The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.— In the universal race of life there is
always that which beats all competitors, though
they be not without merit. All the proper qualities
unite and culminate in one individual. It is a kind
provision of nature, for we owe to it that simplicity
in the object to the contemplated which invests
human affairs with an epic character, and certainly
makes them at once easy and interesting. To this we
owe the great poet, of every age, the great conqueror,
the great patriot, the great dramatist, the great
painter, the South Sea Bubble of last century, and
the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Com-
pany of this. There is no longer any occasion to
rummage through whole files of railway reports.
Better burn them all, and confine oneself hence-
forth to the study of the one perfect specimen.
They that have money to lose, or experience to
acquire, need go no further.' There is only one
Railway Company, and it is the London, Chatham,
and Dover, and evidently Sir Morton Peto is its
prophet. The lawyers are concentrating their at-
tention upon it, and before Easter the House of
Cornmons will find themselves admiring the com-
plex organisation and colossal proportions of the
model. We could not usually recommend to the
general reader the careful perusal of four or five
columns, with references to appendices, but, com-
pared with the gigantic bulk of the transaction' and
their lofty daring, this is an " Iliad" in a nut-shell.
The Report of the Committee of Investigation into
the affairs of the Company has been closely followed
by the Remarks of the Directors, and if there be
any question, we have now both sides of it. But as
the Report is confined to the simple statement of
facts, and opinions are as much as possible avoided,
hardly a question is raised, and the answers amount
to nothing but a plausible counter-statement. In-
deed, the authors of the Report frankly confess them-
selves at fault. They cannot unravel the tangle in
which directors, contractors, and all sorts of people
before and behind the scenes have enveloped them-
selves. Sir Morton, thus far, is as safe as Fair Rosa-
mond in her fabled labyrinth. There is a huge and
motley fabric of shares, preference shares, deben-
tures, private loans, and documents that represented
nothing paid, nothing done, neither debt, obligation,
nor value ; and it is impossible even to guess how
onerests on another, and how far the treacherous
substratum will bear the apparently solid surface.
The best comparison that offers itself is the moun-
tain of material left by one of those immense Thames-
side fires. You see a field of growing corn, with
charred beams and twisted iron cropping out of the
surface, but are dismayed to hear that far under the
surface there are a thousand tons of butter. Parlia-
ment has carefully prescribed the successive stages
by which railway credit is to be constructed, but
Parliament, it would now appear, cannot, or at least
does not, secure that the stages upon which.everything
is to depend shall not be of imitative and fictitious
material. Parliament ordains an audit, but who is to
choose the auditor, and what company will choose
one who will think it his dutyto declare it bankrupt ?
The London, Chatham, and Dover, we may say
for the benefit of any one who may wish to write its
epic, is the Nemesis of our railway legislation. It
took its origin out of a great Parliamentary default,
and it shares with holier things the comment that the
greatest crimes are done in the best of causes. In the
early days of railways Parliament would not allow
one near Greenwich Observatory, or near the arsenals
and dockyards, or, if not absolutely necessary, in the
metropolis. So it wisely compelled travellers bound
for the Continent or the south-east coasts to go nearly
half the way to Brighton, then only graciously per-
mitting them to tack about at right angles and shape
their course for Dover. As the traffic increased, and
as railways were found not such bad neighbours as
bad once been apprehended, this came at last to be
thought monstrous, and, after various unsuccessful
or imperfect attempts to rectify matters, the London,
Chatham, and Dover was started in order to provide
what may be called a Thames and Continental Rail-
way. The only fault about the project was that
which has been inscribed over many a ruined dynasty
and many a wasted life—the amendment came too
late. The ground was preoccupied. At the very best
the prize would have to be divided ; and an embryo
scheme would have to struggle many years with a
perfected system. The London, Chatham, and
Dover found that it wanted everything. It could
only start with a trunk line leading, it might almost
be said, from nowhere to nowhere. It wanted a ter-
minus, or rather termini ; it wanted branches, it
wanted extensions, it wanted steamboat services, it
wanted bridges over the Thames. It wanted
suburban traffic, it wanted its own line to the
Crystal Palace, it wanted Metropolitan extensions
and Northern communication, it wanted additional
rails, it wanted everything that every other com-
pany had, otherwise it would have that one resource
less in competing with the other company. This,
too, had to be done in a period of excitement and
speculation, when prices were high, when city
land was _selling ac more than £lO the square
foot, and when a crowd of rival companies were
bidding for ground, if only to stand on, and
keep others out of it. Then, all these things
had to be done at once, and a single omission or
defeat might spoil many successes and an fin-
mense expenditure. What we are describing is not
only a fact ; it is more than a fact—a mental posses-
sion. What the Grand Trunk was some years ago,
what the Czar is to Russophobists, the Pope to Pro-
testant old women, and the Great Beast to the stu-
dent of Revelations, the London, Chatham, and
Dover has been for several years to the stationary,
in-dwelling people of thii metropolis. No Londoner
has looked at the papers for years without half ex-
pecting to see the London, Chatham, and Dover
intended to go through his house, or over it, or
under it, or, worse still, just behind or just before it
or possibly to do both or all these things. But this
was a necessity in the case, for it was ant Caesar, ant
nihil ; and, as they say, " When the devil drives,
needs must." If it be any extenuation that such was
the necessity, and that in no other way was the
battle to be fought with the least chance of success,
then we may allow the London, Chatham, and Dover
the customary French plea of " extenuating circum-
stances," whatever that be worth. But there can be
no excuse for a purely fictitious and illusory compli-
ance with Parliamentary regulations, and for bor-
rowing money from the confiding public upon the
pretence of work dine that had not even been
touched, and of shares taken and paid up thatexisted
only in imagination. There can be no excuse for a
process which has inflicted ruin on innocent people
to the amount of several millions of pounds, plun-
dering not only shareholders, who might lay in their
account for some risk, but even those who thought
they were lending sums of money to be repaid,after
a stated term, to the very farthing. Parliament has
done its best to mark the difference between the
speculator and investor, and to prevent the former
from abusing the confidence of the latter. In proper
distrust of the partial estimates put forth by projec-
tors and their professional friends, it has at once con-
ceded lendiugpowers and confined them within cau-
tious limits. If there be any excuse at all for
the present inconvenience suffered by the holders of
the later debentures, and for the total loss which
they reasonably apprehend, then Parliament has
laboured in vain, and all the securities it has de-
vised are good for nothing. Parliament is now
bound to defend itself, and to prove its work good
in law, if that can be proved. W hen it made, and,
made over again, with reiterated force and exact-
ness, the wholesome provision that a company
should not be allowed to issue debentures till a cer-
tain proportion of, shares had been subscribed for,
and, in a certain proportion, paid up, it cannot have
intended by this a mere exchange of documents be-
tween a secretary and a contractor, with no more
solid foundation than works contracted for but not
yet begun. When it attempted to secure that money
should only be borrowed in a fixed proportion to
the shares actually taken and the calls actually paid
up, it could not possibly mean by this the mere
hypothecation of shares with a contractor, leaving
the company chargeable with the discount there
might be upon sales to be effected. The directors,
in their remarks, claim by general usage the right
to sell shares at a discount; but the transaction we
have described, and which is not and cannot be
denied by the directors, is no sale at all, and certainly
is not such a compliance with rules guarding the
issue of debentures as Parliament intended. When,
too, it provided a public audit, it could not intend
one that should exclude from view enormous loan
transactions represented by paper in the private desk
of the secretary. The committee of investigation
has done its work very tenderly, and has abstained
even from comment when it was possible to do so ;
but the facts elicited speak for themselves, and
cannot but have their true character assigned to
them in the Court of Chancery.
POST.—London is very dull just at present.
Idlers and loungers take little interest in the reports
of the heavy Reform artillery with which Mr.
Bright imagines he is mowing down an obstinately
hostile aristocracy. Foreign news is uninteresting.
" No fellow" can make out the Cretan telegrams or
settle the future status of the King of Saxony ; and
were it not for the defeats of Achievement, there
would be positively nothing to think about. In a
moment highly characteristic of what has been called
" the silly season," it appears to have occurred to one
of that class who find even the opportunities offered
by the Turf not sufficiently easy to part them from
their money, that it would be a great idea to trans-
plant Baden to London. Instead of being bored
with bookmaking, and worried with waiting for
telegrams, this ingenious lover of excitement con-
ceived the notion of a gambling revival. There were
certain difficulties in the way, in the shape of
rather awkward laws, and some remarkably severe
pains and penalties. But it seems to have been
thought that Sir Richard Mayne's principle is—" he

who grumbles in secret don't grumble at all." BY
avoiding the opening of a special house, and the
employment of the usual staff, it was imagined that
the notice of the police would be escaped, and that
the Kursaal might flourish, undisturbed if estab'
lished in the proverbial castle of the Englishman.
This delusion, however, like many others, was Boa
to be dispelled ; for when a person of some position
establishes a roulette table, and himself wields the
rake—when his table is surrounded by nightly assew
blages of the men who are in town, and is graced by
all that description of beauty and fashion whien
usually swarms where easily won money is carelessly
disposed of—rumour soon spreads the news, and the
new amusement becomes the topic of conversation.
A correspondent called our attention to it on
Wednesday, and those whom his letter concerns
may thank him for his timely warning, which
will no doubt put a stop to a very foolish proceed-
ing. Had this revival been allowed to go on. A
goodly company would have been one night caught
in the meshes of police nets, and certainly disagree'
able exposure, and possibly unpleasant punishment,
would have been inflicted. Society has copied, and
is copying, too many fashions, but this last imita-
tion of the pleasant vices of the banks of the Rhine
is more than can be tolerated, and we have no doubt
that our public mention of it will induce those whe
are engaged in it to abandon their plan. A man of
social position holding the office of croupier at e
gambling table, and wielding the official rake, oecw
pies a post almost as ridiculous as it is discreditable,
while into the painful questions of money won and
money lost their enter considerations which we ha
rather not entertain. Those to whom our corre-
spondent has alluded will do well in future to con'
fine themselves to the more legitimate excitement
of whist and of racing ; and, while visiting their
sins upon their relations, they should forbear to
inflict upon them not only debts and pain, but 310
positive disgrace.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

-•-
MANCHESTER--TmatsDAY.

At our market this morning business generally Po'
ceeded slowly. The best qualities of wheat and flour nsttl,
a limited sale only, but holders were firm at fully 10"
week's rates, while other sorts were in favour of buysr6;
Old oats were ld and new 2d per 451 b. lower. Oatmeal
declined 6d and is per load. In beans no change was ob
servable. Indian corn was rather cheaper.

BIRMINGHAM—THvitsDAY.
At this day's market there was a good supply of wheat,
and all except the dry qualities were is to 2s per qr. lower•
Barley offering at a similar reduction. Oats held for pre;
vious rates. Beans tending downwards. Peas unaltered'

BRISTOL—THURSDAY.
of
On our market this afternoon there was a fair supply t
English wheat, which sold slowly at is per qr. below Les'
week's prices, except for the finest qualities. For foreigl
there was more inquiry, but very little business done. °'
malting barley there was a large quantity offering; the
finer sorts maintained their value, but secondary descrir
Lions were quite is per qr. cheaper. Grinding unaltered.

BURY ST. EDMUNDS—WEDNESDAY.
We had a good show of wheat at our market to-4141;
Millers were not at all anxious buyers, and the trade W
very slow, at a decline .of fully is per qr. on last woo"
The supply of malting barley was large, and, without cilicr,
table difference in the value, a dull trade, prevailed tower""
the market.

EDINBURGH—WEDNESDAY.
Wheat on the top, 2s Od up average, 3s 3d 11P. Barley on the top, is Od down average, is 4d doW",„;
Oats on the top, Os 611 up........ average, is 4d dovfri

Total supply and sales.
Wheat 791 qrs sold 436
Barley 2113 qrs sold 1593
Oats • 1390 qrs sold 1098
Beans 8 qrs sold 8 L...
Town-made flour sells as follows :—White, 45s 6d; 0'
superfine, 44s Od ; superfine, 42s 6d ; fine, 41s Od.

Average prices.
Wheat, 56s 5d Oath, 28s 8d
Barley, 3ss Odl Beans 58s 7d

GLASGOW—WEDNESDAY.
Tho weather has Continued good. The foreign arriol°
consisted of only 1,820 qrs. of barley, 268 qrs. of boAlli
707 sacks of flour ; but the supplies by railway were Tiber
of most articles. Tile, business has been less active, iffl'At
out materially affecting the value of wheat and flour. 't
this day's market there was the usual attendance. Whey
and flour, although quiet, were held at previous rates.

Foreign Mail Packet List.

MAILS DUE.

Australia and New Zealand, via Southampton. —.Oct. 24'
Ditto, via Marseilles Oct. it'
Brazil and Cape Verde, by British pacaet 5*
Ditto, by French packet Oct 21*
Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and St. Helena Oct. 8
China, Penang, and Singvure, via Sou hampton Oct 20.
Ditto, via Slarstilles Oct. 14'
Falkland Islands

Gibraltar, via Southampton Oct. 13.
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton... Oat. 20
Ditto, via Mar6cilles
India (Bombay), via Southampton Oct. 13
Ditto, via ilarseilles ..
Malta, Egypt, and Aden, via Southampton Oct. 13'
Ditto, via Marseilles Oct. li•
Mauritius, via Southampton
Ditto, via Marseil.ei... ... Oct. .4
Newfoundland
Portugal --Nov. 6

Ditto, by private ship to Lisbon
United States and British North America, by Bri-
tish packet OCt. It
Ditto, by United States packet, via Southamp-
ton

Ditto, via Cork
Ditto, by Canadian packet, via Londonderry _Oct. 12*
West Coast of Africa, Hadeira, and T.:aerials ....Oct. to.
West Indies and Pacific (except Bahamas and
Honduras)
Cuba and Mexico
Bermuda, via Halifax
Bahamas, via New York...

-
Oct. 15
Oct 29
Oct. 24
Oct. 19

POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.—A popul_ ja.ri
singer or actor or a successful prize-fighter WPf
sometimes have a run entering into tens of thousando
copies; but the demand will suddenly collapse, and the'
names will be.heard no more. Public men, whose o°3°ll
are distinguished in connection with the pulpit, with Oa;
rature, science, or art, or in the legislature, are in constts
demand, notwithstanding that the especial rage of tw
collection of portraits has within the last 12 months Of
siderably subsided. Royal portraiture is always port;
and perhaps nothing can more strikingly illustrate wr,
loyalty of Englishmen than tho constant demand for Pfhe
traits of members of the reigning family. Just about
period of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, a o°,o
grapher in Brussels had the good fortune to obtain sittiun
from the Queen and several members of the royal fan°
including the Prince of Waits and the Princess Alex °f
and the sale of these portraits exceeded two millioos
copies. One photographer alone in this country h.%
during the last few years, issued upwards of half a
yearly of members of the royal family. After the NY.
family, the popular statesmen are the greatest favourtv',e
Lord Palmerston during his life and for some little Of
after his death being in greatest demand. If the sale.:l
men's portraits afford any indication of the popular"•
of their principles, it is tolerably manifest that
ralism obtains very strongly in this country, the cited,
lation of the portraits being in the ratio of ten of 0160
stone to one of Derby, who is, however, judged 11 trio
standard, the most popular of the Conservatives. OlUai
other hand, the portraits of Louis Napoleon and Gariv—ito
have about an equal popularity, the rage for the port° re
of the latter being more spasmodic, and of the former I°°v
steady. After statesmen, popular literary men and ~,
-
men are most in demand; and after these men of scl'„oc
and artists ; and, lastly, popular actors and sirigetbe
Bishops seem to circulate in virtue of their rank, cir
Archbishop of Canterbury having the most extended if
culation, whilst clergymen and ministers are prized °r°
in virtue of their popularity. Mr. Spurgeon was °e-
time in very large circulation ; Mr. Binney less eat .eO,l
sively, but more constantly.—British Quarterly
new number.

Births.
e o.(°i
ADAMS—On the 11th inst., at 92, Inverness-terracj,„.,
sington• gardens, the wife of George E. Adams,'
a son. SO'
CLARK-On the 9th inst., at Ipswich, the wife of the
F. S. Clark, of a son.
ri non-
Honneno —On the 11th inst., at 17, Alma-road, '9"-
bury, Mrs. John S. Hubbard, of a son. of
HILL —On the 9th inst., the wife of Pearson llill, Ems'
a son and heir.

Marriages.
ANSTRUTHER— ANDERSON —On the 11th inst., at y-'
House, Ayrshire, James Anstruther, Esq., Treni'bo''
Ayrshire, to Annabella Agnes, eldest daughter of
Anderson, Esq., of Glendrisaig, advocate.
,srze'O'
TuomsoN—Fmtuatt—On the llth inst. at St. Geytb°
Hanover-square, Andrew Thomson, isq., LL-11, bareif
Inner Temple, and of New-square, Lincoln's-inn' of
ter-at-law, to Ada Rose, elder surviving daughtlotoir
Farrar, Esq., of Doctors'-commons and et.'
square.

ea.
ARCHER —On the 10th inst., atth 17, Mornington-roin
Wm. Archer, Esq., late Deputy of the Vintry War'
of London. gent'
COSTA—On the 11th inst., at 19, Warrington-ere-
Maida-hill, E. C. M. Da Costa, Esq., aged 70. ,ft.
RIVERS—On the 11th inst., at 97, Camberwell-road, Teo,
H. Rivers, representative of Messrs. J. C. Wood al'
brewers, Westminster. prarriet,
SEARLE—On the 9th inst., at Brussels, Lady -,ortli)
widow of the late John Searle, Esq., of litoles"
county Huntingdon, aged 64. ,stiller'TAYLOß—On the 10th inst., Amy, the wife of --•
of 20, Farringdon-street, City. -1°)1
TIIOMPSON—On the 10th inst., at 27, Victoria-road'
sington, Charles Thompson, Esq., aged 76.
London : Printed and Published by WILLIAM Arlo ti
of No. 112, Strand, Printer. at Tux Sus Oflll7uti
Strand, in the Precinct of the Savv. fn th.
Middlelex.—Frid&Y, October 12,1894.