The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-06 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

The general features of our market have not undergone
any very material changes. Transactions in exports have
been somewhat larger, now that supplies are becoming more
liberal and prices are yielding. Indigo prospects are gene-
rally good; manufacture is going on rapidly. But little
doing in sugar. Saltpetre less active, larger supplies, and
prices drooping. Rice in moderate demand, at steady
prices. Raw silk in more request, and prices are firm. No
demand for Coraha at the late prices quoted. Linseed very
firm, and in active demand. More inquiry for rapeseed,
but prices unaltered. Jute quotes as by last report, with a
moderate business in progress. Hides very firm and scarce,
with an active demand. Shellac is declining. Lac dye in
good demand. D. T. sold at 54r. per maund. Sallower in
good demand, with an advancing tendency.
In imports we have scarcely any change to note in
cotton piece goods. Dealers continue to meet their current
requirements by purchasing at the last prices we quoted.
Stocks are becoming larger. The demand for yarns is again
improved, and prices are decidedly firmer.
In the money market there is no change to note. Rates
of interest and discount remain unchanged, and capital
abundant.

The Stock market has continued to fluctuate within the
rates we gave in our last report. There has been a mode-
rate business done, and chiefly in 5i per cents.
In the share. market prices of old stock have ruled stea-
dily. Great Eastern Hotel scrip has been in less demand.
Spence's Hotel Company is more asked for at advancing
quotations. Bank of Bengal are in demand both for cash
and for forward delivery at very full rates. The tea com-
panies are generally in favour. Ghola Ghauts have de-
clined to 36 and 40 rupees under completion of engage-
ments. They are gain firmer.
In exchange the transactions have ranged, with very
little variation, at our quotations.
In freights the more free arrival of tonnage has led to
a further decline.

The Vakszeitung says that a Prussian trader named
Gaspard Lange, travelling in the German Duchies of Den-
mark, was arrested iu the city of Schleswig because the
words' Schleswig-Holstein" on his passport were united
by a hyphen instead of being separated by a comma. His
passport was declared to be informal, he was confined in
prison, and fined for not having proper documents proving
his identity,

LITERATURE.

Good Things for _Railway _Readers. One Vo
Pp. 164. Lockwood and Co.

A capital specimen, this little book is, of the
good results of a well-selected gathering together
of newspaper cuttings. The amusement derivable
from it is ingeniously expressed by the effective
woodcut chosen as its most appropriate frontis-
piece. This frontispiece being nothing less appro-
priate than a sketch taken from that delightful
portrait by Holbein of Will Somers, the King's
Jester, laughirg through the lattice—a merry
effigy of the famous Court droll, familiar to every
visitor to Hampton Court Palace. The character of
this miscellaneous collection of entertaining trifles
may be understood the more readily when we
remark that, within less than two hundred pages,
there are amassed fully one thousand anecdotes. Con -
vlvialists, wits, and hum ourists chatter to us through
the book unceasingly. Oddities and eccentricities
are put upon record in great variety, and to-
gether with these the narrative of divers strange
and wonderful occurrences. Lawyers and doctors,
artists and actors, warriors and statesmen,
men of the world and men of letters, contribute
their facetiae abundantly—and occasionally, it must
be confessed, in absurd confusion. To read a book
like this through, consecutively, we take to be a feat
wholly impracticable. It can alone be read satis-
factorily in snatches—dipped into hap-hazard, now
and again, according to the whim of the moment.
Otherwise the effort would inevitably be as cloying
and even nauseating as would be the making of a
dinner off sweetmeats, and nothing but sweetmeats,
The result, indeed, of any consecutive perusal of a❑
anecdotal collection of witticisms, such as this,would,
beyond all manner of doubt, be simply intolerable.
Fancy reading uninterruptedly page after page by
the hour—" Upon one occasion as Sheridan was strol-
ling along Piccadilly"—or, " Jerrold once meeting
a friend at a dinner party"—or, "Rogers having
been invited to breakfast by Lord (I—"—or, "As
Sydney Smith remarked to Tom Moore one day at
Holland House"—a hail storm, a douche, a cataract
of Good Things like that would fairly take away
one's breath. Here, however, as specimen bricks
from the house of Skolastikos—comical enough
in form, some of them, to be jutted out
as gurgoyles from this Temple of Fun—let us pre-
sent to our readers four sample paragraphs from
" Good Things," or from this last published supple-
ment to " Joe Miller's Jest Book." And first we
will give, thus, an apt exemplar of—