The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-03 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 3, 1848•

riss.3oo.- -
BstritaxisrElforr. 1.-An average number of both Beasts
and Sheep. Priem: Beef, se. 64. to 6e. per s one. Mutton.
aid. to ad. per lb. Basins", was dull, put of the Besets and
a few Sheep remainiag unsold.
Exams, Nov. 1.-The market tcsday was in witeral
respect. will, but by no means largely supplied As mud.
fat Bullocks the business done was men ly trAling, and that
at prices reducing the quotations to from 445. Col.
oo fie per cwt., or from as. to 9s. per wore.
Or Batches" Calves the supply was quite sagi-
cient tor the demand, at from 6id. to 66e1. per lb. The re-
mark. nude as to the sale 4f Banks apply equally to Sheep,
the gestations fsr which must he Busted at from aid. to
nearly Md. perlb. As to store Soup, semi prima Withers
'old at 40.. a puce; and a lot of Ewes, at Its. 64. a piece.
Store Cattle were alearot oussalsehle. Some hoe Hiders,
alisaily.approaching astote ot Wawa, and estimated to ores
thirty-ma score the Bullock. were bought at 134. a piece, or 1,
about 41s. per cwt, or 7e. 3d. per score.
Ammer.. IL v. 1. -We
low, had a Tay large supply .71
sack as market; Flees were and a good deal ot besisl
us was done, at lees money them was ezeted. Sheep wen
sist es huseruse am last yew, althourh there wen a good
mmay mew, and whisk wore selling at reduced prices.
There were 1,013 Sheep and 301 Figs penned.
WALSTIILD, Nov. 1.-At our market todaythe supply
of Evglish fat stock was the largest we bare had for some
tiros past ; that of foreign not so great. The attendance of
buyers good; the trade was very heavy, end mueli remained
"mold. Beef, 6e. to as. 31. per stone. Mahan, 6d. to Rd.
per lb. Of lean Cattle and Calves the supply was good, arida
fieß-
a moderate demand, without change in value. Pigs :
fed Perk, the "apply li dud, and sold at 6.. aa. to as. 103. j
per .pine. Of stores the show was err. it, and rather lower
peen takes. Beasts, 800 ; Sheep, 7,100 ; Pim, 300 to 400.
DOWIZ FAIL Oct. 31.-This market ennuneneed with the
sae of Mem, and the numbers ware above an average. In
the id* put of the morns, a good number of the beet
ideal abempil trirans, there tieing a very eonsidera:le num-
ber of ingihit dealers an the ground ; and the principal
kinds plebe& up wen threalear-old black-faced Wed
ders, and geed Ewes of the same age. Two.y_ear-
old Wetiden were stiff te sell, aloe, inferior Wed.
des of the mase age. About eleven o'clock tales
became slack, and anything done up to two o'clock
was a shade lower than the bionicn done in the
early part of the day. Good blacksfaced;Ewes. Stet
were in better caudal= than at Falkirk market,
brought about 10 per a st. soon, but the real drawee,
in esealderstion of the difference of condition, was sot more
=
ant. Nearly the same rata is applicsble to good
Ewes, although shorter in number but it must
be obsereed that the lots of black-feed stock that brow ht
the Impel prices were fresh, arid what may be term'd
shortly driven, giving the poor Highlanders the lesser
chance. Every description of Sheep below 10s. were difficult
Ito sell. The white-faced stock was very limited, and the
demand equally so ; and we observed that the best lot of
white-faced wedden remained =old ,• also a few lots of
Ewes of the tame description. A few lots of Ewes of this
description of stock were gold at from 144. to 171. 641. ; and
'adders at from Yls. to 26e. Black-facsd Ewes, at from
64. 6d. to 17s. ; and madders of the same kind brought from
12,. 6d. to 245.
EDI/11131101t, Nov. 1.-The supply of Sheep was this
moring 3,663. Demand exceedingly sluggish, and prices
down 2s. ahead ; and, even at that reduction, nearly one-
half were turned out unsold. The number of Cattle was
only 334 ; the quality in rural of a very inferior descrip-
tion. Sales were exceedingly dull. Good Beasts brought
readily Se. per Dutch steal• top grim, Sa. 3d.; middling
sore, from 7a. to 7s. 6d. ; _from 6e. 61 to 13e. Gd.
Fee Testae**s eedwiloli see Met pop.

1003
say a thousand in round numbers. It was, then, for
the support of 1,000 children that the public were
mulcted to the tune of 40,0001. per annum, or nearly
401. per head per child, including 263 infante.
But let us descend to a few particulars. In looking
over the balance-sheets of these societies we were
much struck by the largo sums which eppeared to be
paid to " collectors." The commission paid by the
St. Anne's Society is given at 1621., which, at 5 per
cent., the usual gratuity to collectors, represents 3,2401.
collected. But the whole of this society's receipts
from subscriptions and donations was 3,2031. The
gentleman who condescends to collect for the London
Orphan Asylum, and who, we suppose, keeps his
carriage, received, it appears, 2841. 35., representing
5,6831.. precisely the amount of all the subscriptions
and donations received during the year by the asylum.
This society has an ono in the City, a City banker,
a west.end banker, and two publishers who keep ac-
counts for it. Tho St. Anne's Society indulges in three
City bankere, and gives a list of some fifty people who
will receive contributions on its behalf. Yes no matter
how or to whom paid, it seems that the collector has
his 5 per cent. Yon may take the trouble, us a thou-
sand charitable people would do, to poet into the City
yourself to save these societies a commission ; you
may wait all day at Menus. WILLIAIII4 and Osseous'
counter, and endure all the petty incivilities that
a bank clerk will offer to a man who
wants to band him a guinea, and yet the
collector will have his shilling out of you
atter all. Even if it comes from a chinch plate his
tithe must be paid. Next Sunday you may probably
hear a sermon from the Rm. Dr. Smooth on the
merits of the asylum, and, wrought up to the highest
pitch of generosity, you will fill in the little paper
placed in your pew for the purpose with your name
and address, and =intimation that the sum eecloeed
tt erein is to be considered an anc.ual aubersiption.
Your wife shall do the same, and your eldest daughter
shall express a hope that you will permit her to de-
vote the guinea you gave her yesterday tor ribbons to
the same benevolent and righteous purpose. You es-
pect, fond man, that "every farthing in the plate will
go to the poor orphans of whom you have heard so
and such will be the ease, doubtless, with the

---_____
vests a farthing in indigoes at random." It was In the Bt. Anne's accounts, "salaries and gratuities,"
only; the night helove that.reaid Blue had been ere 1271. 101. In this asylum the setratty is majestic.
coming en the Mgr yea Visa 112,, wide hie Esedees not choose to speak of " wages," as the ether
ham als *g * o reneradas * falloSe does. .. 01Maittio "fs t ha Ihress :
lave 4
orhie
item iit A. ash isld, , ill it nor- es settle • form `another Iwo., , " Were
rs thee, 'We dams *this petwent &W and aervanta, 1021 les. 3d.' Tale
Mos2at of, ' all the Roam* abuses theft le not mentioned, bet Is avidengy intylied,
exist in this realm, are hone greats!—if there II diving too deeply, however, we may menden that ea
coat in in a certain dam of institutions @darter, wager, and commissions of the four sodedln
Itdevoted to roman twalrry ! anima to nearly 6,0001. per annum, or to at least
It is a *del task that we have Pet ourselvse. hatk eiwarra et their ordaary annual revenue! Oaa ,
it is cae-thsta-dailr to society demanda..we should anything more monstrous be cosoeirod I Th• Church
perform. We spoke on Monday of the 'Orphan ail- Msedssar7 SodetY, expending 120,0001. a year, With
lams in and abontsLoadon; the institutle-A in atlas
guinea trade' W!3evarET,'"d 03 vgplainliost their 7,1 au ann .fublitiaten et I?3sks and tracts
10° stations inkt'ide distinct parts of the globe,
lierti°o°. l!to =Med; now the poor widowed and exceeding two minion copies, with deputationi quite
fet.ll:lltles beings in plating their hopes in them were to and fro, with nine association secretaries to pg, an
too often deceived and injured. Occurrences have overwhelming mass of correspondence to conduct, two
brought them societies under our notice, and we intend clerical secretaries a third receiving a large retiring
to take the sense of the public respecting them. At allowance, ten cl:rks, deep collector, besides their
the outset we disclaim hostility to any one of them in expenses,—this great conducts 411 its busi-
="ollr, or to ally Pardee or persons conneote4 with neas—every expense included—at an annual cost not
There are some of them ustenribly under highly exceeding 12,0001. The British Association for re-
respectable management; there are others conducted Seeing the disteess in Scotland and Ireland conducted
by • parcel of people of whom nobody knows any- all its widespread operations fin nearly two years.
*lag. But, as far as we can judge of them at present, distributed 600,0001. in food among the starving
they are all, or nearly all, alike in principle, and as to Irish, and kept up a staff of agents in almost every
the details, they shall speak for themselves. destitute district of the sister kingdom ata less annual
We have employed some leisure hours recently in coat than the expenditure of these societies in laries
Whin over some of these societies' accounts. We and gratuities to their officers only ! Why, salhhi;
have made no selection, but have taken up this first apeaks tnlmpet-tongued for itself, and sonorously
reports for the present year that came to hand, and r-oclaims the , Jon:
have dissected a few of the balance-sheets therein pre-
sented. Few subscribers to these institutions have pro-
bably ever taken the trouble to do this for flume lees.
To those who give their money to either the London
Orphan Asylum, or the St. Anne's Society's Schools, or
the so called Orphan Working School, at Haverstock-
hill, or to the managers of the Infant Orphan Asylum
at Wanstead, a few facts may, therefore, be presented
in detail that, perhaps, may prove instructive.
Every one knows- the institutions we have men-
tioned. They stand in all the magnificence of bricks
and mortar in four different environs of the capital.
The palace of the London Orphan Society at (lepton
vies with that of Buckingham in outward show; the
Wanstead Asylum is Elizabethan in all but this, that
Queen Etiz•iirru never had an opportunity of laying
her heed within a building one-half so extensive or
expensive; the St. Anne's Schools at Brixton were
evidently built to solve tho problem, recently fully
ascertained, at how great a cost it is possible to build
the ugliest of edifices : on the other hand, the Orphan
School at Haverrock-hill, on which 20,0001. of cha-
rity money is now being expended, looks like the
last and latest pattern taken from Mr. BesaY's port-
folio, and is upon the most upprovod Italian model.
Everybody knows these places, at least to the extent
of having seen their exteriors, either as they stand, or
in the elaborate drawings of them industriously cir-
culated among the guinea-men. We now invite them
to learn something more concerning their affairs.
The London Orphan Asylum hid an income last year
of 10,4631. Its expenditure in housekeeping, cluthiog,
outfit, and rewardsof children, was 0,1761.; in rent
and taxes, furniture, printing, advertisements, anni-
versary dinner, salaries, poundage, law charges, and
repave, 4,0961. • or no lees than two-thiels of the
money expended on the orphans!
The St. Anne's Society's income tut year was
6,£481.; its expenditure for heard, house dittenses,
clothing, washing, and apprentice fees, 3,1771. ; in
furniture, printing, salaries, advertisements, postage,
and a 6001. investment, 2,0971. ; more than four-
fifths of the money expended on the orphans!
The Orphan Working School accounts are diffi-
cult to understand. Special donations end salts of
stocks for the building fund, invert ds of a fancy
bazaar, sale of a work about " Orphsnhood," and all
sorts of items, including the majestic sum of 21. 25.
for "interest trambankers" (what a Water) they
must keep !) are all mixed up with the ordinary re-
ceipts. As far as we can make out, however, their
subscriptions, dividends, rents, Pee. produced about
4,6001., of which they .pent in housekeeping,' apparel,
school requisites, premises, tge., 2,112/.; in saknes
and the other itemsof niantzement, 2, :621. ; or nearly
260/. more than the sum . xpended on the children!
Besides this, this society psid 8,2371. towards its new
asylum, every farthing of which was, of course,
charity money.
The Infant Orphan /opium, at Wanstead, has paid I
foe its extravagant building. Its income last year I
was nearly all from the purses of subscribers. It
received 85381., and spirit in housekeeping and
clothing 3,6331., and in salaries and expenses, and en
investment in Long Annuities, no lees than 4,2301.
The total income of these four societies lest year
being about 37,8001., it appears that they expended
in the maintenance of the orphans they profess to
sapport somewhere about 16,1001., whilst no less than
22,11001. has been applied in other ways! Comment
upon this would be indeed superfluous.
It may here be as well to ask what these societies
do for the 40,0001., or thereabouts, which they re-
ceived? lt is not easy in all these cases to get a pre-
cise account of the nu giber of children in their schools.
In the St. Anne's report, for example, there are five
or six different calculations upon this point. They
give a list of 233 orphan inmates, but state in giving
it that they have 227; in another place they say their
schools consist of 210 ; ten lines lower down, on the
1 same page, that they have now in the " Royal
Asylum" 232; whilst their balance-sheet accounts for
board for only 2281 Such is the accuracy, apparently,
of these people's accounts; such the ezactitWe of their
knowleige of the orphans of whom they profess to
take ems. However, endeavouring to make the best
of thew milieu discrepancies, we calculate alit these
societies provide fur about the following number of
children teas illatiOc4011: in
boat Orphan asrms

Tortta is very good reason to believe that the Bank
directors have fallen into another error.cent.
to 3 The reduc-
tion of the rate of interest from 31 per per
cent, announced yesterday, is a measure which it will
require considerable ingenuity to defend. As a means
of nacres in the business of the Bank it will be sim-
ply futile. the market rate has gone down further
than the Bank rate, and at the very time that the
directors advertise their accommodation at 3 per
cent. the ordinary money dealers are happy to extend
their advances on the same securities at 2. The al-
teration, therefore, incurs all the odium of setting a
bad t :ample without obtaioiog for the Bank any of
those solid considerations which sometimes relieve
the disagreeableness of obloquy. Coon simply
banking grounds, then, the reduction of the
rate by a mere half per cent. is objectionable. It will
neither give the Bank more business, nor keep business
away from the Bank's competitors. But it will need-
' lull,' depress the value of a commodity which the
Insole desires to sell, yet has not the courage to offer
lat the market price. And we beg to say that, leaving
lout of view the right or wrong of the question, if the
Bank of England is to humble itself into an ordinary
loan office, it would ba infinitely more to the credit of
the management, and decidedly conducive to the
strength of their connexion, if the directors would con-
form to all the usages of the profession they ostensibly
adopt.
But it is not upon such private and piece-meal con-
siderations that the question ought to be argued. The
Bank of England is not a mere privet', bank.
The rates of the Bank of England arc not rates
which are confined to a loc el circle, and affect
only the trade of a town or the temper of a
street. You may pus as many acts of parliament as
you please, and spin as many theories as there arc
days en the year, and you will not be able to remove
the force of vetoes:sous which have the advantage
of a century's durattun, and rest upon a solid founda-
tion of hard bought experience and practical common
sense.
The adherents of the law of 1844 allege, with re-
markable pertinacity, that the Bank is only one dealer
in capital am ing many, and that there is no reason why
the movements of one Welt, in en extended chain,
should be of greater consequence than the movement
of uny of the rest. If this opinion were pat for-
ward as • question in mathematics, we
to be.
texpresssifirl our
is
nota concurrence.gnnesßonut
itnhe
mathe-
matics. malice. It is a question of actual fact and of
daily good and evil ; and it is a question. moreover,
upon which it is difficult to coocevre how any two
men with eyesight and hearing can arrive at different
conclusions. The very occasion under review supplies
a proof in point. The stock market opened dull, and
remained flat as long as the decision of the directors
was in suspense. But the posting of the altered pla-
card was the signal for an access of animation, and
the market lett off at half per cent. dearer. We do
not see what plainer proof can be had. A change in
the policy of the Bank of England produces an im-
mediate and important effect upon the value of all
funded property and upon the tenor of all money
bargains. The corporation possessing this formidable
power ie mixed up and confounded with concerns of
which nineteen-twentieths of the mercantile classes
dor't susrect the bare .1.-istenoe.
It is very true that this influence of the Bank is
limited both in degree and duration. Nobody sup-
puce that for half a year the d rectors even of the
Bank of England can keep the rate of interest at 1
per cent., if natural causes have a tendency to fix it
at 4. But fur a time, longer or shorter according to
circumstances, it most be regarded as a settled point—
as • matter upon which there can be no more argument
than upon the weight of an ox or the colour of his
hide—that tho Bank directors can exercise, by their
measures, a direct and decisive influence upon the 1
money market, and, by their example, a still more
direct and decisive influence upon the tone and temper
of the commercial public.
This is the first and the main reason why the II
business of the Bank cannot ix• carried on with bene-
fit to itself and advantage to the nation, if its move-
ments are to proceed upon a narrow and local view of
its responsibilities. The directors, whether they will
or not, have to detennine imperial questions, and they
can only determine them aright upon imperial
grounds.
And here it is that we encounter the giestest and
most mischievous fault of the present charter. Ac-
cording to the theory of that charter—the directors
have no imperisl responsibilities. They are simply
Messrs. A, If, C, and 1), assembled together in a com-
modious parlour to consult, once a week, about a divi-
dend at the end of the half year. It is the existence
of this law and the prevalence of this hallu-
cination which must excuse the present court from
the censure likely to be passed upon the Altera-
tson of yesterday ; and we confess that while we con-
sider the alteration from 3i to 3 per cent. indefen-
sible even upon banking grounds, we cannot so
unjustly upstate the cause from the consequence, as
to attribute altogether to individual mismanagement
the exercise of a latitudinarian discretion, which a
bad law has sanctioned and a vicious theory has in-
s:skated.
Few periods have been more inappropriate than
the present for the indulgence of currency experi
ments, sad the verification of theoretical ideas of
the management of the Bank. By a most extraor-
dinary career of good fortune, we have reached the
commencement of winter witt a reserve of treuure
of very respectable magnitude, and even that eccentric
crotchet which cut the Bank in two, has not been able
to impoverish the resources of either department. But
iofuthr
advantage. is is
ntotagebe.revigaerdwaned ast
thsoemretidhiinngthineocoureefarsvooufrth, ite
is surely an odd way of *Weigh Potato steps which may
diminish but cannot possibly augur rat the extent of I
1, Bank to answer casualties which may arise out 1
lof the defickney ofany the harvest, the disturbances on
the continent, and the future politics of France. And 1
we want the nine or ten millions of reserve in the
banking department to justify us in the belief that
1 if by any untoward contingency we should again find
ourselves in the midst of panic, there may be at least
some resource more or less ample upon which the
commerce of the country can fall beck for
succour. As far as it goes, the measure of
yesterday will dissipate these resources at a
time when they are not wanted, and it will
moreover disguise to the apprehensions of most men
the real online of contingencies which cannot be too
carefully kept in view ; and it will not compensate
law pernicious consequences by any salutary cheap-

much, , , .
farthings—but as for the shillings, they belong to eciogof the rate of interest in the meantime. For:it
the oolleotoit and the sovereigns—we have use what is quits certain, that with mon"y at 2 per cent., the
becomes of them. difficulties of the country do not arise from any
Bet it is not the collectors alone who get pickings paucity of means, which i further reduction of ten
oat of these asylums. The accounts under the heads shillings may be intended to counteract.
of " solaria; and wages" are general—delightfully At the bottom of the whole matter, however, there
so. They leave you to take a great deal for granted. rests this mischievous steeple-chase after a dividend.
They condescend to no vulgar parturdars. Is the re- The bank proprietors must either go without a divi-
port of the London Orphan Asylum, for example, we dead, or they most have no voice in sayii g
dad,
." by salaries and wages" (the "by" is very ex- how mach it shad be. It would be a
re), 1,2631. lie. 101. We shouldlike to see the decided gain to the nation to buy up the
blushes of the man who took the 17s. Hi& Is the whole couciern, and carry it on for the public ac-
Winstead Asylum report, "cash expended in sale- count, rather than submit to these perpetual deviations
ries and wages"—(this is an agreeable variation) from a straight course, in deference to the v4E:iterations
—1,2341. 3s. ld. The idea of " a penny r of this person or the impatience of that. dir Cgasi.as