The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-03-24 00:00:00

MEETING AT "lIIE BANK.

The half-vearly meeting of Batik Proprietors was held yester-
d4. The Novara sou took the I -hair at twelve o'clock.
Th.: Sri: aft eAm V haying read the correspondence between the
• edinent and the Bank, relative to their ceding so hof their
ta
i:.'accr as line ul btinkinl/4;compoliles tt tiox partners, at a certain
itnia. from the titetropoos, and the minutes of the proceedings
%,,„„„i tomtit of Dveetors. in which they declared their cencur-
f -ICe iu the re:arliticialations of his Majority's 311
Toe ( :tat tt lAN rose to declare a dividend of him per cent. to
Proptietota Lank Stock, for the half-year ruling the Leh of
31, you sft: submitted that the Cmirt ahnuld not concur in any
rich division to their property, without an explanation of the state
tit tacit affairs. Ile should not discharge his duty to the Company
and Cie country at large. without demanding such explanation. in
~.icotal.; to the late distresses, and the atorances which the Bank
hid i 04ot:ow:ce been called on to make, he thought that it was
e-e 111. the Coort of Directors to explain the principle on
test had made these advances. Ile had no wish to pry into
tiett yerets, hot the public had a right to be apprised of the plan.
'oat express his fears as to the Consequences of the
Bill brought into Parliament, to accelerate the ope-
tm,„, of the law of merchant and factor in favour of the Bank,
ke:o siioold have been much better satisfied to let that law take its
roan: 11 course. Whether this measure was adopted at the instance
of the Doi:ors. the ('ours did not know. Ile strongly deprecated the
advance ot tooney on such a pawnlooking system. The next point
t, which he wished to allude was the state of the manufacturing in-
ten"'. The individuals composing this interest bad been quietly
ilr,aing their business, perfectly ignorant of the impending storm
ha.! r ern taken by surprise, and thcir interests ought to be
rattled by every possible means. These were the men to whom
;hoidil be given—not to those who had overstocked their
enefouses by over inhumation, or over-trading of any kittd. As
tite state of the circulating medium, lie was afraid that the man-
,:m of the Government and the Bank had been the menus of con-
ratan; its amount as much below the natural supply as it was last
year ahoy? it. Both extremes were equally irjoriotta. Ile would
p,C.!:11,.! the attention of the Court to the subject of mortgages.
p anti 1;7 said. of great importance for the country to know what
irae !!;•2 imentions of the Company in regard to them ; whether it
a,. intoition of the Company to make farther advances, or to
with& ov any part of those already made. There was only another
point till w hiCil he wished for information ; what views were enter-
tsitted by the Company as to the establishment of branch batiks ?
If such branch batiks were to be established. he fur one thought
that the charter ought to be extended beyond the year IBA air
otherwise they would be making an experiment from which they
could derive no profit. and which would only expose them to much
risk and Ito,. In order to make himself more distinctly under-
stood, be should now propose a serifs of questions, on the several
'abject, on which he wished for information. In the first place he
„jetted to know the outline of the oho on which the division was
I„nf,. tfe description of trader+, and the amount.
.1 he CIIM R mAN replied, that the Book had not yet made any
very considerable advances. With respect to the outline of the
Tian. it seemed very important that committees should be appointed
tot reel iving applications, and determining on their propriety. The
cv ores hail beet principally made to manufacturers, and with an
Vit-rst:tntlivg that it was the intention of the Bank that no ad-
nixes should he made in cases where they would be employed in
sopoirting over speculation. (Iloir„ hear.) The goofs on which
thi.o :Us:loves were made being estimated at their present depre-
crud role:, the advances were never more than one-half, or 'ome-
n , trio-thirds of this appraised value. The goods were deposited
is scale of the Chambers of Coinmeree, or confided to the care of
pe seas connected with tile business, but at present ireefrots the dis-
re,'
and the keys were deposited in the hands of persons entirely
tit t waken(' with the parties. Every precaution had been taken to
filoa.n ample security tint the Batik. The advances were only made
tor three mamba, without any agreement for a renewal, which, if' it
should be found necessary, was afterwards to be effected as an en-
tirely new ,unmet. in some cases advances had been made on
personal security. The advanrel had been made in London on ex-
actly the same plan as in the country.
Mr. You an was much satisfied with the answer which had been
given. lie was anxious. however, to know the actual amount which
had been advata .1 to the manufacturers?

The Citron max—A quarter of a million would very much ex-
ceed the whole ao.ount. (Hear.)
Mr. You then asked what was the intention of the Bank in
ri.si.cc: to mortglge, did they mean to make any more advances ?
he Cita( it MAN replied that it was not the intention of the Bank
to mak.• any further advances on mortgage.
Mr. You ko wished to know whether it was intended to with-
draw aer part or the advances already matl.t ?
The l'oat tt 3las said that this subject was at present under con.
sideration. _ .

Mr. I'm:NG iris desirous of knowing what was their intention
in rispeet to 'te establishment of branch banks %
The l lIAIRMAs said that this subject was also under considers.
lion. The titt:e i•I the Directors hail been recently much occupied
very inmovant matters, and they had as yet been unable to
come to any arrang2,iient on this subject.
Mr. VoI:NG understanding that the Chairman would not give
any more detai'ed answer. would riot press this question. Ile could
not. hoatler, sufficiently impress on them the importance uf

--The Cita hee AN replied that the Court of Directors were per-
f.,tlv aware of toot, but the very great importance both of the
1;r:11c:ilk and the details of the measure would justify the,r delay.
gIICSIIIIII W.VI then put from the Chair. and erred to without
division. The d.videud warrants were ordered to issue on the 6th
cavil.

Yot:wc would only ask one question more. Dad the Di-
re; as taken into consideration his plan for preventing the fraudu-
lent twister of stock ? The plan he had proposed, of immediately
c minunicating to any individual whose stock had been transferred
t,.at hes had been dune, appeared to him a most ell'ectual remedy.
the Cie Aln ciAN observed that this suggestion had been consi-
dered by the Diretion', and that it did not appear to them so sate
a•.d r!--..ctual a preventive of fraud is the worthy Proprietor lime-
gelef
SoLLY :Diced whether 80,000/. had been expended in the
anew.. 70 get a note othieh could not be imitated ?
the CHAIR 'IAN replied, as we understood him, that a very large
ur h t.i I.)cot expended, but not so large as that mentioned.

natet,ng then adjourned at a quarter before one o'clock.

MESSRS. CHAMBERS AND SONS' BANKRUPTCY

Yeverday the Creditors to this estate met for the final exarnina-
ni oC th. hat.krupts, at the Commissioners' Court, IDasinghall-
v:e4.

A very el tborate statement was presented by Mr. Cho totters's
S.:heitor, winch was coottnented on by Mr. Commissioner Trelseck,
vein by item. The gross amount of outstanding deists tine to the
crAiturs by the pubiic and private estates was estimated at 3`dt1,14101.,
.t.J the assets were con: inittd at 341,1)001., thus leaving a surplus in
:•eiNir of the e,tate of I.4.issif.

3ir. Coinn.il/4.ioner Taf.L ECK observed, however, that the se-
mum Low exhibited was in every respect the most uniu.tisfaetory
Le had ever witneased. Alnictat every item was burthened with
i:tunibrances ut co heavy a nature, as to leave nothing but a merely
urninal value behind when they came to be analysed. With re-
t:eet to the Opera house, it was made to wand for 100,0001.,
whereas, tit bier, it atoned that )!r. Chambers had only accepted it
as secure:), a debt of 112,01.4.0. due by Mr. Waters to the bank ;
a-A a ql:gi011 here aruse, whcher that had ever been a bona fide
pitch:ls- ?
Mr. Citamar.as observed there could be no doubt as to the
rraitty ut the transaction. The fact was, he had accepted the offer
at a hate when Le considered the sum due by Mr. Vi aters to be •
LOU debt.

Mr. 1.-irninissioner Tam,Ecx likewise observed, that the 'alum
Cu. u:" the Enfield estate seemed to him to have been greatly over-
rad. It was set down in the account as worth 10,1M01., when there
%a 3 (4v-image against it for 7,0081.
Mr. CRAMIIER9, io explanation. remarked that he had put It
d orin in this way, because it had been so valued at the General
Meeting of t:reilitore in 1811, and had met with their concurrence ;
at the sarr.e time ho was willing to admit that the present intrinsic
sake 'timid, perhaps, be materially reduced, from the great dete-
rioration in property which had taken place in the interval.
Mr. Commi.sioniv Taxtitxx reiterated his former opinion, that
th, steour.t.s now exhibited were soy thing but what they ought to
Ate been.

- -
31r. CIIAMBEni declared that he had endeavoured to adhere to
truth in every particular. He had no wish whatever to give the
priperty an appearance of value which it would not eventually

Ile wu then &worn, in the regular way, to the correctness ditto
ac:Ainuo, and the uteeting adjourned.

At the present ' when, from the low rate of wages,
and the general scarcity of employment, most of our ope-
rative classes must be enduring severe privations, it gives
us pleasure to record efforts adopted for their relief. In
the beginning of last week the grocers in the west end of
the town held a meeting, to take into consideration how
they might best assist in relieving the wants of the ope-
ratives. Deputations were appointed to wait upon the
tanners in the neighbourhood, and solicit from them
donations of potatoes, cr whatever they chose to give. The
farmers received the deputations handsomely, and in a
very short time they collected about seventy bolls of po-
tatoes, and a quantity of meal—each farmer sending his do-
rations into a store which the grocers had obtained. The
grocers themselves contributed and furnished some other
necessaries. IV hat was thus provided was distributed in
.mall quantities, among families in necessitous circus:n-
en:vs, and who were not receiving relief fron, any other
Several wholesale merchants, from a distance,
l'at'e given small donations in money, to assist the grocers
*et their laudable efforts. We are assured that it was pleas-
ing to observe the gratitude evinced by most of those who
ebtained this seasonable supply • and that some cases oc-
curred where a family, composed Of several persons, had not
a panicle of food. Although the smallness of the supply
must give but a very transitory relief, yet it is a strong in-
'lneement for others to enrage in similar exertions, that
they will find hundreds Of the most proper objects, and
will readily obtain co-operation and support. —Waylay
Courier.

bource

CIWELTY TO ANIMALS.

-...1M.-

We think we cannot more usefully employ a portion of
our columns (particelaily on this altered day) than by in-
serting in them some extracts from Dr.Chalnurs's Discourse ,
delivered recently at Edinburgh on cruelty to animals.
11nn is the direct 4:Atilt of a wide and continual disiress to the
lower animals. and the question is, can any method be devised for
its allrviation ? lan this subject that scriptural image is strikingly
realieet, "rile whole interior creation groaning and travailing to-
gether in pain,' because Mnna. It signifies not to the substantive
amount of the suffering, whether this he prompted by the hardness
of hi* heart, or only permitted through the heedlessness of his
mind. In either way it holds true, not only that the arch devourer
man stands pre-eminent over the fiercest children of the wilderness,
as an animal of prey, but that for his lordly add luxurious appetite,
as well as for his service or merest curiosity and amusement, Na-
ture must be ransacked thraughout all her elements. Rather than
forego the veriest gratifications of vanity, he will wring them from
the anguish of wretched and ill-fated creatures; rind whether for
the indulgence of his barbararic sensuality, or barbaric splendour,
can stalk paramount over the suffering of that prosrtrate creation
which has been placer' beneath his feet. That beauteous domain
whereof WI has been eons:dined the terrestrial sovereign, gives out
so many blissful and benignant aspects; and whether we look to its
peaceful lakes, or its flowery landscapes, or its evening skies or
to all that soft attire which overspreads the hall and the valleys,
lighted up by smiles of sweetest sunshine, and where animals
disport themselves in all the exuberance gaiety—this surely
were a more befitting scene for the rule of clemency than fur the
Iron rod of a murderous and remorseless tyrant. But the present
is a mysterious world wherein we dwell. It stilt bears much
upon its materialisin of the impress of Paradise. But a breath
from the air of Pandemonium has gone over its living generations.
And so • the tear of man, and the dread of man, is now upon
every beast of the earth, mid upon every Coati of the air, upon all
that moved' upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea ;
into man's hands are they delivered ; every moving thing that
liveth is meat for him ; yea, even as the green herbs, there have
been given to him all things.' Such is the extent of his juristlic.
Lion, and with most lull and wanton license has he revelled among
its privileges. The whole earth labours and is in violence because
of his cruelties; and, from time amphitheatre of sentient Nature.
there sounds in fancy's ear the bleat of one wide and waive:sal
suffering,—a dreadful homage to the power of Nature's consti-
tuted lord.

•"rhese sufferings are really fedt. The beasts of the field are
not so many automata without sensation, and just so constructed
as to give forth all the natural signs and expressions of it. Na-
ture bath not practised this universal deception upon our species.
These poor animals just look, and tremble, and give forth the
very indications of suffering that we do. Theirs is the distinct
cry of pain. Theirs is the unequivocal physiognomy of pain.
They put on the sante aspect of terror on the dcincnstrations of a
menaced blow. They exhibit the same distortions of agony atter
the infliction of it. rhe bruise, or the burn, or the fracture, or
the deep incision, or the fierce encounter with one of equal or
superior strength, just affects them similarly to ourselves. Their
blood circulates as ours. They have pulsations in various parts of
the body like ours. They sicken, and they grow feeble with age,
and, finally, they die just as we do. They possess the sank feel-
ings; and what exposes them to like suffering from another
quarter, they possess the sante instincts with our own specks.
The lioness, rubbed of line whelps, causes the wilderness to ring
aloud with the proct imation of her wrongs; or the bird whose
little househol 1 has been stole'', fills anti saddens all the gook
with melodies of deepest pathos. All ehis is palpable even to the
general and unlearned eye; and when the physiologist lays open
the recesses of their system by means of that scalpel, under whose
operation they just shrink and are convulsed as any living sub-
ject of our own species, tnere steeds forth to view the same sentient
apparatus, and furnished with the same conductors for the trans-
mission of feeling to every minutest pore upon the surface. Theirs
is unmixed and unmitigated pain—the agonies of martyrdom, with-
out the alleviation of the hopes and the sentiments whereof they are
incapable. When they lay them down to die, their only fellowship
is with suffering : for in the prison-house of their beset and
bounded faculties there can no relief be afforded by communion
with other interests or other things. The attention does not
lighten their distress as it does that of man, by carrying off his
spirit from that existing pungency and pressure which might else
be overwhelming. Thtre is but room in their mysterious economy
for one inmate, and that is the absorbing sense of their own single
and concentrated anguish And so in that bed of torment whereon
the wounded animal lingers and expires, there is an unexplored
depth and intensity of suffering which the poor dumb animal itself
cannot tell, and against which it can offer no remonstrance—an nn.
told and unknown amount of wretchedness, of which no articulate
voice gives utterance ; but there is an eloquence in its silence,
and the very shroud which disguises it only serves to aggravate its
horrors."

The following observations relate to the benevolent en-
dowment in consequence of which this sermon wus de-

livcred :

" The institution of a yearly sermon against cruelty to animals,
is of itself a likely enough expedient that might at least be of
some auxiliary ope:ation, along with other and more general
causes, towards such an awakening. It is not by one, but by
many successive appeals, that the cause of justice and mercy to
the brute creation will at length be practically carried. On this
subject I cannot, within the limits of a single address, pretend
to aught like a full or finished demonstration. This might require
not one, but • whole century of sermons ; and many, therefore,
are the topics which necessarily I must bequeath to my succes-
sors. in this warfare against the listlessness an I apathy of the
public. And, beside the farce and the impression of new topics,
if there be any truth In our doctrine, there is a mighty advantage
gained upon this subject of all others by the repetition of old
topics, It is a subject on which the public do not require so
much to be instructed as to be reminded ; to have the regard of
their attention directed again and again to the sufferings of poor
helpless creatures, that the regard of their sympathy might at
length be effectually obtained for them. This then is a cause
to which the institution of an anniversary pleading in its favour
is most precisely and peculiarly adapted. And besides, we must
confess, in the general, our partiality for a scheme that has ori-
ginated the Boyle, and the Ilanipton, and the Warburtonian
lectureships of England, with all the valuable authorship which
has proceeded from them. An endowment fur an annual dis.
course upon a given theme, is, we believe, a novelty in Scot-
land ; though it is to similar institutions that much of the best
sacred and theological literature of our sister country is owing.
We should rejoice if, in this our comparatively meagre and en.
beneficed land, both these themes and these end.pvinents were
multiplied. We recommend this as a fit species of charity, for the
munificence of wealthy individuals. Whatever their selected ar-
gument shall be, whether that of cruelty to animals, or some one
evidence of our faith, or the defence and itluatration of a doctrine,

or any distinct method of Christian philanthropy for the moral
regeneration of our species, or aught else of tnose innumerable
topics that lie situated within the rich and ample domain of that
revelation which God has made to our world—we feel assured that
such a movement must be responded to with beneficial effect, both
by the gifted pastors of our Church, and by the aspiring youths of
greatest power or greatest promise among its candidates. Such
institutions as these would help to quicken the energies of our
establishment; and, through means of a sustained and reiterated
eftbrt, directed to I.OIIIC one great lesson, whether in theology or
morals, they might impress, and that more deeply every year
some specific and most salutary amelioration on the principles or
the practices of general society.
" Yet we are loath to quit our sullen without one appeal mne
in behalf of those poor sufferers, who, unable to advocate their
own cause, possess, on that very account, a more imperative claim
on the exertions of him who now stands as their advocate before
you."

GREAT VARIATION IN CONTRACTS.—A Correspondent
kforms us that the contractor in a western parish paid the
commissioners last year, for the ashes, &c. 2,800/., under-
taking, in the usual was, to cleanse the streets; and by his
contract this )ear, for the same object, he is to receive the
sum of SOW., creating a difference to the parish of 3,3001.
In various manufacturing districts of England a partial
revival of trade appears to have taken place. We would be
glad were we enabled to ray the same with regard to our
own town. Unfortunately however in this respect there is
little or no improvement, and the number of weavers con-
sequently thrown out of employment has within these few
weeks increased to an alarming extent. By a census re-
cently taken, on the accuracy of which reliance may be
placed, it appeals that no less than 2,200 are at this moment
without work, and if to these be added all those who in one
way or another depend on them for support, the total Lum-
ber of persons already enduring the severest privations that
flesh is heir to may, at the very lowest calculation, be esd-
mated at treble that amount. Melancholy as this prospect
is, it is nevertheless gratifying to observe the fortitude with
which these privations arc borne by our suffering towns-
men. More especially do they deserve the meed of our
admiration for the high-minded reluctance which, in many
instances, has been shown, even by those on the brink of
starvation, to receive any description of eleemosynary re-
lief. In such an emergency prompt measures must be
adopted. Accordingly, several meetings have been held by
the local authorities • and, in the meantime, the Road
Trustees have engaged to find employment for a consider-
able number in repaiting roads in the neighbourhood.
This, we can state on authority, is only the forerunner of
more extended and efficacious measures for meeting the
present exigency.—Poirlest Advertiser, March 18.
FREE Titans. INDEED ! I—The following is a copy of
a notice which was posted on the Roman Catholic Chapels
in the neighbourhood of Finstone :
" To the palish o fDrumragh—That if any of the Roman Catho•
tics attends in future any markets and fairs in ',intone, on week
days, to buy or sell, until such times that there are another arrange.
ment made, of which due notice will be given. Any persons at.
tendin to Fintona after this notice (only for the Purpose of attend.
ing on Sundays and hnlydays for prayers), will meet the severest
punishment on their persons; and If their persons does not be got,
they may expect destruction to be down on their cattle and pro-
party."—From the Potsiet of Saturday.

THE BRITISH PRESS.