The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-08 00:00:00

A)111,

S trange,

danger. ffor is it France only that is making '
such free use of English finances. Austria and
Russia are putting forward a variety of pretexts
to get their fingers into our purse, and ease JOHN
Bin', of the money of which he takes so little
care. It is obvious, then, that the precautionary
measures should not be delayed until the evil has
actually occurred, that we should shut the stable
door while the steed yet remains in its stall I
But what should these precautions be ? What
will prevent French, Russian, and Austrian
cupidity from satisfying itself at our cost ? It is
quite clear that any further increase in the cur-
rent rate of interest will be perfectly useless.
The Times reasons truly when it says--•" If the
Bank of France are determined to buy gold
at any sacrifice, no addition of one or two per
cent. per annum on the rate of Bills of Exchange
will be regarded. The only limit to such an
operation must be found in the exhaustion of
their power to buy up bills on this country, or to
obtain credits here !" But in this confessedly
useless effort we are to cause wide-spread ruin
and distress to the working population of the
country ; to bring many respectable houses
to the verge of bankruptcy ; to reduce the price
of all securities, public and private, and to cause
loss to the community at large, and misery and
privation to vast numbers. It is quite clear that
a very different remedy is required, and that can
only be obtained by the introduction of a purely
domestic eurrency, good for internal circulation,
and bypermitting the precious metals to be disposed
of at their market value, so that a drain can be
immediately and readily checked, and which will
prevent the temptation to hoarding, which is
carried to such an extent in France that M.
MAGNE calculates that since 1850, according to
the official returns, there has been received
800,000,000 francs (32,000,0001.) more than
was exported, while there was a balance on
business transactions within the same period of
1,360,000,000 francs (54,400,0001.) All this
enormous amount cannot have vanished without
some show. A portion of it may be " absorbed
in the various arteries of circulation, feeding work-
shops, manufactures, agriculture, and commerce ;"
but the greater portion is concealed and hoarded
by those who are willing to lose the interest and
use of their money, in order to have a large sum
available for any emergency. As to the portion
in daily use, we have repeatedly explained, and
the Times has admitted, that small notes, receiv-
able in payment of taxes, would perfectly answer
the purpose, without any deposit of specie to
provide for their convertibility.

Whatever is to be done in this most interest-
ing question should be done speedily ; it is
certainly of sufficient importance to justify a
meeting of Parliament before Christmas, for the
discussion of such measures, relating to the
currency, as may be submitted by the Govern-
ment for its consideration.

Austria still occupies the Principalities ! What
a world of reproach is implied in these words.
An Englishman's cheek should redden with shame
on hearing them. They are the death-warrant
of the claim of our Government to pass for Eng-
lish. The diplomatic and the military pride of
France are humiliated by them. For what do
the words imply ? The jackall in possession of
the bone of dispute between lions. A traitorous
ally in possession, under false pretences, of a
territory from which the enemy was driven by the
sword. A people rescued from Cossacks by
civilised nations, and delivered over to worse than
C ossacks, whose imperious lusts include all the
vices to which triumphant savagery is addicted.
Oppressive taxation, wanton arrests, torture by
imprisonment, mock trials, quasi legal executions,
butchery of unarmed citizens, outrages worse than
death on helpless women, rapine, violation of in-
ternational law. All these are implied. Yet
Austria is still in possession of the Principalities
—occupies them, she has the effrontery to tell us,
in the interests of Europe ! The Allies, be it
remembered, all the while undeceived by her
lying pretences, and owing her no gratitude, hav-
ing no scruple of that kind to deter them from
insisting on an immediate evacuation. Positively
aware of, and probably displeased at, the manner
of the occupation, and her persistence in it 1
One of them—our own country, to wit—affronted
by murderous outrages on her citizens unredressed
and hardly apologised for, and with the remem-
brance of the seizure of Colonel TCRR at Bucha-
rest fresh in her recollection. Colonel Tutu, a
gallant Hungarian in our employ, arrested on a
neutral territory, tried, condemned to death, and
only saved from that termination of his inhuman
imprisonment by the most prompt and determined
intervention the aid he would have given
us in the war being altogether lost, to the
advantage of the enemy against whom we
were contending. The days of earnest English
statesmanship, and of right hearty English hatred
of fraud and oppression are surely past. Let the
occupation be regarded in what light it may—let
the blood pulsate ever so ealmly in the reader's veins,
let him worship RICHARD COBDEN, if he will, pro-
vided the claims of right, humanity, and common
honesty find a response in his bosom, his ccy will
surely be—" Listen to no more excuses, but let
us have the Principalities evacuated at once !
Let England no longer connive at the low mur-
derous fraud, nor furnish Russia any longer with
a subject of such bitter sarcasm." As we write,
the news has reached us that Austria has just
occupied Galatz with four thousand troops,
and taken the administration of the public affairs
into her own hands. Is the mask being thrown off?
Of course, Sir HENRY BULWER is about to return
home ! His offices are perfectly useless.

According to the poet " 'tis distance lends
enchantment to the view." This much is certain
—and it corroborates rather than impeaches the
truth of the assertion—the public often overlook
what would excite their intensest sympathy and
utmost efforts in the way of prevention if, in place
of proximity, distance interposed its magic iniu-
ence. The late war will furnish us with a case in
point. Everybody remembers how the tale of
needless suffering and of death among our gallant
troops in the Crimea was received at home.
What horror and indignation, what sympathy and
effective aid, it elicitecl--how finely the generous
instincts of the nation responded to the invoca-
tion ! Yet year after year, up to the present
hour, hecatombs of helpless landsmen, women,
and children, and of hardy sailors—not the least
reliable of our defenders—in whose fate thousands
of us are deeply interested, perish at our doors,
the majority perhaps for want of aid the public
?
can render them—and thus perish Without ex-
citing muchremark. Is it not passing strange
however, as it may be, " 'tis. true, and

pity 'tis 'tis true."
We allude to the numerous shipwrecks and th
a loss of life, which find apparently
Iciteci7inPr'anmosYtg stable record, and are perhaps moat
vividly brought bc,fore the imagination of the
aluitibude by Lilo riven and scattered timbers
which strew our coasts. The environs of our
little island, which contribute so much to our
security from foreign invalaiori, are the redo and

shoals on which hundreds on hundreds of our
countrymen are annually sacrificed in a great mea-
sure for want of that aid it is in our power, at a
very little saorifice, to lend them. Brave hearts
there are in abundance to man our life-boats, but

lifeboats, of any sort in sufficient abundance, are
wanting to be manned. A beneficent society
exists, with a powerful, humane, and generous
patron, but unfortunately the society has the
area of its operations limited, and its exertions
cramped, for want of adequate means. Not
one•half of the number of life-boats required—we
may say not one-third----is forthcoming ; and of
those which are a large proportion are by no
means constructed on the best model. Is
this as it should be ? A people whose great-
ness depends so much on commerce—whose
friends and relatives are to be found ploughing all
waters and on the shores of every sea—whose
commercial marine, with the capital and enter-
prise involved in it, is the wonder of the world—
is it right they should continue to be exposed to a
reproach like this ? Where is the humanity, the
consistency, the common sense on which, as a
people, we are so accustomed to pride ourselves ?
The underwriter is paid to insure our vessels and
their lumbering cargoes ; would it not be more
becoming if a little more effort were made to in-
sure the safety of their precious living freights ?
While thus calling attention to the claims of
our sailors and of travellers by sea, it affords us
pleasure to be enabled to state that the National
Life-boat Institution has succeeded in obtaining
a new description of life-boat, the superiority of
, which over others has been established. The boat

in question is the result of competition, the in-
ventor, James Peake, Esq., Assistant Master
Shipwright in H. M. Dockyard at Woolwich,
having won the prize offered for the best model
by the Duke of NORTIIUMHERLAND in 1852. The
boats for the most part have been built of two
sizes, viz., 27 feet and 30 feet in length,
with 7-,k to 8 feet beam, and rowing
from eight to twelve oars, doubled banked,
their weight averaging 2 tons. Some, however,
of less beam and weight have been found necessary

for certain localities. The qualities necessary in
a life-boat are :-1. Extra buoyancy ; 2. Self-
relief of water ; 3. Ballasting ; 4. Self-righting ;
5. Stability ; 6. Speed ; 7. Sto wage rootn ; 8.
Strength of build.
1. The life-boats of Mr. PEAKE'S design have a
water-tight deck at the load water-line, and de-
tached air boxes along the sides, conforming
closely to the shape of the latter, from the thwarts
to the dock. A great amount of extra buoyancy
is also derived from large end air-cases, built
across the bow and stern, and intended to provide
self-righting power ; so that in the event
of the boat being stove in, and the space
below deck filled with water, these alone would
goat her ! 2. In Mr. PEAKE'S life-boats the
tubes used for self-relief of water are fitted with

self-acting valves, which open downward only, so
that they will allow any water shipped to pass
downward, whilst none but a trifling leakage can
pass upward through them ! 3. Mr. PEAKE'S

life-boats are ballasted with heavy iron keels, and
with solid wood and cork stowed under their decks,
securing regular action, and the latter extra buoy-
ancy as well should the space under deck be
tilled with water. 4. By a peculiarity of the build
and the preceding means these boats self-right.
S. In Mr. PEAKE'S boat very great stability is
obtained by an iron keel and other solid ballast,
and by flatness and length of floor, with moderate
beara only. 6. There is every reason to believe
these boats are equal in speed and power to any,
and superior to most, that exist. 7. The air
chambers are so distributed as to afford as much
room as possible for stowage of passengers. 8.
In strength, Mr. PEAK E'S boat will bear compe-
tition with any others. Superior facilities are
also offered to persons getting into the boat, an
operation hitherto tasking the strength of even

strong men with heavy wet clothes about them.
Twenty-three of these boats, we are happy to
state, are in the possession of the Institution, and
are stationed on the coasts of the United King-
dom, in addition to three which have gone to
other countries, and to 10 which have been built
for harbour trusts and other bodies on our own
coasts. But what are these to the number wanted ?
And if the supply were equal to the demand the
Institution would still need funds to maintain
them, and to reward the brave men who man
them !

HANTS AND WILTS ADULT EDUCATION
SOCIETY.

BASINGSTOKE, TUESDAY, Ger. 7.

The third annual meeting of the Hants and Wilts
Adult Educatio❑ Society, and the conference of kindred
associations in union with it, were held here this day in
the Town-hall. The objects of the society are to promote
the establishment of literary and scientific institutions,
libraries, and reading rooms, and to encourage a spirit of
inquiry and improvement by the delivering of lectures on
literary and scientific subjects throughout the counties
of Hants and Wilts. The chair was taken by the
Dean of Hereford. The rev. chairman, in moving the
adoption of the report, entered at length into the benefits
of the society and the competitive examinations, and
said he hoped these examinations might be continued,
and that in future years they might be attended not by
three, but by 30, or it might be 300 candidates for the
prizes offered by the society.

The prizemen were Mr. G. F. Skinner, of Lymington ;
:I.lr. W. Blake, of Alton ; and Mr. W. Rowden, of
Abbott's Ann ; each of whom had passed a rigorous
examination, embracing the history and theory of the
steam•engine, the physical geography of the British
Isles, and English history during the reigns of James
and William 111.
Mr. E. CHADWICK made some remarks illustrative of
the advantage which had already resulted from the in-
troduction of the system of competitive examination for
civil appointments in the public service, as far as it had
gone. As one example of the bearing in educational in-
stitutions of such examinations as had already taken
place, it was noted in the last report of the Stockwell
Proprietary Grammar School, that another pupil had re-
cently gene through an examination for an appointment
at the War-office, and obtained it against upwards of $0
candidates;

A vote of thanks to the chairman terminated the pro-

ceedings.

Count de Nesselrode and M. de Titoff, ex-Russian
Minister at Stutgardt, and his family left Stettin on
Saturday la,t by steamer for St. Petersburg.

The Kink of Wurternberg left Stutgardt on the 3d to
meet the King and Queen of Prussia at Heiningen.
The Duchess d'Orleans, with the Count de Paris and
the Count d'Eu, has arrived in Genoa, where the
Duchess intends residing for some months.
Lord John Russell and family arrived at Turin on the
Ith. His lordship was present at a grand dinner given
at the embassy by Sir James Hudson, to which the most
distinguished diplomatists and Parliamentary represen-
tatives were invited.
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY.—It is known that when
Bonaparte had married the daughter of Francis of
Austria, the latter took some pains in having
researches made about the origin and lineage
of the Bonaparte family. But Napoleon declined to
take any notice of it, saying, " I a.n the Rudolph
Hapsburg of my family." Still, these documents have
been partly published of late on the Continent,
and exhibit a most respectable appearance. Becaus, be-
sides the known factthat the mother of one of the Popes
was a Bonaparte, the pedigree branches off to Constanti-
nople - and there is no doubt that the Bonapartee de-
scended lineally from the Greek emperor. Amongst the
numberless facts and data relating to the groat Bonaparte,
I an not recollect to have heard what was the coat
of arms of the Corsican branch : and whether there had
been any;chalwe in it when they bad settled iu Florence,
or even Howler. In the coat of arms hue, nothing is
perhaps so interesting as the stone armorials which stood
engraved on the house where Goethe was born at Frank-
fort :—"
a winged lyre, surrounded by stars."—" Ha-
bent eua fats lapicles."—Nolot IVA gualC4'