The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-15 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.-SIIN OFFICE, At Gt ST 14.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
74—highest since noon yesterday.
66—lowest this morning and during the night.
69—this day at noon.
Binou-sTna.-29.90--falling.
WIND, W.N.Wederly ; fresh, with rain in the morning;
but the weather cleared up, and the day was beautiful.

AUG. 15.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
72—highest since noon yesterday.
62—lowest this morning and during the night.
65—this:day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.79.
WnrD, North-Westerly; fresh, with fine weather. I
rained heavily in the night and this morning.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 3h. lm.—Afternoon, 3h. 16m.
To-MORROW-Morning, 3h. 30m.—Afternoon, 3h. 44m.

Yesterday was a proud day for the Emperor
NAPOLEON, the Grand Army of Italy, and the peo-
ple of Paris, who pressed in one dense multitude to
gaze on and greet the return of their brave coun-
trymen bearing their well but hard-won trophies,
of shattered standards, captured cannon, and all
the paraphernalia of glorious war—its pomp and
circumstance. It was a sight that must have
reminded some of the lookers-on of other days
what was indeed a work of glory worthy of all
time. Bast. present, or to come. But that pageant
successor. May the lesson of the past be well
conned by the scholar of the present. It is no
easy task, as :time will prove ! It is one thing to
mount a throne, but another to keep it. Tlie people
of Paris love show, and yesterday indulged them
with one in all its bravery. What will,
,be the
result of all this commemorative display ? Will
it really consolidate the brittle peace so hastily
precipitated at Villafranca, or will it end as it
began, in smoke with a smouldering fire to burst
forth again with far mroe deadly hate and violence
than before ? If so, we warn all those who have
burnished their arms, to look sharper as to the
use of them. Europe is at present on
the very verge of a tumultuous change, no
matter how peaceably the believers in the Con-
gress at Zurich may make up " their books." Italy
has been roused, not to a sense of her wrong, for
that she has saddened under too long, but to a
national feeling of hope for liberty, and just as
the cup was at her lips, the spoiler came
and dashed the charm to the ground. It was past
belief—it was a dream ; and now she awakes to all
the agony of her wrongs, embittered still more by
the blandishment of the Deceiver ! Can such
things last ? No. Let NAPOLEON look to it, for
it concerns him much.

A variety of curious little choppings and chang-
ings of the political winds that blow intermittently
in season and out of season, occurred simuliane-
ously with the close of the late session of Parlia-
ment. A few of them are perhaps not un-
worthy in their way of some passing enumera-
tion. There was Mr. JAMES WILSON, for ex-
ample, after a long pause of uncertainty as to
what really would ;be advisable for his interests—
stretching out his hand at last to accept that
tempting and lucrative offer of a place in India—a
financial post out at Calcutta, analogous in its way
to the one occupied here among ourselves by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. To grasp the golden
opportunity in Hindostan, however, Mr. WILSON
had, of course, to let fall the Vice-Presidency of the
Board of Trade. That vacated office is thereupon
made over to the Premier's step-son, the Right Hon.
W. COWPER, who takes courage to himself at last
to run the hazard of a contested election down at
liertfoYd- Hence an opportunity arises suddenly
upon the opposing side—an opportunity long
looked for and at length visible down in that old
county town, where the two Great Parties are
tolerably matched, and where it is understood that
Mr. ROBERT Dflist.
ALE, with a reasonable chance
of success, will oppose Mr. COWPER'S re-election
by coming forwarded as a candidate for the votes of
the Conservative part of the c • onstanency. It was
only the other day, as we remember, that the
vacancy caused in the representation of Taunton,
by the transference of the old and respected Whig
member for that borough during thirty years (now
Lord TAUNTON, then Mr. LABOUCHERE)—whiIe it
gave a new supporter to the Government in the
Lords, ga-Te a new supporter in the Commons to
the Opposition ! The Derbyite Mr. BENTINCK
being now M.P. for Taunton in lieu of the Whig
Mr. LABOUCHERI. The independent Liberals
more recently have cause, we rejoice to know, of
exulting in the return to them of one of their
old and honoured associates, in the person of that
staunch upholder of the Ballot, and of many an-
other rational and national improvement to our
political institutions, Mr. JAMES WYLD, once more
M.P. for the Liberal borough of Bodmin. The
facetionr and sparkling, dashing, and often lashing
_and what many would call slashing—speaker,
Mr. IXALPH BERNAL OSBORNE, we are not at all sorry

to observe, has a very fair chance of taking his
place again as one of the national representatives
—this time, however, not as member for the metro-
politan county of Middlesex, nor yet for the im-
maculate borough of Dover, but for that good old
Devon constituency that so often sent Mr.
RALPH OSBORNE'S political godfather, the
late CHARLES BULLER, to the House of Commons,
namely the borough of Liskeard. In the event of
Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE'S return for which, we shall
probably next session have the delight of listening
once more to his " wild shriek of liberty" from the
back benches behind the Goverment, unless the
hon. gentleman be by that time doomed to another
interval of " dumb forgetfulness"—forgetfulness of
all his constitutional vivacity and love of frolic—
by consenting to wear anew that gag or padlock, a
minor office in the Administration.

But that Mr. FITZROY is really about to em-
power Mr. HAWKSLEY to make such a horrible
mess of the whole project for cleansing the Serpen-
tine—doing this at a cost to the nation (just to
begin with) of £17,000, at a cost of all comfort to
the frequenters of Hyde-park, and at a cost of
all health and convenience to the unfortunate and
unoffending inhabitants of Bayswater—but for all
these evil results of a preposterous engineering
crotchet, we should be disposed to say not another
word about it. We are heartily sick of the entire
subject, as doubtless our readers are also—we are
sick of hearing, and reading, and writing
about Mr. FITZROY'S obstinacy and Mr. HAWKS-
LEY'S self-sufficiency in regard to this absurd,
and, before it is any way commenced, utterly
unpopular plan of filtering and refiltering
the dirty water the particularly ingenious
scheme of pumping that dirty water out
of, and carefully pouring it back again into, the
still more more dirty, old, rotten, cavernous bed of
that pretty but pestilential stagnant lake called the
Serpentine.

A singularly impertinent and illogical letter,
however, published this morning in the columns of
our leading contemporary, and republished by our-
selves in another part of our impression of this
evening, a curiously pert and inconsequential argu-
ment of the whole matter, penned by Mr. HANNICS-
LEY himself, constrains us to revert once more, as
briefly as possible, and very unwillingly, to a sub-
ject that has really become long since quite intole-
rable.

Altogether, Mr. T. HAWRSLEY'S letter will be
found, upon examination, to be, from beginning to
end, one of the most ill-judged communications
any one could well contrive to pen, who has just
inveighled an administrator, entirely and
avowedly ignorant in the matter, into the pre-
cipitate adoption of an experimental scheme,
that is no sooner explained than it is scouted
on all sides as glaringly ridiculous in design
—certain to be ineffectual in its operation—.
and inevitably tending to lead, insidiously by
little and little, to a most extravagant and ap-
parently a never-ending expenditure.

To illustrate at once the shallowness of Mr. T.
HAWKSLEY'S argument let us particularise one or
two of his assertions. For instance, speaking of
the actual condition of things in regard to the
liquid about to be.pubjected by him to such an
elaborate and expensive system of perpe-
tually securing periodic filtrations, he asserts
" that the water of the Serpentine does not hold
much organic matter in solution, but, on the con-
trary, is essentially clear, sweet, and inodorous."
Then why, in the name of all that is rational, why
not leave this exquisitely " clear, sweet, and inodo-
tem i'Llyatg_z_aiQued Why_ spend £17,000 in doing
sary ? Why dream of filtering what is so essen-
tially pellucid and translucent ? Mr. HAWKSLEY
says emphatically—" Let there be no mistake on
this subject [that is precisely the very thing we
want, by the way !—let there be no mistake on this
subject.] lam speaking of the water"—and, re-
collect, that speaking thus of the water he has de-
scribed it as " essentially clear, sweet, and inodo-
rous !" If it is all that—why then, in the name
of common sense, leave it alone! Don't spend a
sixpence of that £l7,ooo—don't talk another instant
about an ornamental building, about stationary
engines, about three-fourths of an acre of gravel,
for the purposes of filtration. If the water is, as
Mr. HAWKSLEY declares it to be, " essentially
clear"—if it be, as he says it is, essentially " sweet"
—if it be, as he asserts it to be, essentially " in-
odorous,"—surely we have all there that we can
any of us want to have ! We have already
if we are to believe Mr. HAWKSLEY, we
have at this moment essentially clean-sweet-
inodorous water in the Serpentine. In which case,
we certainly can have no requirement whatever for
Mr. HAWKSLEY and his filter•beds, and his steam-
engines, and his pumping apparatus, and all his
exaggerated " much ado about nothing" in the
way of filtration and re-filtration. To go to th©
expense of £17,000 to clarify water that (to begin
with) is so perfectly diaphonous, would be about as
ludicrous as to "paint the lily," or to " gild refined
gold," according to that notion of SHAKSPERE'S.
In fact, Mr. HAWKSLEY proves too much. Yet,
as though all this were really not enough for his
purpose, in the event of self-stultification, he re-
commends those " excited " persons, as he imper-
tinently designates those who have the exceeding
temerity to dream of differing with him in opinion
in regard to a plan, the first and most certain
result of which is to put money into his own
pocket! He recommends those " excited " people
"to go to the house of the Royal Humane Society,
on the north bank of the Serpentine, there
borrow a glass or a bottle, take a boat and pull
off from the side, then (if their prejudices
allow them, for they need not be alarmed) view
taste, and smell the water ; afterwards filter some
of it through a piece of white blotting paper (this
can be obtained properly folded at any respectable
druggist's) ; put some that is filtered and some that
is unfiltered under a good working microscope, with
Dr. CARPENTER'S or some other standard work on
microscopic forms by their side ; evaporate a quart
or more of the water very slowly, and at a low
temperature, so as to bring down all the inorganic
salts and all the organic matter ; weigh the dry
residue in a small platinum crucible, ignite and
weigh again (the difference of the two weighings
will consist of organic matter and some gases
combined with the inorganic salts), and then"
[after all this and it pretty nearly takes
one's breath away to read a sentence that
has not yet come to an end], "and then,",-says
Mr. HAWKSLEY triumphantly, these excited
correspondents " will then, it may be, learn
what they do not seem to know, that neither sen-
sibly nor chemically is there much that is wrong
with the greatly abused water of the Serpentine,
and that the little that is wrong may be readily set
right by the simple process of filtration." So that
we are really and truly going to expend forthwith
£17,000 sterling (and we don't know how much
Purifying water that
sweet," so " in-
afterwards) for the purpose of i
is already so pure, so " clear," so
derous," so translucent altogether, that it is almost
a matter of impossibility to discover any impurity
in it whatever, by all sorts of chemical tests, and by

the most careful scrutiny under the lens of the

microscope !
Again, as additional evidence of the strangely
illogical intellect of Mr. T. HAWKSLEY, we find
him, a little further on in his letter—after remark-
ing that "the machinery will be noiseless and
smokeless" in FITZROY'S FOLLY at the head of the
Serpentine—we find Mr. HAWKSLEY, with astound-
ing coolness, immediately afterwards remarking
that—there will be nothing to hide ! What, then,
in reason, can possibly be the meaning of those pre-
vious words of his—" the machinery will be noise-
less and smokeless ?" He holds it out first
of all as a wonderful temptation that the fires
of the steam-engines will be concealed not
only from view but even from suspicion,
by their being without smoking, and that
the machinery set agoing there will be also
effectually concealed by being worked without
noise"—and yet he says quietly immediately after-
wards, " there will be nothing to hide." Yet it is
this curiously discourteous and illogical individual
who has been selected by Mr. FITZROY to preside
over that nasty temple of strainings, and drainings,
and rinsings, and puddlings in dirty water—now
about to disfigure the green expanse of Hyde Park
to increase the mortality of Bayswater, and to stir
up the now at any rate tranquil waters of that
stagnant lake of the Serpentine.

THE EARL OF ELGIN.—We understand that the
Earl of Elgin will be appointed to succeed Lord Canning,
who will shortly retire from the Governor-Generalship of
India. His lordship's visit to Calcutta, during the sepoy
revolt, eminently fits him for this important post.— China
Telegraph.
APPROACHING MARRIAGES IN HIGH LIFE.—A
marriage is on the tapis between Captain Duncan, of the
Life Gnards, and Miss Mills of Camelford House.—Lady
Agnes Graham, daughter of the Duke of Montrose, will
shortly be united to Captain Murray, of the Grenadier
Guards.—The Hon. Miss Cust, of South Audley-street,
will shortly be married.—The marriage of Miss Blake with
Colonel the Hon. James Macdonald is postponed until
September.—Court Journal.
THE GREAT EASTERN.—The works in this vessel
having been nearly completed, it appears the directors have
decided on allowing her to be inspected by the public daily
between the hours of 4 and 7 o'clock in the afternoon till
further notice.

The monster steam frigate built in America for
the Russian Government, on the lines of the United States
frigate Niagara, has arrived at Cronstadt from New York.
She is called the General Admiral, out of compliment to
the Grand Duke Constantine, who is at the head of the
Russian navy, and is not yet fitted as a ship of-war with
her formidable armament, but made the voyage from Ame-
rica freighted with a large and valuable cargo of cotton,
sarsaparilla, and other produce of the United States. She
drew too much water to enter the Baltic by the Sound, and
came through the Great Belt where the channel is con-
siderably deeper, though more dangerous, from the number
and extent of the sand-banks among the Danish Islands.
Messrs. J. Brunlees and E. B. Webb, CE., have
published a pamphlet suggesting a ship-railway instead of
the canal project of M. de Lesseps—that is, their plan is to
construct a railway between the two seas to carry the ships

GOOD NEWS FROM THE DIGGINGS.—A young man
named Watson, who emigrated frm Rochdale a short time
ago, writes to his friends from " Iron Bark Gully, Bendi-
go," in very glowing terms of his success. He says, " Dur
ing the last ten weeks we have taken no less than 2,400 ozs.
of gold ; one cake of which weighed 1,270 ozs., and was sold
to Mr. Geo. Andrews, of the Bank of Australasia, for £3
18s. 3d. per oz. It is the largest cake of amalgamated gold
that has ever been produced in the world. It was the re-
sult of 80 tons of quartz, exactly four days' work ; but it
took ten men three weeks to get."—Leeds Mercury.
LIVERPOOL, Saturday.—The Cunard steamer
America sailed to-day for Boston with the American mails
and 145 passengers, including the Hon. Mr. Pierce, late
President of the -United States. On Wednesday next the
screw steamer Indian will be despatched for Quebec with
the Canadian mails. The box of the post-office will be open
on that day till 11.15 a.m., with late fees till 11.45 a.m., and
on the landing stage till 12.30 p.m. The additional postage
at the latter place is Is., and must be prepaid in stamps.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION.—The British Association
for the Promotion of Science holds its anniversary meet-
ings this year at Aberdeen. The first meeting will be
opened by the Prince Consort, as president of the society,
on the 14th of September; and his Royal Highness has,
we understand, expressed his intention of being present
during the business of the first two days. Arrangements
have been made for holding an exhibition of ancient relics,
representative of historical facts and geological remains con-
nected with the north of Scotland ; and several concerts
are to be given in the new Music-hall which is to be
opened on this occasion.
Today, on the occasion of the Paris fetes, the
Emperor will grant pardon, or remission or commutation of
punishment, to 898 prisoners, whose conduct since their
detention has been remarkably good. 229 other persons,
condemned to various punishments, will also experience the
effects of his Majesty's clemency.
uo3l3loNS.—Lora Zritest Bruce has given notice that he
intends early next session to call the attention of the house

to the regulations now in force as to the admission—of
strangers below the bar of the house, whereby not only all
peers of Parliament, all Scotch and Irish peers not peers of
Parliament, but all their elder sons, are admitied as a mat-
ter of course, if there is room for them, in preference to the
sons of members of the House of Commons, for whom no
provision whatever is made, and who have no places what-
ever assigned to them in the House of Lords.

A DISTINGUISHED REGIMENT.—Among the Aus-
trian prisoners at Paris at this moment is one belonging to
a regiment which claims a singular privilege, that of en-
camping for three days, whenever they pass through Vienna,
in the court of the Emperor, and of receiving the most
regal entertainment. The colonel, upon his arrival, is
allowed by law to pass to the Emperor's chamber without
question, no one being permitted to stop him. He knocks
thrice, and demands orders of his Majesty, when the Em-
peror invites him and his to remain three days, regaling at
his expense in the palace, assigns the colonel a room next
his own, the standards of the regiment are piled at his door,
and a guard and lords in waiting; attend him the same as
the sovereign. The origin of the custom is this. In 1683
Leopold the First was suddenly waited upon by 16 barons,
with a charter which they were upon the point of forcing
him to sign, having, as they thought, secured the absence
of all the troops from Vienna, when suddenly a colonel, who
received information from a secret source—it was never dis-
covered whence—knocked at the door thrice, and, to the
great joy of the Emperor, demanded his Majesty's orders
for his regiment—which were, that the 16 barons should
be at once beheaded.—Court Journal.

ROYAL THAMES NATIONAL REGATTA.---This
grand metropolitan aquatic fete takes place this day at
Putney, beginning at two o'clock precisely. Thei e will be
some first-rate sport for the different races, which are—the
Champion Four-oared Race for £lOO, open to all the world
as also the Watermen's Scullers, and the Watermen's Ap-
prentices match for Coat, Badge, and Freedom, and money
prizes, these last being the gift of the now notorious Thames
Subscription Club. For the Champion Four-oared race
there are six entries—the famous Claspers, from Newcastle,
and the Manchester (Shakespeare) crew, contending against
four crews from the Thames, viz., one Hampton, one Rich-
mond, and two Hammersmith. For the Scullers' Race
there are 11 entries, including Kelly and Chambers, already
matched to row for the Championship of the Thames and
£2OO a side, Oxlade, Thomas Pocock, J. Chandler, of Ham-
mersmith, the two Mackinneys, Drewitt, Shepherd, Mancey
and Styles. The apprentices aro all above-bridge men. The
Maria Wood state barge has been specially hired for the
subscribers and the public, from which Sir James Duke,
Bart., will present the prizes to the winners after the race
The final grand heat of the Champion Four-oared Race
comes off to-morrow (Tuesday), at high-water, 4.30 p.m.
GOVERNMENT EMIGRATION.—The Government
emigrant vessel Shackamazon, 989 tons, Captain Teulon,
sailed from Liverpool on the 6th inst., for Moreton Bay,
with 329 emigrants, under charge of Surg.- Superintendent
Charles H. Gr.tham, M.D.

APOTHECARIES"-HALL.--The following are the
names of gentlemen who passed their examination in the
science and practice of medicine, and received certificates to
practise, on Thursday, the 11th of August :—Robert
Henry White, Leeds ; William Holt, Horbury, near Wake-
field ; William Thomas Winter, Bristol ; Henry James
Webb, Cheadle, Staifordshite ; Ebenezer Bucknill, Bed-
ford ; Gordon Sidney Richard Wells Smith; John Green,
Cawood ; William Freeman, Maldon, Essex. The follow-
ing gentlemen also on the same day passed their first exa-
mination:—John Warner, Finsbury-square; Frederick
Philip Phelps, Reading; Gabriel Manning Egle, Bar-
combe, Lewes ; Richard Orton, Manor-house, Baston,
Notts ; Frederick Fawson Lee, Salisbury ; John William
Bell, Hull School of Medicine; and James Bedthrd, Dud-
ley, Worcestershire.

THE BALLOT SOCIETY,—The weekly meeting of
the executive committee was held at the offices in Guildhall.
chambers on Thursday last—Mr. Passmore Edwards in
the chair. Mr. Whitehurst, Mr. Elt, Mr. Harrison, Mr.
Le Maitre, and Mr. Man were present. Reports were re-
ceived relative to the elections in progress and at hand, and
also as to the late elections under the ballot in the colonies
of New South Wales and South Australia. The following
resolution was agreed to :—" That this committee, con-
trasting the disclosures recently made before election com-
mittees of the corrupt influences prevalent at our elections
with the order purity, and freedom of the elections in those
colonies which have adopted the ballot, desire to call atten-
tion to the utter failure of the laws now in force to prevent
corrupt practices at elections, and to record their conviction
that if leading statesmen of both parties continue to oppose
the ballot, the only means of effectually checking the traffic
in votes, and the only security for the free choice of the
elector, they are taking a course calculated to injure the
character of our public men, by inducing a belief that
they are willing to perpetuate the existence of those evils
which deface our representative institutions and tend to
brillg them into contempt."
ARMY.—A return has been published of the
number of officers who, having entered the army since the
Ist day of January, 1841, were on the 2st day of January,
1859, holding the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel in
her Majesty's regiments of Foot Guards, and the number
of such in her Majesty's regiments of infantry of the Line ;
of battalions belonging to her Majest3's Foot Guards, and
of the number belonging to her Majesty's infantry of the
Line. In the Foot Guards the number of lieutenant-colo-
nels is 43 and the number of battalions 7 ; in the Line (in.
eluding Military Train, colonial corps, and depot battalions
having lieutenant-colonels), the number of lieutenant-colo-
nels is 28 and the number of battalions 164. Another re-
turn gives the number of officers who, having entered the
army since the Ist day of January, 1841, were on the Ist
day of January, 1859, holding the position of acting major
in her Majesty's regiments of Guards, and the number of
officers holding the rank of substantive lieutenant-colonel in
her Majesty's regiments of the Line (cavalry and infantry).
The items are as follow, viz. :—Acting majors of the Foot
Guards, 1; lieutenant-colonels of cavalry of the Line, 3 ;
lieutenant-colonels of infantry of the Line, including the
Military Train, colonial corps, and depot battalions, 28
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THE SUN.
MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1859.