The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-31 00:00:00

SHIPS OF WAR BUILDING FOR RUSSIA.

The following extract from the Glasgow North
British Daily Mail goes to verify our statement
about the preparation in England of war steamers
for the Czar. This paragraph from our Scottish con-
temporary intimates that " machinery" for certain
war steamers is being completed on the Clyde—the
hulls being in preparation apparently elsewhere :
" We understand that an official letter from Lord
Palmerston, as secretary for the Home Department,
has been received this week by the civic authorities
of Glasgow, requesting to know particulars respect.
ing some war steamers which his lordship was in-
formed were building on the Clyde for the Emperor
of Russia. His lordship has, we believe, been misin-
formed on the subject, as there are no ships build-
ing here for the Czar ; but there are at present being
constructed two pairs of powerful first-class marine
engines and machinery for war steamers, by one of
our first engineers, who is under contract to have
them at Croustadt in April, and to fit them up in
the vessels there by his own workmen. Although
there are no ships building here for the Autocrat,
we have reason to believe that his lordship may learn something on the subject if he institutesin-
quiries on the banks of the Tyne or Wear."

The following letter has beenforwarded to IN. for
publication

" hall, Dee. 12.
"Sir,—Her Majesty's Government White have had before
them the letter addressed by my predecessor on the 4th
of October, 1852, to the Chaacellor of the University of
Cambridge. . .
" Your Royal Highness will, without .doubt, remember
that her Majesty was pleased, in her speech from the I
Throne, on the 11th of November, 1852, to acquaint
Parliament that she had caused to be transmitted.to the •
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, respectively,
copies of the reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry
upon those Universities, and had called the attention of
those Universities to those reports with a view to a de-
liberate examination of the recommendations contained
therein.

" A statement was subsequently made to the House
of Commons, that the Government thought it desirable
that ample time should be allowed for a full examination
of those matters, and that it was not intended that any
legislation on the subject of the recommendation of the
Commissioners should be proposed to Parliament during '
the then current session.

"At the same time, though it was not deemed ex-
pedient to discuss the various details connected with
subjects so important and diversified as the matters in
question, yet reference was made to some essential
points, with respect to which Her Majesty's Govern-
ment conceive that it would be the desire and expecta-
tion of Parliament, with a view to the public welfare
and to the extension of the useful influence of the 'Uni-
versities, that plans of improvement should be enter-
tained.

" These points were :
" 1. An alteration of the constitution of the Univer-
sities with a view to the more general and effecti►e re-
presentation of thelseveral main elements which properly
enter into their composition.
" 2. The adoption of measures which might enable
the Universities, without weakening the proper securi-
ties for discipline, to extend the benefits of training to a
greater number of students, whether in connexion or
not with Colleges and Halls, and also to diminish the
relative disadvantages which now attach within Colleges
and Halls to students of comparatively limited pecuniary
means.

" 3. The establishment of such rules with regard to
Fellowships, and to the enjoyment of other College en-
dowments, as might wholly abolish or greatly modify
the restrictions which now,ein many cases, attach to
those Fellowships and endowments, and might subject
the acquisition of such Fellowships and endowments
generally to the effective influence of competition.
"4. The establishment of such regulations with re-
gard to fellowships thus to be acquired by merit as
should prevent them front degenerating into sinecures,
and especially the enactment of a provision that after
fellowships should have been held for such a time as
might be thought reasonable as rewards for early exer-
tion and distinction, they sho;Ai either be relinquished,
or should only continue to-Le held on condition of resi-
dence, coupled with a discharge of active duty in disci-
pline or tuition, or with the earnest prosecution of pri-
vate study.

" 5. Aint, lastly, the establishment of provinions tinder
which colleges po,sessed of means either particularly
ample, or now only partially applied to the purposes of
education or learning, might, in conformity with the
views which founders have often indicated, render some
portion of their property ariilable for the general pur-
poses of the University beyond as well as within the
college walls, and might thus facilitate the energetic
prosecution of some branches of study the importance
of which the University have of late distinctly and
specially acknowledged.
" It is obvious that for the attainment of these ends
provision must be made for the careful adjustment of
existing statutes and for the abolition or modification of
certain oaths which are now periodically administered
in some of the colleges.
" There are other changes tending to the increased
efficiency and extent of study which would naturally
accompany or follow those to which I have adverted,
bat what I have stated may be enough to explain the
general expectations which her Majesty's Government
have been led to form under the influence of their sin-
cere desire to acknowledge the services and to respect
the dignity and due independence of these noble institu-
tions, and to see their power and influence enlarged to
the full measure of the capabilities indicated by their
splendid endowments.
"Actuated by these views, her Majesty's Government
did not hesitate to determine that, so far as depended
upon them, a considerable interval of time should elapse,
afoftreeratnhye
specific
es of the commissioners had appeared, be-
the degree and nature respecting propositions
o f the should
legislation
Universities which it might be requisite to submit to
Parliament.
" Her Majesty's Government, ho waver, feel that the
time has now arrived when it will be due, both to the
country of which these universities are such conspicuous
ornaments,universities and to the well understood interests of the
themselves, that these questions should be
decided. •
" I therefore request that your Royal Highness will, in
pour capacity of Chancellor ofthe University of Cambridge,
have the goodness to take an early opportunity of inform-
ing me what measures of improvement that University,
or so far as your Royal Highness's knowledge extends,
any of its Colleges may be about to undertake, and
and what aid they may desire from Parliament in the
form either of prohibitions, of enabling powers, or of
new enactments.
"Her Majesty's 'Government are anxious to receive
this information in such time as may enable them to
give to this important subject the careful deliberation
it demands, and to be in a condition to advise her
Majesty thereupon, if possible, by the month of
February.
"Her Majesty's Government, however, have no hesi-
tation in avowing their opinion, that repeated and
minute interference by Parliament in the affairs of the
Universities and their colleges, would be an evil; and
they are desirous to maintain the dignity of these insti-
tutions and to secure for them the advantages of free-
dom of action. For these reasons, therefore, as well as
on other grounds, they earnestly hope to find, on the
part of these bodies, such mature views and such en-
larged designs of improvement as may satisfy the rea-
sonable desires of the country ; and by obviating the oc.
casion for further interference, may relieve those per-
sons in the Universities who are charged with the
weighty functions of discipline and instruction, from the
distraction which the prospect of such interposition must
dutiful
necessarily entail.—l am, sir, your Royal
Highness's
servant,

"To Field Mar sh(Salignheid).
`` PikLMERSTON,
s Royal Highness Prince Albert,
&e., Chancellor of the "University of Cambridge."

COLLISION ON THE GRUNT NORTHERN RAILWAY.—
-Vesta.,lay morning an accident happened to the 9 50
Great Northern mixed express, due in London at 4 p.m.,
a short distance south of the' Doncaster station, which
has resulted in the demolition of some of the com-
pany's rolling stoek, while the passengers had a very
narrow escape. The train arrived in Doncaster with-
in a very few minutes of the iim9 at which it wag due,
and after it had proceeded alrait 400 or 500 yards south
of the station, it came into violent collision with a mine-
ral train, which was crossing from the main line into
.a
siding to allow the express to pass. The express train
ran into the third and fourth waggons of the mineral
trait, and they were smashed to pieces and thrown
on their side. The fifth waggon from the engine was
broken, and the buffer planks of the express engine were
shivered to pieces. The passengers were very much
terrified with the shock which they had received by
beindthrown from their seats, but we did not observe
any that were injured. Mr. Johnson, the locomotive
superintendent, Mr. Mullens, the station master, Mr.
Middlemess, the mineral agent, and several other offi-
cials, were immediately upon the spot with an efficient
staff of labourers, and the line was sufficiently clear in
al/out half an hour to allow the express to proceed on
its destination. The down line was cleared in about
an hour afterwards, so that the ordinary passenger traffic
was not further interrupted.