The Sun.
London, England, 1848-04-06 00:00:00

ROYAL MAIL STEAM-PACKET

DAY.)
The annual meeting of the shareholders of this com-
pany was this day held at the London Tavern, for the
purpose of transacting the ordinary business of the
company .
The chair was taken at one o'clock by A. Colville, Esq.
The notice convening the meeting having been read,
the Secretary proceeded to read the report, from which
it appeared that there had been an increase both
upon the receipts and expenditure during the past year.
The charges for cost, freight,] and other expenses for
coal, as well as those for wages, port charges, and pilot-
age, coal sacks, and office and law expenses, although
with an augmented business, were in the aggregate
6241. ss. 6d. less in 1847 than in the preceding year.
On the credit side of this account there was a decrease
in the homeward freight, arising from diminished ship- 1
ment of specie in Mexico, and there was less receipt
from intercolonial and homeward passage-money,
which was also chiefly to be attributed to the hostilities
in that country. The total receipts, however, from
freight and passage. money in 1847, exceeded
those of the previous year by 5,8451. 9s. 64.
The balance upon the profit and loss account for 1847,
after charging the dividend declared in October last,
amounted to 74,018 L 13s. 5d., subject to the payment of
the forthcoming dividend. New boilers had been re-
quired for the Severn, new side levers and iron beams
for the Avon, as well se extra repairing and materially
strengthening the Teviot, amounting in the whole to
13,5651. Bs. 7d., and were charged in the profit and loss
account as not being properly chargeable to the working
account of the year 1847. By the balance-sheet it
would be observed that the sum standing to the
credit of the insurance account, after deducting
the cost of the Great Western, purchased to
supply the place of the Tweed, amounted to 49,9634 is.
2d. The investment on this insurance account, how-
ever, had not been diminished, amounting on the 31st
of December, 1847, to 74,2811. 55., to which was added
in January last the sum of 25,0001., making a total of
99,281/. 55., invested in the purchase of 105,8681. 7s. 7d.
Three-and-a-Quarter per Cent. Stock; the general in-
vestment of 55,0001. remaining as at the end of the year
1846. The directors announced their intention to assimi-
late the working account, in future, to the method
in which the annual accounts were prepared,
as the effect of the company's operations would
by that means be more distinctly exhibited.
Since the last general meeting was held, an arrangement
had been made, giving to the West India Colonies a
direct monthly postal communication with the Northern
States of America, by which the company's operations
were extended to New York ; and this new line, cis
Bermuda, would be commenced on the 7th of next
month. The company, however, were at liberty to dis-
continue this branch of service, should it be found
hereafter that, contrary to expectation, it could not be
maintained with advantage." The directors having taken
into consideration all the circumstances of the company,
recommended that a dividend of 2/. per share, exclusive
of;income-tax, the same to be payable on and after the 10th
instant.

From the statement of accounts laid before the meet-
ing it appeared that the total receipts of the company
for the past year amounted to 412,9621. 73. Bd., the dis-
bursements to 300,6611. 18s. 10d., leaving a surplus of
112,3001. Bs. 10d. 'The total balance in favour of the
company. after deducting loges and extraordinary out-
lays tor the year 1847, was 99,9881. 13s. sd. The balance
in hand from the year 1846 had been appropriated for
the payment of the dividend, declared Bth of April, 1847,
amounting to 25,9701., and had carried to the credit
of the reserved fund, the sum of 56,5941. 153. 11d.

The following general balance-sheet was also laid
before the meeting:—
Da.

To eost and outfit of
steam-ships, &c., Dec.
31, 1846 ... ... 803,748 13 3
Add the Conway... 39,745 17 11

843,494 11 2
Deduct the Liffey,
sold ...
•.• 4,000 0 0

.C. 1. d.

To stock of coals, coal
sacks, &c
09 374 0 9
To stock uf boilers, engineers' and other
stores
••• •" ••• ••• 21,711 17 8
To London and Southampton pre-
mises, Jamaica wharf, and Pacific
Treasure houses ...
To insurai.ce investment in Three-
4,591 16 9
and-a-Quarter per Cent. Stock ... 74,281 5 0
To general investment ••• ••• 55,000 0
To ships' pending voyages ... ••• 10,081 13 1
To bills receivable and cash balances 39,433 3 1
To Contract money due this day ... 60,000 0 0

£1,133,988 7 6

Cn.
s. d.
By capital stock, Dec.3l, 1846 £888,835
Arrears of calls recad. in 1847 150

---- , 0
By dividends unpaid ... 888
... ••• 3,1985
34 1 0 3
By insurance account ... ... ... 49,963 1 2
By bills payable and outstanding ac-

counts ••
By reserve fund
By profit, and luss •••

•.. 47,267 15 2
... 70,619 16 6
... 74,018 13 5

.£.1,133,988 7 6
The CHAIRMAN moved tho adoption of the report.
A PROPRIETOR moved an amendment, to the effect
that the dividend be increased to 2/. ss. per share; the
motion, however, found no seconder, and of course fell
to the ground.
Some discussion took place upon the amount of remu-
neration paid to the managers of the company, after
which the report was unanimously agreed to.
Masterman and Captain Nelson were re-elected
directors of the company; a gentleman was also elected
a
dir.cetr in the room of one of the directors who re-
cor:pa'nyn
of d Captain Huish as elected auditor of the
__The thanks the meeting; were then voted to the
Chairman, and the meeting broke up.

D A Y .
ROUSE OF LORDs.—(THIS ---'
The House sat to day to hear appeals. Ti=e Peers dpresent were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Campbell, an
the Earl of Bandon.
LAPSLEY AND OTEIERS a. GuERST(,N AND OTDEPS.
The arguments in this part heard appeal were re-
sumed and concluded to• day. The case came before their
Lordships upon an appeal against any interlocutor of the
Court of Session in Scotland, and the question at issue
was whether the appellants were the lawful born
children of one John Lapsle
Neared that in y, of Glasgow. It ap-
the year 179 °:;e Willi..ta Lapd
a. grocer in Edinburgh, died. In 1792 k
.:,,
, he had -
cuted a trust•disposition and settlement, lay which exehe
convoyed his heritable property situat©d in virgin a-

street, Glasgow, in favour of trustees in behalf of his
children, William, Robert, James, and John, in life-
rent, and to their children in fee and property, equally
among them. The sons Robert and James died without
leaving any issue. William, the eldest son, settled in
Montreal, where he married and died, leaving two
children, William and Sarah Agden Lapsley. In
February, 1819, these two parties were served
and returned nearest and lawful heirs of provi-
sion to their grandfather under the trust disposi-
tion. William and Sarah, therefore, their uncle,
John Lapsley, not having left any lawful issue, were in-
feft in the heritable subjects in Virginia-street. In the
course of time, the property was purchased of their
guardian, with their consent, by the father of the
respondent, for 1,4001., and until 1834, the respondent
remained in quiet possession, at which period the ap-
pellants, as the children of John Lapsley, who had died
in 1810, claimed an interest in it, and contended that
William and Sarah had no title beyond one half.
The appellants raised an action of declarator of legiti-
macy and putting to silence. The respondent, on the
other hand, had brought a reduction of the service
of the appellants, and in these conjoined pro-
cesses the judgment appealed from was pronounced.
The mother of the appellants, and who was
alleged by them to have been the lawful wife
of John Lapsley, their father, was a woman of the name
of Janet M'Kinlay. This female originally married
a baker of the name of Kidd, and upon his death she
afterwards united herself to one William Paul, who
subsequently went out to the United States, in conse-
quence, as it was imputed, of the intemperate habits of
his wife. Paul went away in 1801, and settled at New
York, leaving his wife Janet in Glasgow. This last
letter that had been received from Paul was to his
brotner Thomas, and bore the (late of 21st of May,
1804. From this period it would seem there had been
no tidings of him. After Paul had been gone some
time, his wife contracted an intimacy with John Laps-
ley, and of this connexion the appellant Robert, and
the mother of the two other appellants, were the
alleged offspring, their statement being that, from
the year 1807, those parties had cohabited as
man and wife, and were habite and repute married
parsons. When the matter had come before the magis-
trates of Glasgow in the month of April, 1810, three
months after the death of John Lapsley upon a memo-
rial from Janet M`Kinlay, praying for aliment for the
children as the lawful issue of the deceased by
herself, the respondents had opposed the applica-
tion on the ground mainly that there was no
evidence of the death of Paul, her former hus-
band. The magistrates directed aliment, and gave
a. commission to America to take proof of the death of
Paul, of which fact at that moment, they said they had
no satisfactory evidence. The aliment, therefore, was
awarded to her children as the illegitimate issue of John
Lapsley. The matter was subsequently carried before
the Court of Court of Session when the Court pro-
nounced an interlocutory judgment to the effect that
the appellants were not proved to have been the legiti-
mate issue of a legitimate marriage, and therefore, that
the two children of the eldest sou, William, were the
sole parties entitled to an interest in the property in
question. The present appeal was, therefore, against
that interlocutor.
Mr. Stuart Wortley and Mr. Anderson were counsel
for the appellants; and Mr. G. Turner and Mr. Rolt
supported the decision of the Court below.
Mr. S. WORTLEY concluded his reply to-day, and
Their LORDSHIPS postponed giving judgment till
Thursday next.

COMMITTEE FOR PRIVILEGES AND ELECTION FOR RE-
PRESENTATIVE PEERS FOR SCOTLAND.

The House will sit in a Committee for Privileges on
Tuesday next, April 11, for the purpose of taking into
consideration the resolution of the House of March 21,
with respect to the election of Representative Peers for
Scotland; also to consider the cases of
The Saye and Sele Barony;
The Crawfurd and Lindsay Peerage;
The Marquis of Drogheda's claim to vote for Repre-
sentative Peers for Ireland; _ _

The Earl of Lanesborough's claim to vote for Repre-
sentative Peers for Ireland; and _ _

Lord Dufferin and Claneboy's claim to vote for Re-
presentative Peers for Ireland for Ireland.

CRIMINAL COURT.-(THIS DAY.)

OLD COURT.

STABBING .—Yenry Parker, a tailor, aged 26, was
found guilty of dangerously wounding Mary Ritchie, a
young woman with whom he had cohabited for some
time, and by whom she was in the family way at the
time. The case must be fresh in the recollectio❑ of our
readers. The woman had left him, and gone to her
mother, and because she would not come to him when
he came for her to her mother's house, although he
had previously told her he would see her no more, he
rushed into the room, where she stabbed her several
times, and then similarly assaulted her mother.
The prisoner was found Guilty.--Sentence was de-
ferred.

THE CHARGE AGAINST LORD KINGSTON.—At five
o'clock this evening the grand jury at the Central Cri-
minal Court ignored the bill charging him with inde-
cently assaulting George Call, on Friday last.

ELECTION COMMITTEES.
(THIS DAY.)
BODMIN.

The rest of the day was taken up with Mr. Sergeant
Wrangham'sl summing up on behalf of Mr. Lacy, and
Mr. Wordsworth's reply to the case of the petitioners
on behalf of Mr. Wyld.
The Committee adjourned at four, till eleven o'clock
to-morrow morning.