The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-23 00:00:00

STATE OF THE WOOLLEN TRADE.

(From the Leeds Mercury of this day.)
LEEDS, July 22.—The woollen cloth market continues
without any material alteration. Both on Saturday and
on Tuesday there was a fair steady business done in the
Coloured as well as the White Cloth-hall ; and con-
sidering that several of the principal manufacturers
are attending the London • wool sales, perhaps a full
better business was done than might have been ex-
pected. The principal demand at present is for the
various kinds of heavy goods. for the fall trade, and
of which the market is very inadequately supplied. Stocks
generally are low. Prices contiuue without any decided
alteration. There are at present, and have been during
the week, a great many buyers in the town ; which has
caused a good steady trade to be done in the warehouses,
principally in heavy goods, of which the stocks are gene-
rally light in quantity, and dear in value, in consequence
of the high prices that had to be paid for the raw mate-
rial, which has enhanced the cost very considerably in
heavy gyods. We believe the buyers will have consi-
derable difficulty in supplying their wants at the present
time.

HUDDERSFIELD, JULY 19.—The wool business is flat,
and the quantity arrived from the present sales in Lon-
don is yet small, and though a slight reduction has
taken place, manufacturers generally.have an impres-
sion that prices will be still lower, and are accordingly
waiting for a more favourrble opportunity for making
their purchases.

BRIDFORD.—Trade is very much injured by the un-
certainty that prevails respecting the Turkish question.
Wool shows a downward tendency, and in all depart-
ments parties purchase to supply immediate wants.
Very little wool comparatively has yet been got from
the country, and many of the staplers who have pur-
chased have repented of their bargains.
LEICESTER.—Though the demand for worsted goods
is dull, as is usual at this season, all the workmen are
well employed at the advanced rate of wages, and there
is more than usual doing in shipping orders for the colo-
nial markets. The cotton' demand still keeps good,
especially for greys, which .are very scarce, and the sup-
ply of cotton quite insufficient. The worsted yarn
market is firm of the reduced prices. In wools there is
not much doing, and the same reluctance is noticed to
sell at present prices by the growers ; spinners only
buy to supply present wants. The present uncertainty
of Eastern pollitics has had the effect of lowering prices
at the colonial wool sales, which have realised from id.
to ld. per lb. less than the former sold at.

FATA ACCIDENT IN THE BRISTOL CHANNEL. - -Intel-
ligence has been received at Bristol of the total loss of
the sloop William, Richard Billing, master, the property
of Mr. Robert Jones. The unfortunate vessel was on
her voyage, with a cargo of coals, from Newport to
Bridgewater, and, when off the Steep Holmes, on Tues-
day morning last, about half-past 10 o'clock, she is sup-
posed to have started a " butt," and sank in nine
fathoms of water. We regret to say that the crew—
consisting of Captain Billings, his son, and a man, to-
gether with a pauper girl, about 15 years of age, named
Humbling, a passenger—we drowned. They were ob-
served by the crew of another vessel to get into her
boat, but so instantaneously did vessel fill that they had
not time to cast off the boat before she sank, drawing
the boat with her crew and the girl after her. The For-
titude, of Bridgewater, bore down to the sinking vessel,
but it was too late to render any assistance. The
ill-
fated sloop is stated to have been- a very old vessel, and
wholly unfit for sea. The master has left a wife and
family to lament his loss.
. _

BaITISR ccordinary to a Parliamentary
return, printed on Friday, the estimated number of
volumes now in the library of the-British Museum is
510,110. The number of volumes of each of three sets
of the supplementary catalogue (exclusive of three sets
of four volumes each, of indexes to long headings)
is 305. Each set of 305 volumes contains 220,789
titles, caculated up to the 24th of June last. These
titles are estimated to refer to about 135,000 volumes
of printed books. About 100,000 volutrieF, in the
library before 1839, are supposed to remain to be
done. Titles for the whole of them are, however,
entered in the old catalogues. Further information is
given in the return (obtained by Mr. Bell, M.P.) of the
progress of the catalogues in the British Museum. It
appears that the additions since 1838 are catalogued and
entered either in the general or in the supplementary
catalogue up to eight or ten weeks ago, with a trifling
exception. The supplementary catalogue (Answer
No. 2), contains the titles of books added to the library
since about 1846.
THE MEASLES.—The two sons of the King of the
Belgians, the Duke de Brabant and the Count do
Flandres, are both confined to their apartments at the
Palace of Laeken by the measles, but the malady pre-
sents no symptoms to excite uneasiness.