The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-19 00:00:00

BENEVOLENCE.

A letter was read from the Rev. Mr. Cohen, the
rector of Whitechapel, thanking the court for its
liberal donation of 60 guineas for the Bucks •row
Ragged Schools in that parish.

The letter was ordered to be entered on the minutes.
COAL, CORN, AND FINANCE COMMITTEE.

Mr. J. YOUNG, jun., the chairman, brought up a
report from this committee having reference to the
proposed issue by the directors of the Metropolitan
Railway of £300,000 preference shares bearing 5
per cent. interest, of which the corporation would
be entitled to claim £70,580 in amount if they
thought fit to do so. He said that the committee
had decided to recommend the court not to increase
the amount already invested by the corporation
in this undertaking, but he wished it to be under-
stood that they had not arrived at this conclusion
from any doubts as to the ultimate success of the
company, but, having regard to the large amount of
money the corporation had already invested, namely,
£200,000 on the shares, and to the great demands
that must necessarily be made upon the corporation
funds by the erection of the new lunatic asylum, and
the market in Smithfield, the committee did not con-
sider it expedient to expend such a large additional
sum of money on the shares of the Metropolitan
Railway at this moment. (Hear, hear.)
The report was agreed to.
BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE.

Dr. ABRAHAM moved that it should be referred to

the Bridge House Estates Committee to consider
whether any and what remuneration should be of-
fered to the unsuccessful engineers who furnished
plans, designs, estimates, &0., for the erection of a
new bridge at Blackfriars, and to report thereon to
the court. In support of his motion, Dr. Abraham
observed that it should be borne in mind that those
gentlemen had been invited by the corporation to
send in these plans and estimates, and no one could
doubt that they had devoted a great deal of time and
attention to the subject, as well as incurring a con-
siderable expense, and he said it appeared to him
they were both legally and equitably entitled to
some compensation.

Deputy RATUBONE seconded the motion, but i

was opposed by Mr. Hopgood and Mr. H. L. Taylor,
and it was eventually put to the court and negatived
by a large majority.

IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CITY.

Mr. DE JERSEY, chairman of the City Sewers
Commission, then brought forward a motion that it
should be referred to the committee to consider
whether this court should aid, by grants of money
from the corporation funds, in such improvements as
the Commissioners 'of Sewers have at this time in
hand, or may hereafter consider itadvisable from time
to time to effect for the public benefit, and to report
thereon. He said the court was well aware that in
former times, before the Commissioners of Sewers
were invested by Act of Parliament with the
powers they now possessed with reference to
making improvements in the City of London,
the corporation had expended large sums of money
in various improvements. Of late years, however,
this important duty had principally been carried
out by the Commissioners of Sewers, and it was un-
necessary for him to remind the court of the impor-
tant improvements that had upon several occasions
been carried out by that body. The funds for carry-
ing out these operations were raised entirely fromit
the rates upon the inhabitants of the city:, and
appeared to him that it was only fair and. lust that
a portion of the amount that was requiredecorporation
purposes should be obtained from th
resources. (Hear.) The citizens of London were
e already taxed taxed very heavily, and
unless al
imp
important ossiElleiora to
tion gave its assistance, it wouldld
be
hoped
would he
i 3 r
effect a great many:t
tion. He therefore ho
Iteurnadtie°rlannsiddeil-
movements that were at pthatese
the present motion
felt assured that when
would be agreed to,
the subject into c:nsideration
the committee took
at
satisfactory conclusion.
:seconded the motion.
ed it, on the ground that it
they
Dep wuotuyl d arrive
:.noplios
Mr. LAva'sY"
eSe w
to place too much power in the hands of
h
Commission, and he at the same time
t would
said that the motion appeared to him to be unneces-
sary, as the Commissioners of Sewers could at any

It will be recollected that this work, which is of
very ancient date, and which treated of the customs
and charters of the City of London, extending over
a great many centuries, was found to be muti-
lated, and the missing portion was accidentally
discovered to be in the British Museum. There
appeared to be no doubt, from the investigation that
took place, that this portion of the work had been
stolen from the archives of the corporation more
than two centuries ago, and it appeared to have
been purchased by the trustees of the British Mu-
seum from the representatives of Sir W. Cotton,
into whose possession it had passed ; but although
there is not the least doubt that it is the property
of the corporation, the trustees of the British Mu-
seum declined to restore it, alleging that they have
no legal power to so. Tfte-tommittee now re.
ported that they had taken all the steps in their
power to regain possession of what was undoubtedly
their property, but were unsuccessful, and they
stated that they were also advised that there were
no means, either legal or equitable, by which they
could compel the trustees of the British Museum to
restore their property, and they therefore left the
matter in the hands of the court.

Some little discussion took place upon this ques-
tion, several members of the court expressing an
opinion that as they could not take any steps, either
legal or equitable, to recover the missing portion of
the work, they had better not take any further
trouble in the matter.

Alderman DAKIN said he differed from this opi-
nion, and although they might not be able to en-
force their rights by legal proceedings, he believed
that if they made out to the satisfaction of the Go-
vernment that the trustees of :the British Museum
were improperly and illegally in possession of pro-
perty belonging to the corporation of London, it
would be all that would be required to obtain its
restitution. It appeared to him therefore that the
best course to be taken was for some independent
member to mention the subject in the House of
Commons, and call the attention of the Prime Mi-
nister, who was one of the trustees of the British
Museum, to the subject.
After some further discussion, it was arranged
that the question should be referred back to the
Library Committee for further consideration, and
Mr. Norris, M.P., who had been appealed to, ex-
pressed his readiness to bring the subject before the
House of Commons if the committee considered it
expedient to do so.

THE LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAY.

Mr. H. W. VALLANCE, the chairman of the
Bridge House Estates Committee, brought up a
report recommending the court to approve of a
plan submitted by the London, Chatham, and
Dover Railway for the erection of a railway bridge
over the River Thames at Blackfriars.
The report was agreed to.

The Coal, Corn, and Finance Committee brought
up a report recommending that a sum of fifty gui-
neas should be granted to the Elizabeth Fry Re-
fuge, and a hundred guineas to the Finsbury Dis-
pensary.

The report was agreed to, and the court shortly
afterwards adjourned.

MR. S. LAING AT MANCHESTER.

Yesterday a special meeting of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce was held in the Manchester
Town Hall, for the purpose of presenting to Mr. S.
Laing an address congratulating him upon his res-
toration to health, his safe return, and the results of
Indian financial policy. There was a large and in-
fluential number of members present on the occa-
sion, amongst whom was the Mayor (who presided)
Mr. H. Ashworth, President of the Chamber of
Commerce : Messrs. T. Basley, M.P., M. Ross, J.
Slagg, J. Pender, Sir Elkanah Armitage, &c.
The SECRETARY of the Chamber of Commerce, at
the request of the Mayor, read the address.

Mr. LAING on rising to acknowledge the presen-
tation, was greeted with loud applause. After some
introductory observations, in which he said he
would avoid all reference to the question of
dispute between himself and Sir Charles Wood, he
went on to say that by the last advices received from
India the cash balances in the Treasury amounted to
19,600,000 of hard rupees, while a little more than
18 months ago there was less than 11,000,000 of
rupees in the treasury. He pointed to this fact in
proof that his financial policy had been beneficial
to India. With regard to the point at issue be-
tween Sir Charles Wood and himself, it was one of
figures. If 11 plus 2 made 131 then he (Mr.
Laing) was right, but if 11 plus 21 made 10 then
Sir Charles Wood was right. With regard to get-
ting a supply of cotton from India, he told them it
would be a delusion for them to expect to get
therefrom at once what was wanted. Our usual
receipts of bales from America before this unfortu-
nate and lamentable war broke out in that country
was about 4,000,000 per annum. That quantity
could not be got from India for years to come,
as:lt
took from five to six acres to produce a bale of good
clean cotton. Even if the railways and other
means of transit had been extended in India they
would not have brought us much more cotton than
we had had in India. A million of bales from India
was a great fact, but as to the stories that ~
ons
of bales were treasured up in the interior, that was
all moonshine. Indian cotton had, however, saved
the stoppage of every cotton mill in the world ;
h
there was no doubt of that, and -e had no doubt
but that we should get a million and a quarter or
from that coun-
try million and a half bales of e_
not think
think the latter
cotton
try this next year, but he d.
quantity would be exceeded. It was the accumu-
latedd
in India
had
saved us
stock of cotton
he ryots, or Indian farmers,
from a cotton death.
whichl aid them the best, like all
would grow that
cio.kir:Co growing produced
other people would
the cotton at the value
same quantity of land, at
about £5 per acrheil:athe
would produce tea, for in
of 6d. per lb., while
ae
of about £3O. What the Euro:
the same cost of h°llr,
stance, of the
aahluould. do was this • they should esta-
itleiasntvsagencies throughoutlndia—agencies
pean cap
blish EuroP
that would deal directly with the ryots and farmers
without the h native middle men intervening. The
right ho gentleman then went on to speak of the
rnma, and
Government of India, strongly
condemned the
'tidier Council which he held had no rig ht to govern
a country of whose people they knew
so little, and
from which they were distant 8,000 miles. He con-
demned in strong terms the policy that had been
pursued by Sir C. Wood and the Council with re-
gard to Lord C minute respecting the free
sale of waste lands. By pursuing such a policy as
that they endangered the peace of India, and put a
stop to all good Government and the progress of
India. He was very anxious and curious to know
what course Lord Stanley would pursue with re-
gard to the course adopted by Sir C. Wood. He
(Mr. Laing) hoped that some one would move a
resolution in the House of Commons next session
condemning Sir Charles's conduct in cutting short
the existence of the minute issued by Lord Canning,
authorising the sale of waste lands. If any one did
that, if the house did not upset the counter order of
Sir C. Wood, the best of the debate would be on the
side of the mover of the resolution, and the number
who would vote for the resolution would be large.
At the present moment there was as much difficulty

The case was felt to be one of considerable in-
terest, from the fact that its discovery was looked
upon as being the termination of a series of robberies
of a similar character. For some time past there
have been numerous complaints of money, stamps,
rings, studs, purses, and many other articles of
value which should have passed through Lynn
post-office in letters, never arriving at their places
of destination, and in consequence of the somewhat
extravagant, habits of, the prisoner suspicion fell on
him. On Monday an inspector from the missing
letter department and a detective officer came to
Lynn, for the purpose of discovering the delinquent.
The usual course was adopted of posting a test-
letter, but the prisoner displayed some considerable
acumen in the way in which he committed the
robbery. At half-past nine o'clock a letter was
deposited in the letter-box of the Lynn post-office,
containing a marked half-sovereign and sixty . pos-
tage stamps, the envelope being directed to Mrs.
Gibbon, 2, Vinten-place, Tunbridge-wells. That
letter should have been forwarded by the 11 10
London mail, in which case it would have passed
through the General Post-office in London that.
afternoon. It did not do so, and Inspector How-
son went to the poet-office and saw the prisoner,
whom he asked if he was`not on duty in the post-
office that morning alone. He replied, " Yes."
When asked who sorted the letters for the morning
mail, he replied that he did some of them, and
added that it was not his duty. The inspector
asked him how he came to do it if it was nd his
duty, and his reply was that the sorter was
late, and he helped him. He denied having seen
a letter directed to Mrs. Gibbon, Tunbridge-wells,
and was searched, but nothing was found upon him
to criminate him. The following day he was ap-
prehended. It appears that the prisoner was in
sole charge of the post-office from 8.10 a.m. to 12 at
noon, one of the sorters (Towler) being the only
official beside Enefer who was present within those
hours, and Towler was only there from 10.35 to,
11.13. The half-sovereign and the stamps appear
to have been abstracted from the letter, which must
have been afterwards destroyed, and the piece of
coin placed in the money-order drawer, from
whence it was taken by the prisoner and paid over
to a lady named, Kemp, who drew the money upon.
in order that day. One of the duties devolving on
the money-order clerk was to place his name or
initials upon the order when he paid it, which the
prisoner had done.

Mrs. Kemp could not swear that the prisoner was
the man who paid the money, although she felt
certain that it was him.

The evidence having been gone through so far as
it was possible to complete it, the magistrates re-
manded the prisoner till Monday.
Mr. Ward, who appeared for the prisoner, said
any amount of bail was forthcoming, if they would
accept

Arr. Wilkin, for the prosecution, opposed it.
The magistrates declared to accept it.

71IE GLASGOTV MURDER CASE.

The trial of Mrs. M‘Lachlan for the murder of
Jessie MTherson, on the 4th of July last, com-
menced on Wednesday forenoon before the court of
Justiciary at Glasgow, Lord Deas presiding. No
objection was offered, as anticipated, to the relevancy
of the indictment, and the trial proceeded. The
greater part of the day, however was occupied if.
getting over purely formal preliminaries, or ex-
amining witnesses as to details in the case neces-
sary to bring out the proof in a legal manner.
There was no less than sixty articles brought into
court to be referred to in the evidence given at the
trial. The case created great excitement in Glasgow
and large crowds at the door of the court were un-
able to gain admittance.

During the sitting the most important witness
examined was Mr. James Fleming, in whose house
the murder took place, and son of the old man,
Fleming, who was at first apprehended on suspicion
of the murder, having been left in the house from
Friday night till Monday morning alone with the
deceased. Witness described the state of the house
when he returned on Monday, after having been ab-
standing
ins fentosrindcinenerthe Friday
oflodremnoaonn;mHy father, was
c When I got
at the head of the lobby, in a line with the clock.
My son said to me, ' There is no use of sending any-
thing here for dinner, as the servant is run off, and
there is nobody to cook it.' My, son, alluding to my
father, said the latter had not seen her since Friday
These were the words he expressed to me.
I said ' That is a curious story.' I felt surprised at
anything of the sort from a woman of such steady
nightlocked ; .
'and, he added, he says Her room door is
habits. My son further added, She may be lying
absent Witness then described how the
servant was found, stripped of all clothing but a
bit of cloth thrown over the upper part of the body,
and lying on the floor of her bedroom off the kit-
chen. As he at once called in the authorities, he
could give no particular account of the appearance
of the body.

INGENUITY IN COMMITTING SUICIDE.—On Tues-
day a convict in Spike Island, named Thomas Morris, so
violent that handcuffs had to be kept on him in his cell,
was found to have committed suicide with great determina-
tion in the following extraordinary manner :—From the
window of his cell, the sash of which is of iron, there is a
slight slope inwards, coming sufficiently low to admit of a
man's mounting upon it, even with handcuffs on, and owing
to the thickness of the wall there is plenty of space on the
slope for a man to rest his body upon, The panes of the,
cell window are alternately of glass and perforated zinc,
and are about six by seven inches surface, all puttied in.
Morris having mounted on the slope, taking his sheet with
him, forced out one of the perforated zinc panes, and got a
twisted end of the sheet through, and brought it round to
the next zinc pane, passing over the glass, lest, it is sup.•
posed, the noise of breaking the glass should create an alarm
Having brought the end of the sheet in, and tied it with a
Most unfailing knot, round two bars of the sash, he tied the
other twisted end round his neck unhappily with an equally
unfailing knot, and then, what appears the most difficult to
have accomplished, handcuffed as he was, he forced his
feet and legs over his hands until his hams came to rest on
his arms. In this posture he must have thrown himself off
the slope of the window, so taking away the slightest pos-
sible chance of struggling against the horrible fate he
courted with such fatal ingenuity. He was found by the
officers of the prison in this posture, suspended by the neck
from the sash of the window, with his feet scarcely six
inches from the floor of his cell. Morris was undergoing a
sentence of five years' penal servitude passed on him two
years ago, and had undergone a former sentence of penal
servitude under the name of Thomas Ellis.
The Orkney and the Shetland Isles were the
pledge of the dowry of Margaret, daughter of Christian 1.,
who married James 111. of Scotland, in 1469; and as the
dowry was never paid, the islands came to us, with Scotland
on the death of Queen Elizabeth. At the same time we had
_p:coAtnohcf:o-Dinnbi;
ter:
a Queen from Denmark, the wife of James 1., and
it the
mother of Charles being the daughter of FrendceeelsraasiirleiglkoyoWflca;oraunn_r
Denmark. Our present race of sovereigns
neetecl with the Danish throne by the marre
infark. It was
sis-
ter of George 111. with Christian VII. was
sofa the
sthuiffsetriiengosf
fromkin d kindred
ambitionwhich
16.1teos theof s treaty of Tilsit
IN Mewl, rho meant
of this century. By the secret sr
the Danish fleet was deliverzednoTaen
ig:nevas:tnel°afasdinv:e choiceus fromb-uPt to seize that
to use it for the
;unandedr
raereeP unable to explain the rellagsaon.'
ing of this arrangement
the
,world, and especially
wan= aggreatiors.--Onco a Week.
tristo ;Cp promisee
ran: of
Ys
d arkee
ebe
w,e fe oaeYr e;
before the pee-.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tlllß Duey.--Morning, 10h. 10m.—Afternoon, 10h. 53m.
To-monßow.-Morning, 11h. 30m.—Afternoon, h. m.