The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-23 00:00:00

BANK OF

The intelligence from America still continues to
yield hotter and hotter evidence that both sides are
in terrible earnest in their warlike movements and
preparations. It gives us almost a sense of having
a hand in the struggle, the tidings just received in
this country that when the last advices left the
opposite shores of the Atlantic, the Great Eastern
had arrived at her destination, and that already,
there at New York, the United States authorities
were negotiating either for her purchase out and
out, or, at any rate, for her being chartered. foi
im
mediate warlike purposes along the southern coast
of the Republic, according to the discretion of the
Washington Government. It would be an ab-
surdity for us to affect to regard any such negotia-
tion with feelings of apathetic indifference. It
would be, on the contrary, a source of profound
satisfaction to us, if we could hear in a few days
more that the arrangements now described as
merely upon the card had been brought to a rapid
and satisfactory settlement. English enterprise
could not very well spare her Sea Mammoth for
better purposes than those to which she would be
applied at last in real earnest, in obedience to the
direction of the vigorous War Department now in-
augurated at Washington, under Mr. LINCOLN'S
calm but resolute Presidency.
According to the latest tidings received via
Quebec per the Bohemian—it appears that the
Virginians had. in the early days of this fair month
of May taken possession of the heights upon the
Maryland bank of the River Potomac, where,
when the news left, they were hurriedly throwing
up fortifications. The number of secession troopers
so engaged is described moreover as considerable.
And it was not merely in this one instance that the
Virginian secessionists had given recent evidence of
their activity and determination. They had shortly
before the departure of the Bohemian forcibly taken
the steamship William Seldon hitherto plying
between Old Point and Norfolk. Meanwhile the
Congress at Montgomery is described as by no
means idle—energetic arrangements being made
under its auspices and at its direct instigation for
placing the whole of the Confederate States in an
effective condition of defensive preparedness. Already
in truth to such good purpose were these measures
being adopted and carried out into actual operation,
that the Government there had at its command ar-
tillery enough to send forth properly equipped with
ordnance an army of 150,000 men upon a twelve-
month's campaigning ! Upon the darker side of
the picture, however, there are already beginning
to loom hints of negro insurrection! It is true that
the one reported tohave already lit the flame of revolt
in Kentucky turns out to have been erroneous : but
so far as relates to the preservation of negro subor-
dination yonder,
in those Southern States,
andi it
that, may
be already said of the Whites there,
moreover, without anything like exaggeration,
that they are even now feeling the ground hot
under their feet. The pear, in this instance,
is not
merely ripe, it is long since rotting on the bough
ready to be shaken down at the first breath of the
approaching storm of battle. Within the confines
of their own territorial boundaries, within the very
innermost heart of their political institutions, lurks
the phantom of their own Nemesis. The despera-
tion of their position is alone what heartens them
now to the showing of a bold front, and, under
its influence, .may will fight, we doubt not
for an instant, right resolutely to the very
last. But the blood and sweat of the blacks
will glue many a sword in the Confederate army to
the scabbard, the curse of an inhuman traffic will
palsy many a strong arm, and take the vigour out
of many a determined blow.
As affording tokens of the activity still displayed
in the United States in preparation for the dread-
ful conflict that can be described no longer as there
merely inevitable—the struggle at certain points
being already, as we know now but too well, even
a lreadycommeneed—it is not unwelcome intelligence
in this country that when the last advices left New
York accounts were in the highest degree satisfac-
tory as to the more and more resolute attitude as-
sumed from day to day by the central Government
at Washington. The capture of 800 of the Mis-
souri militiamen forming a part of General
FROST'S brigade had signalised at St. Louis
the determination of the Federal Volunteers.

Again Parliament meets—shall we say gravely
(with a recollection of the last three months within
our remembrance), for " the despatch of business ?"
Meet nominally it does at any rate this evening—as
it met at the commencement of the session—for that
great national desideratum, " the despatch of busi-
ness." The Budget Bill—to go into Committee !
That will to night be the proposition of
Lord PALMERSTON in the House of Commons
as Leader of the House and as First Lord of the
Treasury. Opposed to that proposition will come
Mr. NEWLZGATE'S Aamendment. The following
facts, by the way, we cannot but regard as signifi-
cant of the " darkness visible" of the political at-
mosphere generally. Namely, that whereas very
shortly before the introduction of his Budget Bill
by Mr. GLADSTONE—shortIy before the introduc-
tion into the House of Commons of the whole
bunch of propositions hung up on the peg of
the Paper Duties Abolition by the cunning hand
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—so well had
the right hon. gentleman kept his designs exclu-
sively to himself that Lord PALMERSTON (the Prime
Minister, recollect !) had given his authoritative
assurance to a deputation then waiting upon him
in respect to the subject of the Paper Duties, that
there was no prospect whatever that, at least for
another year, those duties would be interfered with
in any way by her Majesty's Government. Indica-
tion, that is, No. 1 of what we have referred to as
the prevailing " darkness visible" of the political
atmosphere. Now for indication No. 2, deduced
not from any observations falling from the lips of
the noble Premier, bnt from remarks put forth this
morning by the recognised organ of his Govern-
ment. Our contemporary the Morning Post
acknowledges itself to be fairly bewildered
even now as to the intentions of her
MAJESTY'S Opposition. It says " Mr. NEWDE-
GATE, with a hardihood that does him no credit if
lie is acting independently of his party, and which
does them no credit if they are acting with him,
intends, it is announced, to move an amendment in
such terms as will involve the question whether
Lord P _ ALMERSTON'S Ministry is or is not to govern
the country." At any rate—however put—that is
certainly bringing the question in dispute to a
definite issue. After this next stage has been got
through, we cannot much longer have a continued
waste of public time by any persistence of these sys-
tematic and objectless attempts at procrastination.
The Government will now learn in a very few hours
what they really and truly have to expect from the
side of the Opposition. The former doubtless ima-
gined that the -whole difficulty between them was
settled for once and for all this session by that
clear majority of—Eighteen. Mr. DISRAELI how-
ever, would not by any means consent to receive
that answer as definitive. Hence the hopes that may
beawakened in some minds the least disposed to be
sanguine, for the Great Conservative Party and their
interests, by the Amendment announced as forthcom-
ing under the auspices of that very stubborn and per-
fectly consistent gentleman (we must all admit his
consistency) the member for North Warwickshire.
If carried in opposition to the Government—the
Goviernment, so says the Premier's organ quite
plainly, as above indicated—will at once
appeal to the Country. In that contin-
gency the position, in almost every imaginable
point of view would certainly be anything but
satisfactory. Summer would be close upon us with
the Budget stopped—until the turmoil of a General
Election could have been scrambled through, when
upon the eve of the Dog-days, and not earlier, the
f real business of the session would have to be
commence ! This, with the germs of
half a dozen European wars rapidly
expanding upon the continent—at the very time
when trade and manufactures are threatened with
a crisis by reason of the disastrous influence certain
to be exercised as a matter of necessity upon each
by the dreadful civil war now agitating, and here
and there already actually devastating, the
republican States of North America. It
is a juncture that is obviously, therefore, re-
plete, for every thinking man in the three
kingdoms, with reasons for the most profound
solicitude. The responsibility for this juncture,
Ministers Pare manifestly endeavouring to fasten
upon the Opposition. A proceeding, howbeit, in
every conceivable way most disingenuous. But
for the splenetic whims and crotchets of that
Master Rhetorician who has for so many years
proved for England so disastrous a Financier, wit-
ness his enormous and hazardous experiments,
almost every one of which have been failures, bis
connivance in precipitate and bungling com-
mercial negotiations, his successive years of
deficit upon deficit—but for Mr. GLADSTONE
being yet Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Budget
would have been so framed that it would long
since have been passed satisfactorily, and not a
cloud—anywhere else upon the whole circle of the
political horizon—not a cloud as small even as a
man's hand—would yet have been conjured up to
blur the sunshine upon the smooth and easy path-
wcaaybi,lnyeitn,ghevaotwthe
however, has
of the session,before
her MAJESTY'S Government. The MaßrLur of the
has been at his malignant in-
cantations
over his cauldron of The Budget, and
the whole political atmosphere is darkening : and
—according even
to the express avowal of the
Prime 'Minister's organ—the very existence of the
popular
once powerful and Palmerston Government
is endangered.

Shortly before the beginning or these brief
Whitsuntide Holidays which have to-day drawn to
their conclusion, the Earl of SHAFTESBURY brought
under the consideration of the House of Lords the
erroneous statements put forth in regard to the
position of the Ragged School system in the United
Kingdom, and embodied in their last official report
by the Education Commissioners. It was on last

Monday week, namely, at the sitting of the Upper
House on the evening of the 13th instant, that the
noble earl whose name we have just mentioned,
brought under the consideration of their lordships
these truly extraordinary, and in some particulars,
wholly incomprehensible mistatements. Although
in doing this Lord SHAFTESBURY expressly
disavowed every intention to imply that
the report was " wilfully untrue " in the
instAnceS referred to—" untrue" he was Icom-

very poorest of the poor—the inhabitants o.
those dreadful regions of squalor where
according to his own powerful phrase, children are
not so much born as they are spawned, and where
they are afterwards allowed to grow up in an at-
mosphere reeking with obscenities and blasphemies
—when Lord SHAFTESBURY, on Monday week, the
13th of May, had resumed his seat, after proving
his case with the lucidity and distinctness of an
arithmetical sum—what was the response given by
the noble Duke, who rose immediately afterwards in
reply, Her MAJESTY'S Secretary of State for the
Colonies ? 'Why, his Grace pronounced a panegyric
upon the Education Commissioners!! Now, in
every earnest word applied to those Commissioners
by his Grace the Duke of NEWCASTLE in the jus-
tice of every syllable of commendation a; plied
to them by the Colonial Secretary, we cannot, of
course, do otherwise than most heartily concur.
Yet, at the same time, while allowing, as we doubt
not for one instant, Lord SHAFTESBURY himself
would allow the reasonableness :of the application
of those cordial words of praise applied by the Duke
of NEWCASTLE to the Education Commissioners—
still the fact does remain nevertheless that those
Education Commissioners, in the course of their
last published report, have, we will say, though a
series of blunders very extraordinary and wholly
incomprehensible, given to the world, in regard to
the Ragged Schools of the United Kingdom, state-
ments that, as Lord SHAFTESBURY accurately
described them to be, are nothing less than—un-
true, and unfair, and ungenerous ! Are they
not ? Let a very few statistics, selected
from a great mass of them, answer
pointblank, Yes or No ! " The Commissioners,"
said Lord SHAFTESBURY, " stated that the total
number of Sunday ragged schools in England and
Wales in 1858 was 356, and the number of scholars
23,127 ; that the day ragged schools numbered 192
in England and Wales, with an attendance of
20,909 ; and that the evening ragged schools
amounted to only 14, with an attendance of 707.
Now what was the statement which was furnished
by the secretary of the Ragged School Union to the
commissioners at that time. The Ragged School
Union stated that in London alone there were 178
Sunday schools, with an attendance of
23,203 scholars—a larger number in London
than the commissioners had stated existed in the
whole of England—that there were 178 day ragged
schools, with 16,075 scholars ; and the House would
mark this, instead of 14 evening ragged schools,
with 707 attendants, as stated by the commissioners,
there were in London alone no less than 187 even-
ing ragged schools, with an attendance of 9,465."
No wonder the House of Lords here inter-
rupted the noble earl with applause in recog-
nition of the force of :that counter-statement.
But Lord SHAFTESBURY continued, "If the
returns could be given for 1861 they would show
that there were now 207 Sunday schools, with
25,178 attendants; 151 day ragged schools, with
17,230 attendants ; and 215 evening schools, with
an attendance of 9,750." The noble Earl added—
" It is a remarable fact that out of 27 counties pos-
sessing ragged schools the commissioners had
omitted 15, stating that they only existed in 12."
And again—" Why were certain important returns
omitted when they tended to show the magnitude
of the system, and statements only given which
would tend to show that it was a very inferior
organisation ? Why was it that the general con-
tribution 0f5,243, in 1858, was given, and all re-
ference to the local contribitions, which amounted
to no less than £31,540, omitted ? The total con-
tribution" remarked Lord SHAFTESBURY, " surely
attested the strong feeling of the people in favour
of these schools." An individual instance, however,
will,'eeen more clearly than these broad and sweep-
ing generalities, demonstrate at once conclusively
the perfect justice with which the noble earl pro-
nounced—perhaps we should rather say denounced
—the last published report of the Education
Commissioners as (in reference, that is, to the
status of the Ragged School:system), "untrue, un-
fair and ungenerous !" With respect—said Lord
SHAFTESBURY on last Monday week, the 13th of
May, " With respect to the provinces according to
the appendix it would appear that the whole of the
day ragged schools in Lancashire was only six,
with
Commissioners
an
trumpet-like
Was that
to
histhe factlips, ?
and, In
the return, with respect to the county of Lancaster
it was stated that there were Sunday ragged schools
with attendance, none ; evening ragged schools
with attendance, none ; industrial ragged schools
with attendance, none ; and that there were only six
day ragged schools with an attendance of 927 chil-
dren. Now, what was the real state of the case ?
There was a total of 53 schools in Liverpool alone,
with an attendance of 6,582 children; and yet the
statement-in report of the Commissioners was that
there were in that town six schools with an attend-
ance of 956 children. There might be some satis-
factory explanation of that statement (he said, in
conclusion, in regard to this point), but there was
none with which he was in any way acquainted."
Indignant though the Earl of SHAFTESBURY was,
we acknowledge it, not in, any way unreasonably,
speaking as he did, according to Lord GRANVLLE'S
avowed opinion, " with such not unnatural
warmth" in regard to the misstatements
pointed out by him in the official report
of the Education Commissioners, we must yet con-
fess, frankly, that in one sense we cannot but feel
in some measure almost grateful to the Commis-
sioners for those same daring misstatements ! For,
monstrous as they are in every respect, have they not
served to signalise the triumph of the Ragged
School System by the publicity of their disproof in
the House of Lords by the earnest voice of the
noble-hearted Earl of SHAFTESBURY ? Nay,
Lord SHAFTESBURY himself has to thank
the Education Commissioners for having, uninten-
tionally no doubt, but still, though unintentionally,
undeniably afforded him in the interests of the
Ragged School System an en viable and golden
Opportunity. The noble Earl has virtually placed
the blundering and rolled-up report of the Educa-
tion
through it, breathed a trumpet-note at once of
triumph and of encouragement for the Ragged
School System, the sound of which will not soon
die out of the popular recollection.

Blondin, of Niagara celebrity, has arrived at
Southampton this morning from New York.
CLOSING OF FETTER-LANE.—Yesterday the traffic
through Fetter-lane was suspended by order of the Lord
Mayor, for the purpose of the roadway being repaved. The
closing of this thoroughfare is most inconvenient to omni-
bus proprietors, carmen, and drivers of other vehicles, it
being the main connecting link between Fleet-street and
the railway termini in the northern districts ; the route by
way of Farringdon-street occasioning much delay owing to
the steep ascent of Holborn-hill. In order that the work
may be completed with the least possible delay, extra work-
men have igen engaged by the contractor.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SIIN.

SIR,--It cannot be doubted that the value of
money influences the great transactions of the
world, therefore the rise and fall in that value, as
indicated by the rate of discount, must be interest-
ing not only to the financier, the merchant, and the
manufac Curer, but indirectly to all classes of the
community, by causing an increase or decrease in
the price of all commodities. For the information
of your readers I beg to annex the copy of a
return which I have prepared and inserted in
the sth Edition of my " Popular Tables," only
adding the facts published in the London Gazette
of last night. —I remain, Sir, your most obedient

CHARLES M. WILLICH.
Actuary, University Life Assurance Society
25, Suffolk-street, Pall-mall, S.W.,
18th May, 1861.

The following table shows the alterations in Bank Dis-
counts from 1358 to 1861, with the amount of Bank notes
issued, and of bullion held, at the respective periods :—also
the average price of wheat in each year, and the price of
3 per Cent. Stock on the days of chance :

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Average
I'rice of
Wheat.

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