The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-05 00:00:00

IHE SUN, LONI OS, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 5 1867.

that, when the demand comes on, higher prices still
will be obtained, and that a scarcity of such quality
will be experienced, solthat some maltsters will not
have secured their usual supply at the close of the
malting season. On the whole the prices have proved
satisfactory to the agriculturists, and have steadily
improved since harvest, with now and then a check,
which was of but short duration. On Saturday there
was no rain, and with the barometer up to 30.25 in.,
wind N.N.W., and thermometer 48 deg., there ap-
pears a probability of a little dry weather, which is
-very desirable.—Mark-lane Express.

nearly have a million of coloured people, whom war,
want, anarchy, and a fictitious peace under liberty
have repressed or destroyed. And this figure would
undoubtedly be swelled from the statistics of Ala-
bama and Kentucky.

It is gratifyng to record the resuscitation of
Southern cities from the prostrating effects of the
late war. Atlanta was, perhaps, that city most ex-
posed to all its horrors, the point aimed at by con-
tending armies, and the centre around which were
fought the fiercest battles. The advantages of posi-
tion which tend most to the prosperity of a city in
times of peace, are those which make it the object
of generals to secure, for strategical purposes in
times of war; and it is therefore probable that
where the fight raged hottest, the recovery will be
quickest. The New Era says: The unprecedented
growth of Atlanta is the wonder of all who visit it.
Our advancement is almost incredible. The
people have quitted the arena of politics,
and are giving their undivided attention
to more substantial and honourable matters—to
wit, the building up of a great flourishing city.
Merchants, mechanics, physicians, lawyers, young
men and old, are all working unitedly and faithfully
for this important and desirable end. We have
resolved to build up a first-class city in every parti-
cular, and no power short of the Great Ruler of
events can prevent it. In five years at the furthest,
Atlanta will be to the South what St. Louis is to the
mighty West."

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Commissioner David A. Wells having promulgated his
report, the subjects touched on by him have excited a
general feeling of interest, and provoked great comment.
Universal praise is bestowed on this elaborate, clear, and

exhaustive paper. Thoso who are arrayed at the ex:

Creme ends of the opposing questions of Free Trade and

Protection aro neither satisfied nor pleased. I believe,
however, that the general sense of the community goes
with Mr. Wells in his moderate and intelligent conclu-
sions. He estimates the income of the current fiscal year

at $455,000,000, of which $275,000,000 will come from in-
ternal revenue, and $150,000,000 from customs. The
expenditures will be about $286,000,000, exclusive of
$64,000,000 for bounties. Of the surplus, $105,000,000,
not more than $50,000,000 should be set aside for the
reduction of the National Debt, and tho remaining
$55,000,000 fairly limit the amount which taxation may
be safely reduced. Secretary 3PCullocb's statement of
the public debt on the Ist of January shows an
increase of $29,422,150 in the debt bearing coin inte-
rest, which is partially offset by a decrease of $25,243,450
in the debt bearing currency interest, the transfer
being largely attributable to the conversion of Seven-
thirty Treasury Notes into Five-twenty Bonds. The total
reduction of the debt in December was $6,306,000. The
Treasury held $97,841,967 in gold, January 1, and since
then $2,247,000 has been received in a week, for imports,
and the receipts from this source promise to balance the
January payment of coin interest, so that the Government
will begin February with about the same amount of coin
on hand as it had a mouth before. The retirement of

greenbacks during December amounted to $4,944,007, and
the aggregate of legal tender iu the country, January 1,
was $525,398,682.—The National Bank circulation was in-
creased only $18,400 last week, making the whole amount
in circulatio❑ $298,609,419, which is secured by deposits of
bonds worth $340,363,150. The Treasury Department
printed $275,014 in fractionals, last week, destroyed
$262,928 worth of old ones, and disbursed $308,719 in now.
The total internal revenue receipts last week were
$6,955,297.
Things have not improved ; on the contrary, the ten-
dency is adverse, and feeble attempts made by the " bulls"
to effect a ri.so have totally failed. Wall-street is sensitive
to a degree, and the state of the political atmosphere is
considered to be charged with electricity. Not only does
Mr. Ashley's Impeachment resolution threaten, but the
greatest uncertainty also exists as to what the course
of Congress will be on financial questions. Stocks are
dull, and a boarish temper is in the ascendant. Money is
active, and more stringent, call loans now being at 7 per
cent., with a heavy demand. This stringency is strongly
felt in the West, where the market is tighter than it has
been for months. The tendency has been to neglect
shares and invest in Government Securities. There is an
uneasy feeling abroad as regards these shares. Ido not
look for an early return of confidence ; indeed I think
the reverse might be predicted. SUll there is no great
reason for alarm.

Gold has fluctuated about 2 per cent. during the week,

and closes flat at 133. Cash gold is abundant, and lower
prices aro more likely than higher. The European'
steamers on Saturdziy took out $696,700, and the Wednes-
day none. The receipts of gold from California last year
were $41,750,965, and the imports $9,578,029—a total of
951,328,934. At the same time the exports of gold wore
$62,553,700, making the loss during the year $62,553,700.
Some of the New York banks have lent their greenbacks
on gold at 7 per cent. interest, and substituted the latter as
part of their lawful money basis—in other words, receiving
the gold on deposit free of interest, and charging 7 per
cent. against the checks made against it for currency.
The aggregate specie value of the foreign dry goods
imported at Now York, last year, was 9126,222,855 against
$91,965,138 in 1865, and $71,589,752 in 1864. The woollen

manufactures were at $450,405,179 against $36,074,585, the
cotton at $21,287,490 against $15,350,604, tho silk at
$24,837,734 against $20,556,261, and the flax at $20,456,870
against $15,402,602. The total imports at New York for
the weak were $1,149,074 against $5,723,178, and the total

exports, exclusive of specie, $3,716,624 against $4,091,557.
Railroad earnings in December—Chicago and Rock Island,
$232,450; increase, $719. Michigan Southern and Nor-
thern Indiana, $339,447 ; decrease, $17,455. Chicago and
Great Eastern, $102,957 ; increase, $13,394. Michigan
decrease, $20,200. Chicago and Alton,
The following are the latest quotations:—Stocks closed
sC2eBnst 11,81 3ionBc,
r64e
a9se $48,589.
;

now
issue)
SStrafes7 3 -10 Loan 1031 to 104,
heavy and lower, American gold 133, United States Five-
twenties (1862) 1061 to 1061, (1834) 1041 to 105, (1865)
1031 to 104, United States
105 to
Ten-Fortieslosl , (919846,5
U n
New York Central Railroad 1101, Erie 631, Erie,preferred
77, Hudson River 130, Reading 104‘,
Michigan Central
107, Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana 791, Illi-
nois Central 1181, Cleveland and Pittsburg 901, Cleveland
and Toledo 1231, Chicago and Rock Island 1021, Chicago
and Nort h-Western 421, Chicago and North-Western
preferred, 81; Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago
1024 ; Ohio and Mississippi cettificates 27, Western
Union Telegraph Company 451, Pacific Mail Steam-
ship Company 167, American Express Company 75,
United States Express Wmpany 68,
(From Glenn and Co.'s Weekly Circular, Jqn. 30.)
During the past week the London market for American
Securities has been greatly excited, and the fluctuations
have been large. Atlantic and Great Western Debentures
have declined £l2, viz., from 53 to 41; and the Consoli-
dated Bonds £l3, from 42 to 29; 5-20 Bonds, however, are
higher, and close firm at 721 to 735. Illinois Central after
selling at 814 are now 79 to 794. The semi-annual divi-
dend on this stock is expected to be announced in a few
days. A telegram received to-day that Eries have declined
12 per cent. in New York, and that a panic was ragitig in
the stock markets, has sent down the price here from
42 to 37. The following is from the New York Com-
mercial and Shipping List : —" About the period of
his Fort Wayne, speech, Mr. M'Culloch, Secretary
of the Treasury, was undoubtedly one of the most
popular members of the Cabinet ; but latterly a large
share of the confidence reposed in him seems to have been
withdrawn. And now many financiers and newspaper
men who were his original supporters are unsparing in
their denunciations of his financial management. The
pressure brought to bear against him is so great that his
resignation of the Treasury portfolio is L-y no means im-
probable. Nor are animadversions on Mr. M'Oulloch's
financial policy confined to this side of the Atlantic; some
of the English writers on finance, we observe, are begin-
ning to criticise his management sharply. We have before
us the Circular of Messrs. Glenn and Co., a London firm
who deal in public securities, which contains a scathing
review of the head of our Treasury Department, Ste."
Long extracts from our Circular of the 27th December are
then given, with editorial comments, in which the admis-
sion is made that there is a good deal of truth iu what we
then stated.
Some time ago we closed a calm and unprejudiced re-
view of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway in these
words—" Sooner or later the Consolidated Mortgage Bonds
must sell for more than 42. We now wish to supplement
this remark by observing that we have good reason to
think it will be "later." After what has transpired during
the last few days, we trust and earnestly beg the English
public not to harshly judge Americans and American
railways by such a standard as James M'Henry and the
Atlantic and Great Western Railway. Mr. M'llenry is
not an American born, and the Atlantic and Great Western
Railway was not planned by American engineers, • nor
has there ever been any considerable amount of American
capital invested in it —Wall-street never would touch the
bonds of this " company." The capitalists on the other
side of tho Atlantic reasoned in this way—" If the Erie
Railway, earning three times as much as the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway on about the same capital, cannot
pay a greenback dividend, how can the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway pay their gold coupons and ster-
ling bonds ?" And yet up to the 15th of the present
month the coupons were regularly paid—how ? And
were they paid out of the earnings of the railway in
question ? We look the responsibility of saying so
square in the face, and assert that we believe the financial
management of this road has been most corrupt---that
traffic returns have been "cooked"—that dividends have
been paid out of the sales of bonds—and that when the
whole truth is known the London, Chatham, and Dover,
and its management, will compare favourably with the
Atlantic and Great Western Railway.
In reply to numerous inquiries, we beg to give as our
opinion of the Certificates of Debentures that they are

worth less then the Consolidated Bonds. They are a second I
charge upon the railway, ranking after the Consolidated
Bonds, and the securities deposited at the Bank of England
to pay them off are almost entirely unsaleable ; we doubt
if they could be sold for enough to pay off at par 10 per
cent. of the £2,800,000 debentures that become due on tho
Ist of November next ; and our advice to investors who
are still determined to keep an interest in the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway, is to sell their Certificates of De-
bentures and buy the Consolidated Bonds; the exchange
can now be made at a profit of about 11 per cent; and
considering that the Consolidated Bank only guarantee the
interest on these debentures till next November, we have
no hesitation in recommending the immediate exchange.

(From E. F. Satterthwaite and Co.'s Weekly Circular.)
The China's latest advices from New York aro to the
sth instant. The demand for Government Stocks con-

tinned, the Six per Cents. of 1881 and the 1862 issue of
5.20's being in most demand. Railway Stocks were
generally steady at about former quotations. Mortgages
and State Stocks were reported quiet. Money was in de-
mand to send South for the purchase of cotton, but for or-
dinary purposes was easy, and good Stock houses were well
supplied.
ATLANTIC AND GREAT WESTERN.—Much dissatisfaction
is felt at the delay in issuing the Annual Report of this
Company, which for the future is intended to be made up
to October 31, instead of December 31. An independent
audit of the accounts has been made by Mr. Bird, of the
firm of Messrs. Coleman, Turquand, Youngs, and Co., who
has recently returned from America, and whose accounts,
together with the President's Report, aro looked for with
anxiety. A copy of the account for receipts and expenses
for the ten months, up to October 31st, from Mr. Calhoun,
the accountant and auditor of the Company at Meadville,
has been received. It gives the receipts for the ten months
$4,833,489; the working expenses for same time,
$3,522,460. Balance, profit, $1,311,029.

(From Bowles, Drevet, and Co.'s Circular.)
Paris, Jan. 31.

The general appearance of the Bourse has not varied
since the 25th inst. Dullness and reserve are still the order
of the day, and no one can foresee the end of this state of
affairs, or can name any date at which confidence may be
expected to revive.
There is now much less talk of a new loan, tho rumour
having been denied by the Minister of Finance ; but, on the
other hand, the project of an income-tax for France is more
than ever discussed, and almost universally with marked
disapproval, and, should it ever be put into execution,would,
we think, excite serious commotion.

Exchange on London is slightly firmer, at 25.11 to 25.15.
The only securities in which continuous and important
operations have taken place during the week are those of
the United States 5-20 Bonds, quoted last week at 821,
closing to-day at 82k.

Although we were for fivo days without telegraphic
news from New York, and in spite of the rapid fall in
French Government Securities, we are glad to say that
dollars (the usual term given on the Bourse) have not
yielded to the general current, but have restrained their
upward tendency, more especially since the news of the fall
of gold in the United States.

Nevertheless, as regards merely speculative operations,
the heaviest interest is still for the fall, many pessimits
predicting political troubles on the other side of the ocean,
and repeating continually that America is threatened with
a terrible financial crisis. We do not pretend to discuss
the matter, but we regard the question in a different light,
and do not cease to advise our friends to increase their in-
vestments in American Securities. .

" Frauk Leslie's" Smsational Style of

Illustration.

Frank Leslie has taken to a highly sensational
style of illustration. Under the heading of " Home
Incidents, Accidents, &c.," a page is devoted to such
graphic pictures of horrible events that one's hair
has a tendency to stand on end. Frank Leslie is
always truthful in detail, forcible in illustration,
and powerful and artistic in execution. The first
cut in the sensational page shows the bow of the
steamer Fashion ran ashore on the Mississippi river,
the midships in one sheet of flame, and all com-
munication with the after part of the ship inter-
cepted. The men appear to have been mostly forward,
while the women were aft, where the loss of life and
theteal horrors of the event were enacted. This is
described in the second illustration. There, the
women are seen throwing their children overboard
and springing themselves after them. A third cut
shows them in the water, and the rescue of those
saved in the boat by the captain and mate. This
occupies one column. The next begins with a bur-
glar scene, in which an heroic servant girl, single-
handed, confronted a gang of ruffians and fright-
ened them out of the house into which they had
effected an entrance. The second gives an American
mode of punishment known only to the law of Judge
Lynch. The inhabitants are exerising an offender
on a rail ; the affair occurred in Connecticut,
and the man's offence was insolence towards a lady.
The last picture of this column carries us into
Canada and spews that a crinoline is at times useful.
A lady who had been skating got into the water,
and is represented coming down the river like a
balloon, buoyed up by the air confined within the
folds of her dress, by which means she was kept
afloat till assistance came. The next scene illus-
trates the consequences of a visit to a menagerie
after the hours of exhibition, to which the animals
had become accustomed. There appears to have
been " a strike" amongst the animals in the mena-
gerie against disturbance at unseasonable hours.
The elephant making himself the organ of this
opinion seized the intruder with his trunk, and after
swinging him to and fro several times threw him up
about 20 feet. We have the intruder in the air, but
we are told he descended on a pile of hay. The
death of MARGARET M'NUITY is given. Her
clothes bad become entangled on a fence, over
which, when intoxicated, she had attempted to
climb, and she appears to have died suspended with
her head towards the earth. With reference to this
illustration, Frank Leslie informs us that hanging
mutineers by the heels was a favourite mode of
punishment with Christian English officers during
the mutiny in India, and that experience proved
death was certain in about half an hour,
under the most horrible suffering. This is
a fair sample of Frank Leslie's comments
on the English, and we regret the tone on this
subject of an illustrated newspaper that would
otherwise be deserving of a wide circulation on this
side of the Atlantic. We have no wish to palliate
any atrocities committed during that period in India,
for we happen to know from our own personal ex-
perience that what Frank Leslie here asserts, is
grossly untrue. There are two or three more illus-
trations on this page of the same character as those
we have described ; but all its horrors are con-
densed into one large engraving occupying an en-
tire page, where the massacre is depicted of
United States troops by the Sioux and Chey-
enne Indians, near Fort Philip Kearney,
llacotah Territory. A detachment of nearly
90 soldiers were surrounded about four miles from

the fort, and not a man escaped to tell the tale.
The Indians, in all the glory of their feathers and
fantastic dresses, are in the act of tomahaw king
and scalping the troops. No pen can describe
so faithfully the facts of the terrible murders now
frequently enacted in the wilds of the Far West.
The spectator realises what actually occurred ; and
when the stories reach us of the appalling tragedies
in which these Red Indians are the actors, the truth
of the details come with a terrible significance
to our mind. Such pictures are calculated to
arouse a feeling of indignation and a cry for
retribution throughout the States. Frank
Leslie is far from encouraging this un-Chris-
tian sentiment—" It would seem as though
it might be possible so to arrange matters as to
preclude these constantly-occurring massacres.
Either the Indian tribes should be treated with
such constant and uniform justice and firmness as
would make them strongly our friends, or else
when the necessity arises, with such severity as
would show them how much for their disadvantage

it is to be hostile. It is difficult to dispossess our

selves of the idea that the first course would be
successful if really tried." These Indian outrages
appear to have excited the marked attention
of the United States Government. A letter
from General GRANT, to the Secretary of War,
appears in our files of American newspapers, which
shows that a correspondence had occurred on this
topic and measures of protection been proposed.
The Commander-in-Chief is of opinion that the
regular army cannot be usefully employed in prevent-
ing these massacres. Ile thinks the Indian outrages
will diminish from this time forward, and we have
little doubt that the completion of the railway
across the continent will have the effect. To
return, however, to Frank Leslie, we are sur-
prised that this illustrated paper and Harper's
Weekly are not more generally sold in England,

American scenes are in these admirable journals
both beautifully and truthfully depicted, and con-
vey impressions which written descriptions fail to
accomplish.—Anglo American Timer.