The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-23 00:00:00

THE OXFORD COMMEMORATION.

Yesterday was a great day in the Sheldonian Theatre,
the honorary degrees being conferred.
,Amongst the recipients were the Duke of
Richmond, Earls de Grey and Ripon, Beauchamp, Cow-
t,, and Rosse, the Bishop of Lincoln, Lord Lyttelton,
4e'Speaker, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, the Chan-
c....ellor of the Exchequer, Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir W.
Mansfield, and Canon Liddon.
To the Placetne robis, &mini doctores? Placetne robiB,
Illagistrt? there was no dissent till 'the name of Mr. Lowe
was proposed, and then a shout of Non placet was raised
this
the gallery, with some slight approbation of
'8 dissent among the masters in the arena.
After all other dissent appeared to have been withdrawn,
Ztoll,e.-v-e- gentleman persisted in his non placet, like the coin-
-member in the House of Commons, who
6--1 mainta ins that " Noes have it ; but the
hagncY ellor of the University, more despotic than Mr.
':raker, passed quickly to the next name on the list, and
decry of non placet being then repeated caused con-
sable laughter. The only other interruption occurred
When the name of `Mr. William Smith was submitted.
-!tr";(lndergraduate, in the tone of one anxiously asking
ior Information, inquired " Which Mr. Smith ?" and this
Zapparently innocent question upset the gravity even of
he Chancellor.

ROYAL VISIT TO STRAINIL TII,RY HILL.—The
'tine and Princess of Wales dined yesterday evening
at Strawberry Hill, with the Countess Frances Walde-
gave and the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P.
r. Gladstone was among the guests. After dinner there
all-an amateur performance on a stage erected in the
°Olll- A brilliant company assembled, and on the
caonclusion of the piece the stage was removed
dancing commenced at half-past eleven. At half-
Vast four this morning the revellers might be seen return-
ing homewards.

SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.

THE NEWARK ACCIDENT.

Excursion trains (observes the Times) are uniformly
sources of danger, but this train, so fearfully wrecked,
might have seemed practically safe. The only train
before it was the Scotch express, not at all likely to be
overtaken, and behind it there was probably no
train at all. The time was a mild midsummer night,
with only an hour or two of derkness in prospect.
The engine was powerful enough for its work ; the
driver was an old servant of the company. Punc-
tuality was observed from first to last ; there was
nothing wrong in signals, points, or orders. The
only mischief destined to happen was the fracture of an
axle in a certain train running on the up line, which the
excursionists would just be one second in passing. In all
the hours of the journey there was, save for that single
second, no peril ahead, and yet that particular instant
proved fatal. We are certainly not furnished, in this
instance, with the ordinary grounds of complaint ; on the
contrary, we must acknowledge that we do not at pre-
sent see who can be blamed, but, for all that, so deplor-
able a calamity is an ominous and alarming beginning of
our excursion season.

The Standard says that the excursion season has been
inaugurated by one of the most fearful casualties in the
history of railways. A train of thirty carriages, filled
with passengers returning from a trip to town, has been
shivered into matchwood by an accident without precedent
or parallel. The Blackheath and Clayton tunnel collisions
were immediately fatal to a larger number of unfortunates
than are yet reported to have lost ther lives at
Newark. The New-cross disaster, which made the Li-
censed Victuallers' annual festival memorable, may have
given a greater aggregate of sufferers than any mishap of
the like nature. But the fatality of Monday night stands
out from among all others on account of the startling total
of both killed and wounded, no less than for the singular
nature of the mischance by which so many were over-
taken. The causes of this fearful tragedy are under
investigation, and we forbear from anticipating the result
of an inquiry which ought to be peculiarly searching. At
a time when railway companies are moving the House of
Commons to limit their responsibilities, and complaining
bitterly of their liability to compensate sufferers from
their negligence, the fortuitous occurrence of so fearful a
calamity is singularly suggestive.