The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-29 00:00:00

THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA.

The following letter has been addressed to a morning
contemporary

" Sir—l beg to forward you an extract of a decree of
his Majesty the Emperor of Austria and King of Hun-
gary, bearing date Olmutz, the 6th of November, and
published in the official Vienna Gazette of the 21st inst.,
viz.:—

" ' We (tho Emperor) further deelive Louis Kossuth and
all abettors of the rebellion fomented by him as guilty of
high treason, and order that they shall be brought to
well-deserved punishment.'

" Every right-minded person will read with gratifica-
tion that energetic measures are at last resorted to for
the re-establishment of order and constitutional liberty
in a country which has already too long submitted to the
pernicious sway of a faction, which, under the mask of
Liberalism, has committed numberless acts of tyranny,
extortion, and every species of oppression. "
I shall feel very much obliged if you will give to this
letter an early insertion in your widely-circulated paper.
" I am, Sir, your very obedient servant,
" The Count BATTHYANY.
" 6, Lower Grosvenor, street, London,
Nov. 28."

THE POST-OFFICE LONDON
DIRECTORY FOR 1849.
The year 1849 is the Jubilee of this most useful,
most meritorious, and most carefully compiled work of
reference. It is now just half a century since the" Post-
office London Directory" first become a candidate
for public favour, and for many years it waged
an unequal war with other publications of a
similar character. Fortunately, however, for the
public it became, in 1836, the property of its pre-
sent proprietor, who, with that energy and en-
terprise which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
commands success, determined to make it in reality
what it was in name—a directory and guide to the
streets, the professions, and the trades of London—to
make it a mirror of the metropolis of the commercial
world. To accomplish this, neither pains nor
expense were spared ; the work was extended
to nearly double the usual size, accuracy was
secured by establishing a system of collecting in-
formation, and a system of checking and comparing
the results of the information thus collected. A map
of London was added, and thus the "Post-office
London Directory," by the greater extent and
greater accuracy of its information, and by the more
lucid arrangement of its contents, was enabled to
drive every rival from the field.
The following history of the rise and progress of
this work, which we extract from the preface of the
Directory of 1849, shows how all these vast improve-
ments have been accomplished :
" The Post-office London Directory' has been pub-
lished annually for half a century.
" During the greater part of this long term, so dif-
ferent was its reputation from that which it has now at-
tained that it was with difficulty supported against per-
severing rivalry.
"In the year 1836 the work passed to its present
proprietor, who at once decided on much extending its
scope and greatly increasing its general usefulness.
" The alphabetical list of names, which had formerly
been but little above twenty thousand, rapidly increased
more than fivefold; the ' Street Directory' was intro-
duced—this being the only arrangement which has ever
included, in one general list, the Nobility and Gentry, as
well as the Merchants, Traders, and Tradesmen of the
Metropolis and its immediate environs; then the Trades
Directory, or general classification of Trades; Law
Directory, Parliamentary Directory, Court Directory,
Official Directory, Postal Directory, Conveyance Direc-
tory, &c., Scc., &o. Of late years the Map of London
has been added.
" All the various improvements, however urgently
they were needed, could not, on account of the very great
expense, and while the public patronage remained di-
vided, be accomplished, except gradually; nor com-
pleted until after a series of years. On their comple-
tion, the ' Post- office London Directory' attained a re-
putation certainly never before approached by any
work of its class, and all competition with it necessarily
ceased.
" Perhaps no similar success was ever attended with
more unmixed benefit; the annual work formerly op-
posed to it had struggled through repeated bankruptcies
and failures—processes most injurious to those engaged
in its production. The proprietor of this Directory has,
in its most flattering success, an ample reward; and
that this success has been beneficial to the public is
sufficiently proved by the fact that this volume con-
tains, at the soma price, double the quantity of mere
letter-press formerly contained in its rival—to say
nothing of its greatly improved classification and supe-
rior general accuracy.
" The term of existence at which the ' Post-office
London Directory' has now arrived—fifty years—will
render, it is hoped, this cursory retrospective review
of its progress to its present gratifying position not
inappropriate."