The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-03 00:00:00

'THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY . EVENING, NOVEMBER 3, 1866.

LAW INTELLIGENCE,—This Day•

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.

;sittings in Banco, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and

Justices Mellor, Shee, and Lusk.)
LLOYD V. MERTON.

Mr. Gray, Q.C., moved for a mile calling on the plaintiff
to show cause why a verdict obtained by the plaintiff
in this case should not be set aside. The case was
tried before Mr. Justice Shee, at Shrewsbury. It
appeared that the plaintiff held a farm from the de-
fendant, :on which he entered possession on Lady-
day, 1861, and - on the 16th of September of the
same year ho executed a deed of assignment, transferring
to trustees his interest in the farm for the benefit of his
creditors. When they resigned their trust they left a
tithe rent ehargo and a portion of the rent unpaid, amount-
ing to £9O, for which the plaintiff recovered a verdict
against the defendant. Ho contended that it was against
the trustees and not the defendant, and plaintiff should
have proceeded.
•
Rule granted.
PARR. Y. DENIS -THE ACTION FOR LIBEL AGAINST TILE
" DAILY TELEGRAPH."

Mr. Huddleston, Q.C., moved for a rule to enable
him to appeal against the finding of the jury in this
case. The action was brought by Mr. Parr, of pill
Telegraph. The libel was headed " Parr's Pills and
Helscombe's Cookery," and was alleged to contain an
innuendo charging the failure of a certain racehorse to the
improper treatment of the plaintiff. The case was heard
before Mr. Justice Lush last June, and the jury found a
verdict that the innuendo declared that there had been negli-
gence on the part of the defendant, and awarded the plain-
tiff £4o' damages. Leave was given to move for anew trial.
The Court refused to grant a rule absolutely, but consented
to one nos obstante veredicto , with option to the plaintiff to
refuse. That option was accepted, and an application was
now made to enable the plaintiff to appeal against the

verdict,
notoriety, for an alleged ',libel against him in the Daily

The application was granted.

COURT OF CHANCERY.
(Before the Lord Chancellor.)
THE FRENCH EXTRADITION TREATY-EX PARTE -COPPIN

ALIAS DITBOIS.

This was an application for the discharge of the above I
remanded prisoner from the House of Detention, to which
he had been committed by Mr. Vaughan, the sitting
magistrate at Bow-street Police-court. The prisoner
was charged with having committed forgery in
France, which coming to his knowledge he fled to Eng-
land. The forgery in question was connected with the
case of Madame Valentine, which has so' often been re-
ported in the English newspapers. In the month of August
last the prisoner was apprehended by Sergeant D ruscovitch,
of the detective force, in Regent-street, and afterwards
taken before the magistrate at Bow-street. The case was
gone into, and sufficient evidence having been adduced
the magistrate decided that the prisoner should
be sent back to France, under the Extradition
Treaty.' Accordingly the prisoner was lodged in
the House of Detention until the necessary writ from
the Secretary of State for the Home Department was re-
ceived, but during that time a writ of habeas corpus was
granted by the Lord Chancellor, to be argued at the com-
mencement of term. The case accordingly came before
the Court upon a return to the above writ, and during
the arguments it was stated that the offence with which
the prisoner stood charged was committed more than four
years ago, and several other objections, both in form:and
substance to the validity of the detention of the prisoner,
under the extradition treaty now subsisting between this
country and France. It is the first case that has occurred
since the passing of the Act, and therefore the decision of
the Lord Chancellor was looked upon as of great import-
ance. _ _ _

His Lordship, after having beard the arguments adduced
by the several counsel engaged in the case, decided in
fuvour of the decision of the Magistrate at Bow-street.
Police-court ; therefore ,the prisoner will be sent to France,
and delivered up in accordance with the terms of the
treaty.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

Mary Scott, an unfortunate, was charged before Mr.
Knox with disorderly conduct in Hyde-park.
Mr. Knox having ascertained that the prisoner had been
charged before fined her 40s. or a month.
Mary Ann Gate was charged with a similar offence, and
was fined 10s. or seven days.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

We have certainly, as a rule, been unfortunate in

our military engineering, and especially in carrying
out the plans for the defence of our coast line. Forts
have been planted on the overhanging brows of fast
perishing sand cliffs only to topple over into the sea,

while others have been built on swampy land so un-

stable and treacherous that keep and magazine have
cracked through, their earthen ramparts having slid
from their base an'l filled up the surrounding fosse.
The most remarkable of all the instances of failure,

however, are those in which the War D epartment

and the Admiralty have each an interest. These
departments seem invariably at cross purposes. To

be convinced of the disadvantages of this opposition
it is only necessary to examine. the present condition
and intended outline of the connecting water chat)

nel between the harbours of Portsmouth and Lang-

ston, in front of the Mises lines of defence.

The

Admiralty Engineers, in designing this channel, in
the first instance, had to give a means of communi-
cation between the two harbours for gunboats of
from Bft. to Oft. draught of water, calculating also
that this depth of water, with a proportionate width
of channel, giving an ingress to Portsmouth harbour
from that of Langston that would very materially
increase the total volume of water in the former and
increase its tidal scour to an extent which would
compensate for the water space subtracted from the
harbour by the new extension works of the dock-
yard. As the channel connecting the two harbours
had to be formed on the site of the old channel and
in front of the new lines of defence at the entrance
of Portsea Island from the mainland at Hilsea, the

work, of course, fell to the Royal Engineers, and
now began the antagonism between two public de-
partments. What the Admiralty desired to have
in the new channel they will not have. The channel
will not possess, by abont one-half, the breadth or
depth, and consequently_voluniii, of tidal water laid
down as the main conditions of its construction by
the Admiralty engineers, the designers of the new
extension works of the dockyard • at Portsmouth,
and the conservators of its harbour. Portsmouth
harbour may be irretrievably ruined by such a course
of procedure, but at all events the " departments"
will have had their fight out.
To another class of failures in military engineer-
ing belong those instances arising from natural and
unavoidable causes, owing to the imperative neces-
sity for taking a fixed position and covering it with
a defensive work irrespective of consideration of any
expenditure of time or money. These positions are
generally found on the salient points of the coast
line jutting out in front of river or harbour chan-
nels, and exposed to all ,the adverse influences of
wind and weather, and the ever-grinding action of
the tides and shingle. One of the most important
of the whole series of the works now being erected
to defend Spithead and Portsmouth harbour against
ironclad fleets is the extensive fortification, now
about one-half completed, on Southsea Castle
Point, at the entrance to the Portsmouth harbour
channel. _ . _ _

Southsea Point, from its importance as being a'
the entrance of the channel leading into Portsmouth
harbour from Spithead, has been occupied as a de-
fensive position from time immemorial. The work
now erecting there is necessarily far more formidable
than any preceding one, or than was necessary pre-
vious to the introduction of iron-clothed ships of
Following the configuration of the beach-
;me, its front represents two sides of a triangle, with
,he apex in the centre. At the apex will be the
keep," the lines right and left being massive earth,
works of about 1,6001 t. in their combined length,
with embrasures cut in them for mounting 20-ton
guns, or as much larger as can be constructed, which
will be fought through iron vertical shields fixed in
the embrasures of 13 inches in thickness. A dry
ditch, with concrete sides, runs along the front of
the work, and the shingle of the seabeach forms a
natural glacis. So far all appears simple enough.
The position is one that must be fortified ; the works
erecting for that purpose are sufficiently formidable,
and neither time 110 f money is being spared in their
execution. It is now, however, that the real diffi-
culties are" just beginning to make themselves felt,
and this by means of storms and tidal action with
the aid of their great ally, the beach shingle. There
exists a tradition that a gorse-covered piece of land
once stood in front of Southsea. Castle, where
now flows and ebbs the tide. Certain it is that
the sea at this point, and more especially on the
eastern arm, is gradually and not slowly eating away
the land. The shingle of the beach changes also
in a most extrordinary manner, and during a
southerly or south-easterly gale it rolls in with the
breakers on the beach with irresistible force, and
carries off with it in the receding waves enormous
slices out of the beach above high water mark. The
storm and the wave are the motive power of the
enemy, and the shingle of the beach its mining
tools. This power of destruction was known and
duly considered when the present work of defence
on the point was designed, and measures were
taken to protect the work from its ravages. The
sea had found its way to the walls of the old works
of Southsea Castle, and threatened soon to make
a breach through, but the castle is to retain its posi-
tion, as the " keep" of the new work and its earthen
strengthening ramparts right and lef t have have been
brought down to it in line just above high water
mark, and any further inroads of the sea must be
stopped. The moans adopted for this latter pur-
pose were the construction of groynes and " wharf-
ing " as the latter is technically termed, of wood
piles and planking. The eastern end of the beach,
the partmost exposed to the effects of south-easterly
gales, was first taken in hand, and was completed
last year. A double row of piles was first driven
into the shingle of the beach above high-water
mark, and between these was fixed planking 2in.
in thickness. This Is what is technically termed
the wharfing, but it is
simply double piling
with retaining plank to hold the shingle at
its back, and preserve the contour of the beach.
To break the roll in of the sea towards this wharf-
age four groynes at equi-distant intervals were run
.out 88 feet from the wharfage seawards, and the
extreme end of these groynes further lengthened
out into the tideway by 33ft. of sheet piling. All
the piles and planking were sawn square, and the
material was beech, except the small quantity re-
quired for " waling," which was fir. The amount
of timber used was 124 piles 12ft. long, 32 piles 10ft.
long, 74 piles 9ft. long—all 9in. by 9in., 28 piles 7ft.
long, 60 piles 6ft;long, and 72 piles sft. long. The
expenditure of beech planking was nearly 3,000 ft.
sawn on both sides and edges, and 85ft. of fir sawn
on all sides, Bin. by 6in. The heavy gales of
February proved this system of piling and groyn-
ing to he utterly useless as a protection to the upper
beach and the fort. The sea rolled in over all, broke
through the concreted wall of the fort ditch, and
deposited in the latter
_some hundreds of tons of
shingle piled up against the escarp of the fort, and
laying a pathway from the beach to the very em-
brasures. To remedy this disaster and prevent one
of a like character during the coining winter a double
row of whole beech tree piles are being driven be-
tween the groynes and in front of the line of
wharfage piles and planking. These break-
water piles are to be 290 in number, 18ft.
in length, and of not less than 10in. average
diameter. They are being driven about Bft. into the
shingle, and will, therefore, stand about 10ft. above
the ordinary shingle level. The intention of this
arrangement is to break up the waves as they dash
up against and pass between them, and if the piles
had a solid footing the desired result would most
The piles, however, stand
changes with every storm,
every tide, and it would be
pi
and
nr os bh
indeed
nnb
dgl yel
ee 1
d)
we
almost
lorns ;achievedeo
sdtewith
ti
th.
no absurd prophecy to say that in the first south-
easterly gale these " breakwater piles" will all dis-
appear, and the ruin of the remainder of the groynes
and wharfage be completed. The Royal Engineers
have a moving beach of shingle to deal with in front
of their great work at Southsea, and they have dealt
with it so far most unsuccessfully. Their piling
and groyning has been wrong in design, and far too
slight to hold fast so treacherous a beaeh and breast
the rollers which leap over and through it in a win-
ter's storm, and for this reason a repetition of last
February's disaster, only perhaps on a larger scale,
may be expected on the eastern beach and battery

war.

of Southsea Point during some part of the rough
season of the year now coming upon us. The
western part of the work being sheltered from
the action of the south-east gales by the
apex on which stands the Castle, or " keep," in
the centre may have its glacis, or the shingle
beach effectually preserved by the same system of
piling that is being tried so unsuccessfully on its
eastern side, and the first part of this work—the
formation of the "wharfage"—has just been com-
menced. The plan here
.is one line of wharfage,
with two projecting groynes lengthened by sheet
piling. All piles and planking, with the exception
of the " waling," will be of beech, and sawn square
of the same dimensions as the,east groynes. A fow
words are necessary in conclusion of our present
notice of the work of piling and groyning Southsea
beach relative to the material used for the purpose.
The east piling will no doubt be torn up and washed
away in the first heavy south-east gale, but it was
driven to stay there And on the west beach it no
doubt will stay. Where the piling stands above
low-water mark it is, of course, uncovered by water
twice in the 24 hours, and exposed to the influence
of the wind by night and the wind and the sun by
day. Does this affect the durability of beech piling
and planking? Tredgold, the acknowledged autho-
rity on such matters, says, " beech is durable when
constantly immersed in water, but damp soon de-
stroys it." And again, " beech is useful for piles
when constantly wet."
An order has been received at Chatham directing
the B battery, 4th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery,
with the horses, guns, and equipment complete, to
proceed from that garrison to York, the order pre-
viously issued for the battery to proceed to Wool-
wich having been countermanded.