The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,

THE BRITISH BANK.

In another part of our paper will be found an announce-
ment of much importance to all persons engaged in trade,
but who, though otherwise most respectable, do not,fromlong
standing and success in life, enjoy the reputation of being
undoubtedly A. I. with the private bankers, nor even with
the more liberal joint-stock banks in London. It is now
seven and twenty years ago since the introduction of the
joint-stock principle in banking was first mooted in England;
but the success of the principle was hopeless then, because
the Bank had by charter a most injurious monopoly of
banking. No other bank was allowed to have more than
six partners—a restriction which at one blow pre-
vented capital from being employed in banking, and
turned over the business of banking to parties who were most
incompetent to conduct it from their want of capital. And
this monopoly of the Bank did a still greater mischief. It
kept a vast deal of capital idle and unproductive, and thereby
prevented the due employment of labour. But the storm
came on the Bank of England at last. It caught them at
the latter end of 1825; they were compelled to beg and pray
of Mr. liuskisson, Lord Liverpool, and Mr. Canning for
liberty to suspend cash payments; but those Ministers were
too wise to implicate themselves in any such transaction ;
they told the Bank fairly that they had brought themselves
into the hobble by sticking to their charter and disallowing a
free trade in banking, and that they (the Government)
would not help them, even though the Bank should reduce
the nation to a state of barter.

Mr. Canning and Lord Liverpool died in a year or two ;
but they had left a Treasury minute for their successors.
The consequence was, that joint-stock banking was imported
by Mr. Joplin into England. It had already worked well
with the Provinciarßank of Ireland; and all sensible men
saw that it would work equally well in England.
Still, nevertheless, the Bank had influence enough to keep
a radius of sixty-five miles around London to themselves;
and it was only after a Committee of the House of Commons
of 1832 sat to inquire into the renewal of the Bank Charter,
that joint-stock banks could be established in London. And
even then, as now, the practice introduced was far from being
perfect. The Scotch system of cash credits has not been
acted upon by any of the present London joint-stock banks.
The principle of that system is this. Any person who has
real property can become security for a person engaged in
trade, the tradesman of course having a drawing account
to the amount of the security. There are a few details which
we need not mention here; for we wish to impress on the
public the great value of enlisting the activity and enter-
prise of young men by allowing them to be assisted by those
who, having performed their duty in life, are willing, on
account of their faith in the integrity of their juniors, to
pledge their name, credit, and property for the purpose.
And there is another consideration of much weight. There
is a great difficulty meeting every middle-elass trader when
he wants discount for the most certain acceptances, which
only amount to small sums, from 50/. to 2001. for instance.
Every man of business knows this well in London, but people
in the country know it much more.
The British Bank will do what is wanted in this respect.
The Chairman, Mr. Macgregor, the Member for Glasgow,
and the late Secretary of the Board of Trade, is Chairman
of the Bank. He understood the business well, and we
hope to see him carry out the reform in banking, practically,
as it ought to have been done two or three years ago.—Lon-
don Mercantile Journal.

ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL FOR LUNATlCS.—Wednes-
day the annual general meeting of this institution was
held in the George and Vulture Tavern, Curnbill, Henry
Francis Shaw Lefevre, Esq., in the chair. The minutes
of the last meeting having been read and confirmed, the
secretary proceeded to read the report, from which it
appears that 325 persons have been under the medical
care of the hospital during the year. Of these 106 were
completely cured, and 22 relieved. The number of
deaths which took place during the year was nine. From
a minute calculation made by the committee, it appears
that the number of patients annually cured by the insti-
tution for some time past has been 58 5-9 tbs per cent.,
and that only 6 1-12th per cent. have yearly died. The
receipts for the year were 8,7421. 4s. Bd., and the dis-
bursements amounted to 6,8601.45. 4d., leaving a balance
in the treasurer's hands of 1,8821. Os. 4d. The report
having been unanimously adopted, the following resolu-
tion was laid before the meeting:—" That this commit-
tee accept with deep regret the resignations of Mr. and
Mrs. Stinton, the surgeon and matron; and at the same
time record, in the strongest manner, our high appro-
bation of the strict integrity and exemplary kindness
with which they have discharged their arduous duties;"
which being agreed to, the proceedings terminated by
passing a vote of thanks to the chairman.
MEETING OF AGRICULTURISTS AT REIGATE.-011

Tuesday a meeting took place at the White Hart Hotel:
for the purpose of taking into consideration " the state
of agricultural distress, and to devise some measures
for alleviating the sufferings produced by the extreme
injustice of (partial) free trade and the peculiar burdens
oppressing the agricultural interests." Tenant-farmers
from the adjoining counties of Kent and Sussex attended
the meeting, special invitations having been sent to
them for that purpose. J. W. Freshfield, Esq., (one of
the candidates at the last election for the city of Lon-
don), was called to the chair. Mr. Paul Foskett, the
principal speaker, stated that there was not a farmer
among the large body before them who was not living
on his capital. He demanded a national poor-rate, and
the abolition of the malt-tax and the hop-duty, which he
proposed to make up by an additional 2 per cent. income
tax on real property, and a probate duty on landed
estates. Various resolutions were passed in unison
with the feelings of the meeting, and there is to be a
more general assemblage at Epsom on the 28th inst.
SUPPLY or HERRINGS'—For some time past there
have been large shoals of herrings in the Frith of
Forth, particularly off and above the Queensferry,
forming a rich winter harvest for the fishermen.
Some boats crews are capturing from twenty-five
to thirty barrels per day. The herrings are being
sold throughout the town at five for a penny. Our
market has generally been supplied with winter
herrings, but they were in general much smaller
in size than what they are this season. The reason

why they are larger may be accounted for thus :

Du-ring former times, the fishermen,- under the pre-
tence of fishing for garvies, which are not easily dis-
tinguished from young herrings, were in the habit
of drawing out of the sea many hundred tons of
young herring soil, along with the garvies. So
great was the quantities caught at times, that they
were actually disposed of as manure. The Fishery
Board having been made acquainted with these reckless
proceedings last year a complete stop was put to the
system of garvie catching. The beneficial results are
now apparent. -The soil have had leave to grow into
tolerable sized herrings, such as are now sold to the
public at so reasonable a rate.—Caledonian Mercury.
Irish questions are again taking up a great part of
the time of the House of Commons, and, we fear, are as
far from a final settlement as ever. The Habeas Corpus
Act is again suspended and more money is granted. But
this only secures a short parenthesis in the turbulent
history of Irish politics. We cannot practise mingled
coercion and tribute-paying for ever. The savage growl
heard on Monday night in the House of Commons,
against the new grant demanded, was too significant to
be either:mistaken or misinterpreted. On the same night,
too, there crept out a curious proof of the mendicant
propensities of some of the Irish landlords, which will
no longer allow us to wonder at that preference which
some of the humbler classes give to a tramp life over one
of honest industry. A number of the Society of Friends,
with that philanthropy for which they are so remark-
able, are anxious to try the experiment of Irish capabi-
lities by buying estates and employing labour upon them.
This is made matter of accusation against them. And
why? They are about to demonstrate to the world what
the Irish soil can produce when properly cultivated, and
what Irish industry can effect when duly stimulated and
paid. And what will be the consequence of this awful
intrusion into the realms of the sluggard? " Othello's
occupation will be gone." Irish landlords will have "to
go and do likewise," instead of besieging the Treasury
with their hats in their hands, praying for alms from
year's end to year's end. Can we, then, wonder at their
horror and anger.—Anion Liverpool
SOCIAL EQUALITY.—If there is much in the social
development of America that strikes an European as
different from that to which he has been accustomed, he
should recollect that society, in the two hemispheres,
rests upon very different bases. In the old world, where
the feudal relations are still permitted so largely to in-
fluence the arrangement of the social system, society
presents an agglomeration of distinct parts, each having
its determinate relation to the rest, and the members of
each having the range of their sympathies confined to
their own particular sphere. European society, in its
different manifestations, is constituted, as it were, of a
series of different layers, which, though in close con-
tact, only partially fuse into each other. The conse-
quence is, that, although a common tie of mutual de-
pendence unites the whole, there is no common feeling
pervading it, each class looking chiefly within itself for
its sources of enjoyment and intellectual gratification,
and recognising the others more as political necessities
than as social adjuncts. The sympathies of one order
touch, but do not intertwine with those of another, each
living within itself, as if it had no interest in common
with the others, and holding little intercourse with them.
This distinctiveness of class is also accompanied with
an inequality of position, which exaggerates the pre-
vailing exclusiveness, and fetters the general relations of
society with a constraint and formalism, which renders
one class, by turns, arrogant and awkward, and the other
supercilious and condescending. Within each the social
graces are more or less cultivated, and the refinements
of life more or less displayed; the constraint is visible
at their line of contact, as mutual dislike is often found
to pervade the borders of two civilized and amicable
states. In its general aspect, therefore, the internal in-
tercourse of European society is less marked by kind-
ness than by formality, less regulated by sympathy than
by rule. Very different from this are both the basis and
the manifestation of society in America. There social
inequality has never been a recognised principle, mould-
ing the social fabric into arbitrary forms and tyrannically
influencing each other's position in the general 'scheme.
Society in America started from the point to
which society in Europe is only yet tending. The
equality of man is, to this moment, its corner-stone.
As often as it has exhibited any tendency to aberration,
has it been brought back again to this intelligible and
essential principle. American society, therefore, exhi-
bits itself in an indivisible whole, its general character-
istics being such as to mark each of the different classes
into which European society is divided. That which
developes itself with us as the sympathy of class, becomes
in America the general sentiment of society. There is
no man there whose position every other man does not
understand; each has in himself the key to the feelings
of his neighbour, and he measures his sympathies by his
own. The absence of arbitrary inequalities banishea re-
straint from their mutual intercourse, whilst their mutual
appreciation of each other's sentiments imparts a kind-
ness and cordiality to that intercourse, which in Europe
are only to be found, and not always there, within the
circle of class.— The Western World.
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IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, Feb. 22.

The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat upon the Wool-
sack at Five o'clock.

Lord STANLEY presented several petitions against
the repeal of the navication-laws.
Lord BROUGHAM, in presenting a petition praying
tor an extension of the principle of local courts, took
occasion to express a wish that some measure might be
adopted to remedy the abuses of the Palace Court.

The Noma LORD also presented a petition praying
for the adoption of measures to put down the African
slave trade.

The Earl of CARLISLE presented a petition com-
plaining of the persecution of the Rev. J. Shore, and
praying for a measure of relief for clergymen seceding
trom the Church of England.
CEYLON.

Lord BROUGHAM said the only reason why he
did not give notice of a motion on the sub-
ject of the recent proceedings in Ceylon, was the
hope that an inquiry instituted in another place
might afford a satisfactory explanation of those
proceedings. If such satisfactory explanations were not
afforded, it would become their Lordships' duty to take
notice of the proceedings which had taken place in that
island.