The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-28 00:00:00

Working expenses 40 per cent. on gross in-
come

1,516,90

1,011,266

Total £2,528,167
Average per week, to pay 7 per cent... 448,618.
" The gross revenue of the year ending 30th June,
1848, was-2,194,0931, or on an average of 42,1941. per
week.

"It therefore remains for the shareholders to decide
whether the preceding calculations are sound and
moderate, and if so, whether there is a reasonable pro-
bability f the gross revenue of the company from the
main line and branches to be opened increasing to an
extent of 6,4241. per week by the year 1852, when all the
capital will be called up, and the subsidiary lines be in
operation.

" To produce such an increase, there is the additional
revenue to be derived from all the lines enumerated in
Schedules 2 and 3; and that steady annual increase,
which, with the exception of periods of severe depression,
has taken place since the lines were opened—to which
should be added, that economy of management which,
increased experience will enable the directors to introduce.
" On. the other hand, the directors do not overlook
the fact that a certain amount of traffic will be abstracted
by competing lines. It will be much less than is usually
supposed, and the general traffic is secure to the concern."
We congratulate the company both on the resolution to
publish its accounts and on the accounts which it has
published. It is right that, in matters interesting society
so deeply and so extensively, there should be neither
secrecy nor mystification. And we feel assured that the
safety of the public and the prosperity of enterprise will
be promoted and secured by a course of proceeding cal-
culated better than the most eloquent arguments to
dispel the clouds which have recently gathered over
prospects so important to the whole community, and
so vital to the numerous classes more immediately
concerned.

ADVERTISER.—We congratulate the public, as well
as the shareholders, on the indications of improvement
in the market value of railway property which have ap-
peared within the last few days. We pause not now to
show in what way the public are interested in the pros-
, perity of railways. That we did some days ago. We
recur to the subject, for the purpose of calling attention
to the confirmation which is thus early given of the
soundness of the advice we tendered to the shareholders,
when we told them that there was no real cause for the
depreciation which had taken place, and counselled them
not to sacrifice their property, if they were in circum-
stances to keep it. That advice we now repeat. There
may be some•slight occasional fluctuations in the market
value of shares, but they will, ere long, not only ac-
quire their proper position in the prices of the day, but
retain it when they have acquired it. The severe storm
by which they have been assailed will, now that it is
about to subside, be succeeded by a long-continued
period of tranquillity, in which railway prices will be
remarkable for their steadiness. :Mr. Hudson, in his
letter to certain shareholders of the Midland Rail-
way, concurs in this opinion—one, wo may here re-
mark, which wn do not now express for the first time.
It is'nO small satisfaction to us to find that Mr. Hudson
coincides with us in several important matters, which
we were the first to bring before the public. Some
weeks ago,, when cautioning
.bona fide shareholders
against disposing of their property, we adverted at great
length to the fact that the quotations which had ap-
peared day after day in the Stock Exchange lists, of
prices , which were constantly declining, were not the
, quotations of actual sales, but of fictitious transactions,
in which the " Bears " had been systematically engaged.
We appealed, in proof of this, to the records of the trans-
fer offices of any of theleading companies. Mr. Hudson
comes forward and
.proves the accuracy of our statement.
He diitinctly 'affirms that, during the recent panic,
the 'number of transfers of shares which have taken
place has been less than usual. And, this, not as re-
gards one or two of his lines, but as respects all the rail-
' ways with which he is connected. We are in a condi-
tion to affirm, that the same thing may be predicated of
the stock of the London and North-Western, the Great
Western, the London and South-Western, and, indeed,
of all "the leading companies. Tho depreciation in the
value Of railway property which has caused so much
alarm, and led to such disastrous results to many of the
most respectable families in the country, has been pro-
d uced'by thisSe unprincipled practices which we formerly
exposed as being resorted to by the " Bears," and which
Mr. Hudson characterises by the mild term of "a ems
bination to depress shares." And, here we beg to make one
or two observations on the subject of these fictitious sales
those nominal transactions which have for some months
past figured on the Stock Exchange lists, and misled, to
their ruin, thousands of simple people who are un-
acquainted with the mystery of iniquity which is
in unceasing operation among the speculators in Capel-
court. It is much to be regretted, that the companies to
which we have referred, did not, when they saw the pro-
perty of their shareholders daily diminishing in "'up,
and principally through the quotation of fictitious sales,
give an official intimation in the public journals, that
these transactiions were nominal not reaL In confirma-
tion of this, they might have published weekly the num-
ber of transfers which had actually taken place ; and
when it had been seen that the number of real transac-
tions bore no proportion to the number of fictitious sales,
the minds of shareholders would have been disabused.
All apprehensions would have died away ; confidence
would soon have been restored, and the " Bears " would
have been completely caught in the trap which they had '
set for the public. There is one other point iu Mr. Llud-