The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-26 00:00:00

Commence at 7 o'clock.

VERDI'S OPERA OF MACBETH. The
whole of the first Act of this Opera, now produced
for the first time in this country (the remaining three acts
beincr in course of rehearsal), is sung nightly at the CAN-
TERBURY HALL CONCERTS.

THE DELEPIERRE FAMILY,
Consisting of three Juvenile Violinists, viz., Jules, Juliette,
and Julia Delepierre, aged, respectively, FOUR, SIX, and
EIGHT years.
The perfect execution by these Lilliputian Artistes of some
of the most difficult and brilliant Solos, Duets, and Trios eve:
written for the violin, has excited mingled wonder and admi-
ration in Continental Musical Circles, and drawn forth enthu-
siastic tributes of praise from the Public Journals of France
and Belgium.

They Will perform T WICE EACH EVENING, in addi-
tion to the usual Entertainments.

THE WEATHER....-SIIN OFFICE, JULY 25.

THER3fOXETER, IN THE SHADE.
69—highest since noon yesterday.
63—lowest this morning and during the night.
70—this day at noon.

BAROMETER•^3O'I9.
WIND, Southerly ; light, with fine weather,

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DAY.—Morning, 9h. 50m.—Afternoon, 10h. 30m.
To-Moßßow-Morning, 11h. 9m.—Afternoon, 11h. 47m.

I. M,
?5,
.OIT

.2-;?-,iiTZ

THE SUN.
TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1859.

The foreign news are made up more of gue4kes
and recriminations than of facts. Indeed, nothing
is more clear than that they are waiting for the
chapter of accidents to feel their way more surely.
They are all uneasy with respect to the coming
Congress, if Congress there be. For our part we
shall wait the opinion of our Cabinet, as it will be
expressed on Thursday evening by Lord JOHN
RUSSELL. One thing is certain that feelers are
thrown out to test the pulse of the public ; but the
baiters may miss their would-be victims at the last
moment. We know their tendency, but they had
better mind their nets, for th ere are such mishaps
as clever people being caught in their own traps
sometimes.

The Moniteur of this morning contains an
article which clearly evinces the disquietude
felt on the other side of the Channel at
the preparations of armaments continually and
wisely made on this side. It endeavours
to prove that they are only made to deceive the
English people in order to carry the budgets.
Well, it may be so. But we are not going over the
water for advice on these matters. It is far better
to be forearmed than to be warned too late.
We have more at stake than our pliant
neighbours seem to appreciate—our wealth—but,

dearer than all, our freedom ! We must maintain

that at whatever cost—and wishing well to others,
we must not forget that our own welfare depends
on ourselves. Let our own saving motto be in the
words of the Athenian LYNDHURST—distrust—
distrust of all specious hypocrisy or foreign blan-
dishment. We know wherein consists our true
security, and we will cherish that—let come who
may—we will not say—dare !

Yesterday, in Committee of Supply, there was
voted a sum amounting to something less than
£4B,ooo—to a total, in fact, precisely £75 short of
that amount—for the British Museum. It is espe-
cially noticeable at once, in regard to this amount,
that it shows for the present year a decrease in
expenditure of £1,875 as compared with its imme-
diate predecessor. The committee, in other words,
have voted in 1859 not quite £48,000, whereas in
1858 it voted very little short of £50,000. To put
the affair as plainly as possible before the public
in the matter of this annual disbursement for the
support of our national collection of curiosi-
ties and literature in the British Museum,
the committee voted to that end in 1858 the
sum of £49,Boo—while it has voted for the
same purpose in 1859, £1,875 less, or (to give
the precise amount) exactly £47,925. This
decrease of expenditure upon the'British Museum
is simultaneous with a manifest and even extraor-
dinary increase in its general usefulness. In illus-
tration of which it is only necessary to bear in mind
a few of the remarkable facts culled from the report
(placed previously upon the table of the House of
Commons) by the right hon. gentleman the member
for Cambridge University, who, in his capacity as
one of the Trustees of the British Maseum, moved,
and, as a matter of course, moved successfully, for
this vote of £47,925 by the Committee. Conspi-
cuous among these selected particulars in regard to
the past year's development of the British Museum
as an establishment for the indirect diffusion
of the advantages of national education among
the general multitude, is the surpising mag-
nitude of the general ratio of increase in the
number of readers and in the number of the
books Perused by them during the last and the
preceding twelvemonth. It is because of this in-
crease in the number and in the assiduity of the
students frequenting the British Museum dur-
ing the year last past, that we observe upon
the estimates of the institution an appreciable
increase in the charges for the establishment ! An
increase consequent upon the necessity there has
been found for additional attendants by reason of
the increase both of readers and of visitors. The
diminution notwithstanding this, the remarkable
diminution, upon the whole of the estimates
of the British Museum taken together—e,
dimi-
nation amounting in the aggregate, as we have
seen, to nearly £2,000 in a single year—is trace-
able, it may be observed at once to several
sources. It is traceable, among others, to the de-
crease in the house expenses, consequent upon
certain wholesome, economic, and scientific im-
improvmeents in the system of warming and
ventilation. Besides which, as Mr. WALPOLE
observed last evening, " there has been a consider-
able diminution in the item for printed books,
owing to the large expenditure which had been
incurred of late years in the binding of books, to
make up for the shortcomings of previous years."
[An expenditure, by the way, which we, for one,
cannot help regarding as haying been most unne-

cessarily magnified—hundreds, perhaps we should
say more correctly thousands, of the most trumpery
publications having during the last few years been
preposterously glorified in gilding and fragrant
new morocco !] Very notable, again, among the
sources of the aggregate diminution in the expen-
diture required this year for the British Museum,
as compared with that required during the pre-
vious twelvemonth, there is one item of diminished
expenditure to the tune of £9O0—upon the cata-
logues ! Returning, however, to the facts adduced
yesterday by Mr. WALPOLE in testimony of the
iicreased usefulness of the Reading Room alone—
we find that the total number of books read by the
students during the past year amounted to up wards
of 3,000 per day, or, in round numbers, a grand
aggregate of 876,000 volumes! During the year
immediately preceding this the total number of
books used was at the rate of 2,000 per day, or
576,000 in all ! So that the rate of increase in a
single twelvemonth bas been just half as much
again—or 1,000 per day—or, in one year's time,
300,000 volumes additional. The distribution of
this immense total of 876,000 volumes used
during the last twelvemonth is curious in
its way, as an indication to some extent of the
direction, and in one particular, to the continuity
of the studies thus prosecuted. Out of that total
of 876,000 volumes-177,290 were returned to the
shelves of the general library-12,428 to those of
the Royal library-687 to those of the Granville
library—and 564,000 to the shelves of the noble
circular reading-room, itself—that grand and beau-
tiful amphitheatre of erudition, that matchless
colosseum of literature! Added to the foregoing,
there were retained from day to day in the closets
set apart for the more persevering and systematic
readers no less a number of volumes than 122,193
altogether.

Although nothing actually " came" of the argu-
ment generously and. ably advanced yesterday in
Committee by the hon. gentleman the member for
Galway, with a view to effect some increase in the
remuneration of the assistants at the British
Museum, we are still sanguine that that increase will
yet come to them eventually—even an increase that
would satisfy the mind of their earnest champion,
Mr. GREGORY. We take the advance that has
already been made of late years in the scale of their
salaries as a happy augury of still further—we can
hardly sly munificence, but we will venture to call
it simply—fairplay on the part of the public
towards a class of men remarkable at once for their
probity and intelligence. Instead of entering now,
as they formerly did, at £l5O per annum, with a
gradual rise after many years service to a maximum
salary of £24s—they enter now at something over
£2OO a-year, with a yearly rise of a few pounds
until they attain a maximum remuneration of £3OO
per annum. It is only two years now since the
date of this moderate improvement. We may hope
that another two years will not have passed by
without bringing to these very meritorious servants
yet further evidence that their interests are cared
for by the Legislature.

Mr. BRIGHT has laid hold of one iniquity in our
system of taxation which we have more than once
done our best to expose, which Mr. WILLIAMS has
persistently denounced, unpopular as he found it to
moot the question, but which we may hope the
great Birmingham orator will now make his own
business, and most certainly " he'll not fail"—we
refer to the succession and probate duties, as well
as to the unrighteous incidence of the income tax.
The former are too much overlooked. No one
likes to stir an unpopular subject in the House.
But there exists not in our whole fiscal system a
wickeder injustice than the landlords' exemption
from legacy duties. If Mr. BRIGHT takes up this
topic, he will have no mere crotchet in hand ; lie
will have a plain matter of fact to deal with, which

no man who has learned arithmetic can dispute.
He will have—what must add zest to his eloquence
—a gross aristocratic abuse to illustrate and de-
nounce, till it can no longer bear the daylight;
and one, too, without any possible defence that we
are aware of. On protectionist principles some-
thing might be said for the corn laws ; but what
can be said on any principle for taxing most
lightly the most prized, the most valuable, the most
secure kind of property, we are wholly at a loss to
conceive.

Let the tax-paying public bear in mind—let
every man when he pays the GLADSTONE FOUR-
PENCE next Michaelmas remember—that real
property, the property of all the landlords of
England, the property of our aristocracy, of our
House of Lords, of our county members—that real
property pays no probate duty. Personal property
of all kinds pays it, real property pays none. We
are now to pay fourpence extra in the pound, be-
cause for so long a time the landlord class has
escaped without paying probate duty. The poor
widow of the blacksmith and the shoemaker must
pay it, but the neighbouring squire, whose hunters
the blacksmith shod, and whose own feet the shoe-
maker did his best to equip for the stirrup—he
paid not one penny probate duty for the splendid
estate on which the humble dwellings of the village
tradesmen stand! Is this English equity ?
But perhaps the GLADSTONE succession duty
atones for it. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer
has received endless praise for having subjected
this class to a succession duty, and the praise has
not surely been for nothing. No, not for nothing,
but for very little, for even less than had been
hoped. Here are two illustrations—actual facts—
the records of which are in the books of the Trea-
sury. Mr. BRIGHT'S views of the Crimean war
did him at least one little service. A stranger,
being enamoured of him, left him, as a legacy, a
small estate, worth £1,450. On this he would have
had to pay, had it been money at the bankers or in
the funds, £l4O, or ten per cent. To his surprise
he found that he had but £5O to pay ! According
to the GLADSTONE arrangement for the landlord
class, the Somerset House people take account of
the age of the legatee, and charge him duty, as they
would in an insurance office, less in proportion to
the time he can have enjoyment of the property.
We will not dispute the fairness of the plan. But
surely, what is fair to the class succeeding to real
property, is fair to the class receiving personal pro-
perty. Why should a squire, to whom an estate is
left, pay less the older he is, because he will sooner
part with his possession, and our blacksmith and
shoemaker pay less also, in proportion to their ages,
when they receive a legacy of personal property
from a parent, or from a friend who respects them.
It is to be remembered, too, that the squire paid
no probate duty, while the blacksmith and shoe-
maker did. Mr. BRIGHT referred to a second case
of a friend, in which the legatee saved thousands
stranger instead
as
o hundreds. The estate left him by a
worth, in this instance, £32,000; had
it been personal property he must have paid
£3,200, besides more than £6OO for probate duty ;
but the landlord sliding scale came in, and he got
off with only £7OO for everythinn,
When to this is added the confessed injustice of
Schedule D, we believe that no feudal times can be
much worse. We will not dwell on this just now,
but we present one
tradesman consideration.
can put
his
I ti is
professional man or family
on a level with the proprietor of an estate by in_

suring his life. Try it. When a landlord, wit h
£l,OOO a-year from land, dies, without insuring his
life for a penny, he leaves his family £l,OOO a-year
still. How much, then, must a Schedule D: income
of a thousand a-year pay to enable its possessor to
leave his family a sum which, invested in the funds,
would yield his family £l,OOO a-year ? Why, if
the insurance offices charge him about two per cent.
for his policies, he must pay more than £6OO per
annum to leave his family in the same position as
the man will who neither toils nor spins ! He would
have but £4OO a-year left on which to pay income-
tax ! This is but one view—the insurance one—of
the question. It is, however, unanswerable. Mr.
GLADSTONE applied it to landlords' succession
duties, he is equally bound to apply it to a trades-

man's income.

Elsewhere will be found the very curious, and
we doubt not very carefully considered report of
the commission appointed some time back to con-
sider the subject of lighting picture-galleries by
gas-burners. The report itself was laid upon the
table of the House of Commons on Thursday even-
ing, and the gist of it cannot but be regarded,
we think, as highly satisfactory. The Com-
mission —consisting of three scientific Pro-
fessors (FARADAY, HOFMANN, and TYNDALL), one
Royal Academician (REDGRAVE), and a Captain
of Engineers (FowKE)—distinctly asserts, in the
very preamble of its report, that—" There is
nothing innate in coal gas which renders it appli-
cation to the illumination of picture galleries
objectionable. Its light, though not so white as
that of the sun, is equally harmless ; its radialt
heat may be rendered innocuous by placing a
sufficient distance between the gas jets and the
pictures, while the heat of combustion may
be rendered eminently serviceable in promoting
ventilation." Having premised this much,
and having added, moreover, these words—" Coal
gas may be free from sulphuretted hydrogen com-
pounds, and in London is so at the present time;
it then has little or no direct action on pictures"—
the Commissioners go on to remark, in relation to
coal gas—" But it has not as yet been cleansed from
sulphide of carbon, which, on combustion, yields
sulphurous acid gas, capable of producing 221
grains of sulphuric acid per 100 cubic feet of pre-
sent London coal gas." And the Commissioners
Proceed in their report to observe yet further,
in relation to this pernicious sulphide of
carbon—" It is not safe to permit this product of
the combustion to come in contact with pictures,
painted either in oil or water colours; and the
commission are emphatically of opinion that in
every system of permanent gas lighting for pic-
ture or sculpture galleries, provision should be
made for the effectual exclusion or withdrawal of
the products of combustion from the chambers con-
taining works of art." With that one proviso the
Commission strongly recommends the lighting of
picture galleries by gas burners.

LONDON AND BRIG.H7ON RAILWAY.

HALF-YEARLY MEETING—(Tins DAY.)

The ordinary half-yearly meeting of the proprie-
tors of this company was held this day at the
Bridge-house Hotel.
Leo Schuster, Esq., chairman of the Board of Di-
rectors, presided.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the business of the
day, said that the full nature of the report, which
was in the hands of all the proprietors, would ren-
der it totally unnecessary for him to go at any length
into details, yet he thought it but proper he should
make a few observations with respect to the pro-
pects and state of their line. First of all the
amount of capital outlay had been £246,038, of
which £lBO,OOO had been in respect of this com-
pany's contribution to the Victoria Station and
Pimlico Railway, making £337,500 now charged

on that account; £24,984 for the new Henfield

' branch, which is being rapidly proceeded
with; £15,419 towards the completion of the
Norwood Junction, and the remainder for the sta-
tions on the Uckfield and Mid-Sussex line, and
for sundry works and additional vehicles rendered
necessary by the increasing traffic and the larger
number of miles run. Their debenture stock, it
would be satisfactory to the proprietors to know,
was being well taken up by the public,
which showed that the greatest confi-
dence was reposed in the security of the property.
The traffic receipts, it was satisfactory to state, had
been generally increasing, with the exception of
the Epsom line, on which there had been a loss of
£4,000 ; and if anything could prove the
folly of constructing competing lines, he thought
this circumstance did. (Hear, hear.) The share-

holders must not imagine that because their
receipts :had fallen off that amount, the neigh-
bouring company had earned a sum equal to it.
Such was not the case ; they had hardly done more
than pay their expenses. (Hear, hear.) It had,
in truth, been a loss to both. (Hear, hear.) With
regard to the working expenses, although there had
been an increase under that head, the cost
of each train had been considerbly reduced. The
increase had arisen from several causes. First, from
the outlay incurred in working the West-end line,
the increase of mileage, the heavy repairs that had
been effected in the locomotive stock, and he
could fearlesily say that their property was
now in much better order than it had ever been.
The relations with the South-Western still
continued unarranged, bat he could assure the
proprietors that there was no unwillingnes to
arrange the difficulty on the part of the Brighton and
South Coast Railway. (Hear.) From circum-
stances that had occurred he had reason to hope that
an amicable settlement would soon be effected with
South-Western. Having touched upon the other por-
tions of the report which referred to the parliamen-
tary business of the company, concluded by moving
the adoption of the report, which has already ap-
peared in the columns of The Sun.
Mr. J. SCOTT (deputy chairman) seconded the
motion.

Mr. BORRADALE said, before the report was
agreed to.he wished to ask whether the differences
between the South-Western and Brighton Railway
were to be settled by a reference.
The CHAIRMAN said Captain Mangles, the chair-
man of the South-Western, had called upon him,
and the object of his visit was to see whether an
amicable arrangement could not be come to without
the interference of other parties. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. BESLEY thought it would be unadvisable to
allude further to the subject. When a proposition
was made to settle differences discussions frequently
tended to retard a speedy settlement. (Hear, hear.)
He hoped no further allusion would be made to the
subject on that occasion.

Mr. HEREPATH said if Captain,Mangles and Mr.
Schuster could agree he looked upon the differences
as settled.

After a short discussion the report was agreed
to, and a dividend of 21 per cent. for the half-year
was declared.

The meeting shortly afterwards adjourned.

THE CHANNEL FLEET.

PORTSMOUTH, TUESDAY MORNING.

• The Channel Fleet is now running in under sail
for Spithead from the southward ; the Royal Albeit
leading.

The Earl and Countess Delawarr and Lady
Arabella S. 'West have joined the circle visiting the Mar -
quis and Marchioness of Salisbury at Hatfield House.
Lord and Lady Lindsay have left town, accom-
panied by their youthful family, for Haigh HA near
Wigan, on their way to their seat in Scotland.
ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH.
—Richard Leack, M.D., of Blackburn, and Thomas Abra-
ham, M.,R.C.5.E., of New Broad-street, were admitted
licentiates of the above college on the 12th inst.

LATEST NEWS.

IMPERIAL MANIFESTO.

The following telegrams have been received at
Mr. Reuter's office :

PARIS, JULY 26.

The Moniteur of to-day contains the following :
" It is endeavoured in England to attribute to
France the causes of the English national burdens,
but the English people are deceived merely in order
to further the national defences. The exaggera-
tion of our armaments is to justify the consider-
able increase of the English budget for the army
and navy. A comparison of the budgets of France
and England will show these considerations to be
erroneous. Since 1813 the army expenses of
England have increased by 200 millions of francs,
making for 1860 a total of more than 650 million
francs ; while in France the army budgets for 1860
do not exceed much 463 million francs. One there-
fore asks whether it is to France and to her extraor-
dinary armaments that the heavy burdens which
weigh on the English people are to be attributed,
or whether these enormous expenses and taxes,
which are the consequence of those burdens, must
not be attributed to other reasons.

THE VILLAFRANCA PEACE.

All the Paris papers of to-day publish the text of
the preliminaries of peace signed at Villafranca,
quoting the Journal de Mayence as authority. They
however, give it with due reserve. It is as fol-
lows :

"Between his Majesty the Emperor of Austria
and his Majesty the Emperor of the French it has
been agreed as follows :
" The two Sovereigns will favour the creation of
an Italian Confederation.

" That Confederation shall be under the honorary
presidency of the Holy Father.
" The Emperor of Austria cedes to the Emperor
of the French his rights on Lombardy, with the
exception of the fortresses of Mantua and Pes-
chiera, so that the frontier of the Austrian posses-
sions should start from the extreme range of the
fortress of Peschiera, and should extend in a direct
line along the Mincio as far as Grazio ; from thence
to Scorzarolo and Luzaua to the Po, from whence
the actual frontiers shall continue to form the limits
of Austria. The Emperor cf the French will hand
over (renzeUra) the ceded territory to the King of
Sardinia.

" Venetia shall form part of the Italian Confede-
ration, though remaining under the crown of the
Emperor of Austria.
" The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of
Modena return to their States, granting a general

amnesty.
" The two Emperors will ask the Holy Father to
introduce indispensable reforms into his States.
" A full and complete amnesty is granted on both
sides to persons compromised in the late events in
the territories of the belligerent parties.
"Done at Villafranca, the 11th July, 1859."

BERNE, JULY 26.

The conference of the three Powers, France,
Austria, and Piedmont, will most likely take place
at Zurich, at the end of July, and be probably of