The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-19 00:00:00

BANKRUPTS,

The following aro the only bankrupts of commercial im-
portance in the Gazette :
John Allen, beerseller, Chelsea
John Jones, draper, Merthyr Tydvil
Edwin J. White, furniture broker, Bristol.
James Woodger, farrier, Selbridge-mews, Westbourne-
park._

B. Brown Bingley, stationer, Hull
Robert Williams, farmer, Carnarvon
Joseph Dalzell, grocer, Milnthorp, Westmoreland
William Ruck, farmer, Gorsty-close, Herefordshire

BANKRUPTCIES- ANNULLED.
Charles bolt, tailor, St. Albans
Henry berries Creed, St. James's-square

SCOTCH BANKRUPTS.
Robert Smith, baker, Dumfries
Donald Macleod, wine merchant, Inverness
James Purves, fruiterer, Glasgow

COURSE OF EXCHANGE—Last Evening.

Amsterdam Short. 11 17 11 171
Ditto 3 Months. 11 191 11 19
Rotterdam
Antwerp — 25 42/ 25 47
Brussels
Hamburg
Paris Short 25 15 25 22/
Ditto 3 Months. 25 40 25 45
Marseilles
25 40 25 45
Frankfort on the Maino —120 U
Vienna
Trieste ..... .
Petersburgli
Berlin —
...
Madrid
___
471
Cadiz
Leghorn
Milan
Genoa
Naples — 25 52/ 25 57/
Palermo
Messina
Lisbon
511
Gold •
OpFoortroei.g.;; .. .... . .1;1—B.;
Bars "(StanTard) pers2. ... a 17 9

BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES IN SCOTLAND.
—The seventh annual report of the Registrar-Gene-
ral, Mr. W. P. Dundas, to Sir George Grey, has just been
issued. The report is for the year 1861, in which year,
notwithstanding various adverse influences, the births
were not above their usual proportion ; the deaths were
below the average ; while the marriages attained the ave-
rage of former years. The state of elementary education,
the report says, continues satisfactory, seeing that 89.39 per
cent. of the men, and 78.67 per cent. of the women who
married in Scotland in 1861 were able to sign their names.
Year after year it appears that as many women are able
to sign their names in the marriage register in Scot-
land as men in England. Under the head of marriages
it is stated, as the result of statistical investigation,
that the married women of Scotland aro more prolific than
those of England, suing that, during the year 1861, every
314 wives at the child-bearing ages gave birth to 100 chil-
dren in Scotland; whereas it required 355 wives at the
same ages for every 100 births in England. As like results
appear year after year, it may be assumed as proved that
the Scottish married female is more prolific than the Eng-
lish married female. The Registrar-General also directs
attention to an inquiry made for the first time into the com-
parative mortality of the married and the unmarried women
at each quinquennial period of life. The results arrived at,
he says, are startling, and particularly merit the attention
of those engaged in life assurauce,

Proposed Statue to Mr. Cobden at Man-
e hest er.
• Yesterday a meeting of the citizens of Manchester
was held in the Town-hall, according to a requisi-
tion addressed to the Mayor, for the purpose of re-
solving upon the erection of a memorial to
the late
Mr. Cobden. The attendance, though highly in-
fluential and respectable in its composition, was
rather select than numerous. The Mayor (Mr. J.
M. Bennett) took the chair, and among the other
gentlemen present were Mr. Henry Ashworth, Mr.
M. Ross, Mr. Watkin, M.P., Mr. T. B. Potter,
M.P., Mr. 0. Heywood, Mr. Abel Heywood, Mr.
Ivie Mackie, Mr. F. Taylor, Mr. James Edwards,
Mr. W. Stokes (of the Peace Society), Mr. R. G.
Underdown, Mr. J. Slagg, Mr. T. Ashton, and Mr.
Heron (Town Clerk).
Dr. WATTS said letters had been received from the
two members for Manchester, Mr. J. A. Turner and
Mr. Bazley, expressive of their regret at being un-
able to be present. Mr. Cheetham, the member for
Salford, was also prevented by an appointment with
some of his constituents.
Mr. HE= ASHWORTH (late President of the
Chamber of Commerce) said he had great pleasure
in moving the following resolution :
" That, in the opinion of the meeting, a statue of
the late Richard Cobden, M.P., would constitute a
suitable memorial of his eminent =vices to file
country generally, and to this locality in particular."
He said it would be utterly impossible for any one
to do justice to the memory of Mr. Cobden in the
brief space of time at the command of the meeting.
The leading particulars of his eventful life were,
however, familiar to everybody. Previous to the
year 1816 our Legislature had become more or less
under misapprehension :respecting what should be
our commercial policy, and was so far carried away
by the delusions of the time as to enact a corn law,
which existed from the year 1816 to the year 1846.
To appreciate the evil effects of that law and the
advantages of those free-trade principles with which
Mr. Cobden's name was associated, it was only ne-
cesgary to recall two or three indications of both.
In the year 1815 the declared value of the exports
of this country was £49,000,000 ; in 1842, after 26
years' existence of the corn law, it had fallen to
£47,000,000, and during the same period the
declaredvalue of our exports of cotton manufactures
fell from £18,100,000 in 1815 to £12,800,000in 1842.
It was in 1846 when the corn laws were repealed,
and by the year 1864 the 47 millions of exports of
1842 had grown to 160 millions (cheers), and the
£12,800,000 of cotton manufacture had become
£54,000,000 ; and if we were to add the amount of
cotton manufactures embodied in haberdashery and
other articles, probably the amount might be
reckoned some six or eight millions more. But be-
sides looking merely to what some might regard as
a Manchester view of the matter in bare figures, let
it be borne in mind that the 113 millions of increase
in exports had not been given away, but exchanged
abroad for some substantial return. In the first
place we received 39 millions in value of human
food ; and remembering how low the price had been
for some years past, that sum would represent to us
a far greater quantity than it could have purchased
some 20 years back. By its consumption we might
easily imagine the consequences to the well-being
and comfort of our population and the contrast to
the starvation of 20 years ago. (Applause.) It had
been the source of greater hospitality and goodwill
between families, of increased numbers and strength
in the population, and of great increase in their
clothing and other comforts of life which the money
they had to spare now enabled them to purchase.
Education, from the same cause, had become more
common ; not only had schools been erected, but
the press had been at work, and now we had hundreds
of thousands of papers circulating daily in London
and all our chief cities and towns. There were many
other indications of the improving conduct and de-
meanour of the people. We saw men on the rail-
way platforms with their wives and children taking
excursions to different parts of the country. This
was a feature of common life unknown in former
days. The middle classes, too, had had their share in
the benefits of this enlarged export trade. It was
apparent in their bankers' balances, in the profits of
their undertakings, in the architecture of our streets,
and in the equipages that thronged them ; it was
denoted in the improved character of the shops and
the development of shopping among the ladies of
their families ; it was denoted in the numerous villas
and mansions erected on every pretty view around
our towns. Another fruit of middle-class prosperity
was the establishment of free libraries, public parks,
and means of recreation for the people —all attribu-
table to the:effect of that wise policy this meeting
desired to memorialise. (Applause.) There were
yet other objects of the matter to be viewed. It was
the quaint observation of one who knew something
of human life that no Englishman need expect his
memory to survive more than six months unless he
built a church. (Laughter.) Without saying that
Mr. Cobden was a churchbuilder, it could be shown
that he had contributed to the increase of churches.
In his (Mr. Ashworth's) locality, the neighbourhood
of Bolton, up to the year 1842 there were four
churches in that town, and three or four small
Episcopalian chapels in the surrounding townships.
But now there were five or six and twenty, which
was a considerable increase in 22 years, taking into
consideration the slow progress of all previous time.
And the Dissenters had progressed in like manner.
Thus there were three points of observations, at all
events, from which the question of a monument to
Mr. Cobden was deserving of being regarded.
(Applause.)
Mr. OLIVER HEYWOOD, who seconded the resolu-
tion, said there was a custom with an ancientnation
which held its highest festival at this very Easter
season, to gather a sheaf of early corn and bring it
among the people, and in the midst of their cere-
oionial to wave aloft this symbol of thankfulness
for the richness and abundance of the land into
which that people had entered. It was not fanciful
to say that no more fitting action could be done
than, so to speak, to bring a sheaf of corn andwave
it among the people (applause), for, if to any one,
to whom more than to Mr. Cobden did they owe
it that the beneficent gifts of Providence in the
richness, and abundance, and fruitfulness of the

world had been brought in to contribute to the
strength and wealth and welfare of our nation ?
(Cheers.) As little children by the seaside built
their little island and made their little channels for-
ward so as to gather in the great ocean of abund-
ance which was about them, so did Richard Cobden
and those who were associated with him work to
bring in the fruitfulness of the world for the enjoy-
ment and prosperity of the nation. (Applause.)
The childish illustration was suggested by the cir-
cumstance that it was with his (Mr. Heywood's)
boyhood that he connected the name of Mr. Cobden,
and that for which his name stood pre-eminent. It
so happened that on the very night when the First
Minister of the Crown and the gentleman who leads
the Opposition were commenting on Mr. Cobden's
great service; a debate was going on in the House
of Lords on the pies •
the school to which reference
occasion
of the public schools, and
reference was no doubt chiefly
made on that
the one in which he
(Mr. Heywood) spent,°:Lwas
early years of his life, and
the subject carried him -
back to
when he suffered a good deal of
the very year 1841,
of
unibty that was at that
posed persecution,
as being a member of a co
time sending up to Parliament men who were dis-
posed to turn the world upside down and introduce
a great number of very novel ideas. But what he
felt about Mr. Cobden had been in a very few words
expressed by Mr. Bright—(loud cheers)—when he
said that he came fresh from the bedside of a depart-
ing friend, and spoke of the passing away of " the
manliest and the gentlest spirit that he knew."
That manliness and gentleness—what did it de-
scribe but the gentleman ? (Cheers.) It was pre-
cisely those characteristics of Mr. Cobden that had
stirred up the heart of England and of the world to
grieve over his loss, all differences of opinion being
forgotten in the man whom all felt to be at once
full of manliness and courage and gentleness. (Ap-

plause.)
'The MAYOR said it was for the town of Stockport
that Mr. Cobden was first returned to Parliament,
and it had been fittingly arranged that one of the
present members for that borough should now ad-
dress the meeting. (Applause.)
Mr. WATKIN, M.P., said the occasion on which

' so many of those present had lost in Mr. Cobden a
personal friend, as well as a man whom they might
entitle the friend of the human race, was too recent
to allow of more being said than to express the
sorrow which every one must feel, and, t erhaps, to
speak of the example that had been left behind. In
that meeting were gathered many of those earnest
men, often plain and unpretending, who formed the
rank and file of that phalanx which finally carried
free trade ; and it touchingly recalled old associa-
tions—not the brighter associations of the day of
success, but the stormier ones of the days of struggle
and embarrassment which attached to the history of
the proceedings of the League. Probably no man
had ever departed from among us of whom it might
be said that although a politician for a quarter of a
century he had not left behind him a single enemy ;
still more, it might be said that no politician had
ever left behind him, an example in which more
personal purity of life, entire spotlessness of charac-
ter, and thorough absence of even the ordinary
selfishness of men, had mingled with the truest
and noblest patriotism. (Cheers.) That was in
Mr. Cobden's character an attribute certainly not
usual among the politicians of democratic countries,
—an intensity of modesty and personal diffidence
which perhaps those who knew him intimately
would say was never equalled among those whom
in the political circle they had known. It was his
(Mr. Watkin's) good fortune to hear I the first
speech Mr. Cobden delivered to anything that de-
served to be called a public meeting, and also to
hear the last speech he made in the House,
and although so often addressing the most intel-
lectual audiences, on that occasion Mr. Cobden
was suffering so much from diffidence that he
positively asked a number of his friends to be
sure to attend, because he was afraid he should
hardly " get a house." But it need hardly be
said that there was no occasion for a whip up to
hear Mr. Cobden on that occasion when he spoke
in condemnation of the system of the Government
being its own contractor. (Laughter and applause.)
Undoubtedly the best monument to Mr. Cobden
was to be found in the increased happiness and in-
telligence of the people. But apart from free trade,
Mr. Cobden did more perhaps than any other man
of his age to teach politicians all over the world that
it was possible for nations to be great, and free, and
glorious, and still to be at peace. (Cheers.) No
description of Mr. Cobden was more happy than
that of a distinguished Frenchman, in which he said
that Mr. Cobden was essentially an international
man. (Cheers.) He taught also many of his own
generation, and his memory would teach their suc-
cessors a. lesson which ought to be learnt in these
industrial committees, that men had duties higher
than the ordinary labours of the day—duties affect-
ing the advancement, freedom, intelligence, and
happiness of the community, Mr. Cobden was a
man constantly educating himself—(hear, hear)—
one of those who never believed they could know
too much, one who was never ashamed of acquiring
knowledge from any honest source, one who was
always ready to listen even to the humblest who
could give him information or in any way clear the
views he entertained on any question. And pro-
bably he had done more than most men to fire the
ambition of the young men, and all the men who
had any public spirit at all in these districts, by his
example of what men could do who day by day
were attending to their business, and gave their
leisure hours to serious and sacred purposes for the
improvement of those around them. (Cheers.)

The resolution was passed unanimously.

Mr. M. Ross, President of the Chamber of Com-
merce, moved a resolution for the opening of a sub-
scription and the appointment of a committee. In
relating some of the difficulties Mr. Cobden had
to contend with while negotiating the French
treaty, he said he remembered one day when, after
four or five hours had been spent in the discus-
sion of trivial matters with the French Plenipoten-
tiaries, with what mortification Mr. Cobden had
exclaimed, " Really I had more power as a commer-
cial traveller than I feel I have had to-day as Pleni-
potentiary." (Laughter.)
Mr. PorrEn, M.P., seconded the resolution,
which was passed.
The meeting terminated with a vote of thanks to
the Mayor. Several subscriptions of £5O were
announced, and it was understood that no larger
sums would be invited.