The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-20 00:00:00

Metropolitan Board of Works.

The ordinary weekly meeting of the members of
this board was held yesterday in the Board Room,
Spring-gardens—Sir John Thwaites in the chair.

OPEN SPACES ROUND 'CITE METROPOLIS.

Mr. DOULTON, M.P., called the attention of the
board to the report of the committee of the House of
Commons on open spaces, and moved that it be re-
ferred to the streets committee to obtain an interview
with the Home Secretary for the purpose of ascer-
taining the views of her Majesty's Government in
reference to that question, and in doing so he said
that when the question was before that committee
there were two classes of persons who put forward
their views before it. One thought that the
subject of open spaces around the. metropolis should
be placed in the hands of a special commission,
while the others thought that it ought to be con-
fided to the Board of Works as the natural guar-
dians of the rights of the metropolis. The latter
class were sanguine enough to believe that the lords
of the manors would give up their rights to the
Board of Works without compensation, but he did
not believe that they would give up any of their
rights without receiving compensation for what they
surrendered. The time had arrived when some
step must be taken to obtain parliamentary powers
to secure these open spaces, or in a few years they
would be entirely closed, and become private pro-
perty. The board in obtaining such powers might
purchase the whole of the open spaces, and after
securing a sufficient quantity for the recreation of
the public, sell the remainder for building purposes,
by which the absolute cost of the land would be
greatly reduced.

Mr. CARPMAEL seconded the motion, and con-
curred in the views of Mr. Doulton.

A disCussion followed, and ultimately the motion
was unanimously agreed to.

OFFICERS' SALARIES,

The board meeting was made special for the pur-
pose of considering the report of the "special com-
mittee of the whole board," relative to the increase
in the salaries of the officers of the board. The re-
port recommended, "That in consideration of the
nature of the duties performed by Mr. James Estlin,
in the clerks' department, he be placed in the second
class of officers, at the minimum salary of that class,
viz., £l5O, and that the resolution of the board of
the 20 November, 1863 (No. 10) be varied accord-
ingly. That an assistant clerk be appointed in the
third class of officers in the clerks'..department, at
the commencing salary of £lOO per annum, being
the minimum salary of that class ; that advertise-
ments be issued inviting applications for the office,
and that it be referred to a committee of tlic buara
to take all necessary steps for selecting a competent
person for appointment by the board, that two
youths be temporarily engaged in the clerks'
department at the weekly wages of £1 ; that
the annual increase in the salaries of the first
class of ollicers be £2O per annum in lieu of
£lO as at present; that the annual increase in
the second class of officers be £l2 10s..per annum,
in lieu of £7 10s. ; that the annual increase in the
salaries of the third-class of officers be £lO per an-
num, in 'lieu of £7 10s., as at present ; that the
annual increase in the salaries of the fourth class of
officers be £B, instead of £4, as at present ; and that
the resolution of the board of the 4th of January,
1861 (No. 2) be varied accordingly."

On the motion of Mr. RICIIARDSON the first and
second recommendations were agreed to, but on the
motion that the third paragraph be adopted,

Mr. SAVAGE moved an amendment to the effect

that the increases in the salaries should be £l5 per
annum on the first class, £lO on the second class,
£8 on the third class, and X 7 on the fourth class ;
but as it was not seconded, it fell to the ground.

Mr. H. L. TAYLOR moved as an amendment that
he report be referred back to the committee for

further consideration, and to report to the board on
the individual cases they consider deserving of the

increase, and the amount they think those officers
ought to have.

A discussion took place, when the amendment
was lost by a majority of 25 .to 12. The original
motion was then put and carried by a majority of
24 to 12.

A very noisy discussion followed as to whether
24 were two-thirds of 37, the chairman making the
37th member present. Some of the points of the
arguments used were entirely lost in consequence of
two, and sometimes three, of the members speaking
at once.
The CHAIRMAN said that if any doubt existed he
would settle the matter by recording his own vote.
He, however, had no doubt on the point—that the
motion was carried, and if his friend Mr. Taylor
held a different opinion he could refer to the solici-
tor of the board.
The report was accordingly adopted.
The consideration of the question of the utilisa-
tion of the southern sewage was adjourned until
next Friday.
Mr. BAZALGETTE, the engineer to the board, pre-
sented a voluminous report respecting the various
railway schemes affecting the metropolis now going
before Parliament. it contained a vast amount of
interesting detail, which will afford much informa_
tion to the metropolitan public.
The routine business was then disposed of, and
the board adjourned.

The great drain upon human life by the American
war is shown in the result of the last census of the Stato
of Now York. In 1860 the population of New York was
3,880,727 ; in 1865 it was 3,831,777. That great and pros-
perous State has lost 48,950 people during the war.
AVVERTisEmENT.]. -Avoid medicines; they always
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rt le n t
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aggra-
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ch rchronic
nt
ey
strong nerves, sound lungs, healthy liver, pure blood, re-
freshing sleep, functional regularity, and energy to the most
disordered or enfeebled. We extract a few out of 60,000
Cures :—Cure No. 58,216, of the Marchioness de Brehan,
of seven years' liver complaint, wading away, debility,
nervousness, with a nervous palpitation all over, bad diges-
tion, constant sleeplessness, and the most intolerable nervous
agitation.—Cure No. 1,771. Lord Stuart de Deeies. Lord
Lieutenant of Waterford. of many years' dyspepsia.—No.
49,832. "Fifty years' indescribable agony from dyspepsia,
nervousness, asthma, cough, consti-
pation, flatulency,
spasms, sickness, and vomiting.—Maria Jolly."—Cure No.
46,270. Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley, Surrey, of thirty
years' diseased halo, spitting of blood, liver derange-
ment, and partial deafness.—Cure No. 47,121. Miss Elizabeth
Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indigestion, gatherings, low
spirits, and nervous fancies.—Cure No. 54,b16. The Rev. Jas,
T. Campbell, Fakenham, Norfolk, "of indigestion and torpi-
dity or the liver,, which had resistei all medical treatment."
In tins, 1 lb., 2s. 9d. ; 21b., 45. 6d ; 5.b , 11s. ; 121 b., 2. s. ; 241 b.
40s.—Barry Du Barry and Co., No. 77, Regent-street, London;
also Phillips, tea dealers, 8, King William-street; likewise
at 61, Gracechurch-street ; 4, Cheapside ; 49, Bishopsgate-
street Within ; 63, 150, and 298, Oxford-street ; 330, Strand ;
54, Upper Baker-street ; 103, Tottenham-court-road ; 96,
Upper-street, Islington, N.; Harvey, Notting-hill; Close
Brothers, 65, High-strut ; and Stubbs, Queen'i-terrace, St.
John's-wood, London; and all respectable grocers and che-
mists.—Beware of spurious imitations.

4;
C 4
J?:
During the last feW .lays some little UTINSiIIa,
has been felt in the City with respect to this vessel,
one of the Royal West India Mail steamers, in
which Mr. Russell Gurney, the Retorder of Lon-
don, and Mr. Maule, two of-the JamalinCommis-
sioners, with other persons of note, sailed for
Jamaica about a; fortnight ago. We have forborne
to refer to this subject, although the circumstance
which appears to have given rise to the anxiety has
been known for the last three days, being loth to
cause needless apprehension to any one, and we
only notice it now to show on what a slender ground •
the uneasiness rests, and, if possible, to allay the ex-
isting feeling. The Atrato, which is a paddle
steamer, sailed from Southampton on Tuesday, Jan.
2, under the command of Capt. Jellicoe, au expe-
rienced navigator, and with about 126 passengers -
on board, bound for Jamaica. On that night rho .
encountered a great hurricane, and the weather
continued to be so tempestuous that she -
could not land her pilot until the next
day, which she did at Dartmouth. The
vessel then continued her voyage, and, if
all has gone well, she may have by this time reached
St. Thomas, a port in the group of Virgin Islands, •
about a week's sail from Jamaica, and at which
the West India mail steamers ordinarily touch. In •
that case she may be the first to bring the tidings of
her own safety on the return voyage to England,
about a month from this time, unless, indeed, which
is possible, she may be spoken on. the outward trip •
iby a returning English or French mail steamerfrom
lie West IndieS. Until lately printed notices, .
framed and glazed, had been hung up in the com-
panions of the Royal West India Mail Company's
vessels, prohibiting under a penalty of £lOO passen-
gers
from carrying with them gunpowder, lucifer- .
matches, or any other inflammable material, but ~
'suclinbti ces had been discontinued, except in a few
cases. On the 9th of January one of those printed
notices, so framed and glazed, was picked up at
Harlec, in North Wales, about five miles from Port
Madoc, and delivered to the Receiver of Wrecks at
the latter place. It has since been forwarded to
London, and now lies at the Royal Mail Company's
offices in Moorgate-street. The company have
identified it beyond doubt as one of the notices at
one time in use in their steamers, but there is no-
thing whatever, beyond a mere surmise, to connect
it with the Atrato, nor to show that it ever belonged
to her. From inquiries which they have instituted
they find from Captain Vincent, their Superinten-
dent at Southampton, that though the notices in
question have been discontinued in most of their
ships, he is under the impression that there was one
in the Atrato's fore companion, which was taken
down towards the end of December last, a few days
before she sailed on her present voyage, while the
companion was being repainted, and not put up
again. Four colliers, he adds, were alongside until
the evening of the 29th of December; coaling the
Atrato as she lay at Southampton, and the maho-
gany frame containing the notice, being old, may
have been thrown on board one of the colliers, or
stowed away in some corner and thrown overboard
after the ship got to sea. If the latter. supposition,
which appears reasonable; be true,- • there is an
explanation at once of its having been washed on
shore-in the track of' the vessel, and entirely con- •
sistent with her safety. It is certain that she en-
countered bad weather, and the 'frame might have
been lying about the deck and washed overboard by a
sea. Besides, as Captain Vincent justly argues, if
anything had happened to the ship, some of the
boats' oars, masts, and the like, all of which are -
legibly branded with her name, would probably
have drifted in the same direction with the maho-
gany frame, and, like it, been picked up ; but one
looks in vain through the shipping lists in'which the
minutest circumstance as to casualties at sea is re-
ported at Lloyd's from day to day, for any notice
of anything of that kind having been found, and it
is from the one solitary fact of the frame having
been picked up, with which there is nothing what-
ever really to connect the vessel, that doubts have
arisen as to her safety. The supposition, however,
that it may have belonged to the Atrato caused her
premiums of inauranco to advmnao to 9(1 Bn;,,nnc:
Thursday at Lloyd's ; but, towards the close of yes
terday, we believe, they had fallen to as low as
10 guineas. A telegram was received yesterday at
Lloyd's that the ship Rhone, belonging to the
Royal Mail Packet Company, which left South-
ampton a week later than the Atrato for Lisbon,
was spoken on the 13th by the Saxon 50 miles
south-west of Vigo, and that she had suffered much
in a heavy gale, having lost all her boats on the
port side, and appeared to .be going slowly. The
Recorder of London is accompanied by his wife.
There are besides among the passengers many per-
sons who have gone out expressly in connexion with
the approaching inquiry into the circumstances
attending the insurrection, including four special
correspondents, at least, of the London press and
two Government shorthand writers.

The White House on New Year's Day.

The customary reception of New Year callers by the
President at the White 'House showed us the Great Re-
constructionist in a now light—that of dignified, hearty,
genial, self-possessed, social democrat, which is conceded
by those who visited the Republican palace to be tho
highest of gentility. The thirty thousand dollars ap-
priated by Congress for beautifying and renovating the
White House has not yet reached the hands of the Com-
missioner of Public Mlildings, so the " Pearl of the Re-
public" was forced to show himself in a rather dingy set-
ting ; but he shone brilliantly enough for all that. In ac-
cordance with the time - honored custom and arrange-
ments Mr. Johnson received in the Blue-room, this time
bare of ornaments excepting a couple of vases with fresh
flowers, the ladies of the White House, Mrs. Paterson and
Mrs. Stover, Misses Craigoniles and Baxter, two pretty
young lady visitors from Knoxville, Tenn., and the
children of the family. Without the streets were sloppy
from the melting snow, so the crowd about the grand en-
trance and the carriage way to watch the arrival of the
foreign and domestic dignitaries, and to gaze admiringly
and upon
daughters,both(rin wasa
upon the gold and gause of foreign diplomats, their wives,
without wshoitger-gloved
it might
policemen.
been
theot
President took his station in the Blue-room just before 11
o'clock, when the foreign ministers, members of the
Cabinet, Supreme Court, Judges and their ladies were an-
nounced. Sir Frederick Bruce, the tall, portly, white-
haired representative of her Britannic Majesty, was the
pioneer of the first-named class ; while Mr. Stanton, with
the spectacles and the smile, was the avant courrier of the
Cabinet. They were quickly followed, however, by
Marquis de Montholon, French Minister ; Baron Stoeckel,
Russia; Baron de Wederstedt, of Norway and Sweden;
Count Wydenbrick. of Austria ; Commander Bertanatti,
from the Italian States; Mr. Raasloff, of Denmark; Del-
forse, of Belgium ; Van Limberg, from the Netherlands ;
Senor Romero, from the Republic of Mexico; Senor
Melino, from the Central American States; Senor
Asta Beruga, from Chile, and plain John Hitz,
from the Mountain Republic of Switzerland. These
foreign ministers were generally in their prescribed court
dress, very rich of course, but unique in the oyes of the
bourgeoise. Senor Romero, of the suffering Mexican Re-
public, appeared- in a plain suit of black, and was the re-
cipient of an extraordinarily hearty shake of the hand
from the President. Tho ladies accompanying these
foreign parties were tastefully but not expensively dressed.
Judge Chase, wearing the same benign, unimpassioned ex-
pression which appears on the one dollar greenbacks,
came with Mrs. Sprague, his daughter, who is thinner and
paler, and not the Kate Chase Ohio people admired.
Half an hour was spent in the Blue Room by these dig-
nitaries in gold lace and decorations and these ladies of
elaborate toilet and versatile tongue, animated converse
in all the modern languages was carried on, introduction
ceremonies were gone through still President Johnson
and his daughters were unruffled. Mrs. Johnson and
Colonel Robert, the President's son, being indisposed did

not receive.
The officers of the army and navy were no presented
to the Chief Magistrate. Many of the foreign dignitaries yet
lingered in the Blue Room, when the hero of the greatest
of wars, Lieutenant-General Grant, grasPe
d. the hand of
the President, the fervor of the shake which followed
convinced the lingerers that it was not ono of mere for-
mality... General Grant passed into the room, respectfully
greeted the ladies, and at once became the centre of a little
presentation circle, a position which he vacated as soon as
it could genteelly be done. Following the General, nearly
every officer of rank who chanced to be in Washington
paid his respects to the President. They were all in full uni-
form, and presented. a very brilliant appearance. Their
names were as follows :—Generals Rawlins, Townsend,
o Eaton,
Nichols,
re,
Ord, Howard, Hunter, Meigs, Doublesday, Barnes, Seth
Williams, Ingalls, Hugh Ewin, Bartlett, Gilmore,
Morris, Mott, Hardie, Prince, Perry, loft,
field, Green, Alexander, Dent, Ketchum Fessecien' Ekin'
Haskins, Kelton, Shims, Vincent, Ducker, Robinson, Dana,
n
APKeever, Ramsay, Dyer, and W. E. Strong.—New York
Herald.