The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-29 00:00:00

The Price of Gold.

The quotation ot gold at Paris is about at par, and
the short exchange on London is 25.17} per £1 sterling. On
comparing these rates with the English Mint price of La
100. per ounce for standard gold, it appears that gold is
about the same price in London an dParis.
The course ot exchange at New York on London for bills at
60 days' sight is about 153, per cent.. and the pile° of gold
1421 per cent. At these rates there is no profit on the im
portation ot gold from the Unite .l States.

THE EGYPTIAN FLEET.—The Messager du Midi
states that orders have been given to the forges and build-
ing-yards of La Seyne by the Viceroy of Egypt, amount-
ing to more than 14 millions of francs.

We read in a Parisletter :—"ThePrince Imperial
nearly invariably appears in Highland costume, and is
getting on wonderfully with his English studies. lie re-
ceived as a present the other day from his august father a
complete edition of the works of Charles Dickens."
Is AN ILLEGITIMATE CHILD LIABLE FOR THE
SUPPORT OF HIS MOTHER?—On this point, which
was raised some few days ago at the Birmingham Police-
court, Mr. T. C. S. Kinnersley, the stipendiary, on Tuesday
delivered a judgment to the effect that as there is nothing
in that statute to attach a liability to the mother, so
a fortiori there is nothing to render an illegitimate child
liable ; and as the application for an order is grounded on
that statute only, and on no other, he was satisfied that he
had no authority to grant it.

WllO WAS Dn. FAUSTUS ?—The number of places
which have disputed the credit of having been the
scene of Faust's history, or at least of his end, has no doubt
tended to throw discredit on the reality of his existence;
for, while the original story asserts that his death occurred
at Rimlich, a village near Wittenberg, yet, at Maulbronn,
a bloodstained place is shown as the spot where it took
place, and at Cologne a window through which the Devil
is said to have flown away with him. Another window at
the castle of Waerdenberg makes the same claim, some ir-
removable bloodstains being pointed out as proofs of its
justness, while similar marks at Pratau, near Wittenberg,
are held by the natives to demonstrate that as having been
the locality so distinguished. Yet however, conflicting
may be the evidence as to the details of Faust's life or
death, there seems no reason to doubt that a person of that
name did play some such part as that described in the
story. As the "Conversations Lexicon" remarks, "some
Cagliostro of the 15th or 16th century was probably the
germ out of which the tale of Dr. Faustus grew." The
earliest mention of the name of Faust as a macician occurs
in a, letter from the Abbot Trithemius to a mathematician
named Wirdung, in which the writer recounts that, when
travelling in 1506 (80 years before Spies' History was
printed), he had come to a place where a certain George Sa-
bellius, whom he characterises as an impostor more fool than
magician, bad been performing many wonders, and had left
behind Rim a card on which he described himself as
" Georgina Sabellius, Faustus junior, necromancer, &c.,
&c." The insertion of the word " junior" shows evidently
that even at this early period the name 9f Faust was al-
ready well known in connection with magical associations.
Again, G. Gask, a Protestant theologian, in 1548 affirmed
that he himself had dined with the sercerer Faust at
Basle, and was entertained with a banquet of scrange
birds, unknown to him and quite foreign there. He
mentions, too, his having a dog and a horse, both
of whom were thought to be demons, and that he
bad been told that the dog appeared at times in
the form of a servant, supplying food to his master. Ho
concludes, "The wretched man came to a fearful end, for
the devil strangled him ; his body would lie upon the bier
on its face, though it had ben turned five times." But the
witness who is considered to be the most credible of all is
Johann Memel or Manlius, a pupil of Melancthon, who,
in a collection bearing date 1560, gives, as from the mouth
of his master, an account of the fatnaus magician Faust,
as of one with whom the latter had been personally ac-
quainted. He, too, asserts that he was found ono morning
lying on his face, having been killed by the devil at mid-
night. A portrait of him is also extant, marked with the words
" Het portrait van Doctor Faustus," and which represents
him with a face almost boyish in its plumpness, with high
rounded forehead, far back on which appears a crop of short,
slightly curled- unparted hair; the eyebrows are arched and
well defined, the nose thick, the chin large, and adorned
with a little " imperial" tuft jus under the lower lip, while the
upper displays a smooth neatly-curved moustache. The
figure is simply attired in a round cloak, with a gathered
frill-collar.---The Devil and Dr. Faustus, in the " Cornhill
Magazine" for December.

rit WirititlGNCJG dtIAUSs.
7onsolidated, 6 per cent. stock,
,tto, Bristol and Birm., 8 per cent., 128}

LINES LEASED AT FIXED RENTALS.
Mid. Bradford, pf. stock 891

FOREIGN RAILWAYS.
Rahia and San Francisco, 11. n., gun. 7 per oent., 121
Great Luxembourg, 12
intoman (Smyrna to Aidin), 31
Paris and Orleans, 314
South Austrian and Lombardo Venetian, 1?4
FOREIGN' MINES.
Cobre Copper, 1}

BANKS,

Anglo Austrian, 61
Anglo Egyptian, lira., 101
Bank of Egypt, 29
British North American, 471
Chartered ger. of India, London, and China, 311
Consolidated Bank, lim., 4
Imperial Ottoman, lim.,
Land Mortgage Bank of India, lim., 21
New South Wales, 4ii 41
Union of London, 44

•
DOCKS.
East and West India, 1324
London and:St Katharine, 65 I
Ditto, Debenture Stock, 87
MISCELLANEOUB.
Anglo-American Telegraph, 141
Atlantic Telegraph,
Ditto, 8 per cent., 76 31
Bombay Gas, lim.,
Ditto; new, 24
Credit eoncler of Ene•land, lim • 2; ;
Egyptian Com. and Trading, lira., 44 I
Fore-street Warehouse, lim., 12i
Gen. Credit and Finance of Lono7n, lim., 314
Hudson's Bay, 161
London General Omnibus Company, lint, n
Lon oil and Provincial Marine, 24-
M dras Irrigation and Canal (4 per cent. guarante. d by In
dian Government),
Ditto ad), 18
Otago and Southland Investment, 1
I•eninsula and Oriental steam, 61
Rio de Janeiro City Improvements, 19
Royal MA! Steam. 8
Viceroy of I‘..gypt, Mortgage, Loan, 75 41
Warrant Finance 14

SPAIN ANDTHE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.—
The belligerent States have all accepted the mediation.prof-
fered by England and Franco, and also the bases of peace,
of which this is an outline :-1. Spain renounces having her
flag saluted by tho Republics previously to any peace nego-
tiations. 2. The treaties existing between the belligerent
States before the war shall be re-established and put in
vigour. 3. All decrees enacting the expulsion or banish-
ment of any subject of the belligerent States, or the confis-
cation of State orprivate property, shall be held as void and
annulled. 4. The war 'prisoners shall be at once given up
to their respective nations. 5. The prizes in possession of
any belligerent shall be.given up forthwith to the nation
to which they belonged. 6. The contracting parties shall
not put forward any claim or compensation for losses and
damages sustained in war. 7. The Republic of Chili shall
not claim any damage for the bombardment of Valparaiso.
—Morning 14raci. 4 • . . .