T.C. Theaker has resigned as Commissioner of Patents. A number of gentlemen are mentioned as candidates for the succession, prominent among whom are B. T. James and Charles Mason. Mr. James has acted in the capacity of primary Examiner in the Engineering Class for a number of years, and has filled his position acceptably. Judge Mason held the Commissionership from 1853 to 1857, and his whole administration was marked with reform and ability. Judge Mason was educated at West Point, and he is a man of sterling integrity, a sound jurist, experienced in patent law, and a splendid executive officer. One thing may be relied upon, if Judge Mason should receive and accept the appointment of Commissioner, inventors will not have to complain long of delay in the examination of their cases The Judge is as industrious by nature as he is stern and systematic by education and he will have no drones about him. The work of the office under his administration would be brought up and kept up. A good day for inventors and all persons having business with the Patent Office will dawn when Judge Mason takes the Commissioner's chair again, and we hope the proper influences may be brought to bear to secure his acceptance. * * * * * OBITUARY. Ebenezer Winship, died at his home in this city Dec. 6, 1867, at the age of 67. A long and eminently useful although unobtrusive life entitles his memory to respect. He commenced his career as a mechanic in the steam engine establishment of James P. Allaire, soon after the application of steam for the propulsion of boats and long before its application to ships for the purposes of commerce or war. For fifty-two years, with the exception of one or two brief intervals, he was connected with the Allaire works in this city, and for more than forty years he was the master mechanic and general superintendent of the works. Probably no man now living has had a more intimate connection with the construction of the marine steam engine in all its remarkable changes and improvements, or been so long employed at one engine establishment. James P. Allaire, the founder of the Allaire Works, died May 20,1858, at the age of 73. He was an intimate acquaintance of Fulton and from the engine of Fulton's first boat, the _Clermont_, took drawings which he used in the construction of his first marine engines. He built the engines for the _Chancellor Livingston_ which ran between New York and Albany. He built also the first marine engines ever constructed in this country, which were put into the steamship _Savannah_, the first steamer that crossed the Atlantic, and also those for the _Pacific_ and _Baltic_ of the Collins line, which ships surpassed in speed any before constructed.