The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-24 00:00:00

IHE StTN, LONDON, TITESIYA V. EVENING NOVEMBER f 24, 18,`3,-*/

without relaxation, was avoided, that money did
not become worth 20 or 30 per cent, as the
times admitted it would have been but for the
infringement of the existing law, but still the
pressure was so long continued that speedy re-
covery was rendered impossible. The OVERSTONE
theory was closely followed. Matters were al-
lowed "to go to the last extremity until the
danger of general confusion had become immi-
nent." The Bank itself must have suspended'
payment, but for the issue of the additional
2,000,0001. on securities.
But notwithstanding the favourable auguries of
the OVERSTONE journals, whose cue i 3 now to
speak hopefully, we are convinced that we have
not yet seen the worst of the transaction. The
enormous failures that have occurred, and the
continuance of the minimum rate of ten per cent.
for discount, must bring on other disasters.
Besides, the drain for gold still continues to India,
China, the Continent, and the United States, and
the stock in the Bank has been reduced to some
six millions and a half, little more than a month's
provision, should the drain continue at its present
rate.

Since the Act has been infringed, it is just as
well that complete relief should be afforded. This
can only be obtained by the issue of small notes
for 11., and the fractional parts of 1/. upwards.
By adopting this course, the use of gold would be
economised, and at least twenty millions of sove-
reigns now circulating from hand to hand in the
transactions of every-day life would become avail-
able for our foreign trade, or for strengthening
the reserve of bullion that should always be main-
tained. But the quality of the note is no
less important than its denomination. The 1/.
note should be one so secured, that it
would be acceptable to every person for domes-
tic use. It should be made a legal tender, and
the Government should render itself, and the
entire property of the nation responsible. There-
fore, so long as it was receivable in payment of
every tax and duty, so long would it be free'y
accepted by the butcher and baker ; and every
fair tradesman who did not desire to excite a
panic for the purpose of lending out money at
usurious and exorbitant interest. This would
answer every domestic purpose, and confer on
the community that inestimable blessing, a sure
and satisfactory circulating medium adequate to
its wants and exigencies. Industry would then
flourish. Working men would be enabled to re-
ceive remunerative prices for their only capital,
"labour." The revenue returns would show con-
siderable improvement under the heads "
Cuc-
toms, Excise, and Income-taxes"—all, in fact, that
denoted the comfort and prosperity of the people.
There would be happiness in every cottage. Even
the needy housekeepers would be better off.
But against all this the Times advocates the
interests of the party whom it justly designates
as the "hard calculator." He has worked hard
to make money worth 15 or 20 per cent., heed-
less of the misery and suffering imposed on the
great majority of the people. Anything that
prevents or retards the accomplishment of this
iniquitous and abominable scheme, is a hardship
on "the hard calculator." It is not now " con-
vertibility" that is required ; that flimsy disguise
has been cast aside. It wilt no longer impose on
the most credulous dupe. It is scarce and dear
money at 15 or 20 per cent., that is the obj-.!et.
The credit notes, although redeemable in gold on
demand, defeat the atrocious designs of "the hard
calculator," and therefore they are to be depre-
cated. We could not have conceived that any
journal would have had the audacity, and, we may
add, the folly to promulgate such a theory. But
the Times has dropped the mask, and we rej size
to find that the issue is narrowed, and that the
specious pretexts so long put forward have boon
abandoned—that the monetary question now
rests on the true foundation, and that the views
and wishes of the bullionists are nog' manifested in
all their unmitigated enormity.

The sound principles of equity have been justly
and fully carried out in the decision pronounced
by the highest legal authorities in the case of
HENRY versus the Great Northern Railway Com-
pany. The view already taken by Vice-Chancellor
Sir PAGE WOOD, was affirmed by Lord ORAN -
WORTH, the Lords Justices agreeing in his opinion
that the preference shareholders were invested
by the Legislature with a priority of right
over the ordinary ones, so far as to entitle them
to the full payment of their stipulated interest
before the latter could make their demands on
the dividends of the season. It was sought, and
we are not about to attribute unworthy
motives to those who raised the qu,ls-
tion, to throw the losses recently sust tined
by the Company through the gigantic frauds of
one of their subordinate officials, upon the
shoulders of those who held the preference stock
therein. The misdeeds of the notorious REDPATII
had had the effect of creating spurious Great
Northern stock to the amount of nearly a quarter
of a million sterling, and he had conducted his
fraudulent proceedings with so mastarly a h tud
that the Directors found themselves, when his
detection took place, totally unable to discr;ini-
nate the genuine stock from the spurious. The
interposition of the Legislature was then invoked,
and an Act was passed in August last, sanction-
ing the application of the balance up to the com-
mencement of the year, which equipoised the amount

of the fictitious shares and stock, to meet the
losses caused by the frauds and forgeries of RED-
PATH. The true construction of this, and the
several acts of Parliament enacted relative to the
Company, was the subject of dispute before the
Courts of Equity, and we rejoice on every grountl,
at the view taken by the learned judges to whom
it was submitted, a view which, should an appeal
be ill-advisedly made to the House of Lords, will
indubitably be confirmed by that supreme Court
of Appeal.

, Had the Directors succeeded in obtaining judi'.
cial sanction to their attempts, the situation of
the preference shareholders would be lamentable,
both with regard to their own interests, and those
of persons placed in the same category as holders
of railway stock. What virtue would there be in the
term, what advantage in the position of the
" preference shareholder," were lie t 3 be made ti
suffer fur the evil fruits of circumstances, over
which ho had not the slightest control, by the
withholding of the stipulated rate of interest, upan
the solemn assuraeu of which ho had been in-
duced to advance his capital to the Great Northern
or any other railway, relying upon the good faith
of its direct3rs ? Who would henc3forward be
found ready and willing to come forward, when
the completion of a line was depending upon ce:-
tam advances of money, if tho compact assuring
him a fixed amount of interest for his advances
wasfirst
plausibletobetreated as so much waste paper up rn the
opportunity ? Nothing could be
really more injurious to the well-being of railway
Boards of Management themselves than the success
of a _movement so replete with solemn mockery as
that which it has been strenuously sought to put
into operation in the present case. They would
forthwith be regarded in the light of faithless
customers, with whom there would be no security
in dealing, and, when hard pressed at the eleventh

hour for the necessary sinews of work, would find
the pockets of capitalists hermetically buttoned
up against their solicitations. For the sake of all
patties, therefore, the decision of the Court of
Chancery, of which we have spoken, is matter for
genuine congratulation. It was given in mani.•
feat accordance with the spirit of the Legisla-
ture, and most assuredly in unison with those
principles of common sense and honesty which
are level to the capacity of even those who have
little acquaintance with the province of the
Legislator or the Judge. The attempt made to
spoliate the preference shareholders in order to
cover losses incurred through tho villainy of a
servant of the directors, who certainly manifested
a culpable negligence in regard to him, afforded
by no means an edifying spectacle to the commu•
nity ; but a lesson has been read which will, we
trust, prevent any similar outrage upon just and
tigbtful claims. The parties assailed have resisted
the attempt unduly made to make them suffer,
with becoming determination, and their triumph
has been signalised by the burden of the costs of
the litigation being cast upon their adversaries.
The ordinary shareholders will, of course, have to
rue the expense incurred by the campaign, and
make themselves content., as best they may, with
the attenuation of their dividends t 3 nonentity for
the nonce through this untoward proceeding of
the directors. The preference shareholders are
pronounced entitled to their legitimate privilege
of being paid in full from the 30th of June, 1856,
before any dividends are distributed among the
former ; and even shculd the surplus be found
insufficient for the conaummation of that object,
to have their claims made good from the following
half-year, before any payment be made to the
rest of the shareholders. It is the unanimous
opinion of the learned functionaries who sat in
judgment upon the case, an opinion clearly and
tenhesitatingly expressed, that their priority is
fully and positively established, and that, using
the words of Lord Justice KNIGHT BRUCE, " to put
the construction upon the act which was contended
for by the defendants, would be to do
gross injustice to the preference share-
holders, and to carry it out would be
both arbitrary and impossible." Let us hope
that rights of this description may for the future
be held sacred from unwarrantable trespass, and
that railway directors will exercise such vigilance
over all departments of their staff as may prevent
the recurrence of the pernicious rogueries of a
REDPATH or a ROBSON, with their costly and an-
noying concomitants.

WIIERE ARE THEY NOW?

THE THEATRES.

HAYMARKET.

Last evening a most amusing farce, from the pen of
J. M. Morten, Esq., entitled, "Take Care of Dowb,"
was produced here, and met with a most triumphant
succosa. The somewhat ominous title led us to expect
something savouring of politics and red tape, but instead
thereof we found it pourtrayed the miseries and difficul-
ties of an old schoolmaster named Wallop, in his endea-
vour of taking care of Dowb's wife during his absence
from his country house at Barnet. Wallop, formerly
the tutor of Mr. Dowbiggin, arrives in London on a
visit to him, and there discovers, as he imagines, Mrs.
Dowbiggin in clandestine correspondence; but the real
fact is that Ramsey is courting Fanny, her sister. In
Wallop's endeavour to "take care of D.)wb," he falls
into the hot-bed, nearly breaks his leg with the garden
roller, and, to crown all his miseries, he imagines he
has committed a murder by shooting the disturber of
Dowb's peace, whom he fancied he had discovered hidden
in a tree, The "unfortunate victim," to Wallop's inex-
pressible delight, turns out to be nothing more
than a scarecrow, and the old schoolmaster, having
had his officiousness exposed, an explanation ensues,
and all ends amicably. Buckstone, as Mr. Wallop,
was in full force, and for nearly an hour the audience was
kept in a state of convulsive laughter by the peculiar diffi
culties in which he becomes involved in carrying out
his resolve to "take care of Dowb." There can be no
doubt that the farce will for some time to come prove
highly attractive. The house was crowded to excess.

play the part of Protector of Europe? Is England the
Power which is always on the look-out for a diplomatic
question, of which to make a matter of European im-
portance ? Is it the British Government which is so
desirous to drag the Holstein affair before the Paris
Conference ?"