The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-01 00:00:00

astonishing results ?

But it is not to gold only that the rapidly-
increasing population of Australia may look for-
ward for permanent, and perhaps unprecedented,
prosperity. The coal fields are no less important
than the gold fields. The " black diamond" pro-
mises to yield almost as extraordinary profits as
any " nugget vein " that has yet been discovered.
It is to her coal fields that the British empire
owes her present proud position that the
sovereign of * a few small islands in the
Western Ocean has been enabled to control
the destinies of hundreds of millionss of

human beings, and to acquire dominions on
which the " sun ne'er sets." The extraordinary
-value of one portion of these dominions is nocw be-
coming apparent. The gold and the copper of
Australia will insure its material wealth--the
coal fields of Australia will enable its inhabitants

to develope all its miraculous resources, and to en-
sure inexhaustible opportunities for the profitable
employment of capital and labour. The A u.stra-
Han Coal Company is already in the :field,
and will reap the legitimate benefits of its
priority. Others may also spring into existence.
All judiciously-devised and honestly-cond cicted
projects of the kind cannot fail to prove rern une-
rative, although, of course, on the well-k n_own
principle of first come first served, the earliest
will have the greatest advantages. One thing at
least is certain, that the prospects of Aus trona
are more auspicious than those of any other
country hitherto known.

Farringdon-street promises at last to riva I the
celebrity of St. Paul's Churchyard. Hitherto,
the latter has been regarded as the central point
from which the City of London- has radiated.
Henceforth, the former may aspire to the digndty of
being regarded as the nucleus of all the e n ergy
or vitality of the British capital. For, happily,
we are at length permitted to regard as definititvely
settled, that magnificent scheme which will, .o n its
completion, render the site of the Old Fleet Pri-
son the core of the vast system of ,railroads inter-
secting with its iron network the provinces of
Great Britain. After the decision arrived at by
the Common Council on Thursday, we may, with-
out any overweening confidence, count upon, the
feasibility of the enterprise, and, in doing so, we
would here at once most cordially proffer our e on-
gratulations to Mr. CHARLES PEARSON, its origi-
nator. That gentleman, more fortunate than niost
intelligent innovators,who are in advance of their
age, has lived to witness the approval, and wo can
now add, moreover, the acceptance of his e xtra-
ordinary project by the metropolitan municipality.
Whatever annoyances, and vexations, and dis ap-
pointments he may have heretofore experienced. in
the opposition displayed towards his favourite un-
dertaking, must at -this moment, wo feel oonvil iced,
be considered by him as to the full compenna ted
by the before-mentioned really memorable re Bcdu-
tion. It will have been perceived by the interest-
ing analysis of the division in the Court of Com-
mon Council given with copious detail in our
impression of yesterday, that the conclusion Ar-
rived at by the rulers of the great municipality-i s in
no respect either dubious or superficial in its c ha-
racter. On the contrary, it was arrived at by an
overwhelming majority, and that majority like-
wise pronouncing its opinion, remember, after the
most mature deliberation It rejected the adverse
Report of the Committee on City Improvemen ts,
and it did this through the adoption by eiglnLy-
five against sixty-nine, of Deputy BENNOCH'S *very
admirable " Amendment." That amendment
provoked by a blundering motion complacently
and unconditionally agreeing to the report of
the good old leaden-headed committee—appears
to us altogether too important not to be
here reiterated verbatim et literatim; suggesting as
it does, rather may we observe, now deciding as it
does, " that the report of the Improvement Com-
mittee be referred back to the Committee, with. in-
structions to confer with the Government on the
whole of the projected improvements in Holborn-
valley and Farringdon-street, in order to ascertain
if Government will co-operate with the Corpora-
tion in accomplishing the whole of the plan pro-
posed, and that in the meantime the Bill now
pefore Parliament be suspended." Nothing could
be better than this, because nothing could be
more explicit, and, at the same moment, while
signally resolute,' altogether devoid of rashness or
precipitation. Harm cannot possibly come of it
to any one, even under the most unpropitious dr-
c tances, seeing that it is virtually a demand
for what ?—a more carefully elaborated investi-
gation,
and an investigation, too, carried on. in
conjunction with, and under the sheltering infL u-
ence of, her MAJESTY'S Government. So—the
Report of the Committee is referred back to -the
Committee ! And the Corporation is to seek the
co-operation of the Government in carrying out
the whole of the projected enterprise ! Such is
the gist of Deputy BENNOCH'S Amendment. It
constitutes, in other words, the approval and
acceptance of Mr. PEARSON'S splendid plan for
the construction of a grand Central Railway
Terminus. It is pleasant, after all that has oc-
curred in this matter, to bear in recollection that
the decision thus arrived at, was one pronounced
at no hole-and-corner meeting by two or three
tailors of Tooley-street hobnobbing with his grace
Duke HUMPHREY. It was the deliberate conclu-
sion formed, in fact, by 154, out of the aggregate
of 232, individuals, making up the sum total of
the Corporation. Eighteen, out of the 26 Alder- ,
men of London, abstained from voting at all : the
seven who took part in the division being thus
opposed to each other—one against, and six in
favour, of the amendment. Again, out of the
206 Commoners of the municipality, the propor-
tion present on Thursday were thus arrayed in
the division—sixty-six against, and seventy-seven
for, the amendment. These, with the Aldermen
already mentioned, and the two leaders on each side,
constituted th© 85 pros and 69 cons, leaving to
the former a clear majority of sixteen ! Invidious
allusions we are by no means solicitous to
introduce in the consideration of this very
singular division, but one circumstance we are
irresistibly impelled to particularise, namely,
that the gentleman who had the peculiar infelicity
of being the solitary alderman ranked among the
antagonists of the amendment was Alderman
CUBITT, of the Ward of Langbourne ! Opposed
to him, however, as supporters of Deputy BEN-
NOM, were six others, whose names deserve to
be more distinctly specified, those six being Alder-
men
FINNIS, of the Tower ; FAREBROTHER, of
Lime-street ; DUKE, of Farringdon Without ;
SIDNEY, of Billingsgate ; LAWRENCE, of Bread-
street ; and HOOPER, of Queenhithe. Encouraged
by these, and by so many other members of the
Corporation, the noble project of Mr. CHAS.
PEARsort for a railway terminus in the heart of

the metropolis may at length be regarded as in a
fair way to its ultimate, and let us hope, more-
over, its speedy realisation.
Philosophers have expatiated upon the truth,
that the most delightful sense of existence is that
derivable from a consciousness of daily improve-
ment—lingering with a sort of tenderness over
the pleasure of that.suavissima vita, Indies sentire
+se fieri meliorem. As with individuals so with
states, as with states so even with municipalities.
What though a learned wag once enunciated
that a corporation had neither a body to be
kicked nor a soul to be damned ! Certainly if
this be the happiest condition of life at once
for states, municipalities, and individuals, if the
sense of daily improvement be of all the most
delectable luxury of existence, the municipality
of the British capital has, of all such bodies in
the wide world, the largest, and therefore the
most enviable, capacity for future enjoyment.
Here, for example, is Mr. CHAS. PEARSON'S
famous scheme by way of appropriate illustration.
What a lesson to after times, when the Central
Railway Terminus shall be at last really completed
in Farringdon-street2--what a lesson to after
times will be visible in the site of its foundation.
There—instead of that notorious structure where
Poverty was punished as a Crime by long years
of blighting and hopeless imprisonment, there—
instead of the structure celebrated in the fictions
of shrewd TOBIAS SMOLLETT and of gentle-hearted
CHARLES DICKENS, there—instead of dungeons
for misfortune—will have started forth a
fabric such as will tend more than any
other ever before built within the boun-

daries of the , metropolis to diffuse comfort,
and wealth, and happiness among all classes of its
inhabitants. It will enable those who have

hitherto been compelled to reside in squalid gar-
rets, in unwholesomely populous thoroughfares, to-
dwell, at once for economy and for pleasure,
among the suburban meadows of Surrey and Mid
dlesex. It will thereby materially diminish the
amount of the annual mortality—almost as much,
we feel assured, as the closing of our intramural
graveyards. It will impart, in the most effectual
manner, the glory and the bloom of the rus in urbe
to London ; for it will render its citizens the ha-
bitual associates of Nature beyond the limits of
what has been expressively termed the " brick-
and-mortar invasion." Fleet Ditch may then be
transformed into a channel conducting the poor
clerk and the small tradesman, day by day, from
the desk and from the counter to the hedgerow
and the hayfield. There is mention made in one
of MOORE'S recently published letters, of a
court-project once upon a time matter of town
talk, by which it was proposed that a villa should
.be built upon Primrose Hill for the delectation of
" FUM the Fourth," then Prince Regent of Eng-

land, a noble street or aveitue, " straight as the
crow flies," connecting that pastoral retreat of
Royalty in the unclassic neighbourhood of Chalk
Farm with the town palace in St. JAMES'S Park,
the then gorgeous and epicurean Carlton House.
A more bewitching scheme than this is surely
that Central Railway Terminus enterprise by
which it is proposed to give the toiling
population of the capital the benefit of an escape
into the green fields, away from all the din and
dust, and squalor, all the pestilential atmosphere
and deteriorating influences by which they have
heretofore boon uninterruptedly surrounded. The
metropolis will in this manner be effectually ven-
tilated. Its impurities will be diminished by the
residence of so large a portion of the citizens out-
side its more crowded localities. For these ines-

timable advantages the people of London will be
directly indebted to the ingenious philanthropy
and unflinching public spirit of Mr. CHARLES
PEARSON. Immediately the citizens of the me-
tropolis will be indebted to him, mediately to the
intelligent majority of the members of the Corpo-

ration. It remains now that the scheme originated
by Mr. PEARSON, and adopted by the municipality,

should receive the active and earnest support of
her MA JESTY' S Government. Let that support be
yielded at once and with cordiality, and the enter-
prise will not continue much longer denied the
opportunity of realisation. A Central Railway
Terminus will then rapidly spring into existence,
crowning those wonderful labours which may be
said to have concentrated upon the capital of
England the iron-roads of the steam-engine, and
.the metallic threads of the electric telegraph.

It is very unpleasant for one Member of Par-
liament to pick holes in another's electioneering
manners, and very awkward work to get bribe-
takers to confess their delinquencies ; it is, there-
fore, wonderful that our Election Committees
elicit what they do. These chance nuggets show
what rich diggings there must be in every case
for Parliamentary Commissioners. Indeed, by
boring through the evidence of the " sitting
Members," and occasionally that of the defeated
candidates, it is proved that glorious deposits of
sterling gold have filtered through them to the
electoral strata immediately below. At Bridg-
north, for instance—a nice little borough, regis-
tering only 717 voters, though returning as many
Senators as Middlesex or the West Riding—it
cost Mr. CADOGAN 5501., neat election expenses,
to lose ; i. e., nearly 2/. per man on his 284 sup-
porters. Mr. ECCLES did not get off so cheaply
at Blackburn ; skilful cradling and washing of
the electoral ore there ought to find at least
2,0001., for the Hon. Member signed a cheque to
that amount : that comes to 31. Bs. 11 id. per
head. Rather dear ; but then he got in, and was
in till the 24th of this month. There is a mys-
terious question about his son's signing another
cheque for 5001. of the precious metal, though
Mr. ECCLES had not heard of it before. Proba-
bly Commission diggers would find that
besides ; nearly a pound a man more on
the 580 voters ! Where the gold went to Mr.
ECCLES cannot conjecture ; he only knows the
whereabouts of five shillings, which he once gave
to some drunken non-electors to get rid of them.
Things did not go quite so smoothly at Clitheroe.
There bludgeons, and "poachers" to wield them,
seemed to be most in request. There was little
fighting, however, for Mr. WILSON, like Lord
PALMERSTON in the Don PACIFICO business,
thought that a show of force which should make
opposition folly, was the truest humanity.
" There were lots of rough fellows about the town
on ASPINALL'S side. There were stick-men on
both sides, but there was not much fighting, for
WILSON'S party were too strong." Mr. WILSON.
would certainly be the man to keep the peace of
Europe. We cannot yet calculate the bounty
offered, but he appears to have obtained his militia
very easily. One order for 300 of the best fight-
ing men and poaChers was not executed ; but
2,000 ! at least colliers and operatives mustered
at the " Craven Heifer," and drank amongst them
1301. worth of Lancashire Falernian. No doubt
it was better for ASPINALL'S men to keep their
sticks quiet. Like PHILIP of Macedon, however,
his phalanx was by no means Mr. WILSON'S sole
reliance ;he knew the potency of gold. A Mr.
TAYLOR, a tradesman, who held out rather awk-
wardly, received 301., his vote having been
first openly recorded.
The wife of Mr. WHEL-
LEY, one of the
agents,
tlocks up the money in a
box; she gives TAYLOR the key and retains the box.e
polling-booth ; he returns, and is al-
wTAhYitLeoaßt
tghoees and gives a receipt in black and
al-
lowed to take out the money and walk off ; and
he does walk off with it, and takes it to one of
Mr. ASPINALL'S clerks. It would seem he was
ed before the
h
e election,tatthe
pbuaytinthgeopffroaofgrolifdgberibineclirrry, and the proof
ballot would have prevented it, are equally clear.
There seems to have been some electoral virtue
after all, of a certain kind, at Clitheroe. RICHARD
ADDLE, a farmer, was offered 401. by WlLsoN's
agent, but refused it, and voted for ASPINALL.
CHRISTOPHER HOLDGATE, also a farmer, and tenant
of Mr. ASPINALL, would have given his vote to
Mr. WILsoN for 1501., but as they offered him only
1001., the undervalued man gave his vote to his
landlord. Vast as the demands, too, upon the
Craven Heifer, heavy drafts were made elsewhere.
SUSAN WINDLE testified that, after her husband
had been canvassed by WILSON, they kept open
house till the election, and a great deal of beer
was drunk, which nobody paid for. RICHARD
WILSON, another beer-shop keeper, did the same.
In addition to lots of beer ho furnished 120 lbs.