The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-22 00:00:00

TO TYE EDTTOR OF THE SUN.

Sin,—Your journal of the 19th inst., contains a leading
article, finding great fault with my granddaughter's bronze
coinage, because Britaniarum is abbreviated Britt. You
must be a very young man, and don't recollect my splendid
new silver coinage in 1816. If you look at one of my shil-
lings you will find I used the proper spelling, BRITT.
Julius Caesar, the other day, offered to show me the
"MS.S." (sic.) of his Commentaries. Do you think the
noble Roman used a superfluous S in his kind note ?
GEORGIUS 111.,
Britt. Rex., Fid. Def.

Elysian Fields, Dec. 20.

His Highness the Prince Radziwill and Count
Nicolas Pikovitch have left the Brunswick Hotel for Paris.
His Excellency the Count Persigny has left
Albert-gate House for Paris.
The Duchess of Sutherland and his Excellency
the Earl of Carlisle have left Stafford House, St. James's,
for Trentham, Staffordshire.
The Earl and Countess de Gray and Ripon have
returned to their villa at Roehampton, from a visit to the
Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P., and Mrs. Herbert, at
Wilton House, near Salisbury.
The Earl of Wilton has left Melton Mowbray on
a visit to the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, at Enville
Hall, Staffordshire.
The Earl of Malmesbury comes to town on
Monday from Heron Court, Hants.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean are playing to over-
flowing houses at Cork. "Hamlet" and "Louis XI."
have already been given with immense success, Mr. Kean
taking the parts of Hamlet and King Louis, and Mrs.
Kean those of Gertrude and Martha.
We hear that the Lord Bishop of London will
hold his Christmas Ordination for this year in her
Majesty's Chapel Royal, Whitehall, to-morrow morning
(Sunday) the 23d inst., and that the chapel is free to the
public.

The municipal elections at Marseilles have con-
cluded in the triumph of the: Ministerial candidates, who
have been almost all returned., The Opposition candidates,
however, made a desperate struggle, and polled more than
10,000 votes.
The French Government have determined, in
order to give more animation to the magnificent Boulevard
Sebastopol, that a theatre shall be built on the square of
the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.
Wednesday next, the 26th, is fixed for 'Change
day, and is also settled for payments for foreign bills bought
to-day.

In answer to an inquiry the Post-office authori-
ties have intimated that the mails for India, China, and
Australia will be made up in London on the 26th inst., as
usual.

A new issue of bronze coin, to the amount of
1,500,000 f., is about to take place in France.
Mr. M'Gorel, the deputy chairman of Com-
mittee of Mexican Bondholders, has had an interview with
Lord Wodehouse in relation to their affairs.
Yesterday a certificate of the first class was
awarded to Mr. Hullah at the Bankruptcy Court.
The Judge• Ordinary has refused to allow Mr.
Denison his costs in the late action, out of the estate of
Mr. Dent.
The public debt of India on promissory note
loans now registered in London amounts to £8,003,230. Of
the 4 per cent. Transfer Loan Stock the total on the London
books is £1,836,590.
A special meeting of the London Discount Com-
pany was held yesterday, Mr. R. Diggles in the chair, when
the resolutions passed at the last meeting for winding-up
voluntarily, appointing liquidators, and fixing their remu-
neration at a commission of a half per cent., were confirmed
unanimously.
The Duke of Saxe-Coburg has, with the consent
of the King of Saxony, promoted the celebrated publisher
of Leipsic, M. Bernhard-Tauchnitz, to the rank of heredi-
tary Baron. This dignity has been conferred as an acknow-
ledgment for the exertions made by the baron to promote
the extension of English literature in Germany.
Colonel Taylor succeeds to the position lately
held by the Right Hon. Sir W. Hylton Jolliffe, in connec-
tion with the Conservative party, and will be assisted in
the ensuing session by Mr. Whitmore, and also by the
Hon. Gerard Noel, member for Rutland, who will fill th e
vacancy caused by Sir W. Jolliffe's retirement.
The general security of the Prussian fortresses,
both on sea and laud frontiers, is a question now under con-
sideration at the Ministry of War. The fortifications of
Stettin are to be augmented ; Komigsberg and Posen are
to be raised to the rank of fortresses of the first class.
In the matter of the Athenaeum Assurance Com-
pany, which was ordered to be wound up about three years
since, another dividend of 55., making 20s. in the pound,
has been declared.
The ship Ascendant left Southampton yesterday
with a large number of emigrants for Melbourne, Aus-
tralia.

RIPON ELECTION.—The election of a member for
Ripon took place yesterday. The candidates were Mr.
Vyner, a Liberal, and Dr. Lees, a Radical. Mr. Vyner
was elected. The demand of a poll by Dr. Lees was not
persisted in.
THE CLERICAL FUND AND POOR CLERGY RELIEF
SOCIETY.—The committee of the Clerical Fund and Poor
Clergy Relief Society have made during the past year
grants to 90 poor clergymen, incumbents and curates,
amounting to £393, and to 18 widows of clergymen £lll,
or a total of £504. In addition to these grants of money,
they have distributed no less than 100 parcels of clothing,
new and old, the estimated value of which is £324. The
society is one of the most valuable in the metropolis, as its
bounty is given in money and clothing to the poor clergy
and their widows in England, Wales, and Ireland.
A LIFE WELL SAVED.—On Sunday night at 10
o'clock, Policeman 510 A, on duty on the south side of the
Serpentine, heard a splash in the water, he ran to the spot
and seeing a hat floating gave an alarm. The boatmen of
the Royal Humane Society were on the alert, and as quickly
as possible the boat was pulled across the river and the body
of a young man was recovered by the first throw of the drag ;
he was apparently quite dead. The treatment of the society
was immediately adopted, both while being carried to and
at the Receiving-house,. and slowly life's functions were
restored and a night of anxious attention resulted in the
young man being able to go before the magistrates in the
morning. He stated himself a clerk out of employment,
and driven by debt and poverty to this rash act. This case
is peculiarly interesting as marking the time life may be
restored after complete submersion. The body was under
water while the policeman ran to the spot and gave the
alarm, and while the men who were at supper cleared and
turned the boat round and pulled obliquely across and up
the river at least five or six minutes must have elapsed.
THE CHINESE MURDERS.—CoIoneI Dubost, In-
tendant of the French expedition to China, mentioned in
General Ignatieff's report as one of the French officers who
fell victims to Chinese barbarity, was a gallant officer in
the:French Artillery. After serving during several cam-
paigns with distinction in Algeria he accompanied the
French army to the Crimea, and was one of the few artil-
lery officers who escaped the perils of the siege. His fate
will be lamented by many officers of our own service with
whom he became acquainted during that campaign. His
father was also well known in England as having conducted
with great tact and talent the negotiations which resulted
in the Convention with France in 1843, by which a consi-
derable reduction was made in the charge for letters passing
between this country and the Continent.

A TRAGEDY IN REAL LIFE.--We find the fal-
lowing in the London Correspondence of the illanelte ster
Guardian :—" The Marquis of D----'s yacht, now at
Naples, has been the scene of some of those tragedieg of real
life, which we are apt to think, in these dead-level days, lie
far away from the region of real life, in the domain exclu-
sively appropriated by the dramatist and the tale-writer.
The Marquis had been for some time cruising with some
members of his family, including a youthful daughter,Lady
Alice —. The yacht was commanded by a half-pay
lieutenant of the Royal Navy. The Marquis coming on
board unexpectedly, from an excursion on• shore, if I am
rightly informed, found his captain at the feet of his daugh-
ter, kissing her hand. The indignant father—a man of
Herculean strength—seized the offender, and, let it be
hoped, intending only to tear him away from his unseemly
place and action, flung him over the bulwark of the yacht
into the sea, when ho went (-town at once, in spite—add
some of the versions of the story—both of the Mar-
quis's and his sailors' efforts to save him. I would
hesitate to repeat a story so like the invention of a French
romance writer, had I not such information from persons
just returned from Naples as leaves me satisfied of its sub-
stantial truth. It is, as I have said, already generally
current, and cannot fail to be in a very short time the
subject of newskaper comment, and I fear of Aolopm legal
procril4l2:2-