The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-22 00:00:00

THIS DAY'S SHIPPING.

LONDON, Aug. 22.—Wind this day at noon, North-
-Westerly; light, with fine summer weather.
OFF SALCOMRE, Aug. 21.—Wind S.W.—Arrived—
Josephine, from New York for London.
FALMOUTH, Aug. 21.—Wind N.E.—Arrived—Leland,
from Matanzas; Bertha, San Jose, Ocean Favourite, and
Secundina—all from Havanna ; Pandora, from Mazagan ;
Euxine, from Berdianski ; Favorite, from Taganroe;
Legore, from Ibrail.

QUEENSTOWN, Aug. 21.—Wind S.W.—Arrived—
Earl of Chester, from Callao ; Margaret, from Havannah ;
Gluckup, from Camillas.
PORTSMOUTH Aug. 21.—Wind N. to N.E.—Arrived—
Her Majesty's steamer: Himalaya, from Gravesend ; her
Majesty's steamer Trafalgar, from Sheerness ; her Ma-
jesty's steamer Arrogant, from Southampton. Sailed—
Her Majesty's steamer Royal Albert, Algiers, James
Watt, Hero, Herald, Diadem, Agamemnon, and Flying
Fish.

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
SOUTHAMPTON, Monday Morning.

Wind calm.

Arrived, Aug. 20—Annie Vernon, from Cardiff; Sophia
and Margaret, from Lynn ; Ceres, from Dublin ; L'Etoile,
from Carenton ; Wear and Nancy, from Sunderland; Sup-
ply, Hero, and Adelaide—all from Seaham • Emulous,
from Middlesborough ; Harriet, from Poole.
Arrived, Aug. 21—Gratitude, from London; Argyll,
steamer, from Carenton ; Waterford, from Cardiff.
Sailed, Aug. 20.—Mechanics' Own, for Newport; Bro-
thers, Minerva, and Aurora, for Sunderland ; Ceres, steamer,
for London; Ceylon, steamer, for Alexandria; Renown,
for Porthcawl ; Doore, for Sundswall.
Sailed, Aug. 21.—Kathleen and Delight, for Sunderland;
Elizabeth and Mary, for Cardiff; Teviot, steamer, for West
Indies ; Marion Lass, for Plymouth ; Amicus, for Cardiff.
LIVERPOOL, Monday Morning.

Wind W.
Arrived, Aug. 21—Douro, screw steamer, from Oporto ;
Mary Glover, from Mobile ; Alice Wilson, from Mord-
more ; Amos, from Sulina ; Bjarke, from Saakyobing.
Arrived, Aug. 22—Holger, from Iceland ; England, from
Quebec.

(BY SUBMARINE AND BRITISH TELEGRAPH.)
GRAVESEND, Monday Morning.
Wind W. ; tide, three hours' ebb ; weather fine.
Arrived, August 21—Christine Marie, from Thisted ;
Aalto, from St. John's, New Brunswick ; De Veer Gebru-
ders, from Gottenburg; Anna Dorothea, from Nykoping ;
Union, from Struer ; ./Eolus, from Cronstadt ; Ornen and
Pilot, from Riga; Copernicus and Hermon Hill, from
Cronstadt ; Hebe, from Marstrand.
Arrived, August 22—Fyenoord, from Rotterdam;
from Hop
pet, from Cette ; Salaeix, from Cronstadt; Behrend, from
Memel ; Halieoch, from Cronstadt ; Frederica Louise,
Memel.

DEAL, Monday Morning.

Wind N.N.E., moderate
Passed.—Premier, from London, for Demerara ; Kate
Dyer, from Shields, for Leghorn ; Roseitate, from Shields,
for Genoa,

The Daily News, .Express, Morning _Herald,
Morning Chronicle, Sun, and two other penny papers were
peized in Paris on Saturday. I find by Buidler's Corre-
spondence that they contain a letter from Louis Blanc,
stating that he does not intend to avail himself of the
amnesty.—Paris Letter.
_T•
THE SUNDAY MARKET IN SOMERSTOWN.__he
vestry of St. Pancras have adopted the following resolu-
tion u
tion :—" That this vestry having received memorial, nu-
merously signed by the inhabitants of Somersto
com-
plaining of the nuisance of a public market being
t eted
on Sunda?, do resolve that the police be,ins ru he
to take
held there
steps for the suppression of the nuisance.

THE SERPNNTI2VE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,-.--There are occasions when, despite his own
previous•re solution's to the contrary, a professional
man must, abandon his retirement for the arena of
an unsought and. most disagreeable controversy.
Messrs-Easton and Co.. now seek to impute to me
a wilful perversion of their voluntary proposals for
'cleansing the Serpentine, and particularly in •re-
'spect to the alleged, intended application of the
water to the ornamental lakes in Buckingham Pa-
lace Gardens and St. James's Park, after it shall have
been previously employed to cleanse the Serpentine.
They neither deny the statement nor explain it
away, but 'content themselves with saying the sug-
gestion " is too much like a portion of Mr. Hawks-
ley's plan for it to have originated elsewhere than
in his own brain." thus leaving the public to infer
that my conclusions had no foundation in -fact, and
that I had deliberately and wilfully misrepresented
Messrs. Easton and ('o.'s own`prop6sitions. Messrs.
Easton and Co. shall therefore reply to Messrs.
Easton and Co. out of their own printed communi-
cations.
On, the 10th of the present month • Messrs.
Easton and Co., having been twice repulsed by two
succeeding heads of the Department of Works, ad-
dresied to the First Commissioner the following
remarkable epistle :-
1 • • "THE SERPENTINE.
" Grove, Southwark, S.E., Aug. 10.
"Sir,---We must ,ask you to excuse our again troubling
you with a eonitminication on this. subject, but we are de-
termined that such a plan as that. of Meting t.he Serpen-
tine water shall not be carried into effect without 'your
being made fully acquainted with the fact that the supply
of water to ,that .lake can be accomplished in a simpler,
more effectual, and less expensive manner,
"The quantity of water at present pumped ,daily by the
six-horse agricultural engine and temporary pump into the
lake in St. James's Park is not lessrthan 500,000 -gallons ;
and it is from The knowledgenf this fact and from the extra-
ordinary quantity of water we met with in making the pre-
sent tunnels front the well in the duck island that Ive- are
enabled to guarantee to obtain the quantity mentioned in
our letter of the -sth inst.
" Our .calculations in that letter were made upon the basis
of supplying as much fresh water daily to the Serpentine as
it was proposed to filter,—viz., 2,000,000 gallons; but we
are of opinion that. by pumping 1,400 gallons per minute,
equal to 1,000,000 per day of 12 hours, into. the basin in
Kensington Palace Gardens, whence it would run into the
Serpentine as at present, the supply would be amply suffi-
cient.

" We are willing to obtain this quantity of water, erect
the steam-engine, pumps, and buildings, lay down the pipes,
and execute, all the works necessary for the sum of £11,500;
and we will further contract to work the engine for six days
in the week, 12 hours per day, and keep the whole in repair,
for the sum of 1:7;t0 per annum, which is only about £2OO
per annum more than the present cost of keeping up the
lakes,in Buckiugham Palace Gardens and St. James's Park.
" We are satisfied that 1,000,000 gallons Per day will be
sufficient but should it be requisite to work the machinery •
by night in` the summer, it could be done for 40s. pernight,
and thus give 2,-000,000 gallons. -per day instead of
1,000,000.

" The amnual sum here stated would be the total cost for
supplying .the whole of the lakes when the present contract
with the Chelsea Waterworks Company expires,, which we
believe will be the case in lets than two years.
" We have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servants,
" EA.STON,- AMOS, AND SONS.
•
"The Right-Hon. Henry Fitzroy, M.P., Chief Com-
missioner of, her Majesty's Works, &c."
This letter is, as I read it, perfectly distinct on
five material points : • , .

1. The quantity of water' to be' pumped is
6,000,000 gallons per week of seven days, .equiva-
lent to au average supply of only 857,143 gallons
per day,
2. The sums to be paid to Messrs. Easton and
Co. for this service are £11,600 down for machinery
and apparatus, and £7OO per annum for working
expenses.

3. The sum to be saved is £5OO per annum, being
" the present cost of keeping up the lakes in Buck-
ingham Palace Gardens and St. James's Park."
4. The annual cost (£700) is " the total cost for
supplying the whole of the lakes" with this dis-
tinctly stated quantity of water (857,143 gallons
per day.)

5. The water is to be obtained." fresh" from the
well, and is to be pumped direct " into the basin in
Kensington Palace Gardens, whence it would run
into the Serpentine as at present."
From this statement it therefore follows, as a
matter of course, that the other two lakes—the one
in Buckingham Palace Gardens and the one in St.
James's Park—can only be supplied (unless, in-
deed, the same water,like the celebrated Hibernian
bird, is capable of being in two places at one time)
by the down-flow from the Serpentine, and this, as
appears from other parts of the correspondence
with which I need not now trouble you, was clearly
intended by Messrs. Easton and Co.
But in order apparently to prevent any possibi-
lity of mistake on this subject, Messrs. Easton and
Co. present the readers of the Times of Tuesday
last with an elaborate comparison of the costs of
the corresponding undertakings ; as adopted by the
Government and as proposed by themselves, in
which they charge against my plan the following
saving by their plan—viz., the whole of " the sums
paid last year for pumping water into St. James's
Park and Buckingham Palace Gardens, £500,"
being the identical amount mentioned in their letter
of the 10th of August above referred to. All the
water is, therefore, to travel from the well to Ken-
sington basin, thence pass into the Serpentine,
afterwards descend into the garden of Buckingham
Palace and the lake in St. James's Park, where,
finally, it will in part escape by the sewer into the
Thames, and in part filtrate into the gravel by
which the well is supplied to re-commence the same
distinguished circuit.

I de-cline to comment upon, or in any way notice,
the personalities of which I am made the subject,
simply for having performed a strictly professional
duty in a strictly professional manner. You, sir,
and tour readers are the best judges of the good
faith. with which I have acted in my professional
capacity, and awell of the truthfulness of the
statements I have been compelled to make in the two
defensive communications you have done me the
honour to publish. If I have been the means of
misrepresenting Messrs. Easton and Co., it is only
because they have been at pains to misrepresent
themselves, for I have not knowingly altered a
word of their own propositions, nor have I, as I
believe, in any respect changed the clear and ob-
vious meanings attaching to them ; neither do I
perceive that Messrs. Easton and Co. have failed
to convey a distinct expression of their views, be-
cause every member of their several propositions is
amplified and corroborated by some other collateral
statement made by themselves.
There is one other matter on which I desire to
make a short remark. Messrs. Easton and Co.

state in their last letter to you :
t, We are willing is undertake to put the bottom of the
Serpentine into the same state as that of the lake in St.
James's Park, and that the cost of the whole to the country
shall not exceed £33,000 beyond the present grant of £17,000.
There have been many exaggerated estimates made of the
cost of this operation •, Sir S. Dl. Peto to-day says it will
amount to £BO,OOO or £90,000."

Now, sir, the estimates for cleansing the Serpen-
tine have been more numerous than the public are
probably aware of. They have ranged from about
£30,000 to considerably more than £lOO,OOO, ac-
cording to the varying amounts of work proposed
to be performed. Most of the estimates include, as
a prominent item,the entire removal of the deposited
mud, because this operation has for more than 10

years past been of all others the one most insisted
upon both by the press and the individuals who
have interested themselves the most largely in
matudth ; but the
sum e
yof
regard to the so called "purification of the Serpen-
tine." Messrs. Easton and Amon making their own
propositions and their own estimates to fit them,
cdaolenuoltatperotphoesecotshte removalof
fthisoe
porftheses
£29,203 9s. 6d. Adding, then, this sum to the sum
of £50,000, for which Messrs. Easton and Co. offer
we have the
workptoopduolatrhteotal
of
£BO,OOO, of
oof wwnh. way,
appHeaavrisutgo hmaavdeesptohkeesen.
exldanaletltion7 MI
:ern:null:sett:
rea-
lise—that I shall now scarcelylte permitted
o expect
relapset o
intor e a
express the hope—a ho
that condition of professional quietude from which.
tlhconsider
a u
loiohasv e: been improperly withdrawn by
of Messrs. interferences and personal attacks
but Easton and Co. I may have, unluckily,
notwithstanding quite accidentally, Stepped
between those gentlemen and a tradesman's gains
for " goods sold and delivered, and work and labour
done and performed" on a, supposed to be impend-
ing, Government contract of the amount of .C. 50,000
or more ; I must therefore abide the consequences
of my temerity, and submit myself to all the pun.
ishments I deserve for an offence at one .e so grave
and graceless. I believe, however, that during my
prolonged revolutions in Messrs. Easton and Co.s
pillory, the public, who are now grade ally gather-
ing the facts of the case, will not be di spospA, as is
old times, to decorate my person with the'c Se
/
tine mud in - which Messrs. EastQya tur-d Serpens
Co. take
and have so manifest an inter
efieta,
continue to
ti 0 r 1 of the Ser.
maintain that no vast outlays of money, time, or
skill are necessary for the pixt
pentine ; andl have no doubt of aoeing ,
able to effect
that object with satisfaction
o the Governments
and with advantage to the 'public.
Sincerely thanking
mission of this lettp-i., - I 'you for yollr oourteous ad.
have the hon our to be, Sir,
''Dur niost obedient servant,T. ItA. WKSLZi.

Aug. 20.