The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-04 00:00:00

DINNER TO SIR JAMES FERGUSON.

A complimentary dinner was given on Tueiday to Sir
James Fergusson, prior to his leaving England to assume
the governorship of South Australia. The entertainment
was given in Willis's Rooms, St. James's. About 100

gentlemen were present. Lieutenant-Colonel Palmer was
in the chair, having on his right the guest of the evening,
General Ramsay, Sir George Grey, Hon. A. Blyth, Sir H.
Young, Mr. Shaw, Colonel Torrens, and Mr. Grieve
Walters ; and on the left Sir John Pakington, Admiral
Sir John Hay, Colonel G4wler, Colonel Freeling, Hon.W.
Duffield, Mr. W. W. Hughes, Mr. Jacob Montefiore, Mr.
W. J. Browne, Mr. E. Stirling, Mr. Dalrymple Hay, and
Mr. Vansittart.

Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, rn responding to the toast or the
House of Commons, said he thought no reflecting man
could have long sat in the House without feeling increased
respect for representative institutions, and for the national
character of his country. It was a great institution, but
it was an institution which no nation must for a moment
suppose they could create for themselves. It required
long training for a nation duly to appreciate or success.
fully to work such an institution ; but, without exaggera-
tion or undue national pride, he thought he might say
the House of Commons was a model of a representative
assembly which rising nations would do well to study.
(Cheers,) And when he spoke of rising nations, to what
rising nation could he turn, either with such pleasure,such
interest, or such confidence, as to those great nations
which were rising in Australia? (Cheers.) It would be
for his hon. and excellent friend near him to preside
over one of those growing communities. With regard to
our own prospects here, also, he would only add that he
felt great confidence they would have no occasion to
repent the extended franchise they had granted to the
people.

COl. GAWLER, the oldest Governor of South Australia
present, proposed the health of Sir JAIetES FERGUSON, who,
in the course of his responding speech, said Australia
had within a comparatively short period become one, if not
of the first, at least one of the second rank of the colonies
of Great Britain. He believed that the people of this
country reciprocated the regard with which those of Aus-
tralia contemplated their mother country. The people of
this country were eminently proud of the Australian colo-
nies. They saw in them, perhaps, a more faithful reflex
of the virtues which had distinguished Great Britain than
in any other colonies which this country had founded.
Those who in this country could view with indifference
the intimate connection between Great Britain and those
great colonial communities must, indeed, be insensible to
one of the great facts which contributed so much to the
dignity of this country and its estimation in the world.
They saw their neighbours on the Continent using
great artificial efforts to found colonies in other parts
of he world, having regard to the great advan-
tages we had derived from these possessions. Then, if
we had received great advantages from them, we should
not forget how little was expected from us. In these days
Australia was self-supporting. He thought the governor-
ship of such a colony was an object worthy of the ambi-
tion of an English politician. The time had gone by when
the ability of a governor was all in all to a colony.
However inferior his talents, he could not by his
failure impose a great check on the prosperity of the
colony. The people of the colony managed their own affairs.
South Australia had been formed on the highest principle
on which a colony could be established ; it was indepen-
dent and self-supporting, asking nothing from the mother
country but the foundation of authority and law ; and
though it bad been struggling for a time of difficulty and
danger, it had now arrived at a position of sound and stable
prosperity. It could not be doubte I much still remained
to be accomplished. In the wilds over which the adminisl
tration of South Australia held sway communication had
to be made and railways to be constructed. But the
spirit which had actuated the people of South Australia in
time past would not be wanting for the future. The
failures, if there had been failures, the errors, if there had
been errors, would not be lost on the administrations of
the future. He would add that the zeal of the Governors,
his predecessors. whatever the difficulties they had to face,
would not be lost upon those who succeeded them. He
was gladto know that there had been that public spirit
shewn by the South Australians both in their administra-
tion and in their Parliaments which gave the best security
for the future.

KILLED BY AOMETEOR.

--41--

The Brisbane Courier of the 25th of August states
that several of the vessels just arrived from the south-
ward reported that there was a great deal of electrical
atmospheric disturbance on Monday and Tuesday nights,
but whether it was the effect or was simply coincident with
the eclipse our informants could not say. In one case it was
attended with fatal results, and a man was killed on board
the schooner Urania by the explosion of an electric
meteor. Ti,e yes el was off Crowdy Head on Monday,
August 17, about midnight, when a heavy south-easterly
squall came en, and all Inn's were called to shorten
sail. A seaman named H. G. Sales was steering, and :A
12.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the 18th, a meteor, like a ball of
fire, fell immediately over the vessel's stern, and exploded
with a loud report resembling that of a heavy piece of
ordnance. Sparks of fire were scattered all about the deck,
and the steersman was killed by the shock. Every one on
board felt a violent shock like that of a galvanic battery;
but none of the crew were injured except Sales, who W:IS at
his last gasp picked up. His body spewed, no walks, but ap-
peared to be blackened, and some six or seven hours after
decomposition set in, and the poor fellow was buried over
the side. He was a young man, about 23, and a smart
seaman. The fire-ball apparently travelled with the wind,
which was from the south-west, and when it burst the
flash was so intensely brilliant that the steward, who was
lying in his berth below, declared that he saw the fire
through the seams of the deck. The cabin at the same
moment was filled with smoke, which blackened papers
lying about. Captain Johnstone says that the discolora-
tion of the paint was like that produced by " smoking
the ship" with charcoal. A peculiar and indescribable
smell was perceived for some time after the explosion,
and a quantity of flakes like the soot from a steamer's
funnel were scattered about. Captain Milman states
that on his last trip to Sydney a fire-bail was observed
passing ahead of his ship, about one a.m., on Monday,
the 17th. It travelled in a horizontal direction from
north-west to south-east. Apparently it was so near the
ship that the officer of the watch altered her course to
avoid it, when it burst, and for the moment the whole
heavens seemed to be in a blaze of light, and at the same
time there was terrific thunder. Lightning and thunder
continued at intervals throughout the night and next day
(Tuesday), until about half-past eight o'clock, when the
veather cleared up.