The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

we have not the slightest belief that the police will ever be able satis-
factorily to explain whether this man was drugged and robbed, or
whether an attempt had been made to poison him. A more terrible
mystery envelopes the Waterloo rags and bones.

How best to insure the safety of railroad travelling is a question
that is rapidly assuming very serious dimensions. When the alarming
character of railway casualties is confronted with the simplicity aud
ease with which they might be prevented, we are forced into reflec-
tions of a highly unpalatable kind. The question is no less than this,
how to render persons who possess an inevitable monopoly of traffic
amenable to public opinion. We might transfer the management of rail-
ways from private companies to Government; but this, we fear, would
be only out of the frying-pan into the tit-e. It is a very little while ago that
we were told how any private company of merchants would be ashamed
to conduct their affairs so foolishly as the Government of the day; and
nothing has occurred of late years to convince us that a Minister of
the Crown is likely to be a better man of business, or a more disin-
terested individual, than a railway director. To what quarter, then,
must we look for relief ? We confess ourselves puzzled.
Competition is out of the question. The turnpike road
as much so. And the only loophole of escape from this hazardous
monopoly appears to lie in the prosecution of a company by Govern-
ment as often as an accident involving loss of life or limb occurs upon
their line. The expense of doing so would doubtless be heavy, but
the public would gladly bear it did the system offer any real security
against the frequency of these terrible catastrophes. If a good round
fine were inflicted whenever it could be clearly shown that the acci-
dent was the result of negligence of any sort or kind whatever, even
though it could not be directly traceable to any individual, we do think
that perhaps railway companies might in time find out that the publics
safety and their own profits were more closely connected than they
appear to believe at present.

The present position of our Money Market attracts considerable
attention not only in this country, but, as a consequence, throughout
Europe. The severe pressure of the last three weeks has been
greatly aggravated, if not entirely caused, by the disastrous intelligence
from America ; and in proportion to the estimate formed of the
amount of mischief likely to accrue to us from that quarter, does the
tendency to alarm arise or subside. It is by no means easy to discover
how the crisis reported from the United States should permanently
increase the stringency of our Money Market. The apprehensions
created here on the first receipt of the tidings of the supension of
several banks and numerous firms in America—apprehensions almost
amounting to a panic—must probably be attributed to the re-
collections of the disasters caused in our mercantile com-
munity by former American crises, more especially that of
1837, and by a vague dread of a repetition of similar results at this
period. The most immediate fear was that of the shipment of large
quantities of specie from this country for the purpose of being invested
in the purchase of bills at the favourable exchanges quoted from
New York. It appears, however, highly probable that the
depression in the value of bills on England may have been
occasioned as much by a certain want of confidence in the intrinsic
value of the paper offered for sale as by any absolute absence of
demand for remittances to this country, and hence we may assume
that an exchange operation by means of specie shipped from home,
based upon the late quotations from New York, would be too uncer-
tain to be largely entered into. For our own part, we do not believe
the effects of the present American crisis on our mercantile commu-
nity will be similar to those experienced in 1837. Prior to the
crisis of that year, English banking firms were tempted, by
the apparent rapidity with which fortunes were to be gained in
America, to grant to the mercantile community in that country almost
unlimited facilities in the shape of credits upon no other security
than that of their undertaking to remit. These credits were made use
of to a large extent by American houses for the purpose of enabling
them to speculate in tempting securities ; and when a crisis more severe
than the present supervened, the Americans were naturally unable
to pay their debts, and their failure was followed by the total ruin
of the houses in this country which had thus foolishly lent their
credit to enable their American friends to speculate There seems
little reason to believe that the credit lately granted to the Americans
by this country has been for any purpose but that of conducting the
ordinary operations of commerce—such, for instance, as the purchase
of commodities for the supply of the wants of the people of the States;
and the undoubted prosperity of the bulk of the inhabitants of that
country, coupled with the general rise in the price of most articles,
must have tended to render such transactions profitable to those en-
gaged in them, and consequently to increase their ability to pay the
amounts due to this country. There does not, therefore, appear to
be any ground for fearing extensive disaster even amongst the houses
more especially engaged in the American trade, although many may
doubtless be severely inconvenienced. It may also be noticed that,
although English capital or credit has not been advanced to enable
Americans to hold their own securities, very considerable amounts
must of late years have been transmitted for investment in the same
for account of English capitalists. Many of the English holders will
doubtless have been induced by the discredit cast upon their invest-
ments to give orders to have their money realised and sent home, and
the amount due to this country will thereby he increased; whilst the
loss arising from the sale at the depreciated value *ill be borne in
quarters little likely to affect the Money Market.