The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-18 00:00:00

FLANDERS MAIL.

BRUSSELS, OCT. 13.—POPULATION OF BRUSSELS.—
According to the last census, the population of each
of the communes belonging to Brussels were as fol-
lows : _ _ _

St. Josseten Noode.. 14,850
lkelles
St. Gillis
Morlenbeck St. Jean
Anderlecht
Kockelberq . . . 2,198
Berchem St. Agetha

Total 60,351

Each of the communes around Brussels contains a
scattered rural population, and the entire population
of Brussels and its environs is, therefore, estimated
at 180,000 souls.
The affair of the incarceration of the four
Communal Councillors, who were kept under arrest
for seventeen days, which has excited so much
interest and curiosity, appears to be as follows :
The secretary of the commune of Conture St.
Germain filled the same office in several other
villages. In consequence of grave accusations brought
against him, the Communal Council resolved to re-
cal him. The permanent deputation annulled the
decision of the Communal Council. The latter
maintained its first vote, and the deputation, in its
turn, persisted in refusing its assent. The conflict
threatened to be endless ; the superior authority in-
'terv( tied, and by a royal decree the decision of
the Communal Council was annulled. The de.
tree was acted upon, the secretary was rein-
stated, but, at the same time, the Communal
Council again recalled its functionary. This
was set aside by the permanent deputation, and
was again revoked upon the part of Communal
Council, followed by a re-annullation on the part of
the permanent deputation. This diplomatic conflict
was cut short by a royal decree, and before it had
been officially signified to the Communal Council
the law interfered, and four of the Communal Coun-
cillors were shut up in prison. A criminal investiga-
tiot► took place, and by a decree of the Chamber the
accused were sent to the Court of Assize. The
Supreme Court, we are assured, however, refused to
confirm the sentence of the other court. These facts,
which have not been contradicted, are the actual
state of the case.

Yesterday the funeral of the unfortunate Mrs.
Dupuis and her niece took place in the Church
of St. Nicholas. The coffin c.: th child was co-
vered with a white pall, surmounted by a crown.
The two coffins were placed side l.y side, in the
cemetery. One of the persons officiating said a
few consolatory words to the relations and mourners,
who were deeply affected This morning the Royal
Procurator and other official persons went to see the
unhappy maniac ; he declared that he was not guilty
of the crime. The medical men say that his recovery
is very doubtful.
The typhus fever has broken out in Lennick St.
Martin, principally among the inhabitants of the com-
mune bordering upon Flanders. Several highly re-
spectable per,ons have fallen victims to this disease.
Great fears are entertained for the two medical men
who have attended on the poor inhabitants.
The average price of corn for the week ending
Oct. 9, was—wheat, 25f. 89c. ; rye, 15f. 69c. ; being
a fall in wheat of 55c. ; in rye 52c. 15 vessels laden
wholly or in part with corn entered the port of
Antwerp from the sth to the 10th Oct. The im,
portations were—
Wheat 893,640 kil.
Rye
Barley
_ _ _

Hay
235,680 „

Flo-tir
Rice

2,539,670 kil.
STOCKHOLM, OCT. 26.—The district of Arsunde,
in the province of Noreland, has been ravaged
by a whirlwind. This phenomenon traversed the
two pizle forests, where it uprooted or damaged
upwards of 4,000 trees, among which were some very
old ones. Many houses were unroofed, and two
barns were carried to a distance of 2,000 feet. En-
tire flocks and herds of cattle have been destroyed,
and 22 persons
have died of the injuries which they
received. This is quite an unexampled phenomenon
in the higher regions of the north. The districts of
Arsunde being almost adjacent to Lapland, the
damage which the whirlwind has occasioned is so
great, that the authorities have been obliged to come
to the assistance of the sufferers.

BERLIN, OCT. 9.—THE POLISH TRIALS.—Yester-
day no less than five of the accused were acquitted. In
the criminal proceedings against one of them the
Attorney. General declared that he could not consti-
tute a charge ; the other four were liberated upon
the solemn oath of one witness, who declared that they
were innocent. 'We fully expect that there will soon
be some new pleaders, as several of the prisoners have
withdrawn their mandate from one of their former
council.

FRA,NEFORT, OCT. 7.-COMMERCI AL CRISIS.—The
distressing reports from England and the fluctuation
of nearly all the exchanges, make it a matter of no
surprise that our exchange also is very much de-
pressed, and that our funds fall daily. Great exer-
tions are in general made to maintain the steadiness
of our exchinge, and the state of our money market
especially is on the whole satisfactory.—Brussels
Papers, Oct. 14.
FOREIGN CORN --TRIESTE, OCT. eexporta-
tions of grain during the past month were pretty
considerable, amounting to 455,532 baxrels, and the
importations were 200,000 barrels. The stock in hand at this moment is not more then 584,400
barrels, at the end of September it was 838,320
barrels.

ILetters from Odessa state that the crop of oats has
been very bad in the Crimea, it has scarcely rendered
the seed barley, and the other spring grain have
yielded a third part, and corn only a fourth part of
the crop. The crop of winter grain is next to no-
thing. In the German colonies the red corn has'
thriven to perfection.
GERMAN POSTAL REFoust.--The general post re-
form, which is to be submitted to the Festal Cougresa

on the 15th of this month, will comprise the follow-
ing regulations for consideration :—The junction of
rnilways for accelerating the transmission. A mutual
agreement for a uniform rate of postage. The op-
tional prepayments or non-prepayment of letters. The
mutual exemption from postage of the correspondence
of the governing Royal Families and their houses.
The exemption from postage of Royal official letters.
The rate of postage according to weight. An equal
standard of weights. A standard model for the trans-
mission from the branch offices. Regulations re-
specting the transmission of money and articles of
value. Many other rates and regulations referring
to the above heads will be taken into consideration by
the Postal Commissioners. The improvements which
are to be adopted will greatly facilitate the corres-
pondence, but the postage will also be reduced. All
the Governments of Germany nominated their dele-
gates.—German Papers, Oct. 13.

BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.
Sir,—The political wiseacres who write for the
" Thunderer" denounce the issue of Bank-notes, on
the plea that it would increase the difficulties of our
situation by affording temporary relief at the expense
of a more fearful crisis.
For the want of a more intelligible cause, the
financial geniuses of the Times attribute our present
distress to the over-speculation in railways, whereas
tt is proved that the large firms that have stopped
payment have been led to do so from the difficulties
,if obtaining reasonable discounts, and not from having
their cash locked up in railway adventures.
The defenders of the Act of 1844 blow hot and
cold almost at the same breath—at one time all our
national wealth is laid to the benefits of free trade ;
at another period, to a vast import of food and
foreign commodities is laid the drain for gold and the
pressure on the money market. Railway under-
takings make up the loss of revenue by increased
consumption of exciseable articles. Railway under-
takings lock up money and ruin the country. This
is not the first pressure on the money market, nor
the first crisis the country has passed through.
In 1832, the then Governor of the Bank of Eng-
land, in his evidence before the Committee on the
Bank Charter, when asked to what particular cause
he attributed the panic of 1825, replied that " the
first step towards the excitement was the reduction
of the interest upon the Government securities."—
" He always considered that reduction of interest in
1823 and 1824, one-fifth in one case, and one-eighth
in the other, to have created that feverish feeling in
.he minds of the public at large which prompted
almost everybody to entertain any proposition for in-
vestment, however absurd, which was tendered."
Sir R. Peel has always had a penchant for meddling
with the currency, and the reduction of the rate of
interest on Government securities, lately carried out
by him, may have had the effect of adding to the
pressure of 1847, as the same thing is alleged by Mr.
Horsley Palmer to have occurred in 1825. Then,
again, as to the issue of Bank-notes, the Governor, in
reply to the question—You think that in the event of
such a crisis as that, the power of the country bankers
to pay in Bank of England notes would not be a
sufficient remedy, unless the Bank of England were
empowered at the same time to issue 1/. notes ? thus
answered :
"Now it would; the 1/. notes having been with-
drawn I believe that a 51. note of the Bank of Eng-
land, if it were a legal tender, would be a total bar
to any demand for gold in the interior, in times of
commercial discredit."
When the issue of Bank-notes is denounced by the
" Thunderer," it may be as well to refer to the evi-
dence of practical and intelligent men as to the cir-
culation of notes to meet the panic of 1825 and its
immediate effects. First, what says Lord Ash-
burton :
" Although the Bank had no specie left, a large
additional issue of notes was made, and about
1,500,0001., of those of 1/., which were accidentally
round to be in existence, were circulated; the relief
was immediate the country received a circulating
currency it, which everybody had entire confidence,
and the useless gold was returned to the Bank. The
notes by this proceeding were increased from
19,748,0001. in December, 1825, to 24,479,000/. in
March, 1826 ; and having served to relieve the pres-
sure, they gradually subsided before the end of that
year to their ordinary amount again of 19,951,0001.,
while the bullion in the Bank was successively in-
creased by this increase of paper, in opposition to the
theory of 1844, which presumes from such cause a
necessary diminution."
One would imagine that to be sufficiently conclu-
sive for the Times, but for fear that quotation should
not be considered sufficient, I will adduce other testi-
mony.
Samuel Jones Loyd, Esq., in his evidence before
the Committee previously mentioned, on being asked
whether he conceived that any part of what had been
called the commercial discredit, in the year 1825,
consisted in a doubt as to the solvency of the Bank of
England, replied thus :
Not the slightest ; and the best proof of that is,
that when they had no further sovereigns that they
could issue, they luckily found a large quantity of 11.
notes, and thei public were perfectly satisfied with the
1/ notes."
I will now turn to the recorded opinion of Samuel
Gurney, D.q., on the same occasion. On being in-
terrogated as to whether he thought that the persons
in the country who received at that time 11. Bank of
England notes in payment, inferred from thence that
gold was very scarce in the coffers of the Bank, thus
enlightened the Committee :
" The receivers of these notes were of a class of
persons that knew or thought very little about the
Bank of England and its stock of gold ; the imme
diate effect of that issue was the stoppage of the
demand."
What is now wanted is gold—in one department of
the Bank of Engtand. The gold is either sent out
of the country, locked up, or hoarded; and by the
banking Act of 1844 the directors of the Bank are
powerless to afford relief to the present pressure, and
thus avert mercantile failures by an increased circula-
tion of notes.
Having cited the views of men of standing and ex-
perience, I will conclude this letter by quoting an
extract from a speech of Matthias Attwood, Esq.,
the eminent banker. Mr. Attwood for the past forty
years has given much attention to the currency ques-
tion, and both in the press and in his place in Parliament
has illustrated the subject in its every phase. His
speeches abound with a vast amount of financial ex-
positions. The opinion of such a thoroughly prac-
tical financier may be of service at such a moment.
On the debate of the currency question in 1830, in
referring to the Act of 1819, Mr. Attwood thus
spoke :
" We have dealt with our money more in reference
to the material which composed the money than to
the functions it discharged. Money of paper we have
called it—money of rags—and have treated it as we
would treat rags or paper, and forgotten that in dealing
with money, however composed, we affected the most
important organ in the social body. I cite another
evidence, Mr. Vansittart himself, the principal mover
in these transactions. Mr. Vansittart, speaking of
1816 and 1818, in 1821, a period when the calamities
of 1816 were all renewed, and by similar means, uses
these words :
" The peace followed, and that very standard was
restored, at which, by another process, the country
had since arrived. A second depreciation took place,
which probably arose from the large loan the Go-
vernment had of the Bank on account of the repeal of
the Property-tax. It was never very considerable.'
" Here, then, is the standard restored—admitted
by him whol restored it—in 1816 restored, as in 1820
and 1821, and as now. A second depreciation took
place :" it was never very considerable.' But if the
price of bullion be taken as its measure, Mr. Van-
sittart here falls into the error of the bullionists. The
depreciation was as considerable as at any period of
the war. The prices of property and of commo-
dities were as high, and the prosperity as great. But
the prosperity of 1818 was transient. Why did not
that prosperity endure ? Whence came it that
the prosperity of 1818 was not as permanent as
that of the war ? The depreciation did not so long
endure. Does any man believe that the prosperity of
the war would not have ceased before the war, if the
Bank Restriction Act had sooner ceased ? The pros-
perity of 1824 and 1825, the Right Hon. Baronet
opposite told us, was also short- lived. I will give
him the reason ; because his Bill was long-lived. The
prosperity of the country and the security of his Bill
have not existed, and cannot exist together. The
Act of 1819 brought the prosperity of 1818 to a close,
by bringing back the old standard. I fear no charge
of exaggeration whilst I describe the consequences of
that measure. That Act fell on the calm prosperity
and labours of the people—on the prosperous industry
of the country— to confound, and disorder, and
lwTdaihstiehot rnooybu.
blow
Allwtlhv the calamities of 1816 were renewed.
twas Without
means
eufirstat t s
employment—without felto of
subsistence—sufferingo n the
w a pg
fromoe psl-
farrotmificwiahlenfactentinhee
bilnowthceamme—idsbtyotfhopulesnantyd—s iagnndotreannst
of thousands the manufacturing population prepared
for resistance."
When our theorists can view matters in a less pre-
judiced light, the truths promulgated by Mr. Attwood
will be self-evident. ANTI-CROOKED.

THE " Fesm.r.—The Boston Post states
that there was to have been a great meeting of Smiths
on Boston Common in March last, to ascertain what
branch of the family fell heir
ta certain property in
England; but the meeting was adjourned, as the place
was not found large enough to hold the numbers anxious
to attend.
Sir W. Gossett last week met with
dent, having been knocked down in Sk a serious acci-
r-y .
cab, by which he received some bruises ,and inne
a
had his street b
left
um broken.