The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

In 1824 he was aide-de-camp to General SirJ. Keane in the West Indies. He served as assistant adjutant general in the northern district from 1817 to 1852 when in April in that year he was appointed to the command of the South Wales district. It was while so employed that he was selected by the late Viscount Hardinge to go to the Crimea in the command of a brigade, when he was made a major-general. The lamented death of Lord Raglan occasioned a vacancy in the command of the Eastern army, to which Ge neral Sir James Simpson, the chief of the staff, suc ceeded. Major-General Barnard, at the urgent request of Sir James Simpson, was then appointed chief of the staff, a post he wss well qualified to fill. Sir Henry Barnard was subsequently appointed to command a division of the army before Sebastopol, and was made a lieutenant general while so employed. The peace following soon after the tall of Sebastopol, Sir Henry left the Crimea to take the command of the troops stationed at Corfu, after the evacuation of the Crimea. From Corfu h? returned to England to command a division at Shornecliffe and Dover. It was while so employed in November last that he was appointed a major-general on the staff at Bengal. The services of the gallant officer before Delhi, with his comparatively feeble force, since the outbreak of the minim of the Bengal. regiments, were of no ordinary description, and it is feared that anxiety, coupled with unceasing labour, had combined to accelerate his death. His commissions bora date as follows :--Ensign, June 9, 1814; Captain, Aug. 15, 1822; Captain and Lieut.-Colonel, May 17, 1831 ; Colonel, Nov. 9,1846 ; Major-General,June 20, 1851. SIR HENRY MONTGOMERY LAWRENCE, K.C.8., whose death in a sortie beneath the walls of Lucknow is announced in the telegraphic intelligence from India, was a brother of Sir John Laird Muir Lawrence, K.C.8., being the eldest son of the late Lieut.• Colonel Alexander William Lawrence, of the county of Lin donderry, sometime Governor of Upnor Castle, who distinguished himself by his gallantry at Seringa /warn. His mother was a daughter of the late Cap tain Knox, of county D.megal. H 3 was born at :Vlattura, in Ceylon, in 1800, and married, in 1837, Honoria, the youngest daughter of the Rev. George Marshall, of Carndonagh, Ireland, but was left a widower in 1851. Having received his early educa tion at the diocesan school at Londonderry, and after wards at the college of Addiscombe, he entered the military service of the Hon. East India Company, in the Bengal Artillery, in 1821, and soon ob'ained the character of an able and energetic officer. He served in the Cabul campaign under General Sir George Pollock, in 1813, and received shortly afterwards the brevet rank of major. In the same year he became British R .sident at Nepaul. He afterwards took part in the campaigns on the Sutlej, after which he was made a military Companion of the Bath, and pro moted to the rank of lieatenant.colonel. In 1810 he was appointed Resident at Lahore and agent for the Governor-General on the north•western frontier. On the annexation of the Punjaub, in 1849, he was appointed by Lord Dalhousie chief commissioner for the Government of that district, and for his able ser vices in this and his preceding employment was made a civil K.C.B. In 1854 he obtained the rank of full colonel, and was also nominated an honorary aide de-camp to her Majesty. He was the author of " Adventures of an Officer in the Service of Runjeet Singh ;" and the firmness and ability which he had shown in checking the progress of the recent mutiny must be too fresh in our readers' memories to ne-d repeating here. We can only add, that in Sir Henry Lawrence the India service and the country have lost an officer whose head and hand they could ill afford to spare in the present crisis. But it is not only as a soldier or as au eminent civilian that Sir Henry Lawrence will be missed here after, high as his character stood in both capa• cities. As a frank, open, honourable, and straight forward man, and as a generous and unselfish friend, he had few equals, and no superior; so that his loss will fall quite as heavily upon private society in India as it will upon the public service. As an instance of his generosity, it deserves to be recorded that for many years, whilst drawing a handsome rcvenne from his official employments, he devoted all that he could spare of his yearly salary to the foundation of an asylum for the orphan children of European soldiers, which bears his name, and will long stand as a memorial of his good deeds on the hills between Simla and Umballah. MR. H. F. BULWER MACREADY, son of the eminent tragedian, we regret to say died on Saturday last, in his nineteenth year. MR.WILLIAM SHIELLS, R.S.A., died in Berwickshire en Thursday week, in his seventy-thirlyear. He Possessed consilerable versatility, but it was in animal Painting that his forte lay. He frequently contributed to our recent exhibitions pictures of Scottish interiors, which, though agreeably coloured, and evincing considerable feeling, were (probably from a deficiencyin early training) not equally suc cessful in other requisites. Mr. Shiells was, we believe, the oldest member of the Royal Scottish Academy. THE PRESS, AUGUST 29, 1857. Mn. WILLIAM RAWSON died at twelve o'clock on Wednesday night, from injuries received from an accident, by which he was ridden over b y his groom. Mr. Rawson was well known as the treasurer of the Anti-Corn-Law League. WHAT CONSTITUTES A CANDIDATE. C. HARCOURT, Esq., the judge of the Canterbury County Court, has given an important decision as to what constitutes a candidate at an election. An action was brought by Mr. Cooper, the auditor ap pointed to examine the bills of the candidates at the late election for that city, against Mr. C. M. Lush. ington, for the recovery of 101., as a first payment to the plaintiff in his capacity of election auditor (under the 34th section of the Bribery Prevention Act) by defendant, who, it was contended, was a candidate for the representation of the city within the meaning of the act, lie having issued an address to the electors on March 14, but resigning his pretensions to the seat three days before the day of nomination, the 27th March, the writ being issued either on the 23rd or 24th March. His Honour said his impression was very strong that the defendant was not a candidate within the meaning of the act. The issuing of an address merely meant that the party issuing it. gave notice of his intention of becoming a candidate at the election, and unless he was nominated, or made himself responsible for other expenses, his opinion was that defendant could not be considered a candi late. The plantiff must therefore be nonsuited. THE REPORT OF THE COMMON LAW COMPANIES, lately published, among its mote important recom mendations, proposes to remodel the circuits, and (if Manchester be separated from Liverpool) to add to the North and South Wales Circuits the adjacent counties of Salop and Hereford (from the Oxford Circuit), and to add to the Oxford Circuit Warwick (from the Midland Circuit), and to annex York to the Midland, diminished by Warwick and Northamp • ton, the latter town to be annexed to the Norfolk Circuit. Two jii.lges, it is suggested, should go to Cardiff and Swansea. The Home and Western Circuits would remain unchanged. Certain details in connection with the Welsh Circuits are likewise discussed at length. The commissioners propose no alteration in the four legal terms, leaving the judges to dispense at their discretion with the term London sittings or not. They recommend that one judge, sitting for all the courts, should attend daily at chambers at a much earlier hour than at present, leaving the two other outsitting judges to sit at nisi prigs in either of the courts as occasion may require, without leaving for attendance at chambers. As regards pleadings in vacation, it is recommended that the Ist of October be substituted for the 24th of October as the period at which certain suits may be proceeded with, and that one or more judges be em powered to try causes arising in any of the three courts after the Ist of October at such intervals be tween that time and the Michaelmas Term as may be deemed necessary. illone g glarlat an 6ii,g FRIDAY EVENING. TILE return of the Bank of England for the week ending the 22nd inst., shows the following changes compared with that for the week preceding : Decrease in Circulation Increase in Public Deposits Decrease in Other Deposits Decrease in Securities 650,113 Decrease in Bullion Decrease in Rest Increase in Reserve Bullion iu Both Departments 11,230,131 Circulation, including Bank Post Hills The large reduction in the amount of Private Deposits cannot have been solely caused by the commercial employ ment of the money in the market, though, as the discount houses have been doing more business in bills than the Bank, it is probable that a portion may have been with- drawn for that purpose. It is believed that the East India Company have mainly produced the diminution, by apply ing some of their funds to defraying expenditure arising out of the measures to suppress the Indian mutiny. The Bank has received large repayments of advances, so that the Private Securities have now fallen to 17,353,0001., the lowest amount at which they have stood for some time. The Public Deposits, which showed a large decrease last week in consequence of the liquidation of the Sound Dues, appear to be rapidly recovering, and at the present rate of increase the October dividends will be met without antici patory revenue. The general operations shown by this comparison have been important, and they have resulted in a decrease of circulation and in an increase of Reserve which nearly balance each other. The falling off in the Bullion is unimportant. The Money Market has again been easy, the supplies having been good ihroughout ; but the demand has, upon the whole, been much more active than last week, and rates have shown a tendency to advance. Indeed, for a short 853 neriod the best bills were done only at the Bank minimum The average rate now is about five and three•eighths per cent. The increase in the demand is the only new feature. In ell other respects the market is much the same as when we last wrote; but it would have been a good deal worse had not support been given to it by the arrival of large amounts of gold from Australia, and by an accumulation of the stock of silver having rendered any further purchases upon the Continent unnecessary for the present. As to the future, we see no reason to change or modify the views expressed in our last that the present ease can only he regarded as temporary. The expenditure on Indian account is very arge, and it cannot be met without some derangement in. finance, though from the nature of the circumstances we may not feel the effects of that derangement at once ; but commercial relations between the two countries are too intimate for England not to be sensibly affected by embarrassments that cannot be a voided in Calcutta, Bom bay, and Madras. The time, therefore, wili come when the cost of extinguishing the insurrection and of restoring order must influence the value of money and the profits of trade to merchants and manufacturers at home, just as the charges of the Russian wc.r influenced them last year, though the operation may be less direct. Since our last two official telegraphic despatches have been published by the Government, bringing political news from India to the 30th July from Bombay, and to the 28th from Calcutta. Great ingenuity has been shown in twist ing the intelligence so brought into meaning that the turning point has at last been reached, and that we have entered, in reality, upon the path which is to lead to a speedy restoration of our power and authority. This favourable view is founded upon the fact that the armies of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies remain loyal, and that our forces have, wherever they have come in collision with the mutineers, inflicted heavy losses upon them. Making the most liberal allowance for all the cir cumstances in our favour, there is a large balance of dis advantage and disaster on the other side—so large as to destroy all hope of these troubles being ended without a very desperate and protracted struggle. We have lost three general officers, each holding important commands ; Delhi is not taken, and is admitted to be an Indian Sebas topol ; Cuwnpore, though in our possession, is not yet safe; all Oude is against us; it. has been found necessary to disarm the remaining native regiments in the Punjaub ; and the mutiny has enlarged its area towards Agra and Indore. It will, therefore, tax all the strength of the army in Bengal to maintain its ground till the arrival of the reinforcements now upon their way ; and it is clear that, unless they are large enough to sweep all before them in a very few weeks after the field is taken, a third campaign will be necessary. The letters have not yet been delivered, but it is confidently believed they will sustain the opinion of those who are unable to regard the facts stated in the telegraphic despatches as containing the elements of satisfaction, which are so pertinaciously ascribed to each successive arrival. - - - Since these remarks were written one of the newspapers connected with the Government, the Morning Pod, has published a despatch whic:i fully confirms the apprehen- sions just expressed. The massacre at Cawnpore in chided all the officers, and a similar tragedy had taken place at Sealkote. An obstinate engagement before Agra had terminated in the British force there being obliged to retire with a heavy loss, no less than nineteen officers having perished. Altogether this news acquaints nslwith the death of nearly forty officers. Besides these losses, which under present circumstances must he severely felt, the mutinons spirit appears to have extended. The news caused great gloom today, and it was followed by a decline in nearly all classes of securities. Considerable arrivals of gold have taken place during the week. They include 530,0001. from Australia and about 210,0001. from the United States. Including silt' r train the Continent, our supplies of the precious metals have been enlarged to the extent of 820,0001. or there abouts. The exports have reached 100,0001. Of the balance, about 360,0001. have been sent into the Bank ; the remainder is in hand, and will probably be taken for the Continent, as the exchanges are gradually falling. There is a large accumulation of silver in the market, and the price has consequently given way a little. It will depend upon the letters from India whether any further change will take place in it. At present, the engagements to send out silver to I ndia and China by the packet leaving Southampton on the 4th are only moderate—not so much as 700,0001. _ . During the week, business in all classes of securities has been of a very restricted character. Many dealers are absent from town, and those who remain exercise the greatest caution in contracting engagements ; so that, from these causes alone, there has been less activity than usual. But the public have been investing considerably in Reserved and in the New Threes, with a view to the October dividend, as the books will be shut in a few days, and their operations have imparted a certain degree of strength to the market, though not sufficient to maintain it in the face of the news from India. Railway Shares have improved, particularly Great Western stock. Consols have been drooping nearly all the week. Last Friday they closed at 901 to 91. On Saturday, upon the receipt of the first Indian despatch, they fell one-half per cent., and closed at 901 to 1. Subsequently they improved to 901 to ; but yesterday returned to 901 to 1, closing dull. To-day they opened at the same ; but on the arrival of the Indian news, they fell to 91% to 1. They closed very dull at 901 exactly. Foreign Stocks are, on the whole, rather better, but tba market shows little or no animation. The settlement of the liail•vay Account has to some extent interfered with business in shares, but on the whole the market has improved, though it has now a dull aspect. Great Western stock has been scarce, and holders being firm, an advance of one per cent. was estaLlialitd up to yesterday. 31idlands and Caledonians have also im proved, and the whole of the lines connected with the •