The Express.
London, England, 1857-11-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER. .24. 1857.

employments lie at a distance from home. Ameri-
can workmen, while complaining of the general coat
of living in comparison with the European modes,
admit the convenience of their own ►oarding-houses;
and if immigrants object to them, it is on the awful
of bad cookery. It is perpetually talked about id
London and our chief provincial towns, the benefit
that a cheap table at hand would be to industrial
people ; and of late it has been proposed to use such
an opportunity foe instructing poor girls in the
cookery of their class, as it ought to be. Let any
who are planning such a thing set about it at once.
It is, in great pert, ladies' work : let it be their
contribution to the alleviation of the time.

The Irish in America arc beginning at once with a
fierce demand that the State Governments under
which they are living shall institute public works as
grand as the Emperor of the FRENCH has been prose-
eating at Paris—the workmen being paid at the
American rate. The demand purports to be that of
the working clam in particular towns and States ;
but the ignorance of republican powers, resources,
and modes, shown on the very face of it, arms to
confirm the assertion that the immigrants are the
real petitioners. There is some fear that large
numbers of them will be compelled to return to
Europe by such means as the Know-Nothing party
has at command ; but it seems likely, on the other
hand, that public works will be set on foot—not in
rivalry with any despotic Sovereign, but simply by
way of anticipation of improvement, sure to be
made sooner or later. Something of the kind is
already begun, we perceive, in our own manu-
facturing districts ; and we shall be glad to hear
of more. This is too long a chapter to enter upon
now ; but we may urge our municipal authori-
ties and the citizens generally to consider how much
better it is that the thousands of able-bodied men
who must live, one way or another, should earn their
living by improving their neighbourhoods than by
consuming the hates on workhouse terms.
There is probably no neighbourhood where some
improvements might not be mask, csithout at all in-
terfering with the local labour market ; and whether
such works pay or not, in tee form of replacing the
capital invested in them, they cannot but be a great
gain if they absorb the labour adrift in the region.
keep respectable families out of the workhouse, and
preserve Society from bread riots, or a hopelessness
which is worse even than such folly. As there is no
evidence of any surplus of labour in the country, in a
general way, we are not prepared with any large
scheme of emigration, to be carried out for imme-
diate relief. In a few months there will
be need of every " worky " we have who
ia worthy of his order. The thing to be done
is to get them through the winter with tho least
pressure upon their minds, and the resources of the
country. Let every one do what he can ; and there
may yet be more pleasure than pain in looking back
on the last anxious weeks of this remarkable year.

Tne unanimous judgment delivered by the Loan
CHANCILLOR and the Loft lei JUSTICYJ in the highest
Equity Court of the realm in favour of the claims
of the Great Northern Preference Shareholders, rests
on principles so plain and irrefragable that the only
matter of utouishment is, how a ems so dear could
ever have been so obstinately contested. Nothing
but the magnitude of the sum at stake, and the
fact that one of the litigants was • wealthy
Company, ready to give cane blanche to its Directors
for any extent of law coats, can explain such
a result. The proceedings were of course ex-
ceedingly voluminous, but the real question
in dispute was very short, and anything but ab-
struse. We need hardly remind our readers that the
whole litigation arose out of Leorotii REDPATAr.
frauds. The Directors alleged, as the fact pro-
bably was, that it had become impossible to dietin-
guish the valid stock from the spurious. They,
therefore, proposed, and the Company agreed, that
application should be made to Parliament for per-
mission give validity to the spurious stock, to de-
clare dividends on it, ■nd to purchase an equal
amount of stock with fresh capital. A Bill to this
effect was accordingly submitted to Lord Reims-
MLE, who derisively rejected the proposal for
raising fresh capital, and insisted that the lomshould
be paid out of revenue within a limited time. The
revenue available for dividend for the half-year
ending 31st December, 1856, was upwards of
243,0001. ; and a Bill was prepared, and ultimately
carried through Parliament, the first section of
which made the fraudulent stock valid ; the second
authorised the Directors to apply the 213,0001.
dividend of December, 1856, to the purchase and
cancelling of that stock ; and the third provided that
if any balance of the said dividend remained after
such purchase, it should be applied, se far as it
would extend, to paying the different classes of Pre-
ference Shareholders the dividends to which they
would have been entitled had no loss ooriwred.
Such was in substance the form of the Act as
ultimately passed through Parliament. An attempt
had been made, and successfully made, in the
House of Lords, to add to the third section a
proviso, to the effect that such appropriation of the
243,0001. as was directed in that section should be
considered equivalent to a due division of it among
all classes of shareholders. This amendment, how_
ever, was rejected by the Commons, on the express
ground that the addition of the proviso " would de-
" ride a question of law in dispute between the Or
dinary and Preference shareholders of the Great
Northern Railway Company which ought to be
" left to the decision of a Court of law." The Act
accordingly was passed without the additional
clause, and it was left to the Courts to decide what,
under the circumstances, were the rights of the Pre-
ference shareholders as against the Ordinary share-
holders of the Company.
Irrespective of the Act of 1857, the nature of their
rights seemed hardly to admit of dispute. The
various closers of preference shares in the Oreat
Northern Company were created under several Acts
of Parliament, which with slight modifications in
detail, all agreed in this essential point, that they
declared the holders of such shares entitled to the
payment of dividends " in preference to the
psyment of dividends on the ordinary shares
" of tho Company." An attempt was indeed
made to distinguish " Preference shareholders"
from " Guaranteed shareholders" in respect to their
priority of right over ordinary shareholders. This
attempt wholly failed, and the two classes of
" Preference" and " Guaranteed" shareholders were
taken as standing, in this respect, on pre-
eisely the same footing. The real question was
as to the operation of the third clause of the
Act of 1837—the clause providing that if soy
mirplas remained out of the dividend of 31st,
December, 1866, after making good the limes
arising out of Retie vrn's frauds, it shined be ap-
plied in paying dividends to the Preference Share-
holders as far as it would go. On be-
half of the Ordinary Shareholders, it was
contended that such payment was a parlia-
mentary satisfaction of the dividend, as far as
the Preference Shareholders were concerned ; in
other words, they contended that the third section,
' without the words added in the Lords' amendment,
should have the same construction as though those
words had been inserted, and this although the

House of Commons had refused to insert them, on
the express ground that they did not wish to decide
ane way or other the, question of legal or equitable
sight. On the other hand, it was argued that
the Act clearly contemplated no interference
with the rights of the Preference Share-
holders beyond the mere postponement of
their diridesda: those shareholders, it was urged,
had an abeolate right to be paid dividends, after cer-
tain specified rates, out of the profits of the Com-
pany whenever they arose, in preference to the
payment of any dividend to the ordinary share-
holders; and that the re was no limitation to their
right to receive the full smonnt of dividend when-
ever there were assets applicable to that payment.
To the clear and indeed irresistible arguments
by which those latter views were enforced Vice-
Chancellor PAGE WOOD yielded the full assent of
his powerful judgment: he declared that the third
section of the Act of 1857, so far from being
in substitution of the preference dividends,
afforded cumulatively an additional security
for them; and decreed that the holders of
preference stock were entitled to be paid dividends
ont of the profits realised by the Company from the
30th of June, 1836, downwards, before any pay-
ment of dividends to the original shareholders. In
this judgment the Loan CHANCELLOR and the LORDS
JUSTIMS have unanimously concurred, and the result
is that the Preference Shareholders will be entitled
to receive ont of the 200,0001. profits declared on the
30th June last all the arrears of dividend now due
to therm the arrears, thaw, for the half-year
ending 31st December, 1836, and for the
half-year ending 30th June, 1857 ; and these
arrears must be paid them before a farthing can
be appropriated to the ordinary shareholders. In
the perfect equity of this judgment all those who,
free from partisan bias, have followed even this brief
statement of its leading points, must cordially con-
cur. The difficulty, indeed, is to see how the oppo-
site view could be gravely maintained with any
well-grounded expectation of success. It is to be hoped
that this unanimous decision will make a final end of
this discreditable litigation. Nothing can be gained
by carrying the case into the House of Lords,exccpt a
further suspension of dividends, a fresh display of
litigiousness, and an enormous aggravation of costs.

THE POST-OFFICE AND THE AUSTRALIAN
MAIU3.

We learn that a new system of " working of the
mails is about to be commenced by the Post.office
authorities. A staff of officials will leave Southamp-
ton by the Australian packet for Alexandria, to open
the mails and divide the letters in their transit to
this country. For this purpose the officiabi will
have a separate cabin to themselves, and will take
the entire charge of the mails, instead of the Admi-
ralty agents. This mode of preparing the mails,
which has been carried on for some time by the
French Government in their Mediterranean poetsl
steamers, will greatly expedite the delivery of the
correspondence contained in the Australian mails.
If the plan succeeds, we earnestly recommend that
some similar arrangement should be adopted with
the other packet mails, especially those from India,
which contain such important correspondence.
Additional expenditure should nut be an obstacle.
We frequently have to wait from two to three hours
after the arrival of these mails at the Post-office,
before we receive our letters and newspapers, and
any saving of time would be hailed with great satis-
faction by ourselves and the public.

EXPRESS k' KUM rAlf.lb.

DT lIIIMARINII AND semen TILIGIAT/L
(raOM °on onn COIMIBTONDIIIT.)
PARIS, TUMID tr.
M. Dupin, wn., formerly President of the National
Assembly, has been appointed I'rocureur Imperial
in the Court of Caseation.

(nom ouz oa•I cnuaurommrr.)

PARIS, MONDAY EVENING.

The Emperor, on his return to the capital, has
loot no time before proceeding to buiieets. He
presided at a council of ministers held at the
Tuileries at eleven this morning.
The liberal church party was thrown into a state
of consternation a little while ago by the news that
Cardinal Morlot, the Archbishop of Paris, and also
the Grand Almoner of thu Crown, had ap-
pointed to the influential post of Grand Vicar of
the Almonry a rank Jesuit and Ultramontanist—the
Abbi Hiron. It appears that Cardinal Morlot,
although passing fur a Gallium himself, has a nerv-
ous apprehension of being thought to f►vour any
particular party in the church, and, in his desire to
use his patronage with impartiality, is but too likely
to play into the hands of the Jesuits. It is now
stated, however, that M. Houland has made such a
strong representation to his Eminence about the pe-
culiar significance of the appointment of the Abbfi
Wren that thecardinalhss agreed to rescind it. Ij

this be so, the Minister of Public Instructimi
will have done the state good service, and
the reasons which induced tho Emperor to
keep him in his present office, instead of
transferring him to the ministry of justice will
command genial assent. The Archbishop, in pur-
suance probably of his see-saw system, has inde-
finitely poatpooed an annual fete of the schools of
St. Genevieve, which was founded by his immediate
predecessor (M. Sibour) for the express purpose of
cultivating an alliance between reason and faith.
It is not thought that thisfrte will be revived at all,
and the reason given is that M. Morlot is advised
that it is of too rationalistic a character.

It is announced that a Pope's bull, authorising
modifications in the Liturgy, has just been received
in Paris, and will be promulgated immediately. I
presume that this bull relates to a subject about
which, strange to say, there has been much difficulty
and long negotiation, namely, the simple substitution
of the word " Emperor" for the word " King" in the
French prayer books.
M. Jules Goudoo, a well known writer, who some
time since left the Unipers on the occasion of a grand
split among the conductors of that journal, is about
to start a now religious newspaper, to be called the
Uri trei•sel.

The Bourse was dull; quotations were steady at
the opening, but afterwards receded on the arrival
of English Consols, with a fall of 4, to 891. The
account from the Bank of Franco is favourable ; its
bullion stood this morning at 1924 million., beingan
increase of 3 millions since Fciday last. Two important
failures at Hamburg were spoken of. The Rente
closed at 66fr. 75c. for cash, and 136 fr. 85c. for
account, with a fall of 15fr. and 10e. Mobilier fell
Mr. Railways were from 2fr. 50c. to sfr. lower.
It is reported that the Bank has this day made the
advance agreed upon of fifty millions to the rail-
ways.
_ . _

In the Paris corn market, during the past week,
the advance which had set in after the publication
of the decrees removing the prohibition to export
corn has not continued. The general want of money
has produced its natural effect on the holders of
flour, and offers have been frequent. The four marks
were nominally at 62fr. 60c. the sack, but it was
impossible to business at that price. Wheat was
offered just as much as floor, the best quality bring-
ing from 29fr. to 30fr. the hectolitre and a half, and
ordinary qualdies from 271 r. to 29fr. The depart-
mental markets came with a rise at the beginning
of the week, but lower prices were quoted on Satur-
day. At Marseilles prices are firm, with a consi-
derable business doing.

THE MONETARY CRISIS AT HAMBURG.

(ST DLOCTLIC LTD INTZINATIONAL IIU.11ORAP11.)

(ruin ova owls co/uncommon.)
HAMBURG, TCUDAT.
A new institution, intended to relieve commercial
distress, was announced here to-day, called the Dis-
count Guarantee Society, with ten million marks
bunco capital. The whole amount was subscribed
in tour hours.

(TROM OUR OWN CORRTffiTONDINT.)

HAMBURG. Nov. 21

Considerable alarm, almost approaching to a
panic, was produced yesterday on Change by the
report of a highly respectable Swedish house being
in difficulties and unable to meet their engagements.
The report proved unfortunately but too well
founded, the amount of their acceptances being
variously stated at six and ten millions of marks
bane*, a large portion of which have been dis-
counted by, and are in the hands of our two new
banks—the North German Bank and the Vereins-
Bank. A notice signed by these two establishments
was posted in the Exchange-rooms to the effect that
' they had mutually agreed not to take extreme
measures during this unparalleled financial crisis,
but rather to &said commercial houses in temporary
difficulties, which announcement had a very favour-
able effect, and tended to allay the prevailing
excitement. In thu meantime the telegraph was
not idle, and at • meeting held iu the afternoon it
was announced that pecuniary assistance to a large
amount had been afforded to the house in question—
amongst others by the house of Solomon Heine to
the amount of a million marks bane°, the Bank
of Sweden for a similar sum, and another of
equal amount by the agent of and for account of
the Crown Prince Regent of Sweden. In conee-
quemoe of this timely assistance, the creditors agreed
not to press their claims, and a satisfactory arrange-
ment was concluded late last night. The business
carried:on by the firm in question with the North of
Europe is of such immense magnitude, that it is
stated on good authority that had they been obliged
to suspend payment at lead one-half of the mercan-
tile houses in Sweden must have been swept into the
vortex, which would have proved a national cala-
mity, and produced a reaction involving thousands
and thousands of smaller merchants and tradesmen
in ruin.

The banking-houses of Solomon Heine, of this city,
and C. IL Donner, of Altera, who are creditors on
the estate of Naylor, Vickers, and Co., of Sheffield,
to the tune of 150,000 marks banes each, having
ascertained that two of the partners held shares in
the Smith ship Levanter, lately arrived at this port
from South America, applied to the President of the
Tribunal of Commerce for legal permission to lay
embargo on the above-mentioned vessel, which was
granted, and she is now secured by chain and pad-
lock for future adjudication. This is the first in-
stance of embargo being laid on a vessel in this port
for a claim not immediately involving the ship
itself.

In spite of the serious financial crisis money can-
not be said to be scarce here, and the rate of dibcouut,
which last week had reached the maximum point of
10 par cent., has now receded to 9 per cent.

A Naples letter, in the Ewer° of Turin, says ...
" It is believed the trial of the prisoners of lispri will mot
bake plsoe until January. The government wishes it to be
conducted with the utmost solemnity. The police sey that
one of the chief charges Against the two British engineers
now in prison is their him iog been found in possession of a
Letter from Min White."

SW EDF,N.

BERLIN, Nov. 23.

Broaufout, Nov. 22.—The Bourse yesterday
founded a new association, to be called the Society
of Credit. The object of the society is to assist
members by loans, and mutually to sustain public
credit. The subscription amounts to four millions.
A board of twelve directors has been elected, with
very extensive powers. This board is composed of
the most notable personages at the Bourse.