The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-20 00:00:00

THE NAPE

Orders have been received at Portsmouth to pre-
pare her Majesty's yacht Victoria and Albert, to
proceed to Antwerp for the purpose of bringing
over to England their Royal Highnesses the Prince
and Princess Frederick William of Prussia, on a
visit to her Majesty. The yacht is expected to sail
from Portsmouth on Sunday next. A large num-
ber of hands are employed on board painting, gild-
ing, &c., and working extra hours to complete her
by the time named for sailing.
Orders have been received at Portsmouth dock-
yard, to make out and forward to London a return
of the number of sailing vessels in ordinary at the
port, with their condition, &c.

The Fury, paddle-wheel steam-sloop, Commander
Bedford Pim, was paid off yesterday alongside the
jetty in the dockyard, in a most creditable manner.
Many of the crew had some good sums of money to
receive, having been in her the whole of the com-
mission, nearly five years. She has during that
period gone a distance of 59,180 miles, viz., 38,540
miles in 411 days under steam, and 20,640 miles
under canvas. Her daily average under steam has
been 93.8 ; under sail, 103.7. Quantity of coals
consumed, 8,906 tons, at a cost of £35,624.
THE RATTLESNAKE.—This fine screw corvette,
of 21 guns, is progressing rapidly under the hands
of a large number of workmen. The whole of the
exterior has now been planed by the joiners, and
has received the first coat of paint. All the caulk-
ing, inside as well as out, is completed. The flaps
of the scuppers are being fixed. The illuminators
are fixed for giving light to the lower deck. The
fine bows and noble proportions of the ship are now
seen to advantage, and the Rattlesnake promises
to be a great addition to our navy.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty ;—Lieut. J. D. R. Hewitt to the
Dragon; S. Matthews, engineer, to the Cumber-
land, as supernumerary ; C. P. Hodges, Second
Master, additional, to the Fisgard ; S. Phillips and
W. H. Adlam, Second Masters, additional, to the
Victory. _

TEE ARMY.

The colonelcy of the Bth (King's) Regiment of
Foot has become vacant by the death of Major-Gen.
Eaton Monins, which took place on Sunday last, at
his residence, Castlehill, Walmer. The deceased
entered the army in 1814, and served with the 62d
Lightlnfantry during the campaign of 1815, being
present at the battle of Waterloo. He afterwards
;
served with the Army of Occupation in France.
il..- Ico
The deceased's officer's commissions bore date as
follows —E
nsign
819 ; , Dec. 1, 1814 ; lieut., Sept. 9,
Lieut
20
cltpt., June 23, 1825; major, Nov. 19, 1830 ;
gen., Juse •• Oct. 2, 1835; col., Nov. 9, 1846; major-
3, 1860. , 1854; and col. of the Bth Foot, June
Yesterday the
wholei of the troops of the Indian
wdeeproetsasesnemcabraiedpedupon the garrison at Colchester
extensivei grounds jacent to the camp, aa
a grand field-day
ad-
in the presence of Coleeel ett
aTE:a Ron. Alexander
large staff of
Gordon, C. 8., Comtnandant,
battz%unnder arms,
officers. There were about 2,500 ma
performed
Vero 51'
composing the 9th and 10th
and the
ordinary evolutions of a field-day
in a most satisfactory manner.
r The extensive range of barrack-buildings just
erected at Shoeburyness for the accommodation of
the Royal Artillery quartered at that station to be
instructed in the use of the Armstrong guns is now
completed, and orders have accordingly been issued
the Commander-in-Chief,
by his Royal Highness
directing that the building is to be equipped with
the necessary articles of barrack furniture for the
immediate reception of 200 non-commissioned offi-
cers and men who are to be sent from the Royal
Artillery depot brigade, at Sheerness, to undergo a
course of instruction at the School of Gunnery pre-
vious to embarking for India. The barracks, which
are sufficiently commodious to accommodate 700
men, are constructed on the most approved prin-
ciples, the improved system of ventilation recom-
mended by the Army Sanitary Commissioners hav-
ing been adopted, and no expense spared to make
them as perfect as possible. It is the intention of
the authorities to have at least 500 men of the
Royal Artillery, as well as the troops of the line,
constantly quartered at Shoebnryness to be in-
structed in gunnery, under the direction of the
Staff officers of the establishment.
Yesterday afternoon the whole of the troops at
Chatham Garrison were engaged in the rehearsal of
some escalading and siege operations under the
direction of Major-Cieneral Eyre, commanding the
district.

(From the Times of this day.)
What is to become of the Bankruptcy Bill ? Is
it to go to the limbo of good resolutions unper-
fected ? If we were to judge from that half-smo-
thered explosion which took place in the House of
Commons some evenings since, it is to be rejected
with scorn and indignation. But the Speaker
promptly and carefully covered up that nascent, but
untimely, conflagration in a wet blanket, and the
intention of the Attorney-General as to the ultimate
fate of his ill-used offspring is yet to be developed.
If it were a mere question between Sir Richard
Bethell and the House of Lords, and no one else
had any interest in the matter, we should say that
Sir Richard Bethell had been very ill-used, and was
justified in any amount of resentment. It is very
well for people to go to the British Museum and
fall into ecstasies at the wondrous proportion of the
Elgin marbles, but we may depend upon it that if
the old Greek sculptors themselves could revisit
theirgrteoatiwndortkhse,ir vouthfaeywroitueld be immediately dis-
gustedoff spring with their
noses chipped off and their limbs broken away, and
sometimes nothing left but a backbone and half a
thigh. So Lord Derby may choose to lavish his af-
fection upon the debris of the great Bethell Bank-
ruptcy statue, which, like Phidias, he laboured
at for an ungrateful people, or which, like Praxi-
teles, he showed, by clinging to it in moments of
adversity, he preferred to all his other works. But
neither Lord Derby nor any of his Law Lords can
expect Sir R. Bethell to believe that this noseless,
armless, legless thing is better worthy of the artist
than the complete work of art which, foetus ad
unguem, was borne upon the shoulders of the Com-
mons for the admiration and applause of the Lords.
We are often told that Gipsies stain white people's
children dark in order to make them pass for their
own, but it has never been said that the Gipsies,
when this transfiguration has taken place, conceive
an affection for the changeling greater than that of
the original parents. This, however, seems to have
been the case with the Lords and their transformed
Bankruptcy Bill. The debate on Tuesday night,
when the Bill was sent forth from the House, was
little more than blessings upon its little head and an
endeavour to obtain for it protection from the evil
passions of the Commons, and a guarantee of re-
adoption by its original parent. Lord Derby did his
utmost to extract a promise that Lord Granville
" would accept the Bill as it stands, and recommend
the acceptance of it by the House of Commons." Lord
Overstone, guilty of the slaughter of that half-born
Bankruptcy Judge, and who said nothing about the
mysterious disappearance of the creditors' assignees,
yet claimed the " faithful support of the Govern-
ment" for the Bill in the state to which he had
reduced it, Lords Cranworth, Wensleydale,
and Brougham, whose consciences, exercised by
long judicial work, are less liable to remorse, were
less demonstrative in their apprehensions of the
Bill dying of exhaustion from the many amputa-
tions it had suffered at their hands ; but Lord
Brougham despatched it with a blessing and with
a recommendation to mercy, and the Lords seemed
to pass it almost reluctantly out of their hands, as
if they were surrendering it to wrath and to an
almost certain fate.
The two great mutilations which the bill has
suffered are undoubtedly the extinction of the Chief
Judge in Bankruptcy and the deposition of the cre-
ditors' assignees. We are not about to dissolve in
pity at the fate of the Chief Judge and his Court.
No doubt, it is a suspicious circumstance when we
find a row of dowager Chancellors singing a chorus
of eulogy on the Chancery jurisdiction in bank-
ruptcy, and defending that admirable and popular
institution against all assaults from without. We
must, however, admit that the select committee has
inspired a doubt whether that projected Chief Judge
and his projected court were novelties of indispen-
sable necessity. If Lord Wensleydale be accurate
in his computations that the bankruptcy appeals
which this judge would have to try would not give
him occupation for more than fifteen days in every
year, we must concede that this work might be left
in the hands of the Lords Justices. The deposition,
hewever, of the creditors' assignees from all power
in the management of the estate is a very different
matter. Thirty years ago Lord Brougham found a
loose system in existence under which great abuses
had crept in ; and assignees chosen by creditors
very much abused the unrestricted powers they pos-
sessed. Lord Brougham swept away that old sys-
tem, and introduced that which now obtains. The
consequence has been that for thirty years there has
been little dishonesty and no very unnecessary de-
lays; but the comparative honesty and the compara-
tive promptitude have been found so expensive that,
upon the whole, the creditors obtain little better divi-
dends than under the old system. It is the evil of
the old system which now comes so vividly before
the minds of those ancient lawyers in whose expe-
rience 30 years is but as a span. They believe that
to reappoint creditors' assignees would be to bring
back the abuses of those early days when 3,000,000
of money were found to be lying about uncollected,
or uninvested, and certainly undivided. But why
should this necessarily so recur ? Is it in all casos
essential to destroy a system because it has been
found incrusted with abuses? It does not follow,
because many years ago mercantile assignees, not
being held to their proper responsibilities, were
careless, dilatory, and sometimes dishonest, that
therefore the same vices must reappear in the same
class of persons when subjected to proper supervi-
sion, and when working under a better regulated
system. The mercantile classes are unanimous in
their desire to have the management of these Bank-
rupt estates taken out of the hands of lawyers, and
placed in the hands of commercial men of their own
choice. We cannot avoid saying that, inasmuch as
these persons are for the most part of full age and
sound understanding, it would seem that their desires
ought to prevail against the legal doubts of Peers who
have no interest in the matter, however learned and
experienced those Peers may be. It undoubtedly does
savour somewhat of the imperative style when
Lord Derby and his friends mutilate a Bill in the
fashion in which this has been mutilated, and
then insist that the Government shall adopt the
mutilated thing as their own, and shall under-
take faithfully to support it. Still, however, the
Bill must pass. It would be a scandal if, after
all the time bestowed upon it, we were to throw
it over in a pique, as a Brahmin casts away his
dinner because the shadow of a white man has

fallen upon it. Many things, moreover, remain in
this Bill'which we cannot afford to lose. The Limo!!

of Law and Bankruptcy is of itself a reform well
worthy of a separate Act. The sweeping away of
the classes of Bankruptcy certificates, and the pro-
visions for the punishment of fraudulent trading,
are much too valuable to be lost. We cannot sup-

pose that the Lords will be so unreasonable as to
insist upon all their alterations, and to concede
nothing to the commercial classes, who are so much
interested in this measure, or to the House of Com-
mons, which has bestowed upon its details an
amount of labour certainly not inferior to their own.
In a few days we shall know what the Chambers of
Commerce throughout the country think of these
alterations, and how far a compromise may be

effected upon the matters of chief importance io the
commercial mind. In the meantime, however,

it is most desirable that all parties should come to

,he consideration of the measure as it now stands

in a practical spirit, with the view, not of gaining a
victory or resenting an interference, but of passing a
good Bankruptcy Law. Nothing would be more
unwise than a splenetic rejection of this Bill.