The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-01 00:00:00

WELLINGTON TESTIMONIAL.

After a tedious and toilsome day's labour, the work-
men engaged at Constitution-hill, yesterday, succeeded
in safely placing this great statue on its pedestal. Up
to three o'clock, they were engaged in making all the
necessary arrangements, preparing all the machinery,
regulating the tackle, windlasses, &c., and properly affix-
ing the ropes and cable slings by which the immense
mass was to be perpendicularly raised to the desired
height. The ascent was accordingly commenced a little
after that hour. and although Mr. Green, in the Nassau
balloon, has often done the distance in a second, he could
hardly accomplish it more surely. However, four hours
had nearly elapsed before the statue had attained the
requisite elevation, during which it hung like Mahomet's
coffin, 'twixt heaven and earth, in, as it seemed to the
minds of the spectators, a rather perilous position.
Meantime the shades of evening were gathering round,
and subsequently night fell in, and it appeared as though
an adjournment of the proceedings sine die had occurred.
The moon soon after rose, and though clouded in the
commencement of her career, shone as brilliantly as a
young moon could, about half-past eight.
The riggers, who had for some time disappeared from
the scaffolding, now again began to mount the ladders
and " man the yards," and soon after, the large move-
able platform aloft, on which were the windlasses by
which the statue was carried up, commenced its horizon-
tal locomotive efforts, and before nine o'clock the plat-
form, statue, and all, had been backed westward, and the
precious burden fairly landed on its proposed site.
Having viewed it then through the various disadvantages
of imperfect moonlight, and intervening ropes and spars,
we are the more confirmed in our impression that, so far
from the statue being too large in its proportions for the
arch, if anything, the arch is too large for the statue.
But we honestly think the public will agree when a
proper time and opportunity for judging have been
allowed, that there could not be found in London a more
magnificent position for such a noble work of art as that
which the triumphal arch on Constitution-hill affords for
the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington.
A great concourse of visitors during the day, and to a
late hour of the night, thronged the neighbourhood of
Hyde Park- corner; and indeed the end of the Green Park,
near Grosvenor-place, presented more the appearance of
a fair than anything else.

SUICIDE AND DROWNING.--Yesterday evening,
about six o'clock, the following melancholy occurrence
took place off Cheliea, resulting in the death of two
human beings. It appears that at the time just named a
decently dressed young woman was observed walking
on the banks of the river in a desponding state, when
suddenly she jumped into the river. The act being seen
by a young man of the name of Payne, who worked near
the spot, he plunged into the water after her and suc-
ceeded in catching hold of her, but she struggled so
fiercely that they both got out of their depth. Payne
appeared to let go his hold, and the unfortunate woman
disappeared. The man struggled hard to reach the
shore, but in vain, and before assistance arrived he had
sank, and shared the same fate as the female he had
endeavoured to save. The bodies could not be found, it
being nearly dusk at the time.
THE DAGENHAM MURDEE.—Since the verdict in
the above affair was returned, a number of active and
intelligent officers of the police force have held fre-
quent communications on the necessity of adopting
further measures to secure, if possible, the appre-
hension of the parties implicated in the brutal
murder of poor Clarke. The result was, that the
leaders in the movement forwarded to Scotland-yard a
memorial expressive of their anxiety to procure a united
expression of the sympathy of the force, by a general
subseription for the purpose of offering a further re-
ward for the discovery of the actors in the late tragedy
at Dagenham, and requesting the opinion of the Com-
missioners as to the legality of such a course. A favour-
able answer was returned in reply, and the sutueription
is now in course of collection. To facilitate it, printed
forms have been conveyed to all the station and section.
houses. Although purely voluntary, theppeal is re-
sponded to with alacrity; and it is believed that the ser-
geants will agree to a contribution of ss. and the subor-
dinates 2s. 6d. each, sums which, when the numerical
strength of the force is considered, cannot fail to secure
a munificent amount. _

'rm.—Yesterday the New York packet-ship West-
minster, Captain 11. R. Hovey, one of the regular liners,
left the St. Katharine Docks With 30 emigrants on
board, chiefly small farmers from the home counties, and
2,000 boxes of manufactured tin. This vessel will leave
Portsmouth for Now York to-morrow morning.

MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACK WOOD.

For a very eccentric and really valuable paper
descriptive of a " Visit to the Vladika of Monte.
negro, ' we are grateful to Blackwood. Before
perusal the title itself was an attraction, after perusal
the contents formed a delightful compensation. The
Vladika of Montenegro ! We can fancy nineteen out
of twenty readers puzzling over the words—
bewildered both as to the nature of the former, and
the locality of the latter. Thousands, indeed, are
ignorant of the character, and occasionally of the very
existence, 4f certain secluded portions of this globe,
and those portions not merely secluded by remoteness,
as Sabrina Land or Patrocino, but secluded in central
parts of Europe, and in the very nucleus of civilisa-
tion. Of the little principality of Montenegro,
situated in European Turkey, bounded on the 'lath
by Herzegovina, on the south-east by Albania, and
on the west by Dalmatia and the Adriatic, scarcely
anything is known, excepting that its inhabitants are
warlike barbarians, governed by an ecclesiastical
prince. Traffic is maintained in all the surround•
ing countries ; vessels from all quarters of the
globe float in the Venetian gulf; Zante and Corfu
are separately the centres of mercantile transactions;
from the Levant to Lesbos, from Byzantium to the
Danube, and thence to Carlstadt, the tide of inter-
course is constantly flowing, and yet, amidst the
whirl of land-carriage and steam-ship, trader and
traveller, the mountainous frontiers of Montenegro
still remain uncrossed, and its people are left behind in
the onward march of civilisation. There is something
affecting in this moral and geographical isolation. A
deep interest is aroused by the knowledge of the
absence of all regenerative prospects to a section of
the European population. Hence it is that the nar-
rative contained in the October number of Blackwood,
being a description of the interior of this principality
by a recent visitor, has exercised over ourselves such
a peculiar fascination. Leaving the Austrian gar-
rison town of Cattaro, the writer, as one of a large and
miscellaneous party, entered the territories of the Greek
bishop, or Vladika of Montenegro, and was hospitably
received by that potentate in his capital city of Zet-
tinie. The description of the country and its com-
munity, given in the narrative of this interesting ex-
pedition, is most agreeable from its naturalness and
vivacity. According to the eye-witness himself, the
frontiers of Montenegro are so peculiarly precipitous
and rugged, as to be rendered by nature absolutely
impregnable ; the soil is scantily scattered over solid
rocks, and is so singularly barren as to require the
utmost industry to extort from it a meagre crop of
grain; the Montenegrini are a hardy and gigantic race,
averaging upwards of six feet in height, armed
to the teeth even in moments of temporary tran-
quillity. The women are subjected to the most un-
mannerlycustoms, being compelled to engage in agri-
cultural and manufacturing pursuits, as well as in
household duties, while their husbands and brothers
are occupied in a ceaseless and predatory warfare,
now in one direction, now in another. The
character given by our narrator of the reigning
Vladika is singularly prepossessing. Of enormous
proportions, measuring indeed considerably more than
seven feet in his stockings, this warlike bishop attests
even in his personal appearance the dignity of his
position ; though surrounded by rude and illiterate
subjects, he betrays remarkable intelligence, and
through the instrumentality of the " übiquitous
Galignani" preserves an intimate knowledge of all
the occurrences which are transpiring beyond the
precincts of his dominions. Invested with despotic
power even from his eighteenth year, the Vladika is
nevertheless characterised by a marked amenity in
his deportment and a winning affability in conversa-
tion. Upon the parapets of the tower overlooking
Zettinie the writer observed a striking testimony of
the lack of refinement among the Montenegrini,
namely, a multitude of human heads impaled on
staves, the heads of those followers of Islamism slain
in battle, and against which people the semi-bar-
barous, semi-religious subjects of the Vladika wage
an eternal and relentless warfare, bearing before them
in their bloody expeditions their national banner—the
peaceful cross of Christianity ! The contemplation
of these facts inspires us with the hope that some
endeavours may be ultimately made to modify the
condition of a people so valorous and zealous as the
Montenegrini—a hope that some external or internal
force may, in the end, conduce to the political and
social re-organsation of these mountaineers, that peace
and domestic happiness may replace the bloodshed
and uncivilised habits to which they have
been hitherto accustomed. For opening to
their contemplation a region so unnoticed as
this principality of Montenegro, the readers of
Maga will be indebted to its contributor. The trans-
lation of Schiller's fantastic and glorious "Dance,"
though elegant and new, is not worthy of a moment's
comparison with the masterly translation given in
this same magazine some years back from the pen of
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.
. .