The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-22 00:00:00

LOilif OF BULLION TO TILE BANE OF FRANCE.

An arrangement was announced yesterday to
have been made between the Bank of France and
the Bank of England, which, it is hoped, will ter-
minate the uncertainties that have recently dis-
turbed the money-markets of Paris and London.

The Bank of France are to have a loan of
£2,000,000 of gold from the Bank of England on
the security of a deposit of silver to an equal
amount. The first remark on this will be,"How can
such an arrangement strengthen the position of the
Bank of France It is the drain of specie that has
been the serious feature, and no change in the relative
proportion of the metals in which their remaining
stock of specie exists can operate to mitigate the
evil." The matter, however, admits of explanation.
The stock of specie shown in the last monthly re-
turn of the Bank of France was £17,400,000,
against a note issue of £30,300,000, and these
figures in themselves present nothing to excite
panic. The fact that the proportion of gold to notes
had been rapidly becoming less favourable de-
manded prompt attention, but the advance of one
per cent. adopted in the rate of discount might
have been expected, if gradually followed up by fur-
ther measures of the same kind, to prove a sufficient
corrective. To the surprise of every one, the Bank
of France commenced offering a premium for gold,
and at the same time entered into onerous terms
for obtaining large amounts from this side. A
run was stimulated, and all persons were led to
infer that the directors saw some imminent
peril in the position of the Bank. It then
transpired that the eagerness on their part to
get gold was not from apprehension that their
entire stock of epccic might be drawn to a fatally
low point, but from the fact that this stock con-
sists mainly of silver, and that hence they were
rapidly approaching a condition which would com-
pel them to meet all demands in that metal. This
announcement, however, seemed in no way to solve
the prevailing perplexities. According to the law
of France, where a double standard prevails, they
are at liberty to discharge their obligations either in
gold or silver, as they may deem expedient, and it
was hard to see why they should object to pay in
silver upon the exhaustion of their gold, or why,
supposing the silver to be of a value beyond its de-
nomination in coin, they should not sell it for gold
in the open market, and realise the profit of this
difference. The answers aro rational. In the first
place, if the Bank had commenced paying away
silver, the common knowledge that this metal
has for several years past borne a high premium
and been difficult to obtain would have led to a
general rush for it ; in the next place, if they had
suddenly thrown upon the Inalia-et a quantity suffi-
cient to provide for their gold requirements, the
operation would have been attended with difficulty,
and must have been effected at a proportionate
sacrifice. Out of these considerations has arisen
the resolution to make the application to the Bank
of England for a loan of gold against silver which
has just been acceded to. The Bank of Eng-
land under their charter are empowered to hold
one-fifth of their specie reserve in that metal, and
could now legally take nearly £3,000,000. The
arrangement for £2,000,000 is therefore amply
within the limit. It is not improbable, therefore,
I that an early lowering of our rate may be wit-
nessed; and this event would tend materially to allay
the vague uneasiness in Paris, while the mainten-
ance by the Bank of France of their rate of per
cent., and its advance if necessary to 5 per cent.,
will probably be effectual to prevent any further
very important efflux from that country. The
arrangement above described is to be for any
period that may suit the Bank of France.—Tiin es.

THE MURDER IN THE COUNTY OF

I)URITAAL

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, TUESDAY NIGHT.
Since it has become known that Thomas Smith,
the person charged with the murder of John Baty,

at Winlaton, on the sth inst., has been taken into
custody, the greatest excitement has prevailed in
the Tyneside villages. The prisoner was brought
from Port Mulgrave, near Whitby, yesterday, and
to-day he was taken to Winlaton, to the adjourned
inquest, in the custody of a strong detachment of
county police.
The adjourned inquest was held in the long room
of the Commercial Hotel, which was quite
filled, and a large crow d of persons were
assembled about the place all day. Smith,
who had been captured wearing the mur-
dered man's boots and trousers, presented
the appearance of a being who had wandered over
moors and wastes under the influence of terror and
a guilty conscience. He is a very repulsive-look-
ing person, and is well known as a notorious
tpoacher and a very bad character. He sat in the
inquestroom all day, apparently half dead with
fatigue and terror, and did not pay particular at-
tention to anything going forward around. The
whole of the evidence previously taken by the Co-
roner was read over to him, but he made no re-
mark upon it. He merely observed, that what he
had to say he would " say to my lord."
The circumstances of his capture are very sin-
gular, and to some extent romantic. It seems that
the only money he found upon the person of the
murdered man was sixpence, and with it and a
shilling the young man Armstrong gave him, was
all ha had in his pocket to pay for his support, and
in company with his dog he had wandered over
lonely moors and wastes, which at this time of the
year are exceedingly inclement, to the iron mines
in Cleveland, 150 miles from the scene of the mur-
der, where he imagined he would be perfectly un-
known. On Friday last he reached Port Mul-
grave, near Whitby, where there are extensive
iron mines, and where screw-steamers call to take
away the iron ere. He had procured employment
at one of the mines in the name of Thomas
Harrison, but was wandering about the village
penniless, forlorn, and starving, on the night that
he procured employment, when Mrs. Irving, the
wife of Joseph Irving, a miner, observing his
wretched condition, asked him into the house, and
gave him some warm tea. She took in lodgers,
and as he had got employment at the
place she gave him a bed that night. Her husband
did not see him that night, but next morning, when
he came down from the room where he had been
sleeping, the husband looked at him, and exclaimed,
" Tom, is that thou ?" He replied, " Do you know
me P" Irving replied, " Know you, yes.
Thee and
I worked together at Milkridge Pit, in Northum-
berland, 20 years ago. You are Tom Smith." He
said that he was, and asked him
to go into the
fields, when he told Irvinb°.
that he must call him
Thomas Harrison, as he had been in a poaching
row and did not wish to be known. On the day
after Smith came into the village, a gamekeeper
named Johnson had come down to the little seaport
from a neighbouring property for a walk, and ob-
served Smith wandering about. Johnson, before
he became a
gamekeeper, had been several years in
the
Yorkshire constabulary, and it immediately
struck him, from what he had read in the papers,
and from some police information that he had re-
ceived, that the man was Smith, and that he was
wanted for the Winlaton murder. He ascertained
that he was staying at Irving's, and he sent for that
person on Sunday morning, and after he read the
police description to him, Irving told him that he
had the man in his house. Irving
immediately
•" Heb
went back to his house and said to smith, " Torn/
'o
has thou had to do with the Winlaton j
replied that he had; and upon
boots and trousers
in, he admitted to him that th©
said that he only
;
Johnson coming
he had on were Bath's. He
got sixpence from him ; but that if he had got
money he would have dyed his hair, and would
have got clear.
expressed his willingness to
go with the men to Gateshead, and was kept
at the gamekeeper's cottage all night. On
Monday morning Johnson and Irving, strongly
armed, took him across the moors in a gig to Red-
car, and from thence he was brought by train to
Gat eshead. During his journey he said when he
struck at Baty he did not mean to have killed him ;
be merely intended to have stunned him and
robbed him, He said that no one else was con-
cerned but himself in the affair.
After the whole of the evidence in the case was
read over and signed, the Coroner summed up, and
the jury immediately returned a verdict of wilful
murder against Smith, who was committed for trial
at the ensuing Durham asSiZeß.