The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-28 00:00:00

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two i.ecretariei, amount to 19,500/ a-year, u
lows :

Firit Lord .•. ~,
Four Lords
One Lord...
Houses for three...
Two Secretaries... ...
Private Secretary
Surveyor ...
Accountant• General
Medical Director
Storekeeper-General ...
Controller (..f Victualling
Houses ...

▪ £4,500
• 4
.000 and pay.
... 1,000

... 600
3,500
... 300
1,000
... 1,000
1,000
... 1,000
... 1,000
.. 600

£19,5
The arrangement Ipropose would be as follows:—"
Commander-in-Chief
••• 2,000
Vice-Admiral
.. • ... 1,000
Rear-Admiral 1,000
Captain of the Fleet •••• 1,000
First Secretary ...
••• 1,500
Second Secretary ••• ••• 1,000
Private Secretary ••• ••• 300
Surveyor ... ••• 1,000
Accountant-General 1,000
Medical Director 1,000
Controller of Victualling ... 1,000
Storekeeper-General ... .. 1,000
Two houses 600

£13,400
Showing a reduction of 6,1001. a-year, and .1 am
quite certain the work would be much better done ;
every man would be responsible fur his own depart-
ment, there would be no building ships and pulling
them to pieces—no destroying, breaking up, and
altering as fast as we build ; no building thirty-three
iron steamers without trying one, at the cost of a
million ; at all events we should be able to fix the
responsibility and punish the culprit.
if the public do not now insist on a change they
had better hold their tongues ; they have grumbled
a little at the expense of the iron steamers, but they
may rest assured the reign of blunder is not over, and
never will be, as long as the present system continues.
I am, your obedient servant,
Merchi stoun, Dec. 20. CHARLES NAPIER.

SMITHFIELD MARKET.
To have one great cattle market, with slaughter-
houses,for the supply of London on the side of High-
gate-hill, is the plan proposed by the Times, in
opposition to the other which we have described. The
Highgate-hill proposal, unfortunately, solves none of
the difficulties and removes none of the inconve-
niences. The question is, are cattle to be driven to
and fro, through the streets and across the bridges ?
If they are, the removal of the actual vending place a
few miles off will obviate very few of the evils com-
plained of, whilst it will create other evils not only
tantamount, but of a nature to be more severely felt.
There can be no doubt that what wood be most
desirable for the police and security of the streets, as
well as for the sanity of town-life and its abodes,
would be two cattle markets, one south-west, the other
north, at some considerable distance from town, toge-
ther with many abattoirs or slaughtering establish-
ments in convenient vicinity to the quarters to be sup-
plied. For, as to slaughtering at Highgate all the
mutton that is to be consumed in Southwark and the
Greenwich-road, the inconvenience, loss, impractica-
bility, and increased expense, would be such as to
preclude all possibility of its being persevered in.
The double market, the many abattoirs, the prohibi-
tion against cattle passing the bridges--this is what
the public have a right to ask, and would ask, were
it possible.
But there seems to be no one who will declare that
it is feasible. The committee had admitted it not to
be so. And we must own that we do not ourselves
see how, in these days of free trade, any regulation
could be sanctioned that would make the sale and
supply of meat quite diflerent on one side of the river
and upon the other, without that free intercommuni-
cation which would restore the level of prises.
If then the double market be impossible, if the pas-
sage of cattle over the bridges cannot be prohibited--
two conclusions which we so greatly regret that we
shall be always ready to reconsider them—if cattle
cannot be slaughtered, all of them, six or seven miles
from the place of sale, without seriously affecting
the conditions of sale or of supply, then we fear much
that the balance of advantages and inconveniences
between a great market at Highgate, one at Isling-
ton, or one more central, connected by a great street
with Islington, will prove most in favour of the latter.
We hear, indeed, a great many reasons urged in
behalf of this central market which are by no means
conclusive; such are the great and undoubted advan-
tages of the vicinity of this market and its monied
expenditure to the shops and retail trade of the City,
and the consequent loss to a number of industrious
people, were this market removed. If the public
interests demand it, however, we are not to stop for
such motives as these ; although they exist as strong
reasons for not sacrificing even those interests to mere
idle and ill-calculated love of change, productive of no
advantage whatever except to other private interests
and newer speculations.
Let us consider, for example, the scheme of the
Times. That journal has found several extensive
fields—somewhere " between Highbury and Horn-
sey." It has seen " the proprietor," who is anxious
to sell at the highest price Parliament will give him.
It has seen "In ..-.;....tr vuish.cci,'" vs, /.... nit( ....unveil
" 160 acres of unoccupied eloping ground" into any
sort of market that may be prescribed to him. " Houses
and shops, piazzas and abattoirs are naturally a part
of his design." He will build "a foreign dead meat
market and a home dead meat market," thereby rais-
ing the rent for the proprietors by forcing every
salesman to occupy two shops instead of one. He
will, of course, make " a line of railroad to connect
the river and the market ;" and, in order to avoid the
passage of cattle through the streets, he will also or-
ganize, if the public wish it, a series of air balloons to
land the sheep and oxen at each butcher's shop
throughout the City. This is the grand plan of
the " eminent engineer." The Times, of course, " has
no preference for this particular plan ;" only it thinks
that it decidedly " embraces all the required advan-
tages, and ought to have a full and fair trial." It is
a pity it omits to tell us what "the full and fair trial"
would cost, and that it does not say a single word as
to who would profit or suffer by conceding it. In-
formation upon these points would have been more
satisfactory.
Our contemporary argued yesterday that because
the Corporation see fit to defend its vested interests,
the public should take from that body the entire
control of the cattle markets of London, and should
permit them to be vested in the hands of a company,
or of a private individual. Why, if one point more
than another has been estabidshed in connexion
with this subject, it is the utter impossibility of
properly regulating a great cattle market which
is not in the hands of some public and
responsible body. The control may be vested in the
hands of the Government, as are the cattle markets of
Paris, or it may be vested in a great corporation, like
that of London, the members of which are responsible
to the citizens at large at annual elections. But to talk
of placing in the hands of private speculators the supply
of this great metropolis with its daily food, is one of the
most monstrous proposals that could be conceived. The
Times has talked (most unwarrantably) of the proposals
of the City, as proposals which would raise the price
of meat in the metropolis. What security could the
public have for the price of meat if a private land •
owner and an engineer at Holloway were to be per-
mitted to have the cattle-markets of London entirely
in their own hands ?

Some people imagine that the markets of London
are enormously productive, and that rapid fortunes are
to be made by such extravagant projects as have been
shadowed forth. Before any unhappy speculators are led
to embark in such enterprises, we advise them cautiously
to look at the ±7. s. d. Suppose the 160 acres of land
" between Highbury and Hornsey" to be purchased—
suppose the market to be built thereon—suppose the
direct line of railway to the Thames to be constructed
—where, let us ask, is the dividend to come from ?
We very much fear, we must " suppose " that Sao.
For, at the present tolls, the annual gross revenue
derived from Smithfield-market is no more than
6,4491. a year ; and out of that gross revenue
more than 3,000/. goes in charges for management
and of collection. How far will the 3,000/, remaining
go towards paying interest on the purchase money of
the 160 acres and dividends upon the railway shares,
and upon the cash expended in bricks and mortar,
and in the charges of the " engineer ?" It is quite
obvious that no such scheme as that proposed could
be carried out without raising the charges on the
animals brought to market, to such an unreasonable
height as to affect the price of meat.
The Highgate scheme has, in fact, not even the
practicability and promise of the Islington one. It is
unfortunately admitted that there must be a great
stream of cattle through the metropolis from north to
south, from the northern roads over Blackfriars-
bridge. This must be attended with inconvenience
and danger to those living upon and frequenting such
regulatingthoroughfares. the p
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with Newgate-street, would
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ect
ofittakes

TUE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR.-Thillilig the past
three weeks a number of skeletons have been discovered in
the parish of Greinton, not far from Swain's Leap. At
Greinton plantation a quarry has been opened and several
trees felled. This spot commands an extensive view of
Sedgemoor, where one of the Monmouth battles was fought,
and the remains discovered are supposed, and we entertain no
doubt of the fact, to be the remains of those engaged in th•
battle. Some of the bodies were interred in rude coffins
formed of large stones, and the skeletons bespeak them to
have been men of noble stature.—Bridgewater Times.