The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-31 00:00:00

ebr_vidn4

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1848.

The most energetic exertions were made by the
" Bears" yesterday again to depress the prices of

railway stock, and to set aside the marked improve-
ment that followed the publication of "the state-

ment" exposing the " erroneous statements and

calculations put forward in the columns of tha
Weekly Share List." All their efforts were,
however, fruitless, and the prices of Saturday were
not only well maintained, but a further improvement
took place. It was discovered that there was a scarcity
of stock for delivery—that the gentry who had taken
upon themselves to dispose of the property of other
people, were unable to obtain shares sufficient to
complete the contracts into which they had entered.
The prosperity that bad for some time past attended
their operations had induced them to enter too deeply
into the hazardous game. They hoped that their
fictitious reports and unfounded rumours would still
prove efficacious, by terrifying timid men to such an
extent as to make them sacrifice their shares,
at the wholly inadequate prices fixed by their oppo-
nents, and also of deterring capitalists from making
investments at any quotation, however tempting.
For once, however, they have been deeply and bitterly
deceived. Their flagitious schemes and devices have
proved wholly unavailing ; their weapons have been
turned against themselves. The missiles have re-

coiled upon the projectors. " The engineer" bath been

"hoist with his own petard." No hope re-
mains of retrieving their position before the
arrival of the day of retribution. There is neither
time nor opportunity for working their spells, and
endeavouring to escape even with " shattered plumes."
Thie very day the account must he rendered, and, if
we are not greatly mistaken, it will prove a "settling"
day to many of the fraternity. As the victories of
" Surplice ". for the Derby and St. Leger are said to
have purified the racing atmosphere, and purged the bet-
ting ring of those who disgraced it by their infamous
proceedings, so the events of the last few days may
cleanse the Augean stable of the Stock Exchange from
the filth and venom that had accumulated, and which
rendered its atmosphere pestilential, and may free its
precincts from the hordes of vermin by which they
were infested.
The fact of the scarcity of shares for delivery, to
which we have alluded, affords the most conclusive
evidence of the manner in which the "Bears " have
carried on their transactions, and of the true cause of
the great depreciation in the value of railway pro-
perty that has been perceptible for some time past,
and of the soundness of the advice which we offered
yesterday to bond fide purchasers, vie., that they should
refuse to accept " the differences" between the prices
which they have stipulates to pay and the nominal
quotations, but that in every instance they should I
insist upon a literal performance of their contracts,
ail actual delivery and transfer of the stock that

the vendors had agreed to supply. They may be
certain that by such a course they will do more to
sustain prices, and, to defeat the machinations of the
" Bears," than by almost any other that could be
suggested. The real value of a thing s what it
would bring when exposed for sale in market
overt. The prices will in a great degree be
regulated by the proportion between the supply
and demand. If the supply be greater than the
demand, prices must fall until new purchasers are
tempted to enter the market, and restore the equi-
librium. If, on the other hand, there is an anxious
desire to purchase, and the supply is limited, there
will be an improvement in prices, each being anxious
to provide for his own wants, lest he may suffer
from the deficiency. Such are the causes of the
ordinary fluctuations, when legitimate influences only
are in operation. The " Bears," however, by their
dealings created a fictitious supply, and by disposing
recklessly of shares that had no real existence, or
over which they had no power or control, they
brought the market lower and lower, to the great
injury and prejudice of all those interested in pro-
perty of that description. Nothing, however, will so
effectually stop those proceedings as an actual
transfer whenever a sale was effected. It would
completely denude the parties of the weapons which
they have wielded with such mischievous ingenuity,
and restore the market to a healthy state and a natural
condition.

Another great amelioration of the present system
would be the total and unconditional abolition of all
" time bargains." They only keep up a system
of gambling of the worst description, and
which it is essential to have suppressed as
speedily as possible. Lotteries have been re-
garded as contrary to public policy, and have there-
fore, been prohibited. Gambling with cards or dice
is rendered illegal, and persons resorting to houses
established for the purr)os, are subjected to heavy
penalties, and yet they ..?al with their own pro-
perty. If they ♦vin, the gain from persons who
have voluntarily stal their money, end who
are prepared to " ata to hazard of the die." If

they are losers they are themselves the only
sufferers. But the " Bears," the gamblers
of the Stock Exchange, if successful in
their schemes may involve thousands of inno•
cent parties—of those who entered into no gambling
speculations, but invested the savings of their honest
industry in what they conceived to be good securities
—in the most serious losses, if not in absolute ruin.
Widows and orphans may be among the victims who
have to lament their too fatal success. There can be
no question that their proceedings are a thousand
times more mischievous to the community in
general more contrary to public pplicy—than
the mere private gaming which is so pro-
perly prohibited under stringent penalties. But
if the minor abuse is prevented—if enact-
ments are passed to protect men from their
own; evil passions, why should the monster griev-
ance be tolerated and carried on under the light of
heaven, without let or hindrance? Why should
innocent persons be left without protection, and ex-
posed to the attacks of all those who choose to de-
preciate their property ? The small gambler is sent
to the treadmill. The ",Bear" parades his profits with
impunity. The minor hells are broken into by the
police. The Pandemonium of the Stock Exchange
opens its portals to the privileged classes, who freely
resort there, and gamble away the goods of others,
who are not allowed to witness or be present at the
sale of their own property, while, even under the
most favourable circumstances, a considerable per
tentage is lopped off for those who stand between
bond fide vendors and purchasers and reap a consider-
able profit from both.

Education is one of the most effectual securities
against revolution. It preserves the people from the
dangerous seductions of discontent, like the cotton
which wadded the ears of Ulysses against the death-
ful and ravishing canticles of the Syrens. At such
an epoch as the present, when on every side is audible
the voice of the Circe of Rebellion, it becomes doubly
advisable to surround our population with some such
protection as that which is afforded by the beautiful
buckler of Knowledge. It is for these reasons that
we are disposed to rejoice in a peculiar manner
at every additional evidence which is afforded
that the great and glorious cause of
education is still progressing—silently and
almost imperceptibly,: it is true, but still
progressing. Our contemporary the Edinburgh
Review, when recently holding up to the Govern•
ment the tremendous alternative of Reform or Revo-
lution, indicated a coincidence with the opinion which
we have just expressed as to the tranquillising tenden-
cies of instruction, when it spoke as follows :—" The
Evil principle and the Good would seem to be
contending within our land for victory. In that
contest everything is involved. Let the friends of
order, of education, and religion look to it. They
have plainly not an hour to lose." Plainly—yes, as
plainly as the discontent which is developing itself
gradually and perpetually among the more
ignorant classes of the community, and which
transforms them into the ductile tools of the
demagogue and the political adventurer. The terrible
truths of the alliance subsisting between rebellion
and ignorance have been written in bloody characters
by the hand of PROVIDENCE upon the broad chart of
the Continent, from the diabolical atrocities perpe-
trated in the city of Paris by the insurgents of June
to the murder and rapine by which the brutalised
lazzaroni ravaged the streets and desolated the habi-
tations of the city of Naples. Eighteen forty-eight
has been too fruitful of the tokens of this appal-

ng and disastrous connexion between the want
of knowledge and the want of subordination.
Since the memorable revival of the movement in
behalf of the uneducated towards the commencement
of 18 47, a hundred thousand additional arguments
have been afforded to the advocates of education ; and
those arguments cannot but prove most advantageous
in forwarding the wishes and realising the visions of
the practical philanthropist.
As a brilliant testimony that the interest of the
more rational and influential Reformers of the United
Kingdom has in no measure abated, but that it has
on the contrary extended its influence throughout the
country, we need only direct attention to the
strenuous exertions which have recently been made
in the right direction by some of the most
eminent and enlightened of our English ecclesiastics.
Notwithstanding the glut of pamphlets upon the sub-
ject
of National Education which streamed from the
printing press in the course of last summer, the
efforts of the pamphleteer have not been relaxed, nor
has the power afforded to the humanitarian by the
brochure of 32 pages octavo been entirely abandoned.
This circumstance is attested not the least conspicu-
ously by the Address* just issued to the multitude by
the Reverend the Vicar of Harwell, an address
in which is gracefully illustrated the system of
instruction adopted in an establishment in Lower
Toynton, in the county of Lincolnshire. Something,
however, beyond the isolated and unpretending efforts
of the pamphleteer is requisite at the present extraor-
dinary period, or otherwise the cause of education
will be overlooked by the many, and be remembered
only by the philosophic and reflective few. While
the ears of the million are stunned by the noise of the
awful events transpiring in all directions, the unob-
trusive eloquence of the pamphleteer upon education
becomes necessarily almost wholly inaudible. The
roar of the bombardment of Vienna, the reverbera-
tions of the oratorical displays of BUTT and
WHITESIDE, the din of the rivalry which is alread
beginning among the French Presidential candidates,
the sullen auguries of revolt which are at this mo-
ment booming across the Mediterranean, from the
distant cities of Lombardy, the intermittent explo-
sions of opinion in Cephalonia, the rigour exercised
by the new Viceroy of EGYPT, the vociferous dispu.
tants at Frankfort, monopolise the attention of the
popular mind so forcibly as to drown the eloquence,
however earnest, of the educational pamphleteer. A.
new medium for the advocacy of the beneficent cause
has been found necessary, and that medium
has been lately and most effectively employed
by an ecclesiastic whose abilities are not less distin•
guished than his liberality, we mean the Reverend
JoHrt DUFTON of Warehorne Rectory. In another
portion of this evening's impression will be found an
epitome of an introductory lecture delivered by this
eminent divine before the resident and honorary

* "An Address to the Nation," &c., p.p. 77, Bvo.
By the Vicar of Harwell, Btrks, London. 1846.