The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-20 00:00:00

INDIAN CARRYING.

The annual general meeting of this company was
held yesterday, at the offices, New Broad-street ;

Sir Macdonald Stephenson in the chair.
Mr. W. Thompson, the secretary, having read
the notice convening the meeting, the report, an
abstract of which has appeared in The Sun, was
taken as read.

The CHAIRMAN said the remark of a shareholder
at a recent meeting of one of the great steam com-

panies was, " Your reports are always apologetic."
This observation might, with some truth, be applied
to the present report ; but if the apology waaor
nothing worse than recommending the limitation of
the dividend to 6 per cent.,' and that, after a half

year of unprecedented drawbacks, he ventured to
hope that the good sense of the proprietary would
outweigh their importance to realise those large
profits which were originally anticipated, and which
the directors still confidently expected, upon the
grounds referred to in the report. Bombay and
Madras were no longer drags upon the revenues in
Bengal and the North-West Provinces. Improved
management had been attended with improved re-
sults, and it was a subject of reasonable gratification
to be able to state that several of the new agencies
were already remunerative, and that the tried effi-
ciency of the company's managers at all the Pre-
sidencies justified the expectation that the earnings
of the current half-year would be materially in-
creased, while the expenses were diminished propor-
tionally. They must bear in mind that the creation
1 of a large establishment extending its ramifications
over the whole of India, subject to the unavoidable
difficulties of employing a considerable proportion
of native agency, and with the means of communi-
cation in the interior so imperfect as they were in
many parts, was not the work of a day, but to be
effectual required that the necessary amount of time,
patience, and perseverance should be steadily be-
stowed upon it, while the capital employed was in
reality the smallest and least important element,
considered with reference to the magnitude of the
operations when the company should be in full work.
The great establishment of the " Pickfords" of this
country took many years to attain its present high
position, and it had been the object of the directors
by pursuing a course similar to that which had been
successful at home, to obtain the same results in
India. In their endeavours the directors had to
acknowledge the friendly aid they had received from
Messrs Baxendale in this country, as well as from
the officers of the Government, and those of the
railway companies in India. If the shareholders
considered that a gradual and steady increase of
business, with a corresponding reduction of charges,
progressive appreciation on the part of the public,
the confidence of the Government, as evinced by its
extended employment of the company, and from the
outset a 6 per cent. dividend, were indications of
satisfactory progress, the Indian Carrying Company
need only continue in the path which had been pur-
sued uniformly, to enable it to occupy its place
among the most sound and substantial undertakings
of the day. (Hear.) He concluded by moving that
the report and accounts be approved and adopted,
and that a dividend be declared at the rate of 6 per
icent. per annum (free of income tax) for the half
year ending the 30th of June last, payable on the
sth of January next.
Mr. J. WALKER seconded the motion.
A shareholder said, if the Bombay portion of the
undertaking involved a loss it would be better to
give it up, and only carry on the portions which
yielded a profit.
The CHAIRMAN said the directors had carefully

in opposition to the malt tax, a public meeting being
held in the Lecture-hall, under the auspices of the
Central Anti-Malt Tax Association. Mr. M. Bid-
den, a tenant farmer, was called to the chair ; and

upon the platform were Sir F. Kelly, M.P., Mr. G.
Tomline, M.P., Mr. C. S. Read, M.P., Lord A.
Hervey, M.P., Mr. J. C. Cobbold, M.P., Major
Parker, M.P., Sir G. N. Veroke-Middleton, Bart., &c.
Sir F. KELLY, M.P., moved the first resolution,
and said the meeting was called to consider the best
means of promoting the ultimate total repeal of the
malt tax. Success appeared altogether to depend
upon the determination, perseverance, and united
action of the agriculturists of the kingdom and of
all true friends of the labouring and poorer class of

the community, for while the question was of great
and paramount importance to the owners and culti-

vators of the land, it far more largely affected and
deeply involved the interests, comforts, morals, and
well-being in life of the labouring class. Although
he had taken some part in the discussions which had
arisen both in and out of Parliament upon the ques-
tion, he owned that he felt himself quite at a loss to
conceive a single argument upon which any hon-
ourable or intelligent man could meet the claims
which the advocates for the repeal of the tax
made upon Government and Parliament. llaving
traced the history of the tax, he said if the question

were fairly taken up and energetically dealt with,
the whole community would be indebted to the
farmers for having agitated it. Whatever might

be his opinions and wishes upon the subject, he
thought it would hardly be prudent, and perhaps it
would not be becoming, to attempt in the present
state of the finances the immediate and total repeal
of the tax. The advocates of its repeal had not yet
even ventured to put it in competition with the
income tax, or with any other branch of direct taxa-
tion ; but they did say that if, as they believed
would be the case, owing to the great increase of

the population, commerce, and wealth of the coun-
try, there should be annually a surplus at the dis-
posal of the Government, that surplus ought to be
applied to the reduction, and ultimately to the

repeal, of the malt tax in preference to any other
species of indirect taxation imposed upon the people.
He asked in the name of the agriculturists and

labouring classes of the country, and also upon the
grounds upon which our policy had proceeded for
the last twenty years—a policy which had, upon the
whole, brought this country to an unprecedented
state of wealth and prosperity—he asked for the re-
peal of the malt tax, in fact, upon the principle of
free trade—(hear, hear)—the farmers bad suffered
enough from free trade, and it was time that they
should now begin to derive some benefit from it.
Real freedom of trade consisted not merely in the
repeal of protective duties, but it was the right to
buy, to grow, to manufacture, to import, to export,
to use, to exchange, to sell, unrestrained by any
fiscal or arbitrary law ; and all that he asked on

behalf of those who suffered from the burdens of
the malt tax was that these clear, true, and just
principles of free trade should be applied to the tax
upon malt. If it had been a principle of our financial
policy to take off taxes even upon foreign produce,
and upon every article of general consumption in the
country, upon what conceivable ground could the
Government now refuse to take off a burthensome op-
pressive, and unjust tax upon an article notoriously
of general and universal consumption, but of home
produce? He might call attention to one or two
effects and consequences of the tax in relation to the
question of free trade. It might be asked why,
while taxes had been taken off foreign corn, while
the trade in wheat and flour was absolutely and
entirely free, the same principle had not been applied
to the drink of the community as well as to the food
of the community. While the great questions of

free trade and financial reform were under discus-
sion, every statesman, to whatever party ho be-
longed, expressly declared that with the repeal of

she corn laws the malt tax must come to an end.

(Cheers.) He remembered that Sir R. Peel, in
1839, when a motion by Mr. Villiers, the persever-
ing advocate for the repeal of the corn laws was
under discussion, answered Mr. Villiers by saying,
" If you have free trade in corn, has not the farmer
a right to say, ' Give me free trade in barley and
malt ?' " What was the answer of Mr. Villiers, who
was a member of the present Government ? Why,
he said, " If you will consent to the repeal of the
corn laws we will agree to the repeal of the malt
tax. Let them fall together." This was not the
language of a mere advocate at the moment, but the
same doctrine was held out every time the repeal of
the corn laws was under agitation, and was about to
be carried with the support of Sir R. Peel, and many
of what was now called the Conservative party. It
was also said by Lord John Russell, in 1849, that
the first tax which ought to be repealed, whenever
the duty upon corn should have entirely ceased, was
undoubtedly the malt tax. (Hear.) The same
\ alsoo f a t
h cabinet
e
late
lan-
guage was held over and over again by Sir James
Graham, and by Mr. M. Gibson, n
minister. Such was also the languageov
lamented Mr. Cobden, down even to the latest hour
of his life ; such was the principle for which ho
contended, for, although long against the farmers,
Mr Cobden was at last in their favour
upon this question of the malt tax. The
same principle was put forward by the present
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, that
once introduce freedom of trade, especially as re-
gards the corn laws, and it would be impossible
to deny freedom of trade in relation to the
malt tax. (Hear, hear.) Such was the incredible
injustice of the malt tax that the Government was
obliged to establish a system of protective duties in
relation to foreign malt; and this was one of the
consequences of making the malt tax an exception
to the otherwise universal application of free trade
principles. Having enforced these and other argu-
ments at considerable length, Sir Fitzroy concluded
by proposing his resolution as follows:--" That this
meeting is of opinion that the continuance of the
excise duty upon malt is a great injustice to the
grower of barley, and is wholly at variance with the
free trade policy of the country." (Cheers.)
Mr. E. DICK seconded the resolution, which was
carried unanimously.
Major PARKER, M.P., moved, "That the existing
tax on malt is a great hardshipto the poor consumers
of our national home grown beverage."
The Rev. W. PorrEß seconded the resolution, and
Lord A. HERVEY, M.P., supported it.
The resolution was carried unanimously.
Mr. TOMLINE, M.P., moved,," That a requisition
asking for a repeal of the malt tax be sent from.this

Yesterday evening the usual fortnightly meeting
of this society was held in their rooms in St.Martin's-
place—the president, Dr. J. Hunt, in the chair.
The Rev. DUNBAR HEATH read the first paper,
"On the anthropoid origin of the European races
versus the theory of migration from the East." Mr.
Heath contended that the diversities of language
among the present European nations are perfectly
inexplicable, except on the hypothesis that the
aboriginal inhabitants were either apes or mutes.
According to his hypothesis the occupants of the
parts of Europe where the "kitchen middens " are
found were mutes at the time of their conquest by
small bands of speaking men, commonly called
Aryans coming from the East, and from whom the
inhabitants acquired very imperfectly the language
spoken by their conquerors. The names of the
commonest objects—as, father, mother, wasp, fish,
and the numerals one, two, three, &c.—would be
taught by the Aryans to their mute slaves, with-
out caring for the manner in which they: pro-
nounced them ; and the confusion and difference
of sound thus occasioned would, in Mr. Heath's
opinion, give rise to such a diversity of speech as
might explain Grimm's law of language, and no other
satisfactory attempt to explain the law has yet. been
made. He adverted to the opinion expressed on the
subject by Mr. Max Muller, who maintains that
speech is the distinctive faculty of man, and he en-
tered into a philological investigation for the pur-
pose of opposing that view and of supporting his
own theory.
Dr. BEIGO objected to the author of the paper
having limited the organs of speech to the palate, the
tongue, the teeth, and the lips, and he mentioned
cases in which men could speak intelligibly who had
no palate, or no teeth, and even without a tongue.
The principal organ of speech, he said, is the larynx,
and the ear is as important to speech as the or-
gans of the voice. He contended that the reason
why brutes cannot speak is that they have not ge-
neral ideas, and cannot distinguish tones sufficiently
to articulate.

Mr. MAX MULLER observed that the explanation
given by Mr. Heath of the diversity of language in
Europe did not appear sufficient. There was no ne-
cessity to assume the existence of races of mutes to
account for one sound being mistaken for another.
He looked on the language of a people as a collec-
tion of a variety of dialects, and that out of them
arose different kinds of speech, probably in a short
time. In a much later age that accidental change
called writing was introduced, by which the fluc-
tuating distinct languages became more fixed.
Mr. Pike, Mr. Reddie, Dr. Seeman, and Dr.
Charnock joined in the discussion, which became
almost entirely philological ; and Dr. Dunbar Heath
replied in support of the opinions expressed in his
paper.

A paper was then read, contributed by Mr. 11. G.
ATKINSON, giving an account of an idiotic family of
five persons at Downham, in Norfolk.
Dr. BALLARD, who said he had paid much atten-
tion to the subject of idiotcy, attributed nearly all
such cases to severe illness in infancy, and the re-
sults of his experience told him that most such cases
originate from the habit which some children acquire
of sucking all kinds of objects. By that action they
swallow the secretions of the glands, which, not
being accompanied with food, disorder, and in some
cases destroy, the stomach.
Dr. GIBB confirmed that opinion, and stated that
the attention of medical men had of late been drawn
to the injury done by the habit of sucking.
A third paper, on the recent discovery of a now
alphabet in America, was read by Mr. Bollaert ;
and, after a few remarks from Mr. Dunbar Heath,
the meeting adjourned. •

American Finance.

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of the Anglo-American Times :
It is very evident from the comments of a large portion
of the press, and the random speculations of many of its
contributors, that few of them understand either the ex-
tent of the resources of the 'United States, or the har-
monious working of her institutions, most of which boar
more or less directly upon the subject under considera-
tion. They seem to overlook the fact that the Govern-
ment of the United States is a Government by the people
and for the people-that it begins and ends in the people—.
that the officers of its various departments are delegated
agents, and that the measures they adopt, both legislative
and executive, are but the index of the will of the people,
and that as both rulers and ruled have mutual interests
involved in the general welfare and prosperity of their
common country, they must of necessity unite in adopting
and carrying out such measures as shall best conserve the
greatest amount of good to the greatest possible number of
its citizens. It is impossible to come to a just conclusion
in the matter, without, in some degree, understanding the
nature of those institutions and their effect on the American
character. Neither can we without this knowledge
understand or fully appreciate the deep sense of individual
responsibility inculcated as part and parcel of the educa-
tion theory of every American citizen.
It is well enough to discuss fully aid fairly the question
of income and expenditure, and to speculate upon probable
resources as based on present developments, but as so
much on that subject has already been brought before the
public, let us from another standpoint take a view which
we do not remember to have seen before presented.
To the different evidences of indebtedness, which the
United States issued on the breakng out of the civil war,
were attached such conditions of time, rates of interest,
dm., as to render them profitable investments for her own
people, of whom the loan was to be obtained ; and, further,
the issues were of such denominations as to bring them
clearly within reach of all classes. So that while patriotic
SMITH out of his abundance subscribes thousands, his man
JoyEs, equally loyal, equally ready, and with an eye to the
fact that six per cent. compounded interest is much better
than five, while seven and three-tenths is a capital chance
for investment, brings forward, as thousands of his fellow-
countrymen do, the little sum laid by for a " wet day,fl,
and also, with SMITH, becomes a creditor of that Govern-
ment for which they each cast one vote, and in which each
has one voice.
Talk to either of them about non-payment or repudiation,
Slimes honest indignation is aroused at even the implied
doubt of his country's honor. " Matter-of-fact" JONES
will tell you, "It can't be done, for the interests of both
rich and poor are alike involved ;" that, "'tie impossible,"
fgouraraevnetny
usfe/f-repinatyermesetntf.orbi ds repudiation, and is a sure
JoN-Es is right, and if hein patient confidence can afford
to await the issue,
iwngeutechseetritpoanirne.ils:idteohnueegiryht to be willing to
trust to the good sonse and untiring energy of that people
f
so
iPaplbeelCieet satisfaction of themselves, the(.)bwy nriagi
noemea
,da
antni odn
ahtuoe tio.epsreetst settle represented
dis
whom it may concern."

BREAKFAST BEVERAGE.—Rommopathic practitioners, and
mostmedicalthe
healthful
of
all
generally, recommend
When-the
escomme
adco
occodaateribnee ofing
homeopathy was first introduced into this country, there
were to be obtained no preparations of cocoa either attrac-
tive to the taste or acceptable to the stomach ; the nut was
either supplied in the crude state, or so unskilfully manu-
factured as to cbtaln little notice. J. Epps, of London,
homoeopathic chemist, was induced in the year 1839 to turn
his attention to this Rubje t, and at length sun-ceded, with
the assistance of elaborate machinery, in being the first to
produce an article pure in its composition, and so refined by
the pert et trituration it receives in the process it pate;
through, as to be most acceptable to the delicate F t.omaeh.
beverage, with a delicious aroma.
e"alit'ovodarleatnydofiltme
important nutritive
breakfastrFaotringge,ngerraatleufusleEpps' cocoa Is distinuishcd as an invigo..
necessary to the growth and
says—"
8112,
is
Cocoas sl 1 in
cohnitsa
ingredientiwn
sorakg
great
covfalthe body." Again, "As a nutritive, cocoa
psurisntecnipalacces ;
stands very much higher than either coffee or tea." Direc-
tions: —Two teaspoonfuls of the powder in a breakfast cup,
filled up with boiling water or milk. Secured in tin-lined
1-Ib., i-lb , and Lb. labelled packets, and sold at is. 6d. per
lb. b 9 grocers, confectionera, airs chemisti.