The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-24 00:00:00

RUSSIA.

The principl network of the Russian railways
has teen definitively conceded to a company formed
of the capitalists of various countries, among whom
figure the heads of the French Credit Mobilier,
and Messrs. Hottinguer, Baring, Hope and Stie-
glitz. The concession is for eighty-five years, and
a minimum interest of five per cent. is guaranteed
to the shareholders by the Russian Government.

SOUTH AMERICA.

LISBON SEPT. 19.
LISBON,

The Portuguese steamer Dom Pedro 11. reached
this port on the 16th, with 204 passengers, who
had free pratique. Her dates are :—Rio de Ja.'
neiro, Aug. 20 ; Bahia, 25th ; Pernambuco, 27th ;
Tenerife, Sept. 6 ; Madeira, 13th.
The quotations of produce and exchanges in the
Brazils vary so little since those by the Tamar,
given in The Sun of the Bth inst., that it is un-
necessary to repeat them.

At Rio de Janeiro no additional news is reported
from the River Plate. After the departure of the
Tamar, business had been checked by holidays and
rainy weather, so that no coffee sales of importance
had taken place, while the stock was increasing
daily by arrivals ; and should purchasers hold back
a decline was anticipated.
At Bahia the weather had become fine. Freights
for Liverpool id., and 30s. ballast ; London 40s.
Tonnage scarce, several of the last arrivals having
been chartered for the Mauritius.

Great progress in the prosperity of the province
was anticipated from the energy of the new Presi-
dent. A large ball had been given upon the retire-
ment of his predecessor, M. Moncorvo, at which
1,200 of the elite of the city attended. The town
and province were healthy.

At Pernambuco a few b;.gs of very inferior quality
of new sugar had come to market, and been sold at
2,600 to 2,700 reis, notwithstanding the last un-
favourable news from Europe.
The French steamer Franc-Comtois, from Havre,
had arrived on the 25th. The passengers by that
vessel, as by the Laia 111. from Lisbon, had. to
perform six days' quarantine, in consequence of
the cholera at this port and Madeira.
At St. Vincent the Dom Pedro 11. found great
difficulty in coaling, the greater part of the inhabi-
tants having either abandoned the island or died
from a virulent epidemic of cholera, attributable to
the heavy rains which set in shortly after the
Tamar's dates, no rain of consequence having fallen
in the island for the last seven years. After two
days' detention the Dom Pedro was coaled by some
Spaniards, who had been wrecked, and did the
work upon condition of being brought on to Lis-
bon, the coals being supplied by the English ship
Birmingham, which had put in leaky. It appears
probable that the English packets will now have to
depend in a great measure upon their own crews
for coaling at St. Vincent.

At Madeira cholera still existed, but less fatally
in the interior, and at Funchal it had entirely ex-
hausted itself, in consequence of which a solemn
Te Deum had been celebrated on the 7th instant.
It was calculated that about 6,000 people, or one-
third of the inhabitants of the islands, had fallen
victims to the disease.

The island of Porto Santo was also suffering
severely, 96 deaths having taken place in a week,
out of 1,800 inhabitants.

PORTUGAL AND THE BRAZILS.

SOUTHAMPTON, W
. . EDNESDAY MORNING.

The Sultan has just arrived, with the Peninsular
mails. She left Lisbon on the 19th.
The steamer Duke of Wellington, carrying the
flat, of Admiral Dundas, had arrived at Lisbon.
The gunboats Osprey and Wanderer had also
arrived. They were bound for the South. The
Cressy had also arrived at Lisbon, in search of the
Admiral, _

The cholera is disappearing rapidly.
The day for the formal opening of the railway by
the King has been postponed.
We have news from Brazils by the Sultan up to
the 20th of August. The Brazilian Chamber of
Deputies has passed a bill authorising the Govern-
ment to epeu a oredit of 600 contos, to be applied
in promoting colonisation, and for other public ser-
vices. A bill had also been passed to regulate the
strength of the naval forces, and another establish-
ing international copyright between Portugal and
Brazil was under discussion.
The additional articles of the bill of the Maria
Railway and the Amazonas Company were san:l-
- ; but the chamber, at the suggestion of the
prime minister, had resolved to frame a new project.
to prevent its being embarrassed in its progress
through the Senate.
Exchange at Rio 27 to 271.
At Pernambuco business was dull. There had
been no sugar shipped since the Tamar left.
The Brazil steamer Tyne arrived at St. Vincent
on the 21st ult.
Exchange at Lisbon was quoted at 531 to I.
The cholera is raging fiercely at St. Vincent.
The medical men had fallen victims, and the in-
habitants were left without assistance. The dead
bodies were left unburied in the streets. The ac•
counts from Madeira were favourable.

The Earl of Derby is much better in health, but the
noble earl has been obliged to forego a series of visits in
the north he intended to make with the countess and
Lady Emma Stanley.
EXTENSION OF THE TILBURY AND SOUTHEND RAIL-
WAY TO COLCHESTER.--A meeting of the corporation and
principal inhabitants of this borough was held at the
Town-hall, Colchester, on Friday, for the purpose of hear-
ing an explanation from Sir S. M. Peto, with reference to a
propsed extension of the Tilbury and Southend line to
that town. The proposed line would give the distriet another
line of railway communication with the metropolis, and
give an independent line from Yarmouth and Lowestoft
to London. Sir M. Peto entered into some details of
the proposed line, which would encourage the trade
of the port and secure a material reduction of the pas-
senger and goods rates. It is stated that the exten-
sion will branch off the Tilbury line at Southend, take
in Maldon, and then come on to Colchester.
THE ANGLO-ITALIAN LEGION.—Four non-commis-
sioned officers and twenty-nine private soldiers of the
Anglo Italian Legion recently sent from Malta, on their
arrival at their homes in Tuscany, Parma, a.r.d the
Austro-Italian states, have been at once committed to
the states prisons'. The Lombards were sent under mi•
litary escort to Mantua, to be tried by court-martial for
taking service under a "foreign ". power. The Legion.
aries now in Piedmont will be compelled to remain there,
lest punishment await them for having served England !
The English Ministers at Parma and Florence have pro-
tested against these arbitrary proceedings.

TER iwr.tz 11.01.1 t.

If a wretched shopboy filches a few shillings out
of his master's till for the purpose of tryinghis luck
at the Derby he may be proceeded against in a cri-
minal court and severely punished. If a gentleman
who occupies a distinguished position in the com-
mercial world, who writes M.P. after his name,
and who is probably- a magistrate in his own county
steals the property of his clients by wholesale in
the character of Director of a joint-stock company,
he may snap his fingers at the unfortunate persons
whom he has so foully defrauded, and in too maDY
instances reduced to ruin. Cannot a remedy be de-
vised for this state of things ? We hear it asked
on every side are there no means of consigning the
offending Directors of the Royal British Bank to
the hands of justice ? In the annals of commercial
fraud we have never heard or read of more outra-
geous acts of rascality than they have perpetrated
against the customers and shareholders of the
Bank. It is not worse to forge,—it is not more
criminal in every sense, save a legal one, to take
the bonds of a customer and pledge them without
his knowledge, than it is for Directors to abstract
money by thousands and tens of thousands from
the joint stock for their own private purposes. Yet
who are the men who have recently done this ,
We re-copy the names which we published yester-
day, for in the absence of any direct action of the
law publicity may avail somewhat. Humphrey
Brown, Esq., M.P. for Tewkesbury, took 70,000/.;
Mr. John Gwynne, another Director, took 14,00 N.;
John M‘Gregor, Esq., M.P. for Glasgow, took
7,362/. ; Mr. Cameron, the secretary, took 30,000 L ;
Mr. Mullins, the solicitor, took 7,0001. ; one of
the auditors took 2,0001. Thus we find the Di-
rectors, who wereanswerable for the conduct of tlse
company's affairs—the secretary, who was its
hired servant and agent, bound by every tie
of duty to disclose to his employers all secrets
prejudicial to their interests—and, last of all, one
of the Auditors, whose express business it was to
act as a check upon the others—all as if in a con-
spiracy together to defraud the customers, and the
great bulk of the shareholders who were not in-
cluded in the list of Directors. We have thus par"
ticularised sums which collectively-amount to ur
wards of 130,0001., wrongfully abstracted for their
own private purposes from the funds of the com-
pany by the very persons in whose probity and in-
tegrity the company had absolutely confided.
These transactions were tainted with every circunis
stance of fraud. They do not appear to have been
entered in the regular books which were open to
public inspection. There was a little safe, and
little book locked with a little key which Xl'
Cameron, the secretary, kept in his waistcoat
pocket, and it was in this book that the real trans-
actions of the company were entered. The portly
ledgers and day-books were but a blind to this
little volume, which really contained the last words
of the oracle. One set of documents was addressed,
ad populum ; the other, ad clerum. The poor'.
spirited creature who paid in his 1001., and drew
out his driblets of 101. and 201. as his occasions.
might require, was noted in the more imposing but
faithless records. The man of more matured final'''.
cial genius who drew out 10,0001. without having
deposited a halfpenny obtained the honours of the,
little volume with the little lock.
These transactions, we say, were tainted with
the grossest fraud. They were secret. Even had
the amplest and most excellent securities been
deposited to cover the loan, no Director could iien
honour have negotiated a lean in his own behail
unless all incidents connected with it had been
open and clear as the sun at noonday. It hag
not yet appeared that such securities are forth-=
coming. On the contrary, in the case of gr'
Cameron, it is expressly stated that the secu-
rities which he deposited with himself
lo are
not available to cover one-tenth of the an
which he incurred. Obviously enough, unless the
present directors had hoped to obtain a loan upon
better terms than could have been obtained else-
where at the market-price of the day, they would
not have slunk down secretly to the back parlour
of their own establishment, and engaged in a gee
of hocus-pocus with their own secretary at the ex'
pense of their clients. This we say upon the OP'
position that they did actually deposit securities of
real value, and in some degree approximating to
the amount of the loan incurred,--in other words,
that the fraud was in the rate, not in the whole
matter. It does not, however, appear as yet that
the public can acquiesce in this milder view of the
case. Have the loans been repaid t Are the se'
curities sufficient to cover the default f Even sot
the conduct of the borrowers would have been
wholly inexcusable, but, as it is, it is much to be
feared that the ordinary shareholders and deposi-
tors will incur a most serious loss under this bead.
The credit of the joint-stock banks has been
shrewdly shaken by the recent revelations in the
cases of the Tipperary and Royal British Banks,
and, unless something be done which will make
future directors hesitate before engaging
in frau-
dulent dealings with the funds intrusted to their
charge, the public will most justly withdraw their
confidence from such institutions. Directors, hoWs
ever, will think twice before incurring a sentence
which would consign them to penal servitude for
the term of their natural lives, or, at any rate, for
a long period of years. We do not say that such
vindication of justice would operate as entire se:
curity, but at least it would help us, and should
be tried. For the fate of persons who may hales.
been guilty of such acts there can be no kind 01
commiseration. The highway robber, the burgar,
the pickpocket, have been cradled in crime ; they
d
have been educated in crime ; they have graduated
iu crime. To crime they have been either driven
by pinching want ; or, more probably, they form
part of the regular criminal population, and fr°lll.,
the first moment their fingers could close uPe's
anything they have been instructed to abstract
the property of others. For such wretched Pariahe
of civilisation some pity may be felt ; but the!.
is none for men who have received a moral and rer
gious education, who are in a good position in life,
who are in nine cases out of ten distinguished
by peculiar sharpness and ability, and who Ye,
turn all these advantages to the furtherance
their criminal designs. If there is one class
persons more than another whom society for lro
own security should keep under lock and key, it id
just such men as the offending directors an
managers of the Tipperary and British Banks-
It is difficult for the non-legal mind to underi
stand how a definition of fraud can be so limiter
as to exclude the case of the director or manager
of a joint-stock bank who diverts to his own 12%
30,0001. of the funds belonging to the concern,'"
who does this secretly, and who deposits is PI
of the money a packet or two of worthless PaP.':,
Had there been no entry of the transaction
m'
between Mr. • Cameron and the Royal British
Bank in any of the company's books we Phile
sume that this would have been a pal Pew
case of robbing the without modificatogli
The difference between this case and that he
Mr. Cameron is, we suppose, T." that he noted (
transaction in a little book, the contents 0
which were kept entirely secret from all persoli
save those who were equally interested with hinisess
in keeping such secrets from the knowledge of t"",
great body of the shareholders. Cannot a Cr!
proceeding be founded upon such facts as these I
Surely the acquiescence or assent of the directors,
his fellow-conspirators in the fraud, cannot elc;
onerate him from liability The point is one, 01
course, for the consideration of those who have
devoted their especial attention to such subject*
land we can only hope that the ingenuity of our
criminal lawyers may be successfully exerted in the
prosecution of so abominable a crime. Nor doe
the case press less heavily upon the fraudulent di'
recto: s. They have " borrowed" on their own
authority the money of the company on insufficient
security, or no security at all, without causing any
notice of the transaction to be entered upon the,
public books. The evasion of the little book with
the little lock amounts to much the same thing ee
though Mr. Cameron bad made the entries in hi°
own pocket-book, and carried-this about in the re;
cesses of his coat for his own private and exclusiv,
information. At any rate, if there be no- law ',hie,'
will touch such misdeeds, the sooner the law?.
altered to meet the necessities of the case the
better for society at large.—Times.

ings Out
his luck
in a cri-

ntleman

he corn-

3 name,

1 county