The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-18 00:00:00

for Jamaica, there being a more plentiful supply, with
only a trifling home and export demand. The value of
favourite marks, 34 to 3S per cent over proof, is 4s to 4s
4d; fine 3s 7d to 3s 103; mid to good, 32s to 36s
over, 2s 2d to 2; 61; and low, 30 to 32 over, 2s 53 to 2s
7d. Of Rum the stock is 4,000 puns less than last year.
Brandy is not cheaper, but there is little doing for any
purpose.
SALTPETRE.—For the better sorts of Calcutta less in-
quiry hes been experienced; prices are sustained, and
rule at ')Bs to 293 for good end tine, the supply being 3 et
small. The lower qualities are purchased with much
caution for home consumption and shipping, although
offered 61 per cwt under last wcok's rates, and the sup-
ply is yet on the increase. The parcels onred at public
sale, amounting to 1,800 bags of Calcutta, were taken in
at 25s 6d to 26a for ord and mid grey 6 to 71 per cent
refraction. British Refined is held for 293 to 30s per
cwt, still only limited sales have been made. Nitrate of
Soda is held with firmness at 14s 3d to 14s 6d per cwt.
COCUINEAL.—The demand is not better for any pur-
pose, and there is yet a plentiful supply. Prices are
rather lower fur inferior sorts, but better kinds have
supported former rates. 01 320 bags at auction to-day,
about one-half sold; llonduras silvers, low to good at
3s. 2d to 3a 93, and black very ord to good mid 3s 63 to
4s 2d.
INDIGO.—The sales of East India are small, and there
are sellers at a decline on the rat©s of February of 2d.
For auction next month the quantity declared is only
3,400 chts. There are few buyers of Spanish, and
former rates are supported with difficulty. For auction
500 srns are declared.

METALS.—The demand for Spelter is not better than
last woek, although the rates taken have been 151 to 151
2s 61 per ton on the spot; and for arrival, the stock is
yet on the increase, and far exceeds that of last season.
For Lead the market remains firm, and with a good
business doing; British Pig has been selling at 171 103'
Sheet 181 10s; and good Spanish Pig at 171 to 17155.
There is still no variation in rates of Copper, and opera-
tions are equal to last week. The market for Tin has
a dull aspect, and a desire is evinced to sell Banca at
833 6d to 84s, Straits 82s to 83s; British Block and Bar
83s to 85s per cwt. For Tin Plates a good sale exists,
yet sellers are willing to receive orders for I. C. Coke at
27s to 27s 6d per box, and Charcoal ditto at 32s to 335.
In Pig Iron transactions have been limited for all pur-
poses this week, and a desire is manifested to sell Scotch
at 41s 6d to 42s 63 as to assortment; Welsh and Staf•
fordshire 45s to 75s per ton. There are few buyers of
common Welsh Bar Iron; sellers are, however, not to be
met with under 41 15s; but Rails are yet wanted, and
realize 512 s 6d to 517 s 6d per ton, the market has also
a firm appearance. Of Sweedish Steel several parcels
have been sold at 151 5s to 151 15s.

TALLow.—This afternoon at public sale 300 pkgs
South American Tallow went at 35s to 38s 6d for low to
fine; 180 casks Sydney at 37s 3d to 38s 9d for Sheep;
Ox, 36s to 37s 3d; 22 casks Belgian taken in at 36s to
36s 3d.

Oils.—Although Southern Oil is offered at a further
reduction, yet operations have been upon a limited scale
by private contract for all purposes, and the supply is on
the increase. At auction 57 tuns were sold at 281 15s to
301 5s for low to fine. Cod is offered at 371 to 37/ 10s;
but few buyers are to be met with, as lower rates are an-
ticipated. In Seal purchases have been small, although
pale is to be obtained at 331 to 34/, and other sorts at
29/ to 32/. Sperm is, however, in good demand, and
prices are steadily on the advance, there being no ma-
terial increase of supply. At auction 57 tuna were sold
at 87/ to 87/ 10s for first sort; and one lot of Head-
matter at 92/. Operations in Linseed Oil have been upon
a limited scale for all purposes, and there being a larger
supply, prices have declined to 33s to 33s 3d per cwt on
the spot. For delivery few contracts have been entered
into, and there are sellers at 33s 61. Rape Seed Oil is
cheaper than last week, but a good business has been
concluded—pale at 34e to 34s 6d, brown 32s 61 to 33s

COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL.
Yesterday a Court was held for the dispatch of
business.

PREPARATIOVIFOR THE EXHIBITION.
Mr. BENNOCH brou7ht forward his motion—" That
it be referred to a committee, consisting of the chairman
and six other member, of each committee, to ascertain
whether any and what better arrangements can be made
to promote the comfort and enjoyment of persons visit-
ing the city of London, especially as regards their ad-
mission to places of public interest." Ho called the at-
tention of the court to the fact that while easy access
was afforded in the cities on the continent to all public
places in which works of art were exhibited, the city of
London formed an exception to the general rule of na-
tions in that respect. Ho stated that in several of the
ancient halls in the city there were paintings which,
although unknown to the public even by name, would
bear comparison with those in the highest estimation,
and he instanced the pictures which decorated the walls
of Painter-Stainers' Hall, and of Barber-Surgeons'
Hall, as a proof of the remarkable but unknown excel.
lence of the treasures with which London abounded.
Under existing circumstances he considered that an
effort to rise out of our comparative obscurity would be
most commendable, and he thought that an arrange-
ment could b easily made through the intervention of a
committee, and with the assistenco of the architect and
the town clerk, by ‘i hich all the works of art within
the walls could he seen by the visitors to the metro-
polis.—(Bear.)
Mr. Deputy flour seconded the motion, in the belief
that the necessary arrangements would be better or-
ganized in a committee than by any other course.
Mr. ANDERTON opposed the motion. Ile was sur-
prised that amongst the admirable exhibitions which the
foreign visitors were to see, no mention was made of
Smithfield•market, which, in his opinion, formed one of
the finest sights in the world—(Laughter)—but what a
committee of the Corporation could do "to
promote the comfort and enjoyment of visitors"
he could not imagine, except that they were
deputed to take the foreign ladies and gentle-
men round to the taverns and public-houses, which
would be all open enough without any assistance of the
kind.—(Laughter.) He supposed that Guildhall was
ono of the shows to which it was intended to give in-
troductions. Why, the doors of that building were never
closed. The visitors could look at everything there and
in the contiguous apartments without being struck with
astonishment or meeting with the least impediment, and
a committee, with a chairman at its head, could not ex-
cite in their minds any peculiar emotion.—(Laughter.)
Indeed, if the chairman of the Navigation Committee
would give the visitors a treat up and down the river in
their barge to show them the shipping and the amazing
facilities of commerce in the possession. of the people of
London, there would be something to talk of, but it was
monstrous to talk of a committee for the purposes stated
by the mover.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. ELLIOT wished to see all the doors and gates of
the Corporation thrown open without tolls of any kind.
He, however, thought that the Corporation would act
wisely in saying as little as possible about their trea-
sures of art. If they had not misapplied in dinners
their enormous funds the noble hall in which they as-
sembled would have been long ago decorated with the
finest specimens of statuary and painting instead of pre-
senting blank vacuities.
Mr. T. H. HALL said it was quite evident from the
ceaseless opportunities which Mr. Elliot took of calum,
niating the Corporation that he had become a member
for the purpose of misrepresenting their character and
conduct upon all occasions.—(Cheers.) If the Corpora-
tion had bestowed upon the fine arts the money which
they had expended in improvements and in increasing
the trade of their fellow-citizens, that gentleman would
have accused them of misappropriation for not having
done everything for the commercial advantage. of
those whom they represented. No matter what
the members of the Corporation did, they were
theirsure
to come under the calumnious vituperation of
unreasonable antagonist. He (Mr. Hall) had been in
the Corporation twenty years, and the dinner expenses
of the present time did not amount to one-half of the
expenditure of the former period; and the only recom-
pense which gentlemen received for a great part of their
most valuable time, spent in the closest attention to the
interests of their fellow-citizens, was the recompense of
dining together at the conclusion of their labours.
(Hear.) He would not vote for a committee fur the
purpose stated by the mover, as_ he believed there was
more in the motion than appeared upon paper.
Mr. Deputy LoTT would not be prevented from sup-
porting a measure which he thought was likely to be
beneficial, because the mover spoke in a deprecating tone
of the body to which he belonged. He regretted that
Mr. Anderton had spoken in a tone of ridicule of the
subject; but, perhaps, it was the best way to adopt that
tone on a subject beyond his comprehension.--(Laugh-
ter.) The question ought in his opinion to go to a com-
mittee. At the west end of the town efforts were being
made to give facilities bearing some proportion to those
rendered all over the continent; and although Guild-
hall was open to all, it was possible to raise the character
of the city of London higher than it stood in the quality
of a courteous accommodation.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. Deputy STEVENS said the foreigners would come
into the metropolis not to see the statuary and pictures,
but to see the glass palace with its wonders, and the
shipping and the bridges, and they would soon be
satisfied that London was the first commercial city in
the world.
Mr. BLAKE support( d the motion, against which he
thought a prejudice had been raised by an unlucky re-
ference to a subject with which it had no connexion.
Mr. H. L. TAYLOR said that iu all probablity Mr. Ban-
noch expected to be made chairman of the committee
which had been proposed, but there was just as much
chance of such an event as there was that so absurd a
proposition would be entertained.
Mr. BOWER and Mr.PIIILLIPS also opposed the motion.
Mr. Deputy HARRISON said that ho was at a loss to
he
know what would be the advantage of o- r
ring
h
Everyre matter
matter before the Court to a committee.
over which they, as members of that
.Corporation,l had
control, they held fur the benefit of their
113 oe
wn
ncowibt
hi);wtantasii was
but the motion of the Hon. Member
ether
so ill defined, that it was impossible
Itoigt
h other • •
pledged them to do.—(Hear, hear.)
tutions they had no power; and with regard to some of
them the public now bad freefiCtChe Se wdaetetiphuelaber
teduipveedri,otdhse.
—(Hear, hear.) Four days .n
India House was open rho public, an d that without
other
works
it was withseveral
Antdo
any fee or reward.
places where curiosities Or of art were privately

s- exhibitei. With reference to any other change of the
—l—zi---=--4--eharacter suggested by the mover of the motion, the de-
ails must be left with tile parties who had the control
f such estahli rhments. These parties,in their arrange.
Inents fur the public convenience, would not be iniiin-
enc""-7My the Corporation of the city of London, and he
(Mr. Deputy Harrison) hoped that the members of the
court would not embark in that which would only bring
down upon them the ridicule of their fellow-citizens.
Mr. BEN NOCE( stated in reply, that if the committee
ho had asked for was granted, he was anxious to exprees
his desire that he should not be named as the chairman.
—(Hear, hear.) His only wish in bringing forward the
subject was to obtain a properly organized system, which
would result in promoting tee comfort and enjoyment of
persons visiting the city of London during the present
Exhibition.—(hear.) His object was further to get
the magnificent crypt of Guildhall open to the foreigner,
who might visit the City. That splendid work was
covered with dust end dirt at the present moment. Be
(Mr. Bsnnoch) had been informed by the City architect,
Mr. Bunning, that it was of the first style of architec-
ture; the workmanship being equal, if not superior, to
that exhibited in any other European city.—(Hear, hear.)
It had been said that it was not necessary to provide
these sights for the anticipatel visitors, as they might
show to strangers their bridges and their docks. Cer-
tainly their bridges were magnificent structures, many
of them, but their docks belonged to parties whose pri-
vate enterprise had outstripped corporate action.—
(llem', and No.) He would leave the mutter in the hands
of the Court, being satisfied that if they rejected his
proposition, he had done his duty in bringing the subject
forward.—(Cheers.)
Upon the motion being put, the proposition of Mr.
Bei:much was negatived by an overwhelming majority.
The following sums were voted in the course of the
seeting:—To the St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, 100
guineas; to the Westminster and North London Penitent
Female Asylum, 50 guineas. An application for a grant
from the managers of the Soup Kitchen, in Leicester.
square, was refused.

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.
On Tuesday, the 15th, the discussion was resumed
9cl the Nominal
,
on Commander Heath's paper
Horse Power of Steam Engines ;
Cubitt,
Esq., President, in the chair.
It was admitted that it would be very desirable to
fix the nomenclature of the power of engines'
for
,
though it was well known that James Watt did
really take as his standard, what he found to be
actually performed by a powerful horse, drawing a
weight over a pulley viz., the equivalent of
33,0001b5. raised one foot high in a minute—yet
commercially it had gradually become a custom
among manufacturers to give a surplus of power,
ostensibly as an allowance for the friction and defi-
ciencies of the machine, so that now the mere state-
ment of the nominal horse power had no definite
meaning. .

It Was, however, contended that the standard of
33,0001b5. should be retained ; and that, supposing
the workmanship to be equally good in two engines,
it was only necessary to compare the areas of the
cylinders, the effective pressure of steam on the
piston, and the speed of the piston, to determine their
relative power. This was, in fact, shown by the In-
dicator, an instrument the value of which was now
universally admitted, and which, when skilfully used,
did really give a true representation of the power of
the engine.
It was the universal custom of Boulton and Watt
to calculate the power exerted by an engine by the
speed of the piston, together with the average pres-
sure of the steam, as shown by the Indicator ; and
although much vagueness and uncertainty had latterly
been introduced into the subject, this was rather to
be attributed to the assumption of arbitrary quan-
tities to represent those results than to any defect in
Watt's standard horse power, which definitely ex-
pressed both the measure of power and the space
through which it acted.

The proposed standard of comparison of the quan-
tity of water evaporated in a given time, by a given
amount of fuel, or the combustion of a given quantity
of fuel in a given time, were shown to be of no value,
as then not only the generation of the steam, but the
administration of it must be considered, and these
idysn.points merely tending to complicate the question.
or pumping engines in Cornwall, the term horse
power was almost unknown, engines being sold to
raise a given quantity of water, which was a stan-
dard easily reducible to that of other districts, where
33;0001bs. was assumed to be the actual power of a
horse:*

The commercial question of what a manufacturer
should give as a horse power could not be discussed, for
the actual power was only a small element in the actual
cost of an engine, that varying with every peculiar
application of the machine ; the surplus power not
given by manufacturers had evidently arisen from a
more perfect machine being now prcduced, by the
use of tools in the manufacture, the introduction of
metallic rings instead of hemp packing, more perfect
valves and numerous modifications, all of which were
apart from, and independent of, the question of the
original standard, which it was admitted could not be
improved, and should not therefore be altered.

The following paper was announced to be read at
the meeting of `Tuesday next, April 22.—" On Foun-
dations ; Natural and Artificial," by Mr. S. Clegg,
jun., M. Inst. C.E.