The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EN, ENING, AUGUST 16, 1870.

FRE MONEY MARKET

AND

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

CITY, Two o'CLocx.

On the Stock Exchange to-dry prices improved. Rail-
ways are firm, but business is inactive. The foreign
market is firm. Money continues plentiful.
Consols are now 911 to 91 for money, and 911 to
911 for account ; Three per Cent. Reduced, 911 to 914 ;
New Three per Cents., 911 to 911; India Five per
Cents., 110 to 110 k; ditto Four per Cents., 1001 ;
Metropolitan Board of Works, 31 per Cent. Stock, 924 to
921. .

In the Foreign Market Brazilian Bonds of 1865 are
904; Egyptian Seven per Cents. of 1864, 84 to 85; ditto
of 1868, 741 to 75 ; Spanish of 1867, 27 to 261; ditto of
1869, 26 to 251 ; ditto Quicksilver, 73 to 71; Peru-
vian, 85 to 851; Turkish Five per Cents. of 1865, 431 to 43;
ditto of 1869, 56 to 561; and Five per Cent. Italian of
1865, 77.
The Railway Market—Metropolitan are 65 ; Great
Eastern 341 to 341; London and Brighton, 381 to 371;
Caledonian, 73 to 74; South-Eastern, 694; Manchester,
Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, 421; Great Northern, 117 to
119 ; ditto (A), 126 ; North Eastern, 139 ; London
and North-Western, 1261 ; Midland, 1271; Lancashire
and Yorkshire, 1301 ; Great Western, 661.
Canada Six per Cents. are quoted 105 ; New
South Wales Five per Cents., 101 to 1001 ; New
Zealand Five per Cents., 981 to 99 ; Queensland, 106;
VictorialFive per Cents., 1001; and ditto Six per Cents.,
1111.
Anglo Mediterranean, are 131 ; British Indian Exten-
sion 61 to 61 ; Falmouth, 91 to 91; British Indian
Submarine, 71.
In Bank shares Alliance are quoted 13 to 14 ; Anglo
Austrian, 18 premium ; Chartered Mercantile, 27 ;
Consolidated,/ 4prem ; Imperial Ottoman, 1l London
and County, 51; London and Westminster, 601 591; Lon-
don Joint Stock, 34 ; and Union of London, 35 37.

The 'Cuba, from New York, has brought 2154,000 in
specie.
A fresh reduction took place in the silver market. Bars
were quoted ss. per ounce, and Mexican dollars 4s. 10id.,
showing a decline of id. in each case.
The half-yearly meeting of the Tower Subway Company
is called for the 30th inst.

A call of 10s per share has been made on the contribu-
tories of the East India Cotton Agency (Limited), payable
on the 15th of September. _ .

The La Plata, from Brazil, has arrived at Lisbon en
route to this country, with £68,382. The steamers which
left New York at the end of last week for Europe bring
£440,000. _

It is announced that the half-yearly interest due on the
Ist September next on the bonds of the Charkow-Kre-
mentschug Railroad Loan for £1,716,000 will be paid by
Messrs. J. Henry Schroder and Co.
The report of the directors of the Danube and Black
Sea Railway and Kustendjie Harbour Company
(Limited), states that an unusually protracted winter in
Eastern Europe, and the occurrence of great floods upon
its breaking up, have retarded the forwarding of large
quantities of grain” from Wallachia, but that the trade is
now better, and is expected to continue good during the
remainder of the year, provided it is not prejudicially
affected by the war. Owing to the slackness of the
receipts in the first half of the year, the directors are
unable at present to fix a time for payment of the
preference dividends which were declared at the last
meeting.
The Falmouth, Gibraltar, and Malta Telegraph Com-
pany have notified that the charge for messages of 20
words to Spain is raised to 11.. from London, and 12s.
from provincial stations and Ireland.
The report of the Mediterranean Extension Telegraph
Company (Limited), to be presented on the 18th inst., an-
nounces an increase of traffic which will admit of a re-
sumption of dividends. A distribution at the rate of 3 per
cent. on the ordinary capital is recommended, together
n1,44"..",-pnronria. ,tion of £1,142 to reserve, leaving £222
to be carried forward.
The report of the Eagle Insurance Company for the
past year states the new premiums to have been 14,363.
The surplus fund is £1,121,209.
J. Berger Spence and Co.'s weekly chemical, mineral,
and metal report says :—There are few alterations in the
chemical trade worthy of note on our last week's circular.
A perceptible improvement in the state of home affairs
has taken place, attributable in a great measure to the
firmness of Government to maintain the rights of neu-
trality, and also to the suddenly altered aspect of affairs
on the Continent. The orders given out for home con-
sumption have been fully as numerous as last week, and
manufacturers have no reason to complain under the
circumstances. Soda crystals are in stronger inquiry ; but
bleaching powder is scarcely in such good demand as last
week, while soda ash remains firm. A slightly better
market may be reported of the metal trade ; business still
continues on the most limited scale. Scotoh pig iron is
improving. Tin and lead are improved in value. No al-
teration in spelter.

BARNED'S BANK AND ITS LIQUIDATION.

In the Chambers of Vice-Chancellor Bacon to-day an
application was made to Mr. Allen, chief clerk, to em-
power Mr. Young, the official liquidator, to give his
assent to a scheme of re-organisation of the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway Company, a concern the affairs
of which had been in an extremely unsatisfactory
condition, and in which Barned's Company had an
interest to the extent of £170,000. Mr. Hanson, who
supported the application, presented an affidavit from
Mr. Young, stating that the matter was extremely urgent,
and involved a loss of £2,000 per day to the creditors
until the new scheme was sanctioned. The Chief Clerk
examined the details of the scheme, and said that although
there was every appearance of its being a most wretched
look out, he had no alternative, there being no opposition,
but to sanction the reconstruction scheme in com-
pliance with the prayer of the official liquidator, who
must be supposed to be aware of what was best calculated
to promote the interest of the company.

THE BRIXTON BABY-FARMERS AT THE

OLD BAILEY.

At the sitting of the Central Criminal Court this morn-
ing, before Mr. Baron Martin, Margaret Waters, 35, widow,
and Sarah Ellis, 28, married. were indicted for a series of
murders of children at Brixton. As the various counts of
the indictment were read over each prisoner answered in
a low voice, " Not guilty." They both appeared very
much depressed, the grand jury having brought in bills
for the capital offence. _

Mr. Bexley, who appeared for the prisoners, applied
that the trial might be postponed until next sessions. The
briefs had not been delivered until last night, as it was
not known in what form the grand jury would return the
bills. There had also been some additional evidence
obtained by the prosecution, of which the prisoners had
not received sufficient notice.
Mr. Poland retained for the prosecution, said that his
leader, Mr. Serjeant Ballantine, did not consider the ap-
plication unreasonable. The new evidence referred to
only strengthened that already given. Under the cir-
cumstances he left the matter entirely in his lordship's
hands.

Mr. Baron Martin said it would put upon another
judge the burthen of trying a case of this kind. How-
ever, as both parties agreed, the • trial would be post-
poned until next sessions.

AN ENGINE-DRIVER CHARGED WITH
MANSLAUGHTER.

At the Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Baron
Martin, James Monks, who had been out on bail, was in-
dicted for the manslaughter of Henry Coomer, at
Lewisham, Kent, on the Bth of July last. The prisoner
was driver of a passenger train, from Croydon to London,
and the deceased was guard of anothec passenger train,
which was on its way from the Crystal Palace to
London-bridge. The trains came into collision at
Syderham junction, when several of the passengers were
severely shaken. The only life life lost was that of the
guard of the Crystal Palace train, who,seeing that a collision
was imminent, jumped off. He rebounded on to the line,
and the traln passing over him, inflicted such injuries as
to cause his death. It was shewn that the signals were
" all right" for the Crystal Palace train, and consequently
at " danger" for the Croydon train, which ought to have
stopped at the junction. The prosecution had been
undertaken by the London, Brighton, and South Coast
Railway Company, on the coroner's jury returning a ver-
dict of manslaughter against the prisoner, who had been
in the company's service for nineteen years. It appeared
that the Palace train was a few minutes late, and the
prisoner had put on steam to get past the points before
the other train came up, thus acting in violation of the
rules of the line, the signals being against him. His
statement before the coroner was that this was the only
chance of saving his train, and if he had not
done so the consequences would have been
still more serious. It was suggested for the
prosecution that through negligence the prisoner had
mistaken the signals, and it was important that their
observance should be enforced. His Lordship, in sum-
ming up, observed that if a man were placed in a position
of danger, and had to make a choice between two methods
of getting out of it, and acted bona fide in doing so, it was
monstrous to say that he should be held criminally
responsible for that failure of the means he might
adopt. But the jury were to say whether
he had been guilty of gross negligence in not
seeing the signals against him. He had also
to ask whether the act of the deceased in jumping out of
the train was the reasonable and natural act of a firm and
courageous man, to.avoid impending death. The driver
and others of the train were uninjured, and deceased
would not have been hurt if he had remained on the train.
—The jury at once returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and
the prisoner was discharged. There was an attempt to
applaud. which was promptly suppressed.

THIS MORNING'S NEWS

(CENTRAL PRESS TELEGRAM.)
THE PLYMOUTH ELECTION.-UNOPPOSED
RETURN OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

The Attorney-General was re-elected member for
Plymouth yesterday morning, without opposition, on his
acceptance of the appointment of Recorder of Bristol.
A threat of opposition had been held out by
the Radical party, who carried a resolution
at the meeting addressed by Sir Robert Collier
last week, strongly disapproving of the holder of
so lucrative an office as the Attorney-Generalship

taking another well paid appointment. In the course of
his _ speech he said :—" From time immemorial the
three great features of the Liberal party have
been peace, reform, and retrenchment. The Go-
vernment have proved their anxiety for the
two :first, and those around me who were so strong in con-
demning the policy of,the Conservatives for increasing the
public expenditure by a million a year, must
have seen with satisfaction that the present Govern-
ment have reduced the expenditure by about an
equal amount. The beneficial results of this you
have seen ; but whilst retrenchment is exceed-
ingly popular in theory, it is sure to be unpopular in
practice with many. To dispense with the employment
of those persons who are not required is of course a pain-
ful operation, and must create dissatisfaction and distress,
but I state most positively, from my own
knowledge, that it has been the:intention of the Govern-
ment to carry out the reductions with the most perfect
fairness and impartiality. It has been found that in all
the large Government offices sin London there were
many more clerks than necessary to perform the
duties, and these have been reduced accord-
ingly. Therefore it is not fair to say that
the reductions have been confined to the poorer classes.
I do very much feel for many of the dockyard labourers.
Since I have been here I haveheardsome some accounts of
the distress which have affected me greatly, and I can only
say that if there has been any measure of hardship
I deeply regret it, and will take pains to
represent it to the authorities, and do my
utmost to redress it—if there are, as I am told,
reductions which may be made among the higher class of
officers who are not performing adequate duties, and if
some persons are holding mere sinecures that ought to be
put a stop to and these offices abolished. But if a per-
manent officer is dismissed and his office
abolished the Government give him compensation.
What is best to be done in such a case is, when the office
is vacant, not to appoint a successor. I believe the
departments of the Government are entirely inaccessible
to any jobs, and if there are any, they are the work of
subordinates, and are not known to the heads of those
departments.

SPEICHEREN AFTER THE BATTLE.

The correspondent of the Telegraph with the Prussian
army narrates, in a letter dated immediately after the
battle, a visit he paid to the field of Speicheren :—" A
walk of four miles, and again across the Waterloo of the
day, brought me to the headquarters of the Bth Army
Corps. The battle-field presented a more orderly appear-
ance ; little mounds surmounted by wooden crosses
marked the resting-place of the defenders and assailants
of the Forbach heights. These graves were covered
with sword-bayonets, to the number of the men the grave
contained, stuck upright in the ground, and upon each
was placed the helmet of the soldier. In one place I
counted ninety-six piles of arms, most of them being
needle-guns ; knapsacks, cloaks, boots, and shakos strewed
the field in every direction, whilst that never-to-be-
mistaken odour of the battle-field filled the moist and
heavy atmosphere. It had rained hard all night, and
the effect upon some of the faces of the dead was any-
thing but pleasant. The bells in the neighbouring
villages rang the assembly of the inhabitants for the pur-
pose cf forming fatigue parties to bury the dead. Upon
my arrival in Speicheren I found it but a very small
French village, of the poorest description ; the troops, as
is their custom, were bivouacked outside, although many
of the officers had installed themselves in the French
tentes d'abri, which their hasty retreat had caused the
enemy to leave behind ; but, notwithstanding the drench-
ing rain, the troops were in the best of spirits. lam
sorry to say that the Prussians have lost 200 offi-
cers in the battle of Saarbruck, and their total of
killed and wounded is larger than I before stated. After
a great deal of bother, I discovered a refuge for myself
in the cottage of an old peasant, who was too old and too
poor to attract attention. He is 74 years of age, and his
wife 70 ; they live alone, and are, I need hardly say,
miserably poor. When I entered the house the poor old
man burst into tears, whilst the wife hastily hid some
beans and potatoes, cooked in a saucepan, underneath
the bed. After reassuring the luckless wretches, they
told told me that the French army had lain there for
at least four weeks, and that they had left them absolutely
nothing ; neither did they know what they were going to
do during winter. Poor creatures ! it is the same thing
everywhere. There is literally nothing left, and eating
or drinking has become a matter of very grave con-
sideration. After establishing myself in my anything
but agreeable quarters, I turned out to take a walk
to the front. On my road I met Colonel von
Witzendorff, Chief of the Staff, on his way to
visit some French prisoners who were wounded, and
had sought the shelter of the village in the retreat.
Poor fellows, they are certainly in a most wretched state,
for they cannot feed them, the troops being in need of
provisions themselves; in fact, so short is everything in
the shape of eatables or drinkables that it is apparent to
everybody the army must advance within a few
hours. The villages of Kerbach and Etzling, in
the immediate neighbourhood, are also full of
French wounded, unable to get any further. From
them I learnt many interesting facts regarding the battle
of Saarbruck, and my former opinion that the French
had no large force and no reserve to back them up were
fully justified by the account they gave me. It appears
that the Emperor viewed the position himself, and pro-
nounced it, as well he might, impregnable; and so it
would have been if common prudence or the simplest
laws of military tactics had been observed. But
General Frossard, over-confident in his position, permitted
a division to occupy this post on the heights, entirely
isolated and unsupported. He never dreamt of being
driven from it, and consequently echeloned the other
divisions of his Corps d'Arm4e so far away, that when
their assistance was claimed they were unable to reach
the battle-field, and only arrived within two miles of it,
to find their comrades in a hasty retreat. The
Prussians, however, knew the fearful struggle before
them. Regiment after regiment kept coming on the
ground, even up to nightfall; and fresh troops were sent
continually against the worn-out men, who had been
fighting for more than eight hours. The French were
deficient in artillery, and an old corporal told me that
many of the soldiers were so young that they could
scarcel -re their rifles."

v char

THE WEATHER AND THE PRUSSIAN
IN VASION.

The rain, after keeping off so long, would in the in- I
terests f Prussia have doue well to have remained away
for 5( me time longer. It has now been pouring con•
tinuously for the last three days, and country roads must
be FO cut up with the movements of artillery and baggage
that the army must be almost brought to a standstill.
Little streams must have become impassable torrents,
and the flat country by the Moselle must be completely
under water. The weather, too, cannot but tell
prejudicially upon the health of the troops. Although the
Prussians are most careful not to allow their men to sleep
in the open air when it can possibly be avoided, and will
pack the men thirty or forty in a room rather than do so,
it is almost impossible that the whole of the immense army
upon the frontier can find even standing room in the small
and scattered villages. But even for those who have the
advantage of shelter the wet weather is very
trying, the necessity for remaining all day in
wet clothes, and again either passing the night as
sentry or as patrol, or else sleeping in hot and densely
crowded rooms, cannot but be most trying. But the wet
weather will be most unfortunate for Prussia in another
sense. The vast extent of harvest which still remains un-
cut, and which is being got in but slowly by the women
and old men who now constitute the agricultural popula-
tion of Prussia, will suffer terribly if this weather has pre-
vailed over Northern Germany. Here, in the south,
the crops are all in, and consequently the rain will be
a boon to the farmers, whose land was previously
comparatively burnt up. Hearing the " latest news
from the seat of war" being cried in the street, I
have been to buy one of the papers, but there is
nothing new whatever, nor do I expect that there
will be any event of importance for some days. I hear
from a person this instant arrived from Mayence that
immense pontoon trains are proceeding by all the roads
towards the Moselle, and that 30 large boats upon car-
riages have been taken by the pursuing army. These,
like the pontoons captured, were intended for the passage
of the Rhine, and the fact that they were not destroyed
by the French, or at least so damaged upon their aban-
donment as to be useless to the enemy, shows how hurried
and confused must have been the retreat of she French.—
correspondent of Standard at Mannheim.