The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-15 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN GOSSlP.—Saturday.

There is still a faint hope in some circles that the Queen
may open Parliament after all, though there does not
seem to be much ground for it, the less so as it is pretty,
generally believed that her Majesty read with little
favour the first draft of the Speech which was presented
to her. Since then her Majesty has summoned the Bishop
of Peterborough to Osborne—a fact somewhat noticeable,
inasmuch as the junior bishops are very rarely the guests
of the sovereign. Bishop Magee has long been a favourite
with Royalty, and considerable confidence is placed in his
opinions on the Irish Church question.
The first meeting of the conference of bishops at
Lambeth Palace was very thinly attended, only the
four archbishops and seven other bishops out of
the whole English and Irish Episcopate being
present. But the second meeting was much more
numerous, although the number of absentees from
illness was very remarkable. The Bishops of Win-
chester, Salisbury, Chichester, Bath and W elk, Exeter,
Rochester, and Carlisle are all on the list of sick or per-
manently infirm. The Bishop of Worcester, and one
other English bishop whose name I have not been able to
learn, were the only English absentees on Thursday
who could have attended. The first-mentioned pre-
late always absents himself from gatherings of
this kind, and also from Convocation. It cannot
be said that he lost very much this week,
for the bishops have, as is their wont, decided
little except to wait for the course of evente.
The Bishop of London performed yesterday his first
episcopal act in his new diocese—the consecration of a new
church in the once notorious parish of St. George's-in-the-
East. The incumbent is a Low Churchman ; yet
he has not hesitated to adopt the very ritual which brought
Mr. Bryan King into such trouble. There was

a procession of surpliced priests and choristers,
who chanted the 24th Psalm, and even a banner
was carried in the procession. The Archbishop of Can-
terbury preached, in order to comply with a promise
which he had made. But he did not stay to the lunch,
having just lost his nephew, Captain Wildman. At the
lunch the Bishop made a speech, in which he highly
praised his predecessor, and especially commended
his making use of lay agency and the institu-
tion of his fund, which he (Bishop Jackson)
wished should be called Bishop Tait's, though
the Archbishop had not consented. The Bishop went on
to speak of the surprise which he felt when the news of
his appointment to the See of London reached him, and
he asked that his new diocese would deal with him
tenderly, because he bad none of the abilities of his pre-
decessor. It was interesting to notice among the company
men of such different views as Mr. Lowder, Mr.
Bardsley, Mr. Rowsell, and Mr. Ayrton. To-day
the bishop re-opens St. Giles's Church, Cripp'e-
gate. This is one of the richest livings in
London, and yet for some time it has been without a resi-
dent incumbent. Mr. Denton, the rector of the adjoining
parish, has, I learn, complained of this.
This afternoon a deputation has waited upon the Presi-
dent of the Council, in order to make the final arrange-
ments for the East-end Museum. It will be remembered
that some time ago the Government promised to grant
the old Brompton " boilers " to an institution which should
be to the eastern district of London on a small scale what
the South Kensington Museum is to Western London on
a large scale. Mainly through the exertions of Mr. Antonio
Brady and the Rev. Septimus Hansard, the necessary
funds have been raised, and to-day the transfer of the site
was made over formally to the Earl of Kimberley, who
represented the Department of Science and Art.
The selection of Dover instead of Portsmouth for
the Volunteer Review \ has been made, not from
any preference on the part of the committee, but in
great measure on account of the obstacles raised
by the railway companies which have lines running
to Portsmouth. The South-Western, lam told, wanted
2s. 6d. for each Volunteer instead of ls. 6d., which was
the sum paid last year.
I am glad to state that Captain Robert Scott has been
appointed superintendent of gun carriages for the Royal
Navy at Woolwich. For many years Captain Scott
persevered against official opposition, especially that of
the Ordnance Select Committee, until be obtained a
fair trial for his inventions in guns and gun carriages.
The last has proved a great success, and by the adoption of
his patent a heavy gun can be worked with half the men
that used to be required. The present Board of Admi-
ralty, being less open to the representations of influential
men, and more open to the claims of merit than its prede-
cessors, has now fitly rewarded signal service.

It is stated that a very notorious woman in London,
whose portrait is to be seen in all photograph shop windows,
and whose marriage with a young noblemanmas stopped in
church at the last moment, has succeeded in landing a
husband belonging to an aristocratic family in the North
of England, the head of which was for many years in
Parliament,

The lion. Henry S. Walbridge was killed at the
Bergen Tunnel Jan. 27. He had gone out on a New Jer •
sey train, and is supposed to have crossed over to take a
train on the Morris and Essex Road. When avoiding one
train, another belonging to the Erie Road came upon him
from an opposite direction, and dashed him against
the cars of the Morris and Essex Road, causing
injuries of so serious a nature that he died iu a few hours.
The accident was not seen by those on the Erie cars,
but he was picked up by the men on the Morris and Essex
train, and by them carried to Hoboken. Several thousand
dollars were found on his Jerson. Mr. Wallbridge was
a Representative in Congress from New York from 1851
to 1853.

Francis W. Pickens, son of Andiew J. Pickens,
Governor of South Carolina, and grandson of Andrew J.
Pickens, who distinguished himself in the revolutionary
war, died on the 25th Jan, at Edgefield, South Carolina,
of which State he was once Governor. Ho was born, says
the Tribune, in Togadoo, S. C., April 7, 1807, and after
receiving his education at the South Carolina College,
Columbia, was admitted to the bar in 1829. Three years
after he commenced his political career in the State Legis-
lature, of which he was elected a member during the
memorable nullification excitement. He ranged himself
on the side of the nullifiers, and proving an excellent
debater, he took a prominent place among the advocates
of the extreme States Rights doctrine. In 1834, he
was elected to Congress, in which he remained a
member for ton years. .declining a re-election in 1811,
he retired into private life. Reappearing on the political
stage in 1850, he was elected a delegate to the Nashville
Southern Convention, which met in 1850-51 to consider
the course to be pursued by the. South under the alleged
aggressions of the North. His services were next called
into requisition in 1851, when he was chosen. to preside
over the South Carolina State Convention for the election
of delegates to the General Democratic Convention ; and
in 1856 he went to Cincinnati as delegate to that Conven-
tion. In 1857 President Buchanan appointed him Minister
to Russia, in which country he remained about three
years; and on his return home, toward the end of 1860,
he was elected Governor of his native State. This was
on the eve of the Rebellion ; and in those ever-memorable
events which marked the outbreak of hostilities between
the North and the South the deceased ex-Governor took
a prominent part. The name of Governor Pickens is in-
separably associated with the story of Fort Sumter, and
with the overt acts which precipitated the war ; but,
unfortunately for his memory, the association is not one
which• impartial history will record to his honour.
Governor Pickens was ono of the most active promoters
of secession. No sooner had he been inaugurated as Go-
vernor than he boldly declared for the disruption of the
Union even at the risk of war; and immediately after
the Charleston Convention had passed the Ordinance of
Secession, he issued his proclamation, declaring the with-
drawal of South Carolina from the Union an accomplished
fact, taking steps at the same time for organising as in-
dependent Government. lie then demanded of Major
Anderson the surrender of Fort Sumter, and up )n the
refusal of the sturdy patriot to comply with the demand,
ordered that fire should be opened upon the Fort. Upon
the capture of Sumter, he addressed the people of Charles.
ton, calling God to witness, in the course of his speech,
that so long as he remained their Chief Magistrate, no
power on earth should ever lower from the fortress the
flags that had been raised in place of the National ensign,
unless they were lowered and trailed in a sea of blood.
While he continued as Chief Magistrate of the State,
Governor Pickens did all in his power to support the
Confederate Government in its prosecution of the war;
but in 1862 he was succeeded in that office by Governor
Bonham, and after the close of the war he sank into corn-
parative obscurity, in which he remained to the period of
his death.