The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-10-01 00:00:00

when it was remembered that at Jellalabad he had not
only to contend with war and its frightful concomitants,
famine and disease, but had to sustain his position and the
honour of his country, whilst at the same time his noble
wife was exposed, if possible, to greater privations than
any soldier,—was herself a captive, in the hands of our
most deadly foe Akbar-Khan ,—when they considered these
facts, he need not further dwell on the claims of his dis-
tinguished guest—the crowning glory of his fame being
familiar to them all. The Mayor thus concl ded:—l will
only drink your very good health, Sir Robert Sale—(shak-
ing hands with Sir Robert, who seemed much affected—
and I wish you long life and happiness when von return
to India, which, I believe, you are about to do;—(ap-
plause ;)—we wish you happiness in this life, and happi-
ness in the life to come. (Drunk with tremendous ap-
plause).
Sir ROBERT SALE, K.C.8., on rising to reply, was
received with cheers, which were reiterated for several
minutes. In the first place, said the gallant and distin-
guished officer, I beg to return my most sincere thanks to
our excellent host, the Worshipful the Mayor, and the
society around me for the handsome terms in which he
has proposed my health, and for the warmth and enthu-
siasm with which they have received the toast. (Cheers.)
As a soldier, it must always be gratifying to me to have
my countrymen to approve of my conduct ; and to see
here around me to-night a sprinkling of officers in the
army and the navy, I feel strongly gratified. (Cheers.)
It has been my good fortune to have been at several simi-
lar parties to this, and what few words I have ever
possessed have been expended. I wished to have said
thousands of things, but to do so would be a repetition.
(Cheers.) I shall, therefore, simply drink success to the
Mayor and Corporation of this, the second city in Great
Britain, and I beg to express my wish that the progress
in prosperity which it has hitherto made, may be con-
tinued for ever. (Great cheering.) The gallant officer
concluded by proposing the healths of the Mayor and
Corporation of Liverpool, and long life to them. (Three
times three.)
The MAYOR returned thanks in a brief address, and
proposed the healths of the Bishop and Clergy of the
Diocese of Chester.

The Rev. Dr. TATTERSH A Li., incumbent of St. Augus-
tine's, returned thanks, in an appropriate s:,2ech.
The MAYOR, in highly complimentary terms, then
alluded to Lady Sale. He (Sir R. Sale) had indeed cause
to be proud of the noble and heroic conduct of Lady Sale,
—(cheers)—whose sufferings and achievements—or, ra-
ther, he should say, whose sufferings were only equalled
by her achievements, whose comparative disregard of
her self and attention to others entitled her to record upon
the pages of British valour. (Loud cheers.) He, (the
Mayor) begged to propose the health of Lady Sale,—(loud
cheers)—and to call upon Colonel Mitchell, who had
served in India.
Colonel MITCHELL, after some facetious remarks,
concluded by saying :—" In the name of Lady Sale, in
the name of the ladies of England, and in the name of all
the soldiers of Great Britain, I beg to return you my
thanks ; for the distinguished lady whose health you have
now drank is fit to be the mother of all the heroes of
Great Britain." (Loud and continued applause.)
Sir Robert Sale and the majority of the guests here
&parted, and the company broke up at eleven o'clock.
On Friday morning, at Richmond hill, William Brown,
Esq. gave a dejtiener to Sir. Robert Sale and his lady, but,
in consequence of Sir Robert Sale being indisposed, he
was not of the party. In the evening Lady Sale and
Mr. W. A. Brown and family dined with the Mayor,
after which there was a splendid ball. Sir Robert Sale,
in consequence of continued indisposition, did not attend,
to the great disappointment of the company. On Satur-
day, Sir R. Sale being recovered, they left town by the
nine o'clock train for London, to wait the Queen's com-
mands. In addition to being appointed to the command
of a regiment, he has received the lucrative appointment
of Quartermaster-General of her Majesty's forces in
India, for which place he proceeds overland in Decem-
ber.

GREAT IRON BRIDGE FOR THE NEVA,
BUILT AT LIVERPOOL.

(Abridged from the Journal.)

The fact of the Emperor of Russia having commissioned
our townsmen, Messrs. Bury, Curtis, and Kennedy, the
celebrated engineers, to construct, at their extensive es-
tablishment, an immense iron bridge to cross the Neva,
at St. Petersburgh, has excited considerable interest in
the engineering world. The river Neva, in the most
central part of the capital named, is at present crossed by
a bridge of boats—the Pont D'lsaac—over which there is
a prodigious traffic, interrupted only in the night, for the
passage of ships through one compartment of the bridge,
which can be shifted or removed for the purpose. In the
spring, however, huge masses of ice disengaged by the
thaw, drift down the stream with such force, that it is ne-
cessary to let the bridge loose at one end, and permit it to
swing round at the other so as to lie along-side the quay ;
and even this precaution is occasionally unavailing to pre-
serve it from the destructive effects of icebergs—the boats
last year, for instance, being carried away from their an-
chorage, and with them the superincumbent carriage and
footway, into the Gulf of Finland, whence they were reco-
vered piecemeal by steamers. To obviate such occur-
rences, as well as to carry out the imperial designs for
beautifying and improving the capital, the Czar has re-
solved to erect a bridge of solid iron, on piers of Finland
granite, and, impatient of delay, has entrusted the cast-
ings to Messrs. Bury, who, when their new furnace, now
being built, shall be completed, will be enabled to cast at
the rate of 150 tons a week,—so that by the time the ma-
sonry is finished, the iron work may be forthwith fixed
upon it—the whole project being to be perfected in two
years, when the bridge will be opened with great eclat.
The structure will consist of seven arches. The span
of the centre one will be 156 feet, and of the three arches
on either side 143 feet, 125 feet, and 107 feet respectively.
Another arch will be devoted to a species of swivel bridge,
70 feet wide, for the admission of ships to and from the
Custom-house. The buttresses of the piers will present
to the current a sharp inclined plane, so that a descending
iceberg running upon them, will fall to pieces from its own
gravity. The bridge will be very fiat, there being a fall of
only seven feet from the top of the centre arch to the end
of the last arch on either side. The average depth of
water in the Neva here, throughout the year, is about
thirty feet ; and as the river is a tideless one, there is lit-
tle variation, except when the wind sets strongly up from
towards the Gulf, when the waters rise considerably, in
some instances doing irreparable damage. As the shores
of the Neva, on either side, are extremely low, the height
of the crown of the centre arch from the water's edge will
be only 21 feet—the spring of the arch but 6 feet. The
extreme length of the bridge, from one abutment to the
other, will be no less than 1078 feet. The weight of iron
alone will be nearly 8000 tons ! independent of the lamps
and superb bulustrades with which it is the Emperor's
intention to adorn it; and which together will probably
weigh from 1000 to 2000 tons more.
An idea cannot yet be formed of the cost of the whole
undertaking, but the price of the iron part alone will pro-
bably exceed £loo,ooo—much of the labour to be be-
stowed upon, and the machines to be constreetted ex-
pressly for it, being very expensive. The segmehts of the
arches have to be planed with the greatest precision, and
the best possible workmanship devoted throughout the
details. The weight of iron will exceed by nearly five-fold
that consumed in the construction of the Menai Bridge.'
Altogether, the Neva Bridge will be a most surprising evi-
dence of what the skill and enterprise of a private British
firm are able to accomplish ; and that such an under-
taking should have devolved on a Liverpool house consti-
tutes an epoch in the commercial progress of the locality.
There are three boat bridges on the Neva, and it is highly
probable they will be replaced with iron ones when that
under notice shall have come into use.