The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-20 00:00:00

NAVAL AND MILITARY.

On Friday his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge,
attended by several officers of the Horse Guards Staff,
went to Aldershot and reviewed the troops at the camp.
In order to illustrate the evolutions of a sham fight,
the troops were divided into attacking and defend-
ing forces, arid were provided with several rounds of
blank ammunition per man. The attacking force
comprised two regiments of cavalry, two batteries of
artillery and ten regiments of infantry, under the com-
mand of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir James Yorke
Scarlett, G.C.B. The defending force consisted of two
regiments of cavalry, two batteries of artillery,
one company of engineers, and five regiments of
infantry. At the conclusion of the sham fight,
about 12.30, the commanders were assembled and
addressed by the Commander-in-Chief on the evolutions as
executed. His Royal Highness slept in the camp on
Friday night.
Since the announcement made in the House of Commons
of the intention of the Government to completa the works
now in progress for the extension of Chatham dockyard,
a number of additional workmen have been employed,
in conjunction with upwards of 1,200 cmvicts, in
pushing forward the completion of the new docks and
basins. The repairing basin is so far advanced that there
is no doubt that it will be ready for being opened early
in the approaching year. Two other large basins are
likewise being constructed, the largest of which will
be the fitting-out basin, , having a water area of
nearly 40 acras and a frontage of nearly 6,000 feet. Up
to the present time the expenditure on the two additional
dock; basins, workshops, and other works for the
extension of this dockyard, has been nearly two
millions sterling, and the works have been fourteen years
in progress.
The number of men, boys, and girls taken on in the
Royal Laboratory Department of Woolwich Arsenal,
within the last few weeks, amounts to nearly a thousand ;
but many of the lathes still lie idle, the iron work pre-
served in what the workmen call " Gladstone's paint." It
is, however, stated that an extensive order for shot, shell,
powder cases, &c., has been issued from the War Office,
which will soon set all the machinery in motion once
more.

Mr. F. Whitehead, the inventor of the new
description of torpedoes with which experiments are
ordered to be made, arrived at the dockyard, Chatham,
on Thursday morning, and made preparations for the
experiments which are to be carried out on board the
iron paddle-wheel steamer Oberon, 3, 260 horse-power.
The authorities at the War Department have appointed
a committee consisting of officers to superintend and re-
port on the experiments.
THE COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.—Mr. William
Fisher Miller, who was called to the bar by the Honour.
able Society of Lincoln's Inn on the 29th of Janu-
ary, 1850, and since 1843 acted as Registrar of the
Court of Bankruptcy, and for several years past has
discharged the duties of Chief Registrar, has re-
tired after twenty-seven years' public service on his
full retiring allowance of £2,000 per annum. The
vacancy has been filled up by the appointment of Mr.
William Hazlitt, the Senior Registrar of the Court, who,
it will be remembered, officiated for the late Mr. Commis-
sioner Goulburn during his protracted illness. The income
of Mr. Hazlitt will, it is stated, remain as 'heretofore,
21,500 per annum.

- -
NARROW ESCAPE OF A NORTH GERMAN MAIL
STEAMER--On the sth instant the Leipzig, one of the
North German Lloyd mail steamers running from Bremen
to New York via Southampton, arrived at Baltimore
after a narrow escape from capture by a French cruiser.
The Leipzig was detained for a few days at Southampton by
French cruisers in the Channel, but she ventured at length
to slip quietly out, and passed one of the cruisers without
attracting attention. Nearing the coast of America, a
second French cruiser was sighted, but the German vessel,
proving the faster of the two, avoided capture, and ran
into Baltimore with all colours flying, amid cheers from
the crews of other German vessels in the port, and the
crowd on the pier.

THE PECULIAR PEOPLE.—An inquest was held
on Friday at Charlton-neat-Woolwich, the result of which
was that two of the " Peculiar People" were sent to
prison. The infant son of Thomas Savill, a dockyard
lanourer, had died after suffering from diarrhcea for a
week ; and Dr. Ryley, who had made a post-mortem exa-
mination of the body, stated that death had been unques-
tionably accelerated by neglect of the ordinary remedies,
and that if the diarrhoea had been arrested by proper
medicine and diet the child would probably have reco-
vered. The parents stated, in answer to the jury, that if
one of their children was run over they would not send
for a doctor, but let the elders anoint it with oil and trust
in God; but the man added that such mishaps never befel
the faithful, for it was said in the 37th Psalm, "" The
bones of the righteous shall not be broken." The jury
returned a verdict of "Manslaughter against Thomas
and Elizabeth Savill," and they were at once taken into
custody on the coroner's warrant. They will be brought
before a magistrate this (Saturday) afternoon, to be bailed
until the next sitting of the Central Criminal Court.

THE CHANCES OF THE WAR.—In all the specula-
tions on the war in Europe, one contingency 'has to be
borne in mind, which is liable to occur at any time, and
to transform the whole aspect of affairs like the turning of
a kaleidoscope. We refer to the death of Napoleon. In
our late war in this country no one man's loss would have
materially altered the struggle ; but this is a contest of
rulers, and if the French Emperor, already too ill to take
the field as he intended, should prove too old, worn and
weak to endure the pressure on his nerves, there is no
prophet keen enough to tell what would become either of
the French army or the French empire. The first Napoleon
was of so strong a constitution that no such speculations
came up during his campaigns ; but he was bred a soldier
and inured to excitement, while his nephew spent the flrst
half of his life in a kind of idleness much more destructive
to the prospects of long life. Yet the first Emperor died
comparatively young, of disappointed ambition; and it is
quite possible that his nephew may come to as unhappy
an ending,—Boston Advertiser,