The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-24 00:00:00

TliE SUN, •.LON.DOIN, THURSOAY EVENING-, MAY 24, 1866.

a robbery, which was immediately made good out of
the reserve.

Mr. OSBORNE said he was co-operating with Mr.
Sheppard with a view to establish the new company.
If by any means they could preserve the goodwill
it would be of great value to those who subscribed
to the new company. The £200,000 a year would
be worth having. He had no information to give
them as to the affairs of the company. They were
at present in the hands of Messrs. Coleman, Tur-
quand, and Youngs, and so soon as a statement
could 'be prepared it would be submitted by the
liquidators to the shareholders.
Several shareholders asked for more information
to enable them to decide as to what course they
should pursue.
Mr. HOARE said he would go and ask the liqui-
dators any question the shareholders wished
answered. He knew that it had been a most suc-
cessful business, and Mr. Gurney had told him a
short time before the business stopped that he pro-
posed the dividend should be 7 per cent., that
£50,000 should be paid off for goodwill, and after
that to put aside a very considerable reserve. But
the pressure of depositors put an end to the possi-
bility of going on, and he felt certain that no more
information as to their affairs could be obtained at
present. [A Voice—" Why not reorganise the old
company ?"] He thought that was utterly impos-
sible. Mr. Gurney was ready to assist them if a
strong company could be formed for the purpose
mentioned.
After some further observations,

Mr. SEER said he had come up from the country
that morning, and felt much obliged to Mr. Hoare
and other gentlemen for their suggestions, but his
view was that if £lO or £l5 a share were wanted to
resuscitate the company he was sure it would be
forthcoming, and he for one would gladly pay it.
(Hear, hear.) The concern was only stranded, and
it only required sufficient capital to float it again.
(Loud and continued cheers.) He then moved that
in the present state of their information it was not
expedient to launch a new company.
The motion was seconded.

Mr. SHEPPARD said he had anticipated that view,
and had prepared a resolution for that purpose, but,
after reading it, Mr. Seer said he preferred his own
resolution.

Mr.' KINGSCOTE said he had told Mr. Sheppard
that he did not know what was hanging over them,
but thought it quite possible to revive the business.
The subscribed capital of the company was
£5,000,000, of which £1,500,000 had been paid up,
leaving £3,500,000 to call up. The liabilities were
£20,000,000, of which £12,000,000 were on call
and notice, and £8,000,000 on deposit of securities.
They had taken over £2, 800,000 from the original
firm, secured in various ways, £500,000 of which
could be realised in six months, and £500,000 more
in 12 months, consisting of £300,000 liabilities of
public companies, and £200,000 on ships, &c.,
making £1,000,000 realizable in one year. He pro-
posed that a call of £5 a share should be made,
which would give them £500,000, and they would
realise £500,000 out of the other assets, making
another £1,000,000. He proposed that they should
immediately raise £2,000,000 on loan' for one or
two years, and, with a view to carry on the business,
to make a further call of £2 10s. per share. This
would give them £250,000. The shareholders had
given £500,000 for the goodwill, they had
£2,800,000 dead weight to meet and realise, and
they had no capital to do it with. They were
£1,300,000 worse than nothing, so that with the
first difficulty they must fall. It was silly to go on
in that way, and perfectly natural that such a result
should follow. They had £2,800,000 locked up to
Irgin with. By getting a few leading bankers to
manage their affairs and take matters in hand, with
something like what he proposed, they might go on
again and preserve their property, but if they did
not do that perhaps £lO or £l5 a share would have
to be paid to wind-up the concern, while, on the
other hand, it would require only a call of £7 10s.
to revive the business and to go on.
Mr. CIIOSBIE thought it much better to call up
£lO a share at once to start the old business than to
start a new company. (Cheers.) They- had no
business in the Court of Chancery ; the directors
should have made calls—even raise new capital on
preference shares rather than remain as they were.
(Cheers.)
A very long discussion then ensued, and various
propositions were made, which resulted in a resolu-
tion to the effect that the meeting be adjourned to
enable Mr. Kingscote to select a committee of seven
shareholders, including himself as chairman, to make
inquiries and take such steps as might be expedient
for resuscitating the company, five to be a quorum,
and to report the result as soon as possible.

It was agreed that no member of the Stock Ex-
change would be placed on the committee.
Thanks were voted to Mr. Hoare and Mr. Shop-
pard for their exertions, and a resolution requesting
the directors to call a meeting of the company as
soon as possible was carried unanimously.
The proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks
1 to the chairman.

was 201 b., the pressure of the steam in the boilers
16.251 b., and the vacuum in the condensers 24.33 in.
Two runs were made at half-boiler power, with a
maximum of 47 revolutions of the engines, and a
mean of 45.5, giving an average of 8.329 knots an
hour. The engines stopped from the time of
moving the telegraph in 21 seconds, started ahead
in 10 seconds, and astern in 17 seconds. The
draught of water forward was 17ft. 10in. and aft
20ft. The direction of the wind east, the force 6 to
7. The ship was fully rigged for sea, having 230
tons of coals on board. She is fitted with a Smith's
propeller, with the leading corners cut off, the
diameter being 16ft., the pitch 23ft. 6in., length,
3ft, and immersion of the upper edge lft. 4in. The
engines worked very satisfactorily, without hot
bearings, the boilers generated a good supply of
steam without priming, and so far as the machinery
is concerned the vessel is certified as being fit for
sea.

Her Majesty's 4-gun screw steam-vessel Sylvia,
recently built at Pembroke-yard, and commissioned
by Capt. Mayre for surveying purposes, has been
brought up to Woolwich by Commander Spain and
a crew of riggers and stokers from Devonport, to be
completed for service.

The double-screw iron and wood gunboat Vixen,
of 754 tons, and 160-horse power, and the Viper,
737 tons, and similar horse-power engines, built by
Mr. Charles Lungley, at Poplar, andnow in progress
of completion for commission at Woolwich, are or-
dered to be out of the shipbuilder's hands of the
yard without delay.
The iron paddlewheel vessel Antelope, at Wool-
wich, having undergone a thorough refit to hull and
machinery, is ordered to be prepared for immediate
commission, as also are the 17-gun sloops Chan-
ticleer and Zebra, both vessels being in a forward
state, and about to be undocked at Woolwich.
The last-named vessels were employed on the
Mediterranean station, where they will probably
return on being re-commissioned. They will leave
Woolwich as well fitted for service as if new.

The boiler made some time ago in the factory of
Woolwich dockyard after the designs of Mr.
Richardson, to test the practicability of burning
petroleum for steam purposes, on Tuesday had four
fires made under it, keeping up a powerful supply
of steam throughout the day for the special inspec-
tion of Capt. W. Edmonstone, C. 8., A.D.C. to the
Queen, and recently appointed superintendent of
the yard. The boiler, which appears to have been
built on too confined a compass to exhibit the full
effect which it is proved can be produced by petro-
leum fires, has been fitted with tubes for super-
heating the steam and consuming its smoke. It
appears, notwithstanding its small dimensions, to
have yielded a satisfactory result, and the general
opinion is that a very short time must elaspe before
it will become the aclknowledged and universal steam
fuel for marine and other locomotive engines. The
small labour necessary for lighting and keeping up
the fires will render the duties of the stokers very
light.
The Italian screw' corvette Principessa Clotilde,
20 guns, 400-horse power, Capt. Paoli Caselli, three
days from Brest, on a cruise, put into Spithead yes-
terday morning to take in a supply of coal. On
anchoring at Spithead- the Principessa Clotilde ex-
changed salutes with the main battery of Ports-
mouth garrison, and with her Majesty's ship Vic-
tory, Capt. the lion. T. Egerton, C. 8., the flag-
ship of the naval commander-in-chief, Vice-Admi-
ral Sir Thomas S. Pasley. The corvette is an
unarmoured wooden. vessel, something nearly akin
to our own Racoon class. In approaching the Isle
of Wight from the Channel she fell in with a dense
fog,: and struck the ground once heavily off St.
Catherine's, but she is-believed to have sustained no
damage.

The Liverpool, 34, screw frigate, Captain John
Seccombe, steamed out of Portsmouth yesterday to
Spithead, on the completion of her repairs and refit,
and in passing through the harbour entrance chan-
nel exchanged the customary salutes with the naval
commander-in-chief. Previous to anchoring at
Spithead the Liverpool made a trial of her machi-
nery down the west channel.
The invalided troops brought home from India,
in the ship Newcastle, as reported in The Sun of
yesterday, were disembarked from the ship yester-
day, at Spithead, and transferred by a Government
steamer to the Royal Victoria military hospital at
Netley. The Newcastle was to sail from Spithead,
for London, last evening, on the turn of the tide.

Major-Gen. A. B. Stransham, Inspector-Gen. of
the Royal Marine Light Infantry, accompanied by
his aide-de-camp, Capt. J. C. Travers, arrived at
the head-quarters of the Chatham division late on
Tuesday evening for , the purpose of resuming Ws
summer inspection of the battalion of Royal Ma-
rines, in which he had been occupied a few days
previously. Shortly after his arrival at head-
quarters, where he was received by Col.-Comman-
dant J. 0. Travers, C. 8., and the officers of the
divisional staff, Gen. Stranshamvisited the gun-shed
battery, where the non-commissioned officers and
men of the division were undergoing a course of in-
struction in the use of heavy ships' guns, under the
direction of Capt. E. A. Wilde, the instructor in
gunnery to the division. After spending some time
in seeing the detachment exercised in manoeuvring,
loading, training, and firing the guns, General
Stransham returned to the Royal Marine Barracks,
where he inspected the books of the battalion. In
the evening a banquet was given by the officers of
the division to Major-Gen. Stransham, Vice-Ad-
miral Sir B. W. Walker, Naval Commander-in-
Chief, Major-Gen. Sir Robert Walpole, K.C.8.,
and other officers were present.
An order has been received at Chatham garrison
directing the following detachments to be held in
readiness to embark at, Gravesend for India as soon
as the necessary tonnage has been taken up by the
Government, to augment the troops serving in the
three Presidencies—viz., 3 officers and 60 non-com-
missioned officers and men of the Ist battalion of
4th King's Own Royals, 1 officer and 35 men of all
ranks of the Ist battalion 19th Regiment, 2 officers
and 110 non-commissioned officers and men of the
77th Regiment, and 2 officers of the 102 d Royal
Madras Fusiliers.

By orders received at Colchester from the Horse
Guards the undermentioned draughts are held in
readiness to embark for India :—For Bengal-41st
Regiment, 52 rank and file ; 38th, Capt. Caldecott,
Lieut. Sinclair, Ensign Conner, and 100 rank and
file ; 82d, Capt. Spencer, Ensign Dixon, and 40
rank and file. For Bombay-49th Regiment, En-
sign Mayne, 1 sergeant, and 38 rank and file ; 103 d,
Capt. Taylor. For Madras-Ist battalion Ist Regi-
ment, Capt. Steer, Lieut. Keith, Ensign Booth, and
76 rank and file. A draught of the Ist battalion
16th Regiment, consisting of 1 officer, 82 rank and
file, 1 woman, and 2 children, embark at Liverpool
to-day. Lieut. Reeves, of the 103 d Regiment, has
been ordered to join the depot at Colchester.

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US iznifationo•

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS..

-

TIMES.—The House of Commons will return to-
day to the humbling conviction that life is made up
of little things. On the notice paper there are 25
orders of the day, relating to as many bills in pro-
gress, though the bills, public as well as private,
that have become the law of the land since the be-
ginning of the session already mount up to a consi-
derable aggregate. Several subjects of importance
are now occupying the public mind, among them
the reconstruction of our own constitutional basis
and the projected Congress for the rearrangement
of Europe; but to-day the elephant is notlaunching
a ship or tearing up trees by the roots ; it is picking
up sixpences and cracking nuts. Here is the pro-
gramme for this evening's entertainment :—Cus-
toms and Inland Revenue, Terminable Annuities,
Commons near London, Local Government, Belfast
Constabulary, Reformatory Schools, Industrial
ditto, Nuisances, Solicitor to the Treasury,
Companies Acts, Ways and Means, Labouring
Classes Dwellings (Ireland), Naval Savings-banks,
Lunacy Acts (Scotland), Pier and Harbour Orders,
two bills about Fishery Piers and Harbours
(Ireland), Railway Companies Securities, Railway
Clauses, Bankruptcy Law, Merchant Shipping Act,
Poor Law Officers' Superannuation Returning
Officers, Tramways (Ireland), Railway Debentures
Registry. Upon these, and other bills, as well as
upon other subjects of passing interest, there are
notices of motions. There is at least variety in the
entertainment, though we could imagine men with
a craving for the grand and the heroic feeling much
like an Englishman at the table of a second-rate
German inn, spread with a crowd of small, sus-
picious, and unintelligible di.9.hes. However, all
these bills require care. Every one of them, if
passed heedlessly, might make a leak in the Exche-
quer, or take away the liberty of the subject, or be
a means of extortion or an engine of oppression, or
become simply waste paper. The British Parlia-
ment has to pay the cost of its jealousy, and it is a
very jealous body. It will insist on doing every-
thing, as it were, with its own hand, or at least
standing by. Accordingly, if there is a mistake in
a bill—and there never was a -bill without mis-
takes of one sort or another—it must wait for a
new bill, to be corrected. Before a twelvemonth is
over the lawyers will 136 pronouncing many of these
bills a folly and an absurdity, if not worse. There
is no help for it, for no human intelligence can fore-
see all the difficulties which a law will not only have
to encounter, but will even raise in its own way.
To the uninitiated mind it certainly does occur that
a great number of public objects, very similar in
all respects, might be met by general laws ; and,
also, that every power given by law must presup-
pose an authority capable of applying the law, and
competent powers for every means and every pro-
cess necessary to its execution. Butthe British Par-
liament consistently and steadily refuses to put a
law on its legs in this fashion and let it run alone.
What a fuss we have had about Enclosures and the
reservation of Commons for public recreation. But
there must be something special for the metropolis.
We have always prided ourselves on the possession
of local. government, but it is by act of Parliament
nevertheless, and by 50 acts, and there must now
be a supplementary bill ; aye, No. 2 of this session.
There is now a constabulary everywhere, so we
thought ; but there must be a special act for Bel-
fast. There are Reformatory and Industrial Schools
on every line, and every branch of a line out of
London ; but the institution wants its annual re-
pair, and here are bills for the purpose. Parlia-
ment has been labouring to remove nuisances, ever
since we remember; but "new brooms sweep clean,"
and here is a new one for the parish housemaid.
The " Companies Act" is four years old ! It must
be mended. So on of all the bills before us. Every
one of them is the tenth amendment, or the twentieth
supplement, or the thirtieth superaddition, on the
hundredth variety, of some measure once thought
sufficient for the day. There are always exceptional
circumstances, and Parliament insist in keeping
them all within its own cognizance. The Act that
did for a fishing pier in One, village shall not do
for its neighbour on the opposite shore cf the bay.
The pier No. 2 is for different fish, or larger boats,
or a current the other way ; or the land is in a dif-
ferent kind of holding ; or the opposite inhabitants,
being certain to put different constructions on the
same Act, must have different Acts ; or there are.
two sets of officers, and it will be impossible to find
places for them, except under different bills. We
submit' to all this, and accept it. We cannot call it
the reign of King Log, for it makes plenty of small
agitation, and we are kept in a continual ruffle,
though it sometimes degenerates into a muddle. An
absolutism to settle all these trifles would be a King
Stork, who would soon finish up our troubles, and
us with them. What we have to do is to redeem
legislation from its continual pettiness, to brush away
the flies, and raise a subject here and there into the
higher relief it may deserve. As a matter of taste,
pleasure, and convenience, one thing is worth more
than half-a-dozen even if they can be proved an equal
quantity ; and we would rather have to deal with
two or three matters at once than with six times their
number. The first Order or the Day in the list before
us comprises a little world of fiscal reductions, in-
volving half-a-dozen controversies, unless, indeed,
we are simply to leave everything to the Chancellor
-of the Exchequer, as the man who must know all
about it. The interest of the promised reductions
has almost disappeared in their number, for they are
grouped in about the same quantity, the same va-
riety, and the same absence of natural connexion as
the groups of boroughs in the Redistribution Bill.
We have been told, of course, that some of the re-
missions have been promised to the Austrian Go-
vernment, and the matter thus virtually taken out
of the hands of Parliament, It is a new dectrine
and a new mode of conducting public business, but
we will say nothing about it now, for our present
purpose is to deprecate all small ways of doing
things. For various reasons, we have about the
oldest combination of fiscal booms that the most
capricious fancy could have devised, the remission
of timber duties, special duties on wine in bottle,
the duty on pepper, and those on stage carriages
and post horses. The reduction on stage carriages
is from Id. to id. a mile. Why so much, if not
more ? Why touch the duty at all this year, if it is
necessary to leave a quarter of it? On the face of
the budget, however, it appears that if we could
endure to have our pepper still taxed, we might be
allowed to use omnibuses and post horses untaxed.
The claims of pepper to consideration are, we con-
fess, new to us ?_ Is there some adulteration or sub-
stitute, still 'more deleterious than pepper itself,
which has to be driven out of the market ? Is pep-
per too dear? Is it used too thriftily in economical
households ? Our own experience is the other way,
for if there is one thing which we should have thought
to abound in every indifferent kitchen and to lie in
handfuls all round the village cook, it is pepper,
which must be the general succedaneum for all other
defects, and the charity that covers a multitude of
bad flavours. Nor are we aware thatit is used more
in Ireland than in England. It is easy to do with-
out pepper, not so easy to do without public con-
veyances. But this is a large question, and for that
reason we would wish to take it as a whole, and so
consult the dignity of Parliament. Is not locomo-
tion so general a necessity in this country that, as
far as it is necessary, it should be untaxed ? It is
a necessity for many to live in the country without
more than one or two neighbours within walking dis-
tance. Nay, many ladies, who do plenty of work
too, cannot walk a mile, or ought not. It is a neces-
sity for many to spend their hours of business in
the metropolis, and the rest of their time in the
suburbs, or further off. It is a necessity to many to
be always on the move, and almost to live on the
rail or the box. It is a necessity for many to live in
one part of this metropolis and go to another for
work. The Legislature is now assuming that we
must have working men's villages miles from their
day's work. It is necessary to many to travel for
health. The law gives many indulgences to classes
and trades, and to particular kinds of vehicles, and
the result is that all over the kingdom you meet
every half-mile a light trap or spring cart rattling
along the road at a good pace, carrying a couple of
robust, jolly, red-faced fellows, on some small busi-
ness errand or other for themselves or a master, and
stopping occasionally at a publichouse, while women
of almost all ranks of village life, including the cler-
gyman's wife, are seen toiling on foot, with heavy
baskets and parcels, in the sun or the rain. Locomo-
tion in this country is very costly, not very comfort-
able, and full of most invidious distinctions. Our
ordinary railway trains are costly; the " parliamen-
tary" most wickedly inconvenient and uncomfort-
able. The great majority of our omnibuses and cabs
are the worst to be found in Europe. An ordinary
four wheeler—that is, a wooden box placed on four
wheels, with the intervention of four pieces of iron
work, called springs—may perhaps save a man 10
or 20 minutes in the distance between Hyde-park-
corner and the City, yet it will take more out of him
than if he did it on foot. The excuse is that the
legal fare is low, the expenses are great, and the
taxation is heavy. So the man who must be often
traversing London, and who cannot afford an easy
brougham with a swift and sure-stepping horse,
must either walk or contribute to the Exchequer
battered nerves, stiffened joints, aching bones, and
softened brains by the use of cheap and highly taxed
conveyances: If these were untaxed and left en-
tirely free to public ingenuity and enterprise, there
are many conceivable modifications of the existing
street traffic—such as different kinds of conveyances
for different rates of desired speed and different
degrees of human robustness and corporeal endur-
ance. We confess we care more for smooth and
expeditious carriages than we do for cheap pepper,
and while we rather prefer soup that does not set

one gasping almost before it has reached the mouth,
we also prefer to feel quite sure that one's own bones
are not being disjointed in a street cab.. Is pepper
a necessity ? Is locomotion not a necessity ? So,
why is the former tax to be taken away and the
latter left on ? We presume there is some sort of
answer to this question.

POST.—The Cabinets of London, Paris, and St.
Petersburg are now making a final attempt to induce
the two Great German Powers and Italy to arrange
their differences without an appeal to arms. Whether
they will accede to the proffered request, and send
their representatives to a Congress at Paris, is suffi-
ciently doubtful ; but whether, in the event of their
doing so, the deliberations of the assembled diplo-
matists would lead to the desired result, is more
doubtful still. On the one side, as was justly ob-
served in a French semi-official journal the other
day, France and England and Russia are not likely
to engage in a negotiation without a reasonable
expectation of being able to carry it to a favourable
issue; whilst, on the other, the difficulties in the way
of devising some arrangement which would prove
satisfactory to all parties seem to be insuperable.
That the rival Powers will express their willingness
to take part in a Congress is not improbable. A
readiness to talk a matter over is not incompatible
with a fixed determination to pursue a specific
course, whilst an expressed willingness to enter on a
discussion is accepted by the multitude as_evidence
of being amenable to the powers of persuasion.
The bases of the Congress would necessarily be
sketched out beforehand; but, although the future
destiny of Venetia and of the Danish Duchies might
be made an open question, that circumstances would
not in itself render it impossible for Austria or
Prussia to take part in the deliberations. Every-
thing in this world has its price, and it is not be-
yond the boun 3s of possibility that some equivalent
might be found which would be accepted by Austria
for Venetia, or some inducement successfully held
out to Prussia to abandon the fruits of her recent
victory over Denmark. At all events, the German
Powers might be willing to hear everything which
could be advanced on these interesting topics with-
out prejudice to any steps they might subsequently
think proper to take to enforce their own views. It
is, as we remarked a few days since, a somewhat
novel experiment to endeavour to supersede armies
by diplomatists when the question at issue is one of
a repartition of territory. Its novelty constitutes,
however, no real objection if it promises to be suc-
cessful. The utter barrenness of the deliberations
of the Conference assembled in London during the
Dano-German war, necessarily, however, leads us to
regard in no very sanguine spirit the probable re-
sults of the labours of a Congress which will meet
under very similar circumstances. In some particu-
lars, however, this notion of arranging the differ-
ences of nations at a council table is deserving of
notice, and the historians of the latter half of the
present century will unquestionably chronicle its
origin as one of the distinguishing characteristics of
the times in which we live. When Grotius wrote his
celebrated work on the jural obligations existing be-
tween nations in time of war and of peace, the fun-
damental principle on which his system of jurispru-
dence rested, namely, that independent States are
members of one entire family, was scarcely under-
stood. Nations then, and indeed from the earliest
times, were in the habit of forming alliances for the
purpose of overpowering a common enemy, or for
the sake of mutual protection, but except when di-
rectly interested they rarely troubled themselves
about the quarrels of their neighbours. Since the
growth of international law into a science, and more
especially during the past quarter of a century, na-
tions even the most distant have become so closely
united that the effects of a blow struck against one
are felt in a greater or less degree by all, and the
motives for averting such a blow have become in a
proportionate degree shared in by a large number of
States. The discovery of steam, the construction of
a gigantic system of railways, which seems to set
frontier lines at defiance ; the establishment almost
universally of a free-trade policy, with the conse-
quent extinction of all those petty jealousies which
even in times of peace induced the best disposed
nations to regard each other with aversion and dis-
like—all these causes have contributed to render the
union between different States not merely nominal,
but real. To this, we think, must in some degree
be attributed the growing anxiety of nations to in-
terpose when any breach of the peace is threatened ;
whilst, on the other hand, the circumstance that
wars have become much more costly than in earlier
times induces them to endeavour to secure their ends
by moral instead of by physical force. Whether the
new mode of procedure is likely to be as successful
as the old one may, however, fairly be questioned.
During the late Polish insurrection England, France,
and Austria tried the effect of persuasion and in-
timidation with singularly unfortunate results, and
we all recollect how idle were the protests of Great
Britain against the spoliation of Denmark, and how
futile the attempts made by the representatives of
France, Great Britain, and Russia, in Conference
assembled, to secure for that kingdom the undis-
puted possession of its own territory. It may be
very creditable to the age in which we live that when
public order is threatened those which may be termed
neutral States appeal to moral .force; but neverthe-
less it must be confessed that up to the present the
disciples of the new school have got very much the
worst of it. Some persons may even be pardoned
for questioning not only the possible success of their
appeals, but the expediency of attempting by
the ordinary modes of persuasion to induce States
to desist from wrongful acts. If one individual of
a community threatens another violence if he will
not consent to part with his property, we should
think very little of the system of jurisprudence
which, instead of visiting the offender with condign
punishment, devised some mode by which he might
secure the object of his wishes without being com-
pelled to commit a breach of the peace. Yet this is
very much what England, France, and Russia are
endeavouring at the present moment to do. Prussia
desires, in defiance of the wishes of every nation in
the world, German or otherwise, to incorporate the
Danish Duchies in her territory, and the intervening
Powers are casting about to discover some means
by which this desire can be gratified without any
trial of strength between those who are by virtue of
a treaty, as well as by right of conquest, the joint
owners of the coveted dominions. Italy has no cause
of quarrel with Austria, but she desires to repossess
herself of Venetia, from which she had parted for
half a century, and one of the duties of the proposed
Congress will be to determine the manner in which
this desire can be gratified without effusion of blood.
We confess we do not exactly see where all this is
to stop, if it becomes once understood that it is only
necessary for one State to threaten another with an
aggressive war in order to secure a Congress, not
only for the settlement of the pending dispute, but
for that of numerous others which become inciden-
tal thereto. This is the second Conference which
Prussia, by, her inordinate love of conquest, has ne-
cessitated during the past two years.

Opening of Tumuli on the Yorkshire Moors.

The range of oolitic hills separating the deep glen of
Troutsdalo from the valley of the Derwent is one of the
highest ridges of the Yorkshire moors, and abounds with
tumuli, the greater part of which had been ransacked by
mere curiosity hunters before attention was properly paid
to the remains of the early inhabitants of our country.
Some barrows, however, remain in this district wholly or
in part untouched; and among these, on the estates of the
Rev. Charles Hooper Shebbeare, the Rev. Wm. Greenwell,
of Durham, has on several occasions made careful exami-
nations, with a view to the historical illustration of the
pre-historic occupants of the country. Of these, three bar-
rows on Wykeham Moor are known as "the Tremblers,',
and on the southernmost of these the examinations wore
commenced. The howe is 98ft. diameter and lift. high,
formed of sand. About 16ft. from the outside and upon the
surface of the natural ground a circle of stones was found.
Outside this circle a trench was cut, and soon after com-
mencing a few fragments of British pottery were found
above the natural surface. These were scattered pieces such
as, associated with frequent chippings of flint and charcoal,
are commonly found in the materials of ancient grave-
hills. The first discovery of interest was made 25ft. from
the outside of the mound, and south-east of the centre.
This was a small cist, 2ft. by 13in., sft from the surface of
the barrow and 3ft. above the natural surface of the ground.
The cist was formed of four flags—a bottom one, two at
the sides, and a cover. In it was a small urn, lying on its
side, and full of the sand forming the howe. The " lip "
was of more than average width, and was ornamented with
three lines of impressed thong, the rim and other parts hav-
ing similar Ornamentation. No traces of bone nor any sign
of interment was found in or near the cist. About Bft.
from the centre, awl 4ft. above the natural surface, a quan-
tity of burned earth and charcoal was found, but nothing
more until the centre was reached, when 2ft. south-east of
it, 4ft below the'summit and 7ft. from the base, a bronze
dagger and beautiful flint knife were discovered lying
side by side, but unassociated with any sign of interment.
There is little doubt that both the bronze and the flint
belonged to the same person in whose honour tills mound
was raised; and we have, therefore, a valuable illustra-
tion of the contemporaneous use of bronze and stone. It
is a similar feature that no bronze arrow heads have
been found, while those of flint are numerous. It is pre-
sumed that during the high cultivation of the bronze
period stone implements were in common use, the poorer
people having no other. On digging down to the natural
surface of the ground, 7ft. directly beneath the dagger and,
knife and lift. below the summit of the barrow, the Primary
interment was found. The body had apparently been un-
burned, but the only remains presented the appearance of
a thin layer of dark matter, which felt greasy on being
rubbed in the hands, and which ti chemical analysis shows
has contained much animal matter. Among this black
matter was a sina4 fraiiment of tironze) so fa! 09Cayed as