The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-31 00:00:00

JUNE.

2. Marshal Radetsky, death of, at Milan.
8. Royal Britisb Bank : Government legal proceed-
ings commenced against directors, Stc.
9. India, Mutiny in : First intelligence of mutiny at
Meerut ; 3d Cavalry in open mutiny, disturbances at
Umballab,

10. North-Western Railway : Terrific conflagration
at the Camden Town goods station.
13. Royal British Bank : Capture of Humphrey
Brown.

17. Baptism of her Royal Highness the Princess
Beatrice at Buckingham Palace.
20. Royal British Bank : Arrest of Cameron, the
manager, at Lausanne.

22.-POwder-raills at Hounslow, fatal explosion at the.
—Viscountess Eversley died.
Transatlantic cable, arrival of the Niagara frigate
for the reception of the.
23. Chingford : Murder of Mrs. White.
25. Lord Alvanley died.
27 Victoria Cross, distribution of the (Order of
Valour), to soldiers and sailors by her Majesty in
Hyde-park.

29. Indian mutiny, express intelligence of mutiny of
native troops and horrible massacre of Europeans ; son
of the Emperor of Delhi proclaimed ; Delhi plundered
to the extent of 1,000,0001. sterling, &c.

JULY.
1. Vintry Ward, election of Mr. Gabriel as alder•
man of.

2. The Duke of Marlborough died.
Remarkable trial of Miss Smith, in Edinburgh,
for murder.
3. Earl of Mornington died.
8. Gold robbery of 2,000 sovereigns on board the
America, on clearing the Victoria (London) Docks.
Prince Napoleon, visit of ; arrival at Falmouth.
9. The Niger : Total loss of the African Royal mail
steam ship.
10. Madeline Smith : Conclusion of trial of, for the
murder of P. E. L'Angelier ; not guilty in reference to
intent to murder ; not proven on the other counts.
13. Mutiny in India : Further disaffection of troops ;
death of General Anson ; battle fought before Delhi.

Prince of Wales's visit to Chamouni • Intelligence
of his Royal Highness. -
12. Medijdie : The order of the oflicialiliet'of persons
upon whom conferred.
14. Execution of Captain Rogers, at ..11irkdale, for the
murder of a seaman on board his ship,
16. Lima, assassination of the British Minister at.
17. Indian mutiny : Haielock's marvellous victories ;
various successes of European troops ; new mutinies at
Dinapore, &o.
21. Indian mutiny : Temporary retreat of General
Havelock to Cawnpore ; intelligence from various
places.
24. Royal 13ritisk Bank in BAnkraptcy :—Meeting for
examination of the directors.
28. Fast-day—Proclamation for a day of national
humiliation, fasting, and prayei, on 7th proximo.
29. Indian mutiny : Government Dispatches—Delhi
not taken ; Naaa Sahib before Lucknow ; distress of the
besieged ; General Havelock waiting for reinforcements ;
several defeats of the rebels ; extension of the mutiny.
30. Havelock, C. 8., Colonel Henry, promoted to the
rank of major.general in the army, for his operations in
India.

Allen, Rear Admiral John, died.
Humiliation-day—Form of prayer
.to be used,
published.

OCTOBER.

1. Stnttgardt—liestingoftheEmperorofthe French,
and the Emperor of Russia,.&e.
Indian mutiny—Overland mail dispatches re-
ceived.
5. Humiliation Day, die Jews' service for the
8. Earl Fitzwilliam died.
7. Feet•day_and 4D„y
_otilationkl
9. Russian frigatetout ° '520 souls on board.
10. Waterloo Bridge, diroovery of the mutilated
body.

1$ Indian mutiny : Ninth victory of Gen. Havelock.
Further mutinies.

26. New York, commercial panic at. Suspension of
specie payments by the banks.
Indian mutiny : Delhi taken with the loss of 606
men, including 40 officers ; loss of the native troops
immense. _

Waterloo-bridge tragedy : Verdict of wilful murder
against some person or pereoas unknown.
30. Siam, arrival of the Princes of.
31. General Cavaignac, desth of.
NOVEMBER.
4. Great Eastern steam &hip partly launched, and
named " The Leviathan ;" terrible accident occurred to
five men.
5. Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duke of ; Presentation of
the freedom of the City of London to, together with a
magnificent sword. Banquet at the Mansion House
afterwards.
Mr. Mackay, death of : The " Bailie Nicol Jarvis"
of Sir 'Walter Scott.
9. Commercial failures in Liverpool, So.
Loss of the English sbipFrances ; 20 lives lost.
12. iancaMptuutrienye.i Ctohenfirnation of relief of Luck-
now ; capture of Delhi ; cleat's of Generals Nicholson
and Neill ;
chief wife ; his sons and a grandson shot.
of Delhi" and his
shot.
13. Commercial Panic : Important communication
from the government to the directors of the Bank of
England, authorising an incr,ased issue of bank.nutes.
Bank crisis in Scotland.
20. Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Banking Com-
pany, deputation from, refusol the assistance sought for
from the Bank of England of 100,0001., to sustain the
firm.

21. Frightful explosion atMayence.
23. Royal British Bank, proceedings in the Coact of
Qaeen's Bench against the directors.

DECEMBER.
1. Polish revolution, 27th anniversary of, celebrated ;
the 29th of November, having fallen on a Sunday.
3. Charles Hindley, Esq. death of.
S. Commercial failures,
12. Worcester Bank failure.
17. The Jeuffosse remarkable trial at Evreux.
19. Koenig, the celebrated cornet-a-piston player,
died

24. Lucknow relieved by Sir Colin Campbell, &a—
Brilliant sucoession of victories by the several officers in
command.

26. Dowager Countess Nelson died at Paris on the
22d inst.

28. Rear-Admiral Edward Le Crag Thornborougb,
died.

28. Captain Sir Alexander Dixie, Bart., R.N., died
29. Earl Spencer, K.G., died.

CHRISTMAS DINNER.—On Tuesday Miss Burdett
Comte gave an excellent dinner to 300 poor, parishioners
of St. Stephen's, Westminster. Miss Coutts addressed
the poor people with a few kind words of advice and
encouragement.
RIOT WITH THE MILITIA.—On Friday night several
soldiers of the regiment of the Staffordshire Militia, at
present stationed in the Castle of Edinburgh, appear to
have been drinking in a publichouse in the Cowgate at
the foot of Blair-street, and a fracas ensued among them
and several civilians who had assembled there. A very
large crowd speedily collected, and information of the
disturbance having been sent to the Castle a picket of
about a dozen men, under a sergeant, was despatched to
the spot, but by the time they arrived the disturbance
seems to have been over. A crowd of many hundreds of
people, however, still thronged Blair-street; and in com-
ing up that street, after having been in the Cuwgate,
some of the men belonging to the picket attacked a
mechanic, and following him into one of the stairs lead-
ing to the South Bridge, threw him down, and struck
him with their belts and feet. His cries brought Lieut. I
Milligan of the city police to his aid. The moment he
appeared some of the crowd called out that he was a
police officer, on which the picket, leaving the other
p
man, attacked Mr. Milligan, and, drawing their bayonets,
stabbed him in the head in several laces ; fortunately,
however, the cuts are not serious. A young man, named
Hugh Bald, who interfered to protect Mr. Milligan, was
also set upon, but both escaped with comparatively slight
injuries. On Monday the various parties connected with
the above fray, consisting of John Sheratt, John
Tasker Young, Thomas Lawless, (rather an appro-
priate name), and James Killeen, all private soldiers
in the Staffordshire Militia, and Solomon Day, Lance-
Sergeant, were brought before the police bar, and
remitted to a higher court. We'are glad to learn that
Lieut. Milligan is recovering, though slowly, from the
effects of his injuries. Fortunately, the wounds are
only flesh cuts, and, although severe enough, are net
likely to be attended with dangerous consequences. In
addition to the cuts on the head, Mr. Milligan has sus-
tained several severe bruises about bis arms ; and, to
show the dastardly nature of the attack, we may state
that, on inspection, it is found that his top-coat in more
than one place has been pierced by a bayonet. We trust
that the result of the trial of the five parties above:
named will be such as, in some measure, to insure the
citizens against the outrages of armed men, whose duty
it ought to be to protect instead of endangering the
Ryon of the inhabitants,--Scotties Pro&

The close of a year is the season for retrospects. The
merchant makes up his books—the tradesman sends in
his accounts, and the householder reviews the effects of
his expenses on his yearly income through the medium
of his Christmas bills. When we greet our readers again,
it will be to wish them a happy new year. This week,
then, just a word on one of the lessons, at least, which
the occurrences of the one fast passing away teach us,
before we bid it good bye for ever.
Though the subject to which we would call attention
has, to sensitive minds, been thrown into shade by the
monster convulsion and harrowing scenes of the Indian
mutiny, it touches our national prosperity not one whit
the less closely. Every class of society is busy with
schemes to correct the errors which caused that disaster.
India is to be evangelised—its Government reformed—
its great resources to be turned to good acconnt, and to
God's glory. Would that the subject of which we are
about to speak would teach us a similar lesson—one
nearer home. Our children will assuredly have reason
to regret it some day if it does not.
The last few months have proved to demonstration
that the standard of our mercantile morality has suffered
a fall, which has filled far-seeing persons with dismay.
It is net merely the gigantic failures as failures,
which have recently occurred, that indicate this. The
loss of such sums as two millions of money on the
whole transactions of the Western Bank of Scotland—the
stoppage of the great firm of De Wolf and Ce. for
200 000/.., showing 2s in the pound for its creditors—
tll43lBll*-11alligierrit!grarairmlw*dtg tar"'
single shareholder contrived to' aboOl“ , 0 tfrziore
than two-thirds of the paid-up capital)—fhe failures of
the Liverpool Borough and the Northumberland and
Durham Banks—awful as they are, as instances of reck-
less trading, and disastrous as they have turned out to
the thousands whom they shave brought to ruin and
thrown out pf work, would be comparatively harmless in
their national effects, were it not for the almost hope-
less want of principle with which these falls have been
attended, and
.whisk has been exhibited ia attempts to
bolster some of them up when falling, and to palliate
or hush up practices which led to their fall after they
had gone. It is to this taint of disingenuousness running
through the whole mercantile system, and from which
we fear houses still standing and of high position cannot
be held free, that we desire to call attention.
Take the Western Bank of Scotland. But a few weeks
ago, after thit concern stopped payment,, the most
powerful influence which wealth and position could sup-
ply wss brought into the field to uphold its integrity, or,
as the Times expresses it, "to restore an equilibrium in
the affairs of the.company." To what extent the public
were deceived by these representations, we know not.
This week it was announced that "every penny em-
barked in it by the shareholders is hopelessly gone ;"
and it is difficult'to see how the parties who thus came
forward could all of them have been ignorant of the
fact!
Another illustration of this painful truth was furnished
some little time back, when reports ware rife of the
approaching failure of Oliver, of Liverpool. In that
case another firm took up the cugels in behalf of the
slandered house, and caused a notice to be posted on the
Exohange, denouncing the wanton calumny. The firm
thus defended was insolvent at the time ! The same
circumstance is recorded of another house, of which an
eminent London firm were the champions, with a like
result, suggesting the unfortunate conclusion, that in
the case of falling concerns it is not difficult to find other
houses of good repute to uphold their credit while they
are tottering, and to palliate or conceal their 'misconduct
when they have gone. It is the principle of these pro-
ceedings, which is a national calamity, not the failures
themselves, which, as .the Times proves in its Money
Article on Monday, can make, the country neither richer
nor poorer. _
So much for firms. Our national character, alas I in
this respect, as displayed by individuals, does not show
a shade better. The peoulations of Mr. Stephens, the
manager of the Eastern Banking Corporation, in his five
partnerships purchased with the funds of the company,
or in the little transaction where he bought the shares
of a third party with the money of the bank, and placed
them to his own account,- receiving the dividends him-
self, are not excused by or merged in the joint miscon-
duct of himself and the directors in their corporate
capacity. He is an instance of the commercial depravity
which has this year shown itself in such vigour among
individuals also, and which should bring a blush to every
honest English merchant's cheek.
Such an instance also is Mr. J. C. Taylor, expelled
this week frOm the Stock Exchange for using telegrams
improperly obtained from the Telegraph-office, for the
purposes of speculation on 'Change.
Such, also, though in a smaller degree, is the ease of
that bank lerk at Croydon, who gambled ano on
'Change, and whose transactions, after the not uncom-
mon gradations of despondency and !brandy, ended in
that awful murder of his nearest and dearest relatives,
so recently before the public. Such, also—and we men-
tion this case because its denouement has come upon us
while the ink of this article is yet wet—such, also, is the
case of Mr. Stevens, the broker, who so strangely
charged a Mr. Kilby last week before the Lord Mayor.
Kilby had instructed him to sell some description of
stock for him and to buy other—and when that was
done, demanded the balance which the latter held in his
hand, amounting to some 3001. Instead of giving this
up, although it is admitted that there was no under-
standing that he was to retain the larger sum, Mr.
Stevens would only give him a cheque for some 341.,
and a few of the shares, proceeding, in a great hurry. to
pay in the rest of the money to his own banker's. Not
very wisely, but, as it seems to us, not unnaturally, Mr.
Kilby, seeing his money disposed of in this rather sum-
mary fashion, made a bold move for the recovery of
his property by trying to snatch it from the other's
hands. For this he was given into custody for
attempting to steal his own property. Of course, Mr.
Kilby was honourably discharged ; but the result so
weighed upon an excitable temperament, that in the
course of this week he put an end to his existence.
The term to be applied to the conduct of the stock-
broker, which resulted in this tragical end, we leave
our readers to determine.
These cases, joined to the daily reports from the
police courts of embezzlements by clerks, robberies
from masters, gross frauds by bankrupts on their credi-
ditors, make up that black list which every Englishman
should lay to his heart at this season. It will go far to
chow him that there is something besides misgovernment
and revolt to be lamented in that year, which history
will hereafter mark as the year of the Indian mutiny.