The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-09 00:00:00

floating capital and deficiency of currency? The
plan I propose is from the cause of the evil to extract
a cure.

Our remedy is right before us, effectual, and o
easy attainment. What is needed is a perfect systen
of paper currency, an issue of a sufficiency of pro-
nines to pay by those of undoubted capability of pay-
ing—available both for wholesale and retail traffic.
What I propose is a new and wholesome system of
currency and bunking, founded upon the real pro-
perty of railways. That all railways whose stock is
not greatly under par shall receive legislative sanc-
tion to issue their promises to pay (notes of all sizes
down to 55., perhaps down to the smallest coin) to
the amount, say one-third of their value of stock,
these promises bearing a preferable claim upon the
property of the railway ; these notes to be all of
one particular fashion and manufacture, difficult to be
imitated, with only the particular railway and signa-
ture in writing.
All Bank issues ought to be based on real property,
and free from the great expense of bullion hoards.
No government or state bank security could compare
with the security afforded by railway property. Go-
vernment or state bank issues run considerable risk
of being tampered with to serve state purposes. The
freer, indeed, that governments are kept from mone-
tary interference, or bank connexion, the better, state
banks not unfrequently being made subservient to
state swindling. Railway security would at least be
as secure as mundane things admit of being—safer
than that of any government, or private company, or
even individual landowner. A railway company,
holder of real property, is in a different position from
an individual holder of real property. A company
does not lose energy or capacity by age as an indi-
vidual does. Nor is there any confusion or breach
by death or division amongst heirs. Times does not
wither it. This renders it more fitted for a currency
basis and banking than any individual proprietor of
land; besides the pawning of shares might be made
conveniently available. There is, therefore, good and
sufficient reason why railway companies should ob-
tain legislative sanction for the issue of notes in pre-
ference to individual holders of real property. Again,
in case of revolutionary convulsion or state danger, the
property of railway companies, supported by a nu-
merous and powerful proprietary, would be compara-
tively safe, and confidence in them would be main-
tained when state confidence, and even private indi-
vidual confidence, was gone.
The railway issues would be especially beneficial at
the present crisis in correcting the absorption of float-
ing capital, or rather in converting absorbed capital
into floating capital, in relieving the money panie by
an increased currency, and in enabling the system of
railways to be more extensively completed—placing
them in a condition to serve the community at a
cheaper rate, and more effectually to bring out the
industrial capacities of the country. In Scotland
all that is necessary is an amalgamation betwixt in-
dividual railways and individual banks.
Railway companies afford a foundation for a paper
currency superior to anything which the world has
hitherto presented, and the system might be extended
over all civilised nations. This scheme of a secure
papeorfctuhrre ebnecsyt
miseaisnunre of
o wayfo r the connectedw
poundith thest
sterling,
ques-
tionrl
g
way
or of payment in bullion, whether at the market price
or at a fixed rate per ounce of gold. It only affords
a cheap and safe currency, free from the unthrift and
inconveniencies of our present system. Every one
who has had occasion to pay or receive large sums
in gold is sufficiently sensible of the inconveniency
and loss.

A paper currency in England would set loose a
large quantity of gold, which distributed over the na-
tions and assisted by Russian produce, would reduce
the value of gold generally, thus checking the advance
of the value of the pound sterling which has been
going on since the peace, and bring the value back to
nearly what it was when our debt was contracted.
The only matter for consideration by the railway
banks of issue, in case they were to pay at a fixed price
per ounce and not at the market price, would be to
see that their issues were not in excess, so as to de-
preciate paper so much as to cause a serious loss from
payment being demanded in bullion by the holders of
notes. From the number and divided state of rail- '
way banks, payment in bullion at a fixed value per
ounce would be attended with serious difficulties. A
means to keep the pound sterling at a steady value
without payment on demand in gold or silver at a
fixed price per ounce is a problem which I leave for
the assembled Parliament to solve.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
ALPHA.

AUSTRIAN LOTTERIES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—Having seen in your Saturday's paper an
announcement by the Lord Mayor of an Austrian
Estate Lottery, forwarded to him from a Mr. Smith,
of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, I beg leave to
say that, however illegal these lotteries may be in
England, they are the usual means used in the Aus-
trian dominions by the nobility to pay off their en-
cumbrances. For this purpose the permission of the
Austrian police, without whose leave nothing may be
done in Austria, is obtained; and an agreement then
entered into with some private banking-house, which
firm also advances the money for the prizes, in case
the lottery should not find sufficient ticket purchasers.
This money is, I believe, deposited in the Austrian
National Bank, either in its notes or in Austrian
funded stock. The estate holder may, of course,
take tickets in the;; lottery, and it sometimes happens
that he wins back his own estate.l At all events, both
he, and the bank which undertakes the speculation,
make large profits out of the public credulity, and
the Government has of course its heavy duty also.
Such lotteries are very frequent ; besides which there
is the common Government fund, or so-called iLittle
Lottery, an !office for which is kept in all towns, in
which .the lower classes gamble away all their little
savings, and is one of the means used by the Austrian
Government to occupy the attention of the people,
and, besides, get rid of its bad paper money, the rem-
nants of the fictitious notes from the bankruptcy of
the last war; and hardly any person of the middle or
lower classes can be found
.who does not gamble in
these lotteries, to the detriment of their income and
destruction of public morality.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A. B. WALKER.
30, Dartmouth-street, Westminster, Oct. 5, 1847.

AFFRAY WITH THE MILITARY.
SHEFFIELD, THURSDAY.—At the adjourned inquiry
respecting the death of Thomas Morton, the following
evidence was adduced :

Mr. 11. Mellor, surgeon, said that he was called up
at two o'clock on the Sunday morning to see the de-
ceased, who had a compound fracture on the posterior
part of the skull, two fractured ribs, several contusions
on his arms, and an incised wound on the top lip.
His right thumb was sprained. He attended him till
Friday, the 24th ult., when another surgeon having
be en called in, occupied his place. The compound
fracture of the skull, witness believed, was caused by
the lock of a gun or musket. ,
Mr. Samuel Gregory, surgeon, said that externally
he found a wound on the head, over the back part of
the, parietal bone, and various bruises on both arms.
Th e brain was fractured immediately below the sur-
fac e. The substance of the brain and its membranes
w€ 're highly infused with blood. Witness had no
he citation in saying that the injuries deceased had re-
ceived were the cause of death. The fracture must
ha ve been produced by some sharp instrument.
Thomas Simmonite, of George-street, said that on
the Sunday morning in question be was returning to
his home when he met two soldiers who were singing.
Jo hn Morton said to them, " You ought not to sing
nc iw, it is Sunday morning." The soldiers then re-
pl. that they would sing when and where tb.ey
131 eased, and that they could sing as well as he
11( e went up the lane some distance and stopped about
si: xty yards from the end, when he saw a fer)uple of
fc ,ot soldiers in pepper and salt clothes and. 'one horse
50 ldier in a red cloak running down the Barrack-lane.
13 e did not hear anything they said, bat he saw a
it tan lying down under the gas-lamp, -lie heard the
itness, Mrs. Roberts, screaming " Murder," and
A. Watch." One of the soldiers ran to her husband
(George Roberts), and said somet:ning to him.
nother of the soldiers said, " This is the d— b—
ho struck me." Ile did not observe whether the
and who came dov;rn lead arms or not.

The Learao. Coroner having summed up, the
jury, after tnnsulting for nearly an hour, returned the
verdict :—" We find that Dominic Mul-
-51 kir,oll, Joseph Rennyson, John Johnson, and Joseph
;-/ Tene, are Guilty of Manslaughter."
The Coroner then made out his warrant for their
(4) mmittal to York.

TILE CHOLERA.—We read in a letter from Warsaw, i
'o f the 27th ult.:—" The cholara has made greater ra
v ages in Southern Russia than has been stated. The
p opulations of whole villages hare nearly been swept
a ,way. Six physicians have left Warsaw for the scene
( )f the disasters to study the character of the dis-
ease. The cholera has not yet reached Kieff, but it
Is advancing slowly towards the north and north-west.-
It is stated in a letter from Lemberg, in Gallicia, dated
the 28th ult., and published in the Augsburgh Gazette,
that the cholera had reached Jassy, and that a sanitary
cordon was about to be established on the Austrian
04 `frontier.