The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-15 00:00:00

GOLD FROM CALIFORNIA.

Some estimates have lately been formed of the
shipments of gold received in Europe from California
to the present time, which we believe may be re-
garded as tolerably accurate, and according to which
the amount is about 3,300,000/. On the other side,
up to the end of September, the receipts at the two
mints of the United States had been about 31,000,000
dolls. or 6,200,0001. Since that time we have had
advices of further arrivals at New York and New
Orleans amounting to 500,000/. An aggregate is
consequently formed of exactly 10,000,0001. To this
must be added, in order to estimate the total produc-
tion, not only the amounts which have found their
way to China, Manilla, Australia, Oregon, the Sand-
wich Islands, the States of Spanish America, &c., but
also the total which has been retained in Cali-
fornia for the purposes of currency. The
population in that county now ranges
somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000, and,
although a considerable amount of silver dollars have
been imported, the bulk of the circulation i 4 believed
still to be in the form of gold-dust or of gold tokens.
If the 250,000 persons possess on an average 10/. a-
piece, we have a sum of 2,500,000/., and, looking at
the expense of a week's maintenance in the country,
as well as the large quantities constantly in transit, as
well as the reserves which, as was shown by the last
advices, the various deposit houses are compelled to
retain to meet sudden runs, it is probable that this is
under the real total. Taking all points into con-
sideration, it may therefore be assumed that the
whole which has been raised is equal to at least
13,000,0001. sterling. Of this production, according
to recent official returhs from the United States,
nearly four-firths have taken place during the pre-
sent year. 01 25;966,817 dolls. received in the United
States Mint at Philadelphia, up to the end of Sep-
tember last, only 44,177 dolls. had arrived in 1848,
5,481,430 dolls. in 1849, while the quantity in 1850
had been 20,441,210. The same proportions would
probably prevail with regard to the sums distributed
to other places, and we are therefore led to the sup-
position that the export this year has already actually
reached upwards of 10,000,000/., although the re-
sults of two additional months have yet to be known.
It will be observed, consequently, that the unexpected
feature which has hitherto attended the progress of
this new region, namely, that almost all the accounts
from it, although deemed exaggerations at first, have
proved ultimately to have been under-statements, is
still presented. At the commencement of 1850
the most sanguine anticipations that were formed
in any direction fixed its probable yield at 10,000,000/.,
and not only has this been exceeded, but each quarter
of the year has thus far shown an increase of
nearly half upon the amount gathered in the pre-
ceding one. Thus the receipts at Philadelphia for
the first three months were 4,270,714 dolls., while
they were 6,920,496 dolls. for the second, and again
9,250,000 for the third. This rate of augmentation
coincides with the influx of population, and, as the
emigration to the country is certain to be continued
until the remuneration it affords for labour is brought
to a level with the advantagesoffered elsewhere, there is
no reason, so long as we are without accounts of an
apparent limit to the field of operations, to anticipate
anything else than a steady continuance of an
im
proving ratio. So far from a limit having yet been
found, each fresh exploration seems to develope new
and more favourable localities, and an extended dis-
covery of dry diggings lately alleged to have been
made, together with the steps in progress elsewhere
to crush the mountain ore by machinery, appears to
hold out the prospect that, even with the approach of
winter, there will scarcely be a suspension of the
prevailing activity.

INCENDIARISM IN WEST SURREY.—COMMITTAL OF
rim INCENDIARY.—Yesterday morning a young man, about
24 years of age, in the garb of a labourer, who gave his
name as William Fletcher, was charged before the magis-
trates of Guildford with having wilfully and maliciously set
fire to a straw rick, thereby causing the destruction of two
other ricks of wheat and hay, as also a barn full of wheat
and barley, the property of Mr. Stephen Ceaser, an exten-
sive farmer, at Pyle Hill Farm, at Mavford, near Woking,
on the 23d ult.; and, after a lengthened examination. before
R. A. C. Aus,en, Esq., county magistrate, he was fully com-
mitted for trial.
DESTRUCTIVE FIRE NEAR LunGATE-HILL. —Last
night, about half-past eight o'clock, a fire, by which several
families have been reduced to a state of beggary, broke out
in one of the tall houses, No. 18, in Holliday-yard, Creed-
lane, Ludgate-hill. The building was occupie conjointly by
three families, named respectively Eaton, Tankard, and
Newsom. Nearly everything contained in the house was
consumed. The property lost by this disastrous event is very
considerable.
GRAY'S INN. —At a Pension of the Honourable
Society of Gray's Inn, holden cn Wednesday last, the Rev.
Thomas Huntley Greene, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford,
was elected assistant clergyman to the society.
KENT AND SURREY TURNPIKE ROADS.—Wednes-
day, these tolls, after a sharp competition, were purchased by
Mr. Morris, agent for alessrs. Levy, the largest toll contrac-
tors in the kingdom, for 11,5904 being an advance of 875/.
on the sum realized last year.
No sincere desire of doing good need make an
enemy of a single human being. That philanthropy has
surely a flaw in it which cannot sympathize with the op.
pressor equally with the oppressed.—Eliza Cook's Journal.
POISONING NEAR GAINSBOROUGH, LINCOLNSHIRE.
—.The inhabitants of the village of Stow were thrown into a
state of great alarm on Thursday morning last by its be-
coming known that Mr. Christopher Page, farmer, of Stow
Park, and his wife, had both been poisoned ; that the latter
was dead, and that Mr. Page was suffering severely. An
inquest was held on Friday, at which Eliza Smalley, the
u frodwe
rl
servant girl, confessed that she had put poison in the coffee-
pot.m e d itioe rb
h mistresser o n havingymoi v . accusedA l.erhdeicrt oof killing a f
was returned against the girl. fsl.r Page was able to give his
evidence at the inquest.
It is not what we earn that makes us rich, but
what we save ; it is not what we eat, but what we digest,
that makes us fat; it is not what we read, but what we re-
member, that makes us learned. —Eliza Cook's Journal.
GREAT WE,,TERN RAILWAY.--T he increase of
traffic during the present half-year, and the reduction of the
permanent-way expenses, will enable the Great Western
Railway Company to pay a dividend at the rate of rider-
pe
cent. per annum, and carry a large balance— say, cofounsr
ably beyond 30,0001.—over to the assistance ofbab the June isix
months. This calculation supposes all pr
o
against revenue being paid out of it.
A rapid and emphatic recital of the folowing simple
le carges
narrative is an infallible cure for lisping Hobbs meets
Snobbs and Nobl,s ; Hobbs bobs to Snobbs and Nobbs;
Hobbs nobbs with Snobbs and robs Nobbs' fobs. This
is,' says Nobbs, the worst of Hobbs' jobs,' and Snobbs sobs."
UP HILL WORR.—Chasing balloons and collecting
newspaper accounts.
THE PRESS AND THE PULPIT.- The New York
papers say, " Jenny Lind has no equal as an eff ctive vo-
calist, never has had, and we doubt it she ever will have this
side of Paradise; and even there she seems fitted to lead
the heavenly choirs.'" On the other hand a clergyman in
Boston has inure than once cautioned the people trout the
pulpit against that singing woman, Miss Jane Lind.--

SP/RIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

DAILY NEWS.—Cardinal Wisrnsn and his sui-
dzsant suffragans have incurred the penalties of pro,
munire. The phrase is in everybody's mouth : what
precisely does it mean ? The origin and growth of
that portion of our statute law which previous to the
Reformation constituted the main defence of king and
people against the encroachments of the Papacy, is
not very difficult to trace. Rome during the reigns
of the Plantagenets was at the zenith of its political
power. Nearly the whole of western Christendom
owned its spiritual suzerainty. Emperors and kings,
free cities and fierce barons, held in turn the stirrup
of its ambition. The network of its subtle polity was
spread over all lands; and feudalism itself bent be-
neath the weight of its authority. As feofs were held
of the crown, so kingdoms were disposed of by the
arrogant successors of St. Peter. Henry IL did not
disdain to accept the lordship of Ireland as a gift
from Adrian, and his son was not ashamed to execute
a formal surrender of the crown to Innocent III„ and
to receive it again at the rent of 1,000 marks a year !
Ecclesiastical courts asserted an absolute independence
of civil control, and claimed for all persons in holy orders
exemption from all responsibility save to their pecu-
liar jurisdiction. Vast wealth became accumulated in
the hands of the regular and secular clergy. Landed
property was every year to a greater extent enclosed
within the impenetrable fence of mortmain. Finally
the benefices and bishoprics of the national church
were grasped at by the insatiable cupidity of Rome.
The spirit of the nation, which had complacently en-
dured every other species of indignity and encroach-
ment, revolted against this new usurpation. In the
thirty-fifth year of the reign of Edward 1., a statute
was passed which Coke declares to be the foundation
of that edifice of ecclesiastical liberty eventually per-
fected by such gradual care and raised to such a noble
and conspicuous elevation. The provisions of this
early Act, however, proved ineffectual for their pur-
pose; and one of the weighty charges against the ill-
fated Edward 11. was his allowing of bulls from Rome
to be brought into the kingdom for the unlawful dis-
posal of church preferments, and the. like. His suc-
cessor strove at the beginning of his reign to induce
the Papal Court to come to some reasonable under-
standing. But his expostulations seemed only to pro-
voke fresh ebullitions of insolence ; and in reply
to his remonstrances he was reminded that France
had recently humbled herself before the Uni-
versal Lord of nations, and that the Emperor
of Germany was equally submissive. Edward 111.
replied as became him, that though every prince and
state should league together to maintain this scheme
of usurpation, he and his people were resolved to vin-
dicate the ancient freedom of the realm. Nor was
this an idle boast. Several Acts were passed declar-
ing all presentments made by Rome to livings or
bishoprics, and all pretended acts collating persons to
other benefices, void, and rendering those who should
procure or accept any such appointments liable to fine
and imprisonment. In the following reign the law
was rendered still more stringent; special provisions
were introduced against the holding of any ecclesias-
tical preferment by aliens, or persons born out of the
legianee of the King ; and all liege men of the Crown
accepting benefices by "foreign provision" were put
out of the protection of the law. These enactments
were denounced at Rome as impious and schismatical,
and threats of excommunication were hurled against
those who should presume to execute or obey them.
But the Parliaments of those days were of one mind on
the subject ; and by the 16th Richard 11., ch. 5, they not
only re-affirmed the most important principles em-
bodied in former statutes, but further enacted that
whoever "should procure at Rome any bulls, pro-
cesses, excommunications, instruments, or other
things, which touch the King, against his crown and
realm, and all persons aiding and assisting therein,
should be put, out of the King's protection, their lands
and goods forfeited, and that they should be attached
by their bodies to the King and his council, or pro-
cess of pratmunire facial should be made out against
them." This last recited Act is generally called
" The Statute of Prmoeunire," from the title of the
writ under which proceedings were taken against its
violators ; from the resolute unanimity with which its
policy was sustained by the nation, no efforts on the
part of the Italian priesthood were able to defeat it.
In vain Pope Eugenius assumed the right to appoint
a bishop to fill the see of Ely ; the Archbishop of
Canterbury refused to consecrate him, and another
was duly enthroned, whom the chaptel had chosen and
the King approved. In vain Martin V. commanded the
archbishop to endeavour to obtain the repeal of the
16th Richard ll.,—illud execrabile statuturn, as
he called it ; and upon the refusal of the
primate, affected to suspend him from his functions,
The University of Oxford, both Houses of Parlia-
ment, and the Sovereign each sent embassies to de-
precate the Pontiff's wrath ; and the struggle was
allowed to die away. In Tudor times many strin-
gent laws were passed, securing the royal supremacy.
The most important, perhaps, was the :sth Elizabeth,
chap. 1, by which to maintain the spiritual jurisdic-
tion of Rome within the realm was made an offence,
punishable as in cases of priemunire, the first time,
and as in cases of high treason for the second. This
was followed by many others framed in a like spirit
for the enforcement of uniformity in public worship,
&c. And though in our days these enactments have
always been treated as practically obsolete, it was not
without reiterated discussion during three successive
sessions of 1844, 1845, and 1846, that Lord Lynd-
hurst and Sir James Graham were able to prevail on
Parliament to abrogate formally the barbarous pe-
nalties already mentioned. The ancient statutes
themselves were suffered to remain unrepealed as
landmarks of the national polity; and the friends of
toleration were glad to see their excessive and
impracticable seventies done away. The Emans
cipation Act of 1829 in no respect re-
moved or lessened the force of those disqualifying
statutes whereby Roman Catholics are rendered in•
capable of holding preferments in the established
Church either of England, Scotland, or Ireland. On
the contrary, the 16th section explicitly recognises
and re-enacts, in the most comprehensive terms, the
disabilities in that behalf existing. Nothing that has
since been done by Parliament tends to weaken that
exclusion. Episcopal and capitular revenues, tithes
and offerings, fines, dues, and perquisites, to the ut-
termost farthing, remain secure, And the Sovereign
of these realms might still exclaim in the language
of her remote ancestor, six centuries ago—"
No
foreign priest shall tythe or toll in my dominions.
Then as to ecclesiastical titles; the wide distinc-
tion ought to be borne in mind between those which
imply and are plainly intended to assert territo-
rial juriadiction, and those which are but prefixes
of respect and courtesy to the names of individuals.
Everybody knew, for example, that during the last
seven years Dr. Wiseman was called by his friends
and adherents " Bishop ;" and nobody cared to
dispute his claim to that appellation. It implied no
usurpation of any other person's office. It gave no
just cause of offence, therefore, to any one. Neither
would any sane or sober-minded Protestant have
troubled himself to inquire why the Roman Catholic
priesthood, who considered Dr. Wiseman as their
spiritual chief, had chosen to give him the novel title
of Archbishop, the Pope consenting thereto. All
these matters were, strictly speaking, affairs with
which the nation at large had nothing whatever to
do, and in which, consequently, they were not likely
re have ever dreamt of intermeddling. But the case
is wholly different when Pius IX., a foreign Sove-
reign, publicly pretends by his own authority, and of
his own will, to create a new territorial dignity
within the realm, to append thereto a definite and
specific territorial jurisdiction, and to confer this ter-
ritorial title and territorial jurisdiction. Dr. Wiseman
is not in the position of a Roman priest elected by his
brethren to preside over them in Westminster. He
claims to be, by the nomination and appointment of
an Italian Prince, metropolitan Archbishop of Eng-
land. This is the cause of offence, not the assump-
tion of the clerical style and title of any particular
rank or degree.

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. The institu-
tution held its first meeting on Tuesday evening last, when
the proceedings commenced with the announcement of the
dates of the ordinary meetings of the session; the appoint-
ment of December 17, for the annual general meeting, for
the election of the president, cot..incil, and officers ; and of
the 27th May, 1851, for the president's conversazione. The
paper read was, "A comparative viewof the recorded Explo-
sions in Coal Mines," by nr. \\ Aim West (of Leeds),
Assoc. Inst. C.E. After which, the. meeting was adjourned
to Tuesday next, when the discussion of the above subject
will be renewed, and the following paper be read :—"'fhe
Ventilation of Collieries theoretically and practically con-
sidered," by Mr. W. P. Struve, M. Inst. C.E.
ACCIDENT ON TEE EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW
RAlLWAY.—Yesterday a cattle train, in emerging from the
tunnel in \Vest Princes'-street•gardens, came in contact with
some trucks standing upon the line. The collision was so
great as to smash one of the cattle vans, in consequence of
which three of the animals in it were so much wounded that
it was deemed expedient immediately to slaughter them.
Scotsman.

A CANDID APFEAL.—A wife, whose husband is
now undergoing a sentence of transportation for a term of
years, in one of the hulks at Woolwich, has sent him the
following consoling letter:—" Dear husband,-1 take this
opportunity of addressing these few lines to you, hoping to
tied you in good health, as it leaves me at present, thank
God for it. Dear husband, lam going to change my line of
life, and I hope it will be for the better. 1 must tell you
that I am going to be married, and hope you will have no
objection, for you know you have not behaved to me as a
husband ought to have done; both you and your family
have used me very ill, but everybody knows that I never
gave you any reason to ill treat me. I have been to the
overseers to ask their advice, and they told me I had better
get another husband, as I did not expect you would ever
come home again. You need not fret about it, nor make
yourself in the least alarmed at what I say, for I can assure
you it is true. The overseers of the parish are going to give
the man 101. to take me out of the parish. I have invited
your brother Robert to the wedding, and I wish you was at
home to make one amongst us. I shall tell you—the man's
name is William You need not forget me for all
that; and if you should ever come where I am, I hope you
will call and see me. So I conclude, and still remain your
affectionate wife—CATHERINE. To Gany-
rnede Hulk, Woolwich."—Manchester Spectator.
A WELLERISII.—"I'm losing flesh," as the butcher
said yen be saw a man robbing his cart.