The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-04 00:00:00

RAILWAY IN2'ELLIGENCE.

Annexed is an abstract of the railway intelligence
of the week :—At a meeting of the Scottish Central
the proposed dividend at the reduced rate of 51 per
cent. per annum was declared. The reduction has
been caused by the commercial depression, which,
however, had not been felt by the Scottish Central
until the commencement of the .past half-year.
The traffic is said to be now rapidly increasing,
especially in goods, The report of the Ottoman
(Smyrna to Aidin) states that the works are being
prosecuted with vigour. In St. Ann's Valley an
unexpected landslip has caused some delay, but
after great exertion the difficulty has been over-
come. Partly from this mishap and partly from the
rainy season the line is not so forward as had been
hoped. The directors are taking measures to have
the company replaced on the Stock-Exchange. The
balance of the receipts of the Forth and Clyde for
.the half-year ending in January amounts to £3,894,
and, after providing for interest on debentures and
preference stock, a distribution on the ordinary
capital is recommended at the rate of 21 per cent.
per annum. At a meeting of the Cape Town it
was announced that since the last meeting im-
portant and satisfactory amendments have been
made in the agreement with the colonial Govern-
ment. The contract for the construction of the
railway from Cape Town to Wellington has been
concluded. The whole of the wgrks, exclusive of
rolling stock, but including the interest on the
shareholders' capital during construction, are to be
completed for £400,000 within two and a-half years
from last October. The prosperity of the colony
was said to be steadily increasing. The Epsom and
Leatherhead and Wimbledon and Dorking have
agreed to the construction of a new and indepen-
dent station at Epsom for joint use. The Welling-
ton and Severn Junction Railway is finished, and
will be opened in about a month. At a meeting of
the Scinde and Punjab it was announced that the
works on the former line are progressing satisfac-
torily, and that a small portion has been opened
from the town and camp of Kurrachee to the har-
bour. There are great hopes of the establishment
of a flax trade, the valley of the Indus being pecu-
liarly7Eh
esuitableGov ern m Government
th
r thea cultivationved etermi
determined of tohna t
expendingcrop. T he
trade in silk and cotton will also be considerable.
£lOO,OOO in the improvement of the harbour of
Kurrachee. On the Punjab line satisfactory pro-
gress is being made under native contractors. The
model vessels for the navigation of the Indus have
succeeded beyond anticipation. The construction
of the South Wales mineral line is proceeding
steadily, and the western section from the tunnel
to the docks will be opened in the autumn. The
report of the Illinois Central states that the working
expenses in the year 1858 show a saving; compared
with 1857, of 21 per cent. There has been a falling
off in the traffic, from the failure of the harvest and
the commercial crisis, of £62,500, of which only
£9,000 was in the local business. The floating
debt has been reduced to £89,000. Satisfactory
explanations have passed between the directors and
Mr. Cobden, a member of the English committee.
A loan of £150,000 has been negotiated in London.

THE LATE MR. ALDERMAN ANDREWS,

OF SOUTHAMPTON.

The remains of the late Mr. Richard Andrews
were interred in the cemetery on Saturday after-
noon, amid demonstrations of regret by thousands
of the inhabitants, who accompanied the corpse to
its last resting place. The funeral procession,
which was of great length, left the private resi-
dence of the deceased in Portland-street at two
o'clock, and passed through crowded streets, nearly
every shop having its shutters closed, and flags
floating at half-mast from the public and private
buildings in the town. The whole of the men and
boys employed in his carriage factory walked at the
head of the procession, three abreast, 12 of the men
who had been in his employ 29 years accompanying
the hearse, and acting as pall-bearers as the cortege
passed through the cemetery grounds. The mayor,
magistrates, aldermen, councillors, and public
officials attended in mourning coaches, and a large
number of the inhabitants followed in carriages,
succeeded by a numerous body of the members of
the Odd Fellows, Foresters, and other provident
societies (of which Mr. Andrews was a warm friend
and supporter), the whole attired in plain mourn-
ing. Despite the unfavourable state of the weather
there were thousands of people in the cemetery, and
the sorrow which sat upon every countenance
marked the extent of the loss sustained in the death
of this remarkable man. All the evening the bells
of the parish churches rang muffled peals. Mr.
Andrews, who was in the 61st year of his age, died
,sn the previous Monday morning, after four or five
months' severe and painful illness. Born in a
humble village of Hampshire, on the 18th of De-
cember, 1798, the first years of his life were
passed in obscurity and poverty, working as a
farm lad at 3d. a day, from 9 to 12 years of age ;
then getting employ as a sawyer, next as a
blacksmith, but always with aspirations for some-
thing better. In 1821 he came to Southampton
with half-a-crown in his pocket (the sum total
of his earthly property), and got work as a
journeyman coachmaker in Mr. Jones's factory,
where he was employed for seven years, when,
with the money saved during that period from his
wages, he started in business in an humble way on
his own account. From that time his course was
onward rind upward, his indomitable energy, inte-
grity, and industry, carving out for himself a posi-
tion of wealth and honour as a tradesman and a
name and a reputation for public spirit which will
long survive him. He successively served the offices
of Town Councillor, Alderman, Sheriff, Mayor (five
times), and Magistrate of the borough. He was
always firm and faithful to his principles, but con-
ciliated and made fast friends of those who con-
scientiously differed from him. As a tradesman he
became the leading coachmaker in the South of
England, building carriages for the Queen and
most of our nobility, and sending specimens of his
manufacture to every part of the world. He has
left a widow and two sons.

LORD CAMPBELL ON MARRIAGE WITH A DE-
CEASED WIFE'S SISTER.—Lord Campbell writes to the
Scotsman, regretting that his judicial duties on the Midland
Circuit prevented his being present at the debate in the
House of Lords on the second reading of the bill for legalis-
ing marriages between widowers and the sisters of their
deceased wives. His lordship says :—" I should have been
proud during the debate to have proclaimed the abhorrence
with which almost universally this innovation is viewed in
my native country. Although Scotland was not included
in the bill, Scotland did well to petition against it ; for an
additional objection to it was that it proposed to establish
a different law as to the essentials of the marriage con-
tract in different parts of the United Kingdom, and if the
bill were to pass, Scotland could not long maintain her
existing cherished law against incestuous marriages which
I believe to be agreeable to Scripture, which is sanctioned
by the Confession of Faith, and by a Scottish act of Par-
liament, and which is so highly conducive to the purity
and happiness of domestic life."

It will be remembered that our journal was
amongst the first to give-its warm support to the
London Public Reading Society, of which Mr.
Bellew is one of the most distinguished members ;
and if any one wishes now to see the extent of the
attraction that lies in public reading, and would
desire to know in some measure how far this intel-
lectual amusement may be made anlnstrutnent of
good among the masses, we say, attend Mr.
Bellew's next Reading on behalf of the same
object, at St. Martin's Ilan, on the 13th instant,
and learn what a charm this art possesses, alike
over minds cultivatedand uncultivated.

THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF WALTER

WATTS.

But £2OO a year would not pay for young Watts'
gloves and cigars, much less his town house and
his country house, his carriages and horses, his
opera box, his banquets, and his hundred other
sources of expenditure, to say nothing of his thea-
trical speculation. He was a young man of great
discernment, quick apprehension, and not over
burdened with moral principle. e found, in the
conduct of the financial affairs of the Globe Assurance
Company, an inexcusably lax system, which his in-
genious mind saw might be made conducive to his own
pecuniary profit ; and, after some short consideration,
he proceeded to turn it to account. His position gave
him access to the most valuable of the books—the
cheque-books and the banker's books; and, by a
system artfully conducted, he fraudulemtly obtained
funds which, by passing through his own bankers,
lulled suspicion, and was, after all, only through a
comparative accident discovered, though his expen-
sive style of living, and his heavy theatrical en-
gagements which it was well known could only be
conducted at a large sacrifice, should have long
before attracted the notice of the directors, and led
to the proper and necessary investigation. The
City life of Walter Watts merged more in the
duties of his office, where from ten till four he was
supposed to be following the ordinary routine of
official responsibility. His attendance, though
punctual, involved no heavy labour ; it was mere
check work, which, from the loose system adopted,
resolved itself into no check at all, and consequently
he had the greater time and opportunity to arrange
the preliminaries of those frauds which he subse-
quently followed out with so large a share of tem-
porary success. These he no doubt at first perfected
by a slow and gradual process ; but confidence once
attained by the ease with which he arranged his
malpractices, induced the perpetration of frauds
which, originally commencing with hundreds of
pounds, eventually terminated by turning those
hundreds into thousands. His City life over, he
frequented his West-end haunts, and divided his
attention between sporting and other gay amuse-
ments, until he launched into that adventurous
career as lessee of two theatres, having first adopted
the Marylebone,And after the well-known " neat
little house" in Wych-street.—Facts, Failures, and
Frauds.