The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-23 00:00:00

UNITED STATES.

The mail by the steamer Arabia was delivered in
the City yesterday morning, and the contents of the
letters and papers now received are of more than
ordinary interest. Speculation in the stock mar-
kets, which for some time past has assumed some-
thing of the character of a mania, has at length
been checked to some extent. Business had sud-
denly stopped, and prices had as suddenlydeclined.
The money market immediately became very tight,
and the rates of exchange had fallen. After a slight
reaction, the panic had again commenced with
greater violence, and a further fall in quotations
took place with numerous forced sales of stock. On
this subject the New York Herald observes :

" The movements in financial affairs during the past
week have not been of a character to sustain publiC con-
fidence ; but, on the contrary, they have had a tendency
to destroy the speculative bubble which was becoming
so rapidly inflated. They have opened the eyes of the
community to the rottenness of our banks, to the enor-
mous expansion of their lines of discount, to the precari-
ous position of the entire credit system of the country,
and speculators may well pause in their mad career.
Very few appear to have the most remote idea of the
immense amount of public indebtedness. For several
years we have been going on piling up millions upon
millions of liabilities, until we have got a load that may
crush every important interest of the country to the
earth.
" It will be borne in mind that we have for some time
anticipated a revulsion in our money market, and that
we have reason to apprehend serious financial embar-
rassments, for which there can be no remedy other than
the sad process of extensive contraction. When we re-
flect on the immense expansion of credits, in real estate,
railroad bonds, and bank facilities, which now im-
measurably exceed that of 1836—when everything pre-
sents the most flattering appearance of the greatest pro-
sperity—the opportunity is afforded us to look with
some distrust upon the permanency of our present posi-
tion. It is said that we are in the almost daily receipt
of millions of gold from California and that therefore
we can sustain any amount of credit ; but when we re-
flect that this system of expansion has already been
pushed to thousands of millions of indebtedness, in the
form and shape of credits, which, becoming suspected,
can turn to no support independent of that on which it
has already been erected, cautious and prudent capi-
talists have some signs of the future for fearful appre-
hension."
This journal attributes the crisis to the unre-
strained and unlimited amount of capital embarked
in the formation of Banking Companies, which, by
an excess of credit, necessarily creates unhealthy
speculations which sooner or latter end in ruin. It
remarks as follows :
"At the present moment we have more than double
of what existed in 1836, and which proved so fatal in
1837, when the banks, with almost one accord, suspended
specie payments, carrying through the preparatory con-
traction ruin and dismay. Our banks have already ex-
hibited signs of distress, and had to seek relief from
those who were, in self-defence, compelled to yield assist-
ance, by culling from its discounted paper the most ap-
parently responsible securities. This is not the only in-
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action or intelligent confidence. If the news hereafter
London should exhibit a greater
the fatal end we anticipateost fearful consequences.
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L cautious contraction.

DISTRESSING SUICIDE AT BURNLEY.—On Saturday
morning last, Mr. Willis, clerk in the Craven Bank, at
Burnley, left the bank about nine o'clock, apparently as
well and cheerful as he had been for some time pre-
viously. Not returning so soon as he was expected,
diligent search and inquiry were made for him during
the remainder of the day, but no intelligence could be
obtained as to the direction he had taken. On Sunday
morning, a man who was gathering nettles in a field
near Bank Hall, observed an open book lying near the
door of an outhouse, and, on looking in, saw Mr. Willis
lying on the floor with his throat cut, and quite dead.
A loaded pistol, a razor, and some poison were found
upon his person. Mr. Willis had been suffering for a
considerable period from severe organic disease of the
bowels, accompanied with extreme depression of spirits,
and it is believed that he committed the rash act in a :1t
of temporary insanity.—Preston Pilot.
BORNEo.—Recent advices from Borneo Proper men-
tion that Pangeran Mumeen had quietly succeeded to
the throne, and had been prayed for at the mosque as
Sultan Abdul Mumeen. His accession had given very
general satisfaction, and he had received the congratula-
tions of the British authorities at Labuan,