The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 4, 1860.

EAST AND WEST INDIA DOCK
COMPANY.
The Court of Directors of the East and West India Dock
Company hereby give notice, that the TRANSFER BOOKS
of the said Company will be SHUT on THURSDAY, the
13th day of December,lB6o, and open again on THURSDzkY,
the 3d day of January, 1861.
By order of the Court.
GEORGE COLLIN, Secretary.
East'and West India Dock House, Billiter-square,
30th November, 1860.

BUCKLEYS' SERENADERS. Crowded
Houses and Great Success.—ST. JAMES'S HALL,
Piccadilly, Every Night at 8, and Saturday Afternoon at 3.
Tickets may be obtained at 28, Piccadilly, from 10 till 5, and
at the Principal Libraries and Musicsellers.—Aihnission,
Stalls, 3s. ; Area, 2s. ; Gallery, ls.—lloors open at Half-past,
Seven, and Saturday Afternoon, at Half-past Two. *** No
Bonnets allowed in the Stalls. *** Grand Change of Pro-
gramme !

A RGYLL ROOMS, Windmill-street, Piccadilly,
_Pt RE-OPENED for the WINTER SEASON for PRO-
MENADE CONCERTS, with the following powerful cast,
consisting of selections from II Trovatore, Martha, Lurline,
Huguenots, L'Etolle du Nord, Zinc. Dancing at Ten o'clock.
The Original Band, established ten years. Conducted by M.
LAMOTTE. Admission, is.

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ROOMS,
High Holborn.—This establishment, pre-eminently
distinguished for the elegance and matchless beauty of its
decorations, combined with the perfection of its manage-
ment, is OPEN EVERY EVENING. Mr. IV. M. Packer's
highly talented Band performs nightly selections from the
operas and the most admired and favourite dance music.
Doors open at eight o'clock. Admission to all parts of the
establishment, is.

CATTLE-SHOW WEEK.
SMITHFIELD CLUB.
-EVANVS— HOTEL AND MAGNIFICENT
MUSIC and SUPPER ROOMS, COVENT-GARDEN.
The ANNUAL MEETING of COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
and OLD FRIENDS will take place during the week.
The proprietor, anxious to maintain the conceded reputa-
tion of the above establishment, particularly in the opinion
of his country visitors, begs leave to present the following
programme:-11 _

ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL for the DESTI•
TUTE SICK and DISEASED, Gray's-inn-road.
In consequence of the number of wretched applicants, the
Weekly Board feel it their imperative duty to make an earnest
APPEAL to the public for continued support, to enable them
to admit and relieve the distressing cases that daily present
hemselves.

Contributions received by the Treasurer, FAlwd. Masterman,
Esq., Nicholas-lane; also by Messrs. Coutts and Co. ; Drum-
mond and Co. ; lorries and Co. ; Ransom and Co. ; Prescott,
Grote, and Co. ; Smith, Payne, and Co. ; Glyn and Co. ;
Jones, Loyd, and Co. ; Barclay and Co. ; Denison and Co. ;
Williams, Deacon, and Co. ; Overend, Gurney, and Co. ; Nis-
bet and Co., Berner-street; Masterman and Co.; and at the
Hospital, from 10 till 5.
STANFORD S. SMITH, See.

MB BOP LUTY Q UESTIOII7.

i The able manner in which Mr. Beresford Hope
has advocated the cause of the hop planters, his
exertions to procure a postponement of the Novem-
ber instalment of the duty, and his efforts to obtain
a final settlement of this long-vexed question, have
(says the Maidstone Journal) naturally aroused
feelings of gratitude on the part of those for whose
advantage he was working, and it was suggested
some means should be taken to show how the hop
growers appreciated his disinterested services. The
proposition was warmly supported, and it was
resolved that a few of the prominent planters from
the most important parishes in the Weald should
be invited to form a deputation to convey to Mr.
Hope the thanks of the hop-growing interest—a
compliment which derives the greater significance
from its rarity. Friday last was appointed for the
ceremony, and on that day the deputation, number-
ing about fifty gentlemen representing planters in
various parishes, waited upon Mr. Hope, at Badge-
bury.

Mr. HARTRIDGE introduced the deputation by
explaining that they had come to tender their thanks
for the very able assistance Mr. Hope had rendered
them at a most critical and perilous crisis. At a
juncture of-great urgency, when-tile interests of all
classes in the hop-growing districts—not only of
the planters, but of the trade and the labouring
population—were threatened with service peril, he
had come forward to assist them, and they could
not but feel grateful to him for the manner in which
he had taken up their cause. Not only in his capa-
city as a country gentleman, but as one intimately
acquainted with public life, he had given to it a
weight and influence which it did not before possess,
and in thus publicly offering him their thanks for
for what he had already done for them, they hoped
that he would still favour them with his counsel
and assistance.
Other members of the deputation having spoken,
Mr. BERESFORD HOPE, in reply, said—The
spontaneous thanks of those with whom one has
been working—not for the sake of popularity, but
because he honestly believes that he is working in
the fulfilment of a sacred duty—is the most solid
satisfaction a man can have. (Cheers.) This matter
of the hop duty and the hop cultivation generally
has now for many years past engaged my atten-
tion. Since the time that my late honoured relative,
Lord Beresford, became a Kentish squire, more
than twenty years ago—during the long period I
lived with him—during the time I represented in
Parliament a Kentish borough, and during the
fewer number of years that I myself have been a
landowner and a hop grower in the Weald of Kent,
this subject has come home to me; for I can assure
you that I am not one of those who think that my
own concerns and the concerns of my neighbours
are the last things to which I should pay attention.
(Cheers.) Resident in a hop-growing district, I
considered that it was my duty to make myself
thoroughly acquainted with this question, and the
result was that I conceived an interest, which has
yearly grown stronger and stronger, in the matter.
I feel more deeply interested in this question now
than I did three years ago, and at that time I cared
more for it than nine years previously. (Cheers.)
The unanimity to which the hop growers have now
arrived, after great diversities of opinion, is the
most convincing proof that a remedy is urgently
required, as well as the best assurance that we shall
obtain what we demand. (Hear, hear.) When the
hop-growing interest was split up into numerous
sections—some strong freetraders, others less so,
some sturdy protectionists, others advocates foran
acreage duty—our strength was diminished, and it
is no great wonder that the Treasury should care
little for an interest so divided, except to squeeze it
to the utmost. (Hear, hear,) But the time has
now come when our position is totally changed.
We are united, and being united, we shall prefer
our demands with a weight and influence such as
we have never before possessed. (Cheers.) As one
of the hop-growers of England—for I would not
confine this movement to any particular district--
every day confirms me more and more in the con-
viction that the only straight and direct way before
us to obtain the total repeal of all taxation on hops
—(cheers)—that as the English farmer grows and
harvests his corn without having the exciseman
knocking at his door, and competes in the market
with the free imported corn of other countries, so
must hops be placed upon precisely the same foot-
ing. As to postponements, there can be no ques-
tion that in principle they are indefensible, but
they are a necessity of the vicious system under
which we live. Our last application, lam sorry
to say, was only partially successful—three
months' respite has only been granted us, with a
rate of interest which makes the Government a
harder money-lender than private individuals
might have proved. But still it is a concession—
it is an admission on the part of those in authority
that we are not a body to be snubbed and turned
with contumely from the Treasury door. (Meer,
hear.) The whispers of an agitation for free trade
were not without effect, and the. Government, no
doubt, thought it better to grant some assistance
rather than provoke a determined cry for repeal
from the whole body of the hop planters. (Hear.)
We have accepted what has been offered us—it
would have been wrong and impolitic to have
refused it—but we have done no more. Go on
we must. The pressure will come in March ;
and what shall we then do ? My own conviction is
that no further concessions will be given, and
though I fear a great deal of distress will folio w,
yet that distress will prove the crash of the whole
system, and it will be the means of bringing to pass
that good end for which we are aiming—the aboli-
tion of all taxation on hops. (Cheers.) No time
of the year could be more fortunate for our cause
than the Ist of March. At that time Parliament
will have met—it will then be discussing the pro-
visions of the budget for the forthcoming year—
members generally will have become acquainted
with the subjects engaging public attention, and if
our cause come before the house then it will stand
a chance of getting a favourable hearing. (Hear.)
We must continue to agitate, but we must not be
too hasty, or else it will go off like a puff, and by
the Ist of March the hop-planters' grievance will
be forgotten. We must work steadily and perse-
veringly, so that on the Ist of March we may
prefer an unanimous demand, and one which, if not
at first successful, will at all events command the
the respect and attention of Parliament. (Cheers.)
You are aware that a society has recently been
formed, founded on the intelligible basis of getting
rid of both excise and customs simultaneously.
(Cheers.) Of that society I have been appointed
chairman, and I am happy to tell you that so far as
our private canvass has yet gone we have been very
successful in enlisting the sympathies and good-
will of members of Parliament—(cheers)—and
already we command a strong and influential party
in the House of Commons. (Cheers.) I am not
permitted now to state what peers we may count
among our supporters, but I may say that there is
every reason to hope we shall have no insignificant
party in the upper house. (Cheers.) There must
be no compromise, no vacillation, but a strict deter-
mination to compass what we know to be just, what
we know to be possible, and it will be our own fault
if we do not win it from one Government or another
within the next few years. (Cheers.) To do this we
must not be lukewarm, and at the same time we
must not be impatient. We must agitate legally and
constitutionally, and in that manner by which we
can best bring our influence to bear upon the House
of Commons, for, after all, it is in the House of
Commons that our battle will have to be fought.
(Hear, hear.) My services are entirely at your
disposal till success is earned ; and again I thank
you for this high and unexpected compliment
(Loud cheers.)

,SEIGEsOT GAETA.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Daily News.)
GENERAL CIALDINI'S HEAD-QUARTERS,
VIOLA DI GAETA, Nov. 2G.
Public interest is still concentrated on the siege
of Gaeta, which goes on far too slowly for the
general expectation and the general desire. It is
now nearly a month since the once Sardinian, and
now Italian, army invested the fortress, and yet so
much remains to do that if great haste be not made,
and the fleet be not allowed to help Cialdini, three
months may pass without our getting rid of Francis
11. and of the shred of an army he still owns. The
road and trench operations are carried on with great
activity, but the bad weather on the one hand, and
the serious difficulties our working parties meet
daily on the other, makes it impossible to proceed
with greater rapidity. The park of siege guns, which
are called by the name of the inventor, Cavalli,
reached us last Saturday evening, but the question
is when our artillerymen will be able to mount it
on the batteries. The guns invented by Major
Cavalli are on the breech-loading principle, and
their range is so great that they will throw a ball
into a circle a yard in diameter at a distance of
5,000 metres. The precision and power of these
new implements of war were to have been tested
against the bastions:of the Malakoff, but when they
arrived in the Crimea Sebastopol had alseady fallen,
and no occasion to employ them has since presented
itself. An officer of the Sardinian artillery told me
that if these guns are fired against the walls of
Gaeta he was sure that a breach would be made in
less than 24 hours. The question now is when our
engineer will be able to have the batteries ready.
The day before yesterday, General Cialdini was
suddenly summoned by telegraph to Naples, and
the rumour soon spread in our camp that Francis
11. being seriously ill, General Salzano had made
propositions to surrender the place. Although one
part of the report is true—for the young King,
who is consumptive, has been spitting blood—the
other soon proved to be false. Cialdini's sudden I
journey to Naples had no other object than to assist
at a council of ministers in which important mili-
tary arrangements have been discussed before his
Majesty's departure for Sicily, which, as the tele-
graph will have informed you, has been fixed for
to-morrow. If I am correctly informed, in the
council of war held at Naples it was decided that
the Italian army shall be henceforth divided into
two great corps. General Della Rocca will remain
in Naples at the head of the southern army, while,
when the siege of Gaeta is at an end, Cialdini will
proceed to Milan, and take the command of the
northern. The reserve of the two armies will be
commanded by General Della Marmara, to whom
the organisation of the new regiments will be
entrusted. By these means the new state of Italy
will soon be able to muster an army of 300,000 good
fighting men, with which it will be ready to meet
emergencies either on the banks of the Po or on
those of the Mincio.
You have been already informed that in spite
of priestly intrigues it has been decided at Paris
that the 16,000 Neapolitans who had entered the
States of the Church should be restored to the
lawful Government of their native country. To
carry out the necessary arrangements Major San
Marten, of Cialdini's staff, left this place for Ter-
racina yesterday morning. The men will be sent
by sea to Genoa, and on their arrival there they
will be enlisted in the regiments of the reserve
above alluded to. Nothing has been as yet decided
about the 5,000 horses and 22 field-pieces seized by
the French, but I have reason to believe that Louis
Napoleon has recognised the principle that it would
be unjust to detain the property of a State which
not only did not order the crossing of the frontier,
but which was, and still is, at war with the Govern-
ment which did order it.
Since my last the fire of the Neapolitans has
become less brisk than it was. A shell or two is
regularly fired from the Regina Battery and from
the northern bastion of the city at dawn, and this
goes on till ten o'clock with intervals of half an
hour or so. Then it ceases, and is not generally
resumed after three o'clock in the afternoon.
During the night scarcely a shot is fired either
against our outposts of the Borgo or against those
of Montesecco. The whole of the population of
the Borgo has now decamped, and since Friday last
a numerous emigration has been going on at Gaeta.
The majority of the emigrants from the last-named
place have gone to the islands of Ischia and Casa-
micciola, where they are sheltered and fed by
Farini's order. Nothing can give an idea of the
sufferings endured by those unhappy creatures
whom the Government of Gaeta had packed like
sheep in small vessels and launched into the stormy
sea, without knowing whether they would be
allowed to land upon the Neapolitan shores. The
vessels thus loaded had no provisions, and they
were tossed about for 48 long hours. Some were

allowed to land at Ischia, some were carried by the
gale amidst the dangerous rocks of Cape Mise-
num,'and one boat was wrecked off Pausilippo,
and most of those who were in it were drowned.

Nov. 26.
It seems as if the diplomatic corps had had
enough of Gaeta, for I hear it left the place
the day before yesterday, on board of a French
steamer. Senor Bermudez is the only foreign
minister who has not as yet left; for, according to
all appearance, he is waiting to the end of the
siege, in order to accompany the royal family to
Spain. The family of Francis 11. is now reduced
to the unhappy young Queen, to his brother Don
Luigi, and to the Count of Trapani. The Queen
Dowager left Gaeta on Wednesday morning, with
all her children and female attendants. This step
on the part of Francis 11. is a proof, I think, that
ho was decided to defend Gaeta for a long time to
come, and contradicts the rumour which was
suddenly spread here last evening, that he had
fled on .board the :I Spanish man-of-war. The
Spanish vessel had really steamed away to the
northward, but she has just come back, and is now
re-entering the harbour of Gaeta.
General Miorolawski, so well known for the part
he took in the Baden revolution in 1849, has
arrived here. I have been told that the Polish
patriot brought to Victor Emmanuel a letter of
Prince Napoleon, in which the son-in-law of the
King strongly recommends the formation of a
Polish Legion. I doubt whether Miorolawski's
proposal will be accepted by the King, for the
acceptance of it would dangerously provoke both
Austria and Russia.