The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-22 00:00:00

MANSION-HOUSE RELIEF FUND.

The subscription in the city of London towards
the relief of the widows and orphans of the men who
perished in the recent colliery explosions near Barns-
ley and in North Staffordshire proceeds with, if pos-
sible, increased vigour. During yesterday alone
snms amounting in the whole to about £2,000 were
sent to the Mansion-house, including those returned
by some of the bankers who have kindly consented
to receive donations, and up to last evening the
total amount received by the Lord Mayor from the
beginning was estimated at about £7,800, a week
only having elapsed since the fund there was set on
foot. The great City companies have come nobly
forward on the occasion, and have more than main-
tained their ancient renown for munificent benevo-
lence. Yesterday the Mercers' Company sent £2OO
to the Lord Mayor, the Grocers' Company £2OO,
and the Merchant Taylors' Company £5O. The
Goldsmiths' Company contributed £lOO a few days
ago, and the Fishmongers' Company £52105. A sum
of £354 17s. has been collected among the members
of the Coal Exchange, and forwarded to the Lord
Mayor, through Mr. Frederick Thompson, a member
of the Mansion-house Committee. Yesterday Messrs.
Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, and -Co., contributed
£lO5 ; Messrs. James Walton and Son, £lOO ;
Messrs. Harrison and Crossfield, through Mr.
Alderman Finnis, £5O ; the Blaenavon Iron Com-
pany, £5O ; Sir Francis Goldsmid, M.P., £3O ; Lady
Goldsmid, £10; Messrs. William Cory and Son,
£26 ss. ; Lord Overstone, £25 ; Lord Egerton of
Tatton, £2O ; Messrs. E. Moses and Son, £2O ;
Messrs. Bevan, Harris, and Co., £2l; Mr. Frede-
rick Youle, £2l; Mr. J. C, Bowring, .£25 ; Mr.
Charles M`Garel, £2l; Messrs. Davie, Thompson,

and Alder, £2l ; Messrs. Hill, Wood, and Hughes,
£2l; Messrs. Dixon and Harris, £2l ; Messrs.
Lambert, Son, and Scott, £2l; Messrs. Lea and
Co., £2l ; Messrs. Clater and Webster, £2l ;
Messrs. Booth, Brothers, £2l ; Messrs. T. and S.
Parry, £2l ; Mr. Herbert Clark, £lO 10s. ; Messrs.
Finney, Seal, and Co., £lolos. ; Messrs. Rickett,
Smith, and Co., £lO 10s. ; Messrs. G. J. Cockerell
and Co., £lO 10s. ; Messrs. Charrington, Sills, and
Co., £lO 10s. ; Messrs. Locket and Judkins,
£lolos. ; Messrs. Horne and Hinton, £lO 10s. ; Sir
John Stuart Hippesley, £lO ; the Hon. Emily Eden,
£lO ; Mr. George Stagg, through Mr. George
Moore, £lO 10s.; Mr. J. H. C. Wyndham, £lO ;
Admiral Price, £lO ; Sir J. S. Menteath, £lO ;
Dr. Ferguson, £10; and Mr. and Mrs. Vade Wal-
pole, £lO.

On Wednesday the Lord Mayor received a letter
from Sandringham, written by General Knollys,
and enclosing a donation of £lOO from the Prince
of Wales and £5O from the Princess. Their Royal
Highnesses at the same time availed themselves of
the opportunity to express their deep sympathy
with the bereaved families of the unfortunate men
who perished in the recent explosion.
By a slight typographical error in the report of
yesterday, the expression "future allowances" as
applied to the money set apart in 1863 by the com-
mittee at Newcastle-upon-Tyne as a provision for
the widows and orphan* of the men who pee iLtnd
by the accident at klartiey Colliery,- was retretered
" profuse allowances," in a statement made by the
Lord Mayor, and thus the meaning intended to be
conveyed was not only defeated, but an implied re-
flection which was never intended was cast upon the
Executive Committee at Newcastle.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

VALETTA, Dec. 16.—The inhabitants of Malta
are making preparations to give Sir H. Storks a
warm welcome on his return to the island. Nume-
rous addresses from the elected members, the Cham-
ber of Commerce, the nobility, the clergy, the bar,
the notarial professions, and the learned societies are
in course of preparation. The town will be bril-
liantly illuminated on the evening of his arrival, and
a great concourse of people are expected to be pre-
sent to greet him on landing. His Excellency has
been again delayed on public business by Govern-
ment, but he writes that he has every reason to hope
that it will not be beyond the period of a few days.
He at the same time desired it to be publicly known
how much gratified he felt at the marks of confidence
and sympathy which it was proposed to display on
this occasion, and that he is deeply sensible of the
kind feeling which the inhabitants of Malta are
anxious to show on his return among them. He in-
timated his intention of telegraphing the date of his
departure from Marseilles in the Psyche. The En-
terprise, 4, screw steam ironclad sloop, Commander
G. S. Bosanquet, left port on the 10th inst. for Pa-
tras. She will there relieve the Tyrian, 2, screw
steam gunboat, Lieut.-Commander the Hon. V.
Montague, and send her to Malta. The Wizard, 2,
screw steam gunboat, Lieut.-Commander P. J.
Murray, left the same day for Canea, to replace the
Assurance, 4, screw steam gun vessel, Commander
W. H. Pym, which will on being relieved return to
this island. The Caradoc, 2, paddlewheel steam de-
spatch vessel, Lieut.-Commander E. H. Wilkinson,
has been admitted to pratique, after undergoing five
days' quarantine, and is now in the hands of the
dockyard, where she is likely to remain for a month
or six weeks, to be thoroughly repaired. The Prince
Consort, 35, screw steam ironclad frigate, Capt. E.
A. Ingletield, is also in the hands of the dockyard,
having a forecastle built like that which has been
found to answer so well on board the Royal Oak, in
order to afford better accommodation for the sick.
The Commander-in-Chief has lately inspected seve-
ral ships of the fleet. The last two inspections were
of the Enterprise and the Cruiser, 5, screw steam
sloop, Commander Morgan Singer. Both ships
were found to be in excellent condition as regards
order and discipline, and the crew of the Cruiser
were particularly complimented on the state of the
gun drill on board. The Cockatrice, 2, screw steam
gunboat, Commander A. G. Bogle, having been
frozen out of the Danube, was to leave the station
on the 20th of Nov., and is daily looked for at Malta.
The Prussian screw corvette Gazelle, 28 guns, Capt.
Henk, arrived on the 11th inst. from Portsmouth
and Cadiz. There is at present another Prussian
vessel of war in port, the Blitz, 4, screw gunboat.
Both vessels are awaiting orders from Berlin. Be-
sides Sir H. Storks, Rear-Admiral Kellett (who has
been on a visit to the south of France) is expected to
return to Malta in the Psyche. The following ap-
pointments have made by the Commander-in-Chief
during the past month :—Mr. F. Bosanquet, mid-
shipman, from the Resistance to the Gibraltar, and
Mr. Wm. Tottenham, engineer, from the Royal Oak
to the Gibraltar. Assist-Sorg. Jas. W. Arnott, of
her Majesty's ship Wizard, died on the Ist of Dec.
at the Royal Naval Hospital, where he hadbeenad-
mitted the previous day, suffering from an attack
of apoplexy. Mr. Charles Herring, midshipman of
the Endymion, passed his examination on the sth
inst., qualifying him for promotion as lieutenant.
The announcement that the Malta and Alexandria
Submarine Telegraph had resumed working had
scarcely been made public when a new rupture of
the cable took place, and telegraphic communica-
tion is again suspended. The interval between the
reopening of the line for messages and the last
rupture was about only 50 hours, and as the tele-
graph steamer Hawk and her Majesty's ship Cos-
sack have not yet returned to Malta, it is inferred
that a suspicion must have prevailed in the minds
of the operators that their services might be required
again very shortly, as, in fact, has proved to be the
case. These frequent interruptions cause great pub-
lic inconvenience, and induce the belief that the
cable is far from sound, if it is not altogether worn
out. The time has arrived for immediate steps to be
taken for replacing it by a new one which will com-
mand the confidence of the public. After recent
Atlantic experience this desirable object would be
best attained by a deep-sea line direct to Alexan-
dria. All the numerous interruptions with the pre-
sent cable have occurred on the Benghazi-Alexan-
dria section, where the coast is much exposed to the
influence of the prevalent gales. It appears that a
requisition was made through a letter from the
United States' Consul to the then Acting-Chief
Secretary to Government, between 9 and 10 a.m. of
the 19th Nov., stating that he had received a tele-
gram from the United States' Consul at Naples, to
the effect that Surratt, a conspirator against the life
of Mr. Lincoln, was on board the steamer Tripoli
(then in quarantine, bound to Alexandria), dressed
as a papal Zouave, and passing either by the name
of Walters or Watson. The application was re-
ferred to the Government legal adviser, who was
engaged in court in a Crown case, and, not having
there the Act of Parliament respecting the Extradi-
tion Treaty, deferred his opinion till he went to hia
office. At about 1 o'elock of the same day he stated
that, unless some evidence could be produced to
show that Surratt was one of the conspirators—that
the man described by the Consul was Surratt, and
that he so acted as to make himself responsible for
a murder, or assault with intent to commit murder
—he, if arrested, would shortly afterwards be dis-
charged, and he would have against those who
arrested him the right of an action for damages.
At the same time the head of the police was in-
structed to inquire whether there was indeed on
board the Tripoli any man answering the descrip-
tion given in the Consul's letter, and in the course of
the afternoon of the same day he reported that there
was a man on board the Tripoli dressed in the uni-
form of a Papal Zouave, that his name, or the name
he was passing by, was John Agostena, and that
there was no man on board named Walters or Wat-
son, or anything like those names. The consul
offered no evidence whatever. The whole case
rested on his letter or the telegram he had received,

by_'ahepoforlltsoniutsoinghis extracted from a letter received
correspondent from Montevideo,
dated the 14th November :—" We are daily expect-
ing her Majesty's ship Narcissus, with the flag of
Admiral Ramsay, and the Spiteful, Nassau, and
Sharpshooter. Her Majesty's gun vessel Spider
remains senior officer's ship in the Rio de la Plata.
The gunboat Dotterel is at Buenos Ayres and the
Linnet at Rio Grande. There have been several
court-martials at Rio Janeiro ; one on a Lieuten-
ant of the Spiteful, who was fortunate enough to
obtain an acquittal on all the charges brought
against him. A seaman of the Narcissus has been
sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude, and another
seaman of the same ship to two years' penal servi-
tude. An engineer of the Narcissus was also tried
by the same court, but escaped with a reprimand
and a loss of one year's seniority. The war in
Paraguay may be considered at an end."
The usual Christmas holiday will be observed 'this
year at Portsmouth in the dockyard and other pub-
lic establishments on Monday, the 24th inst. The
dockyard will remain closed, therefore, from Sa-
turday at the close of the working hours until Wed.
nesday morning.
The screw troopship Himalaya, at Portsmoutti, is
ordered to be completed for sea, under the command
of Captain Thomas B. Lethbridge, by the 31st of
January, 1867.
Thescrew troopship Urgent, Capt. S. 11. Hendee-
son, now completing her outfit in the steam basins of
Portsmouth dockyard, is ordered to be ready for
sea by the 19th of January.
The Warrior, iron screw frigate, in the bas in with
the Urgent, is ordered to be out of the dockyard
hands 1: ' but she will be then incomplete in.
her new armament and its deck 'fitting..
The Scorpion screw turret sloop, undergoing con-
siderable alterations and repairs in No. 3 dock of.
Portsmouth dockyard., has the date of her comple-
tion fixed for March 31 next, and the Ariadne screw
unarmoured frigate, repairing in No. 7 dock, for
May 15.
Capt. F. Herbert, lately commanding the turret
ship Royal Sovereign, will be appointed shortly by
the Admiralty to the iron clad frigate Royal Alfred,
as flag captain to Vice-Admiral Sir G. Mundy,
K.C.8., the successor of Sir J. Hope, K.C.8., in,
the North America and West India command. Com-
mander Nicholson is to be commander of the Royal
Alfred, and Mr. W. Kiddie is to be master of the
ship, displacing the present master, Mr. F. Inglis.
This change of masters for the ship inflicts a griev-
ous injustice on Mr. Inglis. It is the custom to
allow flag officers to select their officers to a certain
extent from among their "followers," and Mr.
Inglis has had the misfortune now to have been
ejected—supposing that he is superseded in the
Royal Alfred—from two ships in succession, his last
ship
A master is appointed' to a ship long before any
other officer by the Admiralty, in order that he may
to been
the thet o
yaMinotaur,
Alfred
fre
d from
nosm iwhichr
transferredgrounds.
personally superintend the stowage of the ship be-
low, and make himself perfectly master of every-
thing below the water-line. Mr. Inglis did this
duty, and when it was all completed he was super-
seded. Sir J. Pakington must admit that the Mi-
nister of Marine manages such matters better in
France.