The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-15 00:00:00

THE CHRISTAIAS BOOKS.

of Sicily—an aspiration which he has thus expressed
—" 0 Fate ! give us a dozen years more life, and a
lift in our faculties, immense ; and let us try still if
even our own verses cannot do something with it."
A dozen years, forsooth ! let him count upon them,
in his hopeful spirit, as a certainty, and he may yet
wed his name to immortal song in connexion with the
fame of the Sicilian Robin A dozen years, for-
sooth ! Three years, Leigh Hunt, and you may give
us a golden epic worthy of living for aye, side by
side with Colin Clout. Richard Doyle has surpassed
his reputation in his exquisite sketches of Polyphe-
mus and the Syrens ; he has risen from the gro-
tesque vulgarities of caricature to the fantastic ele-
gancies of dreamland. In the " Midsummer Eve "of
Mrs. S. C. Hall, we have a fairy tale suited in every-
thing but its title to the festive evenings of Christ-
mas. As it was published in periodical chapters in
the Art- Union Journal we took occasion to commend
its merits, both as a literary production and as the
vehicle of a multitude of inimitable illustrations. Our
impression as to its excellence is only confirmed now
that the entire volume is completed, and the scat-
tered chapters and dispersed embellishments grouped
together. Mrs. S. C. Hall has written things over
which we are not ashamed to confess our tears have
fallen not unplentifully ; but she has never before
composed a work in which her powers both of senti-
ment andimagination were more sustained than they are
in " Midsummer Eve," and never before hare her ima-
ginings been so profusely and gracefully sprinkled with
artistic decorations. Her inspiration has been drawn,
we conceive, partly from the " Dream" of Shakspere,
partly from the " Plea" of Hood, and principally
troth the poetic legends of that Ireland whose wit and
passion she has already so repeatedly pourtrayed.
With something of the exaggerated ideality which
was perceivable in his " Musical and Pictorial
Almanack," Mr. F. W. N. Bayley has endeavoured
to commemorate in a becoming mariner the triumphs
of the Jenny Lind season at her M ajesty's Theatre,
by enditing a poem which he has called the " Wake of
Ecstacy." By a prior title, and a more comprehen-
sible one too, to those who are unread in his verses,
he has christened the book " The Souvenir of the
Season." Lavishly emblazoned with gold on the back,
the volume is illustrated by several fanciful litho-
graphic engravings from the pencil of Kenny Mea-
dows; and the title-page is a copy (by J. Barrett)
from the only photographic likeness of the songstress
taken in England. Mr. Bayley is stark staring mad
about the Swenish Nightingale, and that will cer-
tainly be considered no valid disqualification to him
as a versifier by the many thousands of her Majesty's
lieges who have also qualified themselves for Bedlam
by listening to the voice of Mademoiselle Lind. The
work is the effusion of honest enthusiasm, and
as such must be considered, and may be remembered.
air. William Makepiece Thackeray, or as he
delights to call himself, Mr. Michael Angelo
litinarsh, in other words Yellowplush, in
other words Fitz boodle, in other words
the snob and the fat contributor of Punch—has
penned a little pink glazed book, and embellished it
with engravings sketched by his own pencil, and
coloured by his own paint brush, and designated it on
the title-page, on the cover, in the puff preliminaries,
and in the advertisements " Our Street. Last
winter we remember " laughing consumedly" over
" Mrs. Perkins's Ball "—which was good. We re-
collect also praising it as it deserved. This winter
we have " yawned consumedly " over " Our Street"
—which is execrable. Every sentence is a spasmodic
effort at fun. The author grins at you perpetually
from his pages, but his grins are as forced and
heartless as the grins produced by galvanism. He
has evidently undertaken his task with the deliberate
determination to be droll—if he could. The result
is' literally, dreadful. Mr. Titmarsh instead of being
"fast," as is his wont, has, all at once become
awfully slow. What he, perhaps, fondly imagined,
while writing, to be very smart indeed, is nothing
more than so much twaddle. His pictures are the
least deplorable parts of his book; some of them are
conceived in a spirit of true facetiousness : ex. gr.
the portraits of the gentlemen of " Our Street," the
outline of the man in possession, and the daguerreotype
of the lady whom nobody knew. One of the
most extraordinary phenomena of literature that
has ever come under our observation is
most certainly " The Emigrants of Ahadarra," by
William Carleton. The marvel of it has originated
in the enterprise of the publishers of the " Parlour
Library." They here present to their subscribers an
original fiction from one of the most remarkable, and
certainly one of the most celebrated, writers of the
age—the great novelist of Ireland—William Carleton
—for one shilling ! The type is good, the paper is
good, the form of publication is neatness itself, and
the story is told with energetic vigour, with a force
indeed not unworthy of its distinguished author. The
narrative goes to the very bottom of the evils of Ire-
land, and lets one more into the secret of its mal-
administration than a whole waggon load of blue-
books. It tells more of the sorrows of Erin than a
dozen orations in Conciliation Hall, and tells it,
moreover, with ranch of Irish humour, and with a
still greater amount of Irish passion. " The Emi-
grants of Ahadarra" is a work not only entitled to
consideration from its unprecedented cheapness, but
from the circumstance of its being the latest compo-
sition of William Carleton. Another illustration has
been afforded of the beauties, the originalities, the
drolleries, and the virtues inherent in the country life
of England in " The Hall and the Hamlet." -It is
a work which could alone have been written by the
author of " Rural Life in England," and is calculated
to redound more to the credit of Mr. Howitt than
even his " Ilomes and Haunts." It is a genuine book
—a book which breathes of the green lanes, and de-
picts our agricultural population as they are in the
park and the homestead, in the hall and the
hamlet. Several portions of it have already appeared
in print, but the majority of the tales and sketches are
here first published. They are some of them quaint
enough, and even at times fantastic enough, both in
conception and in the manner in which they are nar-
rated; but in the generality they are eminently
natural, and afford a fair notion of the incidents and
personages which may be encountered by a sojourner
in the more secluded parishes of our inner shires.
Sometimes the individuals portrayed are homely even
to the ludicrous—instance " The Country Manty-
Mekker"—and sometimes again they are graceful
beyond measure—instance " The Fortunes of Alice
Law." Occasionally, too, William Howitt runs riot
in the ridiculous, as in " Sampson Ilooks and his man
Joe Ling," but there is always truth at the bottom of
his descriptions. Truthfulness, indeed, is the pre-
vailing characteristic of Mr. Howitt's present com-
position, and he has evidently regarded his subject
throughout with an indescribable relish. We can
thoroughly appreciate his aspiration, that with our im-
provement in the organization of society we may not
destroy those peculiarities which impart such a re-
markable interest to the yeomen and farm labourers
of merry England. Perhaps the most elegant of the
various Christmas Books for 1847-8 (after Leigh
Hunt's, always after Leigh Hunt's,) is the new
edition of " Poems and Tales by Lord Byron," illus-
trated with many very exquisite line engravings by the
celebrated (and justly celebrated) engraver E. Finden.
" Zuleika" alone, as the frontispiece, would be
sufficient to render any book entitled to admiration ;
it is a representation of the Zatleika of Lord Byron,
the countenance, like that of Kate Kearney, who
lived by the banks of Killarney, is " bewitchingly
simple." Some of the landscapes are delicious, and
the little vignettes to the " Giaour" are admirable as
embellishments to that string of poetic pearls. As a
single instance of the success with which Mr. Finden
has delineated the imaginings of the illustrious poet,
we nsay point to his engraving of Conrad rescifieg
Gulnare from the flaming harem of Seide. The work
is altogether produced with all the decorations of art
and with all the refinements of a fastidious taste.
There are, besides the volumes already mentioned,
several little books and brochures cif a less pre-
tentious character, but which do not merit any
the less a particular allusion. Of these Punch's
Comic Almanach is anything but the least
deserving of commetv3ation. It is brimfull of
the oddest conceit:. both of pen and pencil, and
the cartoon-sketches by Leech, and the marginal
vagaries by Doyle, ought to drive cholic and the
megrims from our shores, if they don't dissipate the
miseries of influenza or the horrors of Asiatic cholera.
The publication is a very broadside of jokes—written
and pictorial. We would particularise Mr. Leech's
picture of the Snob at the Opera, and Mr.
Doyle's outline of Punch exploring Vesuvius (like
a second Empedocles), as the very acme of
the laughable. Nor is the facetious wholly pre-
dominant this season; the sentimental has its place,
as shown by the " Lays for the Thoughtful and the
Solitary," by Mrs. Charles Tinsley. They are issued
somewhat in the same form as that whichhas been ren-
dered popular by the Voices from the Crowd and
the Mountain, by Dr. Charles Mackay. Most of the
lays are musical, as pieces of versification, and all of
them inculcate a generous and, at times, a noble and
lofty moral. We welcome the authoress as another
labourer in the cause of popular advancement—a
cause which may be as widely promulgated, and as
materially assisted, by the song of the poet as by
the speech of the orator or by the declamations of the
press. Divers other effusions demand our considera-
tion,c.
thaton cllliltuohhsreieao:nwn
hasde wintert hhbsatelta
but these must be reserved for another oppor-
ll
tunity einof
nfailtur
which
i o: ne ns
beenui
tn ms ewr
additionshot eu
prolific
rr
oywli
hurrying
to
ptorivt its conclusion,
Christmas
as several of its predecessors, it has produced less
that demands reprehension, and more that is emi-
nently commendable.

A JAR OF HONEY PR .111 MOMVT HYBLA.
By _Leigh Hunt.
IinDSU tiMiq? EVE. By Mrs. S.C. Mall.
THE SOUVEAIR OF THE SEASON. By F.

W. N. Guyley.
OUR STREET. By M. A. Titnzarsh.
THE EMIGRANTS OF AHADARRA. By W.
CArleton.
THE HALL AND THE HAMLET. 2 Yob. By

U. It ow lit.
TALES AND POEMS. By Lord Byron.
PLINCII'S COMIC ALMANAC for 1848.
LAYS Foie THE SOLITARY By Mrs. C.
Tinsley.
Formerly Christmas and the New Year were wel-
comed by very different tokens of joy than pleasant
volumes. Our forefathers, on the arrival of these
seasons of festivity, gave signs of hilarity immeasur-
ably more boisterous if not nearly so beautiful. The
contrasts, indeed, which are afforded by our popular
amusements are more valuable than a superficial ob-
server could at first have imagined—they evidence, in
a remnrkeble degree, the progress of civilization ;
they display at once the physical enervation and
moral advancement of the populace ; they proclaim
the great and beneficent fact, that scholarship has ex-
tended frren the cloister and the attic to the workshop
and the fireside. Almost every man who has leisure
enough to enjoy himself, now-a-days, can find inex-
haustible sources of entertainment in his library—
it matters not whether that library consists of half-a-
dozen well-thumbed volumes, or of some thousands
of books in calf-skin and morocco; it scarcely
matters, indeed, whether it be comprised in a
Shakspere, a " Crusoe," a Jeremy Taylor, a
Richardson, and a " Pilgrim's Progress, or
contains all the treasures of all the literatures of
all the countrie in all the world. A men who has
Defoe at his elbow, or Swift on his teaboard, can
dispense with the mummeries and pagentries of our
ancestors. He is independent of her /tlejesty's ser-
vants, the stage players ; he can snap his fingers at
the Lord of Misrule and the Master of Merry Dis
ports ; he can give the cold shoulder to the " waits"
and the "carols ;" he can eat his plum porridge with-
out a sigh for the boar's head and the roast peacock.
Give us a Cervantes or a Dickens, and we will spend
a blither evening than any of those pudding-headed
squires who, of old, could'nt get on at all in the way
of fun without a roaring company, without gongs,
and bugles, and practical jokes, and bumpers of spiced
bi.shop that (according to the old courtier of the
Queen's) " would make a cat squeak and a man
dumb." Nor are we by any means singular in this
preference ; the multitude have the same partialities.
People toil so perpetually in these days of industry
and enterprize, that quietude is pleasanter than ex -
citement, and,with the increase of labour there is a
development of intelligence which excites a taste for
the mare intellectual kinds of recreation. This, we
take it, is the whole secret of the decline of thea-
trical amusements. Toil is so general and uninter-
!flitting. that the toilers yearn towards nightfall for
the ease of home instead of longing for the hubbub of
publicity; they would rather don the slippers than the
crush- hat, and would prefer a warm spot on the
hearth-rug for their feet, to a cold one in the pit of
the " Princess's." There is nothing surprising in this
predilection when we remember that our generation
is not merely an active but a thoughtful generation.
With a larger amount of enterprise than our prede-
cessors, we have also a more catholic taste for litera-
ture. Of late years the result of this diffusion of
literary pursuits has been singularly manifested.
Works, which would formerly have been produced in
a manner too costly and bulky to meet the popular re-
quirements, have been published at a moderate price;
and in deteched portions. Hence have arisen our
periodical novelists. Hence also have arisen those
annual story-books which have from time to time
(and especially during the winter of 1846-7) covered
our library tables with volumes in all the colours of
the rainbow—red, yellow, purple, blue, green, violet,
orange—and all embroidered with golden devices ap-
propriate to Christmas. Of both those kinds of pe-
riodical publications Charles Dickens has been the
originator. The green cover of "Pickwick" called
forth the pink of " Lorrequer," the emerald of" Mal-
vern" the saffron of "Vanity Fair," the primrose of
" Tadpole"—cum cceteris paribus. In the same way
the crimson binding of the immortal " Carol" proved
to be the progenitor of a voluminous company of his-
toriettes similarly clad in cloth and similarly bedizened
with gilding. The cessation of the Christmas series
of Mr. Dickens, or rather the interruption of it for
twelve months, is, singularly enough, simultaneous
with a diminution in the number of little books for-
merly issued. by his imitators. Besides a story by
Mrs Gore, another by Charles Rowcroft, a third
by G. P. R. James, and a fourth by Thomas Miller,
there is not one of any note whatever. Like
the influenza, the epidemic seems to be on the de-
cline ; and, in lieu of the frivolous fictions which
last winter disgraced the publishers, we have now
before us one or two works of a very superior,
and more than merely entertaiting character. Fore-
most among these is unquestionably the right daint3
hook of an old favourite—" The Jar of Honey from
Mount Hybla," by Leigh Hunt. Foremost of all it
is for its delicate embellishments, for the exquisite
nicety of its binding, and for the toothsome and
saccharine suavity of its title-page. Even in these
respects alone it would be the book ()faze season, but it
is in a particular manner entitled to precedence, by
reason of its wit—a wit culled like honey-drops from
the flowers of Attica; its classicality (if the word is
allowable)—a classicality which breathes rather of
the academic groves and of the lemon-walks of Syra-
cuse than of the di lectus and the book-shelf; its
poetry (which is choice even to a punctilio) ; its good-
humour (which is scholarly), and its enthusiasm
(which is fastidious). Had Leigh Hunt never pro-
duced " The Feast of the Poets" he would
in this one book have demonstrated his ca-
pacity to supply. a banquet of asphodels and
hippocrene. One circumstance must be remembered,
namely, that the book is a reprint from Ainsworth's
Magazine—but a reprint so mellowed by supervision,
and so enhanced by the decorations of another art,
that it is in a measure preferable to an original. The
very binding (from a design by Owen Jones) is a
thing to be conned : it is of a luscious honey, colour,
trellissed with green leaves and knotted branches; the
centre is a mesh of golden blossoms ; a humble bee is
crawling up the back, drowsy and drunk with sweet-
ness, just as one has seen it a hundred times in that
season when, as Tennyson sings—
" Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily."
In the middle of the cover, too, is the identical blue
jar of Sicilian honey which attracted Leigh Hunt's
notice as it stood in the window of Messrs. Fortnum
and Mason, in Piccadilly, and from the mere sight of
which arose all those bewitching associations which
afterwards resolved themselves into the present
volume. We look upon the jar, and think, with the
author, of the blue sea and the blue heavens of Italy;
we hold it in the sun, and fancy that " a spot of in-
sufferable radiance comes in the middle of its cheek,
like a very laugh of light." We look at it again, and we
think also of the copper pot of the fisherman
in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," that ves
sel which was sealed with the seal of the great
Solomon, and which Leigh Hunt himself has spoken
of as containing the "highly concentrated essence of
Jinn." Of the delicate thoughts contained in this
jar, what can be more delicate, and, being delicate, what
can be more truthful, and, being truthful, what can
be more refined than the one comprised in those five
words (page 25), "Flowers cannot help being beau-
tiful P" Of quaint phrases what can be quainter than
that one where he speaks of Polyphemus (page 5)
"in his fiercer days, before he had sown his wild
rocks ?" Or than that one where he alludes to the
trick of Dionysius in hanging a sword by a single
hair over the head of Damocles, during a luxurious
banquet, and calls it (the trick) "a practical epigram
of the very finest point ?" And of quiet humour what
can be more humorous than the remark with which
he concludes his account of the huge toy-ship con-
structed by Hiero the Second ?—a ship so vast in di-
mensions that it contained " gardens, a wrestling
ground, rooms full of pictures and statues, floors with
subjects from Homer, painted in mosaic, and eight
fortified towers"—by exclaiming "We should like to
know what Tom Bowling would have said to it."
Those who have not perused the papers as they ap-
peared fro:n time to time in Ainsworth's Magazine,
will find what delectable bits are culled from the
classics by merely dipping into Chapter IV., where
there is the narrative of the prize-fight between Pol-
lwuixthanadllAmthYe c udsa,i fromn tine
st
sh eoofr kevi naai
pl
oo
le ohre °Cc rhi
et us
tse,
rgfiievledn,
and imbued, nevertheless, with all the relish of Ben-
digo or the Tipton Slasher. Let them but dip so
far into the " Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,"
and we warrant them they will be over their knuckles
and up to their wrists in its " duicitudes " before
fifteen minutes have expired. If Mr. Hunt has else-
where embalmed flies in amber, he has caught many
" winged thoughts " (better things, even, than your
June flies, with their opel-coloured pinions and their
gold green armour) ill his honey., His " Jar of
Honey " is to prose what Boccaccio "Pot of Basil"
is to poetry. Whoever runs may read what is written
in his pages, and may become very learned in Greek
over his salad, and profoundly versed in Italian over
his chocolate. All countries arid all generations afford
him meats (sweet-meats) for his literary confections.
Scotland and Attica, Italy and Warwickshire, Syra-
cuse and Stratford, Allan Ramsay and Tasso, Spenser
and Mo.echus, Virgil and Marlowe—all add their
offerings ' • they are the flowers from which he has
extracted the very sugary quintessence of poesy, or
rather they are the bees which have supplied his hive..
Before ee e part with our author, we would especially,
distinctly, emphatically, earnestly, imploringly conjure
him to fulfil his aspirations as to the composition of
ptem in celebration of bis dear favourite King Robert
•

Sot, s Issuei.. .... 26,876,770

£211,576,770

Dated the 13th day of January.

`ASTI:TES T.

IANICIWO
Proprietors' capital . • 14,553.000
'"t • •• • • • 3,684,629
Public depos:ts (in-
eluding Exchequer,
Commissioners of
National Debt, Say-
ings-banks, and Di-
8
vidend accounts) • • 3,414,00
Other deposits • • • ... 10,558,286
Seven day and othBr
bills .• • •• .. 846,364

£3.5,356,237

Dated tha 15th day of January.

One day last week more than seven hundred ships,
laden with coals, and bound for London or other southern
ports, were lying at anchor in the Humber, opposite
Cleethorpes, where they were waiting for a fair wine.—
Lincoln Mercury.

TILE SUN. 'LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 15, 1848.

INSURANCE COMPANIES. 1
' nivoleml Amount (
Name of Company. per -
of Paid. Pricy :
Annum. Share. 1
----------- -
•C s. d. .£ a. d. i
Albion ••••••• • • • • • - 31. 10s 500 0 0 50 0 0 75 1
Alliance Brit. and For. 6 per cent. 100 0 0 111 0 0 17
Vitt. Marine. •• •• • • 61. per cent, 100 0 0 50 0 59
Was . 13s.6d.prsh. 50 0 0 5 6 8 -
Britisti Commercial .. Is. per share 50 0 0 5 u 0 6t4
Clericl,Med.&Gen.Life 51. per cent. 100 0 0 10 0 0 201 X,
31. 100 0 0 10 0 0 -
138.
Ei: nu
rg,.,
p&e Sa,,c oitl
iLe a w. .
..:
..:
55. perper cent.
cent.
tiagle .. • .... ..... .... Gs. 90 0 0 50 0 11
50 0 0 5 8 0 64
5200
00 00
1121 eidlp26.
L 2 ad
Family Endowmr t Soc. 4/. & be. 4 0 0 4 0 0 ' -
F_ eemasons' ... •.•• •• 51. per cent. 20 0 0 3 0 0 1 -
thobe • . ..... ........ 61. per cent. Stock. - 1 120
titiardian ..... ....... 51. per cent. 100 0 0 36 10 0 40. a
tinperial Fire •••• •• • • 12 per cent. 500 0 0 50 0 0 214
imperial Life •••• • • •• 12s. 100 0 0 10 0 0 14N,
Indemnity Marine • ... 11. eh. & be. 100 0 0 513 1 -
Law Fire .... -.. - IGO 0 0 210 0 3
Law I ife -- -
Legal and General Life - 50 0 0 20 0 -I,,raltit Fire •••• • • • • 101. 25 0012 10 0 13%
London Ship •.••• • • • 10s. 25 0 0 12 10 0 13%
Marine - 100 0 0 15 0 0 -
Med. Invlid& Gen. Life 4 1. per et. 50 0 0 20 0 2%
National Leas. Fund • • Si. per cent. 20 0 0 210 0 -
National Life •• • • -
Palladium Lila ......
37
Pelican • • • • • • • • • • • • • • - -
165
l'imeuix - -
'lotector Life.. • • ... St. per cent. 20 0 0 1 0 0 -
rovident Life •..• • .. 11. ss. 100 0 0 10 0 0 -
Rock Life •••••• • • • • • • 0 010 0 4%
Royal Exchange .• • ... Si. per cent. Stock. - -
'en Fire • • ••.• • • • • . . 61. 108. - - -
!Atte Life .• • • • • • .• • IL 6s. - - -
Universal Life.... • ... 101}(1. pr cnt. 100 0 0 810 0 -
Viaorie Lile •••• ••••• - - 4 0 0 --
GAS-W(18T AND COME COMPANIES.
Dividend , Amount
Name of Company. per I of Paid. I Price
Annum. I Share.
----
X. s. d. Z. s. d.
U. ;40 0 0 18 0 0 171 a,
Ditto Provincial •• • • 11. Bs. 20 0 0 19 $ 0 23y,.,
Bristol • • •••••• • • • • • 101. per cent. 20 0 0 - -
Brighton .. - 19
City of London .. •• • • 101. 100 0 0 100 0 0 290
Continental Consolidat. 925. pr share 5l 0 0 19 5 0 54
Ditto, New • •
Equitable.. •• • • .....• 15s. pr share 50 0 0 50 0 0 38
Imperial . •
Independent
London• • .... ••• • - -
Ditto •••• • • • • -
Phcenix .••••• • • • - -5/. percent. 50 0 0 45 0 0 35
Retailer •••• • ••
United General 44L pr cent. 50 0 0 50 0 0 17
Westminster Chartered 31,
50 0 0 - 55% xd
Ditto, New ..I
•
IMISICEX.I.ANEOUS.
Dividend Amount
Name of Company. per Paid. Price
Annum. Share.
- ------- ---- - ---- --
-----"--
£. s. d. , X. s. d.
Australian Aerlculturl - 100 00,30 0 0 -
Anglo-Mexican Mint., 11. 4s. 10 00110 0 0 -
- 2 10 0 --
I Ditto, HAI 'Shares.. --Canada ... ••• • - .... 61. per cent. 100 0 0 32 10 0 -
• Uppr Canada Bonds 51. per cent. .- . - --
-
City Bonds.. •• • • .... 3141. pr cent. - 1.
' Comp. Cpprlders Eng. Si. per cent. 100 0 0 '7O 0 0 -
• Gen. Meyers. & Invest. sp. c.& ha, 21 100 0 0 ' 100 0 0 100
Equitable Reversionry 4W. pr cent. 100 0 0 95 0 0 90
_ Gea. Steam Navigation 11.8 s. 15 00i14 0 0 n -
London Institution .• • - - 1
Peainslr & Orient.Stm. 21. per cent. 50 0 0 50 0 0 58 ..
✓ Reversionary Int. Soc. 31. pr cent. 100 0 0 100 0 0
9.
Royal Mail Steam •• .. 3141. pr cent. - ,GO 0 0 8
e South Australian ..• - 61. per cent. 25 0 0 25 0 0 -
If Van Dieman's Land. - 100 0 0 23 0 0 4
~ Universal Salvage •• • • - 25 0 0 50 0 -

BANK OF ENGLAND•
(From last night's Gazette.)
AA Aocount, pursuant to the Act 7th ant Bth of Victoria, cap. =for
the Week ending on Saturday, the Bth day of January, 1848.
Issus DKPANTMENT. X.

Government debt • • 11,615,100
Other securities •• • • 2,9e4,900
Gold coin and bullion 10,476,623
1,400,147
Silver bullion • • • • • •

1 X 95,876,770
3f • MARSILA.LL. Chief Cashier.
1548.

Government securi-
ties (including Dead
Weight Annuity)" 10,993,353
Othor securities •• • • 111,345,954
Notes •• • ..... ••• • • • 7,315,3 M
Gold and silver coin.. 701,591

1 £35,356,287
M. MARSHALL, Chief Cashier.
,1848.

the classes in the community who are placed in the
greatest risk, who are exposed to the greatest mis-
chiefs, and for whom the protection afforded by
the administration of the law is most needed,

would point to that large class in the communty
that in their various gradations—from the wealthy
occupiers to the person who supports him-
self by his industry with a small holding and with
scanty capital—the farmers of the country who, from.
their numbers, must constitute a large portion of its

population. I would say that they are the classes
possibly in the greatest risk, and in the most need of
protection. [His Lordship here referred to the

number and nature of the crimes that came before

,he Court in Limerick, and having recapitulated the

leading features and circumstances of Ran (Puck's)
case and others, proceeded.] If these things are so,
am I not right in saying, that these classes of the
community are those who most wed the protection
of the law, and the co-operation of all for that pur-
pose. You, and such as you, who reside in dwel-
lings, and in plAces in which from the characters of
your residences, and from your means of summoning
around you your servants and dependants, can protect
yourselves against such a state of things as this ; and it
is a dreadful state of society in which you are obliged
to adopt precautions of that sort ; but a farmer residing
in a remote district can offer no resistance against
murderers assailing him in arms. His protection can
only be from the assertion of the supremacy of the
law. When, therefore, I say, that the co-operation
of all classes in society ought to be given in aid of
the law, and for the suppresSion of outrage, I am not
I think wrong in swing that there is no class in the
community who ought to be more stimulated not
merely by a sense of duty, but by a sense of their
own personal interest, to lend their co-operation as
those who belong to the class of farmers. It is im-
possible that crime could prevail to such an extent if
that co-operation were given. It may be that it is
in some instances withheld from the influence of pre-

vailing intimidation—it may be that in some instances
it is withheld from some lamentable and mistaken

sympathies with the perpetrators of these crimes.
One of the circumstances which appeared before us
in Limerick, which has given me encouragement in
hoping that these outrages may be put down by the
administration of the law, with the co-operation of all
classes in the community, is that instances occurred of
the courage—not merely the courage with which
some of the assailants were resisted, but the courage
with which men came forward to appeal to the laws
and prosecute the defenders to conviction, and I be-
lieve it at least will be found by that class of persons
themselves that the mischief Was gone too far, that it
is necessary a t last that they as well as others should
combine for its suppression, and that they are taught
the salutary lesson, that by appealing to the laws of
the land they will save themselves from this species or
tyranny, and that their properties, their liberties,
their families, themselves, all that society can present
for the enjoyment of life, will be secured by giving to
the law that co operation which the law demands. It
is not merely that such persons are prompted by their
own personal interests to adopt this course—their
own safety compel it. Some instruction has been
given of the danger of connivance at crime. In
one case which was tried under this Commission,
a man, himself a farmer, apparently of a respectable
class, was tempted to harbour a felon when fleeing
from justice. No reason, as for as appeared on the
trial, existed for believing that he was engaged in the
perpetration of the outrage for which that felon was
convicted, and for which he is destined to lose his.
life ; but there is a provision of the law, that he who,
knowing the guilt of a felon, screens that felon rAnd
harbours him, is himself guilty of felony, and of the
crime of the person whom he harbours—if the crime
of murder, he is exposed to the risk of being separated
from his family and home for the whole period of his
life. The man of whom I speak, William Frewen,
was convicted of that crime, and he is now on his
way to the place where he will be separated for ever
from those whom in this world he holds most dear,
because he had not the courage to say No to this
felon who, fleeing from justice, sought his protection.l
trust that this may in itself operate as a war. tag
to those who maw he called upon or tempted to incur
a similar risk ; and if they are asked by any person,
however connected with them by any tie, even that of.
kindred, whom they know to be guilty of any of
these atrocious crimes, they . will answer him by
saying, "I cannot incur the risk—l will not commit
the crime, lest I may share the fate of William
Frewen." [The Learned Judge here read and ex-
plained Barnes's clause in the late Act for the pre-
vention of crime in Ireland, with respect to the power
given of trying accessories even before the principals
were amenable.] Gentlemen of the jury, I have
thought it my duty to make these general remarks
upon the state of crime, upon the features which it
exhibits, and to suggest those considerations which
appear to me naturally to ai ise from what has ()e-
-1 curred under our own observation. With the cruses,
or the all-ged causes, of this state of things, or with
any of their remedies, you and we have nothincl to do.
Subjects such as these are not only unfit to be dis-
cussed, but to be considered by you or, such an
occasion. Our duty and our business is to deal with
the administration of the law. We, in our respective
spheres, are to concur in that administration; and by
its vigorous administration, and by its being adminis-
tered, as it always is, by that mercy which, after all,
is but part of its j,,stice, the result will be the resto-
ration of peace and tranquillity. [His Lordship
next called the attention of the jury to the provisions
of the Act before referred to, as to the appearing in
and possession of arms, the augmentation of the police
force, and the expense of the same. Ilis observations
in explanation thereof were in substance the same as
those of the Lord Chief Justice in Limerick.] I
will not detain you with other matters, which have
been fully adverted to in the charge of the Lord
Chief Justice in a neighbouring county, and which,
most, if not all of you, must be aware of. But the
calendar of this county suggests to me one matter which
it is necessary I should point your attention to, be-
cause I find in it that two persons, at least, are
charged with the commission of an offence which is
not often, although it has been sometimes made the
subject of investigation ; the offence to which I allude
is the offence of conspiring or of soliciting to murder.
Some persons have by some mistake, been under the
impression that the provisions of the law with refer-
ence to this crime are provisions of an antiquated
character, and not now in force on the statute book.
This is a great mistake. These provisions, it is my
duty to apprise you, have been long the law in Ire-
land. In the year 1829, when the 10th George IV.,
chap. 34, was passed, repealing a great number of
statutes, constituting the criminal code of the
country, and consolidating the law, the pro-
visions of the Act which relates to the offence on
which I am commenting were re-enacted. [His
Lordship read the clause of the Act relating
to the offence.] So that the soliciting is
punishable by the law of the country as if the crime
of murder itself were committed by the
.party. In
England the law is not so severe, as the punishment
was mitigated by the Ist Vic., cap. 85. It 18 an
offence in the investigation of which in reference to
the particular individual charged great cautionand
care are required. It is an offence committed
course in secret—it is an offence ofave mostbeean trocious
character, and one in which there have
recent
places
himself
briefly The Learnedg
eCn
ehlealf
Baron then
convictions in
duties of grand jurors with regard to the considers-
inaddressed other
ion of bills of indictment.

THURSDAY, JAN. 13.
Their Lordships took their seats upon the bench
this morning, at 12 o'clock.
MURDER OF MR. JAMES WATSON.—James Hayes
and Patrick Ryan, both little more than thirty years
of age, were indicted for having in the month of May,
1847, at Ballycorney, in the county Clare, wilfully
and feloniously killed and murdered one James Wat-
son. The indictment charged that a man named
William Ryan actually gave the blow which caused
death, but that the prisoners were aiding and as-
sisting.
The Attorney- General, the I Solicitor-General,
Messrs. Bennett, Q.C., and Plunkett, Q.C., appeared
with Sir Matthew Barrington, Bart., as Crown So-
licitor on behalf of the prosecution ; and Mr. O'Hea
defended the prisoners.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL shortly stated the facts
of the case. He said that the deceased, Mr. James
Wafson, of Kilcorney, was the agent of a gentle:
man of the name of Arthur, and the fact of his
being obliged in that capacity to distrain a man of
the name of Crowe, was the cause which led to his
murder. As in almost all the cases of murder which
occurred in the country, this dreadful and barbarous
murder arose out of a quarrel with reference to land,
for when Crowe was diatrained, it would appear that,
influenced by feelings of hostility towardseMrsro.n mWnaatsoan,
he engaged the prisoner and another p
William Ryan to commit this erime,..w_ which would be •
proved to their perfect satisfaction. Mr. Watson and
Crowe lived near one another, and on the day the
murder was committed three me. n came from the
direction of his house, met Mr. 'vcatson on the road
riding, and murdered himin the most brutal manner,
by wounding him on the head by a blow from a gun.
it would appear that a man named William Ryan
gave the blow, and that the prisoners assisted.
(The first witness was about being examined at
post hour.)

'SEIZING A DEAD BODY FOR DEBT,—Yesterday a
woman waited in great distress upon Mr. Mills, the
deputy coroner for Middlesex, and begged his advice
under the following circumstances :—She said that a
female relative of hers had died, and her body had been
seized for debt, and when the friends had assembled
that day to bury it, the keepers refused to give it up.
Mr. Mills directed her to make application to the magis•'
trate of the district, or to leave the body with the credi-
tors, who would gladly get rid of it by themselves de-
fraying the expense of sepulture.
Sir Randolph Routh had an interview yesterday
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.