The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 18, P6B.

SHARE LIST.

BANKS

Closing Business
Share NAME. Paid. Price. done
10 Agra Limited, A ......... all 111 121
19 Do B lO 54 64
60 Albion
IJO Alliance, Limited
20 Anglo-Austrian
20 Anglo-Egyptian, lim alll 15 19 171 ;
20 Anglo-Hungarian 8 2 3
20 Anglo-Italian 1866, limited 10 6 4
40 Australasian
20 Bank of British Columbia all 11 13 111
20 Do issued at 2 pm....., 4 . • •
25 Bank of Egypt
20 Bank of Otago, lim.
25 Bank of South Australia all 11 83
60 Bank of Victoria, Australia 25 37 32
10 Bank of New Zealand all 17 19
80 British North American
20 Chartered of India, Austra-
lia, nd China all 20 21
25 Chartered Merc. of India
London, and China ' all 30 31 30 1
20 City lO 11 12 121
100 Colonial 25 40 4:
10 Consolidated, lim.
50 Delhi and London, tins
50 East Loudon, lira hi 11 0,
20 English and American, lira 19 ...
20 English Bank of Rio de Ja-
neiro. bin l9 id pr
20 English, :-cottish, and Aus
tralian Chartered
281 Hong Kong and Shanghai
Bank Corporation all ... ...
281 Do new 6l 4 I
100 Imperial, lim 2O 17 18
.20 Imperial Ottoman lO 11 14 114 4
25 lonian all 31 29
25 Do new. I pr 1p
20 Lnd Mortgage of India, lira 4 S/ St 1146
100 Do sp. c. Debs.lB6l, 10 all 76 78 82 79
30 London Bank of Mexico
and South America, lim. 20 9 7
100 London and Brazilian, lim. 45 St 82
20 Do new 71 61 31
100 London & River Plate, lim. 40 7 9
26 Do new 10 11 14
20 London Chart. of Australia all 281 14/
50 London and County 2O 40 61
20 Do new, las at 20 p.m, 16 pd ll ••• •••
60 London Joint Stock 1 , Sii 16
20 London and South African al 11 12
100 London & S.-Western, lim, 20 ... ...
50 London & Venezuela, lim l2l
100 London and Westminster 2O 96 58 67
100 Do Scrip, lee at 10 pm 2O Oil 644 64
100 Merchant, lim 25 7 5
10 Metropolitan, lira all I) 74
100 Midland, lint..,, 29 id pr
6 National of Australia . .
25 National of Liverpool, lint. 15 ...
100 National Provinc. of Eng'd 42 ... ...
10 Do
60 National, se 64 56
20 New South Wales all 42 44
20 North-Western 7l .. ...
25 Oriental Bank Corporation all 44-4111-42/
50 Provinc. Bank. Corpo., lim ii 6 et
100 Provincial of Ireland 95 119 91
10 Do new.
100 Stand. of Brit. S. Africa, lim 25 13 11
100 Do issued at 6 pm. 10 ...
25 Union of Australia all 48 40
100 Union of Ireland, lim
60 Union of London l6 184 14 181 I

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE QUEENS INCOME.

So much nonsense is constantly talked, and such erro-
neous notioni are held, respecting the Queen's income,
that it can hardly be considered a work of supererogation
to put the precise facts before the public. By an Act
passed soon after her Majesty's accession, in which the
Queen waives her right to and interest in certain heredi-
tary rates, charges, duties, and revenues which by her
prerogative she might have claimed, the civil list, i.e.,
her income, is fixed at £385,000 per annum. Many
people have an idea that this sum is actually paid to the
Queen every year. Such is not the case. The civil
list is divided into six classes, to each of which we
will briefly refer. Class 1 really represents the amount of
money paid to her Majesty for her private use. This
amount is £60,000, which is payable in monthly instal-
ments so long as her Majesty lives. Class 2, which appro-
priates £131,260, is for the payment of the salaries of her
Majesty's household. This business is conducted by an
official called the Paymaster of the Household ; and
when it is considered what a multiplicity of offices there
are connected with the Court—from the lord of
the bedchamber to the page of tho backstairs—it
can readily be imagined how easily the sum is
expended. Class 3 appropriates a still higher sum
of £172,500, and is for the expenses of the household.
Royal housekeeping and royal parties and balls must be
kept up on a royal scale, and anyone who has visited the
Buckingham Palace mews and the Windsor stables—not
to mention the royal kitchen—will not wonder that this
sum finds plenty of channels for its disposal. The amount
of Class 4 is small, 'and its purposes are almost entirely
charitable. Out of the sum of £13,200, £9,000 is devoted to
the payment of what are termed " Royal bounty grants "
and "special service awards." Grants from the royal
bounty fund, which are in the gift of the Premier, are
generally made to distressed literary men or women, or to
the necessitous- relations of deceased military or naval
officers, or to others who have claims on the Government.
"Special service " covers extraordinary payments, such,
for instance, as the award made to the officer who first
landed in England with the Abyssinian despatches from
General Napier. The alms, or " Maunday " money, also
comes from Class 4, and to the amount of £2,000 are dis-
tributed by the Bishop of Oxford as Lord High Almoner.
A further item of £1,200 is devoted to the pay-
ment of pensions to distressed ladies. These pen-
sions, as they fall in through death, are in the gift of the
wife of the Prime Minister for the time being. Class 5,
which consists of the payments made as pensions to
deserving literary and scientific persons, or to any that
have deserved the gratitude of their country, does not
come out of the £385,000, but by a special clause in the
Act before referred to, the sum of £1,200 is set apart from
the Consolidated Fund in each year of the sovereign's
reign for this purpose. The civil list pensions now amount
to £17,000, after allowing for deaths. • Class 6 may be
regarded as a sort of reserve fund. The amount of it is
£8,040, and it may be used towards meeting a deficiency in
any of the other classes.

THE MANUFACTURE OF ARMOUR

PLATES.

A correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Post writes
As follows :—" On Tuesday kit I visited the Phcenix
Works, Millfields, Bilston (Claridge, North, and Co.), for
the purpose of witnessing thu process of casting the second
a pair of leviathan rolls, for rolling the increased size of
armour plates at Sir John Brown's works, Sheffield. It
nay be well to state, by way of preface, that hitherto a
Loll of 10 tons in weight has been deemed prodigious ;
and when, some years ago, Messrs. Claridge and Co. pro-
duced a pair each weighing 13 tons, for a foreign copper
mill, the event was regarded as quite an era in the history
of the trade. The largest plate-mill in America cannot
boast a roll of more than 11 tons, although in the Western
World everything is done on so large a scale. Some idea,
then, of the pair of rolls now being produced at the
Phcenix Foundry may be gleaned from the fact that in
extreme length they are 15 feet 6 inches, in diameter
nearly three feet, and in weight 18 tons, or 36 tons the
pair. The process of casting the roll on Tuesday occu-
pied four furnaces, each connected by a channel in
sand, called by the workpeople a 'runner.' The largest
of these furnaces was tapped at 2.00, and a stream of
molten iron, liquid as water, came hissing on
its fiery way, and after a rapid flow of 40
feet, emptied itself into a huge iron mould—
about the size and shape of Guy's punch-bowl at
Warwick—which ',at 2.30 was filled to the brim with
the seething metal. This mould, or Black Country
punch-bowl, was then hoisted by a powerful crane, some
six or eight feet, and then tilted so as to discharge its con-
tents into a second channel, in connection with two similar
' runners ' proceeding from the other furnaces. By this
time the smaller furnaces had been tapped, and now three
rivers of fire were bounding to mingle their tributary
streams into one vast channel in the direction of the
monster mould in which the mass of iron was to shape
itself and cool. This mould, seventeen feet deep, was at
2.38 full to the brim, and the work was successfully com-
pleted amidst a loud and general " Hurrah " from the
anxious and excited tbrong of workpeople who had crowded
to see the " finish " of a roll-casting unequalled for
dimensions in the whole world. The process was
superintended by Mr. George Claridge, who has been
practically engaged in the trade of roll-snaking for more
•tan thirty years."