The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-13 00:00:00

ENTERTAINMENT BY THE DI-
RECTORS OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN RAIL•
WAY TO LORD TORRINGTON, GOVERNOR
OF CEYLON.
Yesterday a very sumptuous entertainment was given
by the Directors of the South-Eastern Railway Com-
pany to his Excellency Lord Viscount Torrington, on
the cccasion of his leaving this country to assume tixe
important post of Governor of the colony of Ceylon.
His Lordship's long connexion with all that appertains
to the welfare of Kent in its commercial and agricultural
relations, coupled with the warm interest and solicitude
he has shown in his capacity as a director of the South-
Eastern Railway, in the promotion of the best interests
of the county as regards its endowment with the most
efficient railway communication, were amongst the more
immediate motives that prompted this mark of distin-
guished attention.
At six o'clock, between 100 and 200 gentlemen sat
down to a dinner that, without entering into a minute
description of its features, we may oharacterise as
splendid in all its details.
The chair was occupied by Mr. James Macgregor, the
chairman of the South-Eastern Company, supported on
his right by Viscount Torrington, and on his left by
Lord Sondes. We also observed Sir J. Jervis, M.P.
(the Attorney-General), George and Robert Stephen-
son, Aldermen Humphery and Lucas, Mr. Dodd, M.P.,
Mr. Hastie, M.P., Mr. Douglas, M.P., Sir Edmund
Filmer, Bart., Mr. Alexander, Q.C., Mr. Bidder, Mr.
Cockburn, Q.C., the Mayors of Rye and Rochester, Mr.
Duncan Macgregor, of the Board of Trade. Mr. Martin
Luther Pritchard and Captain Tyndale, directors of the
company, officiated as vice-chairmen, supported by Mr.
G. S. Herbert, the secretary, Mr. James Walter, the
superintendent, Mr. P. Parlow, resident engineer, Mr.
Wentworth Dilke, Mr. C. J. Collins, Mr. Lewis Smale,
Mr. Thomas, Mr. Fothergill, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Robert
Knox, Mr. Barrow, Mr. George Whitehead, Mr. Knatch-
bull, Captain Graham, Mr. Merewether, Hon. F. Byng,
Captain Airey, Mr. J. Brogden, Mr. R. Christian, Mr.
J. P. Fearon, Captain Gregson, Right Hon. R. Lashing-
ton, Sir George Larpent, Mr. Ross Mangles, M.P., Hon.
T. L. Melville, Mr. Wykeham Martin (Mayor of Maid-
stone), Alderman Neame (Canterbury), Cap
cot, Colonel Norcliffe, Rev. S. Rogers,l3ulweltlain Pre
Rectory,a
Nottingham ; lion. Sir F. Stapleton, Mr. J. Tileard,
and others.
After the usual loyal toasts,
The CHAIRMAN, in proposing her Majesty's Minis-
ters, said that if ever there was a time when it behoved
that they should be endowed with all grace, wisdom,
and understanding, it was now—now that they had
fallen upon days of difficulty and distress, and when
he was sure the sympathies of all classes were rallied
round them in support of the measures they proposed.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL, in returning thanks, said
he was sure that, whatever might be the general opinion,
support was accorded to her Majesty's Ministers, if only
from a conviction that they were endeavouring to do
their best with uprightness of principle, and an inflexible
intention to carry out the prosperity of the country.—
(Cheers.) All, he thought, would concur with him in
thinking that her Majesty's Ministers were influenced by
the best of motives in the selection of their official
officers; and in no case, he thought he might with truth-
fulness affirm, more so than in their present appointment
of Lord Torrington. In selecting that Noble Lord,
they had fixed upon one whose natural aptitude for busi-
ness had been matured by his commercial and agri-
cultural connexion with the county of Kent and the
South-Eastern Railway, which were so well calcu-
lated to fit him for the distinguished post of Governor
of Ceylon.--(Loud cheers.)
The CHAIRMAN then, amid loud applause, proposed
" Lord Torrington," and' expressed his gratification at
having been associated as a Liverpool merchant in the
South-Eastern Railway with a nobleman of such talent,
perseverance, and unquestioned energy.—(Cheers.)
Lord TORRINGTON, amid loud acclamations, returned
thanks. He looked back, in spite of party differences,
with the greatest gratification on his past connexion with
the South-Eastern Company, both in its struggles in
Kent and the House of Commons. It was no desire for
speculation that had induced him to join the South-
Eastern, but an earnest desire for the advantage of Kent,
so as to introduce into it the system that would prove
most advantageous, and he believed that the system that
had been partly propounded by the Legislature would
cause the county, as far :as railways were concerned, to
be the most vitally advantaged. The land of Kent
had already increased in value, and the farmer had been
greatly benefited by low carriage, consequent on loco-
motion. He thanked them for this splendid entertain-
ment. Many who had gone before him to occupy the
post he was about to assume might excel him in the
ability to discharge its duties, but none, he trusted,
would distance him in energy and perseverance of pur-
pose, under the tutelage of the Noble Earl at the head
of the Colonial Department.
The CHAIRMAN then proposed the " House of Peers,"
which having been briefly responded to by Viscount
Torrington,
Sir EDMUND FILMER acknowledged the " House of
Commons." Speaking of railways, he adduced a rather
felicitous illustration of their progress. lie had recently
read in an old newspaper that in 1743 there was a fast
coach that started from Bristol to London, and reached
its destination in four days. In March, 1845, however,
a medium train on the Great Western did it in some-
thing under four hours ! So that one short century
alone had converted days into hours, by a silent but
peaceful and improviog, instead of destroying revolu-
tion.—(Loud applause.)
Lord ToRRINGToN proposed the health of the chair-
man, alio had, he said, sacrificed so much of his time
and talents to the advantage of the E'nuth-Eastern Com-
pany.
lhe CHAIRMAN, in reply, cbserved, he believed he
might say that those who had embarked in the South-
Eastern were now about to gather the golden apples of
their enterprise. In projecting the South• Eastern Rail-
way, they did not confine themselves to Dover, they did
not stop at Boulogne, they did not pause it Paris, they
saw something even beyond the Continent,' for Calcutta
was not too far, and even took Ceylon within their eir-
cuit.—(Leud cheera) They were in fact the great high-
way for the Continent.
The tit xt toast, " The Bench and the Ear," was re-
sponded to appropriately by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
Mr. Alderman LUCAS, in acknowledging " The Lord
Mayor and Aldermen of London," said he rose to make
a public et cantetion. Originally he and a great many of
his brethren in Kent had, through mistaken views, made
a great error as regarded railways. —(Hear.) Had not
the great landowners of Kent, through some lamentable
short-sightednc,s, opposed the railways tooth and nail,
they would years ago have had a direct line to Dover by
the South-Eastern Railway.--(Loud cheers ) Perhaps
this strange conduct of the Kentish men was owing to
their no; knowing so much in the southeastern as they
did in the manufacturing districts—(Laughter)—or from
a prepossession that if they wanted a railway they could
do it for themselves. They were, perhaps, to be par-
doned in some respect, for at the time he alluded to most
men's minds were not so clear as they were now
on railway subjects. It was necessary to accommo-
date them by degrees to the system. They hal suffered
however, for this their treatment of the South-Eastern,
and were now contritely confessing their past errors.
The CHAIRMAN then proposed "Prosperity to Ceylon."
Sir GEORGE LARPENT said, connected as he and many
gentlemen around him were with their colonial posses-
sions and Ceylon, he could not hut hail the appointment
of the Noble Lord as an augury for good.—(Cheers.)
Ceylon was possessed of a fine climate, a noble soil, and
a peaceable population, removed from all the chances,
and only required to be further put in possession of
those civic virtues and intelligence, which were the dis-
tinguishing characteristics of the Noble Lord, to be pro-
du2tive of the finest fruits that labour and industry
could cause it to develop.—(Cheers.) He regretted, in
conjunction with many of his colleages, to say that up
to the present time great errors had existed in the
fiscal and commercial relations of Ceylon. He had
pointed them out to her Majesty's Government, and
they had received every attention, and it was only fair
to assume that under the governorship of the Noble
' Lord a better system would be introduced in the ar-
' tides of coffee and cocoa, and by the introduction of
machinery.—(Cheers.) Moreover, there was a railway
projected in Ceylon which would bring everything by
rapid transit to the water's side, and as the Noble Lord
had learned his lessons in railway practice and diplo•
macy in an English school, they could not but hope
that it would eminently prosper under his auspices.
Mr. GEORGE STEPHENSON, in returning thanks for
his own health, and that of his son, Mr. George
Stephenson, both of which were received with rounds of
applause, adverted to the gratifying part he and his son
had taken in carrying out the railway schemes of this
country, and in none more so than in their connexion
with the South-Eastern Railway. It was a proud thing
for them to reflect upon, that they had been mutually
instrumental in connecting as by one chain all the na-
tions of the earth, and in making more closely kindred
the whole human race.—(Cheers.)
Subsequently the health of Viscountess Torrington
wmar. sngiavreknewr,itthhegtrosseattmecalitte.
. rThe vocal and instrumental
concomitants to the conviviality were ably sustained by
Messrs. Hobbs, Mudie, Francis, and Machin, assisted by

MICROSCOPICAL SOIREE.—On
Wednesday
witness tihne
last the Fellows of the Royal College
of surg
eons eveningas-
sembled
their
exhibitionspaci o uo
fs hail
ei no
fNtihc
eh oml s
oo
snt' si-nstterreeestt,i
ut g
forms of
of infusional animalculre. Sir
William
conservatorg in g
of been e
the en appointed
museum,
proceededt o take
the most to
chair,
xtN er.w tiege
demonstrate,-,
by the aid of numerous diagrams, the existence of such
infinitesimal beings, of a structure as beautifully de-
signed and adapted to all the varied functions of life as
complicated of any of the higher animals. And
when speaking of the polygastria, Mr. Lee remarked
that their essential character was the immense number of
their stomachs, some species possessing more than a hun-
dred, and explained how these digestive sacs might be
rendered apparent by
feeding them with carmine, indigo,
or other colouring matter; and that the same method
was calculated to exhibit very beautifully the action of
the cilia, with which both the polygastria and rotifera
were provided as organs of locomotion, and which served
also for the prehension of their food; for by the action
of their cilia, currents were produced in the water car-
rying the smaller creatures, or other floating particles,
towards the mouth, and that the ciliary processes were
at the same time subservient to the function of respira-
tion, by constantly changing the surrounding medium.
And, after speaking of their muscular and nervous sys-
tems, and the complicated dental apparatus which some
possessed, and of which diagrams were exhibited, Mr.
Lee observed that a large portion of the polygastria
were provided with skeletons or cases, composed in some
cases of calcareous matter, or of pure transparent silex
and that he hoped upon some future occasion to give an
account of the various states in which their remains were
formed, and to exhibit a variety of fossil forms.—Edin-
burgh Witness.
Mr. and Lady Emily Pennefather arrived at FArrance's
HOW, Upper Si:agree-street, yesterday.