The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-12 00:00:00

TIIE BISHOPS OF EXETER AND
WINCHESTER.

I Our satisfaction at the passing of the Bishops Resigns►-
tion Bill is in some measure diminished by the statement,
which has appeared in the papers, that the two bishops
whose cases seem to have been chiefly in the contempla-
tion of the authors of the bill do not intend to take ad-
vantage of it. To say the truth, we do not exactly see
why they should. There was nothing to prevent them
from resigning before ; and there is nothing to induce
them to do so now. If the Bishop of Exeter, or his
family, have taken no note of the feeling of Churchmen
or many years past, we do not see what should bring it
at present within their cognisance. If the Bishop should
be spared to keep his hundredth birthday, he will not be
less able to discharge his diocesan duties than he is at
ninety-one. Nor can the pension be of any importance to
him. His stalls at Durham and Exeter bring him the
full income of a bishopric; and, these, it is understood,
he could retain. He has never resided in the Palace,
that he would have nothing in that way to give
up. The Bishop of Winchester's is a still stronger
case. He has received for more than forty years
an income equal to that of four ordinary bishoprics, and
he has freely used his patronage, in what Mr. Dickenson
appears to consider the proper way—for the benefit of his
kin. It is absurd to suppose that he can have been un-
willing to resign on the score of poverty. What the bill
will do for these prelates in the way of encouraging their
retirement it is hard to see. Three bishoprics remain, of
which the incumbents are notoriously incapacitated by
sickness or age from the discharge of their duties.
Whether they will take advantage of the Act, no one
knows. If all refuse to do so the Legislative failure will
be little less than ridiculous. The Duke of Somerset alone
will have the pleasure of reminding us that he predicted
what would follow, and that he proposed a clause to meet
the case. The further consequence will probably be—as
generally happens in these cases—a much more extensive
measure of change, and one much less considerate to the
high personages whose domestic interests appear to block
the way.—Guardian.

ALLEGED SAD REVERSE OF FORTUNE.

At a meeting of the Paddington Board of Guardians,
held on Wednesday, the case of Mr. Hamilton Wood,
aged 76 years, an inmate in the workhouse, whose
extraordinary account of himself as having several times
won large fortunes in trade, and as many times
(through circumstances over which he had no control)
been reduced to abject poverty, again came under the
notice of the board. The chairman stated that since
the matter had been ventilated in the London news-
papers the master of the workhouse had reeei .red a
letter frcm Scotland signed "J. 8.," the writer thereof
having enclosed a £1 note, which he desired should be
given to Mr. Wood whenever he left the workhouse.
The chairman went on further to state that he had re-
ceived another letter from the noble lord with whom
Mr. Wood had claimed relationship, and his lordship
had recommended that further inquiries should be made
into Mr. NV ood's antecedents, and advising the guar-
dians to be cautious in placing full credence in the
story given them. Mr. Prescott also stated he had
received a cheque for £lO from a lady in Hampshire,
and who had supplemented her benevolence by offering
the old man an asylum for life on her estate in Hamp-
shire. He had also received a letter from a gentleman
residing at Burnley, in Lancashire, rho, after reciting
that be had been a sufferer from the failure of Messrs.
Overend and Gurney, said he sincerely felt for the old
man, and begged to enclose him a £5 note. Mr.
Hall urged upon the guardians that, after all, a
probability existed that they were sympathising with
an improper and unworthy character. It was not
at all an unusual event for a Iran to fall from
high estate into poverty ; but still such men generally
found friends who alleviate their condition above
absolute penury. Certainly the guardians ought not to be
held responsible for the accuracy of the extraordinary
statements made by this man, neither did he think the
board was the proper channel whereby moneys given by

the charitalf e should be disbursed. The chairman said
he had thought of all that, and his reply to the
lady in Hampshire called from her a second letter,
in which she withdrew her offer of providing Mr. Wood
with an asylum for life, and stated that when she re-
turned to London she would have the matter fully investi-
gated. Some further discussion ensued, and eventually it
was ordered that, in the event of Mr. Wood not fully
substantiatirg the statements made by him, the whole of
the money be returned to the donors.

Mr. John Buskin has been elected to the Slade Art
Professorship at Oxford. The professorship is held fur a
term of three years, at the expiration of which the holder of
the office may be again eh eted for one other term of the
same du, ation.

The Foreign-eft cc having refused to recognize the
appointm cut of Major Paggai ty, the Fenian, as United
States Consul at Clarg, w, lir. 11,:t!ey Las nominated Mr.
E. G. E,,stiran. at present Unit«l 'States Consul at Cork,
to le NI ilfto-512 r, presentative of the American Government

at G:asgow.

During the gale which blew from the W.N.W. on
Monday night, a vessel, supposed to be a schooner-yacht,
and having a gilt tall at the mast head, foundered slightly
to the eastward of the Margeto Sand head buoy. The
name of the vessel has rot. been ascertained. It is supposed
tLat the crew Lave perished.
Mr. Disraeli and the Viscountess Beaconsfield have

accepted an invitation to spend next weel: at Alton Towers,
with the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. Mr. Disraeli
will not, as at present understood, accept any invitation to
take part in public proceedings in the locality, his object
being to have a week's rest at Alton.
THE DEAN OF ELY ON THE CHURCH.—In
preaching the other day at Great Yarmouth, the Dean of
Ely said it would be absurd to deny that recent legislation
must have an influence upon the Church of England In
her relations to the State. He considered, however, that
the Establishment was in greater danger from " horrible
internal divisions" than from outward attacks.

METROPOLITAN TMPROVEMENTS.—Both the Hol-
born Viaduct and the new Blackfriars Bridge are rapidly
approaching completion. The bridge is perhaps the finest
in the world, and the viaduct is as unique and handsome
a work as can be found in any capital in Europe. The
outlay on these gigantic undertakings amounts to about a
million and a half sterling.

THE LATE NORFOLK ELECTION PETITION.—The
bill of costs in the late North Norfolk election petition
inquiry of the respondents (Sir E. H. K. Lacon, M.P.,
and the Hon. F. Walpole, M.P.) against the petitioners
has been before Master Gordon for taxation. The bill
originally amounted to £2,383 19s. 10d. ; but the Master
reduced it to £1,619 18s. 10d.

A letter from Dr. James Green, the Dean of
MaritzLurg, is published by the Church News. Mr. Green,
when he wrote, had been a month at Natal, and describes
the progress of church work in the colony. Bishop Ma-
crorie had arrived in Maritzburg, where Le had opened two
churches. A new cathedral was being built to seat
450. Mr. Green is anxious to erect a baptistry, to impress
upon the heathen population the importance of the rite of
baptism, and is distressed at the lack of means for educating

the young. The German missionaries have a Lutheran
establishment, wLich is well attended, but the English
Churchmen have no sufficient school.

A WONDERFUL MEASURING INSTRUMENT.—
One of the most remarkable objects at the recent meeting
of the mechanical engineers at Newcastle was the new
chronoscope, for measuring the velocity of a projectile
within the bore of a gun, theinvention of Captain Andrew
Noble, late Royal Artillery, now of the firm of Sir W.
Armstrong and Co. This wonderful instrument is capable
of measuring portions of time so minute that the human
mind is as unable to realise them as it is to grasp
ideas of infinity. A clock denoting tenths of seconds is
looked upon as a most--accurate instrument. What
shall we then say to a machine capable of dividing the
second into a million parts?—to an instrument where the
inaccuracy of the thousandth part of a second would be a
greater comparative error than the loss of an hour a day
by an ordinary watch? The chronoscope consists of six
brass discs, each 36 inches in circumference and about a inch
thick. These are firmly secured to a spindle or axle, which
is geared to a train of wheelwork, the whole being driven
by a weight something similar to a clock weight. Each
wheel travels five times as fast as the one immediately
preceding it, so that a very rapid motion of rotation is im-
parted to the discs, the rate of speed being measured
by a clock or stop-watch attached to one of the slower
moving wheels. When the instrument is in full spin, the
discs are revolving at a rate of about 28 times in one
second, and, as they are 36 inches in circum-
ference, an inch of disc corresponds to about the
thousandth part of a second, the tenth of an inch to the
ten-thousandth part of a second, and the thousandth of
an inch to the millionth of a second. The instrument is
provided with a graduated scale, vernier and magnifier,
by which the thousandth of an inch is read off. The
passage of the shot in the bore of the gun is recorded on
the edge of each disc by a tiny electric spark derived from a
Rhumkorff coil. A brass discharger is fixed in an ebonite
plate opposite each disc, wires pass from this through an
electric battery and coil to the gun, where they communi-
cate with the interior of the bore by means of screw plugs
in the side of the gun. The shot cannot pass out of the
bore without cutting the wires thus communicating with
the inside, and as each wire is cut a spark is emitted from,
a discharger, and the edge of the corresponding disc
receives a mark on some prepared paper with 04 A is
mend.