The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-20 00:00:00

THE WEATHER-PA RKS.

In the Regent's Park, yesterday, several persons had
the temerity to venture on the frozen surface near the
Marquis at Wellesley's mansion, and were sliding and
skating for some time ; the ice, although very strong,
bent beneath their weight. About two o'clock, whilst a
gentleman was skating on that part of the ornamental
water facing Hanover-terrace, the ice gave way, and he
was immersed in the water. He was immediately got
out by William Griffiths, iceman No. 2. Towards the
afternoon great numbers ventured on, although the ice
was broken at the sides. In the forenoon a serious
accident occurred in this park to a boy, named
Jones, residing with his parents in North-street,
Lissou-grove. The poor little fellow was sliding on
a kind of gutter, caused by the late heavy rains, which
was frozen, when he fell, and fractured his skull.
In Hyde Park and Kensington-gardens crowds of persons
were collected; but the only part of the Serpentine capable
of bearing was near the bridge. On the Round Pond in
Kensington-gardens great numbers were sliding and skat-
ing, as in the Regent's Park. The Royal Humane Society's
men were on duty. The ice in St. James's Park was very
thin. Yesterday was piercingly cold, and in the forenoon
there was a slight fall of snow. About two the weather
cleared up, and the remainder of the day was clear and
fine. The thermometer at the entrance of the superin-
tendent's office in the London Docks stood, yesterday at
noon, at 29 degrees. At four o'clock in the afternoon it
had risen to 33. Throughout the day there was a slight
breeze from about N.E.

It is still a subject of regret to many who have
the welfare of the profession warmly at heart, that the
late promotion of Flag Officers did not go down to Sir
Charles Napier, as this would hardly have included a
(linen officers under 60 years of age, and all and every
one must admit that we ought to have Admirals under
this standing for active duties where physical energies
are required. That this did not take place we are con-
vinced was not the fault of the Board of Admiralty, but
was caused by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's econo-
mical views, which alone prevented the promotion gene-
rally being as extensive us could have been desired.—
Naval and Military Gazelle.
We are glad to hear that the officers of the Com-
missariat are likely to participate in the advantages of
the late Brevet. We trust that a similar reward will be
bestowed upon the Medical Members of the United Ser-
vice. Their activity, zeal, and intelligence, constitute a
strong claim to the distinction in question. To promote
the Commissariat at the expense of the Medical officers
of the Navy and Army, would be an act of cruel injus-
tice, and all insult which we arc convinced the present
Government will neversanction.— United Service Gazette.
i
The torrent of bankruptcy and distress n this
thetownaccumulated
has
hn force.ee uprooted by
u Anotherber of
ltchecallai trygersotl llsacoen
houseswith
in
the storm, and will necessarily bring down anm
smaller establishments along withthrowing
-.workpeople out of employ, and fearfully
general distrust and anxiety which
of trade and commerce. Bankruptcies,pervades every branch
compositions with creditors, insolvencies, and
and confidence and credit , are constantly occurring,
have received a blow which
has made them stagger an
d reel, so as to add to the
general stagnation of
hamßeview.. business on every hand.—.Notting-
FEELERS.-_.A report has appeared in the Lon-
don papers, that the Government has determined to bring
forward a.mease
under 545.,
to
fall one
for en 18s. duty when corn is at or
one shilling for every, shilling that the
price rises till •
fixed at 4s.
it reaches 68s when the duty is to remain
e look u on the scheine as an insult to
the people, and as such wp.e hope it will be treated. Let
not our friends waste a word of argument upon such de-
vices, but exert themselves with renewed vigour for the
total and immediate repeal of an taxes upon the neces-
saries of life.—Anti-Bread Tax Circular.
THE FOG OF SATURDAY..— 011 Saturday
forenoon, about a quarter-past ten o'clock, three persons,
of the names of William Miller, John Elliott, and John
Fraser, were accompanying a person of the name of
Jonathan Fordham, who resides in Palmer's Village,
Brewer's-green, Westminster, to Battersea, in order to
fetch some willows used for the purpose of making
baskets; they had scarcely cleared Westminster-bridge,
when, owing to the darkness of the day, the boat in
which they were came in contact with a large barge, and
all four were precipitated into the water. Fordham,
with great presence of mind, laid hold of the side of the
barge, and thus saved himself. He then managed, after
some trouble, to rescue Elliott, but Miller and Fraser
were drowned.
The Agrarn Gazette states from Bahia that a
Russian ship of war had passed by that place on her
way to Silistria, to take soundings and observations fur a
chart of the mouth of the Danube.

EVENING SUN

MONOPOLY OF QUICKSILVER.

(From the Bankers' Circular.)
Admitting the expediency and necessity of regulating
a paper currency by the supply of gold and silver, that
supply must, as far as the mines are concerned, be unob-
structed, equable, and adequate to the annual absorp-
tion or destruction of those metals by manufacture, wear
and tear, or loss ; and, if it be not so, the regulating
power is a cheat, and gives out fraudulent results. Again,
if a standard of value in the precious metals be esta-
blished by law—taking's certain quantity of gold or sil-
ver of a certain fineness, and stamping it at the Royal
Mint—on the calculation of certainty and equability in
the supply, and if from any cause the supply becomes
materially and permanently diminished, the standard
ceases to be a just one ; and it mast be re-adjusted to
prevent oppression to the people in paying an undimi-
nished amount of taxes, unreduced rents, and other fixed
pecuniary obligations. Further, if, under such circum-
stances, an equitable adjustment of the standard of value,
or an equitable reduction of rents, taxes, &c., do not take
place, the Government that permits the injustice to con-
tinue, causes an ever-springing motive to arise in the
breasts of the people to rebel against the oppression.
These proofs we could enforce by citing the highest au-
thorities on public law in our language to confirm them.
Now let us bring them to the test of experience.
It is well known that none but the richest ores will
yield pure metal without the use of quicksilver, and
that the price of this product in great measure deter-
mines the quantity of silver coins and bars that shall be
annnually poured from the mines,into the civilized world.
The mines of quicksilver • are not now worked to any
extent in any part of the world except in Germany and
Spain, the principal being in the latter country. The
Spanish Government knowing the importance of this
commodity to the production of silver—and being dis-
posed to do justice to the people—have always, while
they had the possession of the mines, kept the price mo-
derately low, viz., at about 40 dollars per quintal. That
Government has sometimes at former periods farmed
out these mines, but the price, we believe, never rose in
the hands of the contractors above 41 or 42 dollars per
quintal. Unhappily, however, for the interests of the
commerce of the world, unhappily for the welfare of the
heavily taxed people of poor old England, Mr. Roths-
child about seven or eight years ago got possession of the
silver mines of Spain, making a clear profit by working
them, it is said, of ,80,0001.. per annum. How did he
accomplish this ? Ile trebled' the price of quicksilver,
which now seils fur 120 dollars per quintal, instead of
the old, just, and almost uniform price of 40 dollars; and
through the medium of his great power and influence in
Germany, lie• induced the proprietor of the only other
important source of supply in the whole world simulta-
neously to do the same.
Extract of a letter from Mr. IL Thornton, Chairman:
of Committee of Spanish Bondholders, addressed to Sig.
Surra y Bull, Minister of Finance for Spain, dated 7th
August, 1841 ;

It must be well known to his Highness, as having
formerly served in Peru, and it cannot be hid from your
Excellency, that under the Government of Spain, which
through an especial tribunal supplied, her colonies with
quicksilver at a low fixed price, the yearly coinage of
Me,xico was about 530,000,000

New Granada
Peru, about
Chili, about

3,000,000
7,000,000
3,000,000

making, in all, say $43,000,000
to which adding, say 20,000,000

for silver produced in bars, but not coined, we
arrive at 063,000,000
Of hard dollars. as the yearly produce of silver alone of
the Americas formerly Spanish, while quicksilver was
supplied at a cheap rate. From inquiries which I have
made, I believe I do not exaggerate when I state that
the present monopoly or that sine qua nen of amalgama-
tion has injured these young nations to the extent 01 at
least 20,000,000 dollars annually, depriving them, in the
same ratio, of the means of paying for the wines, brandy,
and paper of Catalonia, the wines and fruit of Andalucia,
the iron of Biscay, and the goods of British manufacture,
and inflicting a proportional injury on the currency of all
countries. I humbly submit to your Excellency that a
monopoly so injurious should not be continued."
In corroboration of the above we state that a gentle-
man intimately acquainted with the statistical affairs of
Mexico and South America, recently ariived in England
from that part of the world, assures us that thousands of
tons of silver dug out of the Mexican mines are thrown
aside, because they contain too little silver to admit of
profit when working them with quicksilver at its present
high price. Formerly, when it was at a moderate price,
viz., one third of its present value, every pound of this
ore would have b3eu worked to bring forth the silver
contained in it. The exports of quicksilver from London
and Liverpool to Mexico, Peru, &c., were, iu the years
1837, 1838, of bottles 29,373 against 21,904 in the two
succeeding years 1839, 1840 ; these are the particulars—
Years 1337. 1838. 1839. 1840.
Bottles 14,300 14,573 lO,Bll 11,093
_ _

If the supply were increased thirty. per cent. above
that of the latter years, if 21,904 were augmented to
29,373, the supply would be brought up just to the level
of the former, and if with the increase of the supply the
price were lowered to the old standard of forty dollars
per quintal, what a prodigious difference it would make
in the production of silver fur the uses of the commer-
cial world. The labour bestowed in the production of
the ore has been expended, and it is ready to be con-
verted into bullion. There it lies a useless and ofien•
sive mass, just ;is a Pennsylvanian farmer suffers heaps
of manure to accumulate from generation to generation,
when spreading in either case Would increase production,
promote trade, and in the former case would relic ve and
1 benefit the Iv-hole commercial world. " Money is like
muck, (says Lord Bacon), no good except it be spread."
Money. hidden amidst thousands of tons of ore, raised
by great labour, because a rich monopolist must grow
richer, is to -blast industry at its source, and mock the
institutions of society in the exercise of one of their most
important functions.
Our well-informed friend considers the estimate of
five millions sterling as the amount of the falling off in
the annual supply of silver, compared with the supply
when quicksilver was comparatively cheap, a moderate
estimate. What proportion of the seven or eight years
during which the Spanish contract has been in the pos-
session of the present possessor has been marked by the
high price of quicksilver, we do not exactly know ; but
the total deficiency in the supply of the precious metals
to Europe, caused by his inexorable interdict, cannot
be less than front twenty to thirty millions sterling.
,Now we care not what a man's views or opinions con-
cerning money may be ; they may be as strict as Mr.
Hume's, as lax as Dr. Smith's, as inconsistent and con-
tradictory as Ricardo's, as antiquated and absurd as
Sir Robert Peels ; yet, if he be a man of sense, we
would calmly ask him why he attaches so much import-
ance to the possession of one or two millions more or less
of bullion in the coffers of the Bank, and looks en with-
out concern at the master evil which puts it in the power
of avarice to keep twenty or thirty millions sterling from
the money-markets of the world, of which the Bank of
England is the centre ? How can he reconcile his mind
to a system which gives an individual foreigner residing
in the City of London, the power of raising the standard
of value when he can get 80,000/. a year by doing so ?
Is it or is it not placing the Royal prerogative of fixing
the measure of value in the hands of a speculative loan-
monger, making him, in the exercise of this delicate and
important prerogative, Monarch over her Majesty the
Queen ?
We have, as we think, laid bare one of the main
giumamtiena'sudriasbtillty
sources of the evils which now 'afflict. the country ; it is
a forced contraction of the basiS of the circulating me-
dium affecting all commercial credit in every country,
suat,oreanpdotedius;
lowp pea
rprices, sutiat
cause of mercantile disturbance and social derangement
than the Corn-law--defective as that law is •
cwohnitcehn t.c a ulste as
admitted to
to be. We are, Sirs, obediently, H. B. & CO.
[So far as England is concernedthis •
subject is of little
importance—our standard is gold, not silver. The
effect, if any, on our currency, will
more valuable in relation to gold, and raise the currency
of the continent, which •
is silver, to a level in. value with
our own. The other
. gmethod, too, of extra
can the ores
which are in u •
besides amalgamating silver with mer-
cury, will be more extensively adopted if the price of
quicksilver be,raised, and the
object of the monopolist
will be defeated.]—ED. Sun.

• THE DERBY.—Mr. Maher has sold Ballin-
keele to Mr. Dixon, of Knightsbridge, for 2,000 guineas;
Policy and The Golden Rule, late Honest John, have
been sold to Mr. Forth for some time.
The Duke de Nemours has returned to Paris,
after a tour of six weeks, during which his Royal High-
ness has inspected the four new regiments of Hussars,
at Verdun, Fontainebleau, Versailles, and Vendome.
The Independent of Brussels mentions that
Captain Pirson, formerly Attache of the Belgian Lega-
tion at Constantinople, has set out for Texas on a diplo-
matic mission.
DEATH OE Dn. BARCLAY.—It is our painful
duty this week to record the death of Dr. Barclay, mi-
nister of Kettle. The Doctor was in the 93d year of
his age. and died father of the Church, having been or-
dained to the charge of that parish on the 14th of May,
1778. lie was a man of high literary and scientific at-
tainments, and enjoyed to the last the velrhaysetloiiriigidnleiefrssestadlaelil-sl
de-
gree of respect and esteem, not only from his parishioners,
but from his co-presbyters. Dr. Barclay was father of
the celebrated Captain Barclay, who died in 1837,—.
Fifc.ilzire Journal.
The late Eail of Westmorlandreiwsa,sw always
anxious that proper care should. be. taken of his horses. -
rAiofred‘syhtilpay:.
absedfir)irveeitia kui)nig:istos Libsiebse,dwthheen
the Pavilion,
the horses to be brought-out separately, and trotted up
uhpeand down before him. Although totally blind,
to the Lord-
shipye-
was very partial to equestrian exe
enjoyed in the riding school attached to
her 'Majesty having granted the privilege
nerable Earl.
TREMENDOUSiourhoodSoTeoßltoMw! NinNtOhißsTeHou'nDty,
Ras on
EVON.--
The neighbourhood
by a terrific
.hail storm, thunder
some time. The
m, with
Monday
of three, which
and lightning, which continued for
lightning destroyed two sacks of corn out
e farmer in the
parish. At Copplestoue also the storm
stood in the stack yard of a respectable
appalling, though we have not heard of was
perfectly
of any accident
occurring.—Somerset C'ouniy Gazette.
On the morning of the Queen's confinement,
Lordhen
hHille arrived ‘N'asitantlo tz pa
amongst thoselac
attend at the palace. His Lordshipe he who
met the Duke of
were summoned to
was rather late, and
w
Wel-
lington, who was returning home' In answer to Lord
Hill's inquiry as to how matters were, his Grace said,
"All over—fine boy, • %cry. fine
Hill." . boy, almost as red as you,

The Princesse Adelaide, we are glad to state, is
recovered from her indisposition.