The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-10 00:00:00

THE ABYSSINIAN INQUIRY.

The select committee of the Muse of Commons,
appointed to inquire into the causes of the lon e expendi-
ture incurred in the conduct of the Abyssinian war,
resumed its sitting on Friday, Mr. Candlish in the chair.
The other members present were—Sir Stafford Northeote,
Sir John Ifay, Mr. Seely, Mr. White, Major Anson, Sir
P. O'Brien, Mr. Mundella, Mr. Grant Duff, Sir James
Elphinstone, Mr. Charles Turner, Mr. Batter, and Itirh•
Holm.

General Jamieson, auditor of home accounts at the
India Office. General Pears, military secretary, and Mr.
Seccombe, financial secretary at the same office, took
their seats at the table together. General Jamieson was
first examined. He said he was consulted in 1867 by
Sir Stafford Northcote as to the expenses of the
expedition. Witness obtained from the War Office
the number of troops it was proposed to send out, and
accounts of sums already spent in the military depart-
ment ; he then calculated the expense of war
rations and the cost of feeding the animals to
be employed in the expedition, and by putting-
all these items together arrived at an estimate.
He consulted nobody, but relied on his own judgment.
His estimate up to the end of 1867 was two millions, and
an additional one million and a ball to the end of the
expedition. He had had no means of comparing his
estimate with the ultimate expenditure. Ho esti-
mated in March that the expenditure would be
in round numbers £600,000 per month, exclusive
of the pay of troops, that item being charged to the
Indian Government. He calculated, in the first instance,
that it would cost 2 millions to place an army fully
equipped on the soil of Abyssinia, and that if this display
of force was sufficient to bring King Theodore to reason,
that amount would include all the expenditure ; but
that if the army found it necessary to go up
to Magdala, there would be an additional expenditure of
11 millions up to the end of April. The first estimate was
made by witness, and in that the transport service was set
down at £150,000 ; but in the second estimate the item was
increased to £400,000.

The Chairman: Will you tell us on what date you
made this calculation?

Witness: In the first instance very few transports were
engaged; we had not the slightest idea of the extent of
the transport service until the return arrived.

The Chairman : Then the first " estimate" of transport
expenditure was a guess ?

Witness : No, not exactly. It was founded on the best
information we could get.

The Chairman : But we are told that although it was a
rough estimate, it was made carefully.
Witness : It was as careful as he could make it. It
was, however, merely an attempt at an approximation to
the amount.

The witness, in further examination, said he thought
the word " estimate" had been improperly applied to the
early calculations, and it would have been better to call
the first vote of Parliament a " vote on account." He
never contemplated the responsibility of presenting the first
estimate to Parliament. Mr. Ward Hunt appeared to be
very much surprised at the amount of the second estimate.
It was only as a matter of official c3urtcsy and con-
venience that he gave the information which was embodied
in the form of estimates.
By the Chairman : A much larger number of
animals was landed on the coast than he esti-
mated. Want of water, the excessive fatigue, and
the want of arrangements and of proper attendance
led, moreover, to an enormous destruction of animals.
Thirty-six thousand animals were landed at Annesley
Bay. He estimated nothing like that number. Only 7,400
animals left the bay at the close of the expedition. Thus
the loss of animals was far in excess of what could
reasonably have been estimated. About 29,000 animals
died, for which he should be expected to receive £2O
apiece.

THE RIVAL PARTIES IN IRELAND.—Placards
have been posted at Cork, advising the Orangemen of the
North to sink party differences, unite with the people of
the South in the common cause, and wear orange and
green.

SUPPOSED MURDER AT UsK.—The man Thomas
Rosser, who stands charged, on his own confession, with
having murdered a woman named Jane Edwards, at
Usk, in June 1267, has again been brought before the
magistrates of the Usk district. The prisoner's state-
ment was read over, and Superintendent Davies stated, in
addition, that on the same evening prisoner signed this
statement he said, " I did it on a Saturday night following
Whitsun Monday, two years ago." The prisoner was per-
fectly sober at the time. A number of witnesses were called,
and deposed to having seen the prisoner in the Whitsun
week of 1867 within a few miles of Usk. Arthur Day,whose
parents keep a public-house at Llangibby, about three
miles from Usk, saAl a tall young man like the prisoner,
with a short woman, in his father's house on Saturday
before the Usk Trinity Monday Fair. A piece of the
dress worn by the supposed murdered women and taken
from the body at the time it was exhumed was identified
by the witness as being similar to that worn by the woman
he had referred to. The prisoner, who now denied having
ever been in Usk, was committed for trial at the assizes.

NEW MODE OF CIIEAI'ENIN,II PIG IRON.-- Mr.
Richard Brown, of the Shotts Iron Company, Glasgow,
has provisionally protected an expedient for cheapening
the production of pig iron, which has been well received
by the Scottish ironinasters. Ironstone, after being
calcined, according to the usual custom, is allowed to cool
down, and in many instances is permitted to lie in
heaps till the grass grows over the mound,
while al the time the char is absorbing moister
from the atmosphere of from 10 to 20 per cent.
What Mr. Brown proposes is to remove the ore in as
hot a condition as possible, and, at all events, before it
reaches the temperature of the atmosphere. If removed
in an incandescent state to the blast-furnace, it enters on
its further stages as a protoxide instead of a peroxide of
iron, is much lighter in weight, and a consequent saving is
effected in the lordship, and also in its transmission by
railway. Less fuel will also be required to convert
ore so removed into pig-iron. There are other improve-
ments, and the saving from all sources is estimated at from
3s. to ss. a ton.--Builder.