The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-31 00:00:00

.--`.

-17 a 411:
ccgc
?AZ,
:717:1V)
prefer our own age to live in before;kor 14lieiltr7t,7
thatall the appliances and discoverievCo*o:sl*' '
be intolerably missed if we were removed
are forced to grant, too; that in every pastoe'perioao
of we should fiad a lower tone of general public opinion
than that which prevails now—still we must all allow that
there is each a thing as progress, that society in some way
improves with time, that not only in science, but also in
social morals, some steps are gained as years roll by, and
that these steps, once gained, are permanent acquisitions.
Whether it be so or not, we cannot believe it otherwise.
We can neither believe that, having learnt the power of
steam, men will go back to pack-horses, nor that the moral
social enlightenment which they have now reached will
ever relapse into degradation and barbarism ; and to call tLe
the world wiser and better than it was is, we suppose, in a
certain sense, to allow that the men and women who compose
it are wiser and better. Thus we are all disciples of progress ;
we are so because, in this sense, it is impossible for men .to be
otherwise. Nevertheless there is something irrittliir:r, and
prompting to instinctive contradiction, in the assumptions
of " advauced thinkers" on this head. They are for ever
Saying with the boastful Capaneus, " «e ara much better
than our fathers'—

Far more than heirs of all our parents' fame,
Our glories darken their diminished name—
'the children of cur day know more than the sags of the
past," and so on. Under such talk, and even under our
own admissions, we know that a fallacy lurks, if they are
intended to mean that the old boundaries of human nature
the old capacities fir human wisdom and greatness, are ex-
tended by the course of acquisition and discovery. It is not
knowledge, but thought, which makes the wise man, Just
as the children who know so much are very common-
place children still with all their knowledge, so the
sages who were ignorant of most of the things they know
were sages still. Ncr, for that matter, can we see that
the diffusion of useful knowledge, railways, and elec-
tricity, and the penny post, would have made them much
wiser in the line in which we now look up to and revere
them, and still accept them as teachers and exponents. They
found their way to the heart of things; they could look as
far as we ; their imagination could, to say the least, take as
long flighte ; they cop* think, and-afeely and Aolk, and,play -
the than With any of their deacendants, let the world last as
long as it may. They left names which will never be sur-
passed; -and this is BO universally granted that, to the great
majority of men, even to those who talk most of progress,
it would be ujoke to compare any one they know with the
great men who have been. Extravagance is never felt to
have so utterly exceeded bounds as when the hero of the
hour is compared. with some hero of the past, looking out
on us from the far mietydistapee. Even the boasters haws
their moments of depression and compulsory tentage,
like the French sculptor viho, after proving to demonstra-
tion that his' horses were in every respect--in- beauty of
form, in anatomy, in arrengement—immeasurably superior
to the group of Lysippus, broke in uponhis eLge in a passion
of unwilling candour, " 2fais it put avoket—it must be
granted that those ugly brutes are living and mine are dead,"
Their own heroes they patroniee as their own creation, but
what has stood the test of ages and achieved an enduring
name they know to be another sort of-thing altogether.
However, involuntary candour is a frequent visitant to no
one, and certainly one cause 'of the optimist's exaltation of
the present is a defective apprehension of past merit; they
are too much occupied with themselves and their own
views to realise the diffiCulties and the achievements cf pre-
vieus, 'and especially remote, times. To such men as
Theodore Parker all the thinkers of Christian times before
the Reformation are merely puerile "shabby .A.fiicana,"
and the like. lt matters not that these Africans gave. the
cue to ages of thought; they fasten on same weak point,
which is never hard to find, draw comparisons between -
what they know and what the others were ignorant of,-end
conclude that every tiro of the present day who is well up
in its commonplaces excels St. Austin, not only in knpw-
lodge, but in grasp and largeness of mind—is laterally and
intellectually above him. And if, in some points, they
cannot prove any advance at all over the past—if the
noblest poetry, the grandest architecture, the art eVes-.,.
premien- in its heroic perfection, is not to,,,l4e.foitildrra
scarcely pretended to in our time-,--thesi are tl4pgs 'Which
"advanced tiaitifeik".494ot -care for,. take no seconn4 of,
and consider W 3 have'ktiiied."
, -2

oard of Trade Returns.

The official ret re a. g
months rade-and naviga-
tion for the.nine ended the 30ih Septnoker
have, just been published. From these it 'appears
the total declared value of the exports from
the
United Kingdom was £123,404,161 against
`X104,294,713 on the like period of 1863, showing
'`an increase of X 19,109,448, the increase is Most
perceptible in coals and calm, cotton yarn,
eottem manufac:ureP, earthenware, haberdashery
and millinery, hardwares and cutlery linen many
,iiio4.iiPeer—artrutrivrEffriiLeTrarlainbs' wool and
woolen manufaCtures. Tho impor.2t~ti~an. f. La
ilki‘lts *tn.: 'larger as r g.rds raw -cot-
ton, E. heep and lambs' woo!, fi tu, quicksilver, czar,
brandy, tobacco, and wine. There has been a dimi-
nution, however, in provisions, raw silk, tallow,
cocoa, wheat, barley, unrefined sugar, end tea.
The shipping accounts exhibit an increase in the
amount of tonnage employed in the foreign trade of
the United Kingdom for the entries inward:, as also
for the clearances outwards. In the coasting trade,
however, for the same period, there has been a
slight decrease in the tonnage engaged for both the
entries inwards and the clearances outwards.

The Lord Mayor and the Charing-cross
Railway.

At the Lord Mayor's Caurt on Saturday, before Mr
Kerslake, Q.C., as assessor, and a special jury, a compensa-
tion case which has been pending some time, Lawrence and
others v. the Charing-cress Railway Company, was heard
and occupied the whole day. Mr Bovill, Q.C„ and Mr 11,
Lloyd were counsel for the Lord Mayor, and Mr Lloyd,
with whom was Mr Shiel, represented the company. The
claim was for two houses, Nos. 5 and 6, Cannon-street,
near Turnwheel lane, which were built in 1852 by Mr Al-
derman Lawrence, and let respectively at £350 and £450,
One was leased to Baron Rothshild and would expire in
1866,the other to a public company, and would expire in 1574.
The principal question raised was the value of the rever-
sion. All the witnesses admitted that property in the City
of London had greatly increased in value within the last
few years. It had "enormously" risen in price within
the "commercial area," and a question was mooted whether
the houses were within that area. Several witnesses de-
scribed the houses as worth respectively £650 and £B5O et
)eel.. One was at the corner of Turnwheel-lane. On the
part of Mr. Alderman Lawrence the property was valued at
upwards of £30,000, the highest sum being nearly £30,700.
On the other hand, for the company the valuers estimated
the worth of the two houses from £21,000 to £21,6J0,
including the usual 10 per cent. for a compulsory sale. Mr,
Ryde,:the surveyor of the Charing-cross Railway, said he had
purchased property for the South-Eastern and the Charing-
cross Railway to nearly £3,000,000. He considered that
£21,641 was a liberal price for the property in question. In
a letter which was -read to the jury, addressed to the Lord
Mayor, Mr. Hyde said that in order to settle the matter and
on account of the "uncertain view which juries took of pro-
perty in the city of London," he offered a sum of 423,000.
The Lord Mayor, in answer, said that was not a fair value
for the increase in the price of property, and he would sub-
mit the case to a jury. Mr Lloyd entreated the jury not to
be led away to give an extravagant sum. His experience,
connected as he was with railway companies, as to compen-
sation claims, was a painful one. Enormous sums had been
demanded, and if property was to increase in value a§ it had.
within the last feyv years, there were trades that could not
be carried on within the city, as they could not give the rent
demanded. His opinion was, that property had now reached
its culminating point in the city—it had attained its apex,
and it must go down. He (Mr Lloyd) thought that at the
present time, when money was fetching 8 and 9 per cent.,
a gentleman would be glad to receive his money. Juries
had been in the, habit of giving 10 per cent. to cover any
difficulty as to investment, but now there was a demand
for money, and large interest was to be obtained. He prayed
the jury not to give an extravagant price. A very fair
offer of £23,000 had been made to avoid the present litiga-
tion, which was an expensive affair, but upwards of £30,009
had been demanded. Mr Bovill ridiculed the view taken by
Mr Lloyd, as to the culminating point in the value of pro-
perty and the means of investment at the present time. The
value given had been attained in the last 10 years, and was
increasing. It showed the great wealth of England, and the
large sums made by commerce. The question was not what
was to be obtained for money at a month or so, which might
be 8 or 9 per cent., but what it would yield as a permanent
investment in the funds, which would be from 3 to 3i per
cent. The learned assessor, in placing the case before the
jury, contrasted the evidence given on both sides, and told
them that the question was, what was a fair and liberal
compensation for the property. There was nothing in the
Act as to 10 per cent, being given fora compulsory sale. It
had been the practice for juries to do so, and it wee tee theei
to give the amount or any other sum. They had heard of the
offer made by the company and the sum demanded they had
heard of the value put on it by respectable men on b e.h sides,
from £29,000 and some hundreds to £30,700, and on the
other side to £21,000 and upwards. The jury retired, end
on their return assessed the value at 100
£15,,
for tiVures. including4loo

_TA call of £2 lOs p:r :,hve has been rimle by the
directors of the City Offices Company.

An accident cceurred at the Theatre of Nii-mea
(Gard) a few
evenings since, during the performance of the
4, pirates de la Savane." An actor who was performing
the part of Itiberio arrived on the stage on horsLbaek, whop
the animal, being frightened by the glare of light, became
unruly and fell into the orchestra. Both the rider and horse
fortunately escaped unhurt, and the damage was limited to
the breaking of a few music desks. Tile performance con-
tinued after a short interruption.