The Sun. — London, England, 1864-09-19 00:00:00

liuller's Arrival in London. That so much excitement and interest should be exhibited with regard to Muller would be truly surprising were it not for the atrocious circumstances of the murder, the peculiar and romantic features of the temporary escape and of the pursuit and c +pture of the supposed murderer, and the ap parently damning evidences of guilt which presented them selves when that capture was effected. However sang uine Mr Inspector Tanner and the other officers of the London detective police might have been that they were on the right scent, and that they would secure the supposed cul prit, they could hardly have expected to have at the same time found such seemingly conclusive evidence against him as the hat and watch of the deceased gentleman. With regard to the arrangements for bringing Muller to Landon, it was at first determined that he should be con veyed by the London and North-Western Railway, and negotiations were entered into with the directors with that view. Muller was landed from the Etna by a special steamer on Friday night, about eleven o'clock, and was put ashore at the north end of Prince's Pier, instead of the usual and great landing stage, to the great disappointment of many hundreds of persons, who had assembled at the latter place for the purpose of catching a glimpse of him, and had done so for the space of several hours. On the prisoner landing he was in charge of Inspector Tanner, In spector Kerrissey, Sergeant Clarke, and the other London officers, and a strong detachment of the Liverpool police, and was at once conveyed to the central police station, where he was to remain for the night. It was then arranged that the accused should be brought to London by the 9 o'clock express, due at Euston at 2.30. With a view to avoid public excitement as much as possible Muller was removed at about half-past seven yesterday morning from the Liverpool central police station to the Edgehill station of the London and North Western Railway in a cab, and remained there until the 9 o'clock London ex press arrived. The train having been brought up to th e p l at f orm , Muller, in company with Inspector Tanner and Sergeant Clarke, was placed in the last carriage but one of the train, being a second class. It is stated that when the prisoner started from Liverpool he was not ironed, but if that be the case, from whatever circumstance such a course may have been prompted, it is equally certain that on his approach towards London the detective officers thought it advisable to place handcuffs upon him. There was a general impression that Muller would be brought to London by the mail train from Liverpool on the previous night, and that he would make his appearance at Bow-street shortly after 10 o'clock. Long before that hour Bow-street was blockaded by the public, and the intimation by the morning journals that there was no probability of Muller's arrival before the afternoon appeared to be viewed as a ruse, and had no effect in diministeing the numbers as sembled. When the prisoners' van arrived all the assurances of the police that Muller was not an inmate had but little effect, and the rush to gat a glimpse of the supposed murder, when the prisoners were removed from the van to the police office, was terrific. Rumours were afloat that the telegrams in the morning papers were fictitious, andhad been concocted by Inspector Tanner and the press to deceive the public, and it was even asserted that the prisoner was known to be in the cell of the station at Bow-street, awaiting the arrival of his solicitor for the purpose of being taken before the police magistrate. Whilst these demonstrations of excite ment in the public mind were being exhibited outside, the in terior of the Bow-street police court was packed with a dense crowd, and numbered amongst them a goodly sprinkling of the upper classes, indicated by their carriages lining the thoroughfares in the vicinity of the court. During the morning the son of the late Mr Briggs visited the court to have an interview with Mr Burnaby, the chief clerk of Bow-street, and that gentleman having been recognised by some one in the crowd, the impression still gained ground that if Muller had not already arrived, he would be brought to the police court and placed in the dock as soon as his arrival took place, and although Mr Briggs shortly after left, under the assurance that no examination would take place till Monday morning, the excitement still continued to prevail, and the crowd diminished but little throughout the day. ARRIVAL AT CAMDEN TOWN. The general police arrangements wi , h respect to the ar rival of Muller in London, sa far as the London and North Western Railway is concerned, were entrusted to Superin tendent Lorton of the S division, and Inspectors M‘Lach- Jan and Gibson, who acted under his orders ; but it would appear that up to the eleventh hour the directors of the rail way themselves were in doubt as to whether Muller would be taken out of the train at Camden or be brought on to Euston station—at least they professed to be so. At all events precautionary measures, such as they were, were taken to prevent any undue pressure of the public either at the Camden station ticket platform, or at Euston. So rigid were these precautionary measures that the representatives of the press were compelled to obtain an official letter or pass to permit them to have access to the platform at Camden or at Euston stations, and a body of railway police, under Inspector Pridgeon, were sent up the line to the former point with instructions to take all orders from Mr Watts, of Captain Bruyero's. the general superinten dent's office, whilst Mr Coulter, the chief of the same de partment, had the general superintendence at the arrival platform of the Euston station. It is fair to the company to state that, in the uncertainty, they gave the represen tatives of the press the privilege (the only one they pos sessed) of travelling in the same train from Camden to Euston by which Muller should arrive from the former to the latter station, if found necessary, On reaching the Camden ticket platform, there was found assembled, not withstanding the precautionary measures before referred to, a large number of persons, who, although represented to be merely the employes of the railway, must certainly have included their friends, as they amounted to some hundreds. A telegram had been received previously to the arrival of the express that Muller was in the last compartment of the last second class carriage in the train, in charge of Inspector Tanner and Sergeant Clarke, and this becoming known, as the train made its appearance coming round the curve near Chalk-farm-bridge there was a great rush down the plat form towards the rear of the train, which was a very long one. The train brought up at the Camden ticket platform at 35 minutes past two, and as soon as it stopped the where abouts of Muller was at once indicated by the clustering of the London detectives round the compartment of the car riage and shaking of hands and cordial greetings which passed between Inspectors Tanner and Williamson, who, together with Sergeant Thomas, of the detective force, at once entered the carriage. The rush to get a glimpse of the supposed culprit was now terrific, and continued for about five minutes, during the whole time the ticket collectors were collecting the tickets at the platform. Notwithstanding the cries and groans which prevailed, Muller, who sat with his face tc the engine, between Inspector Tanner and Ser geant Clarke, appeared quite unmoved, although he looked very pale—as we were informed, more than usually so— the excitement that was going on without no doubt contri buting to any emotion he may have felt on finding himself so closely approaching the end of his journey. But to all appearance Muller himself looked more unconcerned and much less excited than most of his fellow passengers, the vast msjority of whom seemed, until the tremendous up roar and excitement at the Camden station apprised them of the fact, unconscious that they were in company with the supposed murderer of Mr Briggs. The tickets having been collected, the train moved slowly from the platform on its way to Euston, amidst the loud execrations of those assembled, many of whom ran along the platform, hooting and hissing, and exhibiti ng th e w i l d est excitement, till the rapidly increasing speed of the train put distance between them. The shouts had evidently been heard by the employes at Pickford's and Messrs Collard's factory, which abut upon the railway, for they were all out, and gave a hearty groan as the train passed. SCENE AT EUSTON STATION. The train which left Camden Town at 2.40 reached the Euston terminus in three or four minutes, or as nearly as possible at about 2.45. Here another tremendous scene of excitement presented itself, seeing that precautionary mea sures, or supposed precautionary measures, had been taken to exclude the public. The immense number of persons assembled, certainly not less than a thousand, was truly astounding, and it appeared to require all the energies of a strong body of police, personally under the superintendence of Mr Loaton, superintendent of the division, to keeplorder. The privilege of riding in the carriage immediately in front of that in which Muller was sitting, enabled our reporter to obtain an excellent view of all that transpired, and of the appearance and conduct of the accused himself on alighting from the train. The train was pulled up in such a manner that the last carriage barely reached the northern end of the arrival platform, and the carriage in which Muller was when brought to a stand, was immediately opposite the s ide gate in S, ymour-street, facing Gee-street, and in rear of the clearing house. Here the Bow-street police van was drawn up with its door bac'aing towards the train. The moment the accused was identified by being brought out of the carriage in which he had been riding, the cheers and groans by which he was assailed were tremendous—the cheers proceeding from evident gratification at the fact of his capture and arrival at so close a proximity to the scene of his supposed crime, and the groans indicating the horror and indignation f e lt at its perpetra l iJn. Muller evidently felt this, as, tho ug h h e j um ped from the carriage in a light and easy manner, the increased pallor of his countenance told that ho comprehended the position in which he was placed. The crush and pressure to get a sight of hi - n was at this moment terrific, and it was with great diffraity that Inspector Tanner and Sergeant Clarke, who had each hold of his arm, urged him forward t o th e steps o f t h e p r ison van,into which he was liter a lly lif te d , whist the detect i ves Jumped in after him. In an i ns t an t a f ter the van was driven ' off amid the cries and execrations of the public, who not only crowded the pl a tf orm, b ut even the root of the railway carriages in every direction. Th e van drove out ' threugh theiron gates into Dr ummond -street, where another salute greeted the supposed. murderer, and ,passing along the Hampstead -road and Tett Endel (-street, St. Gilee's, Court road, reached and so o a n m to o the Bo w. street station. .A.PPEATIANCE OF IkIULLEP in spite of the cool and indifferent 14. HlS eet which A a ulti AlLe r exhibited when the Liverpool express aarBart!rieveetdi the . Camden station, and when he first heard the greeting in store for him on his reachin g London, thre was evil altereti al in his appearance on his arrival at L a t mar h tt e r d . minus when he stepped front the train, and during th °l e l a nd hurried intervals that elapsed Letreen his leaving B the railway carriage and entering the police van in:waiting to convey him to the Bow-street station. The shouts and exe crations by which he was received appeared to h tvc a strong effect upon him. He looked deadly pale and e Fd. He was dressed in a somewhat shabby black oho:: Cambridge cut coat and dark waistcoat, with light sp.lo d trousers. His neckerchief was black, with white spots, and he wore a somewhat dirty and eld-looking straw hat, with a dirty black or blue band round it. In stature he is about sft 6in high, of pale, sallow complexion, wi'h light sandy-look ing hair, and a very little of the same light colour about the chin. His head and face is of the round German cast, widening rather than otherwise towards the chin ; and his frame, whilst it is not of that thin and attenuated appear ance which has been represented, does not exhibit that of a man of any great muscular power; and an impression pre vailed that, judging from the description given of the late Mr Briggs, as being that of a strong and powerful hale man, although aged, it would be hardly possible that Muller could have mastered him single-handed, unless he had in the first instance inflicted a blow that had rendered him in sensible. It is stated that on his arrival at Bow- street his previous coolness had returned, and he entered the station from the police van without any assistance, and appeared to take little notice of the exciting scene by which he was surrounded. ARRIVAL AT BOW STREET.-IMMENSE EX CITEMENT IN COURT. Notwithstanding the announcement in the morning papers that Muller would not arrive in London till half past 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a large and eager crowd took possession of Bow-street shortly after 9 o'clock, in the firm belief, apparently, that the prisoner would arrive during the night, and would be brought before the magistrate in the course of the morning. At 10 o'clock a rush was made to get admission to the court, the repeated assurances of the officers that the case was not coming on till Monday being totally disbelieved and disregarded. The few trivial chargco which had been entered upon the night sheet were consequently heard by Mr Flowers in the presence of a court most inconveniently crowded. During the progress of the cases the son of the late Mr Briggs entered the court merely to seek some information from Mr Burnaby, the chief clerk, but the circumstance was regarded as a sign that Muller was at hand, and created a decided "sensation." Mr. Briggs however remained only a few minutes. It had been arranged that the examination should com mence at 11 o'clock if Mailer arrived over night, but shortly before that hour, owing to the telegrams received that the prisoner would not arrive till the afternoon, the Solicitor to the Treasury, Mr Pollard, accompanied by Mr Giffard, for the N.L.R. Company, had a private interview with Mr Burnaby, and it was determined to postpone the examina tion till Monday morning, it being considered impossible to collect the witnesses or make any material progress with the case at so late an hour of the day. This conclusion was therefore announced to Mr Flowers, and the court was cleared. The crowd outside, however, was not to be so easily appeased. When the vans arrived with the ordinary prisoners they were besieged, and when any one at all approaching the description of Muller was about to alight from the steps, he was assailed by cries of " That's him I" " There's Muller,",&c , although probably he had been only in trouble about a bad shilling or a pocket handkerchief. These salutations caused much surprise to the inmates of the vans, and much amusement to the mob when the mis take became known. But as the afternoon approached rumours became rife that Muller would be brought direct from the Euston station to Bow•street ; and although no positive information upon the subject could be gathered by the populace from the constables on duty, who really were ignorant of the facts themselves, there were obvious signs that some such step was in contemplation ; consequently the excitement of the people as 3 o'clock drew near became intense, and an extra force of polies was found necessary to keep open a passage for the ordinary traffic. Every cab that drew up with a couple of gentlemen or more inside was eagerly pounced upon, and quiet people in pursuit of busi ness or making for the trains suddenly found themselves suspected of being concerned in the outrage on Mr Briggs. One gentleman especially, of slight stature, and with sandy hair, was assailed as Muller with such perseverance that he showed evident signs cf displeasure, the more so as the stoppage of the cab opposite the station door, an accident, necessitated by the thoroughfare being blocked up at the moment, had led to some demonstration on the part of the roughs, although followed by shouts of laughter. At length a cry of " Muller is coming I " was heard in the distance, and a police van, crowded with constables outside, and fol lowed by an excited and almost breathless mass of people, was sees coming down Bow-street. It was soon apparent that the long-enduring p itience of the mob would be re warded by at least a chance of a glimpse of Muller. A desperate t ush was made at the van as it drove down Bow street up to the door of the police station, end at one time there appeared some risk of its being tinned over, but a dozen or two of the constables pushed against the near side of the van, and equilibrium was fortunately not disturbed. It WAS some little time before a passage could be cleared for the. transit of the prisoner and his attendants, but at length the door was opened, and the first person to alight from the van with a light, jattnty step was Franz Muller himself. Then arose a storm of hissing and groaning of a most unmistakeable character, but it did not in the slightest degree disconcert the prisoner. The people seemed surprised at the slight, mean, and shabby appear ance of the man who had been so long the theme of uni versal discussion. Far below the middle height, excessively plain looking and ill-featured, and with light-coloured hair projecting from under his hat, garments thin and seedy, and wearing a white broad brimmed and somewhat weather beaten straw hat, he really was not " equal to the occasion" in the estimate of the crowd, who freely commented upon the disappointment which they had experienced. " What r' said one stalwart ragged denizen of Seven Dial., he murder Mr Briggs--he chuck a big man out of the carriage I why ho couldn't du it." Speedily, however, Muller was out of their sight. Superintendent Durkin took him by the arm, followed by Inspectors Tanner and Williamson, the former being almost as much an object of interest to the spectators as Muller himself, Muller was at once taken to the inspec tors' room, where he was received by Mr West, and placed at the bar while Mr Durkin entered the charge upon the sheet. 'When Muller was asked his address, he replied, " At 16, Park-i.errace, Old Ford-road, Victoria Park," the house at which Muller was lodging before his departure to Acaeriea. Ho appeared still unmoved, but when the words were read over to him, "charged with having wilfully mur dered Thomas Briggs on the night of the 9th of July last," his head drooped a little, and there was an obvious tremor throughout his frame, He appeared weak when he was about to be removed to his cell, after the sheet had been signed by Inspector West, but he recovered a little after wards, and walke I across the station• yard with at least an affectation of nonchalance. He was then locked up, there being strict in from the authorities of Scotland-yard that no one should be permitted to be present, or to have any interview pith the prisoner, except his accred ted soli citor, Mr Thomas Beard, on behalf of the German Society. Mr. Beard was preeent during the formal proceedings of entering the charge, and about an hour afterwards he was admitted to the prisoner's cell, accompanied by a German gentleman (Dr. Juch we believe), who was to act as an in terpreter if necessary, the interpreter for the Crown being Reimer, an intelligent police officer of the A division. Mr. Beard had a long interview with his client, but, of cource, nothing that took place between them has been permitted to transpire. The following is a sample of the kind of letters constantly received by the magistrate on these occasions : "to Mr filti.:re, magerstate, bow streete pleace statien.— Sir, i rote to mister henery about a young woman that is suspected by many to have a hand in the murder of mister Briggs in fact it can be proved by her coming home at 10i that morning and her black shaul all over blood, and i am sorry to see she has got off so well. She lives at Islington. I told you before her name and address and she is s dark girl with black wavy hair but i am very sorry she as es caped as she as, as she had a hand in it as I stated before. She is going to Calcutta the 10th of next month as I stated before this time." The name and address of the young girl alluded to are enclosed, but the letter itself is anonymous, and evidently written In a fei,zned hand. Street Fight in San Francisco•, There was a serious shooting affray in our principal street (Montgomery), which resulted in the death of four p v e iz s . r o: as_ It s T ee h rti e sfaocntse, Billaue Davis , hasare ascnearttaadingeda,mabrolera,swfohlolows, re sides at Yrek a , was interested in a and drove a boots horsecame in w going to which came off at Placenvilles on the 15th inst., an d votioB r hend e , Hank swore " throweet" th e race, making 4,500 do Stevens, Ball, Dut c h Ab e, and Sp azi,ith Blso.b backed Davis's hor se and got broke; sports, killing on sight, &c. On th e 18th they allo re vengeance, by it. came to thi s city (except Davis), and p u bli cly raid they Han and shoot a t2O Davis 'cl o o c n kp .m sight,. was sitting 0 n t h h e2 a l v s i t a Davis hi a w e s in a black's adjoining the F as hi on, when Ball and D ac polished Abe came to the door, and, looki ng i n, exclaimed ~ Here's the dirty thief now," and, drawin g th e i r revolvers, cmr'''B menced shooting. Davis jumped out o f th e chair with one boot polished, and, drawing his revolver, fired, and Ball fell dead across an iron grating. Davis then jumped out on the sidewalk, laughingly saying " You've made a mistake," and fired at Dutch Abe, the ball taking effect in his right breast. He fell, when Davis ran and caught the revolver from Ball's hands, saying, as he walked towards the door of the Fashion, Where's the rest of your murderers ?" Blood was running down Davis's left hand from the arm, also down the right cheek. As he was on the point of en tering the door he was met by Stevens and Sp inish Bob, when Davis raised the revolver in his right hand and fired t w ic e Stevens fell, and Spanish Bob jumped over him on the sidewalk and fired. Davis staggered, but, recovering, they i'(Davis and Spanish Bub) commenced in good earnest, each striving to fire a deadly shut. Davis was laughing all the time They then commenced firing at each other, about 20 feet apart. After Davis had fired two shots he threw the revolver at Bob, and ; changing the revolver he took from Ball into his right hand, he raised it, and it snapped three times ; the fourth time it went eff, and Bob fell. (Davis had fallen before this, and was lying on hie breast on the banquette.) Davis threw the revolver into the street, saying "Hell and furies damn the thing." He then pulled a deringer, and both (only having one shot each) began crawling towards each other on their stomachs. When about five feet apart they both raised partly up and fired simultaneously, when Bob's head fell, and he remained per fectly still. Davis then said, crawling towards Bob, " He's gone, I cooked him," and then partly turned on his side and tried to rise. On examination, Ball and Spanish Bob were dead, Dutch Abe and Stevens mortally wounded, the first having been shot through the right lung, causing internal haemorrhage, &c. ; the latter was shot through the left breast, Spanish Bob had four wounds on him—two in the right breast, one in the right arm, and one between the eyes. Ball had a ball in his heart. Davis had six wounds—two in the right leg, one in the right breast, one in the left shoulder, one in the left wrist (through), and one in the right cheek, where a bullet had struck the cheek bone and glanced off, cutting out a piece of flesh of the size of a ten-cent piece. Stevens died on the 24th, at 40 minutes past 10 a m. ; Dutch Abe died yesterday morning. Doctors say Davis will cer tainly recover.—San Francisco Paper, June 24. THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 19, 1864. SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. " THE SPECTATOR" WITH A BEE IN ITS BON NET!—A man must be very blind, very incapable of the most ordinary generalisation, who does not see that bees stand morally and politically to many flies and other insects much in the relation of man to apes and other savages. Or, if you please (be cause we do not pretend to settle the details of the analogy, we only stipulate for it in the gross), that the bee, the wasp, the hornet, the humble-bee, may stand for the various civilised communities of man ou the globe, as compared with sundry flies, w hich as the lowest savages and apes, live in motley groups, very busily and jollily perhaps, but without appreciable organisation. Let the bees stand for England, then the big and distant hornet will do for Russia, and the flighty, graceful, omnipresent, marauding wasp for France. Germany will be the busy, buzzing, rustic, yet fierce, little humble bee, and so on. Or shall the bedizened wasp stand for the bedizened banditti of the Apennines or Pyrenees ? Any how the main analogy is patent—it is not superficial—it lies in the heart of the matter. Has man a language? So have the bees, as we shall show on good authority. Has man an art and a science ? So have the bees. Does he transmit his ideas ? The bees do likewise. To repeat the quo tation from Shakspere made by an accurate student of bees : " So work the honey-tees Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts, Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like, merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make booties on the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with every march bring home To the tent royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesties, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold; The civil citizen kneading up the honey; The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate ; The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy, yawning drone." Theta lines, so magnificently true, we quo`e almost with regret, their substantial truth having a ten dency to invest them with the air not of absolute truth but of ingenious parallelism. But let us for a moment imagine the condition of man and the bees reversed. Suppose man were the size of the bee and the bee the size of the man, would the diminished size of man affect the worth of his intellectual and moral ideas in themselves? Even as he is what is he seen from a balloon? What is he seen from the moon ? A vast deal less than the bee actually is to us seen through the glass of our own relative mag. nitude. Yet is he as thus seen less noble in reason, less infinite in faculties, lees admirable and express in form and moving, less in action like an angel, in apprehension less like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals ? Surely not. And if some Hamlet of a bee chose to speak of bees as Hamlet spoke of man, though we might perhaps smile, we certainly could not object, seeing that Shak spere, who created Hamlet, gives the bees in the lines we quoted above every right to think as much of themselves, as man of himself. And all this is still only relatively. The consequences of the inversion of size, if looked at positively and economically, aro equally if not more striking. Our size adds not a jot to the worth of our ideas and feelings in the scheme of the world. But it adds just everything to our weight and influence on our own globe. If the bee had been the size of man and man the size of the bee, man would certainly not have been master of the globe. Sir John Hers chel indeed in his introduction to the study of natural philosophy speaks very eloquently of the defencelessness of man. But the truth is that in the savage state man is beyond comparison the most ferocious, adding colder purpose to ferocity, among animals. Babies are defenceless, of coarse, but so are whelp, so are larvae. Supposing the bee to be the size of man, she would have reigned mistress of the globe far more supremely than we could ever pretend to. What can a savage do in beauty and delicacy at all comparable with the work of the bee ? What is hie best armour to the terrible dagger which is part of her very frame, what are his tools compared to the carpenter's mut turn in parvo which she carries about her ? Endowed with flight too, who can tell tier dunces of conflict with the powers of nature? What chance would the elephant or rhinoceros stand against a winged warrior that could settle at will on his beck, stab him behind, and devour him before ? And if the bee builds as an insect, in ivory and gold, and lives upon nectar, what would she have built had she been unques tioned mistress of the earth, skipping rivers with easy flight, surveying countries as from a balloon, perhaps able to fly with ease across the ocean, cer• tainly able to tear up the bowels of the earth with her own naked strength in a manner to astonish the most herculean navvy, and taught by dominion, spurred by growing ambition, and aided by flight— to supplement her already prodigious strength by constructions and engineering devices of which we in our rudeness have no conception? Bat it will be said these suppositions are idle. They are not, and therefore they cannot be. They are not, certainly not within our experience. That they cannot be, that they are not on some other globe, for instance, is what a man must be a bold man to affirm. What is it that prevents the bee being bigger here ? It may be acme constituent in the atmosphere so minute on this globe as to prevent the insects who depend upon it from growing any larger. Horses feeding on one soil go to bone, on another to fn sh. May not globes, alike in the main, yet by a minute inversion in the proportion of the gases, for instance, change the whole relations between the order of the animal kingdom, assuming those orders to be, as they may very well be on many globes, substantially alike ? Suppose a globe, for instance, in which that substance or those conditions, whatever they are (are they known ?) which give flies, and bees, and other in sects, their dark metallic hues, should be greatly in the ascendant, is it inconceivable that on that globe the entomological should be and would be the su preme Order, trampling on two-legged fearfully and wonderfully made diitinutive creatures, as we trample on the flies and insects here ? That the bee is wonderfully made is certain. Her nervoas sys tem is apparently far more intricate than ours. And physiologists know the whole consequences of that one tingle fact. We have said that it is demons.. trable, let us say all but demonstrable, that bees have a language, and of course a memory. Dr. Bevan mentions the following anecdote: "A colony had been attacked in 1804 by the sphinx (moth) and suffered through too tardy preparations. In ISO 7 the moth reappeared, when the bees immediately constructed fresh spamparts. Now, working bees do not live more than a year at the outside." We need not follow Mr. Wood, and specify the consequence. Again, it is clear that they have not instinct merely but reason. Instinct can only mean the stereotyped acts under stereotyped circumstances. If the adap tation of means, however clumsy, to ever shifting circumstances can be called instinct, then all we can say is that man's instinct transcends the in stinct of animals only in degree. If not, then ani mals and insects, in whatever degree, give demons trable proofs of reason. Take the following instances :—Quoting again from Dr. Bevan, Mr. Wood says, "Avery striking illustration of the ream coning power of bees occurred to my friend Mr. Walond. Inspecting his bee boxes at the end of October, 1817, he perceived that a centre comb, burdened with honey, had separated from its attachments, and was leaning against an other comb, so as to prevent the passage of the bees between them. This accident excited great activitytsahtirinudced to in the colony, b u t it s na t ure cou ld not b e ascertained at the tim e ." " A t t h e en d o f a wee k , " Mr. e bees Woodthroughclustered th e win ddo continues, w o ‘ f' together,tt hheeboa weather xr .tva n n t e dy g cold b at nobserved. con structed hhoraizdornetmalnyped illa s r o s m be u t e w h ee o n f the the combs and wax from the top of each as to allow the pas sage uninterruptedof a bee ; t i h n o about h f t n e t n e , d a t y h s e more e t h h e me e combw:s an t its upper part had been secured by a strong barrier and fastened to the window with the spare wax. 'nil being accomplished the bees removed the hori zontal pillars first constructed as being of no further use." Will anybody after reading this deny that bees have reason and science ? Is science less science for la-ing implicit, i e., involved in spontaneous but reflective and adaptive action, and not explicitly laid down in books ? If every Englishman were a Stephenson and every woman a Brunel, and we had no encyclor re lia of engineering, because we wanted none, should wo not laugh at those who said that we, poor things, had only instinct not reason ? Have we not our own jokes against the" bookish ?" It humanity were perfect there could be r,o books Are the bees less perfect because they accomplish great feats of engineering, regard being had to Their size, which are quite equal to cur own limier ordi nary circumstances ? Ordinary circumstances ! Show me the English child who will build a per fect, practically perfect, hexegon, and alter it to suit circumstances ! Why such an ordinary degree of education in the children of our shires would be deemed visionary, impracticable, the dream of an enthusiast! The bees have it, and we the wonderful say, " Pooh ! you have only instinct, it is nothing in you. 011ie me instinct, and I could do the same." "Instinct !" says the bee, "nonsense! So when a central comb gets detached, which in proportion to me is as big as your clumsy houses in proportion to you, and I support it by pillars and alter it to suit circum stances, you call that instinct, do you ? Pray what do you call it in your engineer who built a tubular bridge over some straits or other of yours with his naked eye, and boasted his ignorance of mathe matics ? Had he only instinct ? ' But the instances we quote are the veriest fragment of the evidence, which demonstrates as clearly as the sun in heaven that the bees are an organised polity, a civilised community, differing from us no doubt more than Turks or Chinamen from Christians, but bound together by ties of language, experience, affection, common aims, in a word all, perhaps even more than all, the ties wherewith we are bound together. Pray if the bees were our size and we theirs, what would they think of U 3 ? Our language they would describe as a hum, our finest flights of eloquence as a rather louder hum than usual. our music as comi cal chirping, our books as curious scraps of industry, to serve, as far as they could see, curiously base uses, our houses us showing a very incomplete sense of symmetry, our relations to one another as being almost incomprehensible, and excepting in the one cardinal fact that, with the exception of one or two varieties of the insect man, one male went with one female, all other relations as below the pains of a bee of the world to understand. Perhaps some poor eccentric bee might waste her precious life and die in a garret in the attempt to fathom the useless mystery of that:pretty and curious little two-legged and two-handed insect man ; but the vacation of the public-minded bee would bid her attend to very much higher matters. THE " SATURDAY REVIEW' ON MEN CONSI DERED AS ANIMALS !—English society is so varied, it is marked off into so many classes, and these classes are so intermixed, that even those who have had the best opportunities of forming a wide and accurate judgment can scarcely venture to say they understand it. But there is one thing which per vades all English society and is found in every class, and that is, a large amount of daily happiness. Be low a certain level, indeed, happiness cannot be said to exist. There is a degreo of poverty which forbids any enjoyment whatever, and it must be owned that there is a large portion of the population of England which is not happy, simply because it has not a fair chance of health. Millions in England do not get enough good air and enough food to make life anything but a long burden. The agricul tural population in manycoun tries never gets enough to eat. Thu men are half-starved, and the women and children are the constant prey of those num• berless diseases which spring from insufficient nourishment. In large towns, the very look of the inhabitants, and especially of the young, tells its own tale ; and it is a mockery to speak of happi ness when the body is exposed to such endless pri vations, and the mind is dulled with constant care, and an overpowering sense of helplessness. But if these poor wretches are put aside, and a moderate ch ince of good health is once secured, every class in England is happy in its way. Nor is it easy to say which class ie teat) happiest. An Eogtish nobleman, for example, with a handsome place and a fine estate, with au incontestable position in the best society, able to fill his house with the visitors he likes best, with the opportunity of being scientific, or literary, or agricultural, or sporting, or simply nothing, just as much or as little as he pleases— with every one inside his gates treating him as a blessed being from a brighter world, and every one outside delighted, to have been spoken to, or even nearly spoken to, by him—seems as if he had everything the world could give him. But when we turn from surveying him to surveying a person of a different class, we do not find the elements of happiness:much diminished. A successful professional man wtio is not engaged in a pursuit which perpetually occupies and interests him, who is getting together a moderate fortune, who has a comfortable well appointed home, and who has all the resources which educatton can offer at his command, has as happy a life as mortal can desire. He is not, however, better off than the manufacturer whose zeal and perseverance have placed him at the head of a groat business,whocounts the hands he employs by thousands, and who tastts every hour the pleasures of sustained practical au• tivity and of setting in motion the practical activity of others. He, again, may be rivalled in happiness by one of his own hands, who delights in his own punctuality, industry, and thrift, who honestly be lieves that he sucks in wisdom from his Mechanics' Institute, who educates his children to a higher pitch than he himself haareached, and chuckles over the thought of the store he has confided to the Savings'-bank. None of these men, again, is better off, so far as the sense of pre. sent enjoyment goes, than the higher kind of labourer, who gets good wages by leading a life in the open air, who is at ease about the position of his wife and family, and who earns daily the glo rious appstite that gives to his lump of fat bacon and his pipe of coarse tobacco a divine relish un known to the luxurious or even to those who work hard, but in a less appetising way. Then, in one sense, all happy men are on a level, and there are no summits in society. Every class is apt to fancy that those below it must be unhappy because they have not got what it itself possesses: But this is a mere fancy. The mass of mankind is utterly indif ferent to the feelings and wants and possessions of those with whom it is not brought into daily fertile liar coats ct. The human mind easily accommodates I itself, in the absence of positive suffering, to that condition of things in which it finds itself placed. It is no better to be a duke, eating venison and drinking claret, than to be a day labourer, eating bacon and drinking that thick brown beverage which is invested in the country with the sacred name of beer. They both have the enjoyment of eating ; and if the duke can get a perception of savour and perfume with a less amount of physical readiness for food and drink, the labourer has, to a degree beyond all comparison, a greater pleasure in filling up a real void in his system, and in satisfy ing a genuine physical want. After the meal is over, the labourer hes to go nn working, and the duke nifty if he likes do nothing. But to be occu pied is much pleasanter than to be idle, and the easiest way to be occupied is to be forced to use exertion. It is the power of choice as to industry or idleness that makes rich people miserable. Nor is there any reason to suppose that a labourer's work is distasteful to him. It seems distasteful to those who view it from the outside as philosophical spectators, because they think how they themselves would like it, and they know that they would con sider three or four hours of hedging and ditching in a drizzling rain very poor fun. Bat the labourer does not think about doing it—he does it. His mind is reduced, by the kindness of Providence, very much to the state of pure blank which is suited to agricul tural occupations. What can be more dreary to look at than the way in which a cow walks over a field, for even biting at damp grass ? But the cow neither likes nor dislikes its ordinary grass. It is forced, by habit and animal instinct, to bend its head down l a i e n d gs g a o w o e n ek, nibbling—and go by habit and th e w i s h f or a certain number of shil onhedgitnhge labourer is forced, and it is said th e l a b ourer h as no intellectual ditching. Butenjoyments, it t t no pleasant b oo k s t o rea d, no nice people to talk to. Aso booke, he neither has t the m nor wants them ; he no mor e t rou bl es h i mse lf a bout them than most educated E ng li s h men trou bl e themselves about not understandi ng ninbeatuoti hises of betters,PerPersian poetry. hopes . He e leaves book leer like it, just as we leave Persian poetry to t he Asiatic Society, and h ope that i t suits them. And as to having no n i ce soc i ety , that is a matter of taste. The laboure r sees great fun in discussing the cepa• bilities of the different pigs, donkeys, and bulls of sia w the neighbou r h oo d over a publichouse fire, in drat. ting the farm ers , an d i n blessing his eyes if he ever saw such a rum c h ap as the parson. The labourer, perhaps, has not such fine and such complicated re ligious feelings as his superiors, but this is only a negative disadvantage. It is one that, by the very nature of things, he cannot feel, for if he felt it he would be on the way to have these feelings; and as for a contented view of a future state, that, as experie ence shows, can be produced by a proud consciousness in any other way. But the common sense of man of having helped to stub Th o rnaby waste as fully as kind has lorg ago pronounced that, although the amount of happiness or enjoyment may present no perceptible variations in specimens of different classes, and although we may be very thankful that o is n n e 0 , yet differenceh a ee pi ü bb e eu e tt e wt i eh s eenr e e f s man is so constituted that, wherever there is health sin d s i p ff ul co e hr sand an n d t savou ry thin*as inf savouri ness. food itself, dt and the absence of remorse, there a reasonable amount of happiness is within the reach of every and there is a hither and a lower happiness. There o The lot of a lis h h un li g fe ry rn m a s h r a e p , pi t n h e a s t s o is f otnoe men in different classes of Eng yan:ossibly not be very unequal, but the a A n o d d constant w h a o are et these e that sum ofmi summits another 'Theret to o s say, may be more refined, varied, appears class. summits in English society. there are more especially two. There aro two classes of men who, each in their way, have everything that life has to give them. There are the great nobility, and there are the educated professional classes who can con and a competence. It is very difficult to say which has the brighter fortnne,the more rounded and coma plated existence of the two. Each has in perfection what a great number has to a moderate extent and wish to have more abundantly. An English or Scotch duke has almost everything that is commonly thought to make up prosperity, and he has it to a very extraordinary degree. He has got to the end of that vast striving to be great which consumes so much of the time and thoughts of Englishmen, He is a very big man wherever he goes, and in his own district he is something prodigiously great. It is a sumptuous and splendid thing to move about from one huge castle or palace to another, and to know, wherever he goes, that all this is his ; or, to speak more accurately, that he has a life interest in it. He has the best of everything always provided for him• If he has a fancy for science, the heads of the scientific world will tell him all their secrets in the simplest way, and show him exactly the right sort of instruments to use, and do all his calculations for him. If he is religious, Exeter Hall will not only lick his shoes, bat clean them afterwards, to get them on the proper platform. If he likes literature, he can have so many literary people to talk to him that he can fancy their remarks are his own. If he wishes for poli tical distinction, he grins his experience at once, and can enter the Cabinet while he is still a boy; and as to the pleasures of the heart and the affec tions, half the improper women in London will run after him directly he shows himself. People who do not live in the society of dukes, and possibly some of those who do, are apt to forget how great men they are—but let a stranger penetrate into a great duke's country, and he will then know how very much one mortal can be above another. And he will realise this as he can realise it only on his native soil. We are never properly impressed with Continental grandeur—and there are, for instance, many honest Scotchmen who would smile at the glory of the Czar of Russia, but are fully overcome by that of the Duke of Hamilton. The duke is on one of the summits, yet we cannot but think that the educated professional man with a competence —let us say the Dean of St. Paul's or of West* minister—is on the other. He has not got the pride of wealth, and he has everything else that wealth can give except its pride. A man wants nothing really for himself more than two or three thousand a year can give him. Everything that is really nice to eat and drink may be had for money. So long as a man has carriages to ride in,it cando him no immediate good that he has carriages for other persons to ride in. The interchange of social cour tesies is, to say the least, as pleasant in the house of the humbler man as in that of the duke, and, what is of the highest consequence, the women are quite as well educated and as substantially well-bred, The intellectual pleasures may be tasted to the uts most in such a station, and there is generally more devotion to them, and a more habitual relish of them than in a higher rank, If station, is to be measured by opportunities of doing good, which it is often theoretically but never practically, there are quite enough opportunities in the simpler life, and. there is none of the anxious burden of deciding how c'earities are to be given on a very large scale. Even out of doors the duke has not nearly so much the best of it as is thought. It is true that if ha goes out shooting he will have the opportunity of killing more birds; if he hunts, ho will ride better horses; if he drives, he will preside over a much more mag nificent turn-out. But the pleasure of easy and splendid sport resides much more in the impression it produces on others than in the sport itself. Many a humble squire or farmer who walks hard about his fields until he has picked up half-a dozen brace of birds has had a much pleasanter day than a duke who has killed a hundred pheasants at the corner of a wood. But the duke and his shooting are men tioned in the county newspaper, and the squire is not mentioned. This is the difference, and every one must allow that it is a real pleasure and a legie timate ecurce of happiness to be mentioned in a county newspaper, which is only one of many signs of a high station. But then it must be remembered that if the duke has the pleasures of high station, he has the burdens too. He is always watched whatever he does; always stared at wherever he goes ; always talked about, even if he is as quiet as he can be, and lies in bed all the day long. His humbler rival escapes publicity, and this is a great thing.hßut even if the burden of great station is not equal to its delights, yet the conditions of the two men, which in nine points out of ten are equal, may on the tenth point be said to be equalised by the supe riority which the inferior has in the choice of his so ciety. He need not ask to his house, or visit, any but friends ; whereas the duke is a duke, and is expected to behave as such by countless people whom he wishes at the bottom of the Red Sea. But it may be said, if the educated professional man is on a sum mit, why not others ? The answer is obvious. In the first place, we must cut out all persons who are in the same line as dukes, but not so high—all peers, county magnates and so forth—for they have evi , dently a summit above them, on which the duke is placed, In the next place, we must cut out a 1 per sons who wish to enter this list, all persons whose aim it is to found families, buy great estates, get titles, and even those who desire great professional success ; for they all own that happiness :s incom. p;ete without some accession of grandeur approxi mating them, however remotely to dukes. Then, among professional persons, we must cut out all those whose professions are not compatible with the highest education, forotherwise they lose the greatest pleasure of the intellect, and they do not mix in circles where the women are highly edue itad and thoroughly refined. Lastly, we must exclude edu cated professional people who have not got a com petence, for their happiness is spoilt by pecuniary anxiety, and there are many positive pleasures — such as travelling, and good wine, and patronising promising relations—which they cannot enjoy. The number of persons, therefore, who are on this sum mit is not very large, but neither is the number on the ducal summit; and England may think herself very lucky that she has as many on each summit as she has, for she has far more than any other coun try in the world. THE " LONDON RETIEW."—A PENNY FOR ITS THOUGHTS.—Cheapness is a characteristic of our age. Your penny will work more wonders now than your pound could a century ago. We may be literally "penny wise" without being "pound foolish ;" we may eat penny ices in Italian salons, and penny pine apples at the costernaongei es stall. Some wit and poet of our happier times should annihilate " The Splendid Shilling" by writing " The Splendid Penny." He might range from cyclopredias to steamboats, and yet find matter for still more glorious flights. He might even emulate the achievements of Shekspere as recorded by Dr Johnson. Existence would " see him spurn her bounded reign," and " panting Time" would cer tainly "toll after him in vain." For we may look into the future at the moderate cost of one penny, and may put ourselves in possession of the fate of empires and the policy and actions of great men a whole year in advance. " Old Moore's Penny Al manack" will suffer no man to bo ignorant of coming events who cares to be informed. We have no occasion to wait for the sunset of life to acquire that mystical lore which enables us to see the ad vancing shadows before the lagging substance. Old Moore, for the merely nominal consideration of a penny, makes us all partakers of his most occult knowledge. His almanack is 4 prospective news paper for the ensuing year; in fact we don't see why people should go to the expense and trouble of buying and reading newspapers, when they only chronicle after the event what Moore has revealed before it. It is true they enter somewhat more into detail than the prophet ; but this is mere idleness and frivolity. All reasonable minds are interested in broad results rather than in petty minutiae. To such persons " Old Moore's Almanack" is a sort of essence of the journals of the world, stewed down to a portable form, and anticipating the laggards who, for the sake of a few unimportant particulars, prefer to wait for the event. To be enabled to buy such a jar of potted meat—minas the bone and offal—for a penny, is certainly one of the great pri vileges of the time ; and we cannot wonder if the publication finds a large sale. See what you get for your money in this latest issue—the Almanack for 1865! Besides the hieroglyphic and prophecies for the coming year, and the almanack properly so called, we have-a number of " beautiful engrav ings representing sea-fishing;" portraits of the American Generals, Lee and Grant ; lists of fairs and markets ; tide-tables ; the " rising and setting of the planets and phases of the moon ;tables of stamps and taxes; an enumeration of " the principal fixed and moveable feasts ; law and university terms ; articles of the calendar—in short, as Old Moore himself says on his title-page, in a burst of lofty generalization, at once modest and dignified, "all that can be desired or expected in en Almanack." By the expenditure of another halfpenny, you may have your pennyworth of wisdom secured to you in a " rich coloured 'mapper," all yellow and blue and red, with a hieroglyphic on the front, and a picture of an exquisite young lady in hat and curls, with the most languishing of eyes and the most delicious of shoulders, on the back. But this is simply a con. cession to the artistic tastes of the wealthy three. halfpenny classes, of which the penny public need not feel jealous. Ail the solid worth of Moore is to bo had for the lower sum, and the effluent may wale low, if they will, in the luxury of ornamentation. " Old Moore," as usual, begins with proving to the sceptical how all his forecastings for the existing year have been fulfilled. he "likes to speak by the eard," and therefore comes to the point at once with out any nonsense. Now, did he not say, with re ference to March, 1864, that " there are omens of danger to the heads of Royal hues abroad ?" and did not the King of Wurtemberg die? Yee, eel. tainly—only ho did'nt die in March. Then, ag a i n , he " foreshadowed the Conference upon the great Danish question thus... 6 Misunderstandings end eZill planation between diplomatists upon a very impor. taut subject." Captious disputants may perhaps urge that, if he meant a Conference upon the Danish question, he might as well have said so while he was about it; but objections are easily made by those who are resolved to make them, Concerning France, the prophet observed that " the entente cor diale may perhaps receive a slight check. There will certainly be some points of difference between Eng land and France." This was spoken with reference to the Emperor Napoleon's proposal of a " Congress of sovereigns," •which " England refused, not over courteously, and perhaps not over-wisely." The good man knows that this refusal " was very pain ful to the Emperor;" and, without pretending to anything like Old Moore's profundity of informa tion, we believe we may say that we know this too, and that the fact is within the cognisance of most men, But why, oh sage, why did you not tell us a year ago that the Emperor desired to hold a Con gress, and that he would be much pained at our refusal to join him ? However, we must not ques tion a prophet; we must only listen. OA Moore, in his last issue, told us all about France and Mexico, and he now warns the world that "much will be said and done in 1865 about this usurpation, com menced under fallacious and deceitful pleas." We are also advised that for many a long day Algeria will be very troublesome and onerous to her con querors—which we see not the slightest occasion to doubt. The star-gazer informed us last year that there would be a protracted struggle and a sanguinary contest in America ; and he now points with something of gloomy satisfaction to the proof that his prophecy was no alarmist chimera. Then, moreover, he said that " China would be the scene of more warfare and struggle ;" and have not the facts borne out his words? These marvellous successes must inspire the student of Moore's vaticinations for 1865 with immense confie deuce; and we therefore turn, with mingled hope and fear, to the magic glass which reflects the for tunes of mankind in the coming twelvemonth. We are rather daunted to find at the very outset that dark aspects are prominent, " Surely England is not again at war ?" exclaims the soothsayer, shud dering. Alas !he " much fears it." But let us not entirely lose heart. Moore reassures us as far as he is able by bidding us recollect that sometimes even at the eleventh hour favourable symptoms appear unexpectedly, and the patient is saved. Most true, oh Moore ! and we think none the worse of you for saying so; besides, it is always better in prophesying to be prepared for both con tingencies. Sometime in February, it seems, "Mi.. nisters will be engaged in the consideration of measures involving the safety and honour of Eng land." We are glad to hear they will be so well employed, since in the opinion of many they have recently let the honour of England go rather too much by the board. We are hardly surprised to find that " much difference of opinion will prevail as to the best measures to be adopted," because that always is the case ; but, with regard to another matter, we must confess we should have been bet ter satisfied had the information given been more precise and certain. " Probably a change in the Ministry about this time." Probably, but not assuredly. Perhaps so, and perhaps not. It would certainly be pleasant to know one way or another, and to have a list of the new Cabinet (if any); but the prophet knows best, and next year we shall be told exactly how events shaped themselves. Under the head of March it is intimated that "affairs in Spain do not progress very satisfactorily" (we do not recollect that they ever did) ; that there will be a " frightful calamity on lan, and," Moore fears, "disastrous havoc at sea," which indeed is only too probable; that there will be more insur rections in Algeria ; that Canada will be trouble some, and Chiba in a state of rebellion ; and that " the Continental news" will be " by no means tranquilising." In April " Garibaldi will again attract attention," which we can very readily be lieve, and there will be danger to royalty either at home or abroad." Moore also expects to hear of " much religious discord" in Belgium, which country, with a sweet forgetfulness of recent events, he de scribes as " usually so quiet and so free from excite ment." Furthermore, he fears a commericial crisis in England, and darkly warns his readers "not to join too rashly in the many new schemes of the day." Undoubtedly, to join " too rashly" in any schemes, whether new or old, is nnadvisable ; but it would have been very handy if the names of the questionable companies had been given. Perhaps, however, the wizard was afraid of an action of libel. One cannot very well plead a justification before the fact. Pro phecy is not evidence. In this way we are conducted through the whole year. We see a few allusions to the deaths of eminent men, but of course Old Moore is not so cruel as to mention names. One of these men, we are told, is " the noblest Roman of them all," and of another it is said that " we could have spared a better man." A very extraordinary thing is:to happen in October, 1865, for Convocation, which is generally not in session at that time of year, is " to decide upon some very essential and weighty principles connected with the doctrines and disci pline of the Church of England." On the whole, we are led to expect events of great magnitude and gravity ; but we are piously reminded that we are in the hands of Providence, and that things might bo worse. Moore is certainly an entertaining and a versatile author. By turns gloomy, grand, re• assuring, didactic, descriptive, political, and scien tific, he impresses us with the idea of a rich and comprehensive soul; and that he should introduce us to the future on terms so infinitesmal—place us, as it were, hand.in glove with the stars for the price of an old song—proves that he has a heart as genes rotas as his brain is large. " THE EXAMINER" ON IGNORANCE WHICH IS BLISS !—Colonel North has spoken well on a sub ject he understands, namely, his own ignorance. Let us not be understood in any offensive sense. We mean what we write, and mean it not uncivilly, but the contrary. It is not every man who knows his own ignorance, but if be does he knows much. When Johnson heard a young man flippantly say he did not know something that was asserted, the Doctor remarked, " What you do not know, sir, would fill a very large library." It is a common place that every step a man takes in knowledge ex tends his consciousness of the extent of his igno aence. Newton, measuring what he knew with what he did not know, said he was like a child on the ocean's shore gathering pebbles. This is the season when great cruelty is done to dumb beings. There is a law against over-driving oxen, but there is none for the redress of over-driven members of Parliament, and it is a marvel that none of them go mad. Hear the sufferings of Colonel North :—The month of September always opened to him with two very different feelings—one of pleasure at the prospect of meeting hie constituents at these meetings, and one of perfect horror that he was obliged on seven or eight different occasions to get upon his legs. How much better to be a par tridge, and seasonably shot and finished off at once. The Colonel is required to attend the agricultural meetings of his county, and to talk about crops and manures, steam ploughs and implements, whereas he has nothing to say except about soldiering, which farmers do not care to hear of. He knows but one kind of drill, and it is not drill husbandry. Here is his frank avowal :—At the age of 16 he entered the army, and for about 20 years, all that ever at tracted his notice in the shape of agriculture was the grass that grew in his barrack yard, and he was therefore more fit to discuss the merits of the fire lock than the plough. At these meetings politics were most properly forbidden, as he hoped they always would be. Under these circumstances what on earth was he to talk about ? To attempt to give them a lecture upon agriculture would be wholly unwarrantable, for of all insufferable bores that man was the worst whose vanity induced him to offer opinions on subjects of which he was not a master. To express an opinion on agriculture to the present company would take up a great deal of valuable time, and really would not be worth the paper on which those dreadful but most necessary gentlemen of the press were writing. Now this is well said, we repeat, because the speaker is talking of what he understands, his own deficiency ; and our sympathies are with him. His, indeed, is the cry of distress of a much over-driven member of Parliament. He has had to run the gauntlet of agricultural meetings with no agriculture in him but that blade of grass of the barrack yard. He craves that people should only be expected to speak of what they thoroughly understand. But this would bring spouting to an end altogether, and meetings would be like Quakers' meetings unmoved by the spirit. Col. North in Oxfordshire has made a better speech than Mr Roebuck in Sheffield, and for this simple and plain reason, that Colonel North spoke of his own ignorance, which he did understand, and that Mr Roebuck spoke of himself, the subject of which every man is likely to make the greatest number of mistakes. Colonel North chose his topic better, but this extortion of speech, malgre, is really a great hardship where there is nothing to say with.. out the knack of saying nothing. In ancient Rome, upon proper occasions, beasts spoke in the Forum, but it is very remarkable that what they said was never recorded. It was enough that they spoke, more was not required of them. They would have done sufficiently well at our agricultural meetings, without knowing more what they were talking about than in the Roman Forum, where there were no reporters taking notes. The prodigy of bestial speech went out when public speaking came in, and silence is a far greater marvel now than the utterance of dumb things need to be in ancient times. The change is not, perhaps, to the advantage of the moderns. GREAT NORTITEFN HOSPITAL, CALEDONIAN• ROAD, ISLINGT3N,—The number of patients for the week ending Sept, 17 was 869, of which 236 were new emu, The Rate of Discount. The Presse, without entering into the ques;ion the causes which may have led to the recent rist7 l t l the rate of disco u nt i n E ng l an d, g i ves some details) of interest on the situation of the Bank of England during the present year, It says :—" This crisis le not, as is generally supposed, a mere passing event; for it began as far back as last year. In fact, if we consult the table of the variations in the rate of discount at the Bank of England, we shall see that the year 1861 opens with the discount at 7 per cent. ; that on the 20th January, it was raised to 8; that it fell to 7 on the 11th Feb., and to 6 on the 25th Feb., it again rose to 7 on the 16th April, to 8 on the 30th, and to 9 on the 2d May ; and that after again falling to 8 on the 19th May, to 7 on the 26th May, and to 6on the 16th June, it vise suddenly raised to 8 on the 4th August, and to 9 on the Bth Sept. In seven months the rate of die' count at the Bank of England has varied eleven times. Nothing more is required to show that there is some organic defect, which, though it maniftste itself by fits and starts, has nevertheless an indhe putable character of permanence. England lel however, the country which best knows how to' attract the precious metals. Why, then, are crises! so frequent there ? Most people would be inclined to seek the reason anywhere than in the simple fact that the English look on bullion chiefly as en object of commerce, that they treat it just the same as merchandise, that they have long ceased to regard it as a national instrument of exchange, tol l that they will send it to any place where th e highest price can be obtained for it." Turning to the situation of France, the artiele observes :—" The stock of specie held by the Baral 4 of France has maintained during the last mont l nearly the same level as in the two previous ones; it may even be said to have attained its highest figure; it was 266 millions on the 14th July ; and on the Bth September, 281 millions—being an in" crease of 15 millions, an amount not to be disdained , especially when we see the alarm of the financial world at the possibility of a decrease of 8 or 1 0 millions in the next return. (That just published is meant.) The variations in the stock of specie cannot have had any great influence in determin e ing the Bank to raise the rate of discount, as the changes for some weeks past have been trifling ; the stock was 280 millions on the 25th Aug., 279 millions on the Ist Sept., and, as already stated , 281 millions on the Bth Sept. It is Said that the Bank has only kept up its stock to that amount bf purchases of bullion. We are perfectly satisfied if it is so; but we find nothing in the discount ae' commodation and issue of notes to justify such all operation and render it indispensible. The amount of bills discounted has been progressively diminish' ing for two months past,a fact sufficiently explained by the dulness of trade. From 676 millions on the 30th June it fell to 642 millions on the 28th July; on the 18th Aug. it was 627, and on the 25th 8 12 ' On the let Sept. it was barely 616, and 618 on the 18th September, The diminution since 30th Juno is therefore 58 millions. It is pretended that the Bank has made greater difficulties about discount' ing, and been very particular as to the bills it re" caived. That was the means it formerly employe' to render the public consenting to an increased rate of discount. It is about to return to the same system. The amount of notes in circulation hue varied but little ; the average is 790 millions ; but the amount was only 752 on the Bth Sept. In a borts the returns of the Bank for the last month apPee r . to indicate that, in order to keep the rate of discoun t below that of the Bank of England, there has bee ° a return to old courses which the public had reflect to think definitively abandoned—the Bank vroult: seem to have purchased bullion and restricted t h issue of notes. We do not mean this as an expree . sion cf blame ; we merely note a fact." COUNTRY MARKETS. LE I CE ST ER--SATURDAY. At our market to-day wheat of the new crop came we l/ 0 to hand, and found buyers at a decline of is on last week currencies. Old also receded in value. Beans at late pricl —Old white wheat, 44s to 495; red, 42s to 45s per L 1 stone. New white, 42s to 470 per 36 stone. Malting barm/ new, 32s to 36s per qr.; grinding, 258;t0 275; old oa t :' 23s to 295; new oats, 20s to 24s per 24 stone. Beet old, 42s to 44s per 38 stone ; flour, 34s to 39s per 20 stone. NOTTINGHAM—SATURDAY. White wheat, from 43s to 50s ; red wheat, 41s to 45 0 : Barley—malting, 30s to 365,; grinding, 288 to 30s. Oat 4 old, at 218 to 28s Od ; new, 23s to 255. Beans Fold at 4 ' to 46s per qr. ; new, —s to —s. Flour, fine, 30s_te 32s ; super, 34s to 39s per 20 stone. OR A N AM—SATu RDAY. New samples are very good in quality, but both old an! new made is to 2s less money. Secondary sorts gave vc . „ 6 ' fully 28 per qr. Barley and oats lower. Beans rule firr: —Old white wheat, 46s to 488; red, 410 to 448 per 3 6 r.," new white, 468 to 488 ; red, 408 to 435. Malting lattri e f; —s to —s per qr ; grinding, 27s to 308 ; oats, old, 2 36 265; new, 19s to24s; beans, 3.13 to 40s; peas ; 348 to 37ig• NORWICH—SATURDAY. There was a less supply of wheat to-day, an 3 trail was dull, at a decline of la to 2 s on l as t wee k' s p r ices. ~.1 , ,, barley there was an increased supply, and prices irregs"7„ White wheat. 45s to 46; 1 Red wheat 41e to 4Pv 4 i 6 Malting barley ...35s to 36s 1 Chevalier barley 33s to u Distilling d 0..... 29s to 30s 1 Oats.. 24s to 2v Flour, 28s Od to —s ed per sack from the miller. YORK— SATURDAY. A plentiful supply of wheat on offer from the farmers thaw morning, and the attendance was moderate. Business vigor steady, and the prices of last week receded is per 0:06 6 both new and old qualities. Of barley a fair show, an d to 26 down. Oats dull. Beans realised about late ree S ,;44 Wheat, red 42s to 43s Oats.... 2os to As; White do .44s to:46s Beans 35a to , Barley .29s to 34s Peas A to "*"„' ....-- 30 Malt, 58s to 60s per qr. ; rye, 30s per qr.; flour, to 34s per sack. . DUBLIN—FRIDAY. To-day there was a fair attendance of the trade, 0 O the supply of native wheat was good, but some samples so r bad condition, which were 6d lower. More inquiry 'fa foreign wheat. Indian corn dull. Flour and oatmealsve'ii very dull. Oats and barley in fair supply, and cond it ' ° good. s. d. s. d. Wheat, white 24 0 to 26 6 Do., red 2l 6 to 24 0 Do., new . . • • 0 to 0 Barley Oats Do., black — 0 to 0 j, 0. d. 0 : 2 Oatmeal lO 0 to 10 0 Beans.. . oto 0 Bere . —o to 0 Rapeseed to 7;5 0 Bakers' flour .. 14 oto () Indian corn .. 27 0 to Foreign Mail Packet List. MAILS DUE. Australia and Mauritius, via Southampton. Sep t ' 18' .v - !it 1 Marseilles cirazil and Cape Yards, by British packet. ° Oct I "; Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and St. Helena Sept' 2 0 . . China, Penang, and Singapore, via Southampton SePt' f 47, via Marseilles Sept' Falkland Islands •• , IS. Sep , . a Gibraltar, via Southampton India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton Sept. r ,/ ' , via Marseilles Sept, b e, India (Bombay), via Southampton Sept. 1 ) via Marseilles Sept. Portugal.... Oct. 4' l Ei ' Malta, Egypt, and Aden, via Southampton S e pt. t o°. via Marseilles Sep . ,g, Newfoundland ... Oporto and Vigo U. S. and British N. America, by B r it. p ac k e t.... Sept. by U.S. packet.... 0. by Canadian packet. Sept . All parts of West Indies, including Chili, Peru, I S e pt. 215. California. and British Columbia.. II • • • Births. 10 6 ADAIR.—On the 15th inst., at Beecbgrove, Mauchlin e) wife of Major W. Adair, of a daughter. TATHAM —On the 16th inst., at Hampton Court, the aoe . of H. E. Tatham, Esq., of 26, Talbot-square, 0 / park, of a son. Vll O6 WAKEFIELD.—On the 11th inst., at 40, Pembridge • I d e Bayswater, the wife of E. T. Wakefield, BSCI , BOIL Marriages. HASTINGS—HITCHCOCK.-0a the 14th inst., at the Consulate, Calais, Rea'-Admiral the Hon. Go r gi Hastings, C. 8., to Mathilde Ali ce , on ly d au ghter 4 L , H. Hitchcock, Esq., of St. Omer. NEWMAN— STARIE.—On the 14th inst., at Saint N t '' fi d get bunbury, , Joseph Newma n , E sq , o f Bi c k er ton O i ra „ - 01 4 Wetherby, Yorkshire, to M ar y Eli za b et h, seco nd 06 " to of W, Starie, Esq., of Dublin. Deaths. framnisox.- 7 -On the 9th inst., James Harrison, Charmouth, Dorset, aged 45. 130 HAWKES. —On the 12th inst., at Brighton, Alexand er ~,' oft hun, second son of C o l one l R. H aw k es , 80th Itegl— aged 15. WHITE.—On the 15th inst. , at Northborough 1.2 c Oa f Anne Rem?, wife of the Rey. W.A. White. e it ll° ' W ILKINS.—On the 14th inst., at 9, W o burn-P.o l l w sell-square, Edward Alexander, only son of th e e i t erfi' Wilkins, Esq., of St. John-street, London, and Be ' den, Kent, aged 17. 0 J 1 London: PririZed and P 1; Wished by WILLIA of No. 112, Strand, Printer, at THE SUN °MCC Of Strand, in the Precinct o; the Savoy. .13, the COU raddlOcx.---Jilouday, SeptenaDer 19, 1861,