The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-21 00:00:00

A CITY WINE IV AREHOUSE.

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Amongst the many extensive ranges of buldiag-
the great and increasing trade of the City of London
has caused to be erected, none certainly can exec. d,
and very few surpass, those built in Lime-street for
Messrs. H.R.Williams and Co., the wine importers.
A great portion of the site was originally occupied by
the old East India House, but now, instead of the
space being devoted to records and official docu-
ments, it is appropriated to the storing and maturing
of wine for home consumption. The great pile of
building has with the cellars eight floors, on each
of which the special offices for the transaction of
thelbusiness of the department are attached. Steam
machinery has been erected for the purpose of
assisting the numerous " hands" employed by the
firm, and, in fact, everything that science and
skill could suggest has been taken advantage of in
order that the building might be perfect in every
particular. On descending to the cellars the visitor
is at once snrprise.l with the extent, the cleanliness,
and perfect ventilation of the long subterranean
avenues, on either side of which hundreds of thou-
sands of bottles are to be seen, all binned with
mathematical .accura,-y. Witns of all kinds
and of all vintages are here in store,
and in one particular out of the way spot
is kept the curious and rare wines from
the stores of Prince Metternich, the Grand
Duke of Nassau,and other celebrated connoisseurs,
with as much care and safety as though they were
the crown jewels. Having made a tour of the
cellars, the visitor then steps on " the lift," and
ascends, first to the street level, I.nd here sees the
admirable arrangements for the despatching and
receiving wine without the inconvenience of block-
ing the roadway. The next floor contains, at the
very smallest computation, over3oo butts of sherry,
in addition to which there are three or four enor-
mous vats capable of holding upwards of 6,000 gal-
lons for tbe purposes of " fining," thus rendering
the quality and flavour of the entire quantity
alike throughout, which could not be sup-
posing. each cask was treated separately. Then
the visitor is carried to the port floor, where the
same extensive range of casks with pumps worked
by steam machinery meets the view. From there
be ascends to the spirit floors, where, in addition
to the liquids in casks, be sees innumerable ranges
of attractively-labelled bottles all ready for the
London market. From thence he rises to the
packing floor, where all is order and regularity ;
and finally he arrives at the summit of the building.
where numerous matters are carried on, the most
curious being the bottle washing by machinery, and
so rapid is the operation that not less than from 16
to 20 gross a day are properly washed by one ma-
chine only. Some notion of the quantity of bottles
required annually by the firm may be imagined when
the cost of its corks alone, for th:t period, amounts
to no less than £l,BOO. This great firm has been
called into exis'ence by the alterations made in the
wine duties by Mr. Gladstone, and the enormous
popular trade carried on is a proof of the quality of
the articles supplied. To those curious in such
matters a visic, to the premises will be highly loth-

resting, where they will meet with a polite recep-
tion, and no fear of unpleasant results need be en-
tertained, for a lady may walk through the entire
building without the slightest harm being incurred
to the most deliclte dress, or being overpowered by
the fumes usually prevalent in ordinary wine ware-
houses.

BUDGET OF PERSONAL ITEilS.—Horatio C. Bus-
chard has been nominated by the Republicans in Illinois
to succeed Elibu B. Washburne, in Congress.—lron. Ben-
jamin F. Wade was commissioned as a Director of the
Union Pacific Railroad, May 31.—The Governor of Penn-
sylvania has appointed John E..Addieks Health Officer of
Philadelphia, to succeed General Sickles, resigned.—The
Non York Times thinks "there never was a period when the
public men ofA merica —Senators,Congressmen,Cabinet offi-
cers, and public functionaries of all sorts were as vigor-
ously interviewed' as at thi,time."— Gen. E. T. Winslow
pays the beaviest income tax inlown,hisreturn heings6o,ooo
Major-General George 11. Thomas and staff err:veil at
San Francisco in seven days and ten hours travelFng time
from New York, and expressed themselves pleased with
the mar,agement of the railroad.—John N. Maffit, com-
mander of the late rebel pirate Florida, has inst:tnted
legal proceedings at St. Paul, Minnesota, to recover so:ce
slo,ooa worth of property coull4eat d in the Un'ted
St..t,s District Court three years are, 111111 sold by the
Usited Stmt- Marshal :er about £3,ooo.—Judge Park,
the United States Consul to Aix -la- Chapelle, arrived
in the (it) of Paris at Liverpool on Wednesday, 9th inst.
The President has appointed another coloured Postmaster,
Rev. Henry M. Turner, at Macon, Georgia.—Mr. Harvey,
lldit.ister to Portugal. has been pail his salary so long
w;tilhel,l.—Beve.dy Johnson's house in Washington has
been robbed of $2OO worth of slyer ware.— Bartel Roths-
child, of Frankfort, is said to have purchased a piece of
land in Berlin, on w hich be intends to erect a splendid
mansion. It is a pert of Prince Radziwill's park which
lies opposite the Thiergarten.—General Kilpatrick, United
States Minister to Chi", arrived at Lima on April 30,
on the way to his post.—Dr. Long had entered on
his duties as United States Consul at Panama.—Gene-
ral Sherman and Admiral Farragut accepted invita-
tions to the Boston Peace Jubilee.— Senator Cole, of Cali-
fornia, left New York for Washington, May 30. General
Sherman and staff, accompanied by a party of ladies and
gentlemen, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. and the
Misses Dudley Field, arrived from Washington, May 31,
at Fortress Monroe, on the United States steamer Talla-
poosa; Commander Chandler. The party went to attend
the wedding of a daughter of
..Geneial Barry. General
Sherman received the usual salute of 17 guns from tha
heavy water battery of the Fort.—Mr. Dudley Field has
purchased the elegant estate in Dcbb's Ferry of Mr. J.
Steymus, consisting of 20 acres, for $37,000.—General
Schenck was to sail for Europe in the Cunard steamer of
the 9th inst., and may therefore be explcted to-day or to-
morrow.—The lion. Michael Connolly was to sal for
Europe June 5. A number of his personal and political
friends were to accompany Mr. Connolly down the bay in

steamboat which they had chartered for the occasion.—
Mr. Seward's residence in Washington is to be converted
into a boarding-house.—Vice-President Colfax is expected
to visit ex-Congressman Cornell at Rondout this month.
General Lee has expressed himself in favour of the
adoption of the expurgated Constitution, and the election
of Mr. Walker, the candidate of the Conservatives, for Go-
vernor.—Dr. Erni, United States Consul to Basle, Swit-
zerland, and R N. Hanson, United States Consul to Bre-
men, from Baltimore, arrived in the steamer Leipzig last
Tuesday.—Hon. S. S. Co; llgi.C., from New York, now
travelling in Africa, writes home that he has seen a woman
weighing 600 pounds.—Horace Greeley's daughter Ida is
one of the officers of the " Women's Suffrage Association."
—Ole Bull has accepted the invitation of the managers of
the peace fastival at Boston to be leading violinist. He
will perform his own arrangement of " Auld Lang Syne,"
accompanied by the orchestra of 1,000 instruments.—
Judge Asa Walker, a lawyer, formerly of Bangor, Maine,
and at one time editor of the Bangor Gazette, committed
suicide in Brooklyn, California, last month, by drowning
himself. Franklin Coffin of Claremont, New Hampshire,
fell from his velocipede dead of heart disease.—Governor
Stearns was inaugurated Governor of New Hampshire at
Concord on Thursday, June 3. Governor Harriman de-
livered a brief valedictory to the Legislature, in which he
congratulated the members upon the genoral prosperity of
the State, and expressed his gratitude to the people for the
confidence reposed in him during his two terms of office.
George Lowry, a well-known citizen of Burlington, died
there in his 60th year on Sunthy, May 30. He had served
in the customs service nearly 27 years.—Colonel E. N.
Phelps, a tobacco manufacturer, of Windsor, Connecticut,
was arrested, May 29, and about 200,000 cigars and seve-
ral thousand pounds of tobacco, valued at about slo,ooo'
were seized by order of Collector Deming for alleged ex-
tensive frauds on the revenue. Colonel Phelps does not
deny irregularities, but denies any fraudulent intention.--
Mrs. Vern"n, a well-known popular actress, died on the
14th June, at her residence in New York, in the 77th year
of her age.—Mrs. Parker, a lawyer's wife, shot and fatally
wounded Mrs. Baker, a milliner, at Portland, Maine, June
2, incited by jealousy.—The Viceroy of Egypt will arrrive
at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday next.—Mr. Andrew
Johnson has made a grand speech, the greatest in his life,
some journals say.—Colonel Frederick Hecker, a well-
known political exile from Germany, living on a farm

in St. Clair County, Iflinois, has become a wine-grower.
--Parsen Brownlow leas writtenle!ter in which
he pronouces in favour of Dewitt C. Senter for Go-
vernor of Tennessee.—We hear that the lIono;A-able
William 11. Wisener is to b come tin independent candi-
(l.t.: for the pos7,,but Stokes says he is sure of the elec-
tion.—Sir H. Bulwer has given not:c3 that on the 9.h of

July he would call the attention of the Must of Com-
mons to the case of the Alamaba.—Thomas P. May and
Wm. R. Whittake”, charged with embezzling over a
million of dollars from the office of the sub-treasurer at
New Orleans, have lately been acquitted by a jury in
that city, though the evidence was clear against them.
__ Judge John Wilson c'ied at his residence in Westmins-
ter, Canada, June 3. General Longstreet has also' horn
looked.up for bad debts by the Auditor of the Treasury,
who is likely to succeed in this instance better than he did
with General Beauregard. General C. 0. Andrews,
United States Minister to Sweden, left New York by the
City of Paris, June 5. - George W. Childs, of the Phila-
delphia Public Ledger, is at the St. Nicholas hotel, New
York.—Mrs. E. B. Washburn° is a cousin of Madame
Montholon, and, like her, a descendant of the early French
traders who settled in Illinois. •