The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-19 00:00:00

7i7
• 9
NEWSPAPER
z -
.• e-re iteeee ,
"4:g;o0k 7 11 4Lt fa -f 7 r
• #
The d.i.vieion of rile 3,1 re- "
et,
• I I;ll,.ilie G r uardi will leave Peer :v. oelf %
44r4
•
- • • I I
i•P
I this morning for London, and he-e'eT;L:*.k;
• t. 1 #
- follow them on the 20th.. They w kerstiCeeei.ll
in garrison quarters at Portsmouth hlrNhe -Mort
Lincoln Militia, who will arrive on Saturday.. .
The` au'horities connected with the medical de•
partinent of the army having decided on baying an
additional' number of medical officers stationed
- Chatham, in order that they may be In readiness.
to embark for India immediately their cervices are
required, the following officers have been directed
to be attached to the medical staff, and will 'per
form duty in the Garrison hospital,—viz , Assistant,
Surgeons Massy, Patterson, Jameson, Warren,
' Perry, Johns, Peppen, and Dohan.
The Brilliant, 20, at Chatham, is to be put out
of commission, and, owing to the short time since
she was commissioned, the officers and crew will
be transferred to -the Racoon, 22, screw steam cor-
vette, at Chatham, Captain J. A. Paynter (1856)
being appointed to the command.
The Heron, 12, sloop, Commander W. H. True-
cott, fitting at Chatham for the Coast of Africa, is
ready for sea, and is under orders to leave on Mon-
day next.
The Gannet, 10, screw steam sloop, is to be
launched on the 2d Dec. at Pembroke dockyard.
She is in a very forward state.
The court-martial held last week at the Royal
Mar;ne Garrison, Woolwich, for the trial of First-'
Lieutenant Albert Wappel Sharp, of the Woolwich
division of Royal Marine Light Infantry,- ors
charges of insubordinate and un-officer-like con-
duct, reassembled yesterday morning, when the
sentence of the Court, approved and confirmed
by the Admiralty, was read by Lieutenant and
Adjutant Fraser, the officiating Judge-Advocate,
to the following effect :—Firs.---That First-Lieu-
tenant A. W. Sharp; of the Woolwich division of
Royal Marine Light Infantry, was ace used of
falsely stating to his commanding officer, Colonel,
J. T. Brown, of the Woolwich divisiou'of Royal
Marine Light Infantry, when submitting. to him a
request for leave of absence on the afternoon of
Oct. 17, 1857, thatkie accounts with the mess and.
the messman were up; and for declaring upon
his honour on the morning of the 18th that such •
was a' true statement, at w bidittime -a mina of 4U.
ss. 21, or thereabouts, was due from him to Com-
pany Sergeant C. Demorr, officers' messman of the
division, on account of massing and other items ;
2d, for absenting himself from duty and parade
without' leave from his commanding officer on the
morning of Oct. 19, he having been previously re-
fused leave of absence; it appeariog that the Court
having found the prisoner not guilty on the first
charge, and guilty on the second, thecommissioners
do confirm the sentence, ordering First-Lieut. A.
W: Sharp to be severely reprimanded and released
from arrest.
Two courts-martial are ordered to be held this
day on board H.M. ship St. Vincent, Captain H.
Eyres, C. 8., in Portsmouth harbour. The first is
on Lieut. R. Bradshaw, of H.M. ship Juno. The
charge is :
" That be did on board the said ship, on or about
Feb. 10, 1857, sleep upon his watch, and negli-
gently perform his duty while officer of the watch
and in charge of the said ship, lying in an exposed
anchorage, where the utmost vigilance was essen-
tial."
The second is on Mr. R. C. Drewe, late acting
master of H.M. ship Juno, on two charges :
"1. For that he did, on board the said ship, on
or about Feb. 10, 1857, negligently perform
_his
duty and forsake his station.
"2. That he did, on board the said ship, on or
about Feb. 10, 1857, conduct himself with disre-
spect towards Capt. S. G. Freemantle. the com-
manding officer,- by justifying his neglect of duty,
and refusing to receive a reprimand from his said
commanding officer, which he had justly incurred."
The iron screw steamvessel Sharpshooter 8, has
been commissioned at Portsmouth by Lieut. C.
Gibbon. She is to bs manned from the depot of
"general service" men on board the Victory, of
whom that ship has several hundred on her books.
The St. Vincent and the Blenheim are also over-
crowded with them, so that the commissioning of
any squadron would be easy just now.
The Caesar, 91, screw steam two-decker, was yes-
terday taken into the dock vacated by the Algierr,
sister ship. They are fitting with all despatch for
commission if required.
A general court-martial, of which Lieut.-Col.
Jeffreys, C. was president, and Major. M. Adye,
R.A., Deputy Judge-Advocate, assembled at Win-
chester on the 16th inst. for the trial of Lieutenant
S. C. Matthews, of the 31st Regiment, upon a
charge of absenting himself from his corps for a
lengthened period without leave from his com-
manding officer. The result will not be known
until the sentence has been approved by the Queen.

[PRIM; 4D. STAMPED 5 .]

REOABTING OF THE TVEMIINSTEIi

BELL.

We find that the statement which appeared in
these columns yesterday respecting the recasting of
this bell is incorrect in several respects. In mat-
ters of this kind, of course, we have to depend on
information which sometimes turns out to be merely
premature gossip, and sometimes more than pre-
mature. We have now authentic information that
until the evening before that paragraph appeared
nothing had been settled about the recasting of the
bell. Professor Faraday never was a comuiissioner
respecting it, having stated that he had paid no at-
tention to the, subject of bellfounding. Professor
Wheatstone, though nominated in the first instance
with Mr. Denison and the Rev. W. Taylor, never
acted ; the hell'will not be recast by Messrs. War-
ner, and it will not be of the same dimensions as
before. Some new light has been thrown upon the
cause of the fracture within the last few days, which
is not without bearing on the other proceedings.
Mr. Denison told the. First Commissioner of Works
immediately after the accident that he had no
doubt, from a comparision of the weight of the bell
with the others subsequently cast from the patterns,
that it would be' found to be much thicker in the
middle or wa;st than it ought to have been accord-
ing to his drawings, and that this undue thickness
was the reason.why such a heavy clapper had been
required to bring out the full sound ; and that the
bell had been broken by ringing it with such a
clapper which the sound-bow, or striking past of
the bell, was not calculated to bear. It has been
stated before that the bell was generally. thicker
than Mr. Denison intended, and two tons generally..
and half a note. higher ;„tiut it was. supposed
first, from measuring the sound bow and the top,
that the thickness had only been increased pro-
portionately throughout, and only to an extent
which would have done no harm. In order to test
the accuracy of this new hypothesis in the most
certain way some holes have now been bored through
the waist of the bell, and it is found to be no less
than 5g inches thick where Mr. Denison's design
prescribed only 4i. This at once accounts for the
fracture—at least in the opinion of both the re-
ferees, as stated to Sir B. Hall—by accounting
for the unusually large clapper which was re-
quired, more especially as the fourth quarter bell,
which is nearly as large as the great bells of Lin-
coln and St. Paul's, and is cast according to the
prescribed pattern, and comes out the intended
weight and note, sounds freely under a compara-
tively small hammer.

So much for the death of Big Ben. The reason
why his former creators are not to have the reputa-
tion of bringing him to life again is simply that
they asked a price for doing so which was thought
unreasonable, even without regard to the circum-
stance above stated. It was therefore determined
to receive other tenders, and the result is that Mr.
Mears's tender is accepted, who offers to recast the
bell in three months, on the same conditions as to
inspection and certificates and analysis as on the
former occasion, and at :a price which will probably
not much exceed 6001., as the weight of the bell will
now be reduced to what was originally intended,
and the diameter to 9 feet, in order to reproduce
the same note with the thickness reduced to the
proper amount. It may be added that the cost of
th 3 bells, even with this extra expense, will not ex-
ceed the sum already voted by Parliament for them,
as the work had thus far been done considerably
within the estimate. It is most fortuuate that the
bell was rung frequently before it went up, as this
accident would have been a very much more serious
affair, bath in cost and disappointment, if it had
happened after the bell was up and the clock fixed
under it and over the shaft up which the bell must

- There was a slight inaccuracy in our longer notice
yesterday of the clock tower and clock. The de-
scription of the clock there referred to is not given
in the second edition of the "Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica" itself, but in two of Mr. Denison's articles
therein lately republished under the title of " Clocks
and Locks," from which our information was in a
great measure derived. It is expected, moreover,
that the new bell, requiring a smaller hamnler, will
save the neces3ity of winding the clock by water,
as there described. If so, the fracture of the old
one will have been a very profitable accident.—
Times.