The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-18 00:00:00

glisallantous.

Mr. Jon.,; ➢PGREooR, M.P., has forwarded the fol-
lowing letter to the editor of the Glasgow Daily
News:—

Sir,—With respect to the calumnies which have been
charged against me, I need only advert to a simple narra-
tive of facts. First, I was neither the projector nor founder
of the British Bank; Mr. Menzies was the projector.
Messrs. Mullens and Paddison, and Mr. Mozhay, then
proprietor of the Commercial Hall, were those who first
proposed to me to become a director, while I was residing
at Brighton, to which place Mr. Mullen., Mr. Menzies,
and others came to persuade ire to assist them to get a
charter. I refused. Afterwards, on the ground that indus-
trious traders, artisans, and shopkeepers had no banking
facilities in London, as in Scotland, I very imprudently
consented to become a director. Mr. Mozhay died soon
after, and the Commercial Hall, which he proposed should
become the property of the bank, he taking the value in
shares, was abandoned. Then the premises, occupied
previously by the once great firm of Reid, Irving, and Co.,
were taken and fitted up as a banking house. The board-
room was up stairs; the manager's room and the whole
business transacted on the ground floor. I relied implicitly
on the manager and Mr. Mullen.. They on the weekly
board day placed before the board a statement of the affairs
of the bank ; and np to the time I left the direction I
believed everything correct. Neither I, nor any other di-
rector as far as I am aware, knew anything of any private
book kept by the manager, nor could I know the persons
in the City whose paper was worthy of being discounted.
I)anneller and Scales were represented by the manager,
on the authority of an eminent gentleman in the Bank
of England, as fully tristworthy. This led to the disas-
trous advances on their coal and iron works in Wales,
and which so long as I was a director, I urged should be
realised, instead of attempting to work them ;—a similar
attempt on the part of the Bank of England having utterly
failed ; a second blunder was, advancing on the security of
Westminster Improvement Bonds—a third was, on the
shares of the Islington Cattle Market—a fourth was, to a
shipowning firm, Oliver of Liverpool. Of the value of such
securities I could know nothing ; therefore i became con-
vinced, but too late, that in the city of London, as is, I be-
lieve, the true and practicable custom in Glasgow, no one
should be a director of a bank but a city man of business;
for it was, and is, impossible for a purely West-end man to
know who ought, or ought not, to be trusted. It was under
these convictions that I separated myself from all joint-stock
connections. As regards liabilities to the Royal British
Bank, I deny the amount of debit, either legally or equit-
ably ; and for any legal debit, of which when I can ascer-
tain the details—which I cannot for some days—there are
numerous offsets, as transferred New Three per Cents in
the Bank of England, 1,0001., then at 95i ; 5001. stock at
par; other securities, valued each at from SOU to 4001. ;
two valuable life policies, that especially of a very old
one, in the Law, for 1,0001., to which several large
bonuses have been added. As I have concluded in haste,
I will only add that I will not shrink before calumny, nor
shirk from paying any just claim that may be proved
against me. I will not yield to clamour nor injustice.
I am, sir, yours most respectfully,
Athenaeum Club, Oct. U. J. M`Gitznoa.

THE BISHOP OF CHESTER delivered his opinion on
the revision of the Bible at the annual meeting of
the Liverpool Bible Society, last week. The Bishop,
who presided, protested against the attempt to
obtain an alteration of the Protestant version of the
Scriptures, asserting that, as it now stands, it does
not misrepresent any essential point of faith :
The present text (he said) has a simplicity, vigour, and
majesty, that no attempt at modernised version has yet been
able to equal or approach. But more than this, my friends,
it has now been hallowed and consecrated by time. It is
associated with every tender sentiment in our hearts, with
every serious incident in oar lives, with every cherished
remembrance of our parental home, with every sacred en-
joyment of our own home, with all the happy recollections
of an early youth, with all the solemn feelings of advanced
age. It is a word that lives in all the echoes of the past,
in all the realities of the present, and in all the hopes of
the future. They are teard every day around our firesides,
engraved on the gravestones pi our fathers, written on the

995

living tablets of our own hearts. My friends, these aria
associations which it is indeed unwise needlessly or tud,ly
to disturb.
Earl Fitz william, at a recent meeting of the Auxiliary
Bible Society, expressed a similar opinion.
A DISGRACEFUL SCENE in the Revision Court at
Rochester occurred last Monday. The mayor of the
city (Mr. F. Furrell), and Messrs. French and
Gorier, assessors, held a court in Guildhall for the
purpose of revising the list of burgesses, according
to the provisions of the Municipal Act, and the
greatest excitement was observable in consequence
of objections made by the Conservative party. On
the court being opened, the mayor signified his
intention of disallowing the list of burgesses for two
out of the three wards into which the city is divided.
This determination greatly excited the Liberals, and
on the mayor proceeding to revise the lists he was
assailed with a perfect torrent of groans and hisses,
until at length a rush was made towards his
seat by the crowd in the Guildhall, the purpose
apparently being to drag him from his seat and
eject him. A most disgraceful scene then occurred,
the crowd jumping on to the tables, breaking down
the gasfittings, and, seizing the books and papers,
they tore them up and hurled them into the street.
The mayor and assessors managed to get safely out
of the ball.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DEATH OF MR. CHAS.
ROWCROFT, Ex Consul at Cincinnati, while on his
passage home in August last, has excited some
remark. Previously in good health, he died seven
days after he came on board the New York liner
Cherubim, and with every appearance of having been
poisoned. There appears to have been no burgeon
on board the ship, the master acting if °cession
required. On this occasion the master dosed hls
patient with blue pits, laudanum, and quinine, and,
after detailing his death, concludes .
During the whole illness his pulse was not above 70,
nor, upon frequent inquiries, did he express the slightest
pain. Twenty-four hours previous to his death the skin
and eyes were extremely yellow, and a few hours before
the tongue became black and a black mucous substance
issued from the mouth. Having no means at hand of pre-
serving the body, which was becoming exceedingly putrid
and offensive, he was this day, August 25, in latitude 42
deg. N. and longitude 54 deg. W., buried with the usual
ceremonies. His death was certainly mysterious and
sudden, and I cannot easily persuade myself that it was
natural.

Ausincix NAxs, says an American paper, offer
some queer specimens of nomenclature :
We heard of a family in Detroit whose sons were named
One Stickuey, Two Stickney, Three Stiekney, and whose
daughters were named First Stickney, Second Stick-
ney, &c. The three elder children of a family near home
were named Joseph, And, Another; and it has been sup-
posed that, should they have any more, they might have
named them Also, Moreover, Nevertheless, and Notwith-
standing. Another family actually named their child
Finis, supposing it was their last; but they happened after-
wards to have a daughter and two sons, whom they called
Addenda, Appendix, and Supplement.

FELICE ORSINI has this week been delivering lec-
tures upon " The Austrian and Papal Tyranny in
Italy " to crowded audiences in Brighton.
A NEW SERIES OF REPORTS on the trade of various
places from English Ministers, Cunsuls, and others,
has just been issued by the Board of Trade. Those
which relate to Turkey are from Aleppo and
Broussa, and, as the projected Euphrates Railway is
to pass the former city in its route of eighty miles
from the Mediterranean to the river, the facts in
connection with the commerce of that district are
likely to attract much attention. The progress of
the place during the past five years and the magni-
tude of its capacities appear to be extraordinary. As
far back as 1851, according to statements from Mr.
Acting-Consul Barker, there were signs of a con-
siderable development of trade, and the tendency
was rapidly stimulated by the war. In imports,
British manufactured goods amount in quantity to
about two-thirds of the whole trade of Aleppo. In
value they are about one-third. Five years back this
value was 146,4051. Last year it was estimated at
471,2531., exclusive of specie, which has been largely
absorbed in the interior of Mesopotamia. As re-
gards exports, the return for 1854 shows a total of
993,6301., which had risen in 1835 to 1,251,1801.,
of which about 450,0001. consisted of wheat flour
and grain, while cotton and wool were also important
items.

Mr. Haag, the pantomimist and ballet-master,
jumped overboard from a Hamburg steamer last
Sunday, on her voyage to Hull. A threat of some
person at Hamburg, who bad sworn to revenge him-
self on Mr. Harvey for having taken him before the
police, appetite from various letters left by the un-
fortunate suicide to have been the singular CARIPAI of
his death.

MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY is at present eti4oying
the field sports of Fiance. He has stated his inten-
tion of writing a work in French upon the present
French system of field sports, with tne view of in-
ducing certain reforms in the care of horses and
hounds by French huntsmen.

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