The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-30 00:00:00

Three o'clock.--The market has shown rather
more firmness during the last hour, and closed as
follows :

ci per pants 99 25

Do. end month -
3 per Cents. 69 60
Do. end month 69 65

Bank Shares 3605
Italian Loan 56 55
Do. end month 55 50
Mexican Loan 27 75
Do. Bonds l7O
Spanish Threes
Home Debt
Deferred

Credit Mobilier ... 665

Do. end month 667 50

Credit Foncier ---1366

Do. end month 1360

For Account.
Orleans BBO
Northern ll5O
Lyons and Mediterranean BBO
Southern 533 75
Western
Eastern
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard
North of Spain
Saragossa
Ditto to Barcelona
Roman.

537 50

360 -
405 -

122 50

TRADE WITH JAPAN. —ln point of value the trade
with Japan showed an immense expansion in the
year 1865. The imports brought by British vessels rose
from 5,693,617 Mexican dollars in 1864 to 11,560,509 in
1865, and the imports in foreign vessels from 1,157,640 to
2,634,262 dollars. The exports in British vessels rose from
9,941,404 dollars in 1864 to 16,186,823 dollars in 1865, and
the exports in foreignoressels from 630,818 to 2,303,407
dollars. But the increase in the value of the exports from
Japan was owing chiefly to the enormous rise in the price
of Japanese silk ; the quantity shipped in 1865 was rather
less than in 1863, although costing nearly a trebled price.
As very high prices fail to secure an increased supply; it is
thought probable that we obtain as much of the annual
production as can be spared for exportation. The tea trade
is checked by the impeded preparatiou of the leaf in Japan,
and the quality is more suited to the American than the
English market. There was an enormous expansion of the
import trade with Japan, caused by the increasing demand
for foreign manufactures in that country, which, not hav-
ing (like China) a redundant population, can obtain cloth-
ing more cheaply from foreigners than from its own cot-
tage looms. There was in 1864 an extraordinary increase
in the demand for cotton manufactures, which might be
owing partly, perhaps, to the failure to a great extent of
the cotton crop of 1865 in Japan, and also to the high price
of raw cotton in 1864 having tended to drain the country
of that article. A remarkable feature in the export trade
of Japan in 1865. was the shipment of upwards of 1,500,000
sheets of silk ova. Although only recently participating
in the trade of the world, Japan is already clothed to a
considerable extent by foreign looms ; and if, by helping to
make up for the ravages of disease in the European silk-
worm, she should be the means of reviving this important
industry, it will be a signal instance of the advantages of
the extension of commercial relations.

STATISTICS OF JOKING.—One HierOCLCS, 111 the
early Christian days, spent much of his time in researches
into this highly momentous subject; being the first author
upon it. He left behind him, as the harvest of his labours,
Twenty-one Jokes, which we may securely believe were
all that to his knowledge existed up and down the world,
after as many as five hundred years of its Christian life
wore spared, in addition, ;as many people are aware, of a
previous four thousand. Twenty-one jokes in four thousand
five hundred years! Which is as much as to say that the old
world made a joke once in about two hundred and fifty
years, and then took breath. What a stale, worn, threadbare
thing that first joke must have been when the second joke
was made ! The stock of fun was, of course, compa-
ratively rich then ; there was a glimpse of fertility.
What an extraordinary run there must have been upon the

little stranger! So we see that for forty:five centuries the
world was in the habit of preparing its jokes with a stupen-
dous degree of deliberation and forethought ; and the in-
habitants of the universe (who lived, however, snugly, in
a tidy corner of it) maintained themselves respectably and
comfortably during that period on twenty-one facetito.
But a marvellous revolution was impending. The world
was meditating (speaking jocularly) a• gigantic and as-
tounding spring. From twenty-ono jokes, the Hieroclean
legacy, to twenty-one millions, was like one step accom-
plished in a moment; or, in ordinary language, in about
thirteen hundred years. Everything is comparative.
Those first forty-five centuries joked so slowly that we
get somehow into a way of looking at them as if they had
been mete chronological atoms. Adding thirteen new
centuries to the old forty-five, brings us very nearly down
to the age in which we live ; for argument's sake, say
quite to it. We stand at twenty-oue million jokes. Are
we content ? May twenty-one million jokes be regarded
as high-water mark ? The greatest nation in the world
ought to rest and be thankful with such an enormous for-
" All the rear Round."