The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-31 00:00:00

rim SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDA.Y EVENING, OCTOBER 31, 1860.

it could not be intended to overawe Spain and to
put down the Pope. (A laugh.) If ever the Gloire
and its sister crafts were intended to fight any
enemy, that enemy would be found in the British
Channel. (Hear, hear.) He did not approve, and
had voted against, the Government scheme of laud
fortification, as he had no faith in masonry, and he
would rather trust first to our " wooden walls," and
next to a wall composed of " bricks" such as he saw
before him. (Laughter.) Our army, one of the
smallest, but also the best in the world, could not
in a time of pressure perform all the duties which
the country would require, and therefore it ought
to be aided and backed up by that best and most
constitutional force, a volunteer army. (Hear, hear.)
Colonel the Hon. S. VEREKER, of the South
Middlesex Rifles, seconded the motion, and repu•
diated all feeling of jealousy towards the formation
of the Royal National Rifles. The value of the
service of volunteers had been shown in repeated
instances in the Aniterican war, by Garibaldi's
troops, and by our own countrymen in the native
war which had recently broken out in New Zealand.
Mr. HUME WILLIAMS supported the resolution,
and observed that all doubt of the success of
the Volunteer Movement had now been set at
rest, as it had been that day announced that
there were ao less than 200,000 citizen soldiers
within these realms. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. Albany Fonblanque and Colonel Evelyn also
supported the resolution, which was unanimously
adopted amid loud and long-continued cheering.
Thanks were voted to the Duke of Wellington
and Sir J. Shelley, and the proceedings terminat-: d.

The contest between the St. George's Rifles and
the Victoria and Westminster for Mr. Twining's
plate took place last week. The St, George's corps
were the victors.

The Airedale Rifles (35th West York) held their
frst open-air drill on Saturday in the grounds ad-
joining Eastwood-house, near Keighley, the seat of
Mr. I. G. Sugden. The men were addressed by
Mr. Ferrand, of St. Ives, the captain elect, who
complimented them upon the progress which they
have made in drill during the short time they have
been engaged in it. The corps already number
more than 80 members, exclusive of the band, and
there is no doubt before long there will be a suffi-
cient number of Volunteers to form two companies.
The total amount of money subscribed up to the
present time, including the building fund, is about
£475, of which the Duke of Devonshire has put his
name down for £5O. The services of the corps were
formally accepted last Thursday, and the officers
expect to receive their commissions during this
week.

The competition for the large number of valuable
prizes offered to the members of the Leicestershire
companies commenced on Monday at the Leicester
rifle range. The first prize, value £5, 200 and 300
yards, was one by C. Billson (Leicester) ; 2d, £2,
Private Leadbetter (Melton) ; 3d, £l, Private
Bankart (Leicester). Second prize, value £7, 300
and 400 yards, was won by Private Whitehouse
(Melton); 2d, £2, Private:Sturges (Melton.) Pri-
vate Hamel (Leicester) made the highest num-
ber of points (14), but was disqualified, having
entered for a class in which he was not entitled to
compete. For the third prize a tie has to be shot
off. The competition for the all comers' prize,
value £lO, was commenced to-day, but, owing to
the large number of entries, it could not be con-
cluded, and it was decided to recommence the
shooting the next morning (Tuesday). At the
close of the day Lieut.-Colonel Crawford (Robin
Hood Rifles) presented the prizes to the successful
competitors.

On Monday the 4th Warwickshire (Rugby)
Company of Volunteers concluded a shooting for
prizes which had been commenced on the previous
Wednesday. The first prize was a handsome sil-
ver cup, offered by Captain Benn, for the greatest
number of points ; the second prize, value £3105.,
was given by the other officers of the company for
the greatest number of hits. These prizes were
shot for by men in the second class at 200, 300,
400, and 500 yards, five rounds at each distance.
The silver cup was won by Sergeant Haynes,
who made 19 hits, sco"ing 22 points; the second
prize was won by Private Kenning, who made 16
hits and 20 points. A prize of a silver tankard,
shot for by men in the third class, was won by
Private Clarke, who made 7 hits and 12 points, in
10 rounds, at 200 and 300 yards. Corporal Chater,
in shooting for the first prize, made 15 hits and 21
points, and the shooting of the whole of the men
was excellent, the score exceeding the Hythe
average. The prizes were presented to the winners
at a supper, presided over by Colonel Scott, late
Lieut.-Colonel of the Scots Fusilier Guards, and
now Colonel of the 2d Battalion of Warwickshire
Volunteers. Many of the county gentry were
present, and the Rev. H. Fox, the Hon. C. L.
Butler, and Mr. C. M. Caldecot severally an-
nounced their intention to give prizes to be shot
for by the company next summer. Mr. Edmund
Edmunds, on behalf of the town and trade of Rugby,
also guaranteed a prize for next season, so that RO
doubt there will be keen competition and corre-
sponding excellence in shooting. The Rugby com-
pany now numbers upwards of 80 effective mem-
bers, and is rapidly improving in numbers and
discipline, there being a steady determination on
all hands to make this company second to none in
any town of the same size in the kingdom.
A second company of Rifles has been raised at
Penrith, cons;sting. of 65 men, thus raising the
total number of Volunteers to 142 members,--e
large proportion for a small town of 7,000 or 8,000
inhabitants. The members have elected for cap
tain Mr. L. Harrison ; for lieutenant, Mr. M
Nicholson ; and for ensign, Mr. W. B. Arnison
Since their enrolment they have made rapid pro•
press in their drill, under the superintendence
Sergeant Wolfe, of the 15th Regiment, drill in.
structor to the first company (Inglewood Rangers

NEW MODE OF RAISING FRENCH
LOANS.

The mode of raising loans by promising an ex-
ceedingly small interest with a certain amount of
prizes each quarter, is strongly reprehended by the
Sieele as tending to encourage a spirit of gambling
among the public. The writer only slightly
alluding to the operations of the same kind car-
ried out by the Credit Foncier Company and the
City of Paris, attacks the scheme proposed lately
by the towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing ; and with-
out using the offensive term of "swindle," seems to
Imply that something of the kind is in contempla•
tion. The following is a passage from the article :
" The results of the financial combination
proposed by the towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing,
may be looked at in two different points of view,
and both equally unfavourable. The public are
asked to subscribe for 60,000 bonds at 45f. each,
making a total of 2,700,000 f., which are to be paid
immediately, that is to say, between this and Ist of
January next. These 2,700,000 f., placed at interest
at 5 per cent., would in 55 years produce a capital
of 39,516,200 f. The 55 annuities, or, in other words,
the whole ofthese lots which are displayed before the
eyes of the public in such a dazzling manner, if
placed at the same interest of 5 per cent., would
only produce 28,634,400 E, being a difference of
10,881,800 f. The subscribers will therefore have
lost that sum of 10,881,800 f. at the period of
the total reimbursement. Let us now look at
the combination under another aspect, and see
whether it will be more favourable to the sub
scribers. They commence by paying up
2,700,000 f. The 55 annuities, those tempting
lots and enticing premiums brought to their real
value with interest at 5 per cent., represent
1,863,000 f., making a difference of 837,000 E
The subscribers therefore actually lose 837,000 E,
or about one-third of their money. This is
exactly as if the towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing
were to say to the subscribers—Give me 15E, and
then lend me 30f., at the same rate of interest. Let
us now look at the real rate at which the sub-
scribers invest their money in this operation. It is
on an average 3 per cent., but not for all. The
immense majority will not receive 2 per cent., or
evenl perwil
be reimbursed ce n t .r;since,
ed out
atof 5
theor 6ioa 5
, 0005
years,bond s
51,648
being a premium of sf. to be obtained for the whole
period of the loan."

The article concludes in these terms :
" The City of Paris and the Credit Foncier were
the first to set the example of those loans with lots
and prizes, but at least they save appearances in
Paying a low interest. The towns of Roubaix and
Toitreoing suppress the interest, 'and establish a
simple lottery. If care be not taken, and this
plan be not put a stop to, how far shall we go It
sand
be better to at once re-establish the lottery
(1 gaining-houses—a sad alternative certainly,
but loans
would then, perhaps, again become loans."

CITY COMMISSION OF SEWERS.

Yesterday the Commissioners of Sewers held a
court for the transaction of business in Guildhall,
Mr. Deputy Christie, their Cnairman, presiding.
There was a large attendance of members.
STREET RAILWAYS.
Mr. G. F. Train, whose name is identified in
the public mind with the recent adoption of street
railways in Birkenhead, attended the Court, at
the request of the Commissioners, to afford ex-
planations as to a proposal he has just made to
them to introduce his system in all the principal
thoroughfares in the city of London. He was
accompanied by Mr. James Samuel and Mr. G.
Bruce, engineers, and he produced a model of his
plan o; a street railway and of an omnibus for
traversing it, constructed to carry 48 passengers-
-24 inside and 24 out, and intended to be drawn by
a couple of horses. It exhibits a single line of
rails running right down the middle oc a street,
with a gauge similar to an ordinary railway, of 4
feet 8k inches, and leaving a space on each side
for the accommodation of other traffic, ne width
of which spaces will always depend on the breadth
of the street in which the project may be
adopted. To use a homely expression, ap-
plicable to this case, Mr. Train " keeps the crown of
the causeway." For about an hour and a half he
and the two engineers who accompanied him were
engaged in answering questions put by members of
the Commission, and we shall now g.ve concisely
all the more interesting facts and opinions brought
out in the investigation, without adhering to the
necessarily desultory process by which they were
elicited. Mr. Train stated that he proposes to lay
down in all the leading thoroughfares in the city
his line of rails at his own cost, and in a manner to
satisfy the surveyor to the Commissioners ; that he
will undertake to do that within an interval pre-
scribed by the Commission, and that in Ihe event
of the system, on a trial, being regarded by them
as a public inconvenience, he will put an end to it,
and reinstate the streets at his own cost. He
showed that there was no groove in his lines, in
which the wheels of ordinary carriages could stick ;
but, on the contrary, a flat surface of metal, six or
eight inches wide, which all might use free of
charge, his patent rights being confined to the
peculiar construction of tke carriage which he uses.
At the outer edges of his lines there is a guiding
flange, but it is only five-eighths of an inch high,
and offers, as he submits, no obstruction to a carriage
crossing the road or one leaving his beaten track
to set down a passenger on the kerb or for any other
purpose. The outside width of his carriages is 6 feet
8 inches, and the gauge of the rails 4 feet 81 inches.
On the level metal plates many ordinary carriers
of various kinds may travel with two and always
with one wheel. The paved part of the road be-
tween the rails, as well as the rails themselves, will
be maintained by him at his own expense. The
leading idea which he seeks to inculcate is
that the introduction of his system does not
diminish by one inch the ordinary roadway avail-
able for the general traffic, and twat vale the
road remains open to all, his plan affords facilities
for conveying great numbers of people from point
to point in great cities and towns, in a regular,
noiseless, and expeditious manner, greatly calcu-
lated to promote the public conveniences and to re-
lieve the thoroughfares. The very narrowness of
thestreets of London, and the consequent stoppage
of the traffic, he contends, is one main reason why
railways to relieve them should be introduced; and
he points to rails laid down in the streets of New
York, the Broadway, of course, excepted, where
they are no wider than that of Cheapside, and also
in Philadelphia with a population of 600,000 inha-
bitants. At the junction of crowded streets, where
the principal obstructions take place, he says the
most fruitful cause of those obstructions lies in the
street vehicles havirg power to wander over thewhole
breadth of the carriage way in any direction, and
any one attentively observing the confusion at the
south end of London-bridge and the Poultry can-
not but be struck with the fact that one-half the
difficulties might be removed by a little organisa-
tion and order; and this the existence of railways,
and the necessary confinement of at ;least one im-
portant class of vehicles to a definite track, would
tend materially to promote. Besides confining the
railway omnibuses to a given track, he submits
that the great mass of other conveyances will fall
into the same line, as a matter of convenience, and
that the result of his observations in America will
be found not less applicable to our own towns—
namely, that the railway traffic and the ordinary
traffic move on together, not only without mutual
interference, but that the railway materially re-
lieves the other. The danger supposed to arise
from the difficulty of stopping railway omnibuses
and preventing their running into other vehicles,
he contends, has no existence : inasmuch as the
breaks on those omnibuses enable the coachman to
stop them more quickly than an omnibus on an or-
dinary road. There is also, he says, the diminu-
tion of wear and tear in the roads, seeing that on
a level railway one pair of horses will do the work
of four pairs on an ordinary road, so that in-
stead of having four omnibuses scattered over the
roadway we should have one moving steadily
along, doing the work of four. Add to all
this the great saving of money to the public by
the introduction of a much cheaper mode of con-
veyance. He proposes to introduce the system into
London at his own cost, and at a saving of from 20
to 30 per cent. to the public in paving rates. He
looks for his profit to carrying passengers at prices
not exceeding, if not less than the present omnibus
fares, in vehicles more than twice their capacity.
His object, as he further explains it, is to classify
the city traffic, as that is now attempted to be done
on London-bridge. His system becomes, as it were,
a self-constituted police. He goes on the faith that
if his plan be a good thing, and is adopted by the
Comilsission, they will allow it to remain ; if other-
wise, he will take it up. Permission has been ob-
tained fortesting it in Victoria-street, Westminster,
and Southgate-road, Hackney. Nearly all the metro-
politan vestries have reported favourably on the
project ; that of Lambeth having sent down a depu-
tation to Birkenhead to see it in practical operation.
The omnibuses which he uses, besides their internal
accommodation and luxury, have great facilities
for passengers alighting in the streets; so much so
that in Birkenhead men mostly alight when the
vehicle is in motion, and it is only stopped for the
convenience of ladies. He asks for no exclusive
privilege as to the use of his rails; they will be free
to all. He protects himself only against the in-
fringement of his patent rights with respect to the
carriages he employs, and looks for a return for his
outlay simply to competition with the existing class
of public vehicles. He stated incidentally that, at
Birkenhead the leading omnibus proprietor had
become the superintendent of the new system there.
He added that his solicitor was now preparing a
permissive bill for introduction into Parliament
next session, with the view to enable corporations
and parishes to adopt his plan. He admitted
there would be practical, but not insurmount-
able difficulties in carrying it into opera-
tion in such places as Holboru-hill and Ludgate-
hill. To avoid Holborn-hill he proposes to make a
detour in going from Tottenham-court-road to the
bank by Guildford-street, Northampton-square, and
Aldersgate-street, into Cheapside ; and he contem-
plates a line along Cheapside for the traffic going
in one direction, and another along Cannon-street
for the returning tide. He was asked several times
where he intended to begin and end, but his
answers in that respect appeared somewhat vague,
and to indicate that his project, as applicable to
London, was as yet scarcely matured in his own
mind. To one of those questions he replied he was
in no hurry about the city; his object was to show
the process in practical operation, and then to leave
it to speak for itself. As to the freedom of his
scheme from danger, he stated that out of 70,000,000
of people who had travelled along the street rail-
ways of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston only
16 had met with accidents.
The members of the Court during the inquiry
started several difficulties in the way of the prac-
tical working of the plan in the crowded thorough-
fares of the city ; but, upon the whole, they
appeared to regard it with favour, many of the
Commissioners with marked approbation ; and after
a brief discussion, in which Dr. Ross, Deputies
Lott, Pewtress, and Harrison, Mr. Lowman Taylor,
Mr. De Jersey, and other members took part, the
consideration of the question by the Court was
ordered to stand adjourned for a month.
The CHAIRMAN, on the part of the Commission,
thanked Mr. Train for the ample explanations he
had afforded them on a subject of great public im-
portance and for the frankness and courtesy with
which he had done so. He also apprised him of
the conclusion to which the Court had arrived,
with which Mr. Train said he felt satisfied and
withdrew.

SANITARY CONDITION OF THE CITY.
Dr. LETHEBY. the Medical Officer of Health,
reported on the state of 220 houses that had been
inspected during the week, and he submitted a list
of 45 places for sanitary improvement. All the
slaughterhouses have been inspected during the
week, and the inspectors of meat and markets have
furnished the medical officer with returns of the
seizure of 104 cwt. 2qrs. 31b. of meat and 64 rabbits
as unfit for human food. Most of this was seized in
Newgate-market, and all of it has been destroyed.
On Friday last some of the hides exposed for sale
in Leadenhall-market were very stale, and the in-
spector reports that he was obliged to order the re-
moval of the most offensive of them. The morta-
lity returns for the week are just the average for
the corresponding period of the last five years, and
they are somewhat less than the returns of the week
preceding. The total deaths were 49, and the births

77. 22, or nearly half, of the deaths were among
children of less than five years of age, and ten were
among old persons of 60 and upwards. The prin-
cipal causes of death were diseases of a chronic cha-
racter, but there were four deaths from pneumonia
and eight from bronchitis, which, with four from
phthisis, make 16 deaths from affections of the res-
piratory organs. Of the zymotic class of disease
there were returns of seven deaths only—namely,
two from measles, two from dysentery and diarrhoea,
and one from each of the following—fever, whoop-
ingcough, and scarlet fever. Of the 77 births in the
city during the week 45 were boys and 32 girls.
The Court then adjourned.