31iiorttlautinto.
The Globe of last night gave the following statement the most pro- minent place in its columns-
" A report has got abroad that his Highness the Sultan is to receive the highest honour which the Sovereign of these realms can confer upon a fo- reigner of the highest rank, and he is to be made a Knight of the Garter. The statement is, that the Order is to be conveyed to his Highness by Sir Charles Young, Garter King-of-Arms."
The Globe had been anticipated by the Horning Herald in making the fact public; and this morning it adds to its original information—" Ex- cept something unforeseen occurs to change her Majesty's present deter....
urination, Sir Charles Young will start in a day or two for Constanti- nople to invest his Imperial Highness with the Most Noble Order of the Garter."
Major-General Sir George Buller, K.C.B., who commanded a brigade of the Light Division in the Crimea, and had previously been very ac- tively engaged at the Cape, has been appointed to command the troops in the Ionian Islands, in succession to Sir H. W. Barnard, K.C.B., nomi- nated to the command at Shorncliffe.
Major-General J. Bloomfield Gough, C.B., lately in command of the Belfast district, has been appointed to command a brigade at the Cur- ragh. General Gough served on the staff under his distinguished name- sake in most of the Indian campaigns of late years. The following officers have just been placed on the list of those re- ceiving rewards for distinguished services—Major-General Dupuis, C.B., of the Royal Artillery ; Colonel Collingwood Dickson, C.B., and Lieute- nant-Colonel Adye, of the same corps ; Colonel H. D. Townahend, com- manding the depot battalion at Templemore Colonel John Napper Jack- son, of the 99th Regiment ; Colonel WiAiam Parlby, of the 10th Hus- sars; Colonel F. G. Shewell, of the 8th Hussars.
The Government factory at Enfield for the manufacture of small-arms by machinery seems to be a promising experiment. Nearly all the ma- chinery comes from America, and two American gentlemen occupy im- portant posts in the establishment.
"It is divided into departments," says a writer in the Times; "of which the principal are the smithery, where there are daily forty-five forges at work with their attendant machinery, and that in which all the various mi- nute processes connected with the manufacture of locks, bayonets, and stocks, replete with interest, are carried on. It is in this latter builing- an extremely large one, and well lighted from the roof—that the greater part of the machinery in use is in operation ; and the whole of the mechan- ism, as well there as in the smithery, is driven simultaneously_liy a magni- ficent double engine of 80-horse power. The operations for rolling and per- fecting gun-barrels are performed in an adjacent building, which is being enlarged and fitted up with an engine of 25-horse power, for conducting that department on a scale commensurate with the other parts of the fac- tory. The barrel-rolling machinery at present in use, which is not of Ame- rican invention or manufacture, has been in operation since 1852. In the smithery the bayonets and all the several parts of the lock apparatus, in- cluding even the small screws used in its construction, are first forged from bars of steel, with the greatest rapidity, and with all the aids of a perfect system of machinery. Thence they are transferred to the general building ; where they are submitted to an almost endless succession of processes of the nicest description, performed again by machinery specially adapted to:each operation until they attain the requisite degree of accuracy, finish, and per- fection. Into all the various details of the manufacture we cannot enter here, however wonderful and interesting they are as exemplications of the amount of mind employed in devising and practically applying machinery to opera- tions so diversified and delicate ; but, besides the rapidity with which they are performed, far exceeding the capacity of any amount of hand labour, two other results have been attained, of the greatest importance in a trade so peculiar as this, where a great national emergency might at any time create on a sudden an immense demand for the article manufactured. The one is, that this machinery, guided by young men and boys taken from the plough-tail, or any other of the humbler occupations of life, is capable of executing work until now performed by skilled operatives specially trained to it, and by ne- cessity with far more marvellous accuracy than was ever achieved by hand- labour, however superior Another result On which much stress is laid, is, that every conceivable part of a musket, from all the small compo- nent portions of the lock upwards, is manufactured with such unerring pre- cision that it will fit with surprising exactitude the place destined for it, not in a single musket alone, but in every other constructed on the establish- ment. For instance, from indiscriminate heaps of each of the several finished parts of a lock, consisting of the plate, the sear and its springs, the bridle, tumbler, mainspring, and screws, an artisan can put together a lock in a few minutes. It is the same with every other part of the weapon ; all the respective materials are exact counterparts of each other ;_ every barrel adapts itself to every stock, every bayonet to every barrel, and so on. By this complete system of interchange of parts, when any portion of the arm wears out in service before the rest, or gets into disorder, it can easily be re- placed, and thus the whole weapon is not disabled by a casualty of that kind. Touching the quality of the materials and work, at every single stage of its progress it undergoes a rigid examination, by which any defect is at once detected, and every minute article is made exactly to correspond with an unchangeable gauge. The very tools used are manufactured on the pre- mises, and also by machinery in many instances."
The Enfield factory has attracted the attention of Continental Govern- ments : Baron Smola of the Austrian Artillery has visited it three times during the summer ; and General Barreiro on behalf of the King of Portugal, and Prince Oscar of Sweden, have inspected the works.
General Chesney, as Commissioner of the Euphrates Valley Railway Company, accompanied by Sir John Macneill, the engineer-in-chief, and a staff of engineers, left London on Wednesday en route for Constantinople and Syria, to obtain the firman for the concession for the railway ; the preliminaries having been previously arranged with the Grand Vizier when in this country. The mission has received the sanction and con- currence of her Majesty's Government, and is assured of the countenance and support of the British Ambassador at Constantinople. From the ad- vanced stage of the negotiation, it is expected that General Chesney and Sir John Macneill will only be detained a few days in Constantinople, and that they will proceed with the engineering staff to make the neces- sary surveys of the line between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates.— Daily News.
The obituary of the last ten days contains the names of three remark- able men—Mr. Gilbert Abbot EC Beckett, Sir John Ross, and Sir Richard Westmacott.
Mr. A'Beckett had gone to France in August for his annual holiday. Last week, while staying at Boulogne, he was seized with an illness that rapidly reached a fatal stage, and finally carried him off on Saturday morning. He is much lamented, not only by his colleagues on the bench, but by his old comrades of the pen. The Daily News thus honours his memory. " Mr. A'Beckett, the son of a solicitor in extensive practice, was educated at Westminster School, and was launched at a remarkably early age into the excitement of that profession of which he became a conspicuous orna- ment. Gifted with a wondrous and peculiar humour even as a boy, he started comic periodicals with his schoolfellow Mr. Henry Mayhew, and was dealing with public reputations at an age when moat youths confine their ambition to the delicacies of knuckling down, or the diplomacy of peg-in. the-ring. Before he had reached man's estate, he had seen many periodi- cals rise and fall under the auspices of himself and his literary partner ; some having obtained a temporary success, others having failed at once. But undoubtedly the great success of the two boys was Figaro—the journal which, it may be fairly said, prepared the public mind for the appearance of our prosperous friend Punch; upon which they were destined to found a lasting reputation. " The fortunes of Punch are patent to the world; and with them the name j of Mr. A'Beckett is inseparably associated. The jovial spirit in which Mr. Dunup has borne his adverse fortunes—the fun found in Blackstone— the shower of jeux-de-mots in the Comic History of England '—the weekly comments of exquisite humour on passing events, in which the touch is unmistakeable—then the genial, simple spirit of the writer— these are among the claims by which the name of A'Beckett will be re- membered in the literary history of the century. As one of the origi- nators of that vise fun which has distinguished the periodical literature of the present time, he must hold a conspicuous place ; while thousands who remember sly hits and droll turns of thought, and exquisite plays upon words, that bear his name as author, will also remember, as a charm, that none of them were unjust, and none made telling by their ill-nature. He was before all a just man, who never allowed his moral sense to be distorted by his wit, and who never slaughtered a name with his irresistible ridicule while he believed that name to be honourable. Few men could have held the two opposite positions he occupied, as Metropolitan Magistrate and Punch contributor, without incurring charges of incompetency on the one hand or snobbism on the other. Mr. A'Beckett was a wise magistrate and a conscientious contributor. He buckled bravely to his magisterial duties, while he cherished an affection for the periodical in which he bad won his way. It was his delight to have at least a few lines in every number of Punch.
"Mr. A'Beckett must not be judged, however, simply as a contributor to Punch, and therefore as a man who never devoted himself to solid and serious work. It should be widely known, that for some time his light and vigorous pen was in the service of the Times newspaper, and that he con- tributed to the leading columns of that journal some of the more remarkable articles it has put forth. Indeed, on one day the whole of the leading columns of the Times were the production of the gentleman whose death we now de- plore. Intrusted by the late Charles Buller with an inquiry into the iniqui- ties practised at the Andover Union, Mr. -A'Beckett framed so masterly a report that he was at once recognized as a man of clear and sound judgment, who combined with this valuable qualification the power of explaining his views in language at once brilliant and vigorous. His Andover leaders in the news are articles to which reference is still constantly made. The genius with which the Andover question was treated gave Mr. A'Beckett strong claims upon the gratitude of the country, and secured for him the Metropolitan Ma iatracy, which ho has held with honour and dignity during the last seven years.
"An earnest, a wise, a hearty, and a kindly man, has passed from among us, and we note his loss with sorrow. It is something to say that a man so largely gifted with the power to wound leaves no scar behind him,. and that all men of letters now living unite in acknowledging the ability of the writer, while his personal intimates bear witness to his goodness as a friend and to his devotion to his domestic circle. He has left a widow, whose gifts as a musician are not unknown to the world, to deplore his sudden. death, and children to bear a name upon which he has gathered many honours, against which there is not a word of reproach."
Another distinguished man, Rear-Admiral Sir John Ross, the Arctic voyager, died on the same day.
" He was in his eightieth year ; and up till the period of his last brief ill- ness, was strong and active to a surprising degree, considering the hard-, ships to which he had been exposed in the many scenes, trying alike to mind and body, through which he had passed. He went recently to spend a few weeks in the country, and on his return to town found himself so shaken by travelling as to make it necessary for him to keep to his bed. It was hoped, nevertheless, that he might recover. At one o'clock on Satur- day morning, a sudden change for the worse took place, and he calmly an- nounced to those present that he felt he was dying. From that moment he never rallied ; but, having made a sign for ins pillow to be raised, turned his head quietly on one side, and, apparently falling asleep, breathed his last as gently and tranquilly as it is possible to conceive."
Sir John entered the Navy in 1786; and during the war he was wounded thirteen times. When peace returned, Captain Ross with Cap- tain Parry made a voyage in the Arctic regions, in 1818 ; and from 1829 to 1833 he was similarly engaged. He was also the author of several works connected with naval matters.
Sir Richard Westmacott died at his residence in South Audley Street, on Monday. He was in his eighty-second year, and had been ill for three weeks. He was born in 1775, in London; his father was recognized as a sculptor of some eminence. he young Westmacott showed early a taste for sculpture ; he went to Rome in 1793, and studied for some time under Canova. In 1794 he won a prize offered by the Academy of Florence, and in 1795 a medal offered by the Pope- Shortly after his return from Italy, he was elected an Associate by the Royal Academy, and an Academician in 1816. In 1827 he succeeded Flaxman as Professor of Sculpture, and died holding that post. West- macott sculptured some of the few statues that stand in the squares of London—Pitt, the Duke of Bedford, Fox—and several monuments in St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey ; and he has left behind him many works of art now in private hands.
A fourth man of mark is General Sir Henry Campbell ; whose death, at his house in London, on Tuesday, placed the Colonelcy of the Twenty- fifth Regiment at the disposal of the Commander-in-chief. General Campbell served with the Guards in Flanders and Portugal ; and he commanded the First Division in the advance of the army into Spain in. 1812.
THE Thkuvesx.—The accounts from different parts of the country are as contradictory as the weather has been within the last fortnight. In some of the local journals we read that the crop is " immense" and the damage less than was anticipated ; in others, that the yield will be infe- rior, and that the damage is serious. The former kind of evidence pre- ponderates as regards wheat, the latter as regards barley ; while all re- joice alike in the promising appearance of the green crops. On the whole, it would appear`that the wheat harvest, although not so abundant as was at one time expected, will be above the average.
The report of a distinguished contributor to the columns of the Times, " .1" . C.," [James Caird ? of the probable harvest in the North of Europe is very favourable. " . C." had travelled from Ostend, via Cologne, to. Magdeburg, when he wrote his report. The crops had been unusually
large through this stretch of country; but as the weather had been un- propitious, much of them had been spoiled for the English market.
The opening of the Manchester Mechanics' Institution exhibition will not be celebrated with the éclat expected : Lord Palmerston's loss of a brother prevents his attendance, and other notables who had been invited will be unable to be present.
An ecclesiastical prize will shortly be contended for. The Reverend Henry Melvin, who is now a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, has resigned the " Golden Lectureship." The duty consists in preaching a sermon every Tuesday morning in the church of St. Margaret, Lothbury ; and the emo- luments are 4001. a year. The appointment hes with the Haberdasher? Company.
The remains of Sir William Temple were deposited in the family-vault of the old abbey church at Romsey on Saturday.
Prince Napoleon arrived in the Seine Hortense at Christiania on the 31st August : the Prince gave up his voyage to Cape North in order that he might return to France at the appointed time ; bad weather strengthening his resolve.
The following anecdote of the late Lord Shrewsbury appears in the Staf- fordshire Advertiser. "The clergy and others who had been invited to at- tend at the funeral of the late Earl. of Shrewsbury dined at Alton Towers after the conclusion of the ceremony. After dinner, Mr. Sergeant Bellasis informed the company, that on the previous night he had found among the papers of the deceased Earl a document enclosed in a cover, with the super- scription in the handwriting of his Lordship, ' To be opened at my death.' The paper was dated the 6th of January in the present year, and was as fol- lows—gf I die at Rome, I wish to be buried in the Church de Jesu ; if I die nearer to Rome than to England, I wish to be buried in the Eternal City ; but if not, I desire that my remains be brought back to England.' The paper was signed ' Shrewsbury.' It was very gratifying to find that, although the paper was not found until all the arrangements of the funeral wer ecompleted, his Lordship's wishes, though unknown, had been literally fulfilled. He died at Lisbon, which is much nearer to England by water than to Rome ; and to his native country his friends had brought his re- mains."
Mr. James Nasmyth, of Manchester, puts on record in the Times the fact that an invention of his own led to Mr. Bessemer's plan for superseding the puddling of iron : a fact which has, been freely acknowledged by Mr. Bes- semer. Mr. Nasmy-th's plan was to send a blast of dry steam through mol- ten iron, which effected the same purposes as those of Mr. Bessemer's opera- tion with compressed air : the steam agitated the iron, and was itself de- composed; the oxygen combined with the carbon in the crude iron, and carbonic acid resulted; while the hydrogen removed any sulphur or other such impurities.
A melancholy proof of the great distance a Minis rifle will carry a ball has been given at Magdeburg : some soldiers were tiring at a target at 1000 paces ; labourers were at work 700 paces beyond—that was thought to be a safe distance ; but one of the poor fellows was mortally wounded by a bul- let. [A sheep has been accidentally killed in England with the Enfield rifle from a distance of 2500 yards.] An iron lighthouse intended to be erected on an islet of the Bahamas group now towers from the iron-works of Messrs. Griaaell on the Regent's Canal at Horton. It is 124 feet high, and is surmounted by a revolving lantern 16 feet high ; its diameter is 25 feet at the base and 14 feet at the top ; it weighs 300 tons; and its cost before leaving England will be from 70001. to 80001. It will eventually be fixed on the great Isaac's Rock, on the Bahama Bank,—a dangerous shoal, situate in the Straits of Florida, between the Bahamas and Havannah. It is described as a desolate spot, wholly uninhabited, about two miles long and half a mile in breadth, with scarcely any vegetation, destitute of fresh water, at certain seasons wholly covered by the sea, and for about three months of the year altogether unapproachable by ships, by which means alone provisions can be conveyed to the seven or eight men who will be employed to keep the light burning in this lonely tower.
As the stone of the new Parliament Palace is already. showing signs of decay, men have been set to work to cover it with a newly-invented solution, which will, it is believed, preserve it from destructive atmospheric in- fluences.
Highly successful experiments have been made at Woolwich with an in- vention of Mr. Francis, an American, called a " floating metallic pontoon waggon." This waggon can be used as a boat in crossing water, to carry soldiers or baggage ; four of them fastened together are sufficient to bear a piece of heavy ordnance ; and by means of a larger number a floating bridge can be formed.
The convict establishment at Woolwich is to be entirely broken up, and the prisoners will be transferred to the new convict prison at Chatham.
A nugget of gold weighing six ounces has been found by three poor Irish- men who were searching in a " gold stream" near Arklow. It is expected that there will be a capital crop of hops this year : they have made great improvement recently. The United States national debt cannot be extinguished at once, though there are funds to do it, because the fundholders do not choose to be paid until the period fixed by law : the Treasury even offers premiums of from 10 to 16 per cent for stock to be cancelled. Emigration from Liverpool seems to be reviving : during the past month 10,393 emigrants left the port ; while in August 1855 the total was only 8908.
' The cholera is disappearing from Madeira : 5000 have fallen victims in a population of 16,000. At Funchal the cases have been reduced lately to five or six daily. -It is severe at Porto Santo. A subscription has been started in England. Mr. Samuel Phelps, 4 Rood Lane, Fenclearch Street, has con- sented to receive subscriptions.
The Reverend William Nind, Senior Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cam- bridge, has lost his life in a lamentable way, at Paris. He was sleeping at the HOtel du Monde ; there was an alarm of fire in the house ; in his fright, and thinking he could not escape by the stairs, Mr. Nind leaped from his -window into the street ; and he was so badly hurt that life was extinct be- fore a surgeon reached the spot. The fire does not appear to have been at all serious.
Captain Graves, the Superintendent of the port of Malta, has died from stabs inflicted by a Maltese boatman. A letter from Rome announces the death of Prince Charles Doria, who every year was accustomed to distribute a sum of 40,000 francs in alms. He was a saccone, and, not content with what he-gave himself, used to go about the streets barefooted, dressed in coarse sackcloth, with a thick cord round his waist, imploring charity from the passers-by for the poor.
The Ben Avon, which left London for Shanghai in March last, was wrecked at Howloo, about forty miles from Amoy, on the 17th June ; having gone ashore during very bad weather, and quickly broken up. The compasses had been deranged some days before, when the ship was struck by lightning. Twenty-three of the twenty-eight persons on board got to land, all more or less hurt. Among those who perished were Mrs. Scott, the wife of the master, and Mr. Leslie, a son of the owner of the ship.
Mobile has been " excited" by the sale of Abolition books : a Vigilance Committee ordered the vendors to leave the city within five days; but they immediately fled.
New Orleans and the neighbouring country have suffered much from a storm : the city was inundated, while in the country the damage done to the sugar, cotton, and corn crops, was great.
At the last meeting of the Wortley Board of Guardians, application for relief was made by a woman who stated that her first husband had enlisted as a soldier and deserted her ; that her second husband was dead, her third lost, and her fourth in prison. The applicant was only thirty-seven years of age, and has three children.
Two members of the American House of Representatives, Mr. M‘Mullen of Virginia and Mr. Granger of New York, have indulged in fisticuffs in an omnibus in consequence of a litical dispute. One account represents that the Virginian was the assailant, Mr. Granger being a greyheaded old man—a specimen of "Virginian chivalry " ! Of course, slavery was the topic which gave rise to the disgraceful outrage.