The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-24 00:00:00

LIEUTENANT PERRY.

The letter just published from Mr. Perry, describing
the investment he had contemplated of the funds lately
subscribed as a testimonial to him, will cause the contri-
butors to feel great satisfaction that his dranght was
not honoured, and that the amount is still safe. There
is nothing in this communication discreditable to Mr.
Perry, but it shows that, so far as his pecuniary
interests are concerned, he has fallen in with
advisers who might expeditiously ruin any Man
inexperienced in financial affairs. It appears that
he was desirous of placing the sum subscribed for
bins, together with the proceeds of his commission,
amounting together to 2,0001., in an undertaking called
the Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railway, realis-
ing, according to the representations of a friend, "a
partner in one of the first banking-houses in Paris," an
annual return of from 6to 8 per cent. The Paris banker
may,have had the best intentions, but, if Mr. Perry has
gained any solid information about the scheme in ques-
tion, it will be new not only to the capitalists gene-
rally of London and Paris,. but also to those of New
York. In a, careful map published last year by the
editor of the American, Railroad ..roamed of all the
railways in the United States, the line in question
Was not marked even as having been projected, and
from the advices received month after month since that
,date, showing a ruinous fall in every description of rail-
way investment, the public are iu a position to judge
how far any proposals for a long line in Texas are likely
to have been:entertained. At present any person desi-
rous of-investing in American railroads may purchase
stocks or bonds of the oldest and best conducted
companies at prices that will not only yield .6 or 8
per cent., but from 10 to 20 per cent. This depreciation
has resulted from the malversations of the most promi-
nent persons in that department of enterprise, and the
discovery that for years past dividends have been de-
clared in a► vast number of instances without any re-
ference to the cost •f working or maintenanoe, the
funds for such distributions being regularly derived
from the unlimited issue of mortgage bonds, until the
war rendered them unsaleable in England or on the con-
tinent. Under these circumstances an announcement of
an intended purchase of Poyais bonds would not seem
snore extraordinary than that of shares in a Texan rail-
way. The financial history of Texas, from its first sepa-
ration from Mexico and its subsequent annexation to the
American Union, has. been one of notorious default,
and her territory in the first instance was peopled
largely, net only by planters and their slaves
from the repudiating States of Arkansas and Mis-
sissippi, but by a large number of persons who had found
it expedient, for other reasons than inclination, to depart
eves from those communities. That the country is in a
certain sense becoming rapidly prosperous is, of course,
an inevitable consequence of American' energy, but to
the European world the chief advices of its existence
still come in the shape of border conflicts with the
Mexicans ; and .it may be apprehended that if Mr.
Perry, a month after making the proposed investment,
were to change his mind and wish his money back, he
would find that, whether he might offer his 2,000/. stock
on this side, or on the Exchanges of Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia, he would not meet With an in-
dividual who would be willing to buy it of him at a
shilling in the pOund.---L.Tintes City lirticle,