The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-15 00:00:00

NEWGATE AND LEADENHALL.

Since our last report these markets have been well sup-
plied with each kind of meat, in which a steady business
is doing, as follows :

Per Sibs by the carcase.
s. d. s. d.
Beef, inferior 210 3 4
Do., middling 3 6 3 8
Do., prime large 3 8 3 10
Do., do. small 3lO 4 0
Pork, large 3 4 4 P
Lamb .

s. d. i. d.
Mutton, Inferior 3 8 3 10
Do., middling 4 0 4 6
Do., prime 4 8 410
Veal 3 10 5 2
Pork, small 4 4 4 8
. 5s Od to 6s 4d.

BOROUGH HOP.

There is a fair amount of business doing in fine hops of
last year's growth, at full prices. In other kinds, very
little is doing. We have had no imports from abroad
since Monday last. The quotations are as follows
Mid and East Kent pockets, 5/. 5s to 81. Os; Weald
of Kent ditto, 51. Os to 61. lOs ; Sussex ditto, 51. 5s
to 6/. 6s per cwt.

BOROUGH AND SPITALFIELDS.
Since Monday last, the arrival of potatoes, coastwise and
by railway, have been very moderate—the imports have
been confined to 90 tons from Rotterdam. For most
kinds the demand is steady, and the quotations to-day
are as follows :—York Regents, 145 s to 145 ; Scotch ditto,
125 s to 155 s ; ditto cups, 110 to 1355; and foreign, 110 to
120 s per ton.

WOOL.
The public sales of colonial wool have commenced
heavily, and prices show a decline compared with the pre-
vious auctions of from a halfpenny to lid Ports. The
following quotations have been realised :
p
Clean sheep's, is 3d to is 9id ; tegs, is 9}d; scoured,
is 2d to is 3d ; mixed, lld ; damaged, 9d ; hoggetts,
is 5d ; lambs', is 7d to 2soAd ; pieces, lid to la 4d ; grease,
9id ; part ditto, ls. Cape—Scoured sheep's, Bdto ls lid ;
damaged, Bid to lld ; black, 7d to is Od ; handwashed,
lld to is ; damaged, 8d to 9id. Sydney---Clean sheep's,
is 3d to is 4id ; scoured, Is 6d to is 60. South
Australian—Clean sheep's, ls ld to ls 4d ; lambs, is 5d ;
grease, Bid to 10d. Van Dieman's Land—Clean sheep's,
lld to is 6d ; skin, 114 d to is 23d ; skin handwashed,
is lid to is 5d : grease, 7d per lb. The private market is
dull, and lower. Last week's imports were 9 bales from
Leghorn, 1,020 from Launceston, 128 from Bilbao, 25
from Buenos Ayres, 25 from Alexandria, and 50
from Bombay. The prices of English wool remain
as follows : South-down tegs and half-bred hogs,
is Oid to is ld, South-down ewes, clothing, is ld to is
lid, do. combing fleeces, is ld, Kent fleeces, is ld to
is 3d, combing skin, lld to ls, flannel wool, lld to is 3d,
blanket wool, 7d to is ld, Leicester fleeces, is to is ld
per lb.

Phemie Millar. By the Author of "The Kinnears.'
3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
The interest which unquestionably appertains to
this story does not spring from variety of incident
or change of scene. On the contrary, for the
greater part of the two first volumes, there is
rather a paucity in striking events, the narrative
being the daily chronicle of the family life of the
Millars. The merit of the book arises from its re-
semblance to truth, from its faithful portraiture of
home life, and home joys and sorrows. In the
latter part of the story the interest is greatly in-
creased, and the general purpose of the author more
developed. Mr. Millar, the father of the heroine,
is a rough, overbearing sort of man in manners and
bearing; although he reallypossesses great affection
for his family, he renders them all unhappy from
his want of forbearance and sympathy. He was
continually exasperating his eldest son, Bob Mil-
lar, until at last the storm, so long impending over
the unfortunate family, burst forth suddenly, and
the hope and expectation of their hearts disappeared
from them. They disputed on a day which "was
memorable in the chronicles of Craiginch, as that
on which a small party of emigrants were to take
leave of their friends in train for the Australian
bush, and a whale ship was to set sail for the Northern
Ocean." Bob, driven to desperation by continued
injustice and persecution, left suddenly in the
twilight, none knew whither. However, all
satisfied themselves it must be to Australia that he
had departed, and waited, but in vain, fur tidings
of him. Phemie, the heroine, is a strange character
—not an unnatural one, but a very unusual one.
She was not understood by her own family, and
consequently not treated with that consideration
and indulgence that her nervous and excitable dis-
position demanded. She pined under a " restless
yearning for that intense entire sympathy which
poets sing, and young enthusiasts deify." It is
added that she was excusable in part for her de-
sire, as she was alone in her poetic nature. She
was always " hearing voices and seeing sights," to
which the rest of the family were deaf and blind.
After many day-dreams, and fantastic vagaries of
the imagination, Phemie at last attached her way-
ward affections, and devoted her fluctuating feel-
ings to a young aspirant for renown, born of
very humble parents, Patrick Hay soon became re-
markable for skill In painting. He was received
in the best society of the place, and thus introduced
to Phemie. However, her parentsand officious elder
sister did not approve of the connexion, and after
some scenes of a painful nature the engagement was
annulled. Phemie did not feel at all reconciled to a
calm course of proceeding; she was constituted like
her eldest brother, and her nature seemed to urge
her to defiance, while duty counselled a patient en-
deavour for a time at least. Her only consolation
was that the slighted object of her attachment
might so distinguish himself as to become an ho-
noured guest, where he was now rejected in dis-
grace. Her consternation was great when she
heard that Pat Hay had abandoned everything,
and prepared to set out on a whaling ex-
pedition. She wrote to him, beseeching him by
everything he held sacred and dear not to give up
all the fair promises and disappoint the bright hopes
of his life for the sake of one disappointment. In
answer, Hay declared that he had an object in
thus transporting himself, and that the pursuit of
his art itself urged him in his course. "He was a
sated guest at an exhausted feast, and the soil was
not to lie fallow that it might send forth a truer
crop." He further said that he looked to the north
seas as a region of romance. In conclusion, he
alluded to the probability of his seeing her again.
" If I be not permitted to return to Craiginch, do
not recal my image with pain. You will have fond
solemn chambers in your heart where you will
retain the past, and where I will dwell with Bob
and Colin. Add my name to theirs when you
kneel, as I see you nightly, beside your bed, with
folded hands and eyes closed on this world's
vanities. Commit my body to the waves we
have watched together, and my soul to
our God and Saviour." The perusal of this
touching letter was a sad task to Phemie,
but it was only the prelude to darker events
in the future. A long time passed, no news
came from Bob, no tidings were received of
Pat Hay, and, last of all afflictions, the favourite
of the family, Colin, drooped and died. At last,
when all hope was fading, even from the enthu-
siastic heroine of the story, a stranger entered at
the twilight hour. He was Bob, the long-lost and
deeply lamented son and brother, come not from
the scorching sun of Australia, but from the ice-
bound shores of Greenland, where he had been
closed in by icebergs, while they had fancied him
forgetting them in the golden valleys of the New
World. That was Phemie's triumph. In the first
jubilee of the meeting never expected to take,
place on earth, and in the fulness of joy all were
exulting in, her brother related to them how it
was Patrick Hay who had tracked them to their
gelid fastnesses, and that the man who had been driven
from the Millars' home had brought back from a
lingering death, the hope and pride, the only son
of that home. " I was glad to see you all to-night,
but I was more glad to see Hay's face in the North
Seas." The reconciliation that followed may be
imagined, and the transition of the long-suffering
heroine from sorrow to gladness. In the sunshine
and splendour of her now happy days much of the
strange and unnatural in the past vanished from
her manners and mind, but there remained some-
thing original and something remarkable in her
gentle and gifted nature. The final impression
stamped on her character by the lights and shades
through which she passed is thus depicted :
"Phemie has lost much of her individuality, she has
shared a common fate, and in her true love which has
struggled into a known authorised honourable fact, the
self-absorbed, unpractical, bewildered being has melted
away among a crowd of young innocent loving hearts,
as happily drawn out of themselves, and as proudly sunk
into another existence as her own, only individualised by
the dreamy depths, the misty heights, the conscious
freedom and gladness of her genius share. Ah, yes,
Phemie Millar has in many respects ceased to live an
existence apart from others, but she cannot lose the pure
gold ; although the dross of her nature fall away, she
can never become an ordinary self-satisfied matter-of-
fact girl. By the keenness and constancy of her joys
and sorrows—by the liberality and charity of her views
—by the thoughtful analysis which gives her a double
experience of life—by the rich fancy which sheds upon
pleasure, with a full yet controlled hand, a shower of
pearly dew, and broods over pain with an exceeding
humility and tenderness until the sting of anguish be-
come stilled into the repose of resignation, by all these
tokens lift up a crown, not of mere glossy green laurel,
but with the white stars of the amaranth shining through
its dark leaves, and whispering not alone of human love
and human fame, but of Heaven's truth and Heaven's
blessedness, and place it on Phemie Millar's head so full
of wonderful, youthful wisdom, most unique and pleasant
o meet with."

Manual of the Law of Maritime Warfare. By
Wm. Hazlitt and Henry Philip Roche, Esqrs.,
Barristers-at-Law. London : Stevens and. Nor-
ton ; Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark ; Dublin :
Hodges and Smith.
This is an exceedingly well-timed publication. At
a period when the portals of the Temple of Janus,
which for forty long years had been rusting on their
hinges, when the combined fleets of France and
England occupythe Euxine and the Baltic—usually
little better than Russian Lakes—and when ves-
sels are seized by our cruisers and brought into our
ports for condemnation as prizes—the law of mari-
time warfare will be eagerly inquired into, not
merely by professional men, but by every person
who is interested in the trade and commerce of
the country, or who has friends or relatives who
may be concerned as captors or victims in the
numerous and complicated transactions that must
necessarily arise during the conflict. Full infor-
mation will be more eagerly sought after in conse-
quence of the laudable efforts made by the Western
Powers to divest " Grim-visaged war" of a portion
of its horrors. To the honour of England and of
France they have cordially concurred in this noble
undertaking. They have indignantly repudiated.
the semi-piracy of privateerism, and. thus inflicted
a death-blow on that atrocious practice. They
have exhibited a degree of liberality previously
unknown in their dealings with neutrals—a course
of policy which, it is to be hoped, will prove as
wise as it is generous, as expedient as it is equit-
able. For the present, at least, we cannot come
into collision with other powers on the question of
pressing British subjects from under their flags.
We do not take them from our own merchant ves-
sels or our own ports. We cannot create heart-
burnings by undue interference with vessels sail-
ing under the flags of other nations, for "to
preserve the commerce of neutrals from all un-
necessary obstruction, her Majesty is willing, for
the present, to waive a part of the belligerent rights
appertaining to her by the law of nations !"
The recent orders in Council to a certain extent
constitute a new maritime code. It is very desir-
able to see ,the extent to which, according to the
jus gentium, we have relinquished our strict rights,
the
and to ascertain exactly the present state of
law. On this duty Messrs. Hazlitt and Roche
entered, and it is but an act of simple justice
to these learned gentlemen to state that they have
most efficiently and ably performed the arduous
task. That they have displayed great industry is
manifest from the time at which they have brought
forth their valuable work. That they have evinced
sound discretion will be equally, perceptible to any
one who glances over its pages. They have alike
avoided sins of commission and omission. They
have steered very clear of " book-making." They
might have inserted many matters from which they
have cautiously abstained. By so doing they might
have welled the bulk aid enhanced the price of