailing hopeful
expectancy. The subject is vast and vital,
no doubt, in its dimensions and in its
importance. It is, besides this, compli-
cated during centuries upon centuries almost
beyond the seeming possibility of disentanglement.
Yet is it now about to be scrutinised and handled
by one peculiarly qualified for the task he has un-
dertaken—that very wondrous task of its disentan-
glement. Here and there in the labyrinthine web
that Lord WESTBURY is this evening about to
manipulate with his dexterous touch and to thrid
and unravel with the skill won by long practice
to his masterhand—here and there doubtless a knot
may appear to be so Gordian in its fixity that it
would seem only capable of being unloosed
by the arbitrary sword-stroke of some legis-
lative ALEXANDER. Yet even here we
are • sanguine that the consummate dexterity
of your skilled jurisconsult may prove equal to the
occasion. Let but the Great Lawyers upon both
sides of each of the two Houses of Parliament co-
operate with each other dispassionately in dealing
with this most difficult Question as to the Facili-
tation of the Transfer of Land, and we may rest
perfectly assured that, the problem can be solved
before the close of the present Session, as effectually
as the tangled web in the old Fairy Tale was un-
ravelled for the bewildered Princess in a night, and
magically wound off upon a reel by the beneficent
agency of the Fairy Godmother.

Those who doubt the mercenary character of the
agitation against the excellent educational proposals
of the Government, would do well to look at two
facts mentioned on Thursday—one by Mr. LowE
in the House of Commons, the other by Lord GRAN-
VILLE in the House of Lords. Referring to the ab-
surd allegation of vested interests, the former said—
" The question had been chiefly discussed in refer-
ence to the public teachers—probably on account
of the large number of persons who were concerned
—otherwise he did not see why their case should
be more debated than the grants for drawing or
Welsh. Talking about Welsh, be had heard of
rather a tragical case, in which a person complained
that his school would gain no grant, because the
position of the schoolmaster was similar to that of
Hotspur—
, This is the deadly spite that angers me;
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.'

The master could not understand the pupils, or
the pupils the master; and so the school earned
no money." This was a teacher's case ; and if an
extreme one, it yet well illustrates the grand secret
of all the demands they have made—they want
public money, not because they can show service
for it, but because they have had it. The Govern-
ment has given them, at a heavy cost, a good
education, has qualified them to earn their living
as teachers if they like to do so; but that is not
enough. The Government must also pay them
for being teachers, whether they teach or not.
The evidence may prove that they teach—that
is effectually—only one quarter of the children
whom the Government pays them to teach ; but
when the Government steps in and says, we shall
examine the children first, and pay you for work
done—instantly, there is a prodigious outcry
that they shall all be ruined. Surely the
public will rejoin, then ruined you ought
to be; for, if after gratuitously educating you,
and paying you large augmentations of salary,
you send away the children without the minimum
of knowledge required you have no title to the
money. The uneducated three-fourths have far
more of a vested interest in the knowledge you ar•
paid to impart, than you in payments for imparting
nothing.

But the clerical managers show equally with the
teachers the motive which stimulates their opposi-
tion. Lord GRANVILLE'S anecdote related to them.
He told a story of one of those notable assemblies
termed Diosesan Boards. The Board had passed
seventeen resolutions all condemnatory of the
minute; a Conservative M.P., who happened to
be present, quietly asked whether, if the capi-
tation tax proposed by the Government for work
actually done, were augmented from a penny to
twopence a head for each attendance, the minute
might not prove unobjectionable. After some con-
sultation, not seeing the trap laid for them, the
sapient board agreed that double pay might remove
all objections!

To us, the case appears, and is one of the simplest.
If the masters would be worse off by being paid only
for work done, they have no claim to be heard.
Their complaint shows that it is they who must
alter their mode of teaching, not the Government
its proffered mode of payment. If the managers
want grants which they cannot claim, because
their teachers have not fulfilled the very ends and
objects for which Parliament voted the grants, they
are as little entitled to be heard. They must
look better to their subordinates. The Government
has, we think, been undeservedly merciful in the
alterations it has proposed. The negligent teachers
and managers are to have a full year to make up for
their past indiligence. They are to be paid on the
old and illusory system of inspection, instead of that
of individual examination of the pupils for yet an-
other year. If they cannot by that time get the
boys and girls they have neglected so sadly, up to
the minimum required by the Government for the
public money, what taxpayer can be found to pity
them.

The Government has made other and large con-
cessions. It has reprieved the very costly training
schools, which it was originally agreed should be
supported voluntarily, but towards the support of
which the government has had to contri-
bute 95 per cent. It ha 3 allowed the
infants under six to become " little treasures" to the
masters, by permitting payment for them on attend-
ance only without examination, and conceded several
minor points. Indeed, we think for very shame
the teachers, managers, and clergy ought to be
silent henceforth, and if they be not, we trust the
taxpayers will enable the Government to reduce
them to silence.

THE GREAT EASTERN.—At 12.15 p.m. yesterday
the Great Eastern slipped her moorings at Milford, and
proceeded up the haven to be placed on the gridiron. It
was blocdng strong from the east. At 8 p.m. last night
the attempt to put her on the gridiron proved unsuccessful.
The flow of the tide was insufficient, and the wind blew too
strong. All was ready last night, however, for this morn-
ing's tide.7-Muroun, Monday.—The weather having
moderated, the Great Eastern was safely placed on the
gridiron at 8.30 this morning.
SACRED HARMONIC SOCTETY.—Mendelssohn'p
4I Lobgesang," and Rossini's " Stabat Mater" will be per •
formed on the 28th inst., Mademoiselle Titiens, Madame
Sainton-Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves, and Signor Belletti being
the principal vocalists.