The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-28 00:00:00

Ihe Commercial Almanack for 1865

Published at the price of Eightpence, here, in
truth, is a really wonderful Almanack. An Almanack
wonderful for its compactness and for its compre-
hensiveness—for the elaboration and apparent in-
tricacy of its contents, and yet, at the same time,
in reality, for the exceeding simplicity of its
arrangement. It is—in the fewest words we
can use, and yet, by necessity, in a good
many of them—at one and the same time,
A Railway, Banking, Mining, Insurance, and
above all, Commercial Almanack. It comprises
within it, moreover, the usual annual report, epi-
tome, or abstract, of the material interests of the
United Kingdom. It contains besides this all the
seasonable information that could well be looked for,
in an Almanack of this essentially mercantile cha-
racter, in regard to Cotton, Iron, all sorts of other
Metals, Agricultural and other Machinery, &c., &c.
together with an unusual variety of information of
a miscellaneous kind, of more or less importance as
the case may be, to the general public, the
merchant, or the manufacturer. Edited by Mr.
William Page Smith, the publication altogether
does him very great credit by its abounding
evidences of watchful care and thoughtful dis-
crimination. Unsatisfied, however, with the
success already achieved by the enterprize of which
the Commercial Almanack, as it now stands before
the public, is the conspicuous manifestation—the
Editor announces, we observe, that next year he
proposes giving a very careful review and summary
of the colonial and general produce markets—of itself
manifestly a very arduous and responsible undertak-
ing ! Of one thing the purchasers of the Commercial
Almanack may be certain while consulting it, that
the information contained in it may be confi-
dently relied upon, the world of facts and figures
here massed together having, during the very pro-
cess of their accumulation, been one by one care-
fully and cautiously authenticated.

THE EXCELLENT TREATISE ON SMOKY CHIMNEYS
—published by Robert Hardwick, and written by
Frederick Edwards, junior, has—we are not in the
least surprised to observe, already run into a Second
Edition. Its eminently practical character, dealing
as it does with what Artemus Ward would call the
orful noosance of Smoky Chimneys, with an eye
directly to their Cure and Prevention --,• ap-
peals, if not in the peculiar phrase of Lord
Bacon to our business and bosoms, at any
rate very directly indeed to the inner com-
fort of our homes and hearths. As the suggester
of Cure or of Prevention for our Smoky Chim-
neys, the author of this really able and useful little
treatise will be welcomed by many (with only too
much reason sometimes) as a Friend Indeed.

Tim JOINT STOCK COMPANIES' LIST FOR 1865
as published by Charles and Edwin Layton—is in
its character as a marvellous epitome (within
the compass of a very little more than a hundred
pages octavo) of a multitude of adventurous enter-
prise, worthy of, being looked into attentively. A
Chronicle, Register, and Directory in one—the
Joint Stock Companies' List is the creature purely of
this age of Limited Liability. The mere alphabetical
catalogue of the Companies formed during the year
of grace last past, namely, 1864, is something in its
way quite astounding. Altogether, the list of Joint-
Stock Companies, beginning at I.—Abbott's Bow
Brewery, nominal capital £50,000, paid-up capital
£35,000, and so forth, and running on alphabetically
—this wonderful list—item by item, to 3,307

Tewkesbury Original Brewery, nominal capital,
£5,000, &c., would have fairly taken the breath
away from the mercantile speculators of a hundred
years ago. As a guide book to the mazes of the
labyrinth of Limited Liability, the Joint Stock
Companies' List, as it has here been compiled by
the Messrs. Layton, will prove to many a man of
enterprise a boon, in its way quite inestimable.

Fatal Catastrophe near Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH, Monday.

About 4 o'clock this afternoon an alarming acci-
dent took place at the sugar refinery now building
at Bennington, between Edinburgh and Leith. The
building, which was 80 feet long, consisted of eight
stories, supported on iron pillars and brick arches.
Owing to the failure of a foundation stone one
of the pillars slipped from its resting place, and the
internal structure collapsed, leaving only bare walls
and 10 feet of flooring at one end standing. A
number of workmen were buried in the fall, of
whom two were taken out dead and several injured.
The bodies of two men known to be in the building
I are not yet recovered.