The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-17 00:00:00

tritning

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1849,

The directors of the South-Eastern Railway Com-
pany have, in compliance with the general expecta-
tion, followed the example afforded by the directors
of the other great railway companies, and published
a statement of the position and prospects of their com-
pany. The proprietors are thus furnished with de•
tailed accounts of the engagements and liabilities of
the concern, together with the expenditure that has
already taken place, the length of the lines and
branches already opened for traffic, and of those in
progress of construction, together with the amount
that it is calculated will be required for the
due completion thereof, and also for supplying
Locomotives and carrying stock to meet the re-
quirements of the new lines when in full
working condition. From these data the parties
interested will be enabled themselves to estimate the
probable amount of revenue that will he obtained
when the additional outlay has taken place, and the
whole works are made available.

The directors do not enter into 'calculations to
show the probable amount of dividend that may
henceforward be paid. They speak, however, in
hopeful terms thereof. In , one part they state that
they " are satisfied that, with reasonable skill and
economy in the management of the company's affairs,
there is every ground for belief that, on the comple-
tion of the South-Eastern lines of railway, in
progress of construction, and a fair develop-
' went of their traffic—of the Continental traffic, and
that of the lines already in use—the Company
will possess sources of revenue adequate to secure
to the proprietors permanently a satisfactory divi-
dend," and in another, that the proprietors " will pro-
bably arrive at the conclusion that the permanent
dividend to be derived from their property is not
likely to be less than six per cent.," and that " if
they have not erred in the anticipations on which
their original investment was made, still greater ad-
vantages are to be expected." When it is consi-
dered that the South-Eastern Company have hitherto
been enabled to keep up their dividend, when
most others had to announce considerable re-
ductions, and also that many lines have recently,
been opened on the Continent, and are now in pro-
gress of construction, and the additional facilities
thereby afforded to travellers to all parts of Europe,
all of which must prove singularly advantageous to
the South-Eastern Company, which, from "its natural
position, holds the key to the land traffic passing
from Europe into Great Britain," of which it cannot be
dispossessed—it will not, we presume, be supposed
that the directors have indulged in too sanguine an-
ticipations of their future prospects. If, then, they
are correct in this respect, and that six per cent. only
be paid on the capital stock of the company, it will
be seen how admirable an investment may be made at I
present prices, when the original shares of the com-
pany with 331. 2s. 4d. paid thereon can be obtained
for 251., or 251. 105. each, or, in other words, when
about eight per cent. can be procured on the amount
invested.
The directors indulge in some natural felicitations,
when they state, that " under their management it
has been the good fortune of the Company to escape
the evil effects of competition, imprudent amalga-
mations, and a reduction of tolls, which would have
made the attainment of prosperity! barely pfac-
ticable." They might also have congratulated the
shareholders on the fact that they have not been
obliged to abandon any of the works for which they
had obtained powers. There is, therefore, in this
respect no useless expenditure of capital to be de-
plored. It is true that they were compelled to
submit to heavy Parliamentary and legal expenses;
but these were occasioned by contests forced upon
them by the aggression of others, and in maintaining
the integrity of their line, which thereby obtained the
undisputed possession of what may be termed, par

excellence, the South-Eastern district, comprising the
entire of the county of Kent, with its rich and fertile
wolds, and a great portion of Sussex—a possession re-
specting which there is little prospect of any future

litigation.
The lines of railway and of branches now used for
traffic extend in the whole to 163 miles and 47
chains of railway, "including therein the Greenwich
Railway and the Canterbury and Whitstable Rail-
way, held on lease, and also 13 miles and 22 chains
of the Brighton Railway, over which the South-
Eastern Company has, by agreement with the Lon-
don, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, a right to
run toll free." " The Greenwich Railway is held on
lease by the company for 999 years, from the Ist
January, 1845. The rent payable this year is
40,0001., and it will increase at the rate of 1,0001.
per annum until the year 1854, when the maximum
yearly rent of 45,0001. will be payable."
The Reading, Guildford, and Reigate Company is
agreed to be leased in perpetuity from the time of
the completion of the works, which is to take place in
August next. The rent is to be payable at the rate
of 5i per cent, per annum on the cost, which is
limited to 60,0001. ; the rental will therefore be
33,0001. per annum.
The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is held
on lease for the term of fourteen years from the Ist
September, 1844. The rent payable for the remain-
der of the term is 3,0001. per annum, in addition to the
interest on the mortgage debt, 2,2111. ls. per annum,
in all 5,2111. ls. The South-Eastern Company has
the option of purchasing the line before the 29th Sep-
tember, 1852, on payment of 60,0001., and on
assuming the mortgage debt of 44,2211., a privilege
which will doubtless be acted on. The above are the
rents, amounting in the whole t o 83,2111. Is., for
which the company will be liable after 1854, when the
sum of the several rents have reached their maximum.
When the several works now in course of con-
struction are completed, the length of railway under
the control of the company will amount to 296 miles
and 47 chains.
In opposition to this there has been expended since
the 31st December, 1848, the sum of 7,890,5321., and

there requires still to be expended the further sum of
1,241,6241. There has been a loss on the issue of original
shares of 244,504/. ; interest is also to be paid to certain
proprietors after the rate of five per cent. per annum
until their shares become entitled to dividend, which
it is calculated will amount to 205,6161. ; 138,054/_
has also been invested to meet disputed accounts,
which it is supposed will be fully liquidated by that
amount. On the other side, credit is taken for sur-
plus land and property, which will be available to the
value of 253,371/.; the ultimate capital will therefore
amount to 9,466,3601.
The share capital already paid up amounts to
7,191,4231., the calls in course of payment to 125,160/.,
and the calls yet to be made to 1,214,417/.,
making a total share capital of 8,521,000/.
and an existing mortgage debt of 1,201,2271., leaving
mortgage powers still unexecuted to the extent of
231,326/.
The balance-sheet of assets and liabilities shows
liabilities amounting to 2,647,8671. 6s. 6d., which in-
cludes the entire of the estimates for works in pro-
gress of construction—for locomotives and carrying
stock, for interest to proprietors of No. 3 and 4 shares,
and also the mortgage debt of 1,201,2271. falling due
from 1849 to 1856, which is fully balanced by the
amount of assets available.
On the whole the position of the company is more fa-
vourable than could have been anticipated, and affords a
fitting subject of congratulation to the parties interested
The statement furnishes an additional evidence (if
any were required) of the folly of those who yielded
to unfounded fears, and sacrificed valuable property
for much less than its real value; and we have little
doubt that it will operate very favourably on the
market value of South-Eastern stock.

Coupled with the statistical statement published
hebdomadally by the Registrar-General, a statement
which enumerates the deaths and classifies the dis-
eases that may have periodically desolated the metro-
polis—the accounts which have recently appeared in
our columns respecting the mortality at the Pauper
Establishment in Tooting assumes a new and remark-
able importance. Hitherto we have allowed the
examinations of the different witnesses to speak for
themselves, from a solicitude on our part to abate
rather than to enhance those feelings of terror which
have been found to tend most effectually towards the
propagation of the Asiatic Cholera. Our anxiety
upon this point was increased, moreover, by the con-
sideration that the dubious character of the malady
which had proved so destructive among • the
poor children at Tooting was aczompanied
by a grievous absence of accuracy in regard to
the number of victims destroyed by the epidemic.
The latter uncertainty is at length removed by the
appearance of the weekly document issued under the
authority of the Registrar-General, and the former
is in a fair way towards its removal in consequence
of the progress of the investigation now being made
upon the inquest presided over by the Coroner for
Middlesex.

There no longer appears to be any reason whatever
for doubting that the Asiatic Cholera has destroyed
human life not only at Tooting but also at Wapping,
at Southwark, and at Chelsea, at Tottenham, at
Marylebone, and at Whitechapel, at Bermondsey, at
Newington, and at Wandsworth, at Clapham, at
Streatham, and at Graveney. For a long time past it
appears to have loitered in the more densely populated
quarters of the great Scottish cities of Glasgow and
Edinburgh, and not only in those crowded localities,
but also amongst the rookeries of Selkirk and Jed-
burgh. It has subsequently extended itself into
several of the English counties ; it :has ,attacked one
at Binfield, four at Wakefield, and five at Carlisle ;
and has since then destroyed two persons in the vil-
lage of Garsington in Oxfordshire. There is no
longer any question, therefore, as to whether the
dreaded disease has really been imported into the
United Kingdom; as to whether the juvenile paupers
in the establishment at Tooting have fallen victims to
it or to some other mysterious seizure compounded of
the itch and the scrofula ; or as to whether the
Cholera is confined to the capital or to Middlesex.
The Asiatic Cholera has appeared in the British
islands ; it has materially added to the mortality of
Scotland; it has penetrated into the majority of the
metropolitan parishes ; it has advanced and is ad-
vancing, though by very gradual and almost imper-
ceptible gradations, eastwards and southwards, to the
west towards Oxford, and to the north towards Yoik.
These are not the morbid calculations of conjecture;
they are the facts recorded in the melancholy tables
compiled under the superintendence of the Registrar-
General. From those tables it would appear that in the
week ending Saturday, Jan. 13, the number of deaths
in London amounted to I,44B—the average, during
the last five winters, being 1,169—revealing an excess
in that interval of 279. Out of these victims of age
or indisposition, there are no less than 94 who have
perished from the Asiatic Cholera, the rest of the
surplus deaths being attributed principally to inflam-
mation of the lungs and bronchitis, but especially to
the zymotic and epidemic class of affections. Of the
ordinary deaths, the majority arose from whooping-
cough, small-pox, typhus, and scarlatina. But the most
important fact deserves repetition, beyond the mere
circumstance of the excess-94 deaths in London from
the Asiatic Cholera ! This assertion of the Registrar-
General is sufficient of itself to rouse the most in-
dolent of our municipal authorities to exertion, and
to stimulate still further the laudable efforts of those
who have not waited for the advent of the visitation.
What has directed a peculiar
c attractionhola er in to
thethe
advances lately made by the Asiatic
metropolis was the fact of its outbreakthuendppearucierrcum
circum-
stances so peculiarly melancholy at
Es-
tablishment in Tooting. It was too manifest from
the first instance that the poor children were placed at
the mercy of the epidemic by the systematic poverty of
their living. Farmed out at the rate of two or three
shillings a week per head, it is impossible but that
the food and clothing supplied by such establishments
must be necessarily of the most pernicious descrip-
tion. Formerly this evil was immeasurably worse
than at present. Thanks to the beneficent genius of
Ur. DICKENS, the spirit of improvement penetrated
to those dens of misery as rapidly after the publiCa-
tion of " Oliver Twist" as it did to the Yorkshire
boarding-schools after the appearance of " Nicholas
Nickleby." Yet the ills accruing to the poor children
from an over-parsimonious management are very
far from being altogether dissipated. The havoc

made amongst them in the building at Tooting has
afforded an afflicting evidence of this, and additional
,ufferings, arising from the want of systematic fore-
thought, has enhanced the wretchedness of their sur-
viving relatives. This has been proved upon the in-
quest holden before Mr. WTAKLEY. o.le unfortunate
woman informed that Hon. Gentleman on Monday,
that on making an application at one of the work-
houses to see her child, she found that it was :not only
dead but actually buried. The cruelty, not to
say the absolute inhumanity, of such treat-
ment
,requires no very elaborate elucida-
tion. It speaks to the heart, directly,
earnestly, plaintively. There must be a change, and
a radical change too, in the direction of these estab-
lishments, or the evil-doers will find themselves sud-
denly denounced to public opprobrium. We must
have lenity in the conduct of our workhouses and
other pauper institutions, whether for adults or
for children—and if any difference be made
in their treatment the difference must be to the ad-
vantage of the latter. Nor must the exertions of
the municipal and parochial authorities be restricted,
at this period of trepidation, to the labour of ame-
liorating the position of the pauper recipients of in-
door assistance. The necessity of a more effective
sanitary police glares upon the population at such
periods of approaching calamity with a vividness
beyond all further hesitation. In this respect the
Commissioners at Gwydyr House will find a terrible
but irresistible auxiliary in the Asiatic Cholera, and
while that destructive epidemic may carry desola-
tion to the present generation, it can only tend ulti-
mately to improve the moral and physical condition
of our posterity.