The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-24 00:00:00

BANKS AND MATRIMONY.

The directors of the Union Bank of London have re-
solved to become more than fathers to their clerks. The
young men, it seems, are imprudent, and will fall in love.
We have heard of other instances of a similar kind out-
side the walls of the Union Bank, but that, of course, is
b side the mark. The important fact with which' we
and the directors are just now concerned is the propen-
sity of the clerks in the Union Bank to fall
in love and get married on very small salaries.
The motives of these young men cannot be mercenary,
for there is nothing to gain, and something to lose in a
worldly point of view, by contracting a marriage on
slender means, and with no very brilliant prospects.
Love must be the mischief-maker, for he is a most
troublesome sprite to control ; and, as he is known
to laugh at locksmiths, we suppose he laughs
also at bank directors, and bank directors are a class
of people who won't be laughed at with impunity.
Happily for the world, love is not bread and cheese,
and though love may defy the terrible board in the
bank parlour, the magnates of the city still have some
control over the bread and cheese on which love in its
more prosaic moments subsists. The Board of the Union
Bank has, therefore, resolved to use this power as a lever
to coerce love, and has made a decree " that any clerk
who after this date shall contract marriage, unless
his salary shall amount to £l5O per annum, shall
be considered to have resigned his appoint-
ment, which shall cease accordingly at the
end of his notice specified on his appointment."
Had the directors accompanied their resolution with an
announcement that all clerks about to marry who could
make out a case to the satisfaction of the board should
have their salaries increased to the sum of £l5O a year.
the fatherly goodness of the directors would have reached
its utmost bound, but as they have fallen short of
this, they have failed to justify any interference
at all. Suppose every bank and every employer
took the same course, what would be the result
on the morality of the country ? Have the directors of
the Union Bank arranged to bring their institution under
the special care of the Contagious Diseases Act? for if
they have not, they have only discharged one half of their
duty. "In the interests of the clerks," they are very
anxious to have efficient servants, and efficiency is not
promoted by immorality nor by holding out such induce-
ments to immorality as that contained in the directors' cir-
cular. Youngmen are quite bad enough without any assist-
ance, and even if marriages are sometimes a little im-
prudent they are better than the systematic evasion of
marriage that is now so fashionable. Possibly a touch of
the mercenary spirit might be more congenial to the
bank directors than love in a cottage. If a young man
could shew that he was marrying for money and not for
love, an exception might be made in his favour, but that
feature of the case appears to have been overlooked. If
the directors do not feel disposed to accept our sug-
gestion to increase the salaries of marrying men, they
might, without any violation of the money prineiplo,
add an explanatory clause to the effect that aur clerk
assuring the board that tho lady of his choice had private
means, which, together with his own salary, would bring
their joint income up to the charmed limit of £l5O, should
not be deemed to come within the operation of the resolu-
tion. Then would be tho time for fortune hunting. Cash
would become the first qualification of adored ones, and
after cash, character. No pretence will justify any em-
ployer in placing such an embargo on his servants as the
directors of the Union Bank of London have had the in-
discretion to attempt —Sheffield Independent.

The John Bull completed the 50th year of its
existence on Monday last. It was established by Theo-
dore Hook.

Complaints are still made of the slowness with
which recruits come in. The number offering themselves,
says the Times, " bears no proportion to the number
required to place the army on its proper footing,"
In many parts of Ireland the influence of the
Roman Catholic priests has been brought to bear upon
the publicans, so that in a large number of rural parishes
the public-houses are closed totally on the Sundays.
Two boys met with a horrible death at Dinting
Vale, Glossop, on Tuesday. They were employed in the
bleaching house of a cotton mill, and were both at the time
in a large vat. Into this vat the engineer turned on some
boiling hot bleaching liquor, and the poor lads were
scalded to death, being unable to get out.

•A meeting to express sympathy with the Pope
\lran held on Thursday evening in the College-
street, Chelsea. It was resolved to send a memorial to
Mr. Gladstone, asking the Government to take such
steps as may-best secure the full restitution of the States
of the Church and of his sovereign authority to the Pope.

The Christian Knowledge Society has made a
grant of £5OO for the permanent Endowment of the See
of Bloemfontein, to be paid when the sum of £4,500 shall
have been raised to meet it, and when both the nature of
the investment of the capital raised, and the method of
appointment to the See, shall have been arranged in a
manner satisfactory to the committee.—The Rock.
A. pig-dealer of Berwick-upon-Tweed was on
Thursday charged at the London Guildhall with having
sent four quarters of beef to the London market, unfit
for human consumption. For a sum of 10s. the defendant
had purchased a diseased steer with the object of boiling
it down ,and feeding his pigs. He subsequently altered
his intention, and sent it to London for sale. Sir Sydney
Waterlow sentenced him to two months' imprisonment.

The iron trade at Birmingham seems to be in a
fairly healthy state for the time of the year, and confi-
dent hopes are entertained that with the cessation of the
disturbing cause, the trade will speedily resume the state
of prosperity in which it was found by the war. At
yesterday's market there was a moderately good attend-
ance, but the business transacted, as usual towards the
quarter's end, was limited.
SHIPPING INTEL LIGEN C E.—The United States
mail steamer Wisconsin sailed at nine o'clock on Thurs-
day night from Queenstown, for New York. The National
steamer France, from New York, arrived early yesterday
morning, landed passengers, and proceeded to Liverpool.
The Royal Mail steamship City of Brussels arrived at
eight o'clock yesterday morning, and sailed at four in the
afternoon for New York.

The annual festival of the wood-engravers of
London took place on Thursday evening at the usual
place of entertainment, the St. John's-gate Tavern,
Clerkenwell, and was more numerously attended than of
recent years. This was partly owing to the presence of
several French engravers who have • come to London in
consequence of the siege of Paris ; they were very cordially
received, as were the other foreigners who were present.
The assemblage was also joined by sume gentlemen repre-
senting other professions.
SMALLPDX IN A lIESTAIIIIANT.—Sorne conception
may be formed of the difficulties now felt in consequence
of the want of hospital accommodation for cases of small-
pox from the following case. A servant maid has been
attacked at a considerable restaurant in the Holborn
district. The underground kitchen of the establish-
ment is the room in which she sleeps, and has been
treated for four days. During the whole of this time the
" chef " of the restaurant has continued his cooking
operations with such interruptions as the presence of a
sick female imperatively required. We do not envy the
patrons of this establishment, who, if the truth were
known to them, would be horrified at finding that they
have been both eating and breathing smallpox poison.
Lancet.

THR PROGRESS OF BRUTALITY.—The following
remarkable paragraph is from an authority not much
given to writing anti-German matter—Dr. Russell :—I
have written already of some effects on character pro-
duced by this war—on individual as well as national cha-
racter. What think you of a Prince—a Chris-
tian gentleman - the administrator of a great
charity—an officer of State, whi, being asked .as
to the means of communicating with the wounded
officers of the enemy's army who might be in his
hospitals, said, "I know nothing about them. They give
us quite trouble enough as it is. I wish they were all
dead !" Well ! There is a British officer who has stated
he heard this Christian Prince use these words, and it was
a British officer who repeated them to me. And a German
gentleman, speaking of some things.he had witnessed, de•
Oared he could not have believed, had he not seen
with his own eyes, that Germans could be so violent, so
unscrupulous, and so dishonest. He spoke but of
common soldiers, of acts of plunder and wrong ou their
part; it would be monstrously unjust to affix the stigma to
a large part of the army. But in the politics of the con-
quering race the taint will be apt to spread. Germans,
for instance, see nothing but what is natural and
right in the annexation of Luxemburg. And in a short
time they may conceive it is of the very highest equity
and morality to seize on Holland. For the thought is
ventilated and the words are on men's lips. And who are
we who have Gibraltar and" Malta and the Isles of th e
Sea, they will ask, that we pretend to see in such a natural
and wholesomS addition of sea coast any wrong doing?
If the Dutch do not like it so much the worse for
them.