The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-05 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

-
SlR,—Since my letter of the 21st inst. (printed
in the Sun on the 27th) was written, expressing
the universal regret felt on the retirement of Lord
Chancellor Blackburne, an article has appeared in
the Morning Herald of the 23d, justly laudatory
of that distinguished judge, but most unjustly
vituperative of his predecessor, the Right Hon.
Maziere Brady, who now again holds the great
seal of Ireland. Differing in political creed from
Mr. Brady, I nevertheless share in the general in-
dignation of the Irish Bar at the unworthy manner
in which that article treats him. It is no dispraise
of Mr. Brady to admit his inferiority to Mr. Black-
burne. To the latter's judicial reputation I know
not of any parallel. But Mr. Brady has merits of
no mean order. Those were ably pourtrayed by
the Right Hon. R. W. Greene (now- a Baron of
the Exchequer), when Mr. Brady was retiring from
the Chancellorship in March, 1852 :
" At the request of my brethren of the bar, I present
myself to your lordship's notice, for the purpose of per-
forming a task personally to me most gratifying. It is
to convey to your lordship our strong and unanimous
sense of the zeal, the assiduity, the ability, and the im-
partiality which have marked your discharge of the ar-
duous judicial duties you are now about to relinquish.
We have seen these qualities fully tested in many cases
of difficulty and importance which have occupied your
attention during the time you have presided in this high
court. Upon these occasions, and upon all others, we
we have marked your lordship's great anxiety to admi-
nister justice to the satisfaction of the public and of the
profession. There is one point upon which particularly
we feel desirous to convey to your lordship our senti-
ments—l allude to the uniform courtesy, patience, kind-
ness, and I may say indulgence, which your lordship has
uniformly displayed towards us while practising in your
court—to the most junior amongst us, as well as to the
highest, that kindness has been manifested. I trust it
has not been abused. I am perfectly sure it has been
duly appreciated. The kind feelings which your lord-
ship's demeanour has engendered in our minds will ac-
company you into private life, and will, I trust, prove a
source of permanent pleasure and satisfaction to your
lordship. With the most cordial feelings of esteem, re-
gard, and gratitude, we respectfully bid your lordship
farewell."

Such was the language of a Tory on behalf of a
body of whom four-fifths are Tories. The court
was upon that occasion crowded by the bar, who
rose and remained standing during the address
thus delivered by their eminent leader. To say,
as does the Morning Herald, that Mr. ' Brady,
" petted and encouraged brawling and vulgar
barristers," is simply untrue. Neither favouritism
nor nepotism ever found their way into the Court
of Chancery during his administration or that of
Mr. Blackburne. Every practitioner, who de-
served courtesy, met with it in full measure. The
very few who were undeserving of respect en-
countered such discouragement as they may have
earned. It is true that Mr. Brady left an arrear
to his successor, of which the latter speedily dis-
posed. But that arrear was caused by the long
and severe illness of Mr. Brady. A more pains-
taking and industrious public servant it would be
difficult to name. Indued with powerful common
sense, he rarely came to a wrong decision. Were
the files of the House of Lords searched, it would
appear that there were as few successful appeals
from his decrees as from those of any of his prede-
cessors who filled the Chancellorship during a
commensurate period. Several causes decided
by him were re-heard by his successor, and
in every instance the former decree was
affirmed. There is not now upon the bench
any judge before whom the bar would prefer to
plead than Mr. Brady, so great is his patience,
attention, and good feeling. Hence, it is scarcely
necessary to add, that the scurrilous calumnies of
the writer in the Morning Herald, levelled at an
excellent and honourable man, who has invariably
borne his exaltation with the greatest modesty, so
far from meeting sympathy in Ireland, have ex-
cited disgust amongst politicians and non-politicians
of every school.
Dublin, Jan. 28, 1853.

.XQUITAS.

In my letter of the 21st, there occurs the quo-
tation, " Sedet oternuraque sedebit." The last word
was misprinted "sedibit."

CAPTAIN SHRAPNEL'S QUARTZ-CRUSHING

MA CHINE.

Thursday several highly-interesting and successful
experiments were made in the crushing of quartz of
different kinds on the premises of Messrs. Glover, Ord-
nance engineers, Drury-lane, by a perfeCtly novel pro-
cess recently discovered and made the subject of a patent
by Captain Shrapnel, son of General Shrapnel, the in-
ventor of the famous " shells" which bear his name.
A number of gentlemen attended, by invitation, to wit-
ness the operation, among whom were Lord A. Chiches-
ter, Sir James Anderson, M.P. • Mr. J. Greene, M.P. ;
Mr. D. H. Bingham ; Mr. Wells, of the Admiralty ;
Mr. Pierce S. Butler ; Mr. Louis Louden, Baden Min-
ing Company ; Captain Moyle, Mr. E. Ilowitt, Mr.
Archibald Reid, Mr. W. Romaine, and Mr. E.
Jones, secretary to the Victoria Gold Mining Com-
pany. The inventor of the machine himself, and
Captain Rumbold, one of its proprietors, were also
present, and explained its merits. Had such an inven-
tion been simply intended to reduce, by rapid and effec-
tive process, the substances in which the ordinary me-
tallic products—such as copper, iron, and tin are
found, and to which, by the way, it is eminently
applicable—it might have been of interest only chiefly
to persons engaged in those kinds of mining ; but when
it is looked at in connection with the gold discoveries
which have become the wonder of our age, and the great
difficulty and expense consequent upon the practical and
detailed pursuit of those discoveries, it assumes an im-
portance more general and commanding. To under-
stand the whole of the engine about to be described,
regard should first be had to the cumbersome and com-
paratively tedious, ineffective, and expensive machinery
by which, in the gold fields of California and Australia,
the auriferous particles are at present extracted from the
flinty substances in which they are generally embedded.
When a company of adventurers enter upon a quartz
mining enterprise, their first step is to prove the nature
of the quartz vein before commencing more extensive
operations ; and as it is almost impossible to find a vein
containing any traces of gold in the vicinity of water,
which is so essential to the process of gold-finding as
now conducted, this initiatory proceeding is even at-
tended with considerable difficulty and cost. Much
more so the more continuous and systematic works in
which it may result ; for, in addition to the paucity of
water, gold is also usually found in quantities which
make the working of it worth while in a thinly-
wooded country, rendering fuel, so highly neces-
sary for conducting the operations, costly. Then,
there is the enormous difficulty of transporting the re-
quisite machinery to the spot, in a country signally
wanting in the very elementary conditions of civilization
—good roads. " The machinery," says an intelligent
person, writing from Meunt Ophir, in November last,
" is brought over roads in some places requiring eighteen
yoke of oxen, and in others, over gullies required to be
bridged over for this particular service."
The invention of Captain Shrapnel is dependent fir
its action neither upon fuel nor water, and it has the
great advantage of being small, compact, and easily
transferable to its destination. It consists simply of an
iron chamber, about ten feet long, five feet broad, and
eight feet high. Into one of these an aperture is made
sufficient to admit the muzzle of a cannon, which moves
backward and forward on a plane, a few feet in length,
in front of the machine. The piece of ordnance used,
and which may be of any calibre, is charged with lumps
of the quartz Aupposed to contain gold, or any other of
the valuable metallic substances which it is desirable
to reduce ; and having been moved towards the iron
chamber, and had its mouth inserted in the aperture
already mentioned, the piece is then discharged by
means of gun-cotton or gunpowder, and its contents
blown with great violence against the further end of
the structure, which has the immediate effect- of
breaking the entire charge of quartz into particles almost
as small as tooth-powder, and collecting them on
the floor, secure from any unauthorised intrusion
from without. The pulverized matter is then carefully
swept together, and submitted to the simple and ancient
process of winnowing, delicately conducted, by which
the gold drops into a receptacle by its own specific gra-
vity, and the refuse is blown away in the fall. We saw
yesterday lumps of Californian quartz, and of granite in
which copper and iron ore were embedded, instantane-
ously reduced to powder in the manner described ; but
the winnowing apparatus, which is the necessary ad-
junct of the blasting machine, inasmuch as it is to prove
the actual value of every atom of quartz submitted to
explosion, remains to be perfected.
The chamber, being constructed of iron plates of small
size, and easily united or severed, 'is thereby rendered
capable of being moved about with little difficulty from
place to place ; and it may, besides its primary object,
be converted into a dwelling-house, a place of shelter,
or a miniature fortress, the hole in which the cannon is
inserted for a blast being, if necessary, used for the dis-
charge of a revolver from within by the inmates, either
for the protection of themselves or their treasure against
an attack from without.

We are assured that the apparatus is capable of re-
ducing and extracting the gold or other metal from
thirty to forty tons of quartz per day, without the neces-
sity or use of water ; and when, in addition to this, its
portable form and simple construction are taken into
account, and its immense superiority in these respects
over the machinery now in use, and in the effective way
in which it does its work, the invention appears to be
one well worthy considertion of persons engaged in gold
digging—and their name is legion.

ALLEGED DEATH FROM VIOLENCE AT A LODGING-
HOUSE.—Yesterday, Mr. Baker held a lenthened inquiry
at the Pewter Platter Tavern, Cock-hill, Ratcliffe, re-
specting the death of Robert Pennington, aged 54 years,
late captain of the brig Pallas, who was found lying in
the roadway severely injured, opposite the Newcastle
and Sunderland beer-ship and licensed lodging-house,
Cock-hill, Ratcliffe. The known facts of the case, as
already reported, were laid before the inquest, but none
of the many witnesses who were examined could throw
any light upon the circumstances which led to the pre-
sence of deceased in the road, where he was found naked
and mangled. The jury were thus compelled to return
an open verdict.

!PORTING- INTELLIGENCE.

SPORTING NOTES.—No. CCCLXX.
ANALYSIS OF THE SEVENTY-FOURTH
DERBY.

Mr. Thomas Parr, whose judgment last year wag
found, in respect to Weathergage, to be superior to
the talented match-making Admiral's, has a couple
of Derby colts under the care of
MANNING,

at Letcombe, Berkshire, one of whom, the b c
Contentment, by Archy, out of Tranquillity, by
Venison, nominated by Mr. Sadler, he declares is
good enough to carry off one, if not more, of the
- great spring handicaps. Contentment has been
backed to a considerable extent for the Metropoli-
tan, in the race for which he will make his first
essay this season. He has also been supported with
some spirit for the Newmarket Handicap and
Chester Cup ; and last week was introduced into the
Derby market at 100 to 1, rising, in the course of
a week, between 60 and 70 points-35 rto 1 being
his price this morning. That his chance for the
Metropolitan is a first-rate one, everybody knowing
the horse, will readily admit : it is also not impos-
sible his winning another handicap in addition ;
but as to his being " the horse" on the Derby-day,
that is a feat, in my opinion, as likely of realisation
as the conversion of chalk into superior stilton.
Report says he is within a dozen pounds of Wea-
thergage. He can stay a distance, but is some-
what deficient in speed. Has run once, when he
finished a bad third and last to Cineas, at Bath, for
the Biennial Stakes.

Mr. T. Parr's b c Mustang, by Melbourne, out
of Lady Mary, nominated by Sir J. Hawley, has
figured as a loser in four fields, and Will not do for
Epsom.