The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-13 00:00:00

IAT LEAG

MONTHLY REPORT.

The, members of the Naiional Sunday League held
their monthly general meeting on Friday, March 7, at
Lancaster House, Adelphi—Mr. W. Dathie, presiding.
The following report of the committee was adopted :
Your committee in dealing with the important events
of the past month, are restricted by the limits of their
report to state results rather than to dwell upon details.
With regard to the finances of which the quarterly
statement is herewith laid before you, it is necessary
here to manc:luxe the subscriptions of R. Cox, 11. ;
Danville, E:q., 11.; G. Pauncey, Esq., 11.; Sir W.
Domville, Bari., a second subscription of 21. 25.; J. Ball,
Eeq., M.P., I 1.; H. Haghtan, Esq , of Bold Lancashire,
251.; Sir J. Shelley, Bart., M.P., Si. 3a., and of J.
Graham Domville, Esq., 11. ls.
The proceedings of the month may be briefly arranged
under the three following,heads :—Publie meetings con-
vened by the League and others in favour of its objects;
meetings held in opposition, and defeated in their par.
pose by the action of the League ; and the Parlia-
mentary debate and division upon Sir Joseph Walnut.
ley's motion for the opening of public institutions On
Sunday afternoons. Of meetings convened in the me-
tropolis there were four, viz , at Bermondsey, the
Cowper-street Institution, Caldwell's Assembly-rooms,
Dean-street, Soho, and at the Philpott-street Institu-
tion, Commercial road East. In the provinces among
many others may be mentioned those of Newcastle, Lei-
cester, and Newport.
The whole of these meetings were successfully carried
out, with the exception of that announced to take place
at the Cowper-street institution, where temporary incon-
venience was occasioned by the parties who bad let the
school-room refusing to fulfil their contract. Of meet-
ings called in opposition the most important was that
held in the Hartland-read school-rooms, Kentish-town,
at which the Earl of Shaftesbury should have presided.
Declining, however, to meet the Apposition which evi-
dently awaited him, his lordship vacated the chair at as
early period of the evening, and the whole intention of
his supporters was completely reversed. Less impor-
tant, but no less signal, successes were obtained at
Chelsea, Bermondsey, Islington, Farringdon-hall, City,
Hackney, and in the borough ; while in the provinces,
at Dover, Huddersfield, and Durham, the meetings of
the cpponents to the movement have been, although by
a spontaneous and
,unorganised action, vigorously net
and defeated.

Sir Joshua Walrusley's motion Caine formally before
the House of Commons on Thursday, February 21, and
after an admirable debate, was rejected by a nmjority of
376 against 48 ; while, according to the official report,
there had been presented up to the period of the debate
4,286 petitions, containing 531,065 signatures against,
and 106 petitions, with 18,543 signatures iu favour of
the resolution.

In the earnestness and talent which distinguished the
Parliamentary debate, the committee perceive the
strongly awakening int vest which the Sunday question
begins now to excite in the public mind ; and in the
severe defeat which the motion sustained, they are
bound to acknowledge the fruits of that powerful orga-
nisation employed against them, and-now fully developed,
of the clerical bodies in this country. They are able,
from such data, to estimate the influence of
these communities upon the supposed representatives
of, the country, and to feel how much energy will be
needed to collect and arrange their own more numerous
but scattered forces. Having on this occasion never
anticipated victory they are not discouraged by a re-
pulse. They are not dismayed by the array of petitions
against them, of which they are well-informed of the
source and the indiscriminate character of the signatures ;
for they have evidence before them that many of them
were largely signed by children ; by influential persons
in behalf of and in the names of their whole household ;
and by others who affixed repeated signatures as indi-
viduals and as members of church and chapel congre-
gations ; nor do they regard their own efforts in that
direction as so insignificant as they may appear, consi.
dering the very small area in which they have ope-
rated. While on that,aubject they may refer to the re-
port of the committee on public petitions, in which it is
stated that the regulation concerning duplicate or
unauthorised signatures do not appear to them is the
case of several petitions against the opening of the Bri-
tish Museum, &c., to have been complied with.
In a word, the committee meat their fellow-members
after a defeat, greater in numbers, richer in resources,
and stronger in resolution. Kindred associations are
springing up over the country, and already assume defi-
nite proportions at Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford,
and G!aggow ; and in the full consciousness of much
patient labour before them, and the necessity of un-
wearying exertion, the committee rely upon the co-opera-
tion of their fellow-members for help in perfecting that
extension and organisation of the National Sunday
.League, which is now their chief and final aim.

WILLIAM DUTHIE,
Chairman of the Central Committee.

THE LATE LOYAL ITALIAN OPERA,

CO PE T-GARDEN.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE SUN.

SIR,—In the narratives of the destruction of this theatre,
some inaccuracies, calculated to mislead the public, and to
do little credit to my work of the late Royal Opera House,
having now had a press-wide circulation, make it incum-
, bent on me to beg of you, in common justice, to insert s
few facts by way of correction.
The statement that the building was "remodelled" by
me, " and converted into an opera house," does not fairly
describe my part in it, which, as respects the audience
part within the main walls, and from the foundation to
the roof, to say nothirr, of the extensive alterations anti
numerous additions and improvements in entrances, new
staircases, saloons, hail, offices, &a., it seems ought to be con-
sidered quite a now structure. I obtained poasessiou of the
premises on Dec. 1, )Bti. In the course of the first five
weeks the,w'uole of the interior of the audience part, from
the roof to the foundation of the vaults, vas takon down,
and the proscenium wall cut from top to bottom to widen
it, and a new foundation laid; and this, not for the
audience merely, but under the western side of the stage,
and two new fire-proof stairc.,ses. The new foundations
were laid about 20 feet under the level of Bow-street, on
Yorkshire stone landings (and not upon timber, as in
the case of the old main wall), on which three rows of
walls and vaults in two tiers were built under the pit
corridor box and corridor of the pit tiers, to snake this
part fire-proof. On the two nearest the main walls rested
the five tiers of cast-iron columns supporting the six tiers
of boxes, and the two main fire-proof staircases built for
the safety of the audience, ascending from the Bow-street
level up to the highest tier of boxes, with two fire mains,
,in each tier, as a precaution against fire. Besides
which, to the box chosen by her Majeity and the Royal
family, private and state apartments were built fire-proof,
with staircase entrance nod a portico for alighting under
cover, to say nothing of the saloons, grand staircase, pit
and box-office, and entrance in Bow-street, the whole built
in the most workman-like manner, as certified at the time
by the metropolitan official referee. The audience part,
which was thus placed on new foundations, increased from
three tiers to six, rebuilt, painted, de:corated, fitted ay.t
every attention to the public comfort, was opened as the
Royal Italian Opera House, on the 6th April, 1817, in
which the whole press concurred. May I not, therefore,
fairly ask, if works of such magnitude, so elaborate in
detail, and which were carried on night and day by relays
of three sets of men. under my incessant personal superin-
tendence, and executed in so short a time, can be accu-
rately described as "remedelled" or "converted," or too
expensive for the cost really incurred and herewith men-
tioned ?

The published statements as to the cost of my works
have beou vary orroaeous, varying as they do from 40,0001.
to _75,000/.

The whole of the cost of the works of building, painting,
Sze., was under 23,005. ; besides this sum 4,0001. were ex-
pended for fixtures, chandelier (which I had converted
from the old one at the trifling expense of 3504), gas-fit-
tings, looking-glasses, carpeting, and furnishing most gor- ,
geously her Majesty's apartments, bones, saloons, artistes'
rooms, &e. Is to the most profuse expenditure, justly
commented on by the press, it was incurred by the direc-
tors in mounting the many operas and ballets prodriped in
that season with an extraordinary expense, in which took
no tart at all. The insinuation that " bond timber" seems
to have been introduced, or left in the walls at the last al-
terations to a greater extent than was "supposed," demands
a flat contradiction ; as I not only did not insert a single
inch of bond timber, but extracted the whole tiers of bond
timber which had of iginally been inserted in the main
walls. So strongly did I feel on this point that I cousidereel
it to bs a duty to give the profession the benefit of my ex-
perience on the danger of using this material. I addressed
a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers, with a
drawing of the main wall as constructed, and specimen of
the bond timber, which was road at one of the meetings
in May, last, 1817, of which I beg to extract a few lines.
I stated that the bond timber had failed, and that in
taking down the old valets, at 13 feet from the founda-
tion, I found a tier of Memel bond timber 12 feet by 6 had
been introduced in the main walls, all round which, exter-
nally, appeared merely to have shrunk, but on examina-
tion proved to be not only useless, but perfectly decayed ;
of this there were five tiers up to the level of the ceiling.
the whole of which, amounting to above 2000 ft., I directed
to be removed in small lengths, as the work progressed, and
filled up with brick and Roman cement to ooneoliciate the
wall. I found also that the timber lintels above the doors
ware rotten; and I had recourse to York stone lintels ; flat
arches with relieving arches above them were necessary,
which was a work of great extra labour and expense. I may
add, to strengthen the work, and as a precaution against
fire; as far as practicable, I introduced in its construction
above 2,000 cwt. of cast and wrought iror.
I have to apologise for intruding with these drY details;
however trivial they may seem to the general reader, they
are of groat importance to a professional man who did his
duty, and who, in this his first appeal to the press, confi-
dently trusts to obtain jastice at your hands.--,I ern, sir,
&c.,
• 22, King William-street, March 118.. ALBANO, C.E.

One of the little Aztecs lately exhibited at Paris,
Theodore, aged 14, has just died at Berlin from an at-
tack of fever.
SUICIDE or A LACE MANUFACTURES.—Yesterday an
inquest was held at Manchester, before E. Herfoid,
Esq., coroner, on the body of a young gentleman named
W. A. Webster, of the firm of Messrs. Taylor and Web-
ster, silk lace manufacturers, aged 21 years, who had
committed suicide on the previous day by taking prussic
acid. It appeared that the deceased had before medi -
fated suicide, having once taken a dose of opium, which
was inoperative, and afterwards having procured prussic
acid, which, in consequence of a knowledge of his inten-
tion having been suspected by his friends, threw away.
On-Tuesday, however, he took a person with bim from
the mill to a druggist's shop, and procured more prussic
acid, on the assurance from himself and his companion
that the poison was wanted to destroy a dog.
He took the poison soon afterwards, and though a
surgeon arrived before death his life could not
be saved. It was stated by his relatives at the in-
quest that he had suffered severe injuries of the head
when young, and had been subject to -temporary
fits of insanity. The jury accordingly returned a verdict
to the effect that he destroyed himself in a fit of tempo-
rary insanity,