The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-27 00:00:00

INCREASE.

Cash in hand
Bills discounted

Private accounts 8,600,000f.
Treasury Balance
DECREASE.

Notes
Advances Stationary.

Bank of England Returns,.-This Evening.

An Account, pursuant to 1
cap. 32, for the week ending
ISSUE DE

he Act 7th and Bth Victoria,
Arednesday, Dec. 26, 1866.
.ARTMENT.

Notes issued ..,.£33,307,880

Govornmt. Debt.Xll,ols,loo
Other Securities.. 3,984,900
Gold Coin and

Bullion
Silver Bullion .., —

£33,307,880

X 33,307,880

BANKING DJ
Proprietors' Capi-
tal £14,553,000
Rest 3,264,777
Public Deposits
(including Ex-
chequer, Sav-
ings' Banks,
Commissioners
of National
Debt, and Div, _ _ _

EPARTMENT.
Governmt. Secu-
rities(including
Dead Weight
Annuity) .... £13,011,222
Other Securities 20,241,256
Notes 11,374,515
Gold and Silver

Coin ---.-
339,979

Accounts) 8,706,361
Other Deposits 18,592,224
Sovon Day and
other bills 450,610

£45,566,972

566,972

The Public Health.

(From the Registrar-General's Weekly Return.)

In the week that ended on Saturday, Dec. 22, the births
registered in London and 12 other large towns of the
United Kingdom were 4,476 ; the deaths registered, 2,990.
The annual rate of mortality was 25 per 1,000 persons
living.

In London the births of 1,055 boys and 1,079 girls, in
all 2,131 children, were registered in the week. In the
corresponding weeks of 10 years, 1836-65, the average
number, corrected for increase of population, was 1,964.
Tho deaths registered in London during the week were
1,377. It was the 51st week of the year, and the average
number of deaths for that week is, with a correction for
increase of population, 1,452. The deaths in the present
return are less by 75 than the estimated number.
Two deaths from cholera and 16 from diarrhoea were
registered during the week.
A coachmalser's labourer, aged 59 years, died on the 17th
December at No. 10, Shouldham-street, Marylebone, of
cholera (35 hours.)

The widow of a publican, aged 36 years, died on the
18th December at 16, Exmouth-street, Mile-end Old Town,
of choleraic diarrhoea (three days.)
Twenty-six deaths from small-pox, 30 front scarlatina,
43 from whooping-cough, and 55 from fever were regis-
tered in the week.

The annual rate of mortality last week was 23 per 1,000
in London, 29 in Edinburgh, and 24 in Dublin ; 22 in
Bristol, 21 in Birmingham, 33 in Liverpool, 32 in Man-
chester, 31 in Salford, 23 in. Sheffield, 28 in Leeds, 20 in
Hull, 34 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 29 in Glasgow.
At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, the mean height
of the barometer in the week was 30,111 in. The barome-
trical reading increased from 2940 in. at the beginning of
the week to 30.36 on Thursday. The mean temperature
of the air in the week was 41.3 deg., which is 2.0 deg.
above the average of the same week in 50 years (as deter-
mined by Mr. Glaisher). The highest day temperature
53.5 deg. on Tuesday. The lowest night temperature was
29.8 deg. on Thursday. The entire range of temperature
in the week was therefore 23. d deg. The mean of the
highost temperatures of the water of the Thames was 124
deg. ; that of the lowest was 11.1 deg. The difference be-
tween the mean dew-point temperature and air tempera..
ture was 3/ deg. The mean degree of humidity of the
air 82, complete saturation being represented by 100. Rain
fell to the amount of 0.05 in. The general direction of
the wind was south-west. According to a return fur-
nished by the engineer of the Metropolitan Board of
Works, the average daily quantity of sewage pumped into
the River Thames at the southern outfall works, Cross-
ness, was 207,513 cubic metres.

FATAL ACCIDENT AT THE AGRICULTURAL HALL.
—Last night a man was killed at the above place
under very distressing circumstances. One of the grooms,
in attempting to seize one of the horses' bridles, missed his
hold and fell, and the wheels of a carriage went over him,
killing him on the spot.

THE FERGUSON BEQUEST. —A great stir is being
made in Scotland just now about the administration
of a fund left for religious purposes, some time since, called
the Ferguson Bequest, and the Glasgow Herald gives some
interesting particulars of the individual by whom it was
devised. Mr. Ferguson had no claim to the title of phi-
lanthropist till he was on his death-bed. His chief plea-
sure iu life seems to have consisted in amassing an immense
fortune, and something of niggardliness marked his con-
duct in that not very amiable pursuit. When worth
hundreds of thousands he could squabble like a beggar for
a sixpence. Ho was too grasping to enjoy his wealth ;
but he seems also to have boon of too shrewd a disposition
to be able to feel all the raptures of the miser. He used
to say to his friends, "I am a poor rich man—burdened
with money, but I have nothing else." He was in the act
of signing a check for £lO,OOO when he was struck with
paralysis, and the check remained after his death with only
half of his signature appended. He remembered on his
deathbed the poor relations whom ho had forgotten during
his lifetime, and he made amends for his neglect of the in-
terests of religion and charity by some noble bequests. Up..
wards of 100 private persons, some of them already in good
circumstances, shared in his wealth; but the sudden trans-
formations which took place among many of them from
poverty to affluence were both astonishing and amusing.
Day labourers, masons, grocers, and, in one case, a poor
hawker of fish, became possessors of thousands. More than
half a million of money was thus disposed of. Mr. Fergu-
son's great religious bequest somehow looks like a lump
sum paid to Heaven for oversights during a long, intensely
worldly, and even mean sort of life. He was not what is
called a religious man. Some have asserted that he was a
member of the Church of Scotland; but the Herald be-
lieves it would barnore correct to say that he had not Leen
within the walls of a church for 40 years before his death.
When near the close of his life the stoical indifference " to
these things" broke down somas hat, but, too proud to go
to church, he actually asked a minister of Irvine who was
at the time preaching on the Sunday evenings in the
streets to come opposite his door and deliver his sermon
there. And this "poor rich man," wrapped up in shawls,
sat in the lobby and listened to it. This was the man who
who
left about £400,000 for the spread of the Gospel, made
it a condition that the trustees should be communicants of
the Churches which they represented, and who was spe-
cially careful to note in his will that the books of the fund
should be balanced every year, on the 31st of December,
except when that day fell upon a Sunday.—Pall
Gagne,