The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-24 00:00:00

The Price of Gold.

The quotation of gold at Paris is about 4 per milk pm., and
the short exchange on London is 25.35 per £1 sterling. On
comparing these rates with the English Mint price of £3
17s. lOid. per ounce for standard gold, it appears that gold is'
about 3-10ths per cent. dearer in London than in Pario.
By advices from Hamburg the price of gold is 423} per mark
and the short exchange on London is 13.41 per £1 sterling,.
standard gold at the English Mint price is, therefore, rather
more than 2.loths per cent. dearer in London than in Ham-
burg
The course of exchange at New York on London for bills at
60 days' sight is 174 to 175 per cent, and the premium on
gold is about NI per cent. At these rates there is a profit
on the importation of gold from the United States.

THEATRE OF WAR IN SCHLESWIG.—Under this
head Mr. Wyld has published a fresh instalment
of his maps illustrating the progress of the war now raging
in Denmark. This last instalment leaves nothing to bode-

sired. The town of Duppel, backe•l by the island of Alsen,
is set forth with great distinctness, while the entrenchments
thrown up by the Danes and the positions occupied by the
allies are also made distinctly visible. This new map is an
indispensable companion to all who wish to follow intern-

gently the newspaper accounts of the progress of the war.
TITLED AND UNTITLED ARISTOCRACY.—When
Louis XVI. ordained that no one should be pre-
sented at Versailles unless he could prove four hundred
years of " gentility," in other words, that his ancestors

bore arms before 1403, many counts and marquises were re.

jetted as unworthy, though many an untitled gentleman,
as old as Hampden of Hampden, left his tower or chateau,
and posted up to court to establish his right. Every gen-
tleman, on hie pedigree being certified, was invited to join
the royal hunt; and this privilege was entitled le droit de
monter dans la carosse du Rol. The
plain squire, to whom
this right was allowed, was always held to be really supe-
rior even to the count or marquis whose claim was rejected.
Were the same standard of gentility in vogue at St. James's,
many an old English squire and highland
bear away the palm of ancestry, while many a noble peer
would, as at a tournament, have to "ride the barriers."—
Once a Week. chieftain would

A YouNG " SWELL "—Thackeray has made the
word classical—who thoroughly enjoys the Paris
life, which, from station and fortune he is fully qualified to
lead, betook
e says a contemporary, six months ago
to Poland, h
fought like a hero in the insurgent
ranks merely from the love of the cause. He was shot
through the body, but was fortunately rescued from the
claws of the Russian bear, and got back to Paris ; he is now
nearly well. " Mon cher," said a friend to him only yester-
day, " thou art well—we shall see thee directly at the club."
" Yes," replied M. de —, " for a day or two, but the
moment I can travel Igo back to my corps." Chivalry
still exists even in 1864.
AN EXTRAORDINARY ANECDOTE.—Replying to
a slerical deputation the other day Victor Emmanuel is re-
ported to have said—" I am aware a report is circulated of
my being on ill terms with the Holy Father, from whom I
nevertheless again received, during the past year, further
proofs of affection on the occasion of my daughter's mar-
riage. His Holiness has invited tne to Rome. I will add
that I am in correspondence with him, and that I have good
hopes that the time is not far distant when all differences
will disappear."

Mr, SAMUEL SHARPE was elected a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries on the 4th of February.
An interesting discovery has been made of ear•
respondence and literary papers of William Hone, author
of the " Everyday Book."

THE SLOW MARCH OF INTELLECT.—Catkins is
now a respectable young man, though I have known
him to be otherwise. Ile has a
Young 'wife and child, and
lives in another of our "models," The child was lately
taken ill, so Catkins tells me, and adds that "no doctors,
neither parish nor 'firmary, can cure him." I answer, that
with a mother's care and nursing the child may outgrow
the disease. " There is a quicker way," he replies, my-ste
riously, "if it warn't for a dUliculty we are afraid of."
He is going to take the child soma fine morning before
long, at sunrise, to a young ash sapling hard by. The
sapling is to be split. The child is to be strip-
ped. Catkins is to be permitted to hold the split
parts of the sapling far enough asunder to allow his in-
fant to be passed between them by the wise woman, while
sho repeats mysterious words, which alter he does not
know, or ho dares not communicate. After this is done, the
sapling will be carefully bound together, and its wound will
be plastered with mud and clay. If the tree grows, the
child certainly recovers; if it dies, or is cut down, the dis-
ease returns, and will remain for life. " And here," says
Catkins, "is the deuce of it all. All the sticks in these
parts is wanted for hop-poles every ten or twelve year, and
the cure is never safe, because folks won't let 'cm be and
, grow into timber,"—Dickens's lc All the Year iloold,'!,