The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-19 00:00:00

THE SUN,- LOIN DON, FRIDAY- EVENING, MARCH 19, 1869.

" Her Majesty's Tower." Mr. John Saunders, author of
" Abel Drake's Wife," is bringing out another novel,
" Hirell " by name. Dr. Deutsch, author of the
famous 'Quarterly article on the Talmud, is tra-
velling in Palestine, with the view of writing an
elaborate book on the same subject. Mr. Charles Reade,
who brought an action for libel against the .11rew York
Bound Table, on account of a severe review in that paper
of his " Griffith Gaunt," has got a verdict, and damages
six cents ! The next number of Meliora will contain an
article by the Rev. S. Steinthal, of Manchester, on the
Licensing System, which is sure to be read with great
interest just now. In the April number of the Church-
man's Shilling Magazine there will be, besides Mr.
Townshend Mayer's new tale, " The Trials of Margaret
Brandreth," illustrated by Miss Ellen Edwards and Mr.
Bird ; a paper on the Catacombs, by Prebendary
Mackenzie Walcott ; another on Curiosities of Reporting,
by Mr. Merrim, editor of the Gloucester Journal; and
others by the Rev. G. Huntington, on Preaching ; the
Rev. W. Baird, ~on the Working Classes ; and by Mr. 1).
Ker, on Easter in Russia. The Church News, which has
been bought for £3O by the Church Press Company
(Limited) is to be enlarged, and published at Burleigh-
street.

The Rev. Daniel Moore, a well-known Low Churchman,
has resolved to add a chancel to his church (Trinity
Church, Paddington), remove thither the organ from the
west gallery, and have a surpliced choir. He expressed
his wish to preach in his surplice, but, in deference to the
prejudices of his congregation, has not carried out that
alteration.

There is quite a rage for theatre-building now. No
fewer than six new ones are talked of—one in Leicester-
square, one in King William-street close by, one in
Piccadilly, two at Kensington, and one in St. John's-
wood.

The reported removal of the School of Mines from
Jermyn-street to South Kensington will not take place at
present, if at all.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

THE HOLBORN UNION.

The Holborn Guardians, having obtained a hearing
at the -Board of Trade, have had a large portion of
the burden laid on by Mr. Hardy, and of which they
complained, lifted off their shoulders. The order of
the Board has just been issued. The material points
of the original plan, that three unions should
be united, and should provide a sick asylum
separate from the workhouses, are retained.
This is - most satisfactory. Idiot nurses,
neglected patients, and deaths from ill-treat-
ment, ought not to be the usual occurrences in a sick
ward. While able-bodied paupers cause disgust and
indignation. and we call to the guardians for their
suppressims, nothing but compassion can be felt for
the poor creatures who are thrown upon the
parish by reason of sickness. These should
certainly be well tended, and treated with
all kindness. Tue separation of the infirmary
from the workhouse, will, it is to be hoped,
lead to better treatment. The points on which the
original order is varied are those which refer to the
erection of new hospitals and schools. A workhouse
which is to be vacated by the ordinary inmates is to
be altered somewhat, and used for an asylum. The
present schools are to suffice for the present.

debentures, mortgages, and ground rents,
£21.266,132.25—t0ta1, V 8,306,894 75. Divided
,nto 355 miles of main line, this total is equal to an
average of only $136,075 per mile. The assets'on
hand, bear in mind (see report), are sufficient to
extinguish the whole indebtness of the corporation.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company's property,
however, is beyond comparison the most productive
large railroad estate, according to its cost, any-
where existing on the earth ; whilst in contrast with
its prospects, as with its performances, all other
railroad corporations fill a smaller scale and lesser
measure of seaport consideration and continental
consequence. Within Pennsylvania, the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad Company's system of works reach
from tidewater to the Ohio river and to Lake Erie.
This is a distinguishing ground plan prerogative
and power pertaining to no other Atlantic trunk
corporation. Its comracts and acquisitions west
of Pennsylvania are all adjusted to a comprehen-
sive field, which is pervaded by a knowledge of its
advantages over all competing transportation
powers, in directness to the sea, in economy for
transit and intertrade between the great seaports
and the vast areas which constitute their inland
markets.— United .tales Railroad and Mining Re-

TILE TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.

and Camden and Amboy Railroad Companies, at an
annual rental equal to six per cent. clear of all
taxes, upon its whole cost, the Pennsylvania Rail-
road Company holde 25,547 shares of the capital stock,
amounting to $1,277,350. This road was constructed
with means furnished by your company for the purpose
of decreasing the heavy cost of passing its New York and
Eastern trade through this city, and in the expectation of
returning to the Philadelphia division of its road much of
the trade and travel which the delays and obstructions re-
ferred to had driven to other channels. The result, as
shown in the eighteen months since the road was opened
for traffic, has been such as we anticipated, while, in ad ii-
tion thereto, we will receive during the term of the lease
legal interest upon the expenditure incurred. The canals
east of the Allegheny Mountains purchased by this com-
pany of the State of Pennsylvania, 173 miles in length,
have, as stated in our last annual report, been sold to
the Pennsylvania Canal Company, of which General Isaac
J. Winter is president. That company has since pur-
chased with its first mortgage bonds a majority of the
shares of the West Branch Canal Company, extending
from the Juniata river up the Susquehanna and its West
branch to Farrandsville, above Lock Haven -123 miles—
and has consolidated its shares with those of the Wyom-
ing Valley Canal Company, which occupies the North
branch of the Sesquehanna, from Northumberland to
Wilkesbarre, a distance of 61 miles, 'making in all 860
miles of canal. This arrangem •nt brings the Susque-
hanna system of State canals, below the coal measures
- dismembered by their sale to three companies - under
one control, without which they could not successfully
compete with the railways traversing the valleys of the
same water-courses. The whole of the revenues of these
canals must for a few years be appropriated to their im-
provement and protection from freshets that have hitherto
periodically destroyed their usefulness for months at a
time, to the great injury of their revenues and the business
of those who use them for the transportation of the pro-
ducts of the country to market. When these objects are
secured, the investment of this company in the Pennsyl-
vania Canal Company will doubtless become profitable,
and highly advantageous to the community, for
whose accommodation they were originally built by
the Commonwealth. The assets of this company—
exclusive of its own roads—invested for the pro-
tection and enlargement of its traffic, are now, at a
reasonable valuation, more than sufficient to meet
the whole indebtedness of the company, except the
five per cent. bonds held by the State of Pennsylvania,
which are being paid by a contribution from the net
revenue of the company in semi-annual payments of
$230,000 each. During the past year these contributions,
after the payment of interest, left $142,978 50 to be appro-
priated to the reduction of the principal, which amount
will annually increase as the debt upon which interest is
payable is reduced. In the month of October last an at-
tempt was made by the Erie and New York Railroad
Companies to break up the through traffic arrangements
of this company by making large reductions upon their
freight charges. This movement was promptly met by
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company by still greater re-
ductions from time to time, which resulted in a large in-
crease of its tonnage. These low charges were continued
until a restoration of former rates was desired by those
companies, after incurring a heavy loss in their revenues,
while the effort increased the prestige of this company by
bringing its shorter lines and better facilities more promi-
nently into public notice. After the failure of this attempt
the managers of the Erie Company, by means of large sums
of money, suddenly realized from a confiding public, in a
manner, at least, unworthy of imitation, disregarding the
comity which should exist in the relations between indi-
viduals or officers of corporations, and against public senti-
ment and public rights, endeavoured to arrests competition
for the traffic between the east and west through the control
of our connecting lines, and by this means divert business
from its natural channels to their circuitous route to the
seaboard. The policy of your board has heretofore been
to limit its investments outside of Pennsylvania to those
companies that they originallydeemed it proper to assist, for
the purpose of securing connections with the then existing
lines, whose interests harmonised with its own. The rest-
less spirits of our rivals in the East and West have, how-
ever, rendered it necessary to make our connections with
the chief trade centres of the West more perfect, and less
liable in the futare to molestation and interruption. This
has been done to a great extent through a recent lease to
the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railway Company
(known as the Pan Handle route), guaranteed by this com-
pany, of the lines of the Columbus, Chicago, and Indiana
Central Railway Company, which has direct connections
with Indianapolis, St. Louis, Louisville, and Chicago.
These arrangements will require a considerable amount of
money, to be applied especially to the increase of rolling
stuck to render them productive. This it is proposed to raise
by giving to the stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company, registered upon the books of the company on the
30th April next, the privilege of subscribing to twenty-five
(25) per cent. of their holdings at that time, in new
shares at par. With the proposed increase of capital the
board entertain no difficulty in continuing dividends of 10
per cont. per annum, even if these arrangements should
not, as anticipated, increase our net profits to a greater ex-
tent than the interest upon the outlays to be incurred. It
will appear front an examination of the statements already
given that the business of the past year would have justi-
fied dividends of 5 per cent. semi-annually upon our whole
authorised capital of $35,000,000, and still leave a surplus
of half a million of dollars. The proposed increase will
make the capital stock about $33,000,001 The rapid pro-
gress made by the Union and Central Pacific Itailrua is in-
dicatos the completion of a railway line across the con-
tinent during the ensuing summer. When it shall have
been opened throughout; our own road and its imme-
diate western connections present the shortest line to and
from the Atlantic seaboard, either by way of Chicago,
St. Louis, or by an intermediate route from Warsaw
westward, connecting with the Union Pacific Road
near fort Kearney ; and assure us that we will be enab!edto
secure a fair and reasonable share of the large traffic that
will be carried between the Atlantic and Pacific States.
By some oversight, local considerations, or a limited con-
ception of the important part that railways were to play in
the movement of the internal commerce of the country,
Pennsylvania and Ohio have each been placed between
two different railway gauges, which for a long time forced
trans-shipments of freights. The Pennsylvania Railroad
Company has both on its eastern and western connection
a gauge of four feet ten inches, and Ohio on each side of
her a gauge of four feet eight and a half inches-the latter
being the prevailing gauge north of the Ohio and James
Rivers, while south of these the gauge of five feet prevails,
which should have been adopted originally as the uniform
gauge of the United States. To obviate theinconvenience,
the increased cost of transportation, and the additional
capital required to move traffic, in consequence of these fre-
quent trans-shipmen ts,frorn a difference of gauge of only one
and a half inches, broad-tread wheels were introduced
for through traffic, which, to a large extent, has over-
come these evils. Owing, however, to the great oscilla-
tion of the cars on the wider gauge, the Ohio linos
insisted upon a play upon the narrow gauge, that added
materially to the cost of hauling upon the four feet eight
and a half-inch gauge, to remedy which the gauge of your
road has been changed to four feet nine inches, and the
Ohio roads have been, or are being changed, to four feet
nine and a half inches, leaving but a difference of a half of
an inch, which it is presumed that time will reduce tc the
uniform gauge of four feet nine inches. Your directors,
in their last annual report, alluded to a very important
movement contemplated by the Philadelphia and Erie
Railroad Company, by which it was proposed to build a
railroad, leaving that line at the mouth of Bennett's
branch of the Susquehanna, thence up the stream to the
summit, and down the waters of the Allegheny to tha
river. at the confluence of the Mahoning, and thence to
Pittsburg. This line is designed chiefly for the tran-
portation of freights at a slow speed, with a view to so
cheapen its cost as to compete with the water lines lead-
ing to Now York. Upon no portion of this route is there
a gradient against the heavy traffic to the East exceeding
ten feet per mile, or 16 feet against the westward-bound
trade, except for about four miles at the summit, where a
gradient of forty-eight feet in favour of the heavy trans-
portation is used, and for about four miles near the mouth
of the Mahoniug, whore fifty-five feet per mile may be
adopted. Until the traffic justifies the application of
assistant power at these points, the full loads upon the
sixteen feet gradient will be passed over them by a divi-
sion of the train. The exceptional gradient of fifty-five
feet per mile, near the mouth of the Mahoning, may be
avoided by continuing upon the side hill after strik-
ing the creek, and intersecting the Allegheny Valley
Railroad lower down, but the work will be expensive,
and may be left to a period when the traffic will
justify the outlay. It is not proposed to extend the
Philadelphia and Erie line beyond Brookville in this
direction, as it will be there met by the Western Pennsylvania or Allegheny Valley railroads, the charters
of both of which companies cover the ground. From
Brookville the Philadelphia and Erie will eventually be
carried westwardly, south of the lakes connecting there-
with by branch roads. The grading of this railway for
about 20 miles is now under contract, and all of its expen-
sive sections will b 3 let as soon as the line is carefully
located. The satisfactory results obtained from the business
of your railways during the past year is largely due to the
judicious management of E. G. Williams, Esq., general
superintendent, who has been ably seconded by his
assistants, John A. Wilson, Esq., chief engineer of main-
tenance of way, and A. J. eassatt, Esq., superintendent of
motive power and machinery. The heavy traffic of the
lines under their charge has been moved without serious
accidents, and at a material saving in cost, compared with
the previous year, considering the increase of tonnage
transported. The management of the Philadelphia and
Erie Railroad, under its general superintendent, A. L.
Tyler, Esq., and his assistant, W. A. Baldwin, Esq., also
reflects much credit upon them f-orn the reduction of ex-
penses realized in the movement of its traffic per ton.
Hispectfully submitted. By order of the Board.
• J. EDGAR THOMSON, President.