The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-07 00:00:00

SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.--(THIS DAY.)

COURT OF CHANCERY.
(Before the Lord Chutellor.)
DAVISON V. ROBINSON.

Plaintiff filed his bill to set aside a mortgage security for
£356 granted for a subsisting debt, but in contemplation of
bankruptcy.

The Lord Chancellor directed an issue to be tried last
circuit before Mr.. Justice Byles, but at the trial the prin•
cipal witnesses—the bankrupt and his brother—were not
examined..

His Lordship declined to dispose of the case'on the evi-
dence before him, and ordered the bankrupt and his brother,
and other witnesses, to appear in his Lordship's Court and
be publiclyexamined and cross-examined on the affidavits
produced and validity of the mortgage-deed in question, on
the first Tuesday of next term.

. .
(Before. Vice-Chancellor Kindersley.)
• • PETITION.-IN RE OURTIS.

The contention 'in this ease is between•the husband and
wife, separated by. divorce, for the custody of their children.
Both parties. claim the exclusive custody Of the, children—
the wife alleging cruelty on the part of the husband. The
case has occupied the attention of the Court several days.
Mr. Forsyth (of the law bar) is now being heard in reply.

POLICE. INTELLIGENCE.-(THIS DAY.

MANSION-HOUSE.

ROOM FOR THE FIRE ENGINE.—J. Ramsay was
charged with assaulting a police constable. It appeared
that last evening •fire broke out in St; Mary • Woolnoth
Church, Lombard-street, and that Sergeant Kibblewhite,
17, was - employed• to clear the road for the engines—that
there was a great crowd, and the officers had a most arduous
duty, as the people pressed close up to the church railings.
According to, the officer's statement the prisoner refused to
make way, and upon being remonstrated with created a
great disturbance, and assaulted the officer. Ile was then
taken into custody.

Mr. Ilraidwood said he knew there was a great crowd,
and that the fire brigade were always much obliged to the
officets for their exertions. Very frequently, were it not
for the energy of the police, many serious accidents weuld
occur. *

To answer this, Mr. Barclay, jun., chemist, of Little-
street, said that he witnessed the whole affair, and the
officer was solely to blame. In fact, the crowd was not so
dense as had been described. The officer seized hold of the
prisoner and flung 'him about like a shuttlecock. So much
did witness COnsidgr the officer in fault that he went to the
station-house and bailed the man out. Mr: Barclay added
that he had been very scurvily treated in the station-house.
He and some' more gentlemen who went to give evidence
had to wait *an hour and a half at that place for the in-
spector, and.were told that if they did not go away they,
too, would be locked up.
Another witness corroborated Mr. Barclay, and said that
he saw all that took'place in the crowd.
The Lord /oyor-7-How did you see through the crowd ?
Witness—l saw over the crowd.

The Lord Mayor—Well, you might have done so, as you
have the advantage over me. _

The Lord Maior said it was very kind Of the witnesses
to come up, but he was of opinion that the defendant was
liable. In this case of emergency the police had orders to
clear the road, and they were bound to use, if necessary,
gentle force: It is absolutely necessary that, in the case of
a fire, the officers Should not be obstructed. In this case
defendant had, putting the insult out of the question, re-
sisted the officer, and for this offence he would be fined 20s.
and costs. For the sake of humanity, in the case qf a fire,
the duty of bystanders should be to clear•the road for the
engines, and to assist the officers, as much valuable pro-
perty, and oven lives, might be lost. He . would add that
he believed the witnesses called by defendant had conscien-
tiously given their testimony.
The fine was paid.

Russia, Austria, and Sardinia have suspended specie
payments. Other States may follow before the war is
much older. How will these countries be affected, and
what is the influence likely to be exercised on ourselves and
other specie-paying nations P There are few points more
apt to give rise to ridiculous fancies. It is a common de-
lusion that a country in some way protects itself by re-
fusing to pay its debts in the precious metals, and in old
times the question used to be asked, If all other countries
suspend, how is England alone to go on discharging her
liabilities in cash ? To dispel all mystery on the matter it
is simply necessary to bear in mind that a suspension of
specie payments by any individual State is but a rough way
of confiscating the property of certain classes of its inhabit-
ants and of throwing additional taxation upon all. It is
merely a matter of internal arrangement, and can never in
the smallest degree affect the commercial intercourse of one
nation with another. There can be no such thing as a sus-
pension of payment in the foreign trade of any country. If
the Sardinian Government desire at this moment to buy a
certain quantity of iron in the London market, they must
pay for it just in the same manner as heretofore. We do
not make the contract for notes of the Bank of Turin,
but for a specified amount of gold or its equivalent to be
handed to us here. Hence, if every nation in the
world were to resort to an inconvertible currency,
it would have no operation whatever on the ge
neral current of our transactions. If they want any-
thing from us, they must find gold or its equivalent to
send in return, and if by the home discredit consequent
upon their proceedings they have induced their people to re-
sort to hoarding, and have thus increased the ordinary diffi-
culties of procuring it, that is their affair—not ours. The im-
possibility of a nation gaining anything by stopping payment
being thus obvious, what can be the inducement ? Nothing
but to evade its debts at the expense of certain classes, in-
stead of resorting to open taxation levied fairly upon all.
To the fundholder, the annuitant, the office-holder, and all
to whom the State are bound to make fixed payments it is
an announcement that 10, 20, or 50 per cent. (according to
the extent of the depreciation in the inconvertible notes as

compared with specie) will in future be impounded. It is
therefore confiscation, and nothing else. At the same time,
the State are enabled to use it as a most ruinous substitute

for raising loans. Every new issue of inconvertible paper
is precisely the same as a loan, since it represents a debt for
which the credit of the State is pledged. But it is always
contracted upon deplorable terms as compared with those
on which an honest loan might have been procured, because
the public have no security as to the extent to which it may
be carried, and have also been sufferers from the original
breach of contract, by which they were defrauded of the par
value of their dividends. And not only is its home credit
but also its foreign credit thus ruined, since although
it may apply for money in other markets, and offer

to guarantee that the dividends shall bo paid at all
times in hard cash, capitalists are apt to reason that
a State that has defrauded its own subjects may in time of
severe trial treat foreigners in a similar manner. It will
thus be seen that a suspension of specie payments, which
by almost every one on the Continent, and by not a few in
England, is considered a very natural and protective step
at the beginning of a war, is but a contrivance for extorting
funds from the people in a partial, covert, and ruinous man-
ner, and for raising forced loans in a way utterly destructive
of that credit upon the maintenance of which the power of
raising loans with economy solely depends. History shows
that inconvertible issues in times of war have usually been
carried to the point which terminates with beggary and re-
pudiation. Russia, France, Austria, and a number of other
States have each repudiated enormous national debts con-
tracted on the faith of Government notes. England alone
came out of the great war of the past generation without a
stain. Sir Robert Peel's Act of 1819, by providing for the
discharge of all our promises in full, repaired as far as pos-
sible the evils that had resulted from the ignorant and sui-
cidal folly of suspending cash payments • and, although by
writers of the school of Sir Archibald Alison that measure
is regarded as one that has ever since threatened our na-
tional existence, it is the cause of the English Three per
Cents. being at 90 while Europe is in a blaze, and of the
indomitable confidence which every man feels that, what-
ever perils may lie before us, we shall emerge from them at
last triumphant, not only as regards men, but money.—
Times.

THIS DAYS MARKETS.

COVENT GARDEN.

The supplies of fruit and vegetables aro moderately
extensive, and a fair average business is doing in them, as

follows :