The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-03 00:00:00

a proposal less suited to us than to the ideal per-
sonages peopling the Utopia of Sir THOMAS MORE

or the Arcadia of Sir PHILIP SIDNEY. The City
Solicitor puts the matter to his essentially com-
mercial audience in the rational light of a plain
mercantile enterprise. He announces, no doubt,
distinctly enough at the outset that his suggestion,
I if carried into effect, will mainly tend to benefit the
humbler classes—but he prefaces his argument there-
from, with a cluster of perfectly authentic and
perfectly reliable statistics, clearly demonstrative
of the somewhat extraordinary fact, that in the
development of the railway system the measures
adopted in favour of the poorer classes have proved
in a remarkable degree more remunerative than those
in favour of the wealthier part of the community.
That in this way Fustian has greatly surpassed
Broadcloth—has proved more lucrative, has yielded a
larger per tentage of returns. The quotient is, in
this particular, of the same satisfactory character
as that furnished by the gradually reduced
customs' tariff of Sir ROBERT PEEL—kindred with
that of the postal system as re-organised by Mr.
ROWLAND HILL. The smaller the individual
payments required, the larger their aggregate. The
more nearly you approach to the minimum in the
cost, whether of duty, of postage, or of railway
fares, to the units of the population, the more
likely you will bring the aggregate of the returns
to the maximum of remuneration. According to
the Act of Parliament passed in 1844, the poorer
classes were enabled to travel by at least one train
daily on railways, at the speed of at least twelve
miles an hour, at the rate of at most one penny a
mile, and this in covered carriages. Consequent
upon this enactment, Mr. PEARSON reminds the
public that while, in 1852, the number of pas-
sengers by the Parliamentary trains was nearly
24,000,000, within five years afterwards, namely,
by 1857, it had been increased by as much
as 89 per cent., exceeding in the aggre-
gate 45,000,000 of this class of railway pas-
sengers—the receipts from these Parliamentary
train passengers having increased within the same
interval of a single lustre as much as 66 per cent.—
the aggregate in 1852 being £1,346,000, and in
1857, £2,245,000. Meanwhile• the number of pas-
sengers by all these trains, within the same inter-
val of time, had increased only forty per cent. alto-
gether—the total under this head having increased
from upwards of 49,000,000 in 1852, to upwards
of 70,000,000 in 1857. The receipts from all other
classes but the Parliamentary showing an increase
of twenty-six per cent. (instead of the sixty-six per
oent. secured, as already observed, under the head
of Parliamentary passengers); these receipts in 1852
being £5,323,000, and in 1847 £6,753,000. Q. E. D.
—as between Fustian and Broadcloth.
Mr. PEARSON having premised thus much, then
goes on to explain, as plainly as facts and figures
can explain any the simplest proposition in
arithmetic—how the labouring classes in London,
the working men of our great metropolis, might b.
conveyed daily from the centre of the capital to
respectable, comfortable, and healthy dwellings
situated at an easy distance from town, say
at Bamstead Downs or in Waltham Forest,
at a rate of from 6d. to ls. a week—
with considerable profit to the railway proprietors !
A wonderfully attractive proposal that is assuredly
upon the very face of it ; for any such re-organi-
sation of our whole social condition in the metro-
polis must obviously be fraught with very numerous,
very various, and very important advantages to the
whole mass of the inhabitants of London. There
would no longer be that horrible crowding together
in the byeways--at once the most squalid and the
most thickly-populated quarters of the metropolis
—an evil direful in its effects upon the health, the
morals, the comforts, and the decencies of the
humbler population. Already, in the heart of the
capital, there is precisely the vacant site wanted

for the construction of the grand central railway
terminus—to which those trains of working men
might daily converge, from which they might daily
radiate. It is in the valley of the Fleet. It is the
empty spot upon which once stood the old Fleet
Prison, immortalised by TOBIAS SMOLLETT, and
more recently still by the genius of CHARLES
DICKENS in his renowned " Pickwick." There we
yet hope to witness the inauguration of a grand
central railway terminus for London, through the
medium of which " the best workmen in the world"
might be secured the advantages accruing from the
possession of comfortable, cleanly, wholesome,
extramural habitations.

ROYAL SYMPATHY.--Her most gracious Majesty
and the Prince Consort sent a special messenger from
Windsor to inquire this morning after the health of Mr.
William Cooke, jun., of the Royal Amphitheatre.
CABINET COUNCIL.--A Cabinet Council was held
at the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
in Downing-street, yesterday. The Ministers present were
the Earl of Derby, the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, the Lord
Chancellor, the Marquis of Salisbury, the Earl of Hard-
wicke, Mr. Secretary Walpole, the Earl of Malmesbury,
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, General Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir
John Pakington, the Right Hon. J. W. Henley, and Lord
John Manners.

MARRIAGE IN HIGH LlFE.—Yesterday the mar-
riage of Captain Charles Fursdon, of Fursdon House,
Devonshire, with Miss Eliza Willis, eldest daughter of Mr.
Henry Willis, the banker of Lombard-street, and Hill-
street, Berkeley-square, was celebrated at St. George's
Church, Hanover-square, in the presence of a brilliant
circle of the friends of both families.

THE FUNERAL OF ADMIRAL LORD LYONS AT
ARUNDEL.—Since the Norman Conquest great men have
lived and died in the Castle of Arundel. Great men are
entombed within the precincts of that old baronial resi-
dence ; snd tho ceremony of interring another of England's
glorious sons has just been performed. The remains of
Admiral Lord Lyons, whose death we recorded last week,
were laid in the Howard vault of the Collegiate Chapel yes-
terday. It could not be supposed but that a funeral of so'
illustrious a personage should partake of a somewhat pub-
lic character. As soon as it was known that the gallant
admiral was to be interred in the family vault of the Colle-
giate Chapel at Arundel, the Mayor and Corporation of the
town intimated their desire to join in the procession, as a
mark of respect to the memory of the deceased. This spon-
taneous offer on the part of the local representatives was
courteously accepted. The tradesmen of the borough closed
their shops entirely during the ceremony, and the whole
town seemed to participate in the solemnity of the occasion.
ETON COLLEGE.—The students of Eton College
will leave the school a fortnight earlier this half-year
than was originally intended, consequently they will now
have five weeks' holiday instead of three. Several hun-
dreds have already returned home, and by to-day nearly
the whole school will have taken their departure in
consequence of the following letter, which has been sent to
the parents of the boys of the ltev. Dr. Goodford, the head
master :—" Eton College, Nov. 30, 1858.—Dear sir, I think
it right to inform you that illness hits been prevalent lately in
the neighbourhood of Eton, and that, as it now seems to be
on the increase in the school (though the form which it has
assumed is not at present infectious), and the holidays are
so near, if you think it desirable to remove your son, no
objection will be made to your doing so.—l am, dear sir,
your obedient servant. (Signed) CHARLES 0. GOODFORD.
If any boys are left, the school will not close until the 13th
December." - - -

A letter from St. Petersburg, of the 22d, says
As far as depends on the Emperor himself, the question
of emancipation makes rapid progress. His Majesty lately
ordered that the serfs belonging to the mines placed under
the direction of the Minister of Finance should be emanci-
pated within the delay of six months. Three com-
missions have been appointed to carry this order into effect;
one for the workshops and peasants of the Government
of Moscow ; the second, for those of the circumscription of
Orenburg ; and the third, for the Oural. In order to form
a correct idea of the value of this measure, it must be
borne in mind that all the persons employed in those
mines were originally free. Peter the Great, wishing
to give an impetus to metallurgical industry in Russia,
conceded to all who would devote themselves to that
branch of industry, whether nobles or tradesmen, whole
villages, as well as forests where they could procure all the
wood they might require. The rights of those new pro-
prietors over the peasants who inhabited the villages were
at first limited, but by degrees the nobles encroached on
these privileges, and at length these peasants became real
serfs. The hour of freedom has now at length arrived for
their descendants."
- -

INCREASE IN THE INDIAN' ECCLESIASTICAL
ESTABLISHMENT.-The Overland Mail says that a small
increase will shortly take place in H. M.'s Ecclesiastical
Establishments in each of the presidencies of India; and
that vacancies in this branch of the service will be filled up
as they occur, instead of the nominations being,anafie an-
nually, as under previous arrangements.