The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-24 00:00:00

GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY.

HALF-YEARLY MEETING—THIS DAY.
The ordinary half-yearly general meeting of the
directors and shareholders was held to-day at the
London Tavern, Bishopsgate-street.
In consequence of the quarrel between the direc-
tors and Captain Jervis, the nature of which the
railway world is now so well acquainted, there was
a numerous attendance of shareholders. The direc-
tors having taken their seats without any particular
demonstration of any kind;
Mr. GODSON, the chairman of the board of direc-
tors, in moving the adoption of the report, said he
was quite aware of the interest attaching to their
proceedings that day ; and as the report,
which had been placed in the hands of every
one, he would at once proceed to make a
few observations, in moving its adoption by the
meeting. The number of passengers on their line,
during the last half year, had not been so large as
might have been ; but the directors could not con-
trol the weather ; and as their new lines had not
been fully devoloped, it would be unwise to look
upon the circumstance in any other light but of
an exceptional character. It was with very great
pleasure that the directors had succeeded in their
negociations with another company—(hear, hear)—
and as it would result of their possessing a metro-
politan station. (Hear, hear.) With re-
spect to another portion of this enter-
prise, viz., the steam communication, he was
not one of those who expected such great
returns as had been looked for by other parties ;
however, he had great pleasure in informing the
meeting that the steam communication at the pre-
sent time yielded a clear profit of £2OO a week.
(Hear, hear.) He hoped that the basis ,of an
arrangement alight shortly be entered into, with
a large and powerful company, although it was but
fair to say that the company in question was at the
moment adverse to such a proposition. With re-
spect to the dividend, there was a sum of 44 odd
thousand pounds, and it would be for the meeting
to decide whether that should be reserved over to
the next half-year, or distribute it pro rata as soon
as possible. He did not think the company had
been fairly treated by some parties, the more so as
if the accounts of other railway companies were
looked into they would not be thought to be in such
a questionable state of affairs. Ihe directors had,
he would admit, been led into error because money
was cheap, but it was by mere accident, and nothing
more. (Oh, oh.) He was as anxious as any man
for the integrity of the company, because his friends
and relatives held one-fifteenth of the debenture debt.
The honour of the directors had never been im-
peached. (Oh, oh.) After a few other observations,
he concluded by formally moving the adoption of
the report.
Mr. ANDERSON seconded the motion.

Mr. JOHNSON said he put it to the directors
whether they, as gentlemen, would consent
to sit at the board with certain charges hang-

ing over their heads. (Heal:, hear) He implored
the meeting not to come to any hasty conclusion
which they would afterwards have cause to regret.
(Hear, hear.) He did not believe that if a com-
mittee was agreed to anything of a fraudulent
nature would be discovered ; but that there had
been great errors he certainly believed. He thought
the best thing the directors could do waS
to frankly admit that they had been
led into error. The meeting had power
to amend it, and he hoped it would be done,
because, if it was persisted in, the preference de-
benture holders would be greatly injured. He then
moved an amendment to the effect that the com-
pany would refrain from any extension of capital,
their liabilities, and that the
or leasing or enlarging
directors for the future would be animated by that
policy.

Serjeant GAZELEE-i wish, before I make any
observations, to ask the following question—Will
the directors assent to a committee of investiga-
tion ? As gentlemen they ought to ask such an
inquiry almost on their knees. I wish a straight-
forward answer, yes or no, to a straightforward
question.

The CHAIRMAN—It is not customary. (Uproar.)
A SHAREHOLDER—Never mind custom. Give an
answer to the question. (Uproar.)

The CIIAIRMAN—I will read to the meeting the
decision of the directors with respect to the matter.

The hon. gentleman then commenced reading a paper
beginning "In deciding not to acquiesce in the

proposal for a committee of inquiry—[here such a

great uproar arose that the remainder of the state-

ment was inaudible.] We however, caught
the concluding sentence, which was to the
effect that the directors did not think any

'urther investigation of the charges made by

Captain Jervis than the replies given quite un-
necessary. (Uproar.) The chairman told the
meeting they had received such a vast number of
proxies that they intended to persevere in their
de

termination.
Sergeant GAZELEE said he was surprised at the
audacity of the directors. (Cheers and uproar.)
He would make one to form any agitation to upset
proxies
such a decision. (Great uproar.) The
forwarded to the directors had been given under a

misunderstanding. He put it to the meeting
whether, under such circumstances, they were jus-
tified in using them to stifle inquiry. (Hear, hear,

..•••••••=.l
and uproar.) He should move as an amendment
to the resolution of the Chairman—That a com-
mittee of investigation be appointed. (Loud cheers
and confusion.)

The amendment was seconded, after which a
very angry discussion arose between the supporters
of the board and those who disapproved of their
conduct.

Capt. JERVIS defended the course he had taken,
and condemned generally the conduct of the direc-
tors in making the bargain they had done.

The CHAIRMAN, in reply, said that Captain
Jervis was himself a. party to the issuing the 5 per
of which he now so greatly disapproved.

Captain JERVIS denied that it was so.

The CHAIRMAN said he was quite warranted in
making the statement he had. With respect to the
charges made against the directors-(Here the
confusion was again renewed, and the chairman
said, as the meeting felt indisposed to hear him, he
would at once put the amendment.

The amendment of Sergeant Gazelee was then
carried by an immense majority.
A poll was then demanded on the part of the
directors, it being intimated that the proxies in the
possession of the board would be used.
It was then arranged that the poll should open
at once, which was done, and the meeting was then
adjourned until Tuesday next.
The report of the directors therefore yet remains
to receive the approval of the shareholders.

london, Chatham, and rover Railway.

- -- -
MEETING THIS DAY.
The half-yearly general meeting of this company was
held to-day at the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria Station; Lord
Sondes, the chairman of the company, presiding.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the report,
said that he had only a few observations to offer The
traffic certainly was not as large as they had reason to
expect, which was owing to two causes. In the first
place, the works at the Victoria Station were not complete,
which occasioned much inconvenience to the public, and
much loss to the company. The next and most im-
portant cause was the want of the completion of
the link lino with the Metropolitan extension line.
They had been prepared to effect their junction with the
Metropolitan line and to run into their station, but the
Metropolitan were not ready to receive them, and would
not be able to do so before the Ist of November next.
But, notwithstanding the drawbacks the company had
sustained, their traffic had increased to a considerable
3 I extent.

The report was then adopted.

The Murder of Major De Vere.

The coroner's inquest upon Major Francis De
Vere was held to-day at the Sun in the Wood
Tavern, Chatham. The principal witness ex-
amined was Lieutenant George Durnford, who
stated that the deceased was captain in
the Royal Engineers and major in the British
army. He was thirty-six years of age. He was
standing near at the time and heard the shot, after
which he saw the major fall. A sapper named
Mason said the man who had fired the shot was in
the house. He went to an upstairs front room,
and there found Sapper John Currie of the Royal
Engineers standing in the room by himself. There
was a smell of burnt powder in the room. He said
to him " Did you do this ?" and he replied, " Yes,
sir." The other witnesses who were examined yes-
terday before 'the magistrates having given their
evidence, the jury returned a verdict of wilful mur-
der against John Currie.

Bank of England Return.•—This Evening.

An Account, pursuant to t'
cap. 32, for the week ending

IBSUS DEI
Notes issued ........X27,9=0,775,

she Act 7th and Bth Victoria,
Wednesday, Aug. 23, 1865.
P RTMEN T.

.£27,920,775;
BANKING D
eioprietors' Capi-____

Government Debt £11,015,1( 0
Other Securities .. 3.634,900
Gold Coin & Bullion 13,270,775
Silver ....

f 27,9 0,775

„ - -
,EPARTUSTIT.
Government Secu-
rities (including
Dead NV eightAn-
milt)/ £10,384,209
Other Securities 21,413,9.9
Notes
Gold and silver 930,35 t
Coin

tai £14.553.000
st
Public Deposits (in-
cluding Exche-
quer, Savings'
Banks, Commis-

miasioners of Na-
tional Debt, and
Dividend Ac-

counts) 5,58?,243
Other Deposits 14,714,565
6even Day and
other Bills 534,431

£35,E93,142 I
IY,

► 438,893,142
% MILLER, Chief Cashier.

Aug. 24, 1865.

AQUATICS.

PLYMOUTII REGATTA.

PLYMOUTH, Wednesday, 10 p.m.
Yesterday, the first day of the regatta, the racing was
unimportant, as the weather was very calm, and none of
the large yachts had arrived from Torquay. During the
night there was much rain, and all day there has been a
stiff breeze from the south-west, with heavy squalls occa-
sionally. In the afternoon a small boat in the Sound
carried away her mast, and the Royal Mail, a large boat,
put about to assist her. In jibing, being under a press
of canvas, she capsized and went down. Mr. Frederick
Pridham, jun., solicitor, was picked up by a gig from
the Prussian corvette Nymphe, Captain Henk. Mr. 0.
Whipple, jun., surgeon, Mr. Glyn, Mr. Courtney, and Mr.
Cheatham, of the Land Transport Corps, were conveyed on
board the Prussian gunboat Delphin, Captain Kuhn. The
boatman, John Burt, was rescued by an English schooner.
Mr. Cheetham died on board the gunboat ; the others have
been brmght ashore. _ _ _

Theichooners' prizes—X2s and LW—sailed for to-day,
were Won by the Intrigue and-the Gertrude.
For the cup given by the Prince of Wales there is a dis-
pute between the cutters Vampire and Laura.
Pearse's prize was carried off by the Vespa.
The cutter Pearl was first in the Mosquito fleet.
The *inner of the cutters' prize for £6O is undecided.

1 COLLISION ON THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY.
—A serious collision took place on the Great Northern
Railway, this morning, near Potter's-bar station. The
night mail train from Edinburgh ran into a "muck" train
which had been but imperfectly shunted. None of the
travellers by the mail were injured, although some of them
were very much frightened.
THE LATE GENERAL SIR FREDERICK STOVIN,
G.C.8., K.C.M.G.—This gallant-, officer was born
in 1783. He obtained an ensigncy without purchase in
the 52d Regiment on the 22d of March, 1800, and
proceeded to Ferrol, Cadiz, and thence to Lisbon.
In July, 1803, he was appointed to the 28th
Regiment, and went to Ireland in October. In
January, 1805, he was appointed brigade-major at
Fermoy, and in July and August was with an encampment
of 25,000 men on the Curmgh, under Lord Cathcart. In
October, 1807, he wont to Copenhagen, and marched, 1808,
with Sir John Moore to Gottenburg. He was at the battle
of Corunna on the 16th of January, 1809. In June, 1809,
he was aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Mackenzie
Fraser, and proceeded to Walcheren. He embarked for
Gibraltar in January, 1810, with the 28th Regiment, and
when Tarifa was occupied by British troops in April he
was sent as second in command. He embarked for For-

tugal, July, 1811, with detachments, and was appointed
'aide-de-camp to Sir T. Picton in October. He was pre-
sent, January 17, 1812, at the siege and capture of Ciudad
Rodrigo, and on the 6th and 7th of April at the capture
of Badajoz, and received brevet of major. He was at the
battle of Salamanca July 22, and at the battle of Vittoria,
June 21, 1813. Subsequently he saw much service in Spain
and at New Orleans, where he was present at the siege
and was wounded in the neck. He was appointed deputy-
adjutant-general Oct. 25, re-embarked on 18th Jan., 1815,
landed at Isle Dauphin, and received the news of his ap-
pointment as K.C.B. He invested Fort Bayer, which sur-
rendered Feb. 14, returned to England June 1, and was
immediately appointed to Sir Thomas Picton's staff, but
having been ordered to Dublin on special service he was
prevented from being present at Waterloo. Having filled
various offices in the colonies and at home, in 1835 he
accompanied Prince Alfred to Geneva as superintendent of
his studies. In 1859, finding his health begin to fail, he
resigned his place at Court, was invested with the insignia
oftlieGrand Cross of the Bath in 1860, and on March 31
in the same year was appointed extra groom in waiting
liSitwell ozfabeßethnisAhnanwe:
adjaeusgtyh.ter Sirf F.
Sir
rtosvitin married
Derbyshire, who died, without issue, in 1858.
youngestt to her
3f
KILLING A WIFE BY KNOCKING HER UNDER A
RAILWAY TRAIN.—At the Liverpool coroner's court
yesterday a verdict of manslaughter was found against a
man named William Foran, for killing his wife, Catherine
Foran. The man, who is a badge porter, lived with his
wife in a court in Chadwick-street, and both were much
addicted to drinking. When drunk they frequently quar-
relled, and the man often struck his wife. On Tuesday
they were in Chadwick-street together, and both drunk.
A short time before the occurrence that led to her death,
he had threatened to give her her death-blow that night.
They went along the street, and a train of heavy waggons
crossed the street on the Yorkshire and Lancashire Rail-
way Company's line. A railway porter, seeing that the
woman was
unsteady, laid hold of her and helu but
her;
the husband struck her a violent blow and knocked her
under the trucks. The wheels passed over her breast ant
neck and killed her on the spot.

THE UNITED STATES.

(From the Times' Correspondent)

NEW YORK, Aug. 12.

What the Southern people are thinking and doing
and how they are living in the present crisis are
questions of grave moment to the Administration,
and it employs every means to accumulate informa-
tion concerning them. But it is not easy to ascer-
tain the actual state of public feeling in the South.
It is noticeable that the people begin to intermingle
more freely with each other ; rival Generals now
meet in a friendly way and discuss the war, and
persons from the South are always a little surprised
at the credulity with which they are greeted here.
The fault of a certain class in the North is that they
are asking too much of their conquered brethren.
They are impatient, forgetting Mr. Lincoln's say-
ing, " You will sooner have the fowl by hatching
the egg than by smashing it." They expect ths
South to kiss the rod with joy and thankfulness. It
is true that this demand is not generally made, but
it is raised every now and then by politicians who
cannot be satisfied unless everything is made as they
wish it in a single day. If Mr. Johnson were no
wiser than they the South might well abandon all
hope of the future. "We are willing to go back to
the Union and be true to it," they say, " but do
not require us to exult over our defeat. We cannot
rejoice with you that we have been conquered."
The Southern papers are, with scarcely an exception,
following the wise counsels of General Lee, and
urge the people to set about cultivating their lands
again as in the old time. The "`poor whites" are
already beginning to find that the capacity for hard
work was not confined by Providence to the negro.
They discover that there are certain advantages
attending industry which they have hitherto been
in ignorance of, and now that they have found
out the proper use of their hands, it is to
be hoped they will never sink back into their
former shameless idleness and dependence. A
letter from Virginia which 1 have seen states that
white labour is likely to succeed therp quite as well
as negro labour, and that when the " freedman"
finds that he can be dispensed with, and that if he
will eat he must work, he soon perceives the incor-
rectness of his present theory of freedom, which is,
of course, that he will not be called upon to do any
more work. There is not a planter now who does
not regret the struggle which he and his class made
for the preservation of slavery before the war broke
out. "We should have done better without iV it
is common to hear them or their friends say, "only
the abolitionists bullied us so much about it that we
could not give way." A Virginia paper remarks in
the same spirit, "All agree that slavery is gone.
There is scarcely a wish expressed to revive it, and
only a desire felt to make the best of the present
condition—adapt means to ends in the altered state
of our affairs." The negro would settle down into
his place soon enough if his meddling friends would
let film alone. Instead of so doing, they hold con-
ventions and invite the liberated :-,laves to express
their views. The other day Gen. Fisk collected a
number of them together at Nashville, and told them
he had given them the Bible and the bayonet, and
now he wanted to give them the ballot. " -With
this swarm of bees," he added, " I think the negro
will be able to take care of himself." U.:1,13r such
guides the negro has persuaded himself that he can
safely postpone work until he is adtittod to the
suffrage. The difficulty of procurin
of the great difficulties of the Son

labour is one
t this momeL

The country, so fearfully ravaged b:,- Sherman's
stroyi n g hosts, rem ainvuuch as it did when he turned
his back upon it. Money and men are alike want-
ing in order to place it under cultivation again.
The attitude of the Southern people is, there-
fore, one of expectancy—they can do very little for
themselves until the North stretches out a hand
to help them. There is no fact more sure than
that the very spirit of secession is utterly
quenched—quenched by dint of main force, no
doubt, but the result politically is the same. In
the odd language which men use here, even on the
gravest subjects, every Southern man of any F;:-!n-s,e
owns that his cause "is played out." I have had
shown to me letters which plainly reveal the miser-
able state of the country and the population.
Virginia is still a desert ; South Carolina
is without crops or food ; North Carolina is a
little better off, for Sherman's troops only tool: what
they wanted for use in passing through it ; in
Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee it is hoped that
the crops will prove sufficiently large to keep
the wants of the inhabitants supplied. Everywhere,
however—and this is a fact which may be taken
almost without exception—the families which were
formerly flourishing are in complete destitution.
The ladies of the North are making clothes, and in
some cases collecting subscriptions, for their unfor-
tunate sisters in the South. The North has lost
much of its best blood, but the South has lost that
and everything else beside. It is computed, upon
official returns, that from first to last there were in
the Southern army 1,124,000 men. Of these no
less than 660,000 are known to have been killed or
disabled, and over 400,000 more were sick, or are
counted as " missing," or deserted. The Northern
army had in it during the entire war about
3,000,000 men.

An important and laborious work will be pub-
lished in a few days by Mr. H. J. Raymond, a pro-
minent member of Congress,who stood high in the
confidence of the late President. It is a biography
of Mr. Lincoln, embracing a collection of all his
speeches and State papers, some of them being now
laid before the public for the first time. One of
the most curious chapters in it is that which con-
tains an account of the attempted negotEtions for
peace brought about by Mr. Horace Greeley-, and
concerning which there has alw-nvs been a certain
mystery. In July last year Mr. Greeley 7
the President calling his attention to the circum-
stance that there were commissioners from the
South at Niagara prepared to enter into negotia-
tions for peace, and begging Mr. Lincoln "to
submit overtures for pacification to the Southern
insurgents." In this letter Mr. Horace Greeley
spoke of the North as "ou -bleeding, bankrupt,
almost dying country," words which were so
extremely offensive to Mr. Lincoln that rather than
have them published he subsequently submitted to
many unjust accusations, based upon his alleged dis-
inclination to treat with the South. Mr. Greeley
also said in his letter, " Mr. President, I fear you
do not realise how intently the people desire
any peace consistent with the national integrity
and honour, and how joyously- they would hail
its achievement and bless its authors." To this com-
munication Mr. Lincoln's reply was brief and CI a -
racteristic. lie said-.." If you can find any pers,-...a
anywhere professing to have any proposition of
Jef-
ferson Davis, in writing
of
the
Union, n
for peace, embracing the
restoration
abandonment cl
slavery, whatever else it embraces,
b
say to him he
may come to me with you.' IceGsi
Greeley answered
this by another letter,
in which. he wants that he
could not expect the Southern Commissioners
to
show him their credentials.
g'
" asGreen I .
may •
be
I am not quite so verdant as to imagine anythin
of the sort." And, in reply to another note Co
much the same effect, Mr. Lincoln answered_
" I have just received yours of the 13th, and am
disappointed by it. I was not expecting you to
send me a letter, but to bring me a man or men."
Soon after this Mr. Greeley was authorised to go
to Niagara, and elicit from the Commissioners—
Clement C. Clay, Jacob Thompson, J. B. Hol-
combe, and G. N. Sanders—what powers had been
conferred upon them by Mr. Davis. It .cd:i?c,r3
that Mr. Greeley never once mentioned to th,:eu

to