The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-02 00:00:00

PALACE OF .A CHINESE MERCHANT.

A letter from Canton of the 11th April, in the
Gazette de France, says :—" I lately visited the
estate of a Chinese merchant of Canton, named
Portingua, and on which he spends 3,000,000 f. a
year—an immense sum in a country where labour
is to be had almost for nothing. The property is
larger than a king's domain. This Chinaman made
his fortune in the opium trade, and is said to pos-
sess more than 100,000,000 f. He has 50 wives
and 80 domestics, without counting 30 gardeners,
labourers, &c., and owns in the north of China a
still finer estate. He has a great liking for the
French, and receives them well. When I went
with two friends to visit his mansion, he had just
left, but I was received by a steward, who con-
ducted us over the house and grounds. In front
of the house is a vast garden in which are the
rarest flowers, and a wide alley leads to the prin-
cipal entrance. The apartments are vast, the
floors being in marble ; they are ornamented with
columns of the same material and of sandal wood
encrusted with mother-o'-pearl, gold, silver, elle
precious stones. Splendid looking glasses of a
prodigious height, furniture in precious wood
covered with Japan lacquer, and magnificent car-
pets of velvet and silk decorate the rooms. The
apartments are separated from each other by
moveable partitions of cypress and sandal wood,
which are ornamented with charming designs cut
right through the wood, so as to permit one room
to be seen from the other. From the ceilings are
suspended chandeliers ornamented with precious
stones. There are more than thirty piles of build-
ing in the whole edifice, which are united by
covered galleries with columns and pavements in
marble. The lodgings of the women are decorated
with more than Eastern splendour. An entire
army might be lodged in the house and grounds.
Water-courses, on which are gilded junks, traverse
them in all directions ; and at intervals are vast
basins, in which are swans, ibises, and an infinite
variety of birds. There are also pagodas nine
storeys high, which are very remarkable ; some are
in marble, others in sandal-wood, carved with
great art. In the gardens are extensive aviaries
of the rarest and most beautiful birds. In front of
the womens' apartments is a theatre in which a
hundred actors can perform, and so placed that
people in the apartments can see without difficulty.
Near the outer door is a printing-office, in which
M. Portingua causes the memoirs of his family to
be prepared for posterity."

THE PULLINGER FRAUDS.—The Stock-Exchange
Committee yesterday concluded their investigations regard-
ing the transactions of Pullinger, and resolved to suspend
Messrs. R. S. and J. S. Scrimgeour and Co. until the 25th
of March, when the next annual election will take place.
Messrs. Scrimgeour are the brokers to the Union Bank of
London, and near relatives of the manager. They appear
to have executed speculative orders for Pullinger in June,
1856, and to have continued them to the period of his ap-
prehension, but these were all of comparatively small
amount, and were chiefly in Turkish Stock and Sambre
and Meuse, North of Europe Steam, and Grand Russian
Railway shares. The firm of Messrs. Scrimgeour is of the
most respectable character, and no one supposes fur an in-
stant that they would have deliberately encouraged any
dangerous operations on the part of a person in Pullinger's
position; but their gross indiscretion in listening to his re-
presentations, and the fact of their having continued to act
for him for three years after the notice issued by the Com-
mittee warning all members against such dealings seemed
to render it impossible for a less penalty to be awarded than
that which had appeared necessary in the most prominent
of the previous cases. The decision will stand for confir-
mation on Monday next. Twenty-six out of the thirty
members composing the Committee were present to-day,
and it was passed by the requisite majority of three-fourths,
an amendment that the suspension should be limited to six
months having been negatived.
It is alleged that the arrangement mentioned
yesterday for the building of 10 large steamers in this coun-
try for the Emperor Napoleon, with capital to be raised
under a French guarantee of 5 per cent ~ ostensibly for the
purposes of Eastern commerce, was :intended to be signed
in Paris this day.
The Birkenhead commissioners have agreed to
the introduction of horse railways through the principal
thoroughfares of that town, on a plan proposed by Mr.
Train, of NtiT Xork,