The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-26 00:00:00

ANOTHER ROYAL COMMISSION.

The Gazette announces the appointment of a Royal
Commission to inquire into the operation of the sani-
;ary laws for towns, villages, and rural districts in
3reat Britain and Ireland, so far as these laws apply to
sewerage, drainage, water supply, removal of refuse, pre-
lention of over-crowding, and other conditions conducive
,o the public health ; upon the laws for preventing the
ntroduction and spreading of contagious and infectious
liseases and of epidemics injurious to the public health ;
ipon the local administration of the sanitary laws; and
ipon the operation of that part of the registration system
Which relates to certificates of causes of death," &c. The
commissioners are Lord Northbrook, the Earl of Romney,
Lord Elcho, Mr. C. B. Adderley, Mr. H. A. Bruce, Sir T.
Watson, Bart., Sir Charles Lanyon, Lieutenant-Colonel
7.1. B. Ewart, R.E., Mr. J. R. M'Clean, C.E., Mr. G.
:live, Mr. F. S. Powell, Mr. A. S. Ayrton, Mr. R. S.
4.ytoun, Mr. B. Shaw, Mr. J. Lambert, Mr. J. Paget,
F. R. C.S., Mr. H. W. Rumsey, Dr. H. W. Acland, Dr.
Christison, Dr. W. Stokes, and Dr. S. H. Clerk.

DRIVING THROUGH AN ACT OF PARMA-

MENT.

It N a proverb that any Act of Parliament can be driven
through in a coach and six. The Refreshment Houses.A.ct
's a case in point. The Act of ]864 provides that no
person within the limits of this Alt shall open or keep
apen any refreshment house, or sell or expose for sale or
:tonsumption in any refreshment house any refreshments
nr any article whatsoever, between the above-mentioned
hours, namely, between the hours of one and four in the
morning. A refreshment-house keeper in the Haymarket
has been summoned for infringement of the Act. The
police visited the house at five minutes past one,
►nd found men and women drinking therein. In another
hour he went again and found some of them drunk. The
keeper of the house said they were lodgers. When he
went the door was closed, and his knock was
answered by " Too late." The watchword " Police,"
however, gained him admission. It was proved
that men and women were seen leaving the
souse during prohibited hours. Mr. Tyrwhitt dismissed
the summons with evident regret, quoting several
judgments as precedents, but hinted that he would
grant one if the police consulted on the matter.
It appears to be a very simple thing to evade the Act.
The keepers swear that all the refreshments were served
before one, and though the police know better they cannot
prove it. A landlord is not bound to turn out his cus-
tomers on the stroke of one, and thus the Act is worthless.
The neighbourhood of the Haymarket is full of places
where supper and drink can be had almost at any time.

THE SMITHFIELD CLUB CATTLE SHOW.

The Smithfield Club Cattle Show for the present year
opens at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, on Monday,
the 7th of December. A visit to the building shows that
already the managers are busily engaged in carrying out
the preparations incidental to what is likely to prove one
of ' the largest shows that has been held for
several years past. The fact that Parliament will be
sitting at the time of the exhibition will no doubt tend in
a considerable measure to the success of the undertaking.
The entries have been made with unusual spirit, and it is
anticipated that many breeders who hitherto. have hung
back from sending cattle for exhibition will this year
submit their stock to the decision of the judges. The Cen-
tral Chamber of Agriculture intend to take advantage
of the number of agriculturists who will be
attracted to London to hold their annual meeting
at the Salisbury Hotel on the 9th December, when several
of the existing rules will be considered with a view to
their amendment or alteration. At the same time a vice-
chairman will be elected for 1869, and eight members of
council elected in the place of the following members
who retire, viz. :—Messrs. John Byron, Thomas Chandler,
Charles Clay, Thomas Duckham, William Gardner,
John Hemsley, Edward Holland, and W. E. Long. Prior
to the general meeting, a meeting of the Council will be
held, when, amongst other matters, a resolution on the cattle
plague rule, proposed by the North Cheshire Chamber, and
resolutions on a national poor rate, proposed by Mr. H.
George Andrews, of the Somersetshire Chamber, will be
discussed. These meetings, it is expected, will be largely
attended by deputed members from provincial chambers.

Dr. Tait has been on a visit to bis new diocese,
and preached last Sunday at St. George's, Ramsgate, and St
Ppter's, Margate.

We are informed Major General Sir C. W. D.
Staveley, the second in command of the late Expe-
ditionary Force tie, Abyssinia, will be appo!nted to command
the western district, in succession to Lieutenant-General
Sir Augustus Spencer.

The Church News suggests that on the new Arch-
bishop of Canterbury's first overt act of communion with
" the infidel Colenfo" the duty of all true Churchmen, at
whatever cost, will It to treat their Archbishop as also ex-
communicate.

Dr. F. G. Lee is to be succeeded in the Eecretary-
ship of the Association for Promoting the Unity of Chris-
tendom by the Lev. Herbert Taylor Howes, theological
associate of King's College, London, lately incumbent of
Bracknell, near Windsor.

Another hotel robbery is reported, the " crib
cracked" being the Adelphi Hotel, Sheffield. The thieves
forced open a locked bedroom door, and by removing a slide
in a chest of drawers succeeded in abstracting from a locked
drawer immediately underneath the elide £2OO. They got
safe off.

The Nottingham Guardian publishes a letter from
the Under Sheriff of the county, which it says "most com-
pletely disproves Mr. Denison's charge against the High
Sheriff, of partiality in the discharge of his office, by making
the arrangements for the county elections in ordep to favour
a party."
At the Salford Town Hall on Tuesday, before Mr.
Trafford, a young Irishman, named James Durkin, was com-
mitted for trial at the assizes, for personating a voter during
the late election contest in the borough. Another youth,
under age, who had attempted to personate his own father
was discharged.

There was a desperate riot at Barnsley on Tuesday
by which about twenty persons were injured. There were
about 15,000 people in the market place jostling the police
about. The police had to draw their cutlasses, and several
persons were severely hurt. The superintendenttelegaphed
to Wakefield and 54 armed men arrived by train. The riot
act was read.
Ihe Pall Mall Gazette believes that the announce-
ment made in the Telegraph as to the new Cabinet are in
accordance, in some important particulars, with the agree-
ment previously come to. It also understands that there
are good grounds for the presumption that Mr. Bright will
consult both his own independence and the interests of the
new Government by remaining one of its unofficial sup-
porters.
KICKING A BISHOP. —The late Dr. Blomfield had
a quarrel with an Essex rector—paper war and so forth
between the parties. The rector called at London House,
and the interview was not of a very calm description.
The Bishop, in the heat of the debate, kept eddying
his chair nearer to that of the Essex rector, who at last
said, "My lord, if you come any nearer, I'll kick your
shins."

It was recently stated that a working painter at
Worcester, named Albert, had picked up for £4 or £5 a
picture (" Christ bearing his Cross'), about which there had
been a great deal of excitement, and that he had sold it to a
Worcester tradesman for 700 guineas. A contemporary
now says that the present owner of the picture—a Mr.
Milton, a grocer—has been offered £1,500 for it. Mr. Milton
has refused the offers which, we are told, was made on be-
half of a wealthy nobleman•

Lord Amberley having been written to with a view
of eliciting his op!nio non the question of Sunday evening
lectures, his lordship has replied that ho does not wish to
open all places of amusement on Sunday. The object he
sought to obtain by the Sunday Lectures Bill is fully
secured by the decision of Mr. Justice Byles, of the Com-
mon Pleas, in the case of Baxter v. Langley. That decision
establishes the legality of the lectures and sacred music
which Lord Amberley asked the Commons to sanction. No
further need can now exist of appealing to Parliament to
sanction the delivery of lectures accompanied by sacred