The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-20 00:00:00

NENVGATE AND LEADENHALL.

MEAT.—Tho weather being favourable there was a better
demand in the dead meat trade to-day, and rates, though
not quotably higher, tended in an upward direction. Beef
3s 4d to 48 2d, mutton 3s 6d to 4s 4d, veal 3s 8d to ss, pork
3s 8d to 48 Bd, lamb 6s 8d to 7s 4d por stone of 81b by the
carcase.

COTTON.
LIVERPOOL, March 20.—Sales to-day probably 10,000
bales. Market quiet and unchanged.

DESTRUCTION OF THE AERATED BREAD COM-
PANY'S FLOUR MILLS BY FIRE.---The flour mills belonging
to the Aerated Bread Company, situate in South-street,
High-street, Wandsworth, were for the most part de-
stroyed by fire last evening. The fire appears to have
originated in the upper part of the mills, and was not dis-
covered until the flames had actually burst forth from the
roof. The local engines were soon brought to the spot,
and every possible effort was made to stop the flames from
spreading, but ineffectually, until three of the upper floors
were entirely destroyed, the roof burnt off, and the rest
of the mills and contents severely damaged by fire and
water.

PREFERENCE SHARES.
Great Northern, 5 per sent. rd. at 5 per cent. pm., 1051

19:011e1GREN btiAttti; AND STOCKS.
London and S.-Western 4i per cent., 89
LINES LEASED AT FIXED RENTALS.
Chester and Holyhead,
Ditto, 5 per cent., 119
London and Blackwall, asi
South York. and River Dun, 95

rolikAGN RAILWAY:,.
Great Luxembourg, 8 ;
San Paulo, lien., bua. i per cent.,l7i
FOREIGN 111114

Cape Copper, 10
D.,n l'euro, North Dcl Rey, 2/
t'ort Phillip, 14
St, John del Itey, lira , ISI

DOCKS
East and West India, 1231
Ditto, Debenture Stock, 50
if Aki h S.

Agra, lien., A, 10 f
Ditto, B, if
Imperial Ottoman. 10
London and County,
Ditto, new, 3ii
London Joint Stock, 12
Oriental Bank Corporation, 42f

MISCELLANICO
Anglo American Telegraph, 22
Atlantic Telegraph, 65 #
Ditto, El per cent 1031
Bombay Gas, lim., 4
Commercial Union. Insurance. 5)
Credit Fonckr of England, litre., 31 3
Crystal Palace.
Ditto, 6 per cent. perpetl. deb., 108 i
Egyptian ii per Cent.. Viceroy Loan, gua. by Egypt. Goy., 89J
Gen. Credit and Discount, um.. Oi
Hudson's Bay, 14
International Financial Society,lim., 31
London Financial Association. lira., 6
National viscount Company, ii 11
Peuinsula and Oriental team,
Dito, new, 1867, 6# 6
Rio de Janeiro City Improvements. 16
Viceroy of Egypt 7 per cent. Mortgage) Loan, 731 i

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE—This Day
(By Telegraph.)

GRAVESEND, Friday Morning.
Arrived, March 20—Souvenir, steamer, from Caen;
Berlin, steamer, from Hamburg; Diana, steamer, from
Amsterdam ; Ranger, steamer, Rotterdam ; Sir Robert
Peel, and Neva, steamers, from Dunkirk ; Cologne,
steamer, from Boulogne; Hendrika, from Emden ; Lena,
from Tuticorin; Alfred Louisa, from Port Rio : Restless,
from Molgast ; Only Son, from Dorcum ; Scandia, from
Porsgrund.

DEAL, Friday Morning.
Passed—Meg Merrilies, from London, for Kurrachee ;
Sterling, from London, for Cardiff ; E. A. Sender, bark,
from the Nurth, for the West.

The annual general meeting of this company was held
yesterday, at the offices, 4, Queen-street Place, Southwark
Bridge. William €lover, Esq., the chairman of the com-
pany, presided.
The usual routine business having been disposed of, the
CHAIRMAN said the first thing for the meeting to hear was
the result of the operations of the past year.
Mr. SUTTON GOVER, the managing director, read the re-
port, which was as follows :
" The past year has been the most prosperous of the
company's existence, the policy-holders generally having
invited their friends and neighbours to insure in the
company. 3,889 new policies have been issued, assuring
.£661,997 ; the new annual premiums thereon, amounting
to £20,303 ; an amount of business equalled by very few
of the most prosperous institutions in the kingdom. The
rate of mortality has been very low, both as compared
with the tabular provision and the satisfactory expe-
rience of past years. Sums assured and bonuses amount-
ing to £15,874 have been paid during the year under
110 policies, making the number of claims paid since
the commencement of the company 509, and the amount,
including bonuses, .£80,321. The sum of £768 has been
paid for the surrender of policies during the past year, a
small sum, considering the number of policies in force with
the company. The loans granted by the company on its
policies have enabled numerous policy-holders to keep up
the provision for their families during- a period of general
commercial depression. The remainder of the capital of
the company has been issued at £5 per share premium.
The sum of £29,367 has been added to the accumulated
fund during the year, which now amounts to £155,345.
The auditors have carefully examined the securities of the
company. The continued ill health of Mr. Joseph War-.
mington, one of the original directors of the company,
having for some time prevented him from attending the
meetings of the directors, he felt it his duty in the course
of the year to place his resignation in the hands of the
board, who passed a vote of thanks to him for his long and
excellent services to the company, and elected Mr. William
George Lemon as a director in his place. The Board have
appointed in his room, until the annual meeting, Mr. Wm.
Smith. The company has also lost an old and staunch friend
by the death of the late Dr. Tidman, the veteran Secretary of
the London Missionary Society, an active policy-holder
of the company. The remarkable growth of the com-
pany is striking evidence of the value of the principle of
true mutuality as practised by the British Equitable As-
surance Company. (Cheers.)
The CHAIRMAN said their manager always on such
occasions favoured them with a few additional remarks,
therefore he:liad now to ask him to Proceefi.
Mr. SUTTON GOTER then addressed the meeting as fol-
lows :—lt is• eminently satisfactory that in a year of such
general commercial depression and distress there should
have 'been effected a much • 'larger increase in
the company's business than in any former year.
The new policies issued during the last three years have
been as follows:—Reported in 1866, 2,073, £353,700; 1867,
2,845, £501,175; 18643, 3;89, £661,997; total, £1,516,872.

We have not./ 14,474 policies in force assuring £2,454,896.
At our tenth annual meeting the business in force was
7,860 policies, assuring £1,312,970. At tho end of the
thirteenth year it is 14,474 policies, assuring £2,454,896,
so that the business has increased nearly as much in the
last three years as in the prior ten years. The amount of
death claims and bonuses paid in the year 1866, under 67
policies, was £14,199 ; in the year 1817, under 110
policies, £15,874. The sum paid for death claims
and bonuses from the commencement of the com-
pany 'under 509 policies is £80,321. The direc-
tors having determined to close the capital of
the company; the whole of the original shares were issued
at a premium of £5 per share, being 50 per cent. of the
amount of the call with scarcely any expense, and in
about a month from their intention to do so, so that the
whole of the capital of the company is subscribed, and the

10 per cent. call thereon and premium paid, with the ex-
ception of about £2,300 in course of payment. The
Accumulated Fund has been increased during the
year by £29,367, making the amount laid by in the
last three years £75,678. It now amounts to £155,315.
It was with much regret that the directors accepted the
resignation of Mr. Joseph Warmington, one of the original
directors of the company, on account of continued ill-
health. This resolution, having been emblazoned on vel-
lum; was presented to him. "It was unanimously re-
solved that the board of directors hereby express their
deep regret that Joseph Warmington, Esq., one of the
original directors of the company, feels it his duty to
resign his office, because his continued failing health
precludes the possibility of his attendance at the board,
&c. ; they desire to express their deep sense of his
diligent and faithful discharge of his duty as a director of
the company from its formation, and the great value of the
services he has rendered, which have so materially con-
duced to the growth and solid establishment of the com-
pany. Nor can they part with their honoured colleague
without stating how much his kind and urbane manner
and wise counsels have promoted the harmony and
efficiency of the executive of the company, and they
trust that his health may be improved and his valued
life long spared ; and they further tender him their'
cordial remembrances and good wishes." The board
elected in his place, until this meeting, Mr.
William George Lemon, whose influential connections,
energetic business habits, and capacity for hard work,
peculiarly fit him for the office of director. We have
lost by death, Dr. Tidman, who gave on several oc-
casions numerous introductions to his influential
circle, with a view to extending the business of the
company ; numbers of our policy-holders have done as
much. I wish they would all feel it their duty to do so.
Life assurance is one'of the most benevolent forms of the
application
of association, co-operation, and brotherly
love, and is doing much to lessen pauperism. Possibly
pauperism is preventible. The causes of pauperism
are ignorance, sloth, folly, vice, and calamity. There
need be but little pauperism in this country besides
that which is the result of errors. Almost every form of
calamity, so fas as it tends to produce pauperism, can be
defeated beforehand by societies of mutual assurance.
A useful illustration of the philosophy of saving is
put in the mouth of Mr. Mie,aerber by Charles Dickens'
"Annual income twenty pounds ; annual expendi-
ture, nineteen, nineteen and six; result, happi-
ness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expen-
diture, twenty pounds, ought and six ; result, misery."
Levasseur, who, at the instance of the Empress, has lec-
tured to the working men of Paris on Life Assurance, says
"Saving is the mother of capital, and capital is the fund
with which wages are paid, the indispensable instrument
of all production, and everywhere the material foundation
on which is seated our modern civilization. We cannot
too much recommend two virtues, which, when they are
united with instruction in a free country, are all
powerful for the prosperity of nations, as for the well-
being and the independence of individuals ; the labo-
rious activity which creates the saving that preserves."
Life Assurance is doing much good. Millions are paid
by the life offices every year under policies which avert
so much pauperism. Probably 20,000 families receive the
sums assured. How mucft batter it is for the head of a
family, that instead of vying with his neighbours in un-
necessary expense, ho should spend less and assure more.
Industry and thrift are the father and mother of good luck.
Saving is the parent of wealth, and life assurance saving
the defence of families when their Heads are no more.
The Cusiumess in moving the adoption of the report,
said the recurrence of their annual mooting was always a
great happiness for him, because it invariably fell to his
lot to have to congratulate those present on having ex-
ceeded their former year's results. He had never had to
come before them with apologies. (Hear, hear.) They were
always pleasant meetings, but he must confess that there
never had been such good grounds for congratula-
tion as on the present occasion. The past year
had, he regretted to say, removed from them
one of their directors, Mr. Joseph Warmington. He was
a gentleman of the kindest disposition, and one whose
greatest desire was to increase in every way the prosperity
of the society with which he had been so long and inti-
mately connected, He could not express the deep regret
he felt at the loss, but in his successor, Mr. Lemon, he
thought they had secured a gentleman every way qualified
for the duties so ably and honourably fulfilled by
his predecessor. In reverting to the business of
the last year he had to say they, that day,
brought their good ship into port, presented her papers—
(cheers)—and they spoke lot-themselves. (Loud cheers.)
The present was the harvest day for their agents ; they
doubtless had had battles and conflicts, but the grand re-
sult of their exertions must be particularly cheering. The
society was much indebted to their agents for the energy
and perseverance they had evinced in furthering its use-
fulness; and it was indeed a gratification to know that no
society was better represented in different parts of the coun-
try than the British Equitable. The increase in their con-
nection was an unmistakable evidence of prosperity,because
an increase of business in a society like theirs developed
life—because no one liked to be connected with a deadly-
lively thing—(laughter) ; and another matter of importance
was that an increase of business improved the average of
the lives of those assured. It was putting so much now
blood into the society—(hear, hear)—and that important
process could but result in strengthening and invigorating
it, a circumstance which gave, he was sure, unmixed
pleasure and delight to every gentleman present. (Cheers.)
He had great pleasure in formally moving the adoption of
the report. _

Mr. E. DUNN said he rejoiced to be present to-day when
such a successful report was presented. Their agents had
evidently worked hard, but that success had resulted from
those efforts must be particularly gratifying to them.
(Cheers.) The statement of the managing director was
also so satisfactory that it held out great encouragement
for future exertion. (Cheers.)
The report was then adopted unanimously.
Mr. F. J. Hartley and Mr. W. S. Gover, the directors
retiring by rotation, having been re-elected, both gentle-
men returned thanks for the confidence reposed in them.
Mr. W. G. Lemon was then proposed as a director in
the place of the late Mr. Warmington, and Mr. W. Smith
as an auditor. Both gentlemen were elected unanimously.
A vote of thanks was then awarded to the auditors,
which was acknowledged by Mr. 013BARD7 who bore his
testimony to the admirably clear and understandable
manner in which the accounts were kept. A similar
compliment was also awarded to the Managing Director,
the medical officers, and the agents, and the proceedings
were brought to a close by a corJial vote of thanks to the
Chairman for the manner in which he had fulfilled the
duties of the day.
The CHAIRMAN thanked the meeting for the kind re-
cognition of his services, and again said it was one of the
pleasures of his life to he present at their annual meet-
ing.

The Bishop of LONDON said that he had to present a
petition from the Senate of the University of Cambridge,
which appeared so important that he would occupy their
attention a few minutes. Their lordships would be aware
that although students were admitted that were not mem-
bers of the Church of England, yet they could Lave
nothing to do with the governance of the university. The
petition which ho had the honour to present was signed
by 35 members of the Senate. It was the desire of a portion
of both universities that it should be secularised. Ho should
personally object if such a course was pursued. It would
entirely upset the whole system of government, a..d
studies at all events at Oxford. But he did not enter-
tain the fears of these memorialists, and he thought that
they might extend a great deal the advantages
to persons other than members of the Established
Church, and did not think more danger would occur from
admitting them to the Convocation and Senate of the
University, than would accrue from the admission to their
lordships' house persons who were not members of the
Established Church. He thought that there ought
to be no danger in having also professors of
abstruse science who were not members of the
Established Church. Now the petitioners whose petition
he had the honour to present stood in the same middle
position as himself, and wished that while every facility
should be given to dissenting students, yet they
desired that the governance of the colleges should be
In the hands of members of the Established Church.
The petitioners were afraid that if persons :not of the
Established Church were admitted the education of the
clergy would cease, and the seminary of the colleges as a
religious one would cease. In secular colleges he must
say that the education which the clergy received must be
very different from that received at Cambridge and Oxford;
they desired especially to avoid dissenting the colleges ;
and were anxious that the government of the colleges
should be left to the Established Church. To any ar-
rangement that some of the fellows might be not mem-
bers of the University they had no objection, and while
wishing that the University might be thrown open as
much as possible, they desired that the
.government
of the colleges might still remain in the hands of those
professing that religion whose glory and safeguard it had
been in times past. (Cheers.) The right rev. prelate
concluded by laying the memorial on the table.
THE RITUAL COMMISSION.

Lord TAUNTON inquired when the second report of
the Ritual Commission would be laid on the table, and re-
marked that there was great evil and danger in ritualistic
practices, and that the sooner they were thoroughly inves-
tigated into the better. He sincerely trusted that no point
would be left unsettled, and that whatever the service of
the Chureh was to be that it would be carried out uni-
formly throughout every parish church in England.
This he considered would alone give satisfaction. (Hear,
hoar.)
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY said that the
commission had been very busily engaged in preparing
their second report, and they trusted to lay it before her
Majesty in a very short time. Their lordships would un-
derstand that he could not go into any, details. (Hear,
hear.)
RETURNS OF NUMBER OF SPECIAL
CONSTABLES.

Lord S TRATHEDEN moved for a return of the number
of the special constables who enrolled themselves in the
different parishes of the metropolis after, the explosion at
Clerkonwell. He eulogised their having come forward so
spontaneously, and asserted that no acknowledgment had
been made of their conduct either the year before last, or
last year, or at present. _

The motion was agreed to, and
Their lordships then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS-LAST EVENING,

The SPEAKER took the Chair at four o'clock.

Mr. WHITE presented a petition from Liverpool, pray-
ing that the public expenditure might be greatly reduced.
Colonel SYKES presented a petition praying that the
elective franchise might be extended to women properly
qualified by the payment of taxes, &c.
Mr. PEASE presented a petition from Dewsbury pray-
ing that public-houses might be altogether closed on
Sundays.