The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-30 00:00:00

TILE LATE CAP I:AIN HARRISON.

A meeting of the shareholders of the Great Ship
Company was held this afternoon at the offices of
the company, King William-street, City, for the
purpose of considering the best mode of expressing
their regret at the untimely death of the gallant
commander of the Great Eastern Steamship.
A gentleman attended from The Sun newspaper
to report the proceedings but was refused admis-
sion to the meeting, he, like the other representa-
tives of the press who attended, being informed
that the meeting was a private one.

His Excellency the Ambassador of France and
the Countess de Persigny entertained a select circle at din-
ner last evening. at Albert-gate House.

His Excellency Count Lavradio gave a grand
dinner at the Portuguese Legation in Gloucester-place on
Saturday evening, in compliment to the late British Minis-
ter at the Court of Lisbon, Mr. H. F. Howard, who has
removed to the Court of Hanover.

The Earl and Countess of Derby will leave towd
to-day on a visit to her Majesty at Windsor Castle, and will
remain until Wednesday.

The Countess Granville, we are happy to state,
is gradually improving in health. The countess will con-
tinue at Brighton. The noble Lord President of the Coun-
cil, who left town after the Cabinet Council on Saturday
afternoon returns to town to-day.
Viscountess Palmerston has issued cards for
assemblies on Wednesdays the Ist and Bth of next month.

The Right lion. Sidney Herbert, M.P., and Mrs.
Herbert left Belgrave-square on Saturday afternoon for
Wilton House. near Salisbury, intending to return to town
to-day.

The Right Hon. F. Peel, M.P., and Mrs. Peel
have returned to Farrance's Hotel from their seat, Hamp-
ton-in-Arden, Warwickshire.
laebbo
.to:101 cotton isendnt,ooiwnthelirsea,o
IMPORTATION OF COTTON.—The importation of
osoecountryd,oosiolt
be
.ehna.sTf,
ohi
This
since eHo
nat
ehv of those
oeimportesnevda,uno ttoyoiawoca
tat
facts
which stand head and shoulders higher than the crowd—
so high and so broad that we can neither overlook it nor
affect not to see it. It proves the existence of a thousand
smaller facts that must stand under its shadow. It tells
of sixteen times as many mills, sixteen times as many
English families living by working those mills, sixteen
times as much profit derived from sixteen times as much
capital engaged in this manufacture. It carries after it
sequences of increased quantity of freights and insurances,
and necessities for sixteen times the amount of customers
to consume, to our profit, the immense amount of produce
we are • turning out. There are not many such facts as
these arising in the quiet routine of industrial history. It
is so large and so steady that we can steer our national po-
licy by it; it is so important to us that we should be re-
duced to embarrassment if it were suddenly to disappear.
It teaches us to persevere in a policy which has produced
so wonderful a result; its beneficent operation makes it
essential to us to deal carefully with it now we have got it.
Some years ago an island arose in the Mediterranean and
we were all discussing it and quarrelling about it, and
keeping up a brisk fire of diplomatic notes over it, when
one
fine
morning the disgusted island suddenly went down
survey it sailed over the site
again, and ships sent out to
it had occupied. We must not do any thing to disgust this
huge lump of profitable work which has suddenly amen
among us, lire are inclined to look at it with a respectful
and superstitious tenderness, rather as a gambler does upon
rala (41114 At cards; hoping it may jetet tot rert-ritIVIO,