The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-27 00:00:00

Mr. WHITE, 228, Piccadilly.

A Single Truss, 165., 21.5., 26s 6c1., and 316.6 d Postage, Is.
A Double Truss, 3ls. 6d., 42s , and 625. 6d. Postage, 18. Bd.
An Umbilical Truss, 425. and 12s. 6d. Postage, Is. 10d.

Post-office Orders to be made payable to John White, Post.
office, Piccadilly.
NEW PATENT

pLASTIC STOCKINGS,
124 KNEE-CAPS, &c., for Varicose Veins and all eases a
Weakness and Swelling of the Legs, Sprains, Act. They arc
porous, light in texture, and inexpensive. and are drawn on
like an ordinary stocking. Price 4s. 6d., is. 6d., 105- and 16s.
each. Postage, 6d.
JOHN WHITE, Manufacturer, 228, Piccadilly.'

NOTHING ThIPOSSIBLE.—The greatest and
Messrs.
moJOUNs t usef aIGOSNBLL invention of
and CO the day, .
ARedQUABuI &Ml
Wharf, AR ELL
93A.
,
Upper Thames-street, Perfumers to her Majesty, respect-
fully offer to the public this truly marvellous which gradually restores trio human hair to Its pristine hue—no
matter at what age. The A gua Amarella has none of the
properties of dyes ; it, on the contrary, is beneficial to the
system, and when the hair is once restored one application
per month will keep it in perfect colour. Price one guinea per
bottle, or in half bottles, los. 61. Testimonials from artistes
O; highestsetchtcabillt7. mosrdy erb,eangdeefnrorconlnadpipvliecuatailosno.f umndeozbrst.e
orhen-
sGosnell and Co. have been appointed Perfumers to her Royal
Efizhness the Princess of Wales.

HOMELESS BOYS OF LONDON.-FUNDS
r. ri2,enaoronreesqtliiresolteited for fitting up the TRAINING
SHIP.

WM. WILLIAMS, Secretary.
Boys' Ref age, 8, Great Queen-street, W.C.

rj OMELESS BOYS OF LONDON.-CON-
L I TRIBUTIONS are earnestly solicited for establishing
the COUNTRY ROME. £l,OOO required.
WM. WILLIkIi3, Secretary.
Boys' Refuge, 8, Great Queen-street, W.C.

HOMELESS BOYS OF LONDON.—The
Committee are most anxious to provide for 400 boys.
One hundred and fifty are now in the Refuge. The annual
expenditure for supporting the 400 boys is estimated at
Pl,OOO, being £l5 a year for each boy. Several kind friends
have promised to pay for one boy each year.
Subscriptions thankfully received by the London and West-
minster Bank, 41, Lothbury, and 214, iligh Holborn; Messrs.
Ransom and Co., 1, Pall-Mall East and by
WM. WILLIAMS, Secretary.
Refuge, 8, Great Queen-street, W.C.

pROVIDENCE ROW NIGHT REFUGE,
FOR
HOMELESS WOMEN AND CHILDREN,
14A, Providence-row, Finsbury, E.O.
Sixty Thousand Nights' Lodgings, with Suppers and
Breakfasts, have been given in this Institution to the
destitute, who otherwise would have had to pass the
500 Nights' Lodgings, with Suppers and
nights in the bleak streets or under railway arches.
nearlygiven gratuitously every week. The poor
At presentßreakfasts,ar e
from all parts are admitted, the only condition being that
they are homeless and starving. The Manager 4rc ,
receives no remuneration whatever. Notwithstand-
ing the provision made by the Poor Houses, each
night numbers of young women, children, and orphans
are, for want accommodation, refused admittance, and have
to spend night after night in the cold, wet, and sleet. To
moot this evil, and to provide more ample accommoda-
tion, £2,000 has been raised, but to accomplish the
work a sum of at least £l,lOO more will be required.
Besides providing shelter for the homeless, this year it
is proposed, as far as the donations obtained for the pur-
pose will allow, to givo bread and coals to poor families
in want. Will you, in your charity, help to carry on and
accomplish what has been begun andill you help to give
shelter to the really homeless, food to the really
starving? The smallest donation will be most welcome,
and, night and morning, the prayers of the destitute will
be offered in your behalf.
SUBSCRIPTIONS are earnestly requested, and will be
gratefully received by theROVV. GILBERT, D.D.,,N0-L22,
Finsbury-circus, E.C.

FLoitExcE, Dec. 22.
The bishops who were exiled from their sees by
decree of the Italian Government, and subsequently
took up their residence at Rome, addressed a letter
to Baron Ricasoli after the issue of his circular of
the 22d October. The bishops were under the im-
pression that the permission to return, announced
iu the 'Ministerial circular, did not apply to these
ecclesiastics residing in Rome, and complained of
this exclusion in their letter to the President of the
Council. Baron Ricasoli's reply, which follows
beneath, was not originally intended for publica-
tion, but since the letter of the bishops has appeared
in the Unita Cattolica, it was considered necessary
that the public should be made acquainted with the
terms in which the Minister replied. The letter of
Baron Ricasoli bears date 26th November, and is
as follows
Monsignori,—l have only to-day received the
letter which you have done me the honour to
address to me from Rome, beating date 15th
inst., on the subject of the recall of the bishops
to their sees. This letter was doubly agreeable to
me from the important reasons for whist' your lord-
ships approve that measure,_and in which jam happy
to concur with you, andirom the request that the
permission to return to their dioceses, conceded to
the bishops by the circular of the 22d Oct., should
be also extended to the bishops residing at Rome,
thus demonstrating your goodwill and reverence
towards the institutions and the laws under whose
shadow you desire to live. I rejoice that I antici-
pated your wishes in this matter, and interpreted
your sentiments aright by deciding, on the same
day as that on which your letter was despatched,
that the exception complained of should be removed.
Of this I believe your lordships will already have
had full and official cognisance.
" The decision adopted by the Government arises,
as your lordships state, from the desire that perfect
liberty in the relations between Church and State
should pass from the abstract region of principle in
which it had hitherto remained to the reality of fact.
The Government, therefore, no less earnestly than
your lordships, desires that Italy may very soon en-
joy/the magnificent and imposing religious spectacle
now afforded to the free citizens of the United States
of America by the National Council of Baltimore,
wherein religious doctrines are freely discussed, and
whose decisions, approved by the Pope, will be pro-
claimed :and executed in every town and village
without exquatur or placiti. I therefore beg your
lordships to consider that it is liberty which has
produced this admirable spectacle ; liberty professed
and respected by all, in principle and in fact, in its
amplest application to civil, political, and social life.

In the United States every citizen is free to fellow
the persuasion that he may think best, and to wor-
ship the Divinity in the form that they may seem
to him most appropriate. Side by side with the
Catholic church rises the Protestant temple, the
Mussulman mosque, the Chinese pagoda. Side by
side with the Romish clergy the Genevan consistory
and the Methodist assembly discharge their office.
This state of things generates neither confusion
nor clashing. And why is this ? Because no
religion asks either special protection or
privileges from the State, each lives, developes, and
is followed under the protection of the common law,
and the law, equally respected by all, guarantees to
all an equal liberty. The Italian Government wishes
t 3 demonstrate as far as possible that it has faith in
liberty, and is desirous of applying it to the greatest
extent compatible with the interests of public order.

It therefore calls upon the bishops to return to their
159:1U1ICU Trey-- Were---renrcrrect-uy--t-nest—very mo

tives of public order. It makes no conditions save
that one incumbent upon every citizen who desires
to live peaceably, viz., that he should confine him-
self to his own duty and observe the laws. The
State will insure that he be neither disturbed nor

hindered, but let him not demand privileges if he

wishes no bomb. The principle of every free State,
that the law is equal for all, admits of no distinc-
tions of any kind. The Government would be glad
to cast off all suspicion and abandon all precaution,
and if it does not now wholly act up to this wish, it
is because the principle of liberty which it has adopted
and put into practice is not equally adopted and
practised by the clergy.
" Let your lordships remark the difference between
the condition of the Church in America and the con-
dition of the Church in Europe. In those virgin re-
gions the Church is established in a new society, but
which carried with it from the mother country all
the elements of civil life. Representing the purest
and most sacred of the social elements, the religious
feeling which sanctions right and sanctifies duty, and
carries human aspirations far above earthly things,
the Church has there sought only that empire pleas-
ing to God, the empire of souls. Companion of
liberty, the Church has grown beneath its shelter,
and has found all that sufficed for free development
and the tranquil and fecund exercise of its ministry.
It has never sought to deny to others the liberty,
which it enjoyed, nor to turn to its exclusive advan-
tage the institutions which protected it. In Europe,
on the other hand, the Church arose with the deca-
dence of the great empire that had subjugated the
earth. It became constituted amid the political and
social cataclysms of the barbarous ages, and was com-
pelled to form an organisation strong enough toresist
the shipwreck of all civilisation amid the rising flood
of brute force and violence. But while the world,
emerging from the chaos of the middle ages, re-en-
tered the path of progress marked out by God, the

Church impressed upon all having any relation with
it the immobility of the dogma entrusted to its
guardianship. It viewed with suspicion the growth
of intelligence and the multiplication of social forces,
and declared itself the enemy of all liberty, denying
the first and most incontestable of all, the liberty of
conscience. Hence arose the contest between the
ecclesiastical and the civil power ; since the former
represented subjection and immobility, and the latter
liberty and progress. The conflict, from peculiar
circumstances, has greater proportions in Italy, be-
cause the Church, thinking that a kingdom was
necessary to the independent exercise of its spiritual
ministry, found that kingdom in Italy. The eccle-
siastical power from the same reason is here in con-
tradiction not only with the civil power, but national
right. From these causes originated the distrust and
precaution described in my circular which provoked
your, censure, but which were only dictated by
necessity. The bishops cannot be considered among
us as simple pastors of souls, since they are at the
same time the instruments and defenders of a power
at variance with the national aspirations. The civil
power is therefore constrained to impose those mea-
sures upon the bishops which are necessary to pre-
serve its rights and those of the nation. how is it
possible to terminate this deplorable and perilous
conflict between the two powers—between Church
and State ? Liberty can alouo bring us to that
happy state of things which your Lordships consider
so enviable in America. Let us render unto Cesar
the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things
that are God's, and peace between Church and
State will be troubled no more. I desired to
pay deference to these principles in removing the
prohibition to the return of the bishops, and their
residence in their sees. I believe that liberty is
good in profession and practice, and, further, that
it has the virtue of converting those who are called
to enjoy its benefits. I trust that your lord-
ships, returning to your dioceses with the sincere
sentiment of respect for the law expressed in your
letter, among a people who wish to remain Catholic
without relinquishing the rights and aspirations of
the nation to which they belong, will bless that
liberty which protects them, and upon which the
reconciliation of interests hitherto appearing ir-
reconcilable can alone be based.

RicAsoLi."

HANLEY, Wednesday Evening.
The sump at the North Staffordshire Coal and
Iron Company's pit at Talke has been emptied, and
together with the entire workings, been completely
examined, without the discovery of any additional
corpses. The exact number of deaths by the ex-
plosion is, therefore, 91.

e
egreaenveral comruitteefortherelief of
th' ;
p Mr.r-
so
afternoon
Smith Child in the chair ; at which the following
iTsh be ed, held a meeting this
resolution was adopted :—" That in the opinion of
this committee the following scale of relief should
he adopted, subject to alteration by this committee
if circumstances arise to render it desirable, viz. :
To each widow, ss. per week ; to each child, is. 6d.
per week ; to any infirm adult dependent at the
time of the accident on one of the killed, in each
case a sum not exceeding ss. per week. The com-
mittee will require the children on whose account
they make payments be sent to school, the school
fees being provided out of the fund. In case of this.
rule not being strictly complied with the weekly
payment will be discontinued." It will be seen by
this resolution that the amountof relief to be granted
is much smaller than in the caseof the Hartley acci-
dent, and that there is no danger of the poor people
~being; pampered, as was alleLred in the case of Hartley.
This committee has also decided that a marriage
portion of £5 shall be given to each widow marry-
ing again, whereas at Hartley the marriage portion
to each widow was £2O. It was further resolved,
" That this committee desires to record its sympathy
with the directors and shareholders of the North
Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company (Limited),
and with their resident manager, Mr. Johnson, and
to express its admiration of the liberality with
which they have come forward to relieve the dis-
tress caused by the late disastrous explosions at
their colliery." In the course of conversation, Mr.
Gemmell, the treasurer, stated that he had received
a letter from the Rev. Charles liemble, rector of
Bath, reporting that £467 6s. ld. had been col-
lected in that city, of which one-fifth, or
£9l 9s. 3d., would be appropriated to Talke. The
Rev. C. P. Wilbraham inquired upon what
principle one-fifth had been allotted to Talke, and
the chairman replied that as 360 lives had been lost
at Barnsley and 90 at Talke, the proportion of loss
at the latter place was just oife-fifth of the whole.
Mr. Roden, mayor of Hanley, said he had received
a letter from Mr. Patrick Beales, Mayor of Cam-
bridge, asking whether it was true that there was a
large surplus from the Hartley Relief Fund, which
was available for the sufferers by this explosion.
Such an impression existed at Cambridge, and
tended to check subscriptions. The chairman said
the impression was certainly an erroneous one. The
amount appropriated to the North Staffordshire
mining district from the surplus of the Hartley
fund was between £5OO and £6OO, and the in-
terest on the sum, which was all that was avail-
able, was rather more than £BO.
Additional subscriptions, amounting to about
£5OO, have been received.

The Oaks Colliery Explosion.
--
BARNSLEY, Wednesday Evening.

Facts with regard to this sad event are only few
to-day. Nevertheless. the interest is kept up by
various means. A story, which to some seemed most
credible, obtained circulation to-day that several
French engineers, with a sort of diving-bell,
had descended, or were about to descend,
the shaft. We need scarcely say that no
such thing was ever attempted. The work
of carrying out the resolution passed at
a meeting of engineers on Monday is being carried
out. 'The scaffolding which is to be ?owered down
the No. 2 shaft is being constructed as quickly as
possible, as well as the pipe to allow the gas to
escape. A meeting of local engineers was held at
the office this morning, when means for carrying
out the former resolution was discussed, and the
necessary orders were given. The state of the mine
is about the same as it was on Monday and yester-
day. The spoil in the furnace and No. 1 shafts sub-
sides only a little.
Mr. Normansel, the secretary of the South York-
shire Miners' Association, at a meeting held yester-
day evening in Barnsley, made an interesting speech,
which shows that the association is taking the ques-
tion of relief up in a very liberal manner. He said
that the executive had allowed each widow ss. per
week since the explosion, and each child ls. whose
father was a member of the union. The funds had
become distressed, but they hoped that with the as-
sistance of the trades unions throughout the coun-
try to be able to carry their rules. Subscriptions
were coming in, and that day £3OO had been sent
from a Sheffield trade union unasked for. Each
widow whose husband had fallen a victim to the
explosion, and whose bodies had been recovered, had
received £8 funeral money, and those whose husbands
were still in the pit had received £4, the other half
being reserved until the bodies were recovered, or
for a time. The Executive had also made grants
to the widows and relatives of those who were not
members in sums varying from 30s. to £2. Not
less than £6O had also been spent in meat for
Christmas dinners, which were dealt out in 4lbs. to
each widow, and 11b. to every child. Members and
non-members were alike the recipients of this
charity. The relief committee had not as then
given a penny in relief. The Executive hoped to be
able to meet the wants of the widows and orphans,
and would do all in their power to do so.
At the fortnightly meeting of the poor-law guar-
dians a number of applications for relief were made
yesterday afternoon. In addition to the usual
elected guardians, the Rev. 11. B. Cooke and E. B.
Beaumont, Esq., two ex officio members, were pre-
sent. The guardians, after a short discussion, which
took place in private, determined to deal liberally
with the applications. The number of those who
applied was not so large as it was expected, but it
seems that the poor sufferers understood that the
meeting would be held at the usual hour, one
o'clock, instead of which it was held at nine, in con-
sequence of the Christmas holidays and market day.