The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-20 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCT. 20, 1857.

The minimum rate of discount was yesterday
iaised to 8 per cent. The gloomy intelligence
from America was the justification. With ad-
verse exchanges, the step could scarcely be
avoided, so long as the present monetary code re-
mains in operation. The Bank must act on the
defensive, and sacrifice the commercial community
to save itself. Without an extension of its issues,
or in other words, a suspension of the Act of 1844,
the crisis cannot be successfully encountered.
The distrust will still prevail ; persons will adopt
t very possible means to secure their own position.
and by so doing will increase the intensity of the
crisis. It is an illustration of the case of " the
children," described by LOCKE, as pulling at the
scanty coverlid, each solicitous only on his own
ae,count, and without reference to the general
welfare.

The present rate of discount in the United
States is so enormous that not even ten or fifteen
per cent, would save the bank reserves. What
would be perfectly ruinous' to the mercantile and
manufacturing interestF, is of comparatively trivial
importance to speculators. If they can obtain
thirty or forty per cent. on tolerable security at
the other side of the Atlantic, or if they can even
make a profit on the exportation of bullion, they
will do so, without caring what may be the con-
sequences to the people of Great Britain. They
profit by the general confusion, and that is all
they look to.
SYDNEY SMITH said that the railway system
would never be improved until a bishop was
killed. We fear that monetary matters will
bevel be ameliorated until some great capitalists
are caught in the snares they are spreading for
their neighbours. When the magnates of Thread•
needle-street, Lombard-street, or Lothbury, find
themselves in difficulties, they will begin to feel
that the joke has been carried 'too far. The storm
was by no means unpleasant, but the hurricane
defeated all their calculations.

Just at the moment, and at the very time that
the Bank was putting a famine price on money,
tue Chancellor of the ExAcquer was starting for
his country scat in Radnorshire. He assumes the
uPPearance of the pennilcEs traveller, who cold'
c.Arelesaly sing on the unguarded highway. Sir
CHARLF.3"WOOD, in like manner, refused to r--
cognise the extent of the 3naelency in 1847 until
the issie of the Government Letter. He could not
believe that unexi:eptionable piper was rejected iu
L)mbard-street. Ilis salary was Punctually
paid, and he could net understand al' V
other difficulty. It was not until it was
proved beyond the possibility of doubt by a depu-
tation. of Metropolitan bankers, that they could
compel the Bank to suspend payment, and that
they would do so, if the Government did not
interfere, that be could be induced to shake oil
the apathy previously exhibited ! He had, how-
ever, sufficient cunning to prevent what ought to
have been the necessary consequence of the virtual
"'Tension of the existing laws, and to retain the
Act of 1844, that it might occasion still greater
evils, and serve. " to point a moral and adorn a
tale."

There ought net to be these panics. Capital

does not consist of gold only. We have at, least
from seven to eight thousand millions' vorth of
property in the United Kingdom ; and yet the
abstraction of a few millions—analogow3 to the
loss of a five-pound note to a man worth
eight or ten thousand pounds occasions
the most fearful privations—the most terrible
fears. Money or currency is but the mere mea-
sure
of value. It would be considered a great
absurdity, if persons wanting food were to remain
starving because the provisions could not be
weighed or measured at the authorised scales, or
that a linendraper or mercer should not dispose
of his commodities unless he had golden measures
wherewith to mete them forth to his customers !
The bullionists are now following the example
of the man who killed the goose that supplied
golden eggs, and they may, perhaps, participate in
the catastrophe that must occur. They are well
off ! But although they may not think so, their
interests are indissolubly connected with those
of the industrial community. It is the creators
and producers of natural wealth that find employ-
ment for their capital, and they should be satis-
fied to share in the profits. "The greed of gain"
may involve themselves in the destruction which
they are preparing for their neighbours. It will be
a novel illustration of " the Engineer hoist with
his own petard."
The nature of the disease is now manifest. The
cure is simple and easy. We want a suitable
measure and representative of value, that will not
be affected by foreign. convulsions. People choose
to hoard gold, to lock it up in cabinets and
closets—to bury it in cellars ! But it no longer
fulfils its functions under such circumstances. It
might, for all practical purposes, as well be de-
troyed as hoarded for the time being. The
periodical depressions of the Money Market, not,
in one locality only, but in every part of the
world, are almost inexplicable. Gold might flow
from London to Paris or Amsterdam, to Ham-
burg or New York ; but, still, if wanting in one
quarter it ought to be found in another. But it
seems to " have vanished from the face of crea-
tion," as our transatlantic brethren say. It is
nowhere ! In every place the same cry is main-
tained. Money, or rather currency, is just as
scarce in one place as another. The bees are still
sacrificed to the drones, and the creation of honey
is prohibited.

It is surely time something should be attempted ,
on behalf of the industrial classes. No deposit
of gold is required for domestic circulation.
Taxation is a sufficient basis for currency, and if
placed under legislative authority—if there was
some party responsible to the nation—there could
be no excess. There would be an absorption of
some twelve hundred thousand pounds a week fox
fiscal purposes, and a proportionate issue would
keep everything straight.
At present an extended issue of notes is re-
quired, and those notes should be of small
denominations. The credit of the Bank
is perfect. The public are just as well
satisfied with its notes as with bullion, and
" the worthless rags" possess a purchasing
power, fully equal to the brightest coin. But
still, State paper would be more satisfactory. Ir
would be guaranteed not only by the entire ac•
cumulated and realised property of the realm, bu.
by the thews and sinews of every working man.
There could be no daiager of stoppage. If gol 1
was at a premium, it would only arise from
the natural law of supply and demand ; and
that could not occasion a tenth-part of the dis-
turbance er annoyance produced by the present
fluctuations and perturbations of the money-
market. There must be some movement., and
that speedily, on the part of Government. The
Act of 1844 must be suspended, and that suspen-
sion, while it saves the nation, will unequivocally
condemn and annul the Bank Charter Act.

Perhaps there never was a more appropriata or
more lamentable illustration of the old proverb
"Between t wo"--(everyboly`.knows the rest) than
that recently afforded by the very important ques-
tion of the Main Drainage of the Metropolis.
Between The Board of Works—and the Metropo-
litan Board of Works—it has entirely " fallen to
the ground" hitherto. It has failed so completely
in consequence of resting upon these two rival
props—instead of relying upon one alone as a
solid and rational foundation—that the evil (:after
all this time) has actually Increased instead of
being in any way Ameliorated. Throughout the
whole of this interval, an interval now extending
over several years consecutively, during the lapse
of which we have been talking of the imperative
and immediate necessity of conveying the sewage
of the capital as far away from it as possible, and
of doing this effectually—the public shores all
along the Surrey and Middlesex banks of the
Thames have been emptying their pestilential
contents continually in larger and larger quanti-
ties into the river. There to be washed backwards
and forwards in the broad current of the noblest
stream in England—to and fro according to tho
fluctuations of the ebb and flow of the tide—be
tween the habitations of a vast city densely popu-
lated with upwards of two millionsof inhabit ants !
The controversy between the would-ba Innovators
continuing all the while fiercely and uninttr-
ruptedly !

Epitomising the scattered facts of this contro-
versy- and thereby making a long story short, we
may observe at once, that the Metropolitan Board
of Works on one hand, and the Commissioners of
Public Works and Public Buildings on the other,
have been pitting one hobby against another, much
to their own discredit and greatly to the detri-
ment of the general community ! It is an old
saying " Who shall decide when doctors dis-
agree ?"—an old saying suggested by a still older
grievance.- And of that old hypothetical grievance
have we not here had a new and very deplorable
realisation ? While our Sanitary Physicians have
been squabbling over the superior merits of their
respective systems of treatment, the miserable im-
posthume they were called in to remove has been
growing and growing frightfully and portentously.
Dues any one remember that famous pic-
ture by IIoGARTu, where the patient is repre-
6ented as expiring in slew agonies in the
chimney-corner, while the two bigwigs, who
have been summoned to the sick-room, are driving
each other perfectly frantic by insisting upon the
supreme excellence, the one of a certain incom-
parable draught in a phial, the other of a certain
marvellous bolus in a pile-box ! The table before
them is upset, its contents smashed upon the floor
and scattered, the chair of one practitioner tum-
bles back as he rises in a phrerzy to roar down
the arguments of his opponent—the while that
same obdurate and incorrigible opponent sits deg-
gedly unmoved, bottle iu hand, eyebrows raised
(and voice raised no less than eyebrows), enforcing
his statements with a rap of his gold-headed cane
upon the cork of his magical nostrum. Tile pour
unfortunate in whose behalf they have been broil g
together fainting away in the midst of their hill -
bub—a visible satire upon the insanity of thee
monstrous professional contentions. A satire, but
not, as such, in any way an exaggeration !
In proof which it is only necessary to :d ncwerfaonr,a.
moment at this 'recent and long-protracted
ling between these rival sanitary commissioner?.
After perusing the correspondence that has taken

place between the f:Teneral Board of Works and
the Metropolitan, Board of Works it is impossible
not to se'o that their apparently contrasting plans
are rr,ally after all, as the housemaids say—Much
of a Muchness. The ingredients are pretty nearly
ti-,e same in the bolus and the black-draught.
'The one is diluted, and the other is condensed.

Mr. BAZALGETTE's scheme, it will be remem-
bered, was to empty the sewage of the metropolis
masse a little lower down the river (but still,
observe, to empty it into the river), and to do this,
moreover, at a point sufficiently near to the capital
to enable the tide in rising to wash back the pes-
tilential deposits high up under the bridges—
actually, according to this extremely ingenious
project, renewing, day after day, the very evil we
are all of us wishing to have removed. This
recollect, was the plan suggested by the Engineer
of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and subse-
quently, and summarily, and most reasonably
I rejected by Sir BENJAMIN HALL and his co-Com-
, missioners.

It was then propDsed by Mes3rs. GALTON,
SimPsoN, and BLACKWELL—in opposition to Mr.
BAZALGETTE—that the obnoxious drainage of the
capital should b 3 conveyed further away from
London, but conveyed to that greater distance
by open sewers. This—recollect, again, was +he
plan suggested by the engineers of the General
!Lard of Works, and now by the Rival (Local)
Board no less summarily, and, in one particular,
❑o less reasonably rejected as in a great measure
preposterous. Th 6 fact of the matter being, all
the while, that neither are right, that both are
wrong, and yet that all of them are at the same
time upon the right tack, as shown in turn by
the correctness of their relative objections I

It were simply absurd to employ the agency of
the river Thames for the main drainage of the
metropolis, as proposed by Mr. BAZALGETT2—
that being, in reality, one of the principal objects
we have in view—namely, the so contriving
matters in future that the river Thames shall be
purified, instead of being rendered absolutely poi-
tilential.

It were equally absurd to dream of bisecting
two counties with ':open sewers while crnveying
the drainage of London towards the sea, as pro-
posed by Messrs. GALTON, SnEesoN, and BLACK-
WELL-that being actually the very species of
evil hitherto complained of with such deploralil3
reason, the old system, or rather want of system,
resulting in nothing less than the transformation
of the river Thames into an open sewer, and
into nothing better than an open sewer reeking
with destructive exhalations.

Everything considered, therefore, we are clearly
as far removed as ever from the remedy so long
dnd anxiously desired. Let us have an end of
these little petty jealousies and rivalries be-
tween contending Engineers and Commissioners.
Ind let us have, at any cost—(instead of these
jealousies and rivalries)—the realisation of our
Hopes as to the Main Drainage of the Metropolis.
How ? By conducting it far away from Loudon
and from the Thames—emptying it into the
North Sea by other means than gigantic open
sewers—effecting all this (again we say it), no
matter what the expenditure !

Conspicuous among the ameliorative measures
required at the hands of the Legislature, at as
early a period as practicable after the re-assem-
bling of Parliament, will assuredly be one in re-
ference to the treatment of the houseless poor when
applying for aid at the last extremity at the door
of the hospital or of the workhouse. At present
the law in these cases appears really and truly to
be altogether inoperative. Particular instances
in proof of this were idle—they are unhappily of
such very frequent occurrence. It is only very
recently, indeed, that sundry lamentable illustra-
tions of this fact have been brought rather pain-
fully to the public knowledge. An accident sud-
denly occurs in the street:, and the sufferer
is conveyed to one of our hospitals, to be there
refused admission (after some delay) and sent off
to another hospital in a diffirent part of the metro-
polis. An unfortunate drayman is jolted off the
shaft on which he is sitting, his team being sud-
denly startled into a trot by the passing by of a
runaway horse, and he is borne in great agony to
another London Hospital with seventeen of his
ribs broken, and his frame subjected t) other in-
juries, and he is coolly dismissed forthwith from
the institution and sent home in a cab, a 3 having
nothing particularly the matter with him—there,
of course (in his poor home), to expire in great
agonies soon afterwards. As a companion picture,
to all which we have repeated rec)rds simul-
taneously in our police reports—relating ho w
. ome wretched tramp, who has trudged wearily up
to London from a remote corner of the pro-
vinces—footsore, famished, and drenched with
rain during the inclement weather—is bandied
about, long after nightfall, from one workhouse t
another, until—shelter at last being given (but not
food) the poor wretch is carried off in an hour or
two after admission by a frightful attack of
dicerrlacea, brought on by the combined effect.; of
cold, fatigue, and inanition. It is not too
much to ask and to expect that the law shall so
interfere that deaths of this most lamentable kind
shall in future be IMPOSSIBLE in this great city,
save under the most exceptional combination of
circumstances. We do demand that efforts at
least in this direction should be made soon after
the beginning of next session, in February—and
we demand it most earnestly in the name at once
of our common Christianity and of our boa3tel
civilisation.

SP. 3LIRTIN'S HALL.

The season at this poplar plate of entertainment
will commence to-morrow evening, when M.endils-
sohn's oratorio " St. Paul" will be praduced under
direction of Mr. Hullah. The vocalists will be Madlle.
do Villar, Mies Palmer, Mr. Aldershaw, Mr. Bamhy,
and Mr. Allan Irving, with the chorus and orchestra o❑
their usual scale. All lovers of sacred music should
avail themselves of this opportunity of bearing one of
the citef d'teuvas of this eminent composer under sucli
satisfactory arrangements.

The Duke and Duchess of Wellington returned to
town on Saturday, from Mauches'.er. His Graca left
town yesterday tuorniLg, for Cromer, on the Norfolk
coast. The Duchess remains at Apiley House.
The Marquis of Bristol is at Ickworth Park, near
Bury St. Eitnuuds, surrounded by a Felect
The Marchioness Dowager of Qtecnsberry has left
Farrance'e Hotel, Bzlgravia, for St. Leonards-on-Sea.
The Earl and Countess of Shaftesbury havo left town
for Broadlauds, r,n a visit to Viscount and Viseountess i
Pal,nerston. The noble Earl and her Ladyship to n a
few day, to S. Giles'e, their own seat in D )rietshire.
The Earl of .ii:glinton is passing the season at Egilato,,
C tetlf, Ayrshirc, surrounded by a family circle.
The. Dowager Lady LyttAton arrived at nee reAdenee
in S. James's-square, yesterday, from Hagley Park,
Worcestershire.

Lurd S anlPy of Alderley has 141., to:va for Alderley
Park, Cheshire.

The Chancell.l. of the Exchequer loft London yoster-
day for Harpton Court, Kington,
The Speaker and Lady Coartotto U::nia•ru and the
Hon. Miss Ells left Rhidorroch, N. 13., yesterday, fur
the south. .

M. Du Sornpayo.has returned t, the Brunswick Hotel
from a sho )tinz excuraion in the north.
THE LATE ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.—The argurnenti it
Count Migeon's ease are at leng.h cancluied, and thi
Court of Colmar will give judgment on Tnur.day first.
Lard D.l.lhousie arrived at Suuthanapton yesterday.
and proceeded to the reuidence of Captain Ramsay., th•
A‘dusiralty 6uperintentlent of mail packets at that port.
Hia lordship is couapelled to walk on crutches. He pr,-
ceeds to Malta to.tlay in the Peninsular and • Orienta
Company's India mail steamer