The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY • EVENINiI3,I JANUARY 25, 1870.

Facity of- any qualified pilot tietnig In enarge
of such ship within any district where the employ- 1
ment of such pilot is compulsory by law." Mr.
Patteson also enumerates cases, relevant to the
present one, in which the decision of the court con-
stantly laid down the principle that, when a certifi-
cated
pilot is in charge of a ship, no interference
whatever on the part of a captain is to be allowed.

•• ~. •
CIVIL ENGINEERS AND " POTS DE VIN.
A. very little while ago the civil engineers of this
country were much incensed by a notification from the
Government of India forbidding persons employed in
the Public Works Department from takuig gra-
tuities from contractors, and implying that such wasa
regular practice. The implication was indignantly
repudiated by the English civil engineers. They
laid a strong protest before the Duke of Argyll, who
referred the matter to the Indian Government. The
latter has now " explained " itsolf. The Indian
Government meant no imputation against the
profession. It is notorious, says the explanation,
that civil engineers are often paid in England by com-
mission on the work done under their supervision,
which commissions are considered a part of their
legitimate gains. All that the Public Works Depart-
ment did was to forbid this receipt of commissions,
without reference to illicit gratuities. The
order to this effect was printed simply
because none of the kind had previously been
issued. It referred only to the regular practice of
receiving payment by commissions, which is quite
another thing from the acceptance of presents from
contractors, to which it was supposed to aide.

POLITICS IN TAMWORTIL.

Mr. Serjeant O'Brien showed cause, in- `ea Conrt of
Queen's Bench, on Monday against a rule fold
information obtained last term against Mr. JamieA Elliott,
of Tamworth, upon the affidavit of Edwin Hoop( •II was
stated by the learned serjeant that since the tAecision of
the learned judge on the last election much br id feeling
had existed in Tamworth. The town was dig rided into
the Sir Robert Peel party and the John Peel pai :ty, and in
point of fact peace seemed to have dederted Vamworth
since the visit of Justice. Mr Hooper was acx Mdidate at
the election of town councillors, and some In abusive
placards were issued on both sides, the party for wl Lich Mr.
Elliott was attached being opposed to Mr.. Hoop( The
fp rmer showed one of the placards issued, by o' le of his
party to one of Mr. Hooper's supporters, an' 3 it was
sought to make him responsible for a lab. though
he had been in no way concerned in its peep aration o)
issue. Mr. Henry James, Q.C., appeared oz • the othe?
side.

The Lord Chief Justice expressed an opiniot that the
placards issued by each side were of an equal]; v abomin-
able character; and remarked that the fact that one
side had put forth disgraceful attacks on pro-
minent persons did not justify others in follow-
ing their example. But Mr. Elliott did not appear to have
been concerned in the preparation of the libel complained
of, and he had not shewn it until some long time after its
publication. Under all the circumstances the couxt re-
fused to make the rule absolute. It came out in the
course of the argument that Mr. Justice Willes, the
Ex-
chequer judge, had not escaped mention in the handbilk
put forth on this occasion.

THE RUPTURE BETWEEN 11ALY AND

MOROCCO.

The Gibraltar Chronicle of the 15th inst. has the
following on this subject :—" Further particulars
respecting the Ducaly affair in Tangier have
reached us, which, as they come from a thoroughly
reliable and impartial source, and supplement what
has already appeared in the Chronicle on the sub-
ject, may not be uninteresting. First of all, the
charge made against Ducaly is so shrouded in mys-
tery that nothing would be more satisfactory than
that the man should be put on his trial, but it must
be remembered that this charge has nothing to do
with the present difficulty in the phase which
it has now assumed, though it undoubtedly led
up to it. Mustafa Ducaly was a Moorish merchant
who pursued his business with great success in
Gibraltar, stood .S 0 we'll with the Emperor Muley
Abderrahman that certain privileges, especially large
credits at the Custom-house, were granted to him,
and finally retired to Tangier, where he appears to
have been much respected. His brother limed,
who was in his employ, whether as a partner or not
is not known, succeeded to the management of the
firm at the death of Mustafa, in 1859, conj dntly
with the latter's son, Mahomed, and some time
after this the firm had a dispute with Senor Merry,
the Spanish Minister, which resulted in their lodg-
ing a personal complaint at Madrid. Mohamed
Ducaly, who was once an Italian subject, but ceased
to be so in the time of Signor Scovasso's predeces-
sor, Count Castellinard, when on a visit to Fez was
suddenly thrown into prison by the Emperor on
account of the non-payment of a large sum of
money due from the firm to the Government, a dith-
culty from which he was extricated only on condition
that neither he nor his uncle would put themselves
under foreign protection. Notwithstanding this they
applied to Signor Sco vasso to renew their privileges as
Italian subjects, which he declined to do, at the same
time-advised Mohamed Ducaly to go to Florence
and try what the Government there would do for
him. We come now to the murder of the Spaniard
near Ceuta ; the first man suspected was a. Moor
named Benhaka, a foreman over Ducaly's grounds
in Algera, between whom and the Governor of that
place a strong mutual hatred existed, and whether
Benhaka committed the murder to bring the Go-
vernor into trouble, or whether he was charged with
the crime out of spite, remains to be discovered, as
also do the grounds which Senor Merry ha I for
implicating Ducaly in the affair. Be it how it
may Ducaly was arrested, and then the pre-
sent dispute between the Moorish and Italian
Ministers commenced, and the conflict of opinions
begins. Signor Scovasso, having received instructions
from his Government by telegram, informed Sidi
Bargash,theMorocco Minister of Foreign Affairs, that
if the intention of the Moorish Government was to
confiscate Ducaly's estate on his arrest, they must
bear in mind that he was under Italian protection ;
in answer to this warning, the partisans of Morocco
say that Sidi Bargash replied that he did not con-
sider that either of the firm had any right to be
treated as Italian subjects, basing his opinion on a
despatch to that effect from Count Castellinard; the
other side say that a distinct promise was made to
Signor Scovasso that neither of the Dulcays should
be removed from Tangier. Then followed what
has already been published; the removal of Ducaly
when Signor Scovasso was absent, and the stop-
page and return of the escort with the prisoner to
Tangier, and here the Spanish Minister steps in to
threaten that if Ducaly was not sent to the Empe-
ror he would break off all relations with the
Moorish Government. Sidi Bargash, in this
dilemma, leaned to the Spanish side of the ques-
tion, and Ducaly was sent away. Diplomatic re-
lations were then broken off between Italy and
Morocco, and so the matter stands at present.
The whole question seems to turn upon whether
Mohamed Ducaly was or was not an Italian sub-
ject; but, at the same time, there is no doubt that
the non-payment of their debts to the Moorish Go-
vernment by the Ducalys, of which it is but just
to say that Mohamed Ducaly entirely disapproves,
induced the Emperor to act in the first instance as
arbitrarily as he did."

UNITED STATES CONSOLS CLEARING CENTRES.

(from the Anglo-American Times.)

Mr. CHARLES BOWLES, of the Paris American
Banking-house, has hit upon a novel system of con-
veying bydiagrarn au idea how telegraphic clearances
would be effected in the issue he proposed of U.S.
triple-currency Consols, and another bringing the
various conflicting quotations of U.S. Bonds into
their real harmonious unit of value. In the first
instance he takes a map of the world ou MERCATOR'S
projection, marked with the actual and proposed
telegraph lines, drawing a circle for the U.S. frea-
sury, as a family tree commences with a progenitor.
He drops from that a perpendicular to a long line
marked on the right extremity with a circle for New
York, and on the left with one for San Fran-
cisco. Between and to the right are Boston, Phila-
delphia, and Baltimore; while to the left or San
Francisco side are St. Louis, Chicago, and Cin-
cinnati. Directly below the Treasury cii ale is
New Orleans. Having thus disposed of the United
States, he drops two lines, one from New York to
meet another branch, and one from San Francisco.
On the right extremity of the line below New York
is Paris, in the centre Havanah, on the left Lon-
don. From Paris might be cleared Geneva, Vienna,
Florence, Madrid, Brussels, Rome, Alexandria.
From Havannah might be cleared St. Thomas,
Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, and Monte Video. From
London, Frankfort, Hamburgh, Amsterdam, Bre-
men, Berlin, St. Petersburgh, Copenhagen. This
disposes of the Eastern Hemisphere, when we are
carried to the Western with San Francisco, as its
clearing city. On the right of the line below the
capital of the Pacific is Calcutta, on the middle
Shanghai, on the left Melbourne. Through Cal-
cutta—Bombay, Rangoon, Singapore, and Batavia
will clear; through Shanghai—Yokohama, Naga-
saki, Hong Kong, Canton, and Manilla ; through
Melbourne—'Wellington, Hobart Town, Sydney,
and Adelaide. £he lines by telegraph either exist
or are in course of construction, which will bring
into immediate communication nearly all the
monetary centres as marked in the diagram, and
this ingeniously shows how these U. S. Consols
might be scattered over the world, and the interest
regularly and conveniently paid. We have always
thought that, Mr. BOWLES' letters on finance in-
fluenced the proposed action of the Secretary of
the Treasury, who has thrown into a legal form
their main features, but able as those letters un-
doubtedly are, forcibly expressing intelligent views,
we believe that Mr. BOWLES errs on two points ;
the one in not making a sufficient allowance for the
ignorance of mankind, and the other probably
arising from this—in being too sanguine. Knowing
the security to be the best in the world, he cannot
comprehend an ignorance which places it below
that of India and of Russia ; ,neverchelca3 it exists,
and has tobe taken into account. However excellent
might be the system of clearance in cities remotely
scattered over the globe, and the more remote they
are the less is the chance that even Mr. BOUTIVELL'S
offer of 4i per cent. will induce them, much
less the 4 per cent., beyond which the Paris
banker would not budge, the new bonds will
not be bought. Elsewhere we have expressed an
opinion, which is, that a four-and-a-half per cent.
loan will not be taken in Atrerica, not even in the
United States ; that it will not be taken on the
Continent of Europe beyond the partial exchange
of the 5-20 Bonds now held ; but that it will
be taken eventually in the island of Great Britain
alone, of all countries,though not at present, and be
then eagerly taken, if not just now. The other
diagram explains at a glance a subject which
has caused many ridiculous mistakes. It is not
often that General BUTLER blunders egregiously,
but be did in his quotation of the U. S. Bonds on
the London and Frankfort markets on the same
day, which, as always given in our Money and Share
List, seem to the uninitiated to differ widely. BUTLER
actually thought there was a difference of 5 per
cent. between the quotations, and that the differ-
ence was due, on the one hand, to English hostility
to the United States, and, on the other, to German
friendliness. The story of the Parliamentary ora-
tor who drew tears, some shed in sorrow, and a
few from the knowing ones in convulsions of

laughter, when describing how in one of Sir CHAS.
NAPIER'S engagements in Scinde the ferocious
doolies* descended from the hills and carried off the
sick and wounded, was nothing to BUTLER'S mis-
take. But we are all liable to fall into a trap by
these complications, of which we can furnish no
better proof than in the repeated blunders of the
Times. Mr. BOWLES'S diagram, simple as it is, is
worth preserving, and it may enable some of our
readers to detect the errors English papers so con-
stantly made when discussing this subject.

* A dooly is simply a palanquin or kind of litter fur-
nished in large numbers to an Anglo-Indian Army for the
conveyance of the sick and wounded.

MINING ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

This is one of the most profitable industries in
the world ; yet schemers have managed to associate
it with a taint of " wild cat," and have Liven iL a
bad name by entrapping numerous investors, both
in the Eastern States of America and in England,
into bogus concerns, to the loss of the whole capi-
tal invested. Here is an extract from the last New
York report on mining : —"Mining stocks are heavy,
and the transactions continue on a very limited
scale. Parties dealing in Colorado Stocks cannot
be too cautious in purchasing, at any price, the
swindling played-out stocks which are daily of-
fered." A California paper attributes the depres-
sion in mining enterprise to the' wild-cat" schemes
and mismanagement, more especially in mines
worked with foreign capital. Early in 1864, it says,
when mining in California had become a paralysed
industry, capital was sought in a new direction. It
may be remarked that the writer attributes even iu
San Francisco the collapse of the industry to the
" odour of dead wild cats," and we desire our
readers to noie this. Many sales of mining pro-
perty were effected at New York and other Eastern
money centres, but not without a spice of the old
breed of " Washoe wild cats." The writer is here
alluding to the State of Nevada, and he goes ou to
give instances how Eastern capital was expended.
In one case a good property was purchased, a mill
erected and kept running for two years, yielding
$1,100,000 ; yet the company became insolvent,
though the entire outlay on mill and mine ought
not to have exceeded $600,000. Close by was
another property on which $1,350,000 bad been
expended on what should not have cost more than
$500,000. Within view of the writer was a spot
which had been purchased by another company,
the lodes proving utterly worthless. Nevertheless,
a 20-stamp mill was erected, although the practical
miners of the district assured the managers there
was no ore, and another " wild-cat" was bought at
a princely price, and of course the company failed.
On Lander Hill, hoisting-works were erected by
another company on lodes a few inches wide, with
power to hoist out the ore to the depth of 100 feet
at a single draught, before exploring, which soon
proved that one man with an ordinary windlass
was sufficient. Numerous companies were engaged
-
in the work of development with a pay roll for
"bosses" exceeding bylOOper cent that for workmen.
By such means a few schemers did all they could
to damage mining enterprise on the Pacific slope,
and they so far succeeded that the first thought
suggested to the mind of an Eastern man by a Paci-
fic mine is "wild-cat." If then a Californian " wild-
cat" could deceive Californians, and has caused the
loss of scores of millions to New Yorkers, it is not
likely that Cockneys will escape, and we desire to
place them ou their guard, as mining enterprise
seems to be reviving. In the richest soil weeds
grow thickest, and the fact that mining on the
Pacific slope is one of tile most profitable pursuits
when honestly undertaken, has made it easy for
the manufacturers of " wild-cat" to deceive the
public. Two men bring out mines in London,
the one a " wild-cat," the other a good pro-
perty, such for instance as the Eureka. The
advantage the former possesses over the latter is,
that he is untrammelled in his statements, having
to draw for them only on that. fertile source, his
imagination. Therefore there is no advantage want-
ing to the property he offers. Not only is the lode
unequalled i.ll ore awl wealth of metal, but transport
is perfect, wood and water abound, labour i 3 abun-
dant. Tht, other property, on the contrary, being
a fact and not an airy nothing, has drawbacks.
Considering that it has fallen() yielded some 25 or
30 per cent. on the capital for which it is offered for
sale, it does not leave room for fancy's play, ill
which the other is 80 lavish, of one, two, or three
hundred per cent., and as the investor has no means
of getting at the truth tie selects the ",vile-cat" which
gives such boundless promise, and loses his capital.
In London, what ought chiefly to be looked to is
the firm which brings out the mine. Knowing the
properties, and having ample means of obtaining
information, the house cannot be deceived, cer-
tainly not in any working mine. Claims are often
sold ; but these ought to be brought before the
public as what they are—mere speculations, the re-
sult of which cannot be ascertained till the vein is
well opened. On one point the public ought to be
• warned, and that is to pay no attention whatever to
the remarks about a mine which appears in the
Money Articles of the daily papers. It almost in-
variably happens that the " wild-cats" are most
favourably noticed; andAmerieans who know about
mining matters on the Pacific slope sea puffs about
concerns which they know to be mere swindles, but
they cannot move in the matter, however disgusted
they may feel. We would not have to go far from
the present date for an instance in point, but we
have already reproduced a remark of au American
paper on the subject. Two or three very good
mines have, however, lately been floated in London,
and if the" wild-cats" could be " choked off," and
such properties given fair play, a very profitable
field would be open to English investment. It is
often asked why Californians should come to Lon-
don for capital to work mines which they guarantee
will pay 20, 30, or 40per cent; but the inquirers have
little notion of the value of money at Sall Francisco.
No man there, would look at a mine which he
thought would not return more than 20 per cent.,
as he can get that interest on the very best secu-
rity. Supposing that a citizen of London could
invest savings as fast as he earned them at 15 per
cent. on a mortgage of freehold land, it would be iu
vain to come to London for loans ; but as he can-
not get a third of the interest readily given on
equal security in San Francisco, London ought to
be a better market for the sale of a mining pro-
perty on the Pacific slope, and it is clear if " wild-
cat" be excluded ttiat it would be alike, profitable to
the seller and the buyer, supposing the mines
to be honestly and judiciously worked. The tele-
graph brings instantaneous intelligence from the
Pacific sea-board, and the trans-continental rail-
road makes travel in that direction easy and speedy,
so people ought not to permit themselves to be de
ceived as readily as formerly. But it is almost
impossible to prevent people filled with English
prejudice from going astray iu these matters. For
instance, nos long ago, there was a practical mining
proprietor holding a high position in the State of
Nevada, who visited Loudon with a large Lssort-
ment of ores, chiefly, from his own mines. He
would have sold one or two good paying proper-
ties, but people preferred a company of which
nearly all the Directors were lords. They bought
shares on what bore on their face a well-watered
stock, which of course collapsed, and neglected
mines now paying large dividends. If an English
lord, who perhaps does not know where the Great
Basin is, is to be accepted as au authority on the
value of a mining property in Nevada, the " wild-
cat" schemers have exactly what they desire. An
amusing paper on " Pocket-Mining," written by
Mark Train, is worth reproducing here to
show what a lottery such mining is, although an
established mine is not a lottery, the dividends
being certain. " In one little corner of California
is found a species of mining, which is seldom or
never mentioned in print. It is cawed pocket
mining,' and I am not aware that any of it is done
outside of that little corner. The gold is not evenly
distributed through the surface dirt, as in ordinary
placer mines, but is collected in little spots, and
they are very far apart and exceedingly hard to
find ; bitt when you do find one, you reap a rich
and sudden harvest. There are not more than 20
pocket-miners iu that entire little region. I think
I know every one of them personally. I hayei

knovin one of them to hunt patiently about the
hill-sides every day for eight months without find-
ing enough gold to make a snuff-box—his grocery
bill running up relentlessly all the time—and then
I have seen him find a pocket, and take out of it a
thousand dollars in two dips of his shovel. I have
seen him take out $3,000 in two hours, and go and
pay up every cent of his indebtedness, then enter
on a dazzling spree that finished the last of his
treasure before the night was gone. And the next
day he bought his groceries on credit as usual, and
shouldered his pan and shovel, and went off to the
hills hunting pockets again, happy and content.
This is perhaps the most fascinating of all the diffe-
rent kinds of mining, and furnishes a very hand-
some per tentage of victims to the lunatic asylum.
Honest toil and moderate gains in shops and on •
farms have their virtue and their advantages.
When a man consents to seek for sudden riches he
does it at his peril. [No charge.] Pocket hunting
is an ingenious process. You take a spadeful of
earth from the hillside and put it in a large tin pan,
and dissolve and wash it gradually away until
nothing is left but a teaspoonful of fine sediment-
Whatever gold was in that earth has remained,
because, being the heaviest, it has sought the bot-
tom. Among the sediment you will find half a
dozen shining particles no larger than pin-heads.
You are delighted. You move off to one side and
wash another pan. If you find gold again YOU
move to one side further and wash a third pan. If
you find no gold this time you are delighted again,
because you know you are ou the right scent. You
lay an imaginary plan, shaped like- a fan, with its
handle up the hill-4or just where the end of the
handle is, you argue that the rich deposit lies hidden,
whose vagrant grains of gold have escaped and
been washed down the hill, spreading farther and
farther apart as they wandered. Aud so iou pro-
ceed up the hill, and find at last, that 20 yards tIP
the hill, your lines have converged to a point—
single foot from that point you cannot find any gold.
Your breath comes short and quick, you are feverish
with excitement ; the dinner bell way ring its
clapper off, you pay no attention ; friends may die,
weddings transpire, houses burn down, they are
nothing to you ; you sweat, and dig, and delve with
a frantic interestand all 'at once you strike itl
Up comes a spade full of earth and quartz that is
all lovely with solid lumps, and leaves, and spra,)s
of gold. Sometimes that one spadeful is all-
ssoo. Sometimes the nest contains $lO,OOO, and
it takes you three or four days to get it all out.
The pocket miners tell of one nest that yielded
$60,000, and two men exhausted it in two weeks,
and then sold the ground for $lO,OOO to a party
who never got $3OO out of it afterward's. The hogs
are gOod pocket hunters. All the summer they
root around the bushes and turn up a thousand
little piles of dirt, and then the miners long for the
rains ; for the rains beat upon these little piles and
wash them down and expose the gold, possibly right,
over a pocket. Two pockets.were found in this
way by the same man in one day. One bad $5,000
in it and the other $B,OOO. The man could appre-
ciate it, for he hadn't had a cent for about a year.
In Tuolumne lived two miners who used to go to
the neighbouring village in the afternoon and re-
turn every night with household supplies. Part of
the distance they traversed a trail, and nearly
always sat down to rest on a great boulder that
lay beside the path. In the course of the thirteee
years they had worn that boulder tolerably smooth,
sitting on it. By and by two vagrant Mexicans
came along and occupied the seat. They began to
amuse themselves by chipping off flakes from the
boulder with a sledgehammer. They examined
• one of these flakes and fdund it rich with gold.
That boulder paid them $BOO afterward. But the
aggravating circumstance was that these ' Greasers'
knew that there must be more gold where that
boulder came from, and so they went panning uP
the hill, and found what was probably the richest
pocket that region has yet produced. It took three
mouths to exhaust it, and it, yielded $120,000. The
two American miners who used to sit on the boulder
are poor yet, and they take turn about in gettiq
up early in the morning to curse those MeXicans
and when it comes down to pure ornamental cull-
mg, the native American miner is gifted above the
sous of uteu."-21nglo-American Times.