The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-25 00:00:00

Acting Manager—Mr. F. B. Chttterton.

Prices as usual. Doors open at half-past 6, to commence at
7. Box-oflice open daily from 11 till S.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.-
Lessee, Mr A. Harris.

THIS EVENING, THE TWO POLTS. Mr.Widdicomb.
After which, the new Mystic Drama, in four parts,
entitled THE ANGEL OF MIDNIGHT. Mr. Ryder, Mr.
Potter, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Widdicomb, &c. ; Miss Marriott,
Miss Fielding, &c.

To conclude with IHE YANKEE HOUSEKEEPER.
Mr. and Mrs. Florence.

NEW THEATRE-ROYAL, ADELPIII.-
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. B. Webster.
360th, 361st, 362 d, 363 d, 364th, 265th Nights of the Engage-
ment of Mr. and Mrs. DION BOUrICAULT.—Last Four
Nights of The Octoroon and The Dublin Boy.
THIS EVENING, the great American Drama of THE
OCTOROON. Messrs. Dion Boucicault, S. Emery, Billington,
Jamison, P. Bedford, Stephenson, Eburne, Powell, Romer,
H. Lewis ; Mrs. Billington, Mrs. H. Marston. Miss Latimer,
Miss Denvil. To be followed by THE DUBLIN BOY.
Andy, Mrs. Boncicault. To conclude with MARGERY
DAW. Messrs. D. Fisher, Billington, W. Smith, Miss Wool
gar, and Miss K. Kelly. Commence at 7.

NEW ROYALTY THEATRE,
Dean-street, Oxford-street.
THIS EVENING, A NICE QUIET DAT.
Followed by the screamin,g Farce of CARNATION OF
CARNATION COTTAGE.
After which, the succesful Opera Buffo, entitled LE MARI-
AGE AUX LANTERNES. Mr. John Morgan, Mesdames
Stanley, Payne, and Mason.
To conclude with A CHINESE ROMANCE.
Commence at half-past 7.

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.-
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. W. Batty.

THIS EVENING, Feb. 25, will be produced a Grand
Eastern Spectacle, fora ing one magnificent array of splen-
dour, Introducing Mr. Bell's wonderful Performing Ele-
phants, the largest in England, entitled THE RAJAH OF
NAGPOR.E.

To be followed by a brilliant routine of matchless SCENES
IN THE CIRCLE, supported by the most axomplished
artistes of the day.
Concluding with a favourite Farce.
Stage Manager, Mr. W. Searle.

CANTERBURY HALL.-VICTOR JULIEN,
"the FLYING MAN," at half-past Nine
Continued success of "THE ENCHANTED HASH " by
Mr. E. Marshall, at a quarter-past Ten.
Grand Selections from "La Circassienne" by Mdlle. Negri,
with Band and a powerful Chorus, at Ten o'clock.
Also the following combination of Comic talent, viz.: 3rr.
Randall, Mr. Frederick French, Mr. J. G. Forde, Miss Har-
riet Coveney, and Miss Greene.
Musical Director, Mr. Jonghmans.
Admission—Hall, 6d. ; Stalls and Balcony, is.

THE OXFORD, 6, OXFORD-STREET.-
" LES MERVEILLES GYMNASTIQUES"
HENRI (aged Eleven years), and PFAU (aged Nine years)

From the •'Cirque Napoleon," Paris,

Whose Double Feats on the Flying, Trapeze are unsurpassed
for daring, skill, and grace, EVERY EVENING.
Their performances do not in any way interfere with the
Musical Entertainment, which as usual consists of Two
Operatic Selections alternately from "I! Trovatore," " Er-
nani." "La Traviata," " Simon Boccanegra," " Macbeth,"
&c., by the entire Company, Full Band and Chorus—(Con-
ducted by Mr. F. Jonghmans)—And Varied Vocal and Instru-
mental Attractions, the Comic portion by miss Harriet
Coveney, Messrs. Sam Collins, Wood and Son, M. P. Foster,
and W. Randall.

Hall, 6d. ; Stalls and Balcony, ls. ; Private Boxes, 10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tam DAL—Morning, 11h. 24m.—Afternoon, h. m
To-MoRRoW. -Morning, 12h. 3m.—Afternoon, 12h. 35m,

TEE WEATHER.—Sirx OFFICE, FEBRUARY 25, 1862.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
38--highest since noon yesterday.
35—lowest this morning and during the night.
38—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.17.
WIND—N.-Easterly; fresh, with dull cold weather.

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TilE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, FEB. 25, 1862.

Altogether the statement made to the House of
Commons in Committee by the noble lord the
Secretary to the Board of Admiralty when, yesterday,
according to annual custom, bringing forward the
Naval Estimates for the next financial year, must
be regarded as in the highest degree sati4actory.
Mr. WILLIAMS, of course, quarrels with it. And he
quarrels with it—also, of ccurse—on the score of its
extravagant expenditure. But then that is his
metier—that is precisely the one sole aim and object
with which the hon. member for the metropolitan
borcugh of Lambeth occupies his seat there as such
in the Commons House of Parliament. He exists
with the perpetual consciousness upon him that
the garment—" figuratively" speaking, that is,
in a purely £s. d. sense—has flut'ered down from
the shoulders of the late cconornic member for
Montrose upon his (Mr. WILLIAMS'S) own. Hence,
invariably, upon all possible end as everyone else
might deem it impossible opportunities that purelyex-
official auditor of the national accounts, the member
for the borough of Lambeth, wraps the said garment
about him in as dignified folds as its scanty propor-
tions will admit of, and launches the thunderbolts
of his eloquence against every estimate, good, bad,
or indifferent as the case may be! Upon every esti-
mate without distinction, immediately it is sub-
mitted to the House of Commons in Committee—
denouncing it as profligate and monstrous in the
Scope of its expenditure. No matter what may be
attempted by this or that Administrator in the
way of prudential retrenchment, it matters nothing
to the ,
arch economist. There is no pleasing hive.
Tics aPPetite for diminution after diminution would
appear to
be altogether insatiable. There was justan
illustration
of this last evening. For example,
the Estimate, fa
head of the Ad r.the new financial year under the
Admiralty Department shows a dis-
tinct lopping Oft of
expenditure amounting within
that twelvemonth, as
predecessor, of but very
compared with its immediate
little short, indeed, of a
good round million sterling The' fact we are
referring to admits of eery
e►sy
explanation. For
the financial year now about
commence—that
the
year,
is,
on the sth of April next, for
enaer - ear, that is, of
1862-3—the expenditure
the head of
the Navy Estimates, the Secretary to the Ad-
miralty tells us, will amount je,t, as
nearly
as can be calculated beforehand,
to the
sum of £11,794,305. And remembering as
who amongst us can fail to remember--tallying as
the amount of this particular disbursement does so
nearly with the aggregate wrung out of the
national pockets yearly ender the odious name of
the Income and Property 112e—remembering, we
say, that the expenditure during the financial year
now about to expire, that is during the year
1861-2, amounted under the head of the Naval
E'itinietes to the sum of £12,640,588—the fact
becomes obvious, is as plain as a pikestaff, is as
clearly comprehensible as any accurate quotient
pencilled down
under the simpiot sum of sub-

=-.--

traction, that there is visible now a distinct
decrease in the Naval Estimates for the present year
as compared with the previous year of £846,283.
The member for the borough of Lambeth however
cannot for the life of him see it. And according to
his invariable custom he rages against the unmiti-
gated extravagance of our annual maritime expen-
diture.

Lord CLARENCE PAGET, however, is not alone !
carped at by that implacable foe of every Secretary
to the Admiralty, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conser-
vative, in succession. The language of condemna-
tion is audible from the very opposite direction, im-
mediately the noble and gallant member for Sand-
wich has resumed his seat upon the completion of
his frank and sailor-like but also luminous and states-
man-like speech in explanation of the new Naval
estimates. Extremes again meet in this instance,
as they are said to do proverbially. Sir JOHN
PAKINGTON cannot rest a moment without pro-
testing against—not (you may be certain of that)
the extravagance of the expenditure, but, on the
contrary, against the (as he deems it) extremely
ill-considered cause for retrenchment just par-
ticularised. The right hon. baronet regrets
the extent of the reduction in the Channel Fleet
as announced in the noble lord's statement. A pro-
test of that kind from Sir JOHN PAKINGTON can-
not, however, be regarded as anything very sur-
prising under the circumstances. He whose
vigorous administrative powers called our pre-
sent Channel Fleet into existence may be borne
with surely when, on evidencing a certain jealousy
at the prospect of its diminution, at the prospect of
what he regards to be its injudicious and precipitate
diminution. The advisability of maintaining 9
strong fleet upon the home station is undoubtedly a
thing universally admitted as beyond denial. And
the use of the Channel Fleet as a means of training,
disciplining and practising the navy is also a fact
in itself sufficiently obvious. Yet out of the
76,000 men asked for last evening by the Admi-
ralty Secretary (and obtained for them), while it is
proposed to set apart for service "in the Me-
diterranean, 9,800, and in North America
and Mexico, 12,200, inclusive of 700 marines re-
cently disembarked at Vera Cruz, making a total
of 37,200 men and boys : on the more distant sta-
tions, 17,000 men and boys, making the whole force
54,200, exclusive of marines, dockyard-riggers,
able-bodied pensioners on shore, and 10,000 coast-
guard volunteers"—how small a proportion is re-
quired for the manning of our Channel Fleet !
Sufficient merely to man two line-of-battle ships,
two iron-cased frigates, two corvettes, and four
sloops ! Certainly, it does seem a small
proportion truly, with M. DE BoisSY
raving in the Imperial Senate about the ad-
visibility even now of making a grand descent
upon the shores of Britain ! Only it should be re-
membered that while the channel fleet is to be cut
down to the particularly moderate proportions pro-
posed by Lord CLARENCE PAGET, in his newly re-
counted estimates, the total force is still to amount,
he tells us also in the same breath, "to 12 lire-of-
battle ships, 2 iron-sided ships, 38 frigates and cor-
vettes, and 90 sloops; showing a total of 149 ves-
sels of all sizes. Besides which there are to be
2 coast guards-ships and 9 block-ships, which will
bring the grand total of steam ships up to about
160 !" Nor is this all. Referring to iron-cased ships
of war, Lord CLARENCE told the House yesterday
" that 12 of these vessels would be ready in the
coming year, that three more would be finished in
1864, and that when Captain COLES' ship was built
there would be a fleet of sixteen !" True it is, no
doubt,as Lord PALMERSTON himself,later in the even-
ing, took occasion to remark, that the activity long
lldisplayed in the Imperial dockyards of France has
not up to this moment evidenced any appreciable di-
mini] tion—that, in spite of all their boasted financial
economy of late, the French Government have but
very recently issued orders for ten more floating
batteries, really meaning iron ships of a smaller size
than ordinary, while at the same time they have
not sixteen, but twenty-six, iron ships either com-
pleted or in rapid progress towards completion !
No matter. With England's weather eye open, and
with her unrivalled capacity, at the first instant's
notice, for making up any deficiency in this
way so soon as that may appear to the
House of Commons to be in any re-
spect seriously advisable, we cannot but think
that Lord CLARENCE PAGET'S account of the pro-
vision made for the coming year to be, in the
fullest sense of the words, adequate—the econo-
mising French Empire—and even the terrible M.
DE BOISSY, with all his Salmoneus thunders—to the
contrary nevertheless, notwithstanding.

Mr. HADFIELD'S Qualification for Offices Bill
stands for its third reading to-morrow. Mr. NEW-
DEGATE will perhaps take a division upon it; but
we trust that the honourable member will forego
the pleasure of harassing Mr. HADFIELD in what
Mr. OSBORNE has designated the private members'
session. There is one feature in the law as it now
stands which is so unfair, that if it were but gene-
rally known, an alteration would be imperatively
demanded. The bill is to repeal a declaration to
be made by certain public officials on assuming
office—that they will do nothing in virtue of their
office to molest the Church of England in
its lawful privileges. The officials may
be divided into two classes high officers
of the State, the army and the navy, and municipal
officers—town councillors, aldermen, and mayors.
These are the gentlemen whom the mighty Church
of England fears may do it injury, unless fettered
and bound by a declaration as elastic as an india-
rubber band. The declaration is, indeed, perfectly
useless. A Churchman like Lord DERBY and Lord
CHELMSFORD—two of the few State officers who
have obeyed the law—would not, in virtue of offioe,
or without it, do anything to injure the Establish•
ment. By them the requisition to make such a l
declaration would be viewed as an insulting intima-

tion of unjust suspicion.
But suppose it tendered to the most violent
voluntary; suppose him mayor of some radical
borough; how could it repress his zeal or diminish
his opportunities for attacking the Establishment.
He would go away, and the same evening would
attend and preside at a meeting for the separation
of Church and State, and for relieving Bishops from
their legislative duties, and all the rest of it; and if
the Vicar of the parish quietly rose and reminded
him of the declaration he had signed in the morn-
ing, of the inconsistency with it of the Mayor being
advertised to take the chair, and of his opening
speech, his Worship would be at no loss for a reply.
First, he would tell the reverend gentleman that
the advertisement was not his doing, and that he
was not answerable for other persons describing
him as they pleased—that be should probably not
sign himself Mayor in any of the proceedings.
Nthe Church,
that he did not mean to injure
Uhunerheht, o
benefit
fi
taccording
Church to
as hisa judgment
Church.
very m
Again, that he was not seeking to " disturb" the
ecclesiastics in their
present possessions, for he
meant to proceed by legal means, whichcould not
be called disturbance, and that 11
he did not dream of
interfering with their life interee And, perhaps,
he would conclude with the general assertion that
he should do nothing, defensible as he •
might think