The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 16, 1860.

THE NA VY.

Captain J. J. Stopford has been appointed a naval
Aide•de-Camp to the Queen, vice Captain R. B.
Watson, C. 8., deceased.
A Malta letter, dated July 9, says :
" Her Majesty's gunboat Lapwing, Commander
O'Reilly, arrived here on the 7th inst., from the
fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral F. Mar-
tin, which she left on the sth inst. at Navarino.
The men were being constantly'exercised at quarters.
" After the arrival, on the 7th inst., of the over-
land mail of the 3d from London, her Majesty's
despatch-boat Caradoc, Lieut.-Commander Buckle,
left Malta with a mail for the ships at Navarino.
Her Majesty's ship Neptune and frigate Doris also
left on the evening of Saturday, the 7th inst., to
join the Commander-in-Chief. Besides the receiving
ship Hibernia and a couple of gunboats, our har-
bour is at present bare of men-of-war.
" Except a. few sailing boats, there have been no
arrivals very recently at Malta from Sicily.
" Leave of absence has been granted to Major-
Gen. Horn, C. 8., commandinc, 2d Brigade, from
the Bth of July to the Bth oeSeptember, 1860, to
proceed to the United Kingdom on private affairs.
During the absence of Major-Gen. Horn, the com-
mand of the 2d Brigade will devolve on Col. Hard-
ing, lstßattalion,22d Regiment. The gallant gene-
ral left by the French steamer on Saturday for
England via Marseilles.
_ _ .

4-The Peninsular and Oriental steamer Valetta,
with the London overland mail of the 3d of July,
arrived here on the evening of the 7th inst., and
left a few hours afterwards for Alexandria. The
Indus, from Southampton and Gibraltar, with the
heavy portion of the mails, arrived early on the
morning of the Bth, and also took her departure,
after replenishing' her coals, for Alexandria. The
Ripon, with the homeward China and Calcutta
mails, came into port at half-past 8 o'clock this
morning.
" P.S. 9 p.m.—The Vectis came into port exactly
at a quarter past 6 o'clock p.m., and is to leave for
Marseilles before midnight. Immediately on her
taking up her moorings, Vice-Admiral Codrington,
C. 8., accompanied by his Flag Lieut., Lieut. Main-
waring, came alongside in his gig, and was the first
to pay his respects to Lord Clyde, who appeared to
be in excellent health and spirits. ,Soon afterwards
the-Governor's barge, containing Lieut.-Col. Halle-
well, the Adjutant-Gen., and Lieut. Romilly, the
Governor's Aide-de-Camp, also brought up along-
side the steamer, and the gallant General heartily
shook hands with Col. Hallowell, who was a fellow
warrior with his ;ordship in the Crimea when Lord
Clyde was simply Sir Colin Campbell."
The Lucifer paddle steamer sailed from Ports-
mouth for Portland on Saturday, with Capt. G. T.
Gorden and a portion of the staff of the steam re-
serve.

The Gorgon, 6, paddle, Commander Bedford C.
T. Pim, arrived at Spithead on Saturday evening
from the West India station. She has made a long
passage owing to her boilers being in a very defec-
tive state. Twelve naval invalids from ships on the
station have come home as supernumeraries in her.
She has also brought home three convicts from
Bermua, one on a charge of murder. It is expected
that she will go into Portsmouth harbour this morn-
ing.
The screw steam sloop Greyhound, 17, Comman-
der T. F. Sullivan, at Devonport, struck topmasts
on Friday, it being necessary to make some altora-

tions in her channels, to allow her yards to brace
up sharper, and thus be enabled to hold a better
wind. Her crew will be paid wages before she
proceeds to sea.
The screw steam frigate Emerald, 50, Capt. A.
Cuming, is now in dock at Keyham steamyard.
She grounded at Bermuda, and recently at Barn
Pool; but the only apparent damage sustained is
the loss of some 60 feet of copper off her false keel.
The crew of the guardship in ordinary Royal
Adelaide, Capt. Williams, at Devonport, were paid
wages on Friday in the presence of Rear-Admiral
Sir T. S. Pasley, and turned over to the hulk Endy-
mion, while the Indus was preparing to take the
place of the Wellington.
The books of the steam guardship in ordinary
Wellington, Capt. C. Keys, at Devonport, were
closed on Friday.
The crew of the screw gun vessel Viper, 4, Com-
mander Hewett, at Devonport, were paid off on
Saturday, and the ship is placed in the third-class
steam ordinary.

The gunboat Porpoise, at Devonport, took on
board her powder on Friday. She will sail for Ire-

and to-morrow.

The screw steam-ship Orion, 91, Capt. Frere,
having had defects made good, steamed from
Hamoaze, on Friday, into the Sound, and prOceeded
to sea to try her machinery. On passing Milbay
she saluted the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir T. S.
Pasley (who is doing duty as commander-in-chief),
which was acknowledged by the Impregnable, 104,
Capt. Lord F. Kerr, in Hamoaze.
Since tho steam floating battery Thunder, 14,

150 horse-power, has been in dock at Chatham,
she has undergone a careful examination, in order
that the Admiralty may be . made acquainted
with her condition. With the exception of some
portions of her interior the battery is in a very
sound condition with scarcely any apparent
signs of decay. The bottom, which was found
to be in an exceedingly foul state, is now being
cleaned and made ready for being coated with
Peacock's patent composition for preserving the
hull and destroying the marine worm.
The Racehorse, 4, screw steam sloop, 200 horse
power, will leave Chatham harbour this day for the
coal depot at Sheerness, to take on board a supply
of coals, preparatory to going on a trial trip to test
her engines and machinery. She will afterwards re-
turn to Chatham to be made ready for the steam

Guards (Carabineers); 31 men of the Royal Horse
Artillery; Lieut. James R. Yule, Veterinary Surge.
John Tatam, John Baldock, William Donefield, and
Edwin T. Cheeseman, and 130 men of the Royal
Artillery; Ensign William Poste, Ensign Wilfred
Tolson, and 89 men of the 35th Regiment ; and
Staff Assist.-Surg. Talbot.
The following promotions and appointments have
taken place in the corps of Royal Marines, dated
the 13th inst. :—Lieut.-Col. and Brevet-Col. Thos.
Chas. Cotton Moore, of the Chatham division, to be
Col.-Second-Commandant at that division, vice
Hunt, retired on full pay ; Capt. and Brevet-Major
Hayes Marriott, of the;Chatham division, to be
Lieut.-Col. at that divisioq, vice Moore, promoted ;
Capt. and Brevet-Major Samuel Netterville Lowder,
of the Portsmouth division, to be Lieut.-Col., and
appointed to the Woolwich division, vice Browne,
retired on full pay; Capt. and Brevet-Major Edward
Thornbrough Parker Shewen, of the Portsmouth ;
division, to be Lieut.-Col. at the Plymouth division,
vice Fosbroke, retired on full pay; First Lieut.
Thomas George Shelton Meheux, of the Chatham
division, to be Capt. at that division, vice Marriott,
promoted; First Lieut. Wm. Tanzie Savary, of the
Portsmouth division, to be Capt. at that division,
vice Lowder, promoted ; First Lieut. G. Brydges,
of the Artillery division, to be Capt. at the Ports-
mouth division, vice Shewela, promoted; Second
Lieut. William Henry Vallach Tom, of the Wool-
wich division, to be First Lieut. at that divi-
sion, vice Meheux, promoted ; Second Lieut.
Robert Charles Harvey, of the Chatham division,
to be First Lieutenant at that division, vice Savary,
promoted ; Second Lieutenant Charles Frederick
La Coste, of the Woolwich division, to be First
Lieutenant at that division, vice Brydges, promoted.
The detachment of the Donegal Militia at pre-
sent lying at Southtown, Great Yarmouth, will
leave that place in the course of next week, the
regiment being about to be disembodied.
It is stated that none of the regimenst of Militia
Artillery are to be disembodied.

THE VOLUNTEER SHAM BATTLE AT

CHISELHURS T.

Up to Saturday morning last there were pro-
bably a great many people who, although rather
priding themselves upon the amount and extent of
their information, yet did not know much about
Chiselhurst, for Chiselhurst is a sweet, retired,
country place, down in Kent, which still enjoys
the now rare advantage of being some three or four
miles distant from the nearest railway station, and
although only twelve miles from the great metro-
polis, is still as green, and as sylvan as if no-
body lived there but Robin Hood and his merry
men, and nobody came there but the occasional
wayfayer with whom the stout outlaw was wont
to have his bout at quarter staff, and whom, hav-
ing first taken from his cudgelling like a gentle-
man, he treated with true greenwood hospi-
tality to the warden pie and malvousie which he
had borrowed from the neighbouring abbey, Chisel-
hurst is only to be approached by steep and narrow
country ioads, green at the sides, and brown in the
middle, over which the hawthorn of the marginal
hedges casts a perfume which Mr. Rimmel would
in vain attempt to imitate. Except on the rare occa-
sion of an invasion of volunteers, the only sounds
heard in Chiselhurst are the carol of the birds, and
the loud single voice of the husbandman talking to
his horses or himself in the fields. Here and there
a curious little angular bosky nook breaks the mo-
notonous hedge line, and a• cluster of some half
dozen wooden cottages is seen, with trellised win•
dows just like the opening scene in " Love in a
Village,' with red-tiled roofs, and a perfect panoply
of blushing roses, which might be taken for so
many younger branches of t.hq large families of
chubby children that sprawled in the gardens, or
shouted at the wickets, or sate upon the shoulders
or clung to the necks of the comely dames who
watched the volunteers with smiling exultation as
they tramped past on Saturday last. On Friday
evening, " when the sun was low," Chiselhurst,
with its hill and dale, slope and woodland, was the
type of rural peace and rustic seclusion. On Satur-
day morning, "when the sun was high," it was a
mimic Hohenlinden, its normally quiet and unfre-
quented roads sending up clouds of agonised dust,
its still atmosphere, broken by the clang of arms,
the measured tramp of brave men, the strains of
military bands, and the crash of contending omni-
buses, the last named loaded with nervous passen-
gers, whose fears the coachman treated with
the most contemptuous indifference, his every
anxiety being to get backwards and forwards to
the railway station as often as possible before the
commencement of the great business of the day. The
rustics stood at their little gates, wondering as if it
were an earthquake, the children held up their tiny
hands and shouted, and the very roses on the
cottage fronts seemed as if blushing with a deeper in-
tensity under the excitement of this suddent ransition
from perpetual quiet to the noise, hurry, and con-
fusion of warlike movements. It was impossible for
any one, whilst gazing on this sweet picture of
pleasant meadows, which under every breath of the
summer breeze revelled in new changes of light and
shade—the rich fields of corn, that were just begin-
ning to be tipped with gold—the smiling hedges,
crossing, and twisting, and intersecting each other
everywhere, like a gay braiding en nature's mantle
—the cott ao.es, and the roses, and the comely women,
and the chubby, shouting children, without making
a sad comparison between the scene we then looked
upon, and what it might become if some fell in-
vader were permitted to pass over it like a simoom,
and, at the bidding of an ambitious despot, to make
another Palatinate of the happy.villages and fer-
tile valleys of Kent. The young volunteer, as he
tramped sturdily along the dusty road, must have
felt in looking round that he had a country worth
fighting for, and even the soberer passengers in the
crazy omnibuses consoled themselves at every re-
curring bit of level road
wil reflec-
tions of a somewhat similar character.rconsolatory
But this was Chiselhurst, the bright end of the
diorama, which commenced at London-bridge,
where the picture was as different as one represen-
tative of mundane things could possibly be to
another. The railway authorities had evidently
been taken by surprise, and although Mr. Knight,
the active superintendent of the South-Eastern line,
unexhausted by his exertions at the Agricultural
Show only a few days before, was unwearied and
most successful in his exertions to accommodate and
transmit everybody, the means of transit were ob-
viously unequal to the sudden demand, and the
struggle to get stowed away in any kind of a rail-
way carriage far surpassed anything we had ever
before witnessed during rather an extended expe-
rience of monster gatherings, We have had often to
fight our way to the door of a railway carriage, and
to hold on by the handles at the risk of a broken arm
or of being dragged off the platform, but then we had
to contend only with ordinary crowds, eompressible
civilians like ourselves, and could generally get a
place somehow on the first assault. But on this
occasion the platform was densely packed with
athletic young volunteers, all eager to be in time
on Campden-hill, and whenever any one else
attempted to get in with a platoon the only result
was to get his head buried in a forest of Enfield
rifles, long and short, and to feel his companions
scrambling into the carriages in (limns over his
back. • The police, who endeavoured to keep the
edge of the platform clear, were swept away like
the mill on the fleas, and thus, train after train, had
attempts to be made and disappointments to be ex-
perienced, until slowly and tediously an inadequate
noumber of carriages found seats for all the crowd;
The journey down too, although only 12 miles,
took up an hour and a half, so great is the traffic
on the South-Eastern family of lines, and so fre-
quent the stoppages required for passing or crossing
trains. To manage all this with safety to human
life must have required all the vigilance and all the
attention of the whole railway staff, and the suc-
cess with which that all-important object was
achieved, both going and returning—the latter in-
finitely the most critical portion of the day's tra-
velling—reflects the utmost credit on the superins
tendent and the whole of his subordinates, on whom
the responsibility rested. As complaints will pro-
bably be made against the South-Eastern Company
for insufficiency of preparation, it is only fair to
them to mention that nothing that had transpired
previous to Saturday respecting the sham fight
justified them
in
expecting that it would be so great
attraction for the
a success and so powerful an
public as it subsequently turned out to be. Rumours,
too well authenticated, were in circulation of divi-
sions amongst the volunteer chiefs—how Lord
Grosvenor had refused the attendance of the
Queen's, and how Lord Elcho had determined to
keep back the London Scottish. The attempt at
a volunteer sham
fight was considered to be prema-
ture, and there were not wanting people to assert
that Lord Ranelagh was running a race for a

teer lead with Lord Elcho, and that his Campden-
hill campaign would in the end turn out to be
nothing more than an ambitious failure. But the
event has proved Lord Ranelagh to have been right,
and that in the case of a great national movement,
which is to be sustained by national enthusiasm,
there is nothing like studding its progress with
great tangible facts, which the people can under-
stand, and which will have the effect of concen-
trating their attention on the point to which it is
vitally necessary it should be directed. The review
in Hyde-park was a great fact which added thou-
sands of men to the volunteer levies throughout the
country, and now we have the sham battle of Camp-
den-hill for another, to show that, easy as it was to
get civilians to enrol for purposes of national de-
fence, it is quite as easy to convert them into good
practical soldiers, in a space of time in which pre-
viously no one would have conceived such an achieve-
ment possible. There were scores of experienced
military men on Campden-hill on Saturday last, and
their impression of what they saw was one of de-
light and surprise at the military ability and zeal
which in so short a time had enabled the volunteers
to go so creditably through their evolutions. There
is nothing succeeds like success, and the success of
Saturday will give the volunteer cause, a great
impetus, bet in the meantime, as it was so unex-
pected, and as such great pains bad been taken in
so many influential quarters to make it a failure, it
is not to be wondered at that the South-Eastern
Company should have been taken a little by sur-
prise at the enormous rush of volunteers and sight
seekers which they were called on to transmit, at
a moment's notice, to a little bye station to which
the ordinary traffic is not more than some half-
dozen passengers each train. They did their
work slowly, but they did it safely, and that is no
small praise, when such a vast amount of human
life was concerned.
As a matter of course the successive delays
arising from the sudden invasion of the London-
bridge platform by compact bodies of 500 or
1,000 men at a time, were totally unknown to those
visitors who got down early, and had taken their
places in the reserved seats by two o'clock in
the afternoon. Their patience was sorely tried, as
the review did not commence until seven, and
even the picturesque beauties of the park had
exhausted their curiosity long before that time.
Campden-park is a very pretty country gentleman's
place, with plenty of hill and dale, and some rather
respectable plantations. A little river divides it
from Bickley-park, its neighbour, much better
wooded, but as both slope down to the river they
are admirably adapted to enable people to see a
sham fight going on in one or both, whatever diffi-
culties their steeply undulating surface might op-
pose to the performance of complicated military
evolutions. Cavalry could hardly have made any
very brilliant charges against those steep hills, nor
would artillery have much claim to the epithet
"Flying," in moving about amongst the dense
shrubberies and brushwood, but both cavalry and
artillery had been refused, and this refusal, more
than anything else, contributed to the triumphant
success of the day. The commanders were obliged
to confine themselves entirely to infantry manoeu-
vres, and the agile volunteers made nothing of
clambering up the hills, or rushing down the val-
leys, leaping the ditches, or even plunging into the
river, a whole company having in one case crossed,
holding their rifles over their heads, and with the
water rising far above their waists. The result was
a most animating sham fight, which everyone could
see, and the manoeuvres of which they could follow
and understand ; and accordingly it was enjoyed,
followed, and applauded to the echo. The prepara-
tory arrangements were of the simplest kind. Two
or three stands for spectators in the most elevated
positions, and a line of bivouac tents " few and far
between" at the edge of the park, were all the ac-
commodation provided for either spectators or vo-
lunteers ; but the whole surface of the park pre-
sented a succession of amphitheatres, so that people
had only to sit down on the grass, spread out their
napkins, and discuss their luncheons, whilst they
could see all that was going on everywhere around
them. The crowd accumulated very gradually. At
first a thin fringe of people only could be seen on
every ridge, but gradually it swelled, and bright-
ened with gay costumes, until at last there were
perhaps 25,000 persons grouped everywhere over
a park of 600 or 700 acres, waiting patiently or
impatiently, according to their temt erament, for
the arrival of the troops. As for the " Grand
Stands," the occupants soon got heartily tired of
them, and, descending, mixed with the crowd, where
there was much more excitement going on. The
ladies, of course, remained, and would have been
very dull indeed but that the modern discoveries of
science came to their aid, and enabled the gallant
commander, Lord Ranelsgb, to send from his distant
encampment an inquiry of " Whether a little music
would be agreeable to the ladies." Professor Wheat-
stone's field telegraph had been laid down, and was
in full work, under the skilful manipulation of Mr.
Holmes, in front of the stand. Of coarse, the other
end was in the battle-field at the service of the
Commander-in-Chief, and the latter availed himself
of it to send the aforesaid polite message. The
answer " most agreeable," of true telegraphic
brevity, was promptly returned, and in due time
Herr Schallehn with his accomplished artists of the
South Middlesex band took up a position in front
of the grand stand, and discoursed most eloquent
music during the day. But for this judicious com-
bination of knightly courtesy and scientific manipu-
lation, we fear that the fair spectators of the tour-
nament would have felt the time hang heavily on
their hands long before the mimic strife of the
knights began. Previous to this, there was a
dreadful conspiracy of nigger minstrels to drive
every one frantic with the rattle of bones and the
maddening thrum of banjoes, and a persevering
band of little boys, who, with drums and fifes,
seemed to be perfectly übiquitous, kept popping up
everywhere, deluding the expectant company with
the notion that at length the volunteers were com-
ing. Twenty times we could hear the ladies exclaim,
" Hark, here they are," but in a few moments the
now familiar discordance of the never to be finished
" Annie Laurie," was recognised, and a murmur
" Oh, it's only those tiresome little boys," was fol-
lowed by another gloomy collapse into silent ex-
pectation. Later in the day the beer began to tell
slightly on the peripatetic crowd. One gentleman
in his shirt sleeves planed his back against a tree,
and boldly announced that " Forty policemen
shouldn't stir him from that spot." rhe crowd
soon gathered round, and when some one asked
" If this was the sham fight," the observa-
tion was accepted as a sally of-mild sarcasm on the
military delay, and was received with shouts of
applause. With such incidents as these the time was
whiled away during a long summer's day until 7
o'clock, when the man*uvres began in the distant
woods, from which a rattling report and an occa-
sional puff of white smoke proved that " villanous"
saltpetre" had at last commenced its operations
amid the opposing columns of the volunteers.
In accordance with the established practice in
the case of sham fights, an order of the day had
previously been published, telling how the battle
was to be won and lost, and enumerating the troops
that were to be engaged; but, inasmuch as this
programme included the operations of cavalry and
artillery, which were not allowed to come, and enu-
merated various metropolitan corps, the leaders of
which thought it wise to stay away, its publication
here would be very little elucidatory of what really
did occur. It amused the spectators to read it and
grumble over it whilst they waited, but the altera-
tion which subsequently occurred was received in
the best spirit, and the actualloperations with shouts
of acclamation and applause. Previous to the
signal for attack, which was given at seven o'clock,
the first brigade of the second or attacking divi-
sion was formed in a field in the rear of Bickley
Wood, and they formed the left point of the
attack. This brigade was about 1,200 strong,
consisting of three battalions—the first formed of
the West Middlesex, under the command of Ma-
jor Compton, consisting of five companies of the
West Middlesex Rifles, 260 strong. The second
battalion was under the command of Captain Wil-
kinson, consisting of two companies of the 14th
Middlesex (Highgate), two companies of the 29th,
or North Middlesex, commanded by Captains Ross
and Cameron, and consisting of about 100 men ; two
companies of the 20th, or Railway Rifles, about 80
men, under Captain Houghton ;
one company of
the Hornsey Rifles, 50 men, under Capt. Warner ;
and one company of the Hampstead, under Captain
M'lnnes, about 30 men. The 3d battalion consisted
of the 19th Working Men's College, three compa-
nies, about 130 men ; the 3d Tower Hamlets,
under Sir Edward F. Buxton, two companies
or about 60 men ; the 7th Surrey Rifles, under
Major
tajo4rthßesruesrrfoeryd;
utnwdoercomcpapantaiiens, aEbmouatnsl,2tohemeB
nth;
Surrey Rifles, Capt.Yeatman ; and the 9th Surrey,
Capt. Hastie. This brigade was under the com-
mand of Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Radstock and
the Marquis of Abercorn. Lord Valletort and
Major Chitty acted as aides-decamp to the com-
mander of this brigade. The second brigade was the
stronger force, and consisted of the South Middlesex,
commanded by Colonel Thorold ; Ist battalion by
Major M'Pherson and Major Burke ; the 2d batta-