The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-24 00:00:00

GREitT GRIMSBY DOCKS.
During the last few days obtrusive handbills and
importunate placards have been pressing on the notice
of
of the public the fact that, on Wednesday, the 18th
April, all persons desirous of availing themselves of
the privilege might be conveyed at so much per head
to Great Grimsby. Where and what is Great
Grimsby? we have heard it asked ; and we do not scruple
to confess that it is not so very long since, uncon-
scious of the extent of ignorance of which we thereby
stood convicted, we hazarded the very same inquiry
ourselves. Great Grimby is a town in Lincolns? 7,
on the southern bank of the Humber. What it is
now we need not trouble ourselves to describe; what
it may, and probably will, be before the
world is many
winters older, it might baffle the imaginative powers
of railway projectors humbleti. to. conjecture
A few years ago a fishing village, great
in nothing but its name, with a harbour
silted up with the mud and sand that
collects so plentifully in the bed of the Humber, was
all that presented itself, under that imposing. denomi-
nation, to the gaze of the. voyager steaming down the
broad estuary from the inland seaport of Hull. But
the magie wand of the capitalist has touched the
spot; the genius of railway enterprise has smiled on
it ; and all the unbounded resources of English
wealth, industry, and constructive skill are already
employed in metamorphosing the insignificant village
into a great and populous city. Within the lapse of
two years, or three at most, piers and strong em-
bankments, running far out into the deep water, will
have converted a vast area, over which
.the
Humber now rolls its tides, into a series of spacious
to the
and commodious docks, accessible at all times
lar.lest vessels. Substantial wharves, laid down with
railways, and covered with extensive ranges of ware-
houses, will line the basins ;andhouses and. churches
will spring up on every side, the quiet folks of
Great Grimsby will find themselves surrounded by
the bustle of a busy and populous seaport town.
Being nearer to the sea by two hours than the port
of Hull, and protected by the headland that guards
the mouth of the estuary from the surges that lash
d cheerless line of the inhospitable eastern
the long an
coast, it may reasonably be expected that Great
Grimsby will very soon absorb the greater part of the
northern steam-packet traffic, both inland and foreign,
and become the principal place of resort for the ship-
ping that traverses the German Ocean. The docks
will themselves form the terminus of a line of railway
which spans the island, shooting across to Manchester
and Liverpool, and entering the heart of the great
web of railroad communication which is fast covering
*be northern counties. Thus it may be expected
to become the main outlet for the exports
of the manufacturing districts, as well as' the
focus of our large and daily increasing import
trade with the Baltic and the countries of North
Europe. The tagricultural counties of the east of
England will receve through it their supplies of bones,
oil cake, and foreign manures, of which they have of
late years consumed large quantities, and the demand
for which is rapidly extending under the influence of
as improved system of tillage. It will export the salt
of Cheshire and the woollens of the West Riding. In
Fhort, it will be the commercial metropolis of the
east of England, the Liverpool of the German Ocean,
distant (by railway) but a very few hours from its
elder sister on the Atlantic.
The laying of the first stone of this magnificent
work was an event worthy of being graced by the
presence of the illustrious personage whose visit to
Lincolnshire we yesterday recorded. His Royal
Highness appears to have borne his part in the cere-
mony with the tact and good:humoured urbanity
which he invariably exhibits on such occa-
sions, and made, as he never fails to
"do, an apt and well-turned speech. We
sincerely regret that the unpropitious weather
should have interfered with the cordial welcome pre-
pared for the consort and representative of her Ma-
jesty, and when he next goes down to lay a first stone
er to walk over a Lincolnshire farm, we heartily wish
him a bright sun and an unclouded sky.
In truth, the cruel caprice of this most wintry of
April seasons, seems to have shed a most inauspicious
dreariness over festivities which should have worn the
air of warmth and cheerfulness suitable to the in-
auguration of a great undertaking. But the sober
hopefulness of this calculating age laughs at portents,
and defies the malice of lowering clouds arid angry
skies. The new seaport, rising on the edge of a
district which the ample capital and untiring industry
of Englishmen have converted from a sterile quagmire
into a trim and fertile wheatfield, is born under a fa-
vourable conjunction of circumstances over which the
stars have no control. May it thrive and flourish as its
founders desire, and may its promoters eat of the fruit
of their labours to their hearts' content I It is in
such undertakings as this that we see the most
encouraging signs of the vigour and vitality of the
commercial and agricultural prosperity of England.
Travel where you will throughout the countries of the
old world, you meet at every turn traces of those
transmigrations of capital which no historian has
recorded, and of the transitoriness of the opulence
and grandeur which have been enjoyed in successive
ages by different localities. As the streams of com-
merce have cut out for themselves fresh channels, and
wandered into new courses—as the pioneers of civili-
zation have opened up for the inhabitants of densely
populated countries unoccupied tracts of virgin
fertility—the cities and countries which in
their day had queened it most proudly amongst
their fellows, have lost, one by one, the
pre-eminence their denizens fondly fancied would
be eternal, and sunk, within the lapse of a few cen-
turies, into dilapidation and decay. Grass has long
been growing in the streets of Bruges and the great
squares of Ghent. Cologne and Venice are no longer
the resort of the traders of the East and West. The
old Slavonian towns which lay along the now for-
gotten overland routes between Europe and Asia have
sunk into oblivion ; Novogorod the Great is no longer
what she was, and Holmgard on the Dwina is lost for
ever to the exploring inquirer among the snows of
the forsaken North. The great marts of Grecian and
Phoenician commerce, and—to remount to a still ear-
lier period—the vast and stately cities whose ruins
lie entombed under the soil of the Mesopotamian
plains, what are they now ? Monuments of the in-
stability of human things, abandoned by the merchant
and artizan to the antiquarian and the moralist. The
wealth and industry which decked the plains of Asia
and the shores of the Mediterranean, are gone to
people and adorn the coasts of the far Atlantic.
England, too, it has been said, awaits her allotted
hour. The time will come, we have been told, when
traveller from New Zealand or South Australia
shall stand upon
sketch the ruins of St Paul's. It may be so. The
decrees of Providence may, in our ease as in a hun-
dred others, overturn the calculations of human fore-
sight. But, so far as we can rely on what
experience and ob?ervation teach us, that time, if it
shall ever come at all, must be very far distant.
With the blessing of Heaven, if we be true to our-
selves, we have long ages of prosperity before us.
We lie on the great thoroughfare of commercial in-
tercourse; before the gates of the Old World, and on
the highway to the New. Our accumulated capital
—injurious as its concentration may prove in
some respects to our social state our mi-
neral treasures, and the elastic energy of the
Anglo-Saxon character, will keep us yet, as
they have kept us hitherto, in the van of the
march of industrial progress. And we may derive
some confidence in the vigour and elasticity of the
national fabric from observing how, as our old towns
rich in architectural beauty, and venerable from his-
torical and ecclesiastical associations, formerly the
marts of our inland trade, become lifeless, dull, and
deserted, new cities rise elsewhere, as if by enchant-
ment, in spots to which the flow of population and
capital, di-placed by new inventions and discoveries,
has from time to time determined. The man of taste
and sentiment may mourn over the change, and con-
trast Lincoln Cathedral and the noble Minster of
York with the cheap churches
.and commodious
meeting-houses which will in due time
him embellish th
town of Great Grimsby. But let cone
self. He is seeking to arrest the operation of an un-
'varying law, which, whilst it has ruined other coun-
tries, has but enhanced the prosperity of his own,
changing, it is true, its features, and perhaps defacing
those which in his eyes were most attractive. Let
him reflect that he will be better employed in im-
proving and refining the character and tone of his
own generation than in bewailing its degeneracy.
Let him, we say, take comfort,and not refuse to join
the directors of the Manchester,
Sheffield, and Lin-
colnshire Railway Company,ccelhebroaf the Londonting, with the
Aid of Messrs. Bathe and Breach,
Tavern, the anticipated triumphs of Great Grimsby
Docks.— Chronicle.

TUE. BREED or Hottsrs IN FRANCE.—At the last
sitting of the Academy of Sciences, M. Duvernoy read,
in the name of a committee of which he is a member, a
report on a paper by M. Richard, director of the 1.:cole
des Harts. M. Richard states, that horses artificially
bred and trained for racing are of too delicate a nature
to be useful for military purposes; that the mixture of
the English race-horse with the French breed rather
deteriorates than improves the latter; that the only races
of horses in France which have prospered, or have not
been deteriorated, are those used in agriculture, and
bred by. agriculturists; that the Arabian horse, well
chosen, is the only foreign race proper to revive the
breed of light horses in France, such as were used before
1790, by crossing them with the breeds of Auvergne, the
Limousin, and the PyrenPes. The report agrees with
M. Richard as to the unfavourable results of mixing the
Enoch pure blood-horse with the French race, and
thinks Lis opinion is fav,:ur of the admixture of Arab
blood very reional. The report, which has been adopted
by the Academy, concludes by recommendiag that the
t'nanks 04 that body shall be given to M. Richard for his
corn manicati on.

The Comminers for investigating the application
of iron in railway tructures had a meeting on Saturday
at the Office of the Board of Trade, Lord Wroitesley
presiding.

GREAT INDIAN PENINSULA
RAILWAY.
The annual general meeting of the proprietors of the
above railway was held ) est, rday, at the London Tavern,
Bishops; ate-street; Lord Wharncliffe in the chair.
The report stated that, after protracted negotiations
with the Honourable East India Company, the directors
had at length obtained from the Court terms securing a
minimum interest of five per cent. upon a capital in
the first instance of 500,0001., which they trust
the proprietors will receive with .satisfaction. These
' terms of guarantee were even more favourable to
the company than what were contemplated in the pro-
spectus issued by the directors in July last, the chief
points of difference being the omission of the confisca-
tion clause, a concession of interest extending over a
period of 99 years in place of 25 years, and the condi-
tional augmentation of the capital of the company to
1,000,000/. sterling. The directors had effected the
allotment of shares-70,000 in England and 30,000 in
Bombay. The subscription contract (required to
be submitted to the court) was in course of
execution, and would be completed within the specified
period. Shareholders had the option, at their discretion,
of paying the whole Si. per share at once, or the de-
posit and calls when made, which were to be spread over
three years; and the interest would accrue upon what-
ever sums were paid from the respective dates of pay -
ment into the treasury,of the Honourable East India Com-
pany. It was proposed, when the company was fully
constituted, to issue share certificates carrying interest
coupons in respect to such shares as may be wholly paid
up. The extension capital would be offered rateably to
holders of the present shares, in such manner as may be
deemed most advantageous and desirable, on every exten-
sion of the undertaking, either by pre-emption of further
issues, or by an optional increase in the nominal amount
of the shares proportionate to the augmentation of
capital, from time to time, as the railway may progress.
It would be gratifying to the shareholders in England
to know, that, in Bombay, where the merits of the un-
dertaking, as a mercantile enterprise, may be presumed
to be best estimated, the .most sanguine anticipations
were entertained of its success. The list of shareholders
there includes the names of almost all the principal
officers of the Government, and many of the leading
merchants in Western India; whilst the gentlemen
who compose the auxiliary committee in Bombay in
connexion with this board, and under whose personal
superintendence the active operations of the company
would be conducted, are gentlemen upon whose judg-
ment, integrity and vigilance the utmost confidence may
be placed. The directors had only further to add that, with
respect to the estimates for the first section, between Bom
bay and Callian they had the most implicit confidence in
their sufficiency. The sums estimated to cover the cost of
works and materials were based on the most trustworthy
data, and confirmed by actual tenders from experienced
contractors. In regard to future extensions of the line,
the directors, in conjunction with the local committee,
would not fail to fortify the interests of the property by
whatever means experience in the first section may afford,
meanwhile adopting the improvements and avoiding the
errors apparent in the conduct of existing railways, and
observing the most rigorous economy in every depart-
ment of the business of the company. With such rules
of conduct for their guidance, and encouraged by the
confidence of the proprietary, the directors had no fears
of being able to carry out to the fullest extent centem-
plated,l and with the most entire success, this important
undertaking.
The balance-sheet showed the amount received to be
22,3511., and the expenditure to be such as to leave a
balance in hand amounting to 166/.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the report,
expressed his gratification that they had arrived at a
point when they could enter upon the execution of a
portion of the line with spirit and energy, and gave it
as his decided opinion that no Indian railway had been
suggested which was likely to prove of so much practical
importance to this country, as the one they were em
barked in.
The report was unanimously adopted and resolutions
were agreed to in accordance with the recommendations
it contained; after which a gratuity was voted to the
directors for their services from the commencement of
,he company.
Thanks were then voted to the Noble Chairman, and
,he meeting terminated.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, April 23.

Sitti gs in Banc ), before Mr. Justice PATTESON, Mr,
Justice COLERIDGE, and Mr. Justice ERLE.)
MARSEY V. LUNN.

Mr. Wails moved for a rule calling on the plain•
tiff to show cause why further proceedings should
nob be stayed until he proved his debt before
the blaster in Chancery. The action was brought
against the defendant as one of the contributaries
of the Universal Salvage Company, the affairs of which
had been wound up under " the Joint-stock Companies
Winding-up Act" (11 and 12 Vic.) This Act, which
passed pending the proceedings, provides, amongst other•
matters, that the plaintiff should prove his debt before
the Master in Chancery, and that it was allowable to
the defendant to make an application to a
jadgo in chambers to stay proceedings until
the debt were proved. The application was made to
Mr. Justice Coleridge, who thought the question of suf-
ficient importance to come before the Court—the question
at issue being, whether a plaintiff having obtained judg-
ment against one of the contributaries of a joint stock
company, could ba compt lled at the winding up to prove
against the company generally.
The Court granted a rule.