The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-27 00:00:00

THE LATE SIR JOHN POTTER, M.P.

The Manchester Guardian contains a memoir of
this gentleman, who, irrespective of his seat in
Parliament, occupied an important local position as
the head of the well-known mercantile firm of
Potters and Norris, as a magistrate and deputy-
lieutenant (since 1851) of the County Palatine, as a
city magistrate and visiting justice of the gaol, and
as an alderman and active member of the Manches-
ter corporation.

" Sir John Potter was the eldest son of the late
Sir Thomas Potter (the first mayor of Manchester,
twice elected to the civic chair in successive years)
by his second wife, the daughter of the late Thos
Bayley, Esq., of Manchester. He was born at Pole-
field, near Prestwich, in 1815, and was educated in
the University of Edinburgh. During his father's
lifetime Sir John did not take any active part in
public life, but shortly after the death of Sir
Thomas, which occurred in March, 1845, he was
calla forward to succeed his father in various
public duties and functions. He was introduced
into the Manchester council by being at once elected
an alderman ; while he was placed on the commis-
sion of the peace for the county within two months
after the decease of his father. His popularity grew
rapidly with all classes, and on the 9th November,
1848, he was elected to the civic chair, which, for
three successive years, in compliance with requests
from almost all the members cf the corporation, he
filled with credit and honour to himself, and with
no small advantage to the town. Before his mayor-
alty, the old party spirit, remaining from the
bygone contests for supremacy which had agitated
the community from the grant of the parliamentary
franchise to Manchester, by the Reform Act of
1832, and which had to some extent been revived
by the opposition to the incorporation of Manches-
ter from the year 1838—still continued to push its
barriers into every social circle, till there remained
scarcely a spot of neutral ground on which Whig or
Tory, Liberal and Conservative, corporator and anti-
corporator, Churchman and Dissenter, could meet in
amity, and—without the slightest compromise of
principle, or the laying down a single dogma of their
respective political, theological, or municipal beliefs,
or opinions—learn, simply by knowing each other
better, to entertain a higher mutual respect and
esteem. It was reserved for Sir John Potter to
effect, by his many high social qualities, and the
great respect in which he was personally held by
men of all parties, a great and important social
change in this respect. In the liberal and cour-
teous dispensation of his civic hospitalities he
brought together gentlemen who till then had met
nowhere else, unless as opponents in some public
arena. The length of his term of office gave him
large facilities, of which he fully availed himself,
for ripening the intercourse of our most respected
and valuable citizens, from the cold interchange of
civilities with which it commenced, into the cordial
respect and esteem which all right-minded men
may and ought to feel towards each other, however
separated by party or denominational distinctions.
We need not adduce further proof of this than the
fact that between the deceased, who lived and died
a conscientious and zealous Dissenter, and the
Bishop of Manchester, a firm and steady friendship
was formed, which is closed only by death.
Another great labour of his mayoralty is one, the
success of which was always a matter of the deepest
interest to him even to the premature close of his
active and useful life—we refer to the founding of
the Manchester Free Library, a good work, of
which it would be to rob him of his due reputation
were we merely to say that he took the chief part.
By his great social influence, by his direct personal
advocacy of the object, and his persevering canvass
of his numerous friends for substantial aid, he
really became the founder of that noble institu-
tion, which every succeeding generation among
us will value more highly than its predecessors.
That it was not a mere popularity-seeking scheme
is obvious from the fact that, even within the cor-
poration itself, it met with great and strenuous op-
position. But Sir John never wavered in his aim,
never relaxed in his efforts, till he saw this favourite
object of his desires securely and satisfactorily at-
tained ; and we believe there are few of his many
public acts and efforts to which he looked back with
more pure and disinterested satisfaction than the
establishment of the Free Library. When his
mayoralty, protracted to the unusual term of three
years, was drawing to its close, the Queen honoured
Manchester with a visit ; and, on the 10th October,
1851, in presence of thousands of his fellow-citizens,
conferred on their popular and excellent Mayor the
honour of knighthood. We know of no other in-
stance of father and son, each as the chief magis-
trate of a great city, receiving this honour in suc-
cession from the same sovereign, and his fellow-
citizens generally rejoiced in the gracious act as a
compliment to themselves. In politics Sir John
was an advanced Liberal, advocating the enlarge.
ment of the electoral body to the extent of house-
hold suffrage. On his benevolence and kindliness
of heart, his readiness to do good with all the energy
of his impetuous nature, and on the many excellent
traits of his private character, especially in the do-
mestic relations of life, we must not dwell. These
are ' treasured memories' with those who knew him
best ; but his death, in what seems but the mid-day
of life, will be mourned by the great body of the
community."

THE OVERLAND ROUTE FROM CALI-
FORNIA TO NEW YORK.

The first California overland mail arrived at St.
Louis on Saturday in 23 days and 4 hours from St.
Francisco, bringing dates from our Pacific empo-
rium ten days later than had been received by way
of the Panama route, and from the interior of Cali-
fornia of course still later. In the fact thus briefly
stated we have a atriking condemnation of the po-
licy blindly pursued by the Federal Government
throughout the last ten years. During these years
the Treasury has spent at least two millions per
annum for the support of ocean mails, about one
million per annum of which has been devoted to
mails by way of the Isthmus of Darien to Cali-
fornia. Had this money been expended in sending
mails through our own territories on the most direct
routes from the Mississippi to the Pacific, the ser-
vice would have been far better performed than it
has been, with the incidental result of opening a
great national highway across the continent, lined
with settlements and villages and provided with
every accessory to comfortable and expeditious
travel, whereby the mails would now be carried at
least twice a-week from San Francisco to St.
Louis within 20 days, with side routes from
Memphis to San Diego, and from St. Paul to the
Dalles in less than half the time now required by the
roundabout ocean transit. Grant that these mails
would, at the outset, have been interrupted or delayed
for two or three months in winter, and still the gain to
the correspondence and business of the whole country
would have been immense, while the advantage to
emigration and travel would have been still more
palpable. The pioneer from Wisconsin or lowa who
resolves to try his chances in California must now
journey 1,000 miles eastward in order to begin his
voyage of 7,000 miles to San Francisco, whence he
must make another expensive eastward journey of
several hundred miles to reach the mines, from
which he was but 2,000 to 2,500 miles distant when
he started. The cost to him of this circuitous jour-
ney, both in time and money, is far greater than
would be that of a passage by stage coach over the
direct route, while the filth, discomfort, and danger
to health of the sea route are inconceivably greater.
Shall this be continued ? Had the direct rou to or
routes been opened at first—that from St. Louis to
San Francisco in 1849, and side routes from Mem-
phis or Alexandria to San Diego and from St. Paul
to Portland or Oregon city in 1851 and 1852—we
should have been ere this in daily telegraphic com-
munication with our Pacific brethren, and with
stages running daily for two•thirds of the year on
all three routes over good and safe waggon roads
for emigrants, and with railroads covering at least
two-thirds of the distance on one route and well
started on the others. All this we have lost through
Government patronage and partiality favouring the
Isthmus route. And to-day we have confederated
gangs of speculators, including men high in office,
intent on the squandering of more money on the
Nicaragua, Tehuantepec, Honduras, Chiriqui, and
other far away routes—said money to be taken out
of the Federal treasury and to flow ultimately into
the speculators' pocket. Fellow-citizens of the whole
country, but especially of the free West, watch
the votes of your representatives on the questions
of new mail routes across Mexico or Central Ame-
rica, and of renewing existing contracts for mail
service by way of Panama. See that the Yeas and
Nays are called on every such question, and we
will take care that they be published.—New York
Tribune.

SHOCKING CASE.--A YOUNG MAN STABBED BY
HIS BROTHEL-At the Leicester Borough Court, yester-
day morning, a young man, named Frederick Thomas
Sharp, was charged with stabbing his brother. It appeared
that between 12 and 1 o'clock on Sunday morning, the
injured man, who was in liquor, was attacked by three men
in the street. His brother and father hearing of it went out
and rescued him and got him into the house. The foolish
man then wanted to go out and renew the quarrel, and be-
cause opposed by his father and brother (the prisoner), he
quarrelled with the latter, who used the strange expres-
sion, " I would sooner kill you myself than let you be killed
by them." The prisoner then drew a knife and stabbed his
brother four times, twice in the back and twice in the ab-
domen. Mr. Thompson, surgeon, deposed that the wounds
were all very deep ones,`-and that poor man's life was in
intentionally
stabbed The prisoner, who denied that ho
stabbed his brother, was remanded for a week,—Manchester
Examiner.