The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-26 00:00:00

GARIBALDI AS A FARMER.

We have heard comparatively little of Garibaldi lately.
He has retired for a time from the busy world of exciting
politics, and has gone to settle down in Caprera to the quiet
life he really loves. TbQ Times correspondent has visited
him there, and tells his reflders of the wonderful things he
has done in his island home. " His active mind has not
been content just to satisfy itself with tilling a few acres
of wheat. He has made the barren, rocky place in which
he lives an island of myrtle and laurel groves. All round;
in the hollows, the orange and lemon are growing in
thickets, while on • More exposed sites there spreads a
wide plantation of olive and almond, overtopped
bp the cypress, the pine, and even the date palm, though
the latter bears no fruit. Garibaldi himself drinks no
wine ; but be is, nevertheless, a wire-grower on a large
scale. His hill-side are covered with low-, closely-pruned
vine-stocks, an importation from the most celebrated
Piedmontese and Tuscan vineyards. By this thrift the
hospitable General is enabled to place choice wine before
the guests who crowd upon him. The General's orchards
do not yield many apples, pears, or peaches, but the
prickly pear and the carob-tree are so prolific that their-
produce is thrown with a full hand to fatten swine.
Garibaldi's dairy is supplied with milk and butter
by six cows of the tall Cremona breed. Numerous herds
of cattle roam at large in the island, providing the esta-
blishment with mountain-fed butcher's meat. The same
constant properity does not attend all the General's under-
takings. All his efforts to root out a poisonous weedwith
which the island once teemed have not been altogether
successful, and the propagation of his flocks and herds is
thereby sensibly checked. The attempt to acclima-
tise the silkworm has turned out a failure, the
soil being une:Topitious to the growth of the
mulberry. Garibaldi, however, peints with exul-
tation to the flourishing condition of his potato-
fields. There is no treat he so heartily enjoys as a dish of
his own potatoes, baked under embers, with his own hand,
in the open air--a treat which calls up reminiscences of his
camp life on the Tcnale or the Stelvio, or of his pioneer's
experience in the backwoods of the Mississippi or the
Plate. Garibaldi indulges in the luxury of a flower-
garden. The bees which he has lately introduced, and of
which he has already nine hives, do well, and on so gusty
spot as that bleak rock of Caprera is little less than a
prodigy. Garibaldi has not, it must be admitted,
been single-handed in these achievements. His right
and left hands have been one Earberini, from Parma, for
many years the General's companion at Caprera, and a
German named Weber, whose aid and example
supplied theory and practice to a man who could
bring to his work little more than an amateur's
earnestness and good-will. It should also be borne
in mind that the General's friends are legion, and
that there is nothing in the shape of garden imple
ments and agricultural machines, nothing under the de-
nomination of seed, plant, or graft, of dead or live stock,
nothing that could minister to his watts or gratify
his fancy, that has not been freely tendered, suggested,
pressed, and even forced upon him. It is, however, not a
little interesting to see a man who has played so striking
and yet so unequal a part in contemporary events, who
has had his sublime, and again his next door-to-sublime
moments—to see such a mall, we say, give so solid an
evidence of strong sterling sense in a manner in which he
takes counsel from himself alone. It would be well for
Garibaldi's countrymen if they would spare a little of
their admiration for their hero in action to bestow it on
their hero in repose. The world has heard enough
of Garibaldi as a Camillus or Mareellus. It would be well
if Italy could appreciate his worth as a Cincinnatus."

TIIE ALBERT INSURANCE COMP.ANY,

Messrs. S. L. Price and A. R. Kirby, the provisional
official liquidators of the Albert Life Assurance Company,
have issued their statement of the position of the company
with a proposal for the arrangement of its affairs. They
tate that the paid-up capital is 2176,000, and the un-
called amount £324,600; while the liability under policies
and annuity contracts is limited to the capital and funds of
the company. Mr. Charles Jellicoe and Mr. Arthur
Bailey, the actuaries, having been consulted, have given
an opinion. which is stated at length, both rs to the
actual position of the company and the most likely mode
of reconstruction. They state that the policies in force on
the 31st December last represented a total of £8,207,041,
on which annual premiums of £312,657 were payable, and
-snnuities of £19,307. The present liabilities they esti-
mate at £1,407,932, and the assets, including uncalled
capital, at £421,500, shewing a deficiency of £986,432. They
then observe.:—" If a compromise be. effected reducing by
one-half the claims of the annuitants and immediate credi-
tors, we think that, taking the assets to be of the value of
£421,500, the company would be in a position to pay, as
the claims arise, nearly 80 per cent, of the sums assured.
But, inasmuch as there are several elements of uncer-
tainty in the case, and as a aluation of the liabilities at
the present date has yet to be made, we think that in
any proposal for the arrangement of the company's r.ffairs
it would be inexpedient to engage to pay in the flrst in-
stance more than 75 per cent. of the sums assured under
the policies. The following is an estimate of what would
be the position of the company thus reorganised:—The
above item pf £1,147,487, viz., value of liabilities under
policies, would be reduced to .£137,173 ; the above item of
£150,445, viz., the value of liabilities under annuities
would be reduced to £272,223 ; claims admitted and gene-
ral debts would be reduced from £110,500 to L 55,250 ;
totAl, £267,646. Assets, including uncalled capital esti-
mating the loans on policies at 10s. in the pound, £421,500 ;
apparent surplus, £153,854." The liquidators point out
that should the business collapse and the company be
continued in liquidation, the result will be that the
estimated liabilities entitled to rank against the
company will amount to £3,260,000 ; and that whereas,
under a reconstruction, continuing policy-holders
will be secured on the average to the extent of 75
per cent. of the amount assumed, under a liquidation they
would only receive a trifling dividend spread over several
years. It is,-therefore, proposed to reorganise the com-
pany on the basf:S of an average reduction of 25 per
cent. of its assurance" liabilities ; but the reduction on
each policy would be 2:scertained before the policy-
holders were called upon finally to determine es
to continuing their policies." In order to carry
out these arrangements, they state ttst it will be
necessary to form a new company to take over from
the old company all its assets and undertake all
its liabilities on the reduced scale. The policy.
holders to be entitled to 80 per cent. of the future
profits, the remaining 20 per cent. to be reserved for the
shareholders of the present company. It being indispen-
sable that the new company should be formed by shares,
it is proposed to issue to the present shareholders fully
paid-up shares in the new company of the nominal value
of £5 in proportion to the amounts paid up in the present
company, and thus secure an equitable division amongst
them of such 20 per cents of the profits. The new shares
in no case`,to be entitled to more than G per cent, per
annum until- •,the policies have, either out of the
existing assets or future profits, been made up to their
original amount. '..rhe actual result would be that
the re-organised company would practically be a
mutual assurance company. but having 20 per cent. of
its profits set aside for the old shareholders in the Albert
Life Assurance Company, from which it had obtained its
business. It is further proposed that, at the end of one
year from the date of the reorganisation of the company,
a re-valuation of all the assets and liabilities shall be made,
and such additions made to the policies as the result of such
investigation may warrant. The proposed average reduction
of 25 per cent. has been put at a maximum amount in order
to place the company on a perfectly safe footing. It
is intended to make it part of the constitution of the new
company that in future there shall be a thorough investi-
gation of the assets and liabilities at the end of every
third year by two independent actuaries of high standing,
one to be nominated by the shareholders, the other by the
policy-holders. This proposal will be circulated among
the shareholders, policy-holders, and other claimants on
the company, and the liquidators point out the absolute
necessity of a prompt decision on the matter. It is in-
tended to propose at the forthcoming meetings that
representatives should be nominated to form a central
committee for assisting the liquidators to carry out the
proposed arrangements.

Sir John Craven Carden, Bart., of the Abbey,
TereTlemore, is a candidate for tho represontatioon of Tip-
perary.
Sir John'D. Coleridge (the Solicitor-General) was
at Devonport on Tuesday, and delivered the inaugural address
at tho opening, at tho-
Devonport Mechanics' Institute, of an
exhibition of arts, science;.and manufactures.
PLACES OF RELIGIOUs WOESIIIF.-1./Ilder the
yew Charitable Trusts Act, gives power to the
majority of trustees to deal with cbar:,..v e:Aat.e3 is , there
a provision to extend the Acts to plz,cs ,`,git3:ereil, and
lona fide used as places of religious wor,lifl).
Treasury is cmpov,cred to prescribe a scale of fees 0' ;be
charged by the Board of the Chuity Commissioners.
THE POLICE IN THE OLD KENT-ROAD.—Another
daring outrage has been perpetrated in the Old Kent-road,
near the Lord Nelson, not more than 100 yards from the
house where Mrs. Peake was so brutally treated. It
appears that about half-past 11 o'clock Commander L. A.
Butler, R.N., residing at 6, Champion-terrace, Camber.
well, was taking his usual stroll, and when near the Lord
Nelson he was suddenly run at full butt by a man who
made a snatch at his watch-chain, a portion of which he
succeeded in making off with. Luckily the watch, a
silver one, remained safe in the pocket of Mr. Butler
who, upon recovering himself, raised a cry of "Police,"
but as usual none were to be found for a quarter of an hour.
Mr. Butler atatod_tl* hesould identify the thief.