The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, SEPT. 12, 1864.-

Now that the first sensation created by the Bank
in raising it rate of discount to nine per cent. is
somewhat moderated, people have time to wonder
what can be the cause of that rise. There is no war,

no panic, nor any apparent reason for one ; then
why is money so dear ? Was not the Act of 1844
passed to keep the money market in a healthy con-
dition, and yet there is as much fluctuation as ever?
Surely there must be som:thing wrong in the act
itself, else why should the evil which it was ins
tended to cure be as frequent as before its enact-
ment, while we hear no cause assigned, but that
the Bank must take care of itself. That may ap-
pear to be sound doctrine, but the Act of 1844
was intended to take care of the public, yet the
public are as much at the mercy of circumstances
es ever, while the bank makes more profit as the
public interests arc sacrificed to increase that profit.
Now, if the doctor is to pocket more fees as the
patient suffers more, and yet fails to prescribe a
cure, either from ignorance of the disease or from a
reluctance to risk his character for knowledge, while
his fees are being largely increased, should not
more or better advice be called in to ascertain the
disease or to propose a remedy ? That is the usual
course in private life, and whatever is sound in the
individual case cannot be far wrong in the general.
The public is composed of individuals, and as the
unit makes up the many, what is considered good
for the one cannot be bad for the whole. such
reasoning is often met by evasion, for what cannot
be fairly answered may be met with doubts as to
its expediency as to the time and the peculiar cire
cumstancea of the ease, or other meters best known
to those whose interest it is that nobody should
know, for though the knowledge of a disease is half
its cure, the knowledge in the present case would,
we are told, be fraught with great public danger.
And SO inquiry is baffled, and the disease allowed
to run its course on the assurance that the patient
will come round by degrees, for. his constitution is
sound, and all will be as it was before. Just so.
The public are none the wiser save in their pockets
Fein g poorer and their confidence rather shaken in
their monetary physician, whose wisdom is appa-
rently magnified by the mystery of his doings. In-
creasing inquiries ere put off with serious looks and a
hint that any explanation at this particular juncture
would be very prfjudicial to public credit, and
people had better suspend their misgivings a
little while longer to see the coarse of events. The
Bank Act of 1844 was thought to be so framed as
to meet all contingencies, being founded on the ex-
perience of the past, and able to provide for the
future. But since it has been in operation, it has
not realised expectation nor satisfied public opinion.
"Wnet with reserves of notes on one hand, and
geld in the issue department on the other, the pub-
lic Are kept in doubt as to the real position of
affairs. Matters look better or worse just as rumour
points the finger of suspicion one way or the other,
and the funds go up or down just as the barometer is
iefiwnced by the weather, and so the rate of discount
varies as the amount of gold or bullion increases
or diminishes in the coffers of the Bank. But the
true cause of disturbance is the fiction of making
a fi xt:d standard for the price of gold, while every
other commodity rises or falls according to the de-
mand. Wh y should the value of gold be fixed at
.C 3 17s. 1(11 the ounce when its real commercial
value is worth ur 16—frequently much more ?
We talk of freedom of trade—its immenss benefits
and the expansion of trade resulting therefrom, and
yet we withhold that freedom from the very soul of
all—the pivot on which commerce, trade, and
public credit turn. It ci..Tnfi a moeircry of fri
a fors.
Teen, again, the amount of the circulation is far ton
limited for the public wants. We are chained
down to the extent of our commerce in 1844,
while it h:ls increased more than threefold,
and is still expanding. Why not enlarge
the medium of value accordingly ? But this does
not rest with the Bank directors; it is the duty of
Government, and Government will not move
unless pressed by public opinion. There is another

item which seems to hamper the action of the
Bank with regard to the circulation. The Govern-
ment owe it a debt of fifteen millions, which is set
down as public security, and fetters the Bank,
while it paralyses the freedom of the Government.
It were far better to pay off that debt and leave
both partiee free and independent agents, which
they are not at present, nor ever will be while the
Act of 1841 remains unrepealed. Indeed, its
operation has been suspended on two or three
occasions by the pressure of circumstances,
and the Government appealed to for aid. Surely
such necessity ought not to occur if the law were
sound and competent to meet the requirements for
which it was made. Mr GLADSTONE is a great
advocate for free trade, and deserves well of the
public for his exertions in that direction, but his
labours avail little while he leaves money fettered.
He has a glorious field now open for his ambition.
Free trade in money will do more to raise the cha-
racter of this country, and to increase its resources
than all he has yet achieved by his commercial
treaties, and we trust he will boldly take up the
subject. By the operation of the Act now in force
the public are made to pay twice as much
for discount as they would otherwise, and
the Bank profits just in the same pro.
portion. The Bank issues notes of five pounds
and upwards for the convenience of commerce—why
not paper of a smaller amount for the benefit of
trade ? Scotland has been converted from a wil-
derness into a garden by the agency of one-pound
notes. Why should England be debarred from the
use of a medium which has so greatly benefited a
sister country ? We have gold as the currency, and
whenever the amount becomes low the Bank raises
its value, in order to check its circulation, and this
paralyses track. We do not blame the Bank directors,
it i 3 the system we condemn. The authorities of the
Bank are placed in a very unenviable position by
the very necessities of their responsibility, but it is
the public who suffer. Lot us hope that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer will not allow another
session to pass without an endeavour to remedy so
great an evil.

It will doubtless be a matter of no surprise to
many readers to learn that the Government has de-
clined to interfere in the case of the Georgia. It is
only in keeping with the rest of their conduct
throughout the whole course of the American War,
but still it is most irritating to reflect how much
England is robbed of her prestige by the pusillani-
mous conduct of her officials in high places. The

fact is that do what they may, the Federals go on
unchecked, and every principle of justice and every
notion of honour are sacrificed to their cause, and
then our Ministers have the assurance to go about

prating of their successful management of the
affair, and laud and magnify their preservation of a
strict neutrality. The Government at Washington
would indeed be hard to please if they murmured
at the treatment they have received at our hands,
and as for the Confederates, their complaints have
been frequent at the inconsistency of the policy of
our Cabinet. Their murmurs, not loud but deep,
have never been attended to ; and in the face nf all
comments, in spite of all remonstrances at home,
Earl RUSSELL has gone on his way until he evi-
dently thinks that he can do as he pleases and say
what he likes. They who take a clear and compre-
hensive view of the matter will, however, pass a
very different judgment upon his actions, and their
criticisms will certainly not conduce to his credit
or redound to his praise. The decided step taken
in the affair of the Trent was a striking contrast to
subsequent proceedings. It was the exception that
has proved the rule—" the first, the last, the best"
effort made in the cause of the rights of
others, and cur own national honcur. It is dis-
graceful that the Georgia should be abandoned to
its fate in this sneaking fashion, and great incon-
sistency has been observable throughcut the pro
tress of this affair. If tha vessel were not legally
ours, it ought not to have been registered as the
property of an Englishman ; but that being dote,
it was:.the bounden duty of the Government to
affard protection to its owner. The fact' mast' be
that no such attempt was apprehended on the part
of the Federals as to make her a capture, but that
having taken place, it is now decreed that there is
nothing to be done but to submit to the doctrine of
chances. The owners must sustain the injury, and
the country endure the insult, while our Foreign
Secretary conjures us to "rest and be thankful" for
the happy and glorious consequences of perfect
neutrality.

There are some things which are estimable in

hemsolves, but, carried on by unscrupulous people,

become positive nuisances. The theory and prac-

ice of Benefit Societies often do not correspond, and

.he results of such failures are most lamentable.

There are few ways of losing money more vexatious
and annoying than to be deprived of it by fraud,
and it is indeed deplorable when the working man's
savings are taken from him, and he loses the stock
on which he had hoped to fallback in times of trial.
It is constantly cccurring that some delinquent
is brought up on the charge of misappropriating
sums intended for useful purposes. The worst of it is
that the sufferers do not recover their money, for the
law can only inflict a penalty that visits the crime
apon the offender, but does not possess the means
of restitution. Too much care and caution cannot
be taken to guard against the frauds of these un-
principled speculators, and it is a very bad praotice
to join those societies which are started, by publi.
cans—they are often failures, and the matter ie
arranged for the purpose of speculation. Large
sums are made by the contributions of poor widows
and inexperienced persons. It.is most despicable
thus to trade upon the earnings of the working
classes, and, if, any feature of a crime can be more
degrading -than another, and more hateful in the
sight of Heaven, it must be that class which sucks
in the mites of the poor, and appropriates the dearly
prix:d and hardly earned products of their toil.
It seems strange that more trouble is not
taken to inquire into the character of the
affair before joining the society, but if there were
no simple persons to be duped the knaves would
not be able to reap their present prolific harvest,.
Mr. GLADSTONE'S new act is certainly called for,
and it is earnestly to ba trusted that it will be
carried into effect, so that the working dupes who
are provident to put by for an evil day may not
incur the risk of being plundered of their treasures.

In no case can they lose by the regulations of this
act, and thus all fear of swindling secretaries and
crafty treasurers will be avoided. After the many
painful experiences which have taken place, it will
be the fault of the insurers themselves if they
willingly incur the same risks that have proved eo
fatal to others. Let them wait to see the wockiug
of the new act before they venture up..m these
private attempts) or, at all events, be more tardy in
their acquiescence to the demands of those who go
about to got members fnr a society that rill benefit
them nominally, but practically, it is to be feared,
seeking whom they may devour. It is a true saying
that forewarned is forearmed; end since so many
serious cases have occurred that too clearly demon-
strate the frauds practised by many f these
mis-
nomers entitled benefit societies, it I ehoves those
whose money depends upon their own health and
strength to look to their earnings, nd not suffer

them to be swept into the coffers of greedy and
grasping speculators, but turn a deaf ear to the
flattering tales so prodigally vouchsafed, and ponder
the matter over before making the venture. One
sows that another may reap, and surely sufficient
sufferers have trod the way to point out its dangers
to those who, from ignorance and inexperience, may
wish to become their successors. The risk is too
great to permit the experiment to be carelessly
made.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

No 111.

Its Vast and Symmetrical Proportions.

Familiar though many may imagine themselves
to be with the magnitude and the harmony of the
proportions upon which this Aladdin's Palace of
modern civilization has been constructed, we ioubt
very much indeed whether to this day either the
vastness or the symmetry of those proportions have
(saving by a very few) been mo:o thin proximately
appreciated. It may be even that the very fact of
the visitor's familiarity with the edifice may of
itself be foremost among the many reasons why
he has hitherto failed to realize either the
scope of its dimensions, or the concordant
effect produced by their geometrical arrangement.
Symmetry, for one thing—as experience has often
demonstrated—tends very apßreciab:y to conceal
vastness. Hance, Byron in his wonderful description
of the first impression produced upon his imagina•
tion upon passing under the great porch of St.
Peter's, at Rome, exclaims in a sort of ameze-
ment—

"Enter—its grandeur overwhelms you not ! '

Accounting for this, immediately afterwards, by
the suggestion that your own capability of
appreciation must needs have been affected by
" the genius of the spot," must have in a man-
ner, upon crossing the threshold, "grown colossal."
Again—size of itself is a something purely
relative. To an animalcule a flea is a behemoth.
Compared with the Sun "the great Globe" itself is
but as a currant to a melon. And so—the mere cir•
cumstance that the Palace and the Gardens have
been, respectively end together, contrived through-
out (as they have been) with an espccial regard to
the exquiAte balance or symmetry of their propor-
tions, may account, in a great measure, for the
fact of the vastness of many of those proportions,
certainly of the whole resulting from them having
as yet been no more than just partially appreciated
or realised.
We would here, however, simply with a view to the
better realisation, at last, of the size of The Crystal
Palace itself and of the Gardens surrounding it—we
would here, we say, purely to that end, set forth with

he statement—that the Grounds embrace within

them upwards of Two Hundred Acres, and that,in the
shape of the Crystal Palace itself, one continuous
length of very nearly Three-Quirters-of-a-mile, has
been covered over with a transparent framework of
iron•and-glass ! Moro than Two Hundred Acres,

the Gardens and Park ! Nearly three quarters of a
mile, the Palace itself, with its wings and its colon-

mule !

Remembering, however, that sin is in itself, as
already remarked, a something purely relative, we
may yet further realise to the general apprehension

the size of both Gardens and Edifice, but more espe.
cially the size of the latter, by the enumeration of
a few particulars, or, still better, by one or two
carefully selected comparisons.

1 _
Everyone who knows anything about either,
knows perfectly well that St. Paul's Cathedral, of
London, could, so far as the size of it goes,
very readily indeed stand within St. Peter's
Cathedral at Rome. In the same way, it might
be said, not only that the Glass Fane,
of 1821—that then world wonder of The Crystal
Palace at Hyde Park—might easily, so far as its
size went, stand within the Crystal Palace at
Sy denharn, but that, really and truly, the fact of
the matter stands thus, that the greater part cf the
one is, in a manner, the lesser part of the othert!
In other words, the Nave of the Crystal Palace
As It Is—is the exact height of the Centre Transept
(in reality the one only Transept) of the Crystal
Palace As It `Vas. Here, in effect., precisely as,
according to Wordsworth, " the child is father to
the man," the acorn has grown to be the oak, the
stripling has expanded into the Colossus.

The whole of the materials of the original Cry-
stal Palace having been employed in the construc-
tion of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham—the lovely
original has, by that simple arrangement, been ef-
fectually preserved ani perpetuated. But, together
with those historical materials, how much more ma•
terial of the like kind, glass and iron for the
most part, has been employed in the carrying
out of this magnificent labour of development
—a labour at once Cyclopean and Fairylike !
Consisting, as the Palace does, of a main building
1,608 feet in length, supplemented by wings
stretching forth 574 feet additional, the southern
wing being connected, moreover, with a colonnade
extending down, by a slope of 720 feet, to tbo plat-
form of the local railway station—the extreme
length of the edifice is, as already remarked, as
nearly as possible throe quarters of a mile—or, to
be precise, exactly 3,746 feet—three-quarters of a
mile of that beautiful transparent order of archi-
tecture henceforth to be known, for want of a better
title, as Modern English!

As to the scsle upon which the materials of the
Crystal Palace have been put together, let this be
illustrated, here, very briefly, by a few impressive
calculations. It has been cstimated, then, to begin
with, that the mere superficial quantity of glass
may be set down at',Twenty•flve Acres! That,
dlaiystianngcethoefpanneeasrlsyidefibftyy smidiele' they would extend a
s—say from London
to Oxford ! That put end to end they would reach
nearly two hundred and fifty say from the
Thames to the Tees. A calculation no less inge-
nious has been made again that the iron columns
alone would, if laid end to end, cover a distance
of sixteen miles and a quarter—that the weight of
iron is nearly 10,000 tons—that the nails alone
weigh over a hundred tons and the bolts and
rivets nearly two hundred !

Illustrating the bite of the building, how.
ever, by comparisons rather than by parti■
culars such as the foregoing—the two compari-
sons here immediately after subjoined will be
accepted, we should imagine, as of themselves
sufficiently suggestive. First of all, that the height
from the centre of the arch of the middle transep t
to the flooring of the Palace is more (by six feet) than
the height of the Monument on Fish-street.hill
And, secondly, that the diameter of the Orchestra
erected within the building, under the span of the
western extremity of that same Central Transept,
is exactly double the diameter of the dome of St.
Paul's Cathedral !

As for the geometrical symmetry of the propor-
tions, alike of the Palace and of the Gardens, that
is in truth as readily explicable as it is in itself at
onee simple and beautiful. Taking eight feet as
" the" UNIT regulating the whole of the meataare-
raents of the buildings, and gardens, and
fountains, and gravel-walks, and flower.
beds, horizontally—you have, upon the instant,
within your grasp, the clue through all the
apparently elaborate meet's of this seemingly most
intricate labyrinth ! For example—bearing in mind
al revs that a multiple or submultip!e of eight feet
is there in every horizontal measurement, alike
in the Gardens and in the Palece—you
find, for instance, that the wings are
four times eight feet wide, or thirty-two!
That the colonnade is twice eight, or sixtreen !
Chat the nave is nine times eight or seventy-
two! That the Centre 'Transept is fifteen times
eight, or one hundred and twenty I Outside the
Palace, along the terraces, among the parterre,
down the gravel paths, in the midst of the fish-
ponds and the fountains and the rosarice—every-
where, regulating the proportion of each horizaztal
measurement, there is the same mystical unit of
eight—as the primary figure, as the germ of the
various multiples and submultiples. The effect con.
sequent upon en adherence to this one marvellously
simple arrangement being, that the vastness of the
proportions is in a manner lost eight of in the
geometrical symmetry by which those proportions
are regulated.

Viewing the surrounding landscape from the

summit of one.of the gigantic Water Towers—an
altitude attainable by an ascent of ten floors, up a
spiral staircase of four hundred steps--six counties
are brought within the field of vision, the eye
turning at pleasure here to the Nore Light, or to
Harwich Lighthouse, there to Epsom Dawns or
Windsor Castle, yonder to the metropolis of three
millions, yonder, in the exactly opposite direction,
to the solitary landmark of the Knockholt beeches
far away among the Kentish corn-fields and hop-
gardens. _ _

Viewing the Palace from within, and that, too,
from the highest coign of 'vantage that can
anywhere be :here attained to that simple end—
the loftiest gallery in the Centre Transept—the gal-
lery upon a level with which Irofidin, in Liis. time,
went through more perilous feats than any samphire
picker that ever lived—that loftiest galtPry of the
Centre Transept effords the most curious
peep of all into the interior of our Palace of
Glass. The most curious, beyond any doubt, but
not by any means the most magnificent. That is
aline obtainable from the top gallery at either ex-
tremity of the Nave—pro,senting to view at a single
glance the whole of that exquisitely beautiful vista
of fountains—

" Shaking their loosened silver in the sun I"
of clambering verdure and unnumbered flowers, of
statuary glimpsing hither and thither among the
abounding vegetation, of everything calculated to
charm the eye in form and in colour,
down the whole of that wonderful perspec-
tive in which art and nature seem for
once mingled harmoniously together ! A perspective
arched over and walled on either hand
by the delicate tracery of the iron frame-
work of an elifice crystalline with those
25 acres of glass already referred to among the mar-
vellous items particularized in the foregoing
statistics. Vibrating as the air was on
Saturday when we gani along the won-
derful perspective of that glorious nave from
the topmost of its southern galleries, vibrating as
the air within the Palace was with the sounds of
the grand organ rolling to us from the Centre
Transept, from the back of the Handel Orchestra,
vision and hearing seemed to be, if not satiated, at
least fully and simultaneously filled with an ex-
quisite sense of satisfaction.