The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-20 00:00:00

the then value of his commissions, taking into con-
sideration both regulation and the extra regulation
price ; that regimental promotion up to the rank
of captain shall be made according to a
combined system of seniority and selection,
and after that rank and selection that
suitable conditions of retirement shall be
provided at the expense of the State for officers of
every rank, and that a fixed proportion of the vacant
commissions in each regiment be filled by the pro-
motion of qualified non-commissioned officers.
Several minor points were dealt with, but these
were the main features of the scheme which Mr.
TREVELYAN last night submitted to the House.
The great objection, which the hon. member fore-
saw would be raised to it was that of expense,
and this he admitted to be considerable, but he
argued that great saving would follow the reduc-
tion in the number of officers, and in the half-pay
list. To the complaint that it would fill the army
with old officers, he replies by instancing the suc-
cessful scheme for promotion and retirement drawn
up by Mr. CHILDEP.S' committee for the non-pur-
chase corps, and he argued that the French army
and our own navy proved that a system of selection
did not necessarily open the field to favouritism.
Whatever merits may be claimed for the purchase
system, no one can pretend that we do the
business economically, and therefore it is
neither politic nor reasonable to refuse to lis-
ten to any scheme for improvement on the score
of expense. Mr. TREVELYAN'S scheme may not be the
best possible in all respects, but the principle of
abolishing a vicious and increasing system, which
men of spirit must feel to be derogatory to the pro-
fession, is a sound one, and sooner or later must
obtain recognition. Mr. TREVELYAN indeed de-
clared himself satisfied with having obtained a full
discussion of the subject, which he desired should
be brought fairly under the notice of the new con-
stituencies. When once its importance becomes
recognised we shall have plenty of suggestions put
forward, and even last night an amendment was
moved by Captain VIVIAN, who opposed the
wholesale alterations of Mr. TREVELYAN, and pro-
posed instead that purchase should be abolished
above the rank of captain, as is now the case in the
Brigade of Guards. By this means the officer will
only have one step to buy, that from lieutenant to
captain ; and the scheme also provides for a course
of practical professional training as a necessary pre-
liminary to a commission in the purchase corps.
Captain VIVIAN also advocated a considerable re-
duction in the number of regimental officers. It
was a little singular that the advocates of the pur-
chase system should take different and contradic-
tory lines of argument. Captain VIVIAN declared
that so far from its being a system of money
against merit, it frequently enabled men of merit
to supersede unfit men. General PEEL, on the
other hand, admitted the anomalies of the system,
but urged that in all walks of life—in the Church
and the Bar—money gave great advantages to its
possessor. Promotion by seniority would, he con-
tended, produce stagnation, and promotion by
selection jealousies. According to this no officer
could ever be selected for command without in-
juring the profession. Something can of course be
urgedlagainst every plan, but in no case can a
more faulty or anomalous system be at work than
at present. Sir ROBERT NAPIER, whose achieve-
ments have reflected so much honour on our army,
belongs to a non-purchase corps—a favourable in-
stance of what we may hope for with a change
of system.

It is pretty generally admitted that, scoundrel
as Theodore was, he was no coward. A passage
from Mr. Rassam's interesting " Last Days in
Magdala," in the Pall Mall Gazette, shows that
the King could upon occasion display courage of a
very dignified order. One day, soon after his
crossing the Bashilo, the King suddenly ordered
Mr. Rassam's chains to be knocked off, treated
him and his companions with great civility, and
even sat down by Mr. Rassam, and, after pledging
him in a glass of mead, conversed with him on the
general conduct of the war, and the hopelessness
of his (Theodore's) cause, and his willingness to
submit to the decrees of his Creator. Mr. Rassam
probably thought that the King was not unwilling
to deprecate the anger of the British by this timely
display of gentleness to the captives, and he sent
a message to the
King to the effect that, if his
Majesty had no objection, he would write and in-
form the Commander-in-Chief of the British
army of his Majesty's late civility and kind-
ness. Mr. Rassam then adds :—" The King sent
me a reply, saying that I must not think that
the reason he opened the chains of my fellow-
captives was because he was afraid of the coercive
measures used against him by England, or for the
sake of the prisoners—he merely did so to please
me, and to prove his friendship towards me.
Therefore he thought it unnecessary for me to re-
port a matter to the general which was done out
of mere personal friendship. He told Messrs.
Flad and \Valdmeier to reassure me of his un-
ceasing regard, and that he believed implicitly in
my friendship." Nothing could surpass the dignity
of this reply : it would have become Louis XIV. at
the highest period of his fortunes.

There is a difficulty about the vicarage of Leeds
and the canonry in Ripon Cathedral, which have
become vacant by the preferment of Dr. Atlay.
Mr. Disraeli claims the nomination to the vicarage,
and is indisputably entitled to it ; but the Lord
Chancellor claims the canonry, and it is said to be
difficult to find a clergyman of any mark who can
take the vicarage without the canonry. The
vicarage of Leeds is worth about £1,500.a year,
but the claims upon the incumbent ar3 so large
that no clergyman who has not private means can
accept it. The canonry is worth £5OO a year. The
vicarage of Leeds is understood to have been
offered to one of her Majesty's chaplains, who is
one of the most practical and energetic of the
London clergy, but he does not seem inclined to
take it. It is also said to have been offered to a
Lambeth clergyman, whose political claims upon
the Government are strong, but he too declines.

M. Feyonet, writing in a Paris journal, gives the
following anecdote of Lord Brougham :—Speaking
one n'ght in the House of Lords, his lordship ex-
perienced some interruption from a conversation
which was being carried on during his speech by
the Dukes of Cumberland and Wellington. Taking
occasion in the course of his argument to explain
the word " illustrious," he said that we sometimes
use that word conventionally, and sometimes lite-
rally. " For instance," said the noble lord, "we
apply it by courtesy to the Royal Duke who is
talking so loudly, and who has done nothing what-
ever to deserve it, whilst we apply it in its pri-
mary and real signification to the illustrious duke
whom his Royal Highness is addressing."
On the 22nd of October, 1839, a hoax was
played off on the public by a report of Lord
Brougham's death from an accident. When the
truth came out, the general opinion was that, in
one of his eccentric moods, the noble lord had
_himself used the stratagem to learn, while living,
what would be said of him when dead. The trick
is understood, however, to have been invented by
a gentleman who is at this time employed in a
Government office.

Letters from Carlsruhe mention that the Go-
vernment of the Grand Duchy of Baden is about
to follow the example of Prussia, and reduce its
army in the same proportion.
It is asserted that the committee appointed by
the llouse of Commons to report on the accom-
modation. of the present Chamber have decided to
recommend that a new one, to hold 569 members,
be erected in what is known as the " Commons'
Court," the present House to be used as an
entrance lobby. The cost is estimated at
£120,000.

LATEST INTELLLGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, May 19, Evening.

A Cabinet Council was held to-day, under the
presidency of the Emperor, when the Imperial
sanction was given to the law relative to the posi-
tion of the different religious denominations in
Austria.

Baron Meysenbug will leave for Rome on
Saturday evening at the latest.

SWEDEN.

STOCKHOLM, May 19, Evening.

the King leaves the capital on Friday next for
Schonen, but is expected to return before Whitsun-
tide.

Herr Carl Johann Rooth has been appointed
Consul for Sweden at Kiel.

AMERICA.

QUEENSTOWN, May 20.

The Inman Royal Mail steamer City of Boston,
from New York on the 9th inst., arrived here at
9 a.m. to-day. She landed mails and passengers,
and proceeded immediately for Liverpool. All
well.

FRA.

.NCE.
ree o'clock.—The market

BOURSE, May 19.—Th]
closed as follows :

per Cent.
End of month —
3 per Cent
End of mouth 69 621
Credit Mobilier
End of month 290
Credit Fonder 1473 75
End of month —
RAILWAY

Bank Shares
Italian Loan —
End of month —
Mexican Loan 21
Do. Bonds
Spanish Threes
Home Debt
Deferred
s. Cash
... 870

Orleans ,

Northern

1198 k

Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern__ sB2}

Western .
Eastern .
Sardinian
Austrian .
Lombard.
North of Spain
Saragossa
Roman 43

5561
375

THE FIRST BLAST OF THE TRUMPET.

The following letter has been addressed to a
contemporary :
Sir,—The word went forth at the great special
service in Westminster Abbey on Sunday exening
that to disestablish the Irish Church is to disown
Christ. Our uninstructed lay intellects had ima-
gined that the way to honour Christ was to do
justica, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
our God ; and we had begun to feel happy in the
idea that the last badge of conquest was about to
be removed, and that Protestant and Roman Ca-
tholic were going to live side by side as fellow-
subjects and fellow-Christians, as they do in
Canada, Australia, Germany, and other parts of
the world. Let it not be said with any show of
reason that the English, as a nation, love to bully
the Celt, and have no real desire to do justice to
Ireland. The Episcopal Church of Scotland was
disestablished 180 years ago, because the Scotch
refused to be treated as a conquered people ; and
the Irish Roman Catholics are now four or five
times as numerous as the Scotch Presbyterians
then were. however this may be, Dr. Words-
worth hasput himself forward as the fugleman of the
20,000 pulpits with which we were threatened ;
and as he has entered on the domain of politics,
he will acknowledge the fairness of publishing his
sermon in order that it may be seen what there is
in it to accept or answer.—l have the honour to
be, &c., AN ENGLISH CELT.

The Court of Assizes of the Gard has just been
occupied with the trial of a shoemaker, named Her-
mann, and his wife, for the murder in November
last, at Nimes, of their daughter, thirteen years old.
They were 48 hours in accomplishing the deed, and
when they had finished they passed the rest of the
night in singing hymns and uttering strange cries.
The woman had formerly been of light character,
and the deceased was born before her marriage.
But having reformed she felt the presence of the
child a perpetual reproach, and took an intense dis-
like to her, saying that shy was possessed by the
devil. As the mother was in the habit of beating
her, the girl had been heard to say she was sure she
would not live long and that she should not die a
natural death. The jury found both the prisoners
guilty, the mother of murder without premedita-
tion, and the husband of being an accomplice.
The court sentenced the former to hard labour for
life, and the latter to 10 years of the same punish-
ment.

M. Dump, Minister of Education in France, is
about to send to Constantinople, to the College of
Galata-Serai, organised by the French Embassy, 12
of the best teachers to serve as superintendents or
inspectors; they are to be from 25 to 30 years of
age, and unmarried. They will remain attached to
the University, although passing into the Ottoman
service, and will be under the protection of the
French Ambassador. They are to be boarded and
lodged, with a salary varying from 2,000 fr., to
3,000 fr., subject to a deduction for a retiring pen-
sion to be paid by the French Treasury. Teachers
of all the departments are allowed to become can-
didates for employment in this mission."
A military tribunal at Grenoble has just tried a
man named Saunier for desertion to the Russians
in 1855, in the Crimea. He had stolen 470 f. from
his captain and was placed in confinement, but he
managed to escape and went over to the enemy.
He reached St. Petersburg and thence returned to
France. At Annecy he was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment for robbery, and while in gaol was
discovered to be the deserter Saunier. He alleged
he had been taken prisoner, but a majority of the
Court did not believe him, and sentence of death
was pronounced.
Mr. Darby Griffith on an " early day " is to
" call attention to the manner in which the exercise
of the prerogative of the Crown in the granting of
titles and dignities has come to be considered to be
part of the ordinary patronage of the Prime Mi.
nister, and to the extent to which the exercise of
that power for political purposes may affect the
independence of the House of Commons.
In Monday's sittings of the Academy of Science
M. Dumas, Professor of Physics, delivered an
eulogium upon the late Professor Faraday. His
speech was much applauded.
In Tuesday's sitting of the Berlin Chamber the
Upper House, after a debate lasting seven hours,
the bill for the abolition of capital punishment was
rejected by 22 against 15 votes. The thre.e clerical
members of the house voted for the retention of
the death penalty, and the Crown Prince in favour
of its abolition. The clause doing away with
corporal punishment was unanimously
agreed to.
In reference to an account of a
train on the
Bologna and Pistoja line having been in danger
from running down an incline, the directors of the
Upper Italy railways, considering that this state-
ment was of a nature to do injury to the company,
publishes a rectification. The train in question
having acquired a certain momentum in the descent
passed the point at the Piteccio station, at which
it should have stopped. It was, in consequence,
run on to a safety line at the side, constructed with
a steep gradient in prevision of such cases, which
not unfrequently occur. The engine and carriages
were thus brought to a standstill before they had
made half the ascent, and their departure from
the main line was not the result of an accidental
manoeuvre, but was intentional.
A racing club, called "The
Union," has just
been founded at Berlin. A considerable sum of
money has been subscribed by the members to be
given in prizes.
Mr. Thomas Cooper has written to the Lincoln
Gazette to say that he is not dead. He says :
" The Nottingham papers of Tuesday say I am
dead. I can assure you I don't think it is true. I
don't remember dying any day last week, though
they say I died at Lincoln last Friday. Lord,
lord.,' as Falstaff says, ' how the world is given to
. lying."