The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-04 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The authorities at the Horse Guards having de-
cided on forming a battalion at Devonport coin-
posed of the depots of those regiments which are
now in England having just returned from India,
the depots of the Ist battalion of the 10th Regi-
ment, and the 32d Light Infantry, have already
been removed to that station, and the depot com-
panies of the 29th Regiment, now encamped at
Chatham, -will vacate the tents at that garrison this
morning, and proceed direct to Plymouth to aug-
ment the battalion. The head-quarters of each of
the above regiments have recently returned from
India. By the proposed arrangement the depots of
each of the British regiments will not be attached
to the head-quarters of their respective corps, the
whole forming a separate battalion, similar in all
respects to the Indian depot battalion formed at
Chatham and some other garrisons.
The head-quarters of the 29th Regiment, num-
bering 403 rank and file, arrives at Preston, in
Lancashire, on Friday. This regiment left Eng-
land early in 1842, took part in the campaign on
the Sutlej in 1845-6, and greatly distinguished it-
self in the battles of Fctozeshah and Sobraon. It
also took an honourable part in the whole of the
Punjab campaign of 1848-9, and was present at the
forcing of the passage of the Chenah at INruzeera-
bad, and the battles of Chillianwallah and Gooje-
rat. The regiment escaped the carnage of the
Indian mutiny, in consequence of one wing being
stationed at Calcutta during the outbreak of the
Sepoy troops, and the other wing being at Burmah
at the time.

The 16th Lancers left Piershill Barracks, Edin-
burgh, last week, in successive divisions, and
marched by easy stages to Leeds. They are to be
replaced at Piershill and Hamilton by the 13th
Light Dragoons, who aro expected to arrive from
Ireland this week.

The head-quarters of the 9th Royal Lancers, con-
sisting of four troops, arrived at the St. David's
station, Exeter, from Portsmouth, on Saturday
evening. The men left Portsmouth at half-past
eight o'clock in the morning, and it was expected
that they would have arrived in Exeter early in
the afternoon. With the view of giving this dis-
tinguished corps a hearty, popular welcome, the
members of the Exeter Rifle Companies, under the
command of Adjutant Macdonald, mustered in the
Castle-yard, and m arched to the railway station,
preceded by the band of the First Devon Militia.
The band of the First Devon Yeomanry Cavalry
was also in attendance at the station. Several thou-
sands of people were present in eager expectation
of the arrival of the soldiers ; but they had to wait
from two o'clock in the afternoon until seven in the
evening. By that time the platform of the St.
David's Station was crowded by the officers of the
depot of the 9th Lancers (which has been for a long
time stationed at the Exeter Barracks), the mem-
bers of the Exeter Rifle Companies, the two bands,
and a number of civilians. Outside the station
there was an immense concourse of people. On the
arrival of the train, its gallant occupants were
greeted by shouts of applause, again and again re-
peated, from the persons on the platform ; and the
bands struck up appropriate military airs. The
officers of the depot having warmly greeted their
comrades, the men were drawn up in line on the
platform, and the muster-roll having been called,
they marched out of the statioa for the Topsham
Barracks. The road from the station to Queen-street
was crowded by thousands of enthusiastic specta-
tors, who lustily cheered the gallant fellows as they
marched along. In Queen-street it was with diffi-
culty that the men could pass, so great was the
erowd. From almost every window signs of wel-
come were exhibited, and waving of handkerchiefs,
loud huzzas, and words of kindly feeling, were seen
and heard in every street through which the men
passed to the barracks. Some of the veterans of
the regiment (but they were very few in number)
had, we understand, left the Exeter Barracks for
India 18 years ago.
Yesterday the B battery of the Royal Horse Ar-
tillery, under the command of Capt. Paget, which
has been stationed in Aldershott Camp during the
summer months, arrived in Colchester on the way
to Ipswich. To do honour to this branch of the
service the entire strength of the Colchester camp
turned out and marched some miles into the coun-
try to meet the Artillery. There were 3,000 men
under arms and in full marching order, consisting
of the 9th and 10th Depot Battalions, under Lieut.-
Col. Dixon, C. 8., and Lieut.-Col. Street, C.B. ; the
Essex Rifle Militia, under Lieut.-Col. Kelley ' • and
the City of Dublin Militia Artillery, under Col. the
Hon. R. Handcock. On their return march the
Artillery occupied the central position, and the ap-
pearance of so formidable a force attracted a large
concourse of spectators. The battery will reach its
destination this (Tuesday) morning.
Yesterday morning the volunteers from the Cha-
tham division of Royal Marine Light Infantry, for
the Royal Marine Artillery, who were inspected on
Saturday afternoon by Major-Gen. S. R. Wesley,
the Deputy Adjutant General, and approved by
him, left head-quarters and proceeded to Ports-
mouth to join that division. A detachment of 40
non-commissioned officers and men of the Royal
Marines also left head-quarters at the same time
for Portsmouth, to be in readiness for embarkation
in the ships recently commissioned.
A garrison court-martial assembled during the
latter portion of last week, at the Royal Artillery
Barracks, Woolwick, Lieut.-Colonel Franklyn,
Royal Artillery, president, for the trial of five
privates of the depot brigade, R.A., on charges of
desertion, some of which were attended with cir-
cumstances of an aggravated nature. The first

prisoner, named Bishop, a gunner of the depot,
apparently irreclaimable, had deserted on a former
occasion, and had only been liberated from prison
14 or 15 days. On the day after his return to
barracks he was furnished with a new kit, and
was ordered to recommence duty, when he was
heard to swear that " in spite of the cat, or any
other punishment, he would make himself too hot
for the service." In the evening he made off to the
town and sold his necessaries. When brought back
to quarters by tke picket he behaved in a most in-
subordinate manner. The second prisoner, named
Hopkins, four years in the service, was also picked
up. in the town in company with the first-named
prisoner, and vowed as he had no relish for the ser-
vice, no amount of coercion should induce him to
rejoin, as his mind was made up to desert. The third,
named Marsden, wail captured in Maidstone by the
police, after having disposed of the whole of his
equipments. The fourth, named Allen, was captured
in London, having been recognised as a deserter.
The fifth, named Hayward, a driver in the depot,
was retaken in Wales, after having made away
with his entire outfit of linen, &c, His valise was
found refilled t ith straw. The whole of the pri-
soners were sentenced to be flogged, and to be,im-
prisoned in Fort Clarence, or one of her Majesty's
gaols, for the term of 56 days, with the exception of
Marsden, whose term of confinement was ordered
to be 84 days. The sentence was read by the adju-
tant of the corps on public parade, in the presence
of the whole available force of the depot. After the
promulgation of the sentence pronounced by the
court-martial, it was further announced that Gen.
Dacres, commanding the garrison, according to
powers with which he had been intrusted, had been
pleased to remit in each individual case the punish-
ment of the lash, but the imprisonment would be
rigidly carried out. The prisoners were yesterday
morning transferred to Fort Clarence.
Col. Tulloh, superintendent of the Royal Carriage
Department of Woolwich Arsenal, was yesterday
granted leave of absence by the War Department,
at his solicitation, in order to recruit his health, and
Major Clerk, second in command, was ordered to
undertake the direction of the department until
further orders.

TILE STRIKE.

From information obtained in the course of yes-
terday in quarters the most trustworthy it is now
beyond a doubt that the strike, taking a fresh start
from recent events, is beginning to assume a new
phase, decidedly against the interests of the masters,
and placing the inveterate obstinacy and determina-
tion of the men in a still stronger light. Until now,
with a trifling and irregular exception, the contest
Was confined within the limits of the metropolitan
postal area, but the emissaries of the Paviors' Arms
Convention have at length crossed the Ticino, so to
speak, and are now preparing to engage the enemy
on entire:y new ground. " War to the knife !"
was the phrase used yesterday by a man who has
taken a conspicuous part in the movement from the
beginning to symholise the course of action which
the members of the Conference are now resolved to
pursue. And amonc, them, at least, however other-
wise it may be with the masters' executive com-
mittee, there is no halting or want of unanimity.
Keeping for the moment the nine hours' movement
in abeyance, they are content to fight the masters
simply on the question of " the odious document,"
being shrewd enough to perceive long ago that
their resistance to the employers on that point,
irrespective of its merits in their own eyes, has
attracted an amount of popular sympathy never
accorded to their original demand. The defec-
tion of the operative masons, since the failure
of their recent attempt at mediation with the
masters, is now more apparent than real. Indeed,
an impetus and a life have been communicated
to their policy since they took up the quarrel on j
their " own hook," which it never assumed so long I
as theiradhesion to the Strike remained unsanctioned
and unsustained by the society at large to which
they belong. Divided from the Conference, but
only in appearance, by a recent misunderstanding,
they may now be said to fight under the same ban-
ner and with a prestige unknown to their previous
course of action. Samuel Northam, the chairman of
their central committee, and Richard Harnett their
general secretary, returned on Saturday to Bristol,
their " seat of Government," as they call that city,
with the full intention of using all their influence
with the members of the society at large, some
10,000 in number, to enlist their sympathies with
their brethren on strike ; and it was understood
that a communication would arrive yesterday even-
ing in London from liarnott to be laid before the
meeting of the Committee of Masters, to he held this
day, to the effect that in the event of their not agree-
ing, befo4.e separating, to abandon the declaration,
the whole of the society masons engaged under any
of the members of the Central Association at build-
ing operations in the country, beyond the metropo-
litan postal district, will forthwith he " called off,"
to use the expression in vogue among society men.
Some, however, say that this is more intended as a
menace than as indicating a course of action which
the masons' executive committee are prepared to re-
commend and to carry into actual practice. ,Time
will show. Be this as' it may, the Paviors' -Arms
Committee are influenced by no scruples of con-
science in that matter, for they have already deter-
mined to have recourse to a similar policy, and have
absolutely begun to give practical effect to it, sing-
ling out Mr. Myers as one of their first victims.
At Woking, where he has betwc en 100 and 200
men at work in the erection of a prison for invalid
convicts, an attempt was made on Friday by some
emissaries from the Paviors Arms to decoy them
away, but, the police having interfered, the endea-
vour was abandoned for the time. Yesterday, how-
ever, it was reported to the committee at the Paviors
Arms that 40 or 50 of the men there had left off
work and come to London ; and, moreover, that
about 30 more in the employ of Messrs. Mansfield
and Son, of Henry-street, Gray's-inn-road, in the
erection of a large mansion in Hertfordshire, had
struck work and returned to town. The committee,
it is also said, are about to call offal! the men in the
sbrvice of Messrs. Jackson and Shaw, at their
various jobs at Tunbridge Wells, Brighton, and in
other parts of the country, unless they consent to
the unconditional withdrawal of the declaration
among the men at work at the church and monas-
tery they are now building at Notting-hill, and at
other of their operations within the postal district.
They are likewise understood to have designs upon
the fidelity of the men employed under Mr. Myers
at Netley Abbey.
This new line of action on the part of the Con-
ference cuts two ways, and that is a circumstance they
have possibly overlooked. Aimed at a vulnerable
point in the harness of the masters, it will have a sui-
cidal reaction against themselves, for, supposing
them successful in drawing away the whole or the
greater part of the hands now in the employ of the
associated masters at works beyond the metropolitan
postal district. they immediately convert some
thousands of men from being contributors to reci-
pients of the fund raised weekly for the support of
the men on strike; in other words, they will have
to sustain an augmented charge with a diminished
exchequer. Nothing, as the event has proved,

could well have been more ill-advised or indiscreet
than the high-handed manner in which the Com-
mittee of Masters on Tuesday last rejected the
offer of reconciliation madc to them by the Confer-
ence. To the merits of that proposal allusion is
not now made, but to the contemptuous mode in

which it was treated, characterised 'as that was by
an utter want of tact, and calculated still further

to estrange men already sufficiently far alienated
by this unhappy contest. Forgetting that they
themselves were a body deriving, like the Confer-
ence, a temporary status from the same great emer-
gency, they twitted them with being an irrespon-
sible conclave, whose proceedings were illegal and
with whom they could have nothing to do. This
may have been simply true, but mark the result of
the ill-timed sally, The Conference immediately
appealed against the charge to the great body of
working men in the building trades, convened for
the express purpose at a large public meeting, who,
as a matter of course--for they are extremely popu-
lar with their own class—endorsed all their pro-
ceedings by an unanimous vote of confidence ; and,
taking new courage from fresh contact with their
constituents, the Conference thenceforth continues
the agitation with greater vigour and audacity than
before. It ought to be stated on behalf of the mas-
ters' committee that they allege in justification of
their refusal to negotiate with the Conference acts
of treachery on the part of that body in previous
dealings with them.
Yesterday the Conference declared another divi-
dend for the week of 4s. a man to the whole of the
operatives still remaining on strike, and, as usual,
12s. skilled and Bs. unskilled to each of the men
who struck work at Messrs. Trollopes'. The ag-
gregate sum divided was £1,291 4s. among 6,240
men. The amount was £37 less than that paid
away on the previous w?,ek, and the recipients were
fewer in number by 214. The result shows that,
though the recipients of the fund are becoming less
week by week, 6,240 men still continue firm in
their refusal to work under the masters' declara-
tion. It proves, however, that whereas 214 men'

Masons
Bricklayers
Carpenters ..
Painters ..
Plasterers
Stone sawyers ..
Woolwich men ..
Labourers —Lodge 1

6,20 £1291 8 0
This dividend is in addition to the weekly allow-
ance which the men on strike receive from their
various trade societies, and which varies from ss. to
12s.

The operative masons have commenced a stringent
system of surveillance over the members of their
own craft in the country, with the view to prevent
them coming to London to fill the places of the men
on strike. They have put emissaries on the track
of agents of the masters who are beating the court-
! try for masons in Devonshire and other parts, and
they have " scouts " at all the railway stations in
the metropolis watching the arrival of every train,
and noting such of the passengers as appear to he-
long to their own order. Men in the country, it is
said, are brought up to London to work under the
erroneous belief, founded on statements of the agents
of the masters, made verbally and in the local
papers, that the declaration had been withdrawn.
Yesterday and on Sunday a successful attempt
was made by the masons' committee to tamper
with a batch of masons-18 or 20 in number—
brought from Tavistock late on Saturday evening
by NU.. Robjohn, an agent of Messrs. Piper, in
Bishopsgate-street. Intelligence of their arrival had
been conveyed to the Sun Tavern, in Lambeth, the
meeting place of the masons, and thereupon a lead-
ing member of the body proceeded in quest of them.
He met the party, it is said, leaving a place of re-
freshment in Smithfield-market, in company of Mr.
Robjohn, towards midnight, and dogged him to a
private house in Luard-street, Islington, in spite of
the remonstrances of Mr. Robjohn, and an appeal
by him to a passing policeman, who on hearing the
circumstances, did not think he was justified in in-
terfeiing. From the house in Luard-street they
were traced during the night to a'reoffee-shop in
Maiden-lane, King's-cross, and there on Sunday
morning and yesterday the influence of the society
men was brought to bear on them, the result being
that 16, at least, of them, if not more, refused to
work at Messrs. Piper's.
The meeting of the masters' committee to-day
(Tuesday) is looked to with much interest. It is
supposed that had the masons evinced a disposition
to revise their laws and by-laws, and to expunge
the more obnoxious portions of them, the committee
would probably have forgane the declaration is
their case. But the masons are inflexible on that
point, and the masters equally take their stand
upon it, and insist on the reasonableness of requir-
ing that the masons' trade customs and regulations,
and notably those relating to working overtime and
piecework, shall be made comformable to the spirit
of the law of the land, and in harmony with the
perfect freedom of the workmen themselves.
Money continues to flow into the exchequer at
the Pavior's Arms to a considerable amount. Among
the donations received yesterday were £lOO from
the Shipwrights' Society of the port of London,
and £lO from the Liverpool plasterers.
Mr. Ayrton, M.P. for the Tower Hamlets, had
an interview yesterday with Mr. Potter, the Se-
cretary to the Conference, at the Paviors' Arms,
with a view to a mediation, it is understood, be-
tween the masters and men, but the result, if any,
did not transpire.

NEWSPAPER
111.-7.0.
11V1P0417,
, -
- -.(. ,Z,' cr^.. it,. -•,, P
- - ..1......, ..% ~
~ ft) --'',',.,
f appear to h found work last we.. ~.. -- i',-.1 ...,,,
../4
, :500 did so in the week previous ; in :',„.j..-.4-77;,iie ;74,
that during the last week the men s.. -1-4:-‘77'.-LNAKA.-
ingly less signs of- flinching than on the pziital, S
il
one. The total number of persons who have cease
during the last three weeks to be recipients of the
fund dispensed at the Parlors' Arms is 736, of whom
21 dropped off on the first of the three weeks, 501
on the second, and 214 on the third. Subjoined is
the official return, showing the manner in which
the money was distributed yesterday :
.£ s. d.
410 82 0 0
740 143 0 0
1,923 334 12 0
133 27 12 0
649 123 0 0
72 14 8 0
176 30 4 0
320 64 0 0
2 .. 197 39 8 0
3 .. 168 33 12 0
4 .. , 265 53 0 0
5 .. 81 16 4 0
6 .. 419 83 16 0
7 .. . 150 30 0 0.
8 ... 82 6 8 0
” 9 .. 319 63 16 0
.
„ 10 .. 150 30 0 0
„ 11 (paid with Woolwich men)
„ 12 .. 22 4 8 0
„ 13 .. 9 1 16 0
Trollo'pe's men .. .. 50 0 0