The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-27 00:00:00

LONDONS WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 7, 1857.

GREAT-WESTERN RAILWAY.-NOTICE.
On MONDAY, June let, the Branch Line between TIVY-
FORD and HENLEY will be Opened for Public Traffic.—For par-
ticulars of Trains, &c., see the Company's time bills.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.
RETURN TICKETS to all Stations taken on SATURDAY,
May 30th, and intermediate days, will be available up to and in-
cluding Tuesday, June 2d.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.-
WHITSUNTIDE UOLlDATS.—Excursion to Liverpool,
Birkenhead, Chester, Llangollen Road, Shrewsbury, Wellington,
Wolverhampton, Elision, Wedueshury, West Bromwich, :and Bir-
mingham. —A Train will leave Paddington, on Saturday, May 30th,
at 12.30 Noon, returning on Wednesday, June 30, from Liverpool
(Lauding Stage), at 7.30 a.m., And intermediate stations as per hand-
bills. Fares —Birmingham, I2s. and 7s. ; West Bromwich, Wednes-
bury, and Bilston, 12s. 60. and Is. 60. ; Wolverhampton, 13s. and
Bs. Od. ; Shrewsbury and Wellington, 17s. and 10s. ; Llangollen-
road and Chester, 18s. 6d. and 1 Is. ; Birkenhead and Liverpool, 21s.
and 12s. 6d. A single package only allowed to each passenger.
Tickets not transferable, and only available for the Excursion Train.
Trains to the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition run both from
Chester and Liverpool.
•

THE OTTOMANtoRmAIDI,INWY from SMYRNA

Capital 1,200,0001..
Divided into 60,000 Shares of 201., or 2,500 piastres each.
A minimum dividend of 6/. per cent, per annum guaranteed
by the Sublime Porte.
Deposit 1/, per share. Calls of not more than 2'. ea:eh, at
intervals of not less than three months. No liability _what-
ever incurred beyond the amount actually paid on deposit
and on sans as made.
Shares to bearer.

i.laval and Illiiitary inteitganue.

The Royal Commission for inquiring into pur-
chase in the army met yesterday at No. 1, White-
hall-yard. The. Duke of Somerset presided. The
other commissioners present were—the Right Hon.
S. Herbert, Lord Stanley, Gen. Sir De Lacy Evans,
Gen. Sir H. Bentinck, the Right Hon. E. Ellice,
Gen. Wynyard, and Mr. G. Carr Glynn. His
Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge attended
before the commission.

Admiral Sir G. Seymour, K,C.8., Commander-
in-Chief at Portsmouth, was expected to return
from leave yesterday evening before sunset ; and,
having in the interim been promoted from Vice-
Admiral of the Red to be Admiral of the Blue
Squadron of her Majesty's Fleet, to hoist that flag
on board the Victory, where it would be duly
saluted by the second- in command (Rear-Admiral
Martit.), and all the ships on the station (except
those under the " ordinary" flag) would change
their ensigns and pendants from red to blue ac-

cordingly.
The Admiralty State yacht Osborne, Master-
Commander Bower, K.. C.H., steamed out of Ports-
mouth harbour yesterday, at 1 15 p.m., for Cher-
bourg, to receive his imperial Highness the Grand
Duke Constantine of Russia, and bring him to Os-
borne, where lie is expected to arrive about 3 ID. In.
on Friday next.
The Hastings, 00, screw blookship, Captain C.
B. Mends, C. 8., up-/te.trn on Mon-
' day evening alongside the dooVard Nitsnaouth
to test her engines. She will drop out to Spithead
it is expected, to-morrow.
The Melville, 72, hospital ship, Commander.
Trollope, will leave the dock to day at Portsmouth
and probably drop out to Spithead to-morrow.
The Princess Charlotte three-decker barrack ship,
Captain King, C. 8., will not be out of the duck-
yard hands at Portsmouth until the 20th proximo.

- The Volcano _steam factory vessel, f(►r China,
Master-Commander Hockley, went out of harbour
and anchored at Spithead yesterday.
The merchant steam freight ship Cleopatra has
been taken up by the Admiralty for the convey-
ance of a part of the 23d Royal Welsh Fusiliers
from Portsmouth to China.

The Mauritius steam freight ship has been taken
up to convey a portion of the 93d Highlanders
from Portsmouth to China; the remainder of the
regiment go out in her Majesty's ship Belleisle, 72,
now at Plymouth.
A letter from her Majesty's screw sloop Cruizer,
Commander C. Fellowes, on her pa: sue from Eng_
land to China, dated " At Sea, March 23, 1857, in
lat. 18 56 S., long. 103 28 E"' gives the following :
" We have made a long and tedious passage of
it. On the 29th of this month we shall have been
six months from Falmouth ! We are now 700 miles
from the Straits of Sunda, and we hope to be at
Singapore in another week. At present we are
rattling along at 11 and 12 knots, with a strong,
trade wind (S.E.) Coming out we touched at Tene-
rifle, sighted Pernambuco, and were thus detained
five weeks at Rio, repairing the damages which we
sustained from a collision outside there a few hours
before we reached that port. Ou the 18th of Jan.
we reached the Cape, gunboats in company ; we
towed them nearly the whole way from England.
On the 23d, having refitted and provisioned, we
again made a start, but a very unfortunate one, as
we lost sight of two of the gunboats a few hours
after we had left. We then proceeded to the ren-
dezvous in the hopes of picking them up, but after
a week's knocking about we were still doomed to
disappointment. A fortnight 'ago, finding our re-
maining gunboat a great drawback to our progress,
we parted company with her also. They are all
very fine seaboats, and have had ample means of
proving it."
"Singapore, Sunday, April s.—We reached this
yesterday, and have orders to go to Hong Kong
without delay."
The Agamemnon arrived at Sheerness yesterday
at 3.30 p.m., and proceeded to Saltpan-reach. She
steamed round from the river Thames, and came
into harbour over a strong ebb tide in first-rate
style.

TRANSPORTATION AND PRISON DIS-

UI PLISE.

The third adjourned meeting was held at the
Mansion-house at 1 o'clock yesterday, the Lord
Mayor presiding. The attendance, although a little
more numerous than at the last sitting, filled only
a small portion of the Egyptian Hall ; and. the dis-
cussion, although perhaps somewhat less desultory
than that which occurred on tee 18th inst., entirely
lacked the interet derivable from a succession of
new speakers.
Mr. Gneeit, M.P., again gave in his adhesion to
Mr. C. Pearson's plan of prison discipline, while
Mr. LAMAITRE propounded a scheme of his own,
by which the profits of the convict's labour should
be divided into three, equal portions, the first of
which should go to support the gaol in which he is
confined, the second be applied to his own suste-
nance, and the third be given as a restitution to the
victims of his fraud or theft. To check the gigantic
railway and banking defalcations, by which so many
unhappy shareholders have recently suffered, Mr.
Lemaitre also suggested the establishment of a
board of public censors with power to make delin-
quent managers and directors disgorge their ill-
gotten wealth. The counter-project was at first
treated by the chairman and the meeting as being.
rather a supplement than a rival of Mr. Pearson's
plan ; but it was ultimately got rid of by a promise
that it should be considered in committee.
Mr. W. K. BALL, who lately returned from a
sojourn of 17 years in the colonies, gave it as his
decided opinion, _that so great is the demand for
labour in New South Wales its inhabitants would
gladly receive a large number of our convicts after
they had undergone a proper probationary training.
Sir. T. TANCRED reiterated his views respecting
the separation of reformation from punishment,
and accused Mr. Pearson of omitting the punitive
element from his prison system. The hon. baronet
else remarked, that having a plan of his own on
this subject, he and Mr. Pearson might be regarded
as " two of a trade," but he did not go on to quote
that part of the proverb which defines the relations
usually subsisting between persons so situated. The
speaker was proceeding to enforce the principle
that as a preliminary to the process of his own
reclamation the offender should undergo a definite
punishment pronounced by the sentence of a judge
when the impatience of the meeting compelled him
to desist.
After a few words from Mr. ROWE,
Mr. C. PEARSON rose to reply, promising to con-
fine himself within the limits of one hour. He
sketched the details and estimates incident to his
scheme as submitted to the committee of the House
of Commons six or seven years ago. Plans and
specifications of his proposed prisons had, be said,
been laid before that committee by Mr. Stephens,
the eminent architect, and endorsed by Mr. Tite,
M.P. He computed that the total cost of erecting,
by free labour, a prison for 1,000 prisoners, accord-
ing to his system, including land purchase, build-
ings, and enclosing wall, would not exceed
80,0001., or 801. per prisoner : whereas the cost of
Pentonville Prison was 1701. per prisoner ; that
of Reading gaol, 2001. per prisoner ; Milbank,
5121. per prisoner : and York Prison even as high
as 1,2001. per prisoner. Col. Jebb, Inspector-Gene-
ral of Prisons, had admitted the accuracy of this
calculation, while Col. Chesterton, who had been
governor of Coldbath-fields Prison for 25 years,
also bore strong testimony to the merits of the
scheme. Moreover, one of the first contractors of
the day was prepared, on his own responsibility, to
buy the land, construct the wall and building, and
also to manage the prison, subject to Government
discipline, on condition that he received 61. per
annum for each of the prisoners, in addition to the
profits accruing from their labour. Mr. Pearson
estimated the annual charge of food and clothing
for 1,000 prisoners at 9,5501., while a further sum
of 4,0001. would provide for the salaries of 100
officers to watch over them. The earnings of
1,000 prisoners would average about 16,0001.
per annum. Having dilated -upon the salutary
influence of labour sentences in making con-
victs the voluntary instruments of their own
maintenance, reformation, and release, and avowed
his belief that our various colonies would actually
compete with each other fur a class of emi-
grants who had undergone such an ordeal, Mr.
Pearson concluded by moving a resolution affirm-
ing that the Secretary of State for the Home De-
partment should be empowered to substitute, in
certain ewes, a proportionate number of hours of
work, instead of fixed periods of imprisonment and
transportation.
This and other propositions embodying Mr.
Pearson'a views were unanimously adopted, and a
coramitee appointed to take meisures for subject-
ing them to the test of experiment.
A vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor ultimately
brought thew protracted deliberations to a clofse.

THE DERBY-D:ZIY.

" Wednesday next," said the genial Viscount
last week, with that elastic gaiety which a weight
of seventy years has not repressed, and which has
done so much to make him a general favourite with
his countrymen—" Wednesday next is the day of
our Isthmian Games." The Pindaric anniversary
has arrived—the great carnival of the great Metro-
polis—the one occasion on which London forgets
itself—the universal holiday of the millioned-peo-
pled city, when, with one accord, the busiest popu-
lation in the world shakes itself loose from the
trammels of business—gives over for a brief breath-
ing-space the hungry hunt for gold, and swarming
forth from its close pent hive of toil and accumula.
tion, spreads itself under the open eye of heaven
over the broad elopes of the Surrey Downs. The
tradesman shuts his shop, the merchant closes his
ledger, Westminster Hall misses its accustomed
wigs, Capel-court is a soffit:oe, and Oheapside a de-
solation. • The Legislative Wisdom.of the country
condescends, of course for this day .only, to cold
chicken and champagne. Statesmen allow Europe,
the, Empire, and her Majesty's 'Opposition, for 24
hours to take care of themselves. • Even the Jour-
nalist (that most unrelieved of toilers) drops his
hand for awhile from that never resting plough
which, working by, night as well as•by day, turns
up each morning the, motly crop of - facts and spe-
culationq missing which the modern world- would
be as forlorn as Charles Lamb deemed the old one
waif t have been, without the fumes of the great
Virginian weed—the breakfast table left to more
, tea and toast—the dinner table bankrupt of topics,
and the diner out reduced to the Biwa commons of

his own wit;
lAA "Rigour and Advice with scrupulous head,"
—let "Old Age and sour Severity" 'say what they
will, it is impossible for any one who has risen into
the atmosphere of a wider and more genial wisdom
not to feel that there is much positive good in this
sudden breaking up, for one day in the long re-
spectable year, of the dissevering decorums- and
conventionalisru,s.thA hedge off cLass from class and
man from man: It is something, in such a stereo-

typed, gas-lighted, well-drained, highly-policed
capital as this, to have one occasion which fuses all
ranks, from the Duke to the Dustman; in the pur-
suit of a common recreation. Depend upon it
there was more wisdom than the graver kind of
writers are willing to allow, in that strange license
of the Roman Saturnalia which for a time levelled
master and slave on the one broad platferm of a
common humanity. The Derby is the London
Saturnalia.
Of course we are not now talking of the thing in
a sporting point of view. The race itself is, after,
all, rather the business than the pleasure of the
day. Our prophetic friends Meteor and Argus
have done their best to supply all whom it may
concern with the best available information as to
the prospects of the great contest. They are ex
posed to an ordeal which the more cautious kind of
vaticinators take good care to .avoid ; a few bouts
from the moment at which we are wr:ting must
decide absolutely the truth or falsehood of their
predictions. It is as though Dr. Cumming had
pledged his reputation to the . drying ;up of the
Euphrates before the next, vigil of St. Bartholo-
tuew, or to the emptying of the seventh vial on the
proximate morrow of All Souls. For ourselves,
we confess with shame that we know little and care
less about the "great event" so soon to be decided.
We have literally at this moment no claar concep-
tion of the latest state of the odds. It affects us
little to know that "Saunterer and Sprig of Shil-

lelagh," on one occasion, " shuffled fo-rwirds in a
most mysterious manner ;" that "Skirmisher," on
another, " was not supported ;" that, there has
" been an opposition wind to Lay Hawthorn and
Zuyder Zee, which for a long time kept them at a
low price in the market." A natural regard for
our distinguished correspondent, Meteor, may give
us some slight interest in the information that
so long ago as January last he "he stood on
Blink Bonny, Loyola, and Tournament, recom-
mending Zuyder Zee and Commotiom as the best
outsiders, and Saunterer and Lambourn for hedging
and placing." It is comfortable also to be assured that
"the knocking about of different horses has still lett
him a very good leg to stand on in Tournament ;"
but we very much fear that when all these admis-
sions are made we must still plead a very dense state
of ignorance as to the chances and even the names
of that "list of high bred running horses" in whose
performances so many thousands are te---dAy feeling
an all-absorbing interest.
For us the Derby day, not the D-eby ra?,o, is the
point of interest and attraction. We cannot agree
with those more fastidious critics who think the
spectacle on Epsom downs has become less striking
in proportion as the attendance has become less ex-
clusive. Vastness and multitude are the great
elements of the great sight. In the world there is
nothing equal to it. a hat bold broad sweep of
down land massed as far as the eye can reach with
living multitudes—the movement and the anima-
tion—the bright colours and the happy faces—the
intense breathlessness of concentrated interest, as,
straining every nerve for victory, some half-dozen
possible winners of the Derby sweep along a living
whirlwind of horseflesh, some thirty seconds' dis-
tance from the winning-post--and then the rush,
and the roar, and the excitement—and the sudden
hunger and thirst, and the joyous greetings, and
the miles upon miles of pic-nic parties, and the
scramble to the rail and the ieiels of the road,
make a total to which the boasted revelries of the
Roman, Venetian, and Paris Carnivals are mere
faded shams of merriment, not worthy to show
beSide the sports of a people as exuberant in their
hilarity as they are concentrated in their earnest-
ness. We have left ourselves no room for moral-
ising, and perhaps there is no great loss in that.
Of course there is a wrong side to the tapestry in
this as in all other shows, and there is no danger
of. its not being found out. For the moment we
are more disposed to congratulate our fellow-toilers
of the great Babylon on the recurrence of their an-
nual holiday, and to express a hope that Favonius
will be on hie best behaviour, throughout the day ;
that he may bear on his wings no showers that a
parasol may not turn with ease ; that the dust may
be as moderate and the sun as bright as could be
wished ; that the race may provea good one ; and
—to conclude with Horace as we began with Pin-
dar—that Meteor, proved a true prophet, may
" strike the stars with his sublime head.—Daily
News.

THE UNITED KINGDOM ALLIABOE.

The annual metropolitan meeting of this alliance was
held last evening at Exeter Hall. The Hon. Judge
Marshall (of Nova Scotia), in the chair, who in open-
ing the proceedings, said it had been his privilege, hon-
our, and happiness to have been associated with the
total-abstinence movement many years, which he consi-
dered the only means by which all social evils were to be
remedied.
The Rev. J. Burns then proposed a resolution, which
cordially welcomed the Hon. Neale Dow (the originator
of the Maine liquor law) ; which having been seconded
by T. Beogs, Lei., and supported by the Earl of Har
rington, K.C.8., was put to the meeting, and carried
unanimously.
Upon the rising of the " lion" of the evening, the
Hon. Neale Dow, the crowded hall became a scene of
the wildest enthusiasm, which did not subside for some
minutes. Having alluded to the eidente cordiale at pre-
sent existing between us and our Transatlantic brethren,
th%hon. gentleman proceeded to observe that the annihi-
lation of the traffic in intoxicating drinks was a moral,
political, and social question, and he believed this mat-
ter was more important to the State than all otber ques-
tions of the day. Objection had been raised against a
prohibitory system that it would interfere with the
legislative rights of the subject ; but the movement,
ho contended, neither involved nor interfered with the
rights of the subject at all, for this reason, that
the subject had no right which was inconsistent with
the general public good —salus populi suprema lex. They
talked about personal liberty in Great Britain, and yet
the most magnificent buildings which he had ever seen
in this kingdom were the offshoots of beer-shops and
grog-shops--the prisons, wherein her Majesty's subjects
were restrained of their liberty, because their liberty
was inconsistent with the general public weal. With re-
gard to the Maine law in Great Britain, they had 39-
40ths of it already ; for 1-40th part only of the popula-
tion was licensed to sell strong drinks, and consequently
the other 39 parts were really under the Maine law.
This law had proved of incalculable advantage in
the province of Maine, for by its enactment was effected
the almost entire disappearance of intemperance, and
the gaols wore almost empty. He then proceeded to re-
view the effects which the Maine law had worked in
Portland, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and other places, in
all of which it had proved of the greatest benefit to the
general populace. In a peroration of some force the
hon. gentleman concluded by saying that he was sure
that if her Most Gracious Majesty would lend her in-
fluence to this great movement, it would be said that no
person had ever lived who had conferred fo much benefit
upon her subjects ; and he felt assured that if she con-
sidered this subject from all points of view she would
give her sanction to its cause, and then all men and all
nations, with one acclamation, would rise, and call her
" blessed." (The hon. gentleman sat down amid enthu-
Bias' ic cheering.)
Other speakers having addressed the meeting, the
usual vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the pro-
ceedings