The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-24 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPT. 24, 1857.

An outcry has been raised against the Limited
Liability Act, because there have already been
some instances of failure. The resolution for the
winding-up of the London, Manchester, and
Foreign Warehouse Company has been referred
to as exhibiting a strong illustration of the
dangers to which the public are thereby exposed,
in the double capacity of creditors and share-
ho) ders. It is by no means fair, however, to
charge the system with these untoward results ;
As well might it be said that joint-stock banking
should be abolished because the Directors of the
Tipperary Joint-Stock, the Royal British, orthe
-eastern Banking Corporation abused the powers
confided to their charge. There may be bad
management las "well las foul play ; and the
triost enthusiastic advocate of freedom of
trade, and liberation from partnership liabili-
ties, never for a moment contended that
premperity and efficient control, could be ensured
'by the liberation of Commerce from the trammels
by which it had been fettered and restricted, and
the opening of new fields of competition. For-
tune ie. a capricious Deity, and some lose wealth
by t).ie very means by which others acquire it.
panici n the Money Market, an exorbitant rate
Of Interest, may paralyse the energies of many
eatablishmenta, and produce heavy losses to the
parties interested. All commercial men, even
those who have
achieved the highest position,
have, particularly in the
commencement of their
career, had to encounter periods of pressure and
difficulty that have driven them to their wits end,
and compelled them to strain every nerve to avoid
bankruptcy and social degradation. Limited
Companies cannot hope to prove exceptions to
the general rule, or to be exempted from the
common lot. Some will fail, while many succeed,
and the great desideratum is to ascertain which
Will be most beneficial for all parties concerned, in
Ire event of any untoward results.
Now, we are prepared to contend that, even
under the most adverse circumstances, supposing
even a total failure, the present state of affairs is
far better than that formerly in operation. Per-
sor.s will no longer recklessly give credit, particu-
l'arly when made fully aware of the terms on
which they are dealing. There is no longer a
vague notion of some CRCESUS behind the scenes,
Who may, by some species of legal legerdemain,
be rendered responsible to the last shilling and
the last acre, for having been induced to accept

a share of the profits, in place of an usurious
rate of interest for the money he had
invested in the concern. Before trans-
ferring their property they strictly scrutinise
the prospects of the concern, and the chances of
payment. And, we believe that, in the event of
failure, they have a far better chance of a tolera-
ble dividend, than in that of an ordinary bank
ruptcy. They are not tempted into speculative
litigation in the vain hope of rendering some per-
son, as innocent as themselves, liable for the
losses they have foolishly sustained, and
thus avoid the chances of a lottery, which seldom,
indeed, returns a prize to the ticket-holders.
When we consider the millions, aye, tens of mil-
lions, annually lost by creditors in bankruptcy
proceedings, and in windings up under inspec-
tion, we may cordially congratulate the commer-
cial community on the comparatively trifling
amounts forfeited under the recent law of " limited
liability." The smash is by no means so com-
plete as is generally the case, and if it comes
sooner it leaves at least something to be dis-
tributed.

The shareholders too, are, far better off. Men

look, or ought to look, before them. If not con

tented with the low interest and " elegant sim-
plicity" of the 3 per Cent. Consols, if anxious to
put out their available capital on more specula-
tive, and probably more remunerative, invest-
ments, they too must look closely to the character
of the companies and of its managers. It is not
for the encouragement of wild and reckless gam-
bling that:the new law has been framed. If men
want to make 20 or 30 per cent. for their moneys
and not only fail in doing so, but lose the original
subscription, they have no right to complain.
They_ may think themselves truly fortunate in
knowing that they cannot be called on for more
than they themselves deliberately determined to
embark in the speculation. Their persons and
the residue of their fortunes are free. How happy
would many of the shareholders in the Tipperary
or Royal British Bank be, under similar cir-
cumstances, to know that they could not be
made targets for sharp practitioners to quadruple
the original loss, and sacrifice the unfortunate
victims by unnecessary costs.
In every such case there should be a stringent
examination into the proceedings of the managers.
They should be answerable for their conduct. The
recent act will sufficiently punish every instance
of malafides or deliberate dishonesty. There may,
however, be a degree of carelessness and ineffi-
ciency, which, while it may not be sufficient to
render the parties criminally responsible, should
make them pecuniarily so. Men who undertake
duties for which they are not duly qualified, or
to which they will not devote the time
and trouble essential to the inadequate discharge,
should be liable for the consequences of their own
lathes. Such strictness may render it more dif-
ficult to obtain a Board of Directors, but it will
render a Board far more efficient and more ener-
getic. We must remember that the principle of
partnership en conniandite, or limited liability, is
but in its infancy, and not abrogate its manifest
advantages because abuses are still possible, and
it has not attained perfection at its ♦ery com-
mencement.

" India for the Indians," is a cry which some
very wise philanthropists have ventured to sug-
gest ; half in a whisper it is true, being quite con-
scious that in their sense of this parody of the
Irish folly, it could meet with no response from
the majority of their countrymen. In its better
sense we cordially accept it. By all means let India
be for the Indians•;—for the Indians generally, not
assuredly for such fiends as the mutineers, or for
such Arch-fiends as NA NA SAHIB. Let India be
governed and administered, not to enrich a com-
pany, or to funish patronage, oivil and military,
for a Board of Directors and a Board of Control ;
but to raise the social, commercial, and ultimately
the political condition of the natives. The most
perverted humanitariaism can hardly pretend that
the faithless and cruel wretches who have plunged
the country into all the horrors of anarchy, who
have plundered natives as well as Europeans,
and butchered, and far worse than butchered,
the unarmed and the innocent, are the pretorians
on whom we ought to devolve the task of electing
an Emperor for India, and giving it a code of
laws and a civil administration.

We by no means approve of appealing to Pro-
vidence as our guide, and pretending we can
interpret its decrees ; but surely, so far as belief
in Providence ought to influence our judgment,
the most rigid Puritan could see but one inter-
potation of our duty in the events which
Heaven has permitted to take place in India. A
Righteous Providence cannot have intended that
wretches who have combined to perform atrocities
which demand the extermination of the perpe-
trators, should succeed us as the Governors of
India. England can conceive, readily enough,
of a patriotic insurrection ; popular sympathies in
this country have always been in favour of insur-
gents who have risen only to assert the rights
of oppressed nationality. Had the Sepoys shown
anything of this spirit, the Peace Party here
would have had a very numerous band of sympa-
thisers, and might even materially have impeded
the energies of the Government. And, had In-
dians generally but, made peaceful efforts to ac-
quire a share in the administration of their coun-
try's affairs, there has been of late a disposition
but too prematurely to place natives in office. The
army, on the contrary, not the natives generally,
has mutinied against its benefactors, has chosen
palpably mere pretexts for doing so, has assigned
no motive whatever to justify even its rebellion,
and certainly not the shadow of a pretext for its
murdering officers, civilians, women and children.
It was to their interest, if they had any reason-
able or even any colourable excuse for mutiny, to
preserve all these as hostages. NINA. SAHIB
with the thousand Europeans, whom he has
slaughtered in cold blood, safe in his custody,
would have been a far more formidable antagonist
than he now is. No, these wretches have
done deeds of unreasoning yet malignant
madness, which if permitted by PRO Vr-
DEN CE for any purpose, were surely per-
mitted in order to rouse England to their utter
annihilation. It has been made our duty to ex-
terminate these rebels—rebels, not against English
dominion merely, but against every holy instinct
of our common nature ; these fiends, whoso war
is less with us than with innocence, with good-
ness, with purity, with helplessness, and with all
that thmands the respect and protection of man.
HEAVEN, at least,• cannot mean India for those,
whom,
,yby the 'sight of reason and of revelation,
equally,
we are bound to destroy.
If, indeed, there be any rebuke from HEAVEN
for England in these horrors, we should think it
would seem fo
over what we be
ew
for our excessive tenderness
know
t 0 be debasing and degrading
superstition. /Jere, indeed, we have the best
1 authorities for our :nions. The names of
I NAPIER, and of JACOB are
• Proof enough that we
have foolishly and wantonly,
i ' because injuriously
to ourselves, patronised the follies of Ma-
' hommedanism, Hindooism, and of caste. We
have taught the native soldier to think more
of his superstitious fooleries than even of military

obedience. We have at the same time taught him
to regard these things as of equal worth with our
Christianity, and to believe that we feared to
slight them. The two great Indian authorities
we have just mentioned insist that, while not per-
secuting the superstitions of the Sepoy, we should
yet let him see our contempt for them, and our
aonsciousness of the superiority of our own faith.
We have tried, however, to make native soldiers
believe that we respected what we could but in.
wardly despise ; and, when our pity might have
made them blush, our hypocritical delicacy has
rather made them exacting and vain. Neither
NAPIER or JACOB would have us perform a single
act of religious compulsion, but they believe that
the superiority of Christianity destines it to be
the supplanter of Idolatry and Mahommedanism ;
and they would have nothing to do with men who
prefer the honours of their caste and the like, to
the honours of good soldiership.

We are taught now, by an awfully instructive
lesson, what is the real character of the supersti-
tions we have so nursed and petted. Mahomme-
danism, Idolatry, and Caste have been the watch-
words of the insurrection, and granting that theyhave
been but pretexts, so far as relates to the exist-
ence of any reasonable cause of complaint against
us, yet their moral effect on their votaries is hor-
ribly apparent. England will henceforth shudder
at the very mention of systems • of religion which
made or left the worshippers such incarnate fiends.
Hindooism and Mahometa.nism will long recal the
atrocities of Cawnpore and of Delhi, and will be
dealt with by us now, as answerable for them. We
shall hear no more of the slightest regard paid to
these impostures, in the selection of such native
troops and officials as we need. No more of
putting them on a level with our own faith in the
homage rendered to them. Persecute we cannot ;
but we shall no longer caress and honour what i 8
worthy only of the bottomless pit. The manly
and sensible views of the NANERS and JACOBS,
not the time-serving notions of East India Direc-
tors and a Governor in Council, must adjust the
future relations of Superstition and Christianity.

A dastardly use of the knife appears latterly to
have become very prevalent. It is really worth
while considering whether some judicious effort
might not be made to " pat down" at once and
effectually this atrocious and peculiarly un-English
crime. It is one in no way indigenous. It is
essentially a foreign importation. But so was the
Cholera—so in its time was the Plague—so,
moreover, at an earlier date, was the Sweating
Sickness. The newly imported abomination
appears of late in same of our back
slums, and occasionally even in some of
our garish, gas-lit London thoroughfares, to
be frightfully contagious. It has spread from
the moustached refugee, with the braided surtout,
who falls foul of his Comrade in Adversity over a
game of dominoes in the little back room of a
seedy coffee•shop near Leicester-square—to hulk-
ing Bon the coalheaver, who has taken a pot of
ale too much down at Whitechapel, and who (so)
has whipped his clasp-blade up to the buck-handle
haft while tussling with the barman of the beer-
shop : or, again, it has extended to infuriated
PAT, in the lime-splashed corduroys, down at
Clerkenwell, who has got into a row with a po-
liceman somehow in the small hours of the morn-
ing, and who (so), heated with rage and whisky,
has stabbed the poor Peeler as they roll over each
other on the pavement. The villainous use of the
knife in this manner is really becoming an ordi-
nary incident in the records of the police-offices.
Foreigners still figure at intervals, of course, con-
spicuously upon the black hat now it is Lb ',ascot.,
now an Italian, now a Spaniard, and so forth—
BUT, of late, with shame we have noted it, Eng-
lishmen and Irishmen (we don't remember to have
remarked anywhere the name of a Scotchmau
among the delinquents) have rather frequently
appeared among these foreigners. Occasionally the
blow administered proves fatal, and then, of
course, the miscreant who has drawn the knife
against his unarmed antagonist is dragged, not to
Bow-street, but to the Old Bailey—the charge
against him being, not ono of assault merely, but
of Murder or of Manslaughter. The punishment
then, of course, is—in the event of the crime
being proved simple, rigorous, and decisive.
But—supposing the victim on these occasions only
to be maimed, and not quite assassinated—would
it not be advisable, in every such instance, to
have the assault with the knife expiated, not sim-
ply by imprisonment with hard labour, but by
the administration of some additional punishment
—some punishment peculiarly degrading and ig-
nominious? Suppose, in future, in every ease
where the knife is used in a quarrel, but not
fatally—suppose that the dastard who uses it is
henceforth invariably sentenced to ho whipped at
the cart's tail

THE INDIAN MUTINIES-RELIEF

FUND.

THE SULTAN'S DONATION.

We are happy to be able to announce that the
Sultan has instructed the Ambassador of the
Sublime Porte in London to forward to the Right
Hon. the Lord Mayor the sum of 1,0001. as his
donation to the fund for the relief of the sufferers
by the mutinies in India. The importance of this
expression of sympathy from the acknowledged head
of the Mahomedan religion will be at onoe per-
ceived. _ _ _

The London committee for taking steps for
affording relief to the sufferers in India met yester-
day, in the Egyptian-hall, Mansion-house. They
formed themselves into a relief committee, a finance
committee, and a correspondence committee, for
carrying out a scheme for the distribution of the
fund.

The Queen of Spain has conferred on the Prince of
Orange the Cross of Charles 111.
The Princes of Piedmont left Nice on the 18th for
Sospello.
His Excellency the Turkish Ambassador arrived in
town on Tuesday, from St. Leonards-on-Sea. His Ex-
cellency returns in a few days to jain his family, who
have been staying at St. Leonards for some weeks past.
His Excellency Count Kielmaneegge has arrived at
Hanover, from visiting his estates in Holstein. His
Excellency will resume his diplmatic duties next mouth,
or early in November.
His Excellency the Prussian Minister and Count
Brandenburgh came to town yesterday morning from
Brighton, and paid a visit to the Comte de Brunsvik, at
the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn-street.
His Excellency the Russian Ambassador at the French
Court, Count Kisseleff, accompanied by the Countess
Kisseleff, the Count St. Clair, and the Count Herman
Potocki, and suite, have arrived at the Brunswick Hotel,
Jerilyn street, from Paris.
The Duke of Newcastle and Lady Susan Pelham
Clinton have left Clumber Park, on a visiting tour in
Scotland. The noble duke and Lady Susan arrived at
Dunrobin Castle, yesterday, on a visit to the Duke and
Duchess of Sutherland.
The Countess of Clarendon and Lady Constance
Villiers are expected at The Grove, near Watford, on
Tuesday next, from a visiting tour in Scotland.
The Earl and Countess of Gainsborough left St. Lao-
cards-on-Sea, a few days since, for their seat, Ex:on
Park, Rutlandshire.
Lady Lyndhurst and the Hon. Miss Copley have left
St. Leonard's-on-Sea, on a visit to Lady Maiian AlforJ,
at Ashbridge, near Berkhampstead. The noble and
learned lord still remains at St. Leonard's.
Lord and Lady Calthorpe will shortly leave Choi-
mondeley Castle, for Perry Hall, Birmingham. Her
ladyship, who has been very much indisposed for some
weeks past, is now much better.
Lord Arthur Hay has left Chester-square for the Earl
Howe's seat, Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire. La,:y Ar-
thur Hay arrived at Gopsall Hall on Tuesday, from
visiting the Marquis and Marchioness of Tweeddale at
Yester House, N.B.
Lord and Lady Harriet Ashley leave Broadlinds,
where the noble lord and lady are visiting Viscount and
Viscountess Palmerston, early in the ensuing week, for
the Continent, to meet the Earl and Countess of Shaftes
bury.
Sir Thomas and Lady Whichcote have arrived at Far
rance's Hotel, Belgravia, from their seat in Lincolnshire.

LATEST NEWS

VIENNA, WEDNESDAY.
The Emperors of Austria and of Russia are to
meet at Weimar.
The Emperor Francis Joseph leaves Vienna on
the 29th inst.

STUFTGARDT, SEPT. 23.

The Czar Alexander is expected here on Thurs-
day evening ; the Emperor Napoleon on Friday
morning. They will give a grand banquet on that
day, and an evening party at the Prince Royal's
country seat near Cannstadt.
On Saturday the august visitors wilt pay a visit
to the royal breeding stud at Hohenheim, and
will attend an evening party at Wilhelmschloss,
the gardens of which regal palace will be illumi-
nated.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs will have an
assembly the same evening of all the members of
the diplomatic corps.
The festivities will terminate on Sunday by s
grand banquet at Court, and a gala spectacle at
the theatre. The Emperors wilt take their de-
parture on Monday morning.

FRANCE.
PARIS, WEDNESDAY.

The Emperor left the Camp of Chalons at two
o'clock this afternoon for Luneville, where he will
review the Cavalry.

He will be at Strasburg to-morrow, and will
arrive the day after at Stuttgart.
H. It. H. the Duke of Cambridge, accompanied
by Lord Burghersh and Colonels Clifton and
Maude, arrived in Paris yesterday from the Camp
of Chalons, and alighted at the Hotel Vouille-
mont.

Count Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
arrived yesterday at Paris from Biarritz, and has
since left for the camp of Chalons.
Count de Kisseleff, Russian ambassador at the
court of the Tuileries, has left Paris for Stuttgard.
The quarterly drawing of the bonds of the
Credit Foncier took place yesterday at the offices
ofthe company : —No. 146,289 gained 100, 000 fr. ;
No. 182,774, 50,000 fr. ; No. 1,914, 20,000 fr.
The Univers contains th 3 following trashy
prognostications :—" England is at this rai-
ment passing through one of those moments of
crisis which decide the fate of nations. In order
to reconquer and preserve India, she must employ
far more troops and civil officials than hitherto.
As her revenue will be diminished, she will be
compelled to reduce, to a considerable extent, the
salaries paid to Europeans in India, and this will
lead to an alteration in the manner of living of
many English families. Should the State at the
531310 time seize on a portion of the Church pro-
perty, the aristocracy, the commercial classes, and
the middling class in general will be deprived of
the lucrative resources which now permit them
to confer advantageous positions on their
children. Will not these changes, this con-
gregation of discontented persons, contribute
to lend activity to the revolutionary spirit
which has fermented for a long time past in
the lower classes of English society, and which
extends daily to the middling class, and even to
the upper class? In a word, is not England ap-
proaching that period when, in her turn, she will
be victim to the agitations and convulsions so
common to the States of Europe since the com-
mencement of this century ?"
BOURSE, Sept. 23.—The following were the last
quo ta! ions :

Cash. fr. End of Month.
ii per Cents
3 per Cents 67 67 25
Bank Shares 2,800 Credit Foucier 550
Credit Mobilier B7O -- Homan
Do. Account B7O Austrian
Belgian 4A .. Spanish Threes 391
Pied mon tees (5) 9O Home Debt