The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-03 00:00:00

in England, where they have hitherto been so for-
tunate in the exceptional causes we have enume-
rated. Even now the ric in the value of real pro-
perty is .marked ; also in wages, in meat, and in
bread. What we maintain is that the disturbance
which has hitherto been slow in Great Britain will
hereafter be accelerated, and that a change is now
in progress which will soon be realized disagreeably
by numerous families.

GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN.

Last Saturday Mr. Train was again before the
Irish insolvency judge (Miller), when it was stated
by counsel on his behalf that the total amount of
the Ebbw Yale Company's debt was £503, the rest
being costs and interest. Mr. Train did not know
what became of the iron of the street rails after
they were condemned. He never got a s%illing of
the proceeds. Ile had offered to pay the expen,_;es
of the manager of the Ebbw Yale Company if ha
came over as a witness, but he ref used. The money
he had obtained as promoter of the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway was what was settled on
his wife after the London tramway debts and the
Ebbw Vale debt had been deducted by Mr.
AP Henry. Mr. Train was president of the Credit
Fancier of America, in which he had but a single
share for $l,OOO, on which $2OO had been paid. It
was given to qualify him. The judge being still
not satisfied with the schedule, adjourned the matter
once more until Tuesday, Mr. Train expressing
much regret, as he would have wished to sail (to-mor-
row Sunday) in the Scotia, "to be present at the
July convention." He was returned to the Marshalsea,
to continue the story of his life now so happily
commenced in the New York World. lie heads
this, " Train making an attempt upon his life."
Calculating the difficulty how to begin, and with
my Ben Butler eye on the Manager's immortal, I
might commence thus :—" I was born at the age of
twenty-one without parents, and had it not been
for a kind Providence, and a few other friends, I
should have been as ignorant as the common people,
or even as you, gentlemen. The fact is, lam not
up to this work ; naturally sensitive, constitutionally
diffident, with a shrinking from the public gaze
since my earliest infancy, I can hardly muster up
courage to write_ about myself. But you have asked
it, and it may help to use-up my dreary life in jail."
The family were Methodists, living for generations
under the same old ancestral roof in Waltham,
Massachusetts. The New England Conference used
to meet there. You will see the old farm house,
in the preface of Stevens' History of Methodism
—Stevens, of the Zion's Herald, who so many
times has been to the home of my childhood, and
drank from that old oaken bucket that hangs in the
well. My mother was a beautiful woman. My,
father was a man of intellect and education. That
accounts, ete.—modesty forbids. * * * My
name being Train is purely accidental. A young
man of fortune and elegant manners was reputed
to be engaged to my mother. lie was goilig to New
Ocleaus. He introduced my father with the request
that he would show her all the attention he could
during his absence. Ile did so, and, to the, astonish-
ment of his Southern friend, married her, which
coincidence accounts for my name being Train,
otherwise it would have been Fiske, and all the
stock prices, stock poetry, stock names, such as
Train oil,' Lightning Train,' Express Train,'
Train off the track,' and so forth, would have been
lost to fame. Boston was my n lave city. I
Apologise for it. I was born in a small front house in
High-street, now occupied by twenty-five Irish fami-
lies. How soon will the sons of St. Patrick oc-
cupy the mansions of the children of the Pilgrims."
In 1856 the New York herald thus sketched his
career. " George Francis Train was the oldest sou
of Oliver Train, who, for many years prior to his
decease, was a successful merchant in the City of
Boston, where his son George was born. In the
year 1832 or 1833 Oliver Train removed, with his
family, consisting of his wife ant three children,
from Boston to the City of New Orleans. During
the first year of his residence at the South the
yellow fever prevailed in its most aggravated form,
and among its victims the entire family of Oliver
Train was numbered, with the isolated exception
of the subject of this notice. After Mr. Train had
buried the whole of his family but George, and a
short time before his own death, in the hope of
saving his only remaining child from a similar fate,
he committed him to the care of a captain of a
sailing vessel bound to Boston from the port of New
Orleans, to be restored to the surviving relatives
of his deceased mother. Thus, at the tender
age of four years, bereft of father, mother,
brother and sister, this friendless child in a
strange land commenced the voyage of life
alone. Though too young, perhaps, to be
much influenced in character by the unpro-
pitious and forlorn circumstances in which his
career began, yet his subsequent life, successful in
an eminent degree, and unmindful of difficulties,
which, however formidable to others, serve but to
stimulate him to conquer them, seems to give evi-
dence that the severe training of his childhood had
given him strength, hardihood and resolution.
Arriving in safety at the city of his birth, after a
protracted voyage of many weeks, he was com-
mitted to the care of his grandmother on the ma-
ternal side, who then resided and still resides at
Waltham, Massachusetts, and by whom he was
reared with tenderness and a watchfulness that could
only be looked for from the mother that gave him
birth. This venerable woman, who still survives to
witness the success of her protege, gave him the
advantage of all the education which at that
day was to be acquired in a New England town."
George Francis gives a touching picture of his
childhood in New Orleans, written with a power
that shows, when he chooses to be rational, how
great the talent is he does in truth possess. If all
his loose joints were well screwed together, and
ceased to rattle in that plaguey ridiculous way when
he got into motion, he would have taken a very
different position in his country. Without a par-
ticle of real sympathy by blood, or any other
bond, he desires to walk on the shoulders of the
Irish into the Presidential Chair, and he pursues
this infatuated idea with a waste of toil, talent,
and energy, which, well directed, would make any
other person's fortune. After abusing England to
his heart's content, he expects to be received by
Englishmen with outstretched hand. Otherwise,

what could have induced him to brave the lion in his
den on the Liverpool Stock Exchange. There are
only two ways in which he can be received in Eng-
land, either with indignation, or with curiosity. He
has too much talent and energy, however misdi-
rected, to be treated with contempt. We are sorry
he was not permitted to leave, as he desired, by the
Scotia, for we are curious to see what his influence
among the Irish in America really is. But the It--
publicans need not hug themselves on the prospect
of seeing the Irish vote split in favour of George
Francis Train.