The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-14 00:00:00

Great Eastern Railway Company.

A portion of the following appeared in our impression
of last evening :

A special general meeting of the directors and
shareholders of the Great Eastern Railway was held
this day at the London Tavern, for the purpose of
further increasing the borrowing powers Of the
Company by raising a large amount of money for
extensions and other purposes.
The CHAIRMAN having read a detailed statement
of the various sums the Company proposed to
borrow, said, with respect to the committee of in-
vestigation, the board had a full answer to all the
allegations which they would make public at the
proper moment. He concluded by moving the
first resolution, which was the Of 4'209,000
by way of mortgage, authorised by their Act of
1862.

Mr. LEVI said before the meeting proceeded any
further he begged to say that the company had
already exceeded their borrowing powers—(hear,
hear, and cries of " That's true," and uproar)—by
the amount of £300,000. (Uproar.) The meeting
had been called, therefore, for an illegal purpose, or
for giving its sanction to the continuance of an
illegal act. Under these circumstances he trusted
the meeting would at once refuse to give its ap-
proval to everything submitted to it.
The CHAIRMAN said it was a mistake to say the
parliamentary powers of the company had been
exceeded. (Uproar.)

A SHAREHOLDER hoped the meeting would give
the directors a patient hearing, but he could not but
think that the preliminary report issued by the com-
mittee had done more harm than good. (No, no,
and uproar.) He thought the time had now arrived
when some alteration in the conduct of their business
should be made. (Cries of " Turn out the directors.)
That could not be done at the present moment,
but he thought if if they had any honour amongst
them they would resign in a body. He thought
the secretary had failed in his duty in not at once
refusing his assent to the illegal proceedings of the
board. The time had passed for the controlling
influence of secretary and engineers—(hear, hear)
—and he thought the directors would bow to public
opinion, but instead of that he believed they in-
tended to use proxies on the present occasion to
carry out their object.

Here the confusion became so great that the effect
was perfectly deafening. On the one side were en-
raged shareholders shouting " Turn 'em out," and
on the other gentlemen with stentorian lungs en-
deavouring to address the meeting, but none seemed
fortunate enough to get beyond the words " Mr.
Chairman." At length one gentleman called out in
a piercing voice, " What is the amount of your
temporary loans ?" to which Mr. Turner, the chair-
man of the investigation committee, replied,
" £798,000, and the interest was put down at I
per cent. above the Bank rate, whatever that might
be." This announcement created, if possible, still
greater uproar, and so matters went on for over four
hours. At length it became known that the committee
of investigation were favourable to the proposals
for the sanction of which the directors had called
the shareholders together. The power to raise the
several sums was then given by the meeting, which,
however, had in a great measure been already spent
by the directors.

Mr. SEGO moved a resolution calling upon the
directors, in consequence of the ruinous condition,
into which they had allowed the company to drift,
to resign.

The motion was carried amidst the most vocife-
rous cheering.

Another resolution adjourning the meeting for
six weeks, in order to allow the directors time to
make any defence they felt disposed previous to
their resignation, was carried.

The meeting, which hal been of the most " lively"
description then broke up, after four hours and a.
half's " hard work."

Health of the Metropolis.

(From the Registrar-General's Weekly Report.)
In the week that ended on Saturday, December
9, the births registered in London and ten other
large towns of the United Kingdom were 4,044;
the deaths registered 3,123. The annual rate of
mortality was 29 per 1,000 persons living.
In London the births of 1,047 boys and 1,088
girls, in all 2,1G2 children, were registered in the
week. In the corresponding weeks of ten years
1855-64 the average number, corrected for increase
of population, was 1,932.
The deaths registered in London during the week
were 1,433. It was the 49th week of the year, and
the average number of deaths for that week is, with
a correction for increase of population, 1,488. The
present return gives a number less by 55 than the
estimated amount.

No case of cholera was registered in the week ;
the number of deaths from diarrhoea fell so low as
17, which is about the usual number that occurs in
London in the first week of December. Eighty-
five deaths were returned as caused by typhus,
typhoid fever, &c., eight of which were in the
Hackney sub-district. Measles was fatal in 49

cases, and 11 of these occurred in the district of

Chelsea. There were four from the same complaint
in the Westminster Workhouse. There were 63
deaths from scarlatina, seven of which were in the
east sub-district of Islington.

Out of 14 deaths from all causes in Haggerton
East, 10 were from zymotic diseases—viz., one from
measles, one from scarlatina, three from whooping_
cough, three from typhus, one from diptheria, and
one from diarrhcea.

At 1, Nursery-place, Upper Clapton, a brick-
layer's labourer, aged 27, died of " typhus, accele-
rated by inhaling noxious vapours while unloading
bricks in the Regent's Canal." A boy, aged four
years, in Newington-green, died of hydrophobia,
after the bite of a dog. At 14, Featherstone-street,
Finsbury, on the 7th of December, a single woman,
aged 77 years, died from paralysis, accelerated by
want of warm clothing and common necessaries of
life.

The following four deaths by carriage accidents
were registered in the week :—The wife of a dock
labourer, aged 55 years, run over. Died on the 2d of
December in the London Hospital. At Paddington,
the wife of a wood sawyer, aged 56 years, fell from
a cabriolet. Died on the 2d of December in St.
Bartholomew'saged Hospital. The wife of a silk manu-
facturer,s3 years, run over. Died on the
16th of November at 6, Chapel-street, Curtain-
road, Shoreditch. In Tower-street, Westminster-.
road, the daughter of a shop-fitter, aged nine years,
run over by a cab. Died on Dec. 4. Since the be-
ginning of the present year 215 persons of various
ages have been killed by horse conveyances in the
dirty, neglected, and ill-regulated streets of London.
The annual rate of mortality last week was 25
per 1,000 in London, 28 in Edinburgh, and 27 in
Dublin ; 45 in Liverpool, 37 in Manchester, 36 in.
Salford, 25 in Birmingham, 29 in Leeds, 23 in Bris-
tol, 31 in Hull, and 34 in Glasgow. The rate is
Vienna was 25 per 1,000 during the week ending
the 2d inst., when the temperature was 0.9 degrees
Fahrenheit higher than in the same week in London,
where the rate was 24 per 1,000.

In Liverpool the births in the week were 372, the
deaths 411 ; in Manchester, births 265, deaths 250;
Salford, births 74, deaths 76 ; Birmingham, births
273, deaths 158 ; Leeds, births 165, deaths 125 ;
Bristol, births 104, deaths 71; Hull, births, 86,
deaths 62 ; Edinburgh, births 103, deaths 93; Glas-
gow, births 315, deaths 280 ; Dublin, births 125,
deaths,: 164. There were 268 deaths in Vienna
during the week ending 2d inst.
Southampton. —Among the population of this
borough (estimated to the middle of the present
year at 53,001) 30 deaths were registered during
the week ending last Saturday ; of these nine were
again referred to scarlatina, and 2 to whooping-
cough. The annual rate of mortality during the
week was 30 per 1,000 persons living.

A battue, which produced brilliant results, was
organised three days back by M. Chazaux, a mer.
chant at Sedan (Ardennes), in the forest of Mouzay.
In two days there were brought down 60 head of
game, weighing 1,9801135., including 4 wild boars,
11 deer, 7 foxes, 2 wolves, 36 hares, and a wild cat.'
One of the boars killed by a shot from M. Mathis,
of Bel'ral, weighed 3851b5.