The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-29 00:00:00

BANQUET AT ROTTERDAM.

that nine-tenths are my fellow-countrymen, I have, on the
part of my colleagues now present and myself, to offer you
our warm acknowledgments. Permit me, at the same time,
to remind your Excellency and this great meeting of the
many difficulties with which those shareholders have had to
contend, and the manner in which they have overcome
them. First, they were met by the obstacles which nature
has interposed in carrying a railway across your country;
but that difficulty was solved from the moment that a gentle-
man whose name is a guarantee for whatever he undertakes
—I allude to Mr. Brassey—contracted to do it. Then came
the financial difficulties, which had been long felt by the
company, and which required the most energetic efforts of
the part of the shareholders; and here I rejoice in having
the opportunity of thus publicly testifying to your Excel-
lency, on the part of the shareholders, our appreciation of
the friendly and fostering spirit shown by the government
of the Netherlands to aid in overcoming these financial
•bstacles, and the very liberal feeling they have always
displayed towards the company. Let it be borne in mind,
too, that during these difficulties public opinion in Holland
was sceptical as to the beneficial results for the sharehold•
ers. Old associations and habits looked on the waters of
the Rhine as the natural highway to Central Europe.
That opinion yet lingers in Holland. It has already bee*
practically solved in our country, and we are convinced
that in these days economy of time, beyond every other
consideration, is the essential element of commerce; in-
deed I may say that it has already been proved so here,
for since the introduction of railways in Belgium has not
Antwerp been enabled to seize upon great part of your
former transit trade, and carry it by her railways to
Cologne? From that moment your position at Rotterdam,
as naturally commanding by means of the Rhine the great
transit trade to the centre of Germany was lost—your large
colonial products alone remained to you. But Rotterdam
can now resume the leading position she formerly held,
and regain the trade for which her port so admirably
qualifies her. This happy union of English and Dutch
capital and energy must doubtless soon produce a marked
effect on the progress of Rotterdam ; and it is highly gra.
tifying to us, the English now present, and will be to the
shareholders, to feel that the interests of those sharehold-
ers, and of the communities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam
are thus so clearly identified ; and there cannot be a doubt
that, under such auspices as we see around us, and in close
connexion with such a powerful ally as the Cologne-Minden
Company, the shareholders will be remunerated for all
their sacrifices. I beg, therefore, to conclude by again
acknowledging the grateful sense we entertain of the very
handsome manner in which your Excellency has expressed
yourself, and to propose " Prosperity to the town of
Ro tterd am."

The assembly evinced their sympathy by cheers, mil
The Burgomaster of ROTTERDAM gave " The City of
Amsterdam," which was responded to by the Burgomaster
of the latter, who, in eloquent terms, while he denouniresl
the idea of any jealous feeling between these two great
marts of commerce, called on them to show an honourable
rivalry in the cause of progress and civilisation.
The PEESIDENT of the Cologne and Minden Railway
gave " Prosperity to the Dutch Rhenish Railway," which
..was responded to in warni_tems
anti sentiments enlivened ilaff-pre•
grass of the entertainment, and those of the guests who
chose adjourned to the ball-room, where dancing was kept
up until a late hour.

Thus terminated the thr,ee days' festivities which inau-
gurated the opening of the Dutch Rhenish Railway, con-
ducted on a scale of expenditure and magnificence un•
paralleled in railway annals. Two great communities, long
isolated from each other, though such near neighbours, have
thus been brought into intimate union ; and if the warmth

and. cordiality of feeling displayed on the occasion be any
criterion, the shareholders may safely look forward to the
realisation of their most sanguine calculations.
Among the English guests present were the Chairmen of
the Eastern Counties and Eastern Union Railways. These

gentlemen had crossed over from Harwich in the Aquila
steamer, to judge themselves of the facilities offeredby this
new route between Harwich and the Continent. Their
advent was hailed with delight, and several of the English
shareholders, including the commissaries, availed them.
selves of the friendly offer of these gentlemen, and returned
with them the next day to Harwich. They thus ascer-
tained that with suitable boats the passage from Rotter-
dam to Harwich could be done in about nine hours and a
half ; or, adding two hours and a half from Harwich to
London, 12 hours betwcan London and Rotterdam. Com-
paring this with the time now occupied by steamers from
London to Rotterdam or Antwerp, which is about 22
hours, the route by Harwich must eventually take the lead,
while the direct and expeditious transit from Rotterdam to
Cologne, in about 8 hours, must give this route a decided
preference for the traveller over the circuitous one by
Belgium or Calais.

The visitors in the Aquila, most of them from Liverpool,
and unacquainted with Harwich, were struck with the
immense capabilities of its harbour; and all agreed that
the shareholders, both of the Eastern Counties and Dutch
Rhenish Railways, would find it their interest to turn
such great natural advantages to account.
MEETING OF THE SHAREHOLDERS.

On Tuesday, the 21st, the shareholders held their ad-
jßo
yumrnseadugc,etnoeorkal
tmheeet.
cihn
agi,r.
.a n dT
hales onau
mspbeecri aolfmseheatriensg .r
pMr
er..
VAN DAM VAN IBSELT, in the absence of Mr. Faber Van
s e n 1 er d.
C.
betweenHOLLAND 5
saido, 00t0h andat
thGoe
n 'Ca°°n-ual general meeting
had been adjourned in consequence of the retirement of
Mr. Donker Cartius, the then president. The shareholders
deeply regretted that retirement and felt awkwardly placed,
and had anxiously deliberated how to fulfil the pledge
they had given in June, to select, if possible, a native of
Holland to succeed Mr. Curtius. Their efforts, however,
had, he regretted to say, been unsuccessful. The presi-
dency of such a line must be committed to a man of busi-
ness, and it was impossible to find a man willing to make
the sacrifice, If such a position had been conceded, to a
man of high name, he would have been exposed to all the
responsibility of office without adequate knowledge to
protect himself. In this dilemma; Count Schimmelpen-
ninck had exerted himself, but equally without success.
The shareholders had, therefore, come to the conclusion
that now the junction with Prussia was completed, thi
office of president should no longer remain in a state of
interregnum, more especially as there was a gentleman
present enjoying the confidence of the English share-
holders and of the Dutch commissaries, and ho was
happy to propose Mr. Hesleden as president of the
direction, in doing which he was fortified by the opinion
of Count Schimmelponninck land various commis.
saries of the propriety of the nomination. Hereafter he
hoped to find a native of Holland qualified to assist Mr.
Hesleden as vice-president, but at the moment he was not
prepared with the name of a suitable gentleman,
Mr. VAN DAM VAN ISSELT agreed with Mr. Holland
that a president without knowledge and experience in rail-
way matters would be useless, and cordially concurred in
the nomination.
Mr. HESLEDEN was then unanimously elected president,
and briefly returned thanks. ,
Mr. VAN DAM VAN ISSELT congratulated Mr. Hesleden
upon his appointment, saying that he enjoyed the confi-
dence both of the English and Dutch; and although dif-
ferences of opinion had arisen, they (the Dutch) had always
appreciated his energy and talent.
Mr. Zillison was also named Vice-President for the
current year.
Mr. VAN DAM VAN ISSELT then expressed his regret
that at the meeting of Juno Mr. Godlefroi had not been
re-elected a commissary. This was a time of general
peace-making, festivity, and joyousness, and can behalf of
himself and the Dutch etammissaries, ho asked, as a favour,
that' his old colleague should be re-elected a commissary.
Mr. HOLLAND then proposed that gentleman's re•election,
and Mr. TINNE seconded the proposition—disclaiming all
personal feeling in the part he had taken on a prbvioua

Rotterdam was the scene of the third day's festivities,
and her wealthy merchants and esteemed burgomaster
seemed determined not to be outdone in the race of splendid
hospitality by the previous displays—although unaided,
as in those instances, by large government grants, the mer-
cantile body themselves raised a fund more than ample
to cover a princely expenditure. The entertainment was
given in the new and very extensive hall of the Yacht
Club, which was most tastefully decorated—the flags of
Holland, Prussia, and England being displayed all round
the enclosure. When the numerous guests—comprising a
host of Prussian dignitaries and the notabilities of Amster-
dam, including all the Government Ministers and the
Burgomaster of that city—had arrived, the company sat
down to the number of upwards of 300, to a most sump-
tuous repast. The Burgomaster of Rotterdam, Mr. Hoff-
man, was in the chair, having near him the Prussian Mi-
nister and officials, and the Dutch Ministers of the Home,
Foreign, and Finance departments, and opposite to him,
at short intervals, were placed Mr. Hesleden, President of
the Board of Directors, Mr. Holland, the Chairman of the
English board, and several of the English Commissioners.
After the preliminary toasts of the King of Prussia and
the King of Holland, given respectively by the Burgo-
master of Rotterdam and the Prussian Minister, had been
duly received and applauded, the Minister of Finance rose
and addressed the meeting in a most complimentary
speech, enlarging on the merits of the English shareholders.
His Excellency, who spoke in English, in order that our
countrymen present might more fully appreciate his re-
marks, concluded an eloquent speech by giving her Ma-
jesty the Queen of England, observing at the same time his
gratification at seeing so many of the principal English
shareholders present on this occasion, and among them Mr.
Holland, the head of the English Commissioners, and the
- President of the Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool. The
cheers which followed this toast were of the most deafen-
ing kind, and showed that Rotterdam feeling responded
most warmly in sympathy with its English allies. When
a lull in the enthusiastic outburst had been obtained,
Mr. HQLLANI) rOOO and said M. le lainistra

occasion.
Mr. THOMAS E. Moss thon proposed that Mr. llegeden's
salary
r be
c fined
Rapt ,la,noodOle.arpriereda.nnum, which was seconded

Mr. Moss concluded by proposing that a sum of 80,000
florins be held at the disposal of the committee, to be di-
vided in such way as they might deem proper.
Mr. G. E. TAUNTON seconded the resolution, and was
glad to assure the proprietors that the sum mentioned was
only a part of a balance already in hand, derived from the
distribution of the forfeited shares, and would therefore in
no way be chargeable upon the ordinary revenue of the com-
pany. He spoke feelingly on this subject, because he was
one of those unfortunates who had allowed his shares to be
forfeited, but be willingly voted for the amount, even as he
Might say from his own pocket, because he had for years
witnessed the untiring, although unpaid. exertions of the
English commissaries, who, aided by their Dutch brethren,
had redeemed the property from Zero to its present high
position ; and whilst cordially seconding the resolution,
he could not omit to mention the high sense entertained by
all parties of the services of Mr. Beloe, who from the first
had acted as secretary to his friends in Liverpool.
The directors were subsequently authorised to apply to
the government for permission to make a small connecting
link between the two lines near Utrecht, by which the di-
rect line from Rotterdam and Amsterdam would be consi•
derably shortened, and a large saving effected in working
expenses.

Thanks having been voted to the chairman the meeting
separated.

THE AMERICAN "REIGN OF TERROR."

(From the New York Herald)

A reign of terror has hung out its black flag of sedi-

tiou, treason, and nullification over one half of the Ame-
riean Union. In all our Southern States, except little
Delaware, there ie as little of political liberty as in Russia,
and a meaner, and more sneaking, and more remorseless
espionage over the liberty of speech and the public press
than in any of the Italian provinces of Austria. Under
the auspices of the Jacobin democracy this invisible and
lawless despotism of the South has become as inexorable
as the savage Committee of Public Safety of that horrible
first French revolution, and as bloodthirsty as Robe-
spierre, Marat,and Danton. Such is the fierce and shame-
less despotism which reigns over the South, and such is
the government to which the rotten democracy are la-
bouring to subdue the North, under threats of disunion,
a robbery of the public treasury, and civil war.
This overshadowing evil of the day is the ripening fruit
of those seeds of corruption and discord which were
planted at Washington by this Pierce Administration.
There was in 1853 peace upon theslavery question; Mr.
Pierce was pledged to continue this peace, and studiously
to avoid anything calculated to disturb it. But, false to
the people, false to his pledges, and faithless to his trust
in every way, he reopened the box of Pandora, and scat-
tered its seeds of mischief broadcast over the land. He
sold himself and the peace of the country, his party, his
character, his conscience, his body and soul, for that pal-
try mess of pottage—the support of the nigger-driving
leaders of the Democratic party at the Cincinnati Con-
vention. But they had sucked him dry like an orange,
and they cast the empty shell away. They sought another
man, equAlly reliable as an instrument, but better calcu-
lated for their purposes of public deception in the North.
We see, however, that so far from their being any abate-
ment in the Southern Democratic policy of terrorism
and nullification with the nomination of Mr. Buchanan,
his name, his inluence, his pledges, and his autho-
rity have all been used to sink the constitution
in Kansas, at Washington, and in 14 States of the
union, and to threaten us with dieunim! and an armed
Ay seer no.nos submit. •'r -

! For practical purposes of their own—for office, profit,
spoils, and plunder—Jefferson Davis, the Democratic
Mephistopheles at Washington, and Atchison, his right
hand man in Kansas, and poor Pierce, their suppliant
tool, set this policy of ruffian tyranny in motion. The
results have disgraced the country in the eyes of the
whole world. Armed invasions of ruffian mercenaries,
terrorism, ballot stuffing, spurious Kansas Legislatures
and their bloody laws, have been followed up by the
dragoon's sabre, the ruffian musket, pistol, bayonet, and
bowie-knife; by murder, scalping, robbery, and other
crimes too revolting to think of, until the plains of Kan-
sas have been reddened with the blood of its unhappy
settlers, and blackened with the ashes of their houses
burned to the ground.
Next, we see this contagion of terrorism breaking out
at Washington in fights and rows, and fearful homicides,
and in brutal violence, even within the sanctuary of the
American Senate chamber—and next, we find the whole
South under a rigid blockade of democratic spies and in-
formers, to cross which a passport is as necessary to a
New Yorker or Pennsylvanian as at the Austrian fron-
tier. Anywhere beyond Delaware it is only necessary
for some hireling democratic vagabond to get up the hue
and cry of "Abolitionist" against any Northern stranger
to put him in peril of his life. South of Mason and
Dixon's, in fact, the country is under a despotism worse
than that of Austria, because it is a lawless, invisible,
and irresponsible despotism. It is, however, a complete
despotism of a ruffian democratic reign of terror. There
is no such thing as a free press in the South, except here
and there a straggler close to the Northern border;
there is no such thing as free speech, except here and
there on the part of a man whose position, influence, and
family associations—Mr. Butts, for example—render it
dangerous to disturb him. . _

Such are the bitter fruits of this wretched Pierce Ad-
ministration and the demoralised Democratic party,
reduced to the whip and spur of the nigger-driving dis-
organisers, and disunionists of the South. Is this state
of things any longer to be endured 1 Will tee people of
the North—still free, still living up to the free gifts of
the Constitution, free speech, a free press, and the right
of the people peaceably to assemble in the discussion of
public affairs—will this free people of the free North
thug consent to vote themselves under a Southern nigger-
driving despotism, soarcely less humiliatin: to a free-
born white man than African slavery itself ? We say this
in all seriousness ; for when a free-born white man can
consent to have his pen and his voice under the control
of a censorship like that of the ruffian Southern demo•
cracy, and can cry " Hurrah 1" for the party which thus
ties him up in bondage, he is ready to mount the block
and be sold at auction like a nigger. We await upon
this question the judgment of the free people of Penn-
sylvania.

HORRIBLE TRAGEDY IN AMERICA.

A horrible tragedy occurred at Bergholtz, a German
settlement in the town of Wheatland, in this county, on
Saturday night last, being nothing else than the cold-
blooded butchery of Dr. T. C. Strange, his housekeeper,
and his daughter, by some person or persons as yet un-
known. Sunday morning, as one of the doctor's neigh-
bours was proceeding along the road leading from the
doctor's house south, he came upon the lifeless body
lying on the road, with a pool of blood by his side. He
had been murdered with an axe, having been struck foor
blows with it—one on the right side of the face, two on
the back of the head, and one on the right side. The
murderer evidently meant to make sure work, as either
blow would have killed him. On proceeding to his house,
a mile distant, a still more horrible sight presented it-
self. Upon the floor was the bleeding corpse of Mrs.
Barlean, the housekeeper of Dr. Strange, her head
having been literally cut in two by the same instrument
that had caused the death of the doctor, and a short
distance from her, on the bed, was found the lifeless
remains of the young daughter of Dr. Strange. The
girl, like the others, had been killed by an axe.
The first blow had been given on the side of the
face, and before the second the victim had raised the
arm in self-defence, and received the second blow
upon the elbow and fleshy part of the arm. The first
blow must have caused almost instant death. So far not
the slightest clue to the perpetrators of this horrible
deed, or th:, cause which led to it, had been elicited. A
neighbour of Dr. Strange, who lived close by, was up all
Saturday night finishing a pair of boots which he had
promised, but says he heard nothing to excite his atten-
tion. The general impression is, that I,he person or per-
sons who committed the murder went to the house and
called the doctor away on business. He had a large
overcoat on, and a lantern, which he always carried
when going out of nights, was found near where his body
lay. It is supposed that after murdering the doctor the
assassin went back and murdered the woman and child
to prevent detection. Mrs. Barlean, when found, bad a
candle in one hand and matches in the other, and was
probably about to make a light when she was struck
the deadly blow. Dr. Strange was a man between 40
and 59 years old, and had been in this country about six
years, and had resided all this time at Bergholtz. He
separated from his wife about two years ago, since when
she has lived in Buffalo. Mrs. Barlean was a woman
about 30 years old, and has kept house for Dr. Strange
since his wife left. She has a husband in Germany,
whom she was expecting here daily. The other victim
was Dr. Strange's daughter, a beautiful youug girl, about
Who pdjourned )31%1011g baying been ouclud4 the 13 you old.—.Lockport Corior, Oct. 7.