The Express.
London, England, 1864-03-30 00:00:00

RAILWAYS AND STEAMERS-REPORT OF A
PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE.

This morning was issued the report of a select
committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire
into certain powers of railway orpropanisa. By the 142nd
standing order of the house, railway companies are
not permitted to obtain powers for the owning or using of
steamboats for purposes of river or seagoing Willie,
except on a special recommendation of the committee, to
which is referred the consideration of the bill in

which such powers are proposed to be taken. The com-
mittee report that they are unable to see why companies
owning railways should not own steamers also, if it be ex-
pedient for the development of their traffic ; why, to the
business of carrying by land, they should not add that of
carryiag by sea. They accordingly recommend the rental
of so much of the standing cedar referred to as applies
to docks, piers, harbours, ferries, and steam vessels ; and
the substitution of one to the following effect :—" No.
142. la every bill by which a railway company shall
be authorised to constrict or enlarge, purchase, or
take on lease, or otherwise appropriate any dock,
pier, harbour, or ferry, or to acquire wed use asp
steam vessels for the conveyance of goods or passengers,
provision for preventing unreasonable charges, and for se-
curing equality of treatment and the due transmission of
traffic, shall be made is such manner as shall appear to the
committee on the bill adapted to the circumstances of the
case." They think, however, as so application of the funds of
a railway company to the purchase or hire of steamships
cannot be held to have been contemplated by the first pro-
moters, or by those who have invested their capital
in the undertaking, that with respect to every bill
authorising a railway company to acquire or
use any steam vessel, the provisions of the standing
orders G 6 and 67, so far as they are applicable to such addi-
tional undertaking, ought to be obaerved. The same argu-
ments which apply to the case of steam vessels, appear to
the committee to bear also on that of docks, piers, harbours,
and ferries. The case of collieries, mined, and other enter-
prises distinct from the business of carrying passengers and
goods, stands on a separate footing ; and on these latter
questions no evidence has bees laid before them.

Foo SIGNALS AND THE GUL► OF ST. LAWRENCE.
—lt appears from a parliamentary return issued this morn-
ing that the Board of Trade sanctions the purehaee of one
of Daboll's 32-inch fog trumpets for the earn of 930/. A ham
of a smaller size is now at Dungeness. It aeons from the trials
which have already been made, that the effective power of
the trumpet is very seriously diminished when passing
away from the line of the axis or mouth ; so much so, th►t
whereas it was distinctly heard at a distance of two-anil-a-
half miles, when the Trinity House rummer was in the
favourable position, it was necessary to approach within
one-third of a mile when the vessel was at right eagles to
the axis of the trumpet. "Thu," says the Secretary
of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, "is a serious
defect ; for, whilst the trumpet with its slim directed out to
sea might be heard distinctly by passing vessels, others
might approach it on either aide, and run sabots is t►e adja-
cent bights of the coast without receiving ray winging,
But prob►bly this defect could be remedied, sod it might be
possible to contrive th►t the trumpet should revolve in an
arc, so as to throw its whole or maximum sound seaward
Toned the horizon."

POOR LAWS AT GCERNBET.—This TOOTIIiDg
strange ease bearing upon the adminietration of the Poor.
law at Guernsey was made known is a return to parliament
obtained by Mr. Alcock. It seems that la December last
an old man, 77 years old, who moved to Gummy from
Sopley, a pariah within the Christchurch Union, when a
boy of 9, was put on board a steamer, sad shipped off
to his "native parish," by order of a board
at Guernsey. For half a century he had earned
an honest livelihood at Guernsey as a boatman, but having
lately broken his ribs, he was obliged to go into the hospital,
and being considered to have obtained no settlement in the
island, was sent away. The Poor.law Board agree with the
guardians of the Christchurch Union, where the old man
now la, that the case is a hard one, and the board suggest
to the Home Secretary whether it would sot be advisable
that some restrictions should be plead upon the power
of removal from the Channel Islands, similar to those which
exist in the law of England. If a pauper had been born in
Guernsey, and had resided for the requisite period in any
union or parish in England, he would have been exempt by
the law of England from the Lability to be removed from
England to Guernsey.