The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-14 00:00:00

the capital account £6,000 was charged as portion
of subscription to the Parsonstown and Portumna
Railway ; and, in addition to this, the outlay in
capital for the last six months amounted to £20,000.
Of this, £11,306 had been expended on the Cork
and Youghal line, £l,lOO on the purchase of goods
stores in Kilkenny, and the balance had been ex-
pended on rolling stock and works along the line.
The balance on the credit side of the capital ac-
count had increased from £75,000 to £94,000 in
the past half-year. 'This was a subject which
they had inquired into, and it would not be allowed
to continue any time. However, they could not
issue their stock at par, and they had the greatest
disinclination to issue preference stock, so that they
had agreed still further to delay making any appli-
cation to the proprietary for powers to issue pre-
ference stock in the expectation that, after the panic
had subsided, the stock of the company would gain
that position in the market which it was entitled to
occupy. The present debt of £94,001 would be in-
creased in the current half-year by the expenses of
the Cork and Youghal line, and also by the cost of
additional rolling stock. In the revenue accounts
there was an increase in the working expenses, a
portion of which arose from the working of the
Cork and Youghal line, and the repair of ,thc per-
manent way. Extraordinary revelations had come
to light in connection with the financial position of
some railway companies. Those revelations, added
to the revelations which had taken place in 1856,
had caused consternation throughout the United
Kingdom, and had brought ruin to many a share-
holler. The position which their company occupied
in the railway world was, that the directors had no
engagement of any kind with which the proprietors
were not acquainted. The only sum which they
would charge to the capital account would be the
expenses of the Cork and Youghal Railway, and the
expenses of the-rolling stock, and the greater por-
tion of this would be included in the current half-
year, after which he believed the charge against the
capital account would be exceedingly light for
years to come. He would be very much surprised if
in the course of a few years the directors would not
be able to pay a dividend of 6 per cent. on the or-
dinary stock.
Mr. INICIZI.tND seconded the motion for the adop-
tion of the report, which was carried unanimously.
After a discussion on various matters a resolution
declaring a dividend of 4 per cent. on the preference
stock, and 5 per cent. on the ordinary consolidated
stock, was unanimously adopted.
The retiring di rectors and auditors were re-
elected, and a vote of thanks to the chairman ter-
minated the proceedings.

Civilised Warfare in Savage Lands.

grcgate expenditure to a minimum, except himself ;
and under which no one who represents his interest
has any share in, or control over, the direction of
that expenditure." There are only two ways in
which Parliament, consistently with the under-
standing arrived at in 1860, can interpose its para-
mount authority in favour of the consumer. It may
concede to the City of London and the Metropolitan
Board of Works competing powers within the dis-
tricts of the 13 companies, or it may, with the con-
sent of the companies, regulate the monopoly they
now practically enjoy. The bill which the Board
of Trade introduced in the present session proposed,
in breach of all good faith, to force unconditionally
a new arrangement upon the companies. It was
impossible that the sanction of Parliament could be
obtained to such an invasion of constituted rights.
The evils accruing to pubic traffic from the intro-
duction of new companies were one of the chief
causes of the failure of the City of London's Bill in
1866. It was felt that every effort ought first to
be made to come to terms with the existing com-
panies, and that necessity alone would justify the
measure then proposed. Accordingly, the select
committee of this year have endeavoured to arrive
at an arrangement by which the claims of the com-
panies might be reconciled with the just expecta-
tions of the consumer, and had nearly, as it seemed,
attained their end, when the treaty was broken off
upon the question of price. The companies offered
to supply gas at 45., with an illuminating power
of 14 candles ; the committee stipulated for
3s. 9d., with a power of 16 candles, coupled with
statutory provisions for a periodical revision of
price through the agency of arbitrators appointed
by the Board of Trade, and for insuring the purity
of the gas by a system of administration under the
superintendence of the same board. Neither party
would yield, and the negotiation has come to an
end. Had the companies been more reasonable,
the Metropolis Gas B ll of this year, as amended by
the select committee, would have secured an im-
proved amalgamation and reduced expenditure by
the amalgamation of the companies, and an efficient
audit of the accounts ; the consumer would have
obtained an immediate reduction of 28 per cent.,
with a prospect of further reduction from time to
time ; and the companies would have been benefited
by their present monopoly, as regulated by the new
agreement, being practically secured to them in
future. We trust the companies will during the
coining process review their position calmly. If
they will revise their present system of manage-
ment, and reduce the wasteful expenditure now in-
curred on fuel and general charges, they may lower
their prices to the standard the select committee re-
commend, and so avoid all Parliamentary inter-
ference. If they refuse to make the concession, or
incur the necessary labour and odium which a re-
duction of establishment requires, they cannot hope
for the quiescence of the consumer ; they will ob-
tain no fresh powers from Parliament for the exten-
sion of their works ; and they will not long avoid
the rivalry of competing interests. We trust they
will be wise in time, and seek at once their own in-
terest in consulting the interest of the public.
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETfOON WOMAN'S PLACE
IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.—The history of civilization
presents no greater contrast than between the
position which woman occupied in heathen times
and the place she fills under the Christian dispensa-
tion. Throughout the antique world the tradition
ran that she who was destined to be the helpmate
of man had become his destroyer, and that through
her evil had come into the world. This idea is
to be found in the sacred books of India and of
Greece, as well as in the traditions handed down
by the Jews from the primeval revelation. Woman
was looked upon as the enemy of man, and as ifa
heavy curse lay upon her head. In the heathen
world she was under a miserable bondage, alter-
nately the slave and the plaything of cruel
and unrelenting master. Cut off from all civil
rights, banished from social intercourse, she occu-
pied the lowest position in the family. Dishon-
oured by polygamy and divorce she was man's
drudge and bond-slave, bound by the necessity
of her condition to surrender herself to his man-
dates or to pander to his passions. Woman under
the heathen law was a mere chattel to be bought
and sold. But when she rebelled against her
heavy lot—when her blood rose against her de-
graded condition—what means had she to work
out her emancipation; what weapons to forge for
her deliverance but the charms of her beauty?
Armed with irresistible fascination, she went forth
from her house of bondage to conquer the world.
Warriors, poets, philosophers fell under her yoke:;
beauty became their queen ; they worshipped the
ground on which she trod ; they set her up as the
idol of their hearts. But this triumph of the power
of beauty was to woman but a new disgrace and
a deeper fall. She escaped from a degrading bon-
dage only to reign as a Phryne or an Aspasia in
shame. Save under the veil of the vestal;virgins
—a dim recollection of the primeval revelation
that the world was to be redeemed by a virgin—
there was no alternative open to woman in the
heathen world, more especially at the period just
anterior to Christianity, but domestic slavery or
personal dishonour. Unchastity was the condition
of all public and private life in Pagan times ;
philosophy was utterly powerloos against the on-
sweep of overwhelming sensuality. Sensuality
handed over Greece, corrupted to the core, an
easy prey to the stranger; it sapped the founda-
tions of mighty Rome. But in the depths of its
social degradation the heathen world never utterly
lost the idea that virginity was pleasing to the
gods—casta placent Saperis ' • with the Romans the
vestal virgin was event held in honour. But
Christianity alone was capable of restoring woman
to her rightful position. When a Virgin brought
forth the Saviour of the world, woman was de-
livered from the shame which had been laid upon
her by the tyranny or the passion of man. In-
spired by Divine grace, woman rose from her
degradation. The patrician daughter of a Scipio,
or of a Marcellus, or of a Paulus Emilius, put
off her purple garments, and her precious stones,
and as St. Jerome tells us, associating with the
slave who the day before had stood trembling in
her presence, said to her :—"' Come, sister, let
us live for the heavenly bridegroom ; ' and she
who had been borne about by slaves seeks for
the sick in the streets, and carries them on
her shoulder to her home to tend to their wounds.'
Christianity, although it redeemed the whole race,
brought a special d‘liverance to woman ; if under
the Christian dispensation woman took no part in
public life, yet she enjoyed all civil liberties. Her
rights of property and of inheritance were recog-
nized ; her freedom of choice as to marriage, andc
her proper position in the family were secured to
her. Her special office was to train up Christian
children, to relieve poverty, to watch over the
sick and assuage pain. A wife of free choice,
she was a queen in the family circle, and as Ter
tullian tells her, an apostle to her husband. Since
her regeneration under Christianity, in everything
great and good the influence of woman is every-
where visible. In the beginning she was seen
among the martyrs in the amphitheatre, among
the anchorites in the wilderness. If Constantine
planted the Cross on the Capitol, St. Helen raised
the sacred symbol over the ruins of Jerusalem.
Clovis was converted by Clotilda, and the conver-
sion of St. Augustine was due to the tears of St.
Monica. Women founded orders, drew up rules,
and regulated conventual life. As time went on
their influence did. not decay ; the Margravine
Matilda strengthened the temporal throne of Gre-
gory VII. ; the wisdom of the Queen Bianca was
visible in the rule of St. Louis ; the Maid of
Orleans saved France ; Catherine of Sienna boldly
went to the throne of the Pope at Avignon and
summoned him to return to Rome • Isabella of
Castile aided in the discovery of the new world,
and later times witnessed St. Teresa working with
bishops, and learned orators, and founders of
orders at the interior regeneration of the Church.
As long as waingi fills the.office which Christianity
has assigned to her, as long as' he is true to her
mission, not only her own happiness is secured,
but it is the best pledge and guarantee for the
Well-being of society. As her influence is great,
so is her responsibility. She may mar man whom
she was sent to help, and degrade Christian
society which she ought to be the last -to assail
or weaken. To assert the rights of women,
meaning thereby the right of woman to compete
with man in all the active and public businesses
of life; to assume, at the expense of womanliness,
masculine qualities of labour and endurance ; to
exchange her home for the public mart, and her
retiring womanly modesty for the bold and out-
spoken haviour of man ; to be the bread winner
and the master, if chance or skill put it in her
power, would, if ever successfully attempted, lead
to a conflict between the sexes, in which the weaker
would have to go to the wall. If women forget
their true dignity and forsake their high place in the
Christian scheme, they will fall again under the
bondage of lust and cruelty. It was only in the
most degraded period of Greek and Roman his-
tory that women of position, emancipated from
all restraint and modesty, repudiated the peculiar
distinctions and customs of their own sex and
assumed the habits of men. Women, mascu-
line after such a fashion, are even more revolt-
ing than effeminate men. How truly Schiller
says :—" Des Weibes schonste Zierde ist die
Weiblichkeit." But in their desire for distinction
and fame, women ran another dangem as was
exemplified in that period of the middle ages when
chivalry had degenerated into an unmeaning or
corrupt institution, and when tournaments and
gallantry and courts of love made the possession
of beauty or fascination of manner, and the
homage of multitudinous lovers, woman's highest
aim and ambitioD., FrOM the frippery aucl

.... ware

tion, as tawdry as unreal, of which woman was
then the object, and on which she set her heart,
the revulsion was not unnatural which led to the
cynicism that declares—

The loves and the graces
In sweet women's faces
Are but a poet's idle dream ;
Love's truest nurses
Are long, heavy purses,
Pearls from the ocean, gold from the stream.
Love is a dangerous plaything; like a two-edged
weapon it may chance to wound the wielder as well
as him against whom, in cruel pastime, it is haply
directed ; but when it is allowed to become an all-
absorbing passion, what does it bring at best but
disappointment and sorrow ? A modern poet truly
says :
And was there ever tale of human love
That was not also tale of human tears ?
Why is it that the sweetest draught in life
Must ever taste so bitter at the dregs ?
Died not sweet Desdemona, sorrowed not
Fair patient Imogen ; and did not she,
Of golden lyre, Sapho silver-voiced,
End all her sorrows in the multitudinous seas ?
Neither the Pagan, nor the utilitarian, nor the
" romantic " idea befits the dignity or suits the
character of the Christian woman. Whilst her
highest ideal is the consecrated virginity of the
cloister, her ordinary place is in the family circle.
Thoughtful for others' weal, self-forgetful in her
nature, man's constant friend and best companion,
the inspirer of noble deeds, his fellow-worker, or
his stay and solace in the battle of life, woman
completes the man, and in filling the place assigned
to her by Providence best consults her own happi-
ness. Modern society, if it value its own safety,
must look to it that no lower ideal of woman's
calling than the Christian be introduced or per-
mitted. Virginity is the salt of the earth—God's
best gift to Christian civilization. The cloister,
visibly reminding the world of a virtue which
Pagans knew not, is the need of our day. If the
tone of public morality is relaxing—if in Paris, or •
Florence, or Vienna, or London, mothers of Chris-
tian children, daughters of Christian parents, are
to be found, even though few in number, to ape in
heedless obedience to the dictates of frivolous
fashion, the manners or costume of a Phryne or
Aspasia—it cannot be too strongly put that such a
dereliction is the first step to the forfeiture of the
high place and of the holy influence assigned to
woman in Christian society.