The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-30 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL SHARE MARKETS.

LIVERPOOL, Aran 19.—Sales today: Great Eastern, IS—
Great Western. 413 3 1 i I—Lancashire and Yorkshire, 1231 3
London, Brighton, and South Coast, 571—London and North
Western, 1141 15 141 I 11—Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln-
shire, 471 1 7 61 1 I—Metropolitan, 1171 17—Midland. 111 101 11
—North British, 351—South Eastern, 60 1 6 61—Birkenbeed,
87 Buffalo and Lake Huron, 3 1316 c /—Erie, 401 tliut
1 1 I—United States 6-20 Bonds, 1862, 72 11 I 1
Rhenish, 1 Of p.—Great Luxemburg shares, 9 540 1 6 16 1 3-16
—Spanish Passives, 2011—Royal Insurance, 81.10 2 p.—Atffintic
Telegraph, 8 per cent., 41-11bw Vale (Limited), 161 d.
Aran 29.—The market opened at Improved
prices, but afterwards declined, closing at the lowest. Ebbw
Vale Company (Limited% 16 d 4011 1 I—Great Eastern
8818 7/ —Great Luxemburg, 91 1 1-16—Great Northern, A, 11
15 141 I—Grand Trunk of Canada, 171 I—Great Western Soi
Canada, 131 11-10—Great Western, 411 401 1-1111nois, 76/ 6
Lancashire and Yorkshire, 1231 321 I—lotto 1870, 43 per cent.
prof., 1 p.—London and Caledonian Marine Insurance (Limited.,
and—London and North IX estern,ll4l I—Manchester, She Meld,
Uncolneldre, 461 I.—Metropothan, 117 117 1 16/ I—Mid-
land, 1111 e 11 101 11—Ditto, New Effil shares, 1 Ix—South
Eastern. 66 61—Thames and Mersey Marine Insurance (limited),
21 p.—United States 6-20 Years' Bonds, 711 111 I—Ashton and
Oldham Csnal, 140—Peak Forest Canal, 78. . .

BIRXIMOHAIt, APRILB9.—The sales toiiny were In South Stsf-
fordshire Railway stock, at 83 : Birmingham Financial shares
(Limited:, at 31 di a.: Birmingham Gas Class A 'hares, at 128,
and Gloucester Wagon shares, fourth issue, at 11 prem. Closing
prices: Great Western West Midland Second Guaranteed 6 per
Cents., at 100, sellers ; Birmingham Joint Stock Banks, at 30 to
301; Midland Financial (Limited:, at, le to le die.; Metropolitan
Railway Carriage and Wagon shares, second Issue, at
South Staffordshire Waterworks, at al to 6; and Stafordshire
Wheel and Axle-tree shares, at 9-16 to dis.
Gummi, Aram 27. —New Tkne pee Cent. Stock, 89 asi 89
8911—Ditto. for account, 9th May, 89 891—India Floe per
Cent. stock transferable at the Bank of Ireland:, 1084—Bank
of Ireland (tlOO paid), 2351—National Bank (Z3O paid 624
Ditto, for for account, 621—National of Liverpool `Limited'.
paid:, 131—Royal Bank (ZIO paid, 33—i nion Bank (waited;
,Z 22 paid), 191—Midland Great Western (6106 paid„ SM.

THE POETS OF SEVEN DrALS. —Thus, say, an
appalling accident happens in London ; the news spreads
like wildfire throughout the city, and gives rise to rumours,
even more dreadful than the reality. Before night it is em-
balmed in verse by one out of five or six well-known bard.
who get their living by writing for Seem. Dials, and then
chanting their own strains to the people. The inspira-
tion of the poet is swift, the execution of the work rapid,
but the pay is smalL " I gets a shilling a copy for my
verses" (says one) " besides what I can make by selling
'em." But the verses are ready and go to press at once.
A thousand or two copies are struck off instantly, and the
" Ortle calamity " is soon flying all over London from the
mouths of a dozen or twenty minstrels, in the New-cut,
in Leather-lane, Houndsditcb, Bermondsey, Whitechapel,
High-street. Tottenham-court-road—or wherever a crowd
of listeners can be easily and safely called together. If
the subject admits of it, two minstrels chant the same
strain, . .

In lofty verse
Pathetic they alternately rehearse,
each taking a line in turn, and each vying with the other
in doleful tragedy of look and voice. A moment suffices
to give out the sepulchral accents, " Dreadful Accident
this day on the Ice in Regent's-park," and then the dirge
begins—
You feeling Chrtatians, both high and low
0 listen to this sad tale of woe
On that fatal Tueaday boys and men so brave
In the Regent's-park met a watery grave.
Their cries were dreadful—see the parent's wild,
O fled of Heaven In mercy save my child
Yor the ice gave way, the people lined the shore
Upwards of fifty sank to rise no more.
(Then In full chorus from both voices'
In Regent's park, 0 hear thole dreadful cries,
They sank that Tuesday never more to rise.

The dismal horror attending on a dozen such verses
shouted out con rpirito in the midst of a busy thorough-
fare, spreads rapidly, and the crowd thickens as they
standt aghast, all intently listening, and all eager to buy,
whils

patulls dart ticSibus omnes
at shop doors, and at open windows, old people and young,
drinking in every scrap of the doleful strain, and on tiptoe
to catch a glimpse of the minstrels in the crowd as the
pathos deepens at the words—

O see that father how he Mandato calm
The buy on his shoulder, the girl under his arm,
Don't let him die, that father good and brave
The boat has reached them. Oh !thank God they're saved.
Such a ballad is sure to be popular, and unless the weather
is unusually cold or wet, a couple of active singers will
dispose of twenty or thirty dosen copies in a single day.
And in this way an edition of 5,000 or 10,000 soon runs
off, to the extreme advantage of Mr. C.itnach, if not to the
immortality of the poet.--Quarterly Reticle, new number.
MARRIAGES THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.—If the
rich lord's son comsat-wooing to the poor squire's daughter,
well and good ; the lady's friends, for their part, will see
no shadow of In.:salliante. All are " gentlefolk," it will
be said, by birth and education ; and beyond this point
the court of honour does not pursue its inquiries. Rank,
and title, and money—pshaw "A man's a man for a'
that." But let the handsome attorney, or the clever
young surgeon, well bred and well educated so far se all
the essentials of a gentleman are concerned, presume to
take advantage of some professional acquaintance so far as
to cast his eyes upon • sister of the seine family, and great
is the consternation of father, mother, brothers, and sisters
at his audacity. Yet the supposed equality in the one
case, and the inequality in the other, rest upon the merest
convention. The daughter of a large family of moderate
means would probably find her married life a greater
change in the first case than in the last. The habits and
associations of fashionable society might not be at all more
like those of her old home than the modest establishment
of the professional man. She would be far more likely to
feel, in the first case, in herself, and still more through
her friends,
-

" lhe burden of an honour unto which she was not born,"
than she would he to miss any of her old home comforts
awl indulgences in the second. Refined tastes, literary
accomplishments, the cheap and nameless elegance, of
social life, are not unknown always to surgeons and
lawyers. They may have au eye for the fine arta as well
as for • pretty woman. In neit cue is the taste limited
to the exact level on which we ourselves stand. Yet how
many good, and pleasant, and sufficiently pretty girls
there are, within the knowledge of any of us, whose liven
are wasting 'meanee of this false conceit ! How many
whose

" Cold and Joyless charms shall lie.
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore,"

when they might have been happy wives and mothers if
they had not been brought up from their childhood in
that pestilent heresy of belief that they were good enough
to mate with any man in England above their sphere, but
that no man below it was good enough to raise his eyes
higher than the hem of their petticoat !-131ackwaxi's
Magazine for May.