The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-05 00:00:00

N°.18,236.] LONDON, WEDNESDAY
.., 7 MARCH 5, 1851.

NATIONAL LOAN FUND LIFE AND
EQUITABLE FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES
26, CORNIIILL,

DIRECTORS.
PT. LAMIE MURRAY, Esq., Chairman.

*W. A. B. Bennett, Esq.
■Hugh Croft, Esq.
tElliotson, M.D„ F.R.S.
*Ralph Gough, Esq.

*John Rawson, Esq.
■John Shaw, Esq.
t*Edmund S. Symes, Esq.
t*Clement Tabor, Esq.

•M. C, Maher, Esq.
•John Moss, Esq.

t Joseph Thompson, Esq.
t*Angustus Vigne, Esq•

AUDITOR..
Professor Wheat tone, F.R.S.
TRTSICIAN.
tJ. Elliotson, M.D„ F.R.S„ 37, Conduit-street.
BUR6DON.

faE. S. Symes, Esq., 77, Grosveuor-street, Grosvenor-square.
-acreasty.
t.W. 5. B. Woolhouse, Esq., F.R.A.S.,
BECIIETAILY.
D. T. Lyons Clanehy, Esq.
SIIPZBINTENDINT.
*W. A. Hawkins, Esq.
BANYEILS.

t*Messrs. Glyn, liathfax, Mills, and Co., 67, Lombard-street.
SOLICITONS,

t Mews. Sutton, Ewens, Ommanney add Prudence, 6, Basinghall-
street. '
*W. Tatham, Esq., 22, Tbrognlorten-streot.
NATIONAL LOAN FUND LIFE OFFICE.
CAPITAL-5W,0001.

The WITHDRAWAL TABLE of the Society affords to the As-
sured the greatest possible present and prospective advantages that
can be conferred by Life Assurance. On.this Tab's the Assured is
entitled, at any time, to receive at interest an immediate advance,
to the extent of one-half the amount of the paid annual Premiums,
without security, personal liability, or deposit of the Policy, but by
simple endorsement thereon ; or the /Alf Premium may be with-
held during the whole continuance of the Policy. Also, in the
event of the Assured at any time net requiring to continue the
Policy, on its surrender one-half of the annual payments will be
returned by the Society.
Lapsed Policies may be renewed without fine, on proof of health
and payment of arrears of Preiniiins wetbout interest.
Notices of Assignment of Policies elleistered and acknowledged,
so as to make them available as securities in the hands of
third parties.
Ns Entrance Fees or any other charms beyond the Policy Stamp.
Mae preterit income of t Society from Premiums is
83;00014 the **NW ,sle e °Sties of the Society is
teleloilef.reettled sta Mare bonus to
the Assured, amounts to 82,4541. ss. ext. At the last annual inves-
tigation, reported in May, 1850, the bonuses declared to the As-
sured were. the option of a return of 15 per cent. on their Premiums
in cash, or a reversionary addition to the original Bain assured by
each Policy varying from 20 to 65 per cent.

Extensive Travelling Leave granted without extra Premium
Moderate extra Premium for Residence in Tropical Climates.
EQUITABLE FIRE OFFICE.
Capital-500,0001.
(Incorporated ander 7 and 8 Viet., cap. ne.)

The leading principles of this Office ar3—Moderate and equitable
Rates of Premium for each class of risk—Annual. division of Profits.
Tke difficulty of collecting the elements on which to proportion
Premium to risk in Insurance against Loss by Fire has been so
great, that the rates at present charged are more the result of gam
than calculation.

It has been found by experience, that the total annual losses of the
different Established Companies have not been proportionate to the
amount of annual Premiums received by each.
It is of the highest importance, both to the Insured and Insurers,
that such an anomaly should cease, and an approximation to the
true risk be made. To secure this object the Equitable Fire Insu-
rance Company is established.
The true rate of Premium far Fire Insurance can only be ap-
proached through Classification and Average, which has not hitherto
been sufficiently acted or systematically applied.
Whatever be the nominal rate, the bonus or return periodically to
the Insured will determine the true Premium equitably payable, as
security against less for so great a calamity as fire, and the Insurer
is largely interested in this question, and will consult his interest by
supporting a system where, by a careful combination of Classifica-
tion and Average, the Premium will be proportioned to the risk.
The Equitable Fire Office will, by a constant analysis of its own
experience, from time to tine, adopt such rates of Premium as• the
nature of the risk may justify, and will decline to enter into arrange-
ments as regards tariffs with other offices.
With this view an annual investigation will be made into each
class of risk, and a return of one moiety, or fifty per cent. of the nett
excess will be made to all classes of Insurers whose Policies have
been in force for three years.
Insurances against Loss by Fire are effected by this Company upon
every description of Property on moderate terms.
Farming Stock insured at 3s. per cent, without the Average Clause.
Prospectuses. and every information may be obtained, on applica-
tion at the Office, or to any of its Agents.

t National Loan Fund Life Assurance Society.
* Equitable Fire
till Both Offices.

AUTION.—MECHI'S MAGIC STROP.
‘..) "The Real Magic Strop," " The Double Magic Strop," " The
Magic Strop," are all base imitations of MECEIPS MAGIC STROP.
None are genuine without Mechi'► name, which imitators dare not
put on the spurious strop; yet, strange to say, many perfumers call-
ing themselves respectable, endeavour to palm this rubbish (they
cost from 3d. to sd. each in Sheffield) on the public as Mechi's genuine
str ,p, although they possess no sharpening properties whatever, but
the very reverse. The well-known Magic Paste is an invaluable auxi-
liary to the Strop, and its renovating properties are truly astonish-
ing. Mechi's Razors stand pre-eminent as well as his Table Cutlery.
4, Leadenbali street.

LAURENT'S GRAND CASINO,
Licensed by Act of Parliament.
ARGYLL ROOMS, GREAT WINDMILL-
STREET, ST. JAMES'S.
(Sole Lessee, Charles Emile Laurent, Jun., 57, Brompton-square.)

OPEN EVERY EVENING,
With LAURENT'S UNRIVALLED BAND.
Principal Cornet-a-Pistons, M. Boulcourt.
Doors open at Half-past Eight o'clock—Dancing to commence at
Nine and terminate at Half-past Eleven o'clock precisely.
. _

FOR the MINISTERIAL CRISIS,
See PUNCH, No 504, for March 8.
Office, 85, Fleet street; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen:

NEW GEOLOGICAL WORK BY SIR HENRY DELABECHE.
Just published, in one large vol. Bvo., with many Wood Engravings,
price 181. cloth,
THE GEOLOGICAL OBSERVER. By Sir
HENRY P. DELABECHE, F. 8.5., Director• General of the
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.
London : Lomrman, Brown, :ireen, and Longmans.

BOND'S PERMANENT MARKING INK,
the original and by far the best, requiring no preparation,
offers the surest means of protection for every variety of household
linen and wearing apparel, against loss or mistake, for which reason
be careful to ask for the genuine article, prepared by the inventor,
JOHN BOND, 28, Long-lane, West Smithfield, City, London. Sold
by most Chemists, Stationers, and Medicine Vendors. Price Is. a
bottle.,

LOSS OF TEETH.
A NEW and very curious invention connected with Dental
Surgery has been introduced by Mr. HOWARD, of 17, George-street,
Hanover-square ; it is the production of an entirely NEW DESCRIP-
TION OF ARTIFICIAL TEETH, fixed without springs, wires, or
ligatures. They so perfrctly resemb:e natural teeth, as not to be
distinguished from the originals by the closest observer. They will
never change colour or decay, and will be found very superior to
any teeth ever before used. This method does not require the ex-
traction of any Teeth or Roots, or any painful operation, and will
support and preserve the Teeth that are loose, and is guaranteed to
restore articulation and mastication. The invention is of importance
to many persons, and those
,who are interested in it should avail
themselves of Mr. Howard's NEW DISCOVERY.

HALLWAY SHARE MARKETS.
BRISTOL. banal 4.
STUCK EXCHANGE.—This market was very active to-day,
and prices had an upward tendency. The transactions were
aslollowi—Bristol and Exeter, 8514 ex div.—Great Western,
92%—Ditto, New •171. Shares, 1% dis. Midland, 65%
ex div..

When made up in
General Poct-ofilee
London. ,

March 14 .. ..
March 7 .. . •
March 8 .. ..
14th of the month
19th & 30th of mo.
Daily .. .. ..
9th of the month
9th of the month
17th of month

From what
port dis-
patched.

Liverpool..
Liverpool
Southampt.
Plymouth
Dover ..
Dover ..
Southampt.
South ampt.
Southampt.
Plymouth • •
Dover ..
Dot

When
due.

,outbampt.
Southampt.
Southampt.
Dover ..
Dover ..
London
London ..
imat4ampt.
Holyhead ..
Southampt.
,Dover ..

March 12
March 16
March 5
March 3
March 18
Daily
_ .

Feb. 24
Feb. 24
March 7
March 3
March 10
March 7
Tu. Th. Sa
March 20
Twicedaily
March 10
Tues. Sat.
Moti.Thur
March 20
wicedally
March 28
Arrived

gouthampt.

IM arch 28

Dover • •
Southampt.
Southampt.
},D9:Far
,Dover ..
Dover ..
ISouthampt.
Southampt.
Dover • .
Southampt.

I Arri Ted
March 7
March 12
March lO
March 12
March 12
March 6
March 20
March 12
March 20

'Southampt. IMarch 7
ed (*) are conveyed by

First-Lieutenant A. J. B. Hambly, of the Woolwich
Division, to be Captain at Chatham, vice Fegao, pro-
moted.

Second-Lieutenant George Le Hardy Burlton, of the
Portsmouth Division, to be First-Lieutenant at Wool-
wich, vice lianably.
First-Lieutenant William Ramsey Searle, to be Cap-
tain at Plymouth, vice J. F. Brittain, placed on half-pay.
Second-Lieutenant E. D. Thelwall to be First-Lieutenant
at Portsmouth, vice Searle.

Lieutenant and Quartermaster George Drury, of the
Plymouth Division, having been ordered by the Lords
of the Admiralty to resign his Quartermastership, and
refusing,. is under arrest pending turther measures.
PLY3IOUTII, MONDAY.—Her Majesty's frigate Calliope,
26, Captain Sir J. Everard Home, and the brig Fantome,
12, Commander John H. Gennys, • sailed yesterday for
New Zealand.

MINISTERIAL CRISIS.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TIMES.—The Ministerial alternative is very simple
but very strange. The Whig Cabinet will be either im-
becile or despotic—imbecile if it receives no increase of
support, despotic if it is mantained at all hazards, in
sheer despair of successors. Lord John gave a faint
foreshadow of this predicament last session, when, on
the quetstion of the African blockade, he peremptorily
commanded the votes of his party under threat of im-
mediate resignation. But if the menace was so effectual
when the contingent disorder of the State was only pre-
sumptive, what would it be after the experience of the
lasttwelve days? Assuming that politicians of all parties
acknowledge the absolute necessity of carrying on the
Queen's Government, what is to be the limit of Lord
John's authority while it is notorious that none but he
can be found to carry it on? On the other hand, if these
conditions of his official existence procure him no extra.
ordinary consideration, he musteither relapse into weekly
minorities or he must abstain from introducing any mea-
sures likely to create a debate or incur a division. And
all this because Parliament is deprived of a constitutional
Opposition. The theory of our government presumes
that the successors of a Minister shall be supplied ipso
facto by the conditions of his defeat. The party
by which he is outnumbered proves itself to be the
more legitimate representative of national opinion, and
an exchange of characters terminates an act of the po-
litical drama. In past times these two parties were
Whig and Tory, and their respective proceedings, in so
far as they extend beyond a repartition of the sweets of
office, could be easily anticipated. At present there are
no Tories, and, in some sense, it would be quite as well
if there wero no Whigs. There are signs, indeed, abroad
which almost suggest a doubt whether the antagonist
principles which have animated English parties for two
centuries, add which have been traced even to the mar

casting their ancient skin for some new complexion. No
party can now disclaim resolutions of progress; the
question is scarcely one of route—only of speed. Yet it
is in the full blaze of this truth that the Protec-
tionists abdicate their political functions for theisake
of what can hardly be termed a principle, for what
more nearly resembles a privilege, but which is at any
rate absolutely exploded and gone. They speculate on
a signal stroke at the next election, apparently reckoning
that the people who fought successfully for a theory will
surrender a fact; that they who wrested cheap bread
from the hands of their opponents will now, after four
years' experience of the blesiing, permit it to be taken
out of their mouths. Omitting, however, these anticipa-
tions, have they no eyes for what has just been demon-
strated in broad daylight? Something has been shown
beyond the impossibility of a Protectionist Cabinet. The
points on which Sir James Graham and his friends dif-
fered from Lord John Russell are explicitly stated to
have no bearing whatever on the question of free trade.
No single person to whom Lord Stanley applied would
give his assent or sanction even to that morsel
of sham protection by which his Lordship
sought to save conscience and credit together.
However disguised, transformed, or diluted, they
would have none of it. Of the qualifications of his own
clients for State concerns the Noble Lord has himself
given a description; and if to these data we add those
unmistakeable convictions which gleam through the
speeches of the two chiett; themselves, and which have
already evoked the suspicious resentments of their fol-
lowers, we shall arrive at the incontestable, conclusion
that there exists not in the kingdom one single indivi-
dual of political knowledge or experience who consi-
ders protection recoverable at the expense of free trade
—not one man with common competence for office who
does not repudiate the desires for which a great party
has already sacrificed itself, and is prepared to sacrifice
more. But, though we hold that on the great question
of free trade, aed indeed on others to, there is no longer
room for two opinions among those pretending to the
government of this country, it requires no arguments of
ours to show that in matters of general policy an infinite
sphere is opened to competition and rivalry. Under such
circumstances as have been now disclosed, it would have
been justifiable even for political dissentients to
have kept terms with a Cabinet for which no sue-
oesior could be discovered. We own, however. to
more positive sympathies than these. We gave Lord
John Russell's Government our independent support,
because we conceived that on many important points it
was deserving well of the country. We acknowledge,
too, that as far as party symbols admit 'of translation
into that language to which alone the nation will now
listen, there is more to approve in the Whigs than in
the Conservatives, though this—to such anomalies have
we come!—is a point on which independent Liberals are
by no means agreed. But how many subjects are there
on a hich, but for this deadly and stupifying dogma of
" protection," a Parliamentary Opposition well led and
well instructed might have recently built up a reputa-
tion! Above all, there is that crying sin of party
bigotry of which our present Premier gives such an un-
disguised example. Lord John is enveloped in his
" party;" nay, he glories in the fact, and proclaims his
adherence to " traditions of government" at every
crisis of his fortunes. But what are " traditions of
government?" They are broad rules of policy which
in difficulties or temptations of State may suggest a true
course, and which varied with contending parties accord-
ing to the principles they inherited. It was a Tory tra-
dition that monarchical right was divine; it was a Whig
tradition that such right flawed from the people. It was
a Tory tradition to look to France; it was a Whig tradi-
tion to look to Holland. These maxims did good in
their day, but the age has outgrown them. They are of
no more avail than the secret receipts by which chymis-
try was handed from adept to novice or than the myste-
ries which passed from masters to apprentices in the
guilds of trade. On these points Lord John's constitu-
ents are now just as wise as himself. As far as " traditions
of Government" mean certain Whig observances, the
sooner they are forgotten the better; as far as they
imply broad principles of legislation, they are known to
every elector in the kingdom. Education has here
placed the scot and lot voter on a level with the Mi-
nister of State. It is a " tradition of Government" that
the Pope shall have no authority in this realm of Eng•
land, and Lord John correctly enunciated the maxim.
But this everybody else knew too, and what they wanted
was a statesman to put the maxim judiciously in force.
It is a tradition of driving that you take the left hand
when you meet and the right when you pass, but a man
whose reliance was confined to this tradition would
hardly find his way to Epsom. We cannot, unhappily,
dispense with " parties," and with this conviction we
must recognize the claims of partisans. But the more
effectually this disagreeable element of constitutional
Government" can be repressed the better will it be both
for Ministers and people. It was not by " traditions cf
government that yeel won his enonaments and his re-
nown. His
.greatest and most: enduring achievement
utterly dislocated a " party." If statesmen will look not
only to traditions, but to the age and its exigencies, they
will never want supporters, nor shall we risk any recur-
rence of the present perplexities when once an honest
rivalry has been established in Parliament on the com-
mon principles of rational progress and public good.
CHRONICLE.—A meeting of considerably less than
two hundred of the former supporters of the Govern-
ment, divided within itself by the determined resistance
of a large number of Members to the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill, can scarcely have been reassuring to a Pre-
mier tottering in his seat. The temporary success of a
similar manoeuvre last year, in securing the maintenance
of the slave squadron, may, perhaps, have inspired Lord
John Russell with a confidence in the influence of an ap-
peal to his adherents, which has not been justified by the
result. Thero can be no doubt that he concurs in the
desire which his few but faithful advocates have re-
peatedly expressed for the reconstitution of a thorough-
going Opposition—or, as an alternative, for the discon-
tinuance of all hostile criticism and independent political
action. It is no small convenience to a Minister to know
that every measure which he proposes will be censured
by a minority sufficiently considerable to secure him the
support, right or wrong, of a still more trustworthy ma-
jority. The fatal moment when the balance of numbers
may turn is seen with only occasional and remote alarm:
and in the meantime the daily conflict presents a source
of constant excitement, secured against excess
by the comfortable certainty that the result will
be an inevitable victory. With a small Ministe-
rial majority, every division turns more on
the question of men than on that of mea-
sures; and a politician brought up in exclusive devotion
to his party finds it a labour of love to concentrate his
energies on the duty of keeping his friends and himself
in office. Lord John Russell has had long experience
in such contests, and in the midst of the security afforded
by the absence of rivalry he must often have regretted
the days when a Prime Minister had always a leader of
Opposition to meet. The recent condition of the House
of Commons, with its independent sections of voters,
subdivided even among themselves in their opinions on
particular questions, undoubtedly involves disadvantages.
On the other hand, a vigorous and efficient Minister
would find his account in the floating and unpledged
character of the majority through which he must carry
his policy into operation. Large end popular schemes,
recommended by a prudent forethought, and enforced
by a determined will, would produce union among those
who are open to reason, and in that largo por-
tion which naturally inclines to the strongest.
The late resignation was prompted by the un-
easiness of a position which could only have been unde-
sirable to a Minister who had no definite policy to fol-
low. In the last four years there has been time to effect
many reforms which would have met the general wishes
of the country; and the Parliamentary support which the
Government could have commanded would have beeno
more than sufficient to achieve them. But as none f
rn..
these had been attained or attempted, the House of Co
mons became daily more untaanage"" Dis
of some of the Roman Catholic Members wtith
on,
and
r.
the
raeli, the majority on Mr. Locke King'sins°trong m
impending rejection of the Budget, were
intima-
tions that the House considered the merits of the Minis-
ters for thehort-
comings of their policy. no longer sufficient
Lto°rdeoJroahPuesate
Russell, in accord-
ance with the traditions of his school, either misunder-
stood the nature a the warning, or at leas., aff-c,cd to
misunderstand it. The defeat ou the franchise question
by a small part of his habitual supporters, and
the temporary junction of the Irish section with