The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-07 00:00:00

WATERLOO-BRIDGE.

The half-yearly meeting of the proprietors was
held yesterday at the Freemasons' Tavern, Great
Queen-street ; Mr. Anderson in the chair.
Mr. Powell, the chief clerk, read the report,
which stated that the receipts fur tolls during the
half-year ending February had been, for foot tolls
£5,376, and for horse tolls £4,939, making a total
of £10,315, against £10,658 in the corresponding-
half of 1866, there being a decrease of £390. The
total income was £11,870, and the expenditure
£l,BOB for general expenses, £1,318 interest on
bonds, and £8,750, being a dividend of 4s. Bd. in
the pound upon £37,500. The reserve balance was
over £4,501, against £5,311 last half year. The
bridge, road, and works were in a sound condition.

The CIIAIR3IAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, said there were rumours as to the purchase
of the bridge, but the directors knew nothing about
any such intention.

The report was adopted, and a vote of thanks to
the chairman concluded the proceedings,

GRAND JUNCTION CANAL:

The half yearly m..!eting of proprietors was held
on Tueslay, at the office in Surrey-street, Strand ;
Mr. Anderson in the chair.

Mr. Rogers, the scretary, read the report, which
stated that the net receipts for the half year had
been £33,095, against £36,122 in the corresponding
half of last year, being a decrease of £3,026. The
expenses, however, were less in 1866 by £1,833.
The profits for the half year, after payment of in-
terest on preference stock, were £25,673, which,
added to the balance left over, made £30,962 avail-
able for dividend. The directors recommended a
dividend of £2 2s. sd. per share, free of income tax,
payable on 11,329 shares in the original stock,
amounting to £25,490, leaving a balance of £5,471.
The works on the canal were in good order and re-
pair, and the whole of the reservoirs were full of
water.

The report was adopted, the dividend declared,
and a vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the

proceedings.

RAILWAY BILLS.
Yesterday, in Lord liedesdale'a committee, the

Great Northern Bill was adjourned until the 18th.
In the House of Commons, group 12, the Lou-
don, Chatham, and Dover Bill was again proceeded
with and adjourned ; the London, Chatham, and
Dover (No. 3) Bill was proceeded with and ad-
jourrred, and the London, Chatham, and Dover
(No. 2 and No. 4) Bills was adjourned.

THE CHARITY CHILDREN AT S 7.
PAUL'S.

The annual gathering of children belonging to
all the charity schools of the metropolis was held
in St. Paul's Cathedral yesterday. A great congre-
gation, numbering at fewest ten thousand persons,
came together on the occasion, which is justly
esteemed by many as one of the most interesting
events, and withal one of the most beautiful spec-
tacLs of any that occur in London during the
twelvemonth. Tie arrangements made and the
service performed are every year similar, and were
yesterday without any novelty, but the effect was
equally striking, and as sincerely admired by those
who witnessed it, as ever. The weather was pro-
pitious, and rain did not fall. The several schools
walked in procession, or were transported in
vans, &c., to St. Paul's Churchyard. Their ap-
pearance in the streets, and their gathering
round the Cathedral, as each troop came
up, excited the usual attention and interest. More
than 4,000 children were brought together. Inside
St. Paul's the archways under the dome were filled
with tiers of seats, the lower and central of which
were allotted to the girls and the upper ranges to
the boys. With the exception of the Mile-end
Old Town School, which dates its existence so far
back as 1714, and has a red uniform, the boys are
all clothed in dark colours. The girls, however,
while they nearly all wear the old-fashioned white
linen cap and cape, can easily be distinguished by
their different coloured dresses and ribbons—light
or dark blue, pink and green, and, the worst of all,
a bad yellow. The managers of the proceedings
arranged the several girls' schools on the benches
with considerable effect as to the coloured dresses.
Like- the boys, ther3 was only one band of
the girls who wore red. dresses. The open
space below the dome was reserved for the Right
llon. the Lord Mayor, the aldermen, and the
more distinguished members of the congregation.
His lordship, accompanied by the Lady Mayoress
and Miss Gabri,A, with several of the aldermen,
arrived at 12 o'clock, and, preceded by the mace and
sword-bearers, was conducted to his seat near the
pulpit. • The immense area of the western nave was
densely crowded, as were also the galleries at the
eastern end. At noon precisely the children rose to
the signal of their conductor, Mr. Buckland. The
100th Psalm was sung first. The Psalms were
chaunted by the cathedral choir stationed in front
of the organ at the top of the southern gallery, the
children joining in the " Gloria." "Te Deum,"
and " Jubilate Deo" were next given. Before
the prayer for the Queen, the Coronation Anthem
was performed by the choir ; in those parts of
the grand chorus, " God save the 'King, long
live the: King," the children joined, and
they rendered the music with splendid effect.
The fine chorale, " Sleepers awake ! a voice is
calling," was sung before the sermon, which was
preached by the Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord
Bishop of Carlisle. The preacher took as his text the
15th verse of the 3d chapter of 2d Timothy, " And
that from a child thou hast known the holy Scrip-
tures, which are able to make thee wise unto salva-
tion through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The
discourse was upon the necessity of education based
on scriptural teaching, concluding with an appeal
for a generous liberality towards the object for
which those present had assembled. Four verses

of the 104th Psalm were sung after the sermon, and
the service was fittingly concluded with the " Halle-
Inja.h Chorus."

IREL AN f►.

DUBLIN, June 6.
Very little light has been thrown upon the designs
of the strangers who so mysteriously landed on the
coast near i)ungarvan on Saturday last. It is, how-
ever, pr,:tty evident that they cannot have been of a
belligerent character, as no arms of any kind were
found in the possession of the 26 who were arrested
that day, although the first accounts of the occur-
rence described the whole 66 strangers who landed
as being armed, and a subsequent report stated that
one of them possessed a revolver. The vessel which
brought them to the coast was, it appears, a long,
low, rakish-looking craft, of great speed, showing
no colours, but of American build. S'ae appeared
to be crowd 3 I with men. After hovering about the
coast for some time she was joined by a hooker, into
which most of her passengers were seen to get, and
on nearing a low promontory called Cunnegar Point,
they jumped overboard and waded throughthe water,
which was more than three feet deep. On reaching
terra firma they dispersed in various directions. The
owner of the hooker, a fisherman of Dungarvau,
named Patrick Whelan, has been arrested. He
states that, passing near the brigantine, he was
signalled to come alongside, when a person evi-
dently in authority offered him 13 to bring off two
men. Whelan agreed, and bringing his vessel under
the bow of the brigantine, in an instant a crowd
of men rushed into her. The bargain was nego-
tiated in Irish, which Whelan's interlocutor
spoke fluently. Whelan states he only saw
four men in the brigantine at that time, and was
totally surprised by the sudden inroad of his unex-
pected passengers, who, however, when once they
got on board his vessel, settled down quietly, and
behaved in the most decorous manner during the
progress to land. None of those who were arrested
attempted any resistance. Four, who were arrested
together, said they werepart of a troop of emigrants
en voyage to the Brazils or Buenos Ayres, and that
their ship having sprung a leak they were trans-
ferred for safety into a Norwegian brigantine, which
was compelled to land them on the Irish coast in
consequence of shortness of prOvisions. They de-
clined to give the name either of the Norwegian
brigantine or of the vessel in which they had first
taken passage, answering in monosyllables upon
being sharply pressed, and ultimately maintaining
an obstinate silence. Others said that they were a
party of hop-pickers, bound for Rent, and that an
accident to their vessel had obliged them to abandon
her. Two others, named Palmer and Donovan, said
that the party were on a fishing voyage, that their

vessel took fire, and that the brigantine relieved
them. These men, however, had nothing of the '
appearance of sailors, and all the party looked like
Irish Americans, while on several were found dis-
charges from the American army. Two or three
arrests, made in the evening near Youghal, bring
up the number to 29. They have all been remanded
for further investigation, and the police are making
diligent inquiries, but as yet nothing has been ascer-
tained to diminish the mystery in which the whole
affair is shrouded. A supposition, hazarded by some
of the Irish papers, that they were Fenians who,
hunted down by the police and military, were en-
deavouring to escape from Ireland, and were ob-
liged by want of food or stress of weather, to again
seek the inhospitable shore, will probably prove to
be correct.

A great Protestant meeting was held last night
in the Ulster Hall, Belfast, which was crowded to
excess. The chair was taken by Mr. Stewart
Blacker, of Carrick-Blacker, who, in a long
address, treated of the attacks now being made
on the Protestant Church, and assailed Mr.
Gladstone for having said that the Irish Church
must be sacrificed, because while the State endowed
Maynooth the Establishment could not be defen(lei
on the principles of truth ; and with Mr. Glad-
stone he classed Earl Russell, for his recent resolu-
tion in the House of Lords, by which Protestantism
in Ireland would be attacked in another form. Mr.
Blacker then criticised the proposition to throw
open the offices of Lord Chancellor and Lord Lieu-
tenant of Ireland to Catholics. Political parties, he
declared, were contending for the dubious honour
of sacrificing the safeguards provided by the Eman-
cipation Act, and declared that they were not being
destroyed fast enough. We have before us not
merely a scheme for doing away with the provision
which confines the office of Lord Chancellor to
members of the Protestant religion, but we have it
also proposed that the Lord Lieutenant should be