The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-12 00:00:00

211LS'CELLANEOUS NEWS.

SEEING Tnotron A DraLSTONE.
The-re is none of our contemporaries which will
compare with the Morning Advertiser in seeing
through a millstone. It devotes a leadert o the Lord
Mayor's banquet at Dublin, and enters into an
elaborate argument to prove that because
Lord Spencer proposed the health of Cardinal
Cullen in eulogistic language, Mr. Gladstone has
determined to "level up," and Mr. Gladstone's 'Ministry
will therefore be " swept away from the political
earth." Unfortunately for this argument, it was not
the Lord-Lieutenant, as at first reported, but the
Lord Mayor, who proposed the health of the Car-
dinal. The effusive manner in which " that eminent
prince of the Catholic Church" was spoken of did
appear strange so long as it was supposed that Lord
Spencer was the speaker ; but a special telegram to
the Times states that the speech in question has
been attributed to the Viceroy in error, and that
it was really made by the first magistrate of Dublin.

THE GOVERN3IENT TELEGRAPHS BILL.
Readers of the Edinburgh Review are aware
that a severe attack appears in the current
number of that quarterly upon the arrangements
of the late Government for the purchase of
the telegraphs. This article has been criticised
in the Times, and now the reviewer replies
in the same journal to his critic. The reviewer says
that he does not wish to upset the scheme for the
purchase of the telegraphs. On the contrary, he desires
the Government to become the owner of them. But he
does censure what he deems the extravagance of the
late Ministry for the terms which they proposed to
give. He does not say that twenty years' purchase
of past profits is too high a price, but he thinks that
twenty years'
too high. He
of estimated future profits is
e points out that whereas in 1805 Mr.
Scudamore estimated the cost at £2,500,000, in 1868,
when under examination, he said that the price would
not exceedB,ooo,ooo. The reviever b elieves that it will,
and he would have Parliament thoroughly consider
the terms before sanctioning them. The reviewer
fails to see that if Mr. Scudamore's estimate of the
purchase has increased threefold in three years,this is
a clear indication that the profits are increasing
very rapidly from year to year, and that therefore it
is not fair to estimate the value of the telegraphs by
their profits only of past years, for a great portion
of which time they were unremunerative. As to
the rise which has taken place in the market value of
the shares, that is only the natural result of the
Prospect of immediately realising future profits. _

AN OCEAN PENNY POST.
The idea of an ocean penny post has been regarded
like most other such reforms, as a " dream." But
from what Mr: Reverdy Johnson said at Glasgow the
other day, that the American Government had
instructed him to press a cheap international postage
on our own Government, the dream is.not unlikely to
turn out prophetic. The subject is being taken up, too,
in the chambers of commerce throughout the king-
dom, and on 'Wednesday the directors of the Man-
chester Chamber passed a resolution in favour of a
Penny post between this country and America. The
discussion of the question is making some progress,
therefore.

LOCAL TAXATION.
The poor and highway rates are unequally dis-
tributed, not only as regards persons, but also as
regards places. Mr. Lippincott, of Over Court,
Bristol, writes : " I reside in a parish in which the
cost of maintaining some eight miles of turnpike-
roads (thoroughfares of the surrounding neighbour-
hood) has just been thrown upon the rates. Au
adjoining parish is free from this charge, but is still
more unfortunate than its neighbour, in that, though
strictly rural, it is attached to a town union, and in
consequence subject to very heavy establishment and
usual poor eliames,_ to. such.,2wel. zt_ent. that itcratea