The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-12 00:00:00

S LATE OF TRADE

CARDIFF, Jan. 10.—The steam-coal trade is more
active, and there is a large business doing at the
docks. Merchants have a good number of orders
on the books, and with an ample supply from the
collieries the January returns are expected to be
favourable. The current quotations are well main-
tained, and the tendency of the market is to in-
creased firmness. Freights are as a rule firmer to
the Mediterranean, but to other foreign ports there
is no change to note. Considerable vitality is
evinced in the house-coal trade, and there is no
lack of employment at the collieries. Coke
commands a fair sale, and patent fuel is in average
request. The new company are about to take pos-
session of Aberaman Works, and important im-
provements and extensions are expected to be car-
ried out, which will give employment to an addi-
tional number of hands. There is only a limited
business doing in the iron trade, and makers show a
disinclination to accept contracts until it is defi-
finitely known what course the men will take at the
expiration of the month's notice which they have
received.

DUNDEE, 10th.—The American advices have given
a quiet tone to the market, and buyers showed little
disposition for business to-day, excepting to supply
present wants. Scarcely a transaction in flax, tow,
or codilla is reported, and prices are nominally as
before. An average amount of sales of jute have
been made at firm prices, and new jute is much
sought for, and rather dearer. The demand for
yarns in to-day's market was entirely consumptive,
the business done being of limited extent, but prices
are unchanged. Canvas yarns are rather quiet, and
prices barely supported. Linens—Fifeshire. fabrics
are less inquired for, and Hessians dull and easier
to buy. Other descriptions of goods are without
change in demand or price, and manufacturers
generally foresold.
LEICESTER, 11th.—There is very little doing in
hosiery, but business is always stagnant at this time
of the year. At Loughborough, Hinckley, and the
country districts generally, business is very flat, and
the operatives are only partially employed. Yarns
are not materially altered, and spinners only pro-
duce what is required. Wools are high in price.
NOTTINGHAM, llth.—There is a little more doing
in lace good generally, and plain nets would sell
better if yarns were cheaper ; as it is, what business
it doing in them is at an unwarrantable rate. The
demand for most classes of goods for the home
market and for the continental is expected to improve
by the end of the month. Black silk laces will
shortly command a better sale. There is a little
doing both in silk quillings and mechlins. In
hosiery there is fully an average amount of business
doing. Yarns are not so firm, and in fact have a
downward tendency.

Ernani was given at the Italians at Paris on
Sunday night, with Fraschini and La Grange, whose
daughter and granddaughter assisted at the performance
in a loge d'avant-scene.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A STRAW BONNET.—

There was a little of the soil in which Bedfordshire
wheat is ;mostly grown ; there, were grains of different
kinds of wheat, there were some good stalks of corn, ear
and straw included ; there were the straws after the ears
had been thrashed out ; there was the inner tube after the
outer sheath had been removed; there were straws dyed
in different colours ; there were straws split up into two,
four, or more strips each, and a woman at work to show
how this is done with the aid of a very simple little appa-
ratus ; there was a girl at work, busily plaiting the split
straws into the narrow ribbons or plaits of which straw
head-gear is made ; and lastly, there were the finished hats
and bonnets, with and without the decorative appendages
that belong to the milliner's art. All this was very good ;
so good, that we would advise An extension of the same
system in any future Industrial Exhibition.—Dickens " All
the Year Round."

REFORM MOVEMENT AT NOTTINGHAM.-A requi-
sition is now in course of signature to the Mayor of Not-
tingham, requesting his worship to convene a public meet-
ing in order to consider the state of the representation of
the people in the Commons' House of Parliament, and to
adopt a petition calling upon Parliament to redeem its
pledges on that subject ; and also to solicit the Right Hon.
W. E. Gladstone to take the lead in introducing a reform
bill into Parliament at an early period of the ensuing
session.