The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-08 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

The Calcutta Englishman of Oct. 6 reports that—
"ln the produce market rather a better business
has been done. In the import market a better tone
is noticeable for piece goods, but scarcely any per-
ceptible advance in prices has taken place. In
the money-market no alteration has been made
in the Bank of Bengal's rates, but money is still
very easy in the open market at rates below those
current at the bank. In Government paper there
has been very little business doing, and prices have
a downward tendency. In exchange business has
been active for this mail, and rates have advanced.
For freights a fair amount of business has beendone
during the fortnight.
The Bombay Gazette of Oct. 13 states :
Our money-market has again been subject to depressing
influences during the fortnight, but the more favourable
intelligence from home has helped to check the uneasiness
arising from the suspension of the Asiatic Bank. The
stoppage of the Bombay branch of this bank was announced
on the 29th ult., and on the 11th inst. we were informedof
the closing of the London office and all the bank's branches.
There have been a few native failures in the interval since
our last, but the heaviest of those are now over; the posi-
tion of others will be to some extent improved by the re-
cent advance of cotton. The doaland for money cannot be
said to have materially increased. In Government Secu-
rities a steady business has been in progress. In exchange
rates have had a gradually advancing tendency during the
fortnight. A considerable amount of bank paper has been
bought by remitters. The market for imports opened
steadily on the close of last mail. An active business has
been done throughout the fortnight. During the past few
days there has certainly been a partial slackening in the
demand.

Anglo American Mining.

-- s-

Amongst the numerous indications of an ap-
proaching identity of feeling and interests between
Great Britain and America, we may reckon that of
the union of capital and skill in developing the
mineral resources of the latter country. We are
led to these remarks in consequence of having re-
ceived from a correspondent the first of a promised
series of articles upon the subject of American
mining and practical mineralogy.

The waiter very appropriately commences the
series with an article upon plumbago, or, as it is
popularly called, " black-lead," which he is in-
duced to do in consequence of the great revo-
lution he anticipates will result, both in
the Fine and industrial Arts, from the
introduction, to an illimitable extent, of this sub-
stance from the celebrated Ticonderoga mines of
Essex County, State of New York. When it is
considered, first, that the yield of pencil lead is at
present limited to one locality in England, a source
so vastly inferior to the demand that a fabulously
high price is obtained for it ; and, secondly, that
the Ticonderoga mines yield a quantity sufficient
for the requirements of the whole civilised world,
and that too of a quality which is absolutely secur-
ing for it a preference over all other sorts, it can
be no matter of surprise that ,the liveliest in-
terest is evinced in the prospect of its intro-
duction into the English market. Equally im-
portant is the fact that the other varieties ne-
cessary in stereotyping, electrotyping, and in the
fabrication of stoves, furnaces, crucibles, stove po-
and numerous sources
prospective, are to
olifshi,tsluebirnipclaotyifiligiecnot:npprocusentidts,
and
be obtained in vast abundance from the same loca-
tion of very superior quality. The latter feature
was most satisfactorily proved during the Exhibition
of 1861 by the display of numerous large masses in
the American Court, and has been more fully ver
fied by the importation into this country from time
to time since of specimens unequalled in bulk and
quality.

As, however, our readers will shortly be afforded
an apportunity of judging of the correctness of these
statements upon the issue of a prospectus of a com-
pany organised for the special puTnose of working
the mine in question, we will content ourselves
with referring them to the statistics contained
therein, and claim an attentive perusal of the articles
upon the subjects about to appear in our columns.
One remark, however, in conclusion, we cannot re-
frain from offering—it is this. The Ticonderoga
Golconda is at the present time, and leas been for a
long period, in active and highly successful opera-
tion, and we reiterate the sentiment with which we
started, that we look upon its introduction to the
notice of English investors as a means of ;furthering
the object prominent in the hearts of every well-
wisher of his country on either side of the, Atlantic
—a closer union amongst the members of the Anglo-
Saxon race.—Anglo-Anzerican Times.

THE LATE MISS MATILDA WRENCII.—Our obituary
a few days ago contained the announcement of the death of
a lady so quietly useful in her generation that it only
right that some notice of her life, labours, and character
should be taken. By birth and family connection :Miss
Wrench was English, but during the last 20 year.s the
greater partion of her time had been spent in Scotland ;
and while not confining her liberality to Scottish obj ects,
her energies and her possessions were largely devoted to
the advancement of the interests, spiritual and material, of
the people in our Western Highlands,
especially in Skye,
where she builc and endowed a school, and where her rue-
mory will long bo warmly cherished. She'has left transla-
tions which attest the extent of her scholarship and her ad-
mirable English style. Among these we may mention Nean-
der's "Life of St. Bernard," and portions of the very in-
teresting memoirs of her " Life and Times of Frederick
Perthes." For many years Miss Wrench was the honoured
associate and worthy successor of Mrs. Fry in visiting the
prisons of London, and striving by the power of female
sympathy and Christian truth to raise her fallen miters
from the depths in which they lay. Some record of this
portion of her life willbe found in a volume entitled "Visits
to Female Prisoners at Home and Abroad," published in
1852. In 1816, the year of dreadful famine in the High-
lands, Miss Wrench's warmest sympathies were rousod,
and as with her sympathy never remained a men, senti-
ment, she wrote and published an interesting narrative
called "The Highland Glen," by the' sale of which, small
as the work was, she was enabled to contribute a large sum
for the relief of the sufferers. Miss Wrench died at73owden,
in Selkirkshire, on the 18th of October.—Scotsmall-
:A young lady reprimanded her shoemaker• for not
following her directions respecting a pair of shoe s she had
ordered ; and,
among others, insisted that they were not
fellows Crispin
replied that he purposely made them so,
.
in order to oblige her, well knowing the modesty of her
disposition; and that she was not fond of fellows.