The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-23 00:00:00

CANADA.

The City Council of Toronto has agreed to advance
100,000 dolls. in debentures, payable 20 years after
date, with 6 per cent. interest payable half•yearly, in
aid of the Toronto, Simcoe, and. Lake Huron Rail-
roe, on the following conditions :-40,000

shall be issued to the railroad company. when 400.,.QC
dolls. have been expended upon the road ; 40,000 dolls.
more when 800,000 dolls. have been expended ; and
the remaining 20,000 dolls, when work to the value
of 1,000,000 dolls. is completed.

THE BRAZILS.
LIVERPOOL, DEC. 21.—The ship Emma, Captain
Sowill, arrived here to-day ; she sailed from Rio Ja-
neiro on the Ist, and from Pernambuco on the 19th
November. There is no news of importance from
the latter place, but a private letter from Rio states
that war between Rio Janeiro and Buenos Ayres will
take place to a certainty.
Commercial affairs at Pernambuco were in a
quiescent state. Freight of cotton to Liverpool was
sd. per lb.

_ .
Sugar to British ports was 625. 61., and .to C.,n-
tinental ports 705., and was likely to be vied. sup
parted.
Dates from Bahia, to the 11. h Ni.ven3her, inform
ui that exchange ruled at 99 to 29i, and freights
52•.6.1., to the Charnel for orchrs.
Commercial atlairs at Rio Jeneiro were steady.
Exchange on London was 29} ; freights, 555. to 603.

-
SOIREE OF TH-E SUNDERLAMEi
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL St CIETY.
The annual toirde of the members and friends of this
institution was held on Wednesday evening, in the
Ather mum, Fawcett-s'reet.
After tea, which was served in the library of the in-
stitution,__ the company assembled in the large hall, when
Mr. F. H. Johnson, secretary to the societ3, stated that
the committee had met with a disappointment which
had put them to considerable inconvenience; he referred
to the fact that Mr. Butt, who it vs as announced,..svould
preside over the meeting, was prevented by sudden ill-
ness from being present., Mt. Johnson then read the
following letter from Mr. Butt:—
" Towyn Lodge, December 16th, 1850.
" Dear Sir,—l do not know that I have ever been
more disappointed than at finding myself compelled at
the last moment to ask the indulgence of your commit-
tee for not availing myself of their very flattering in-
vitation.
" I am unfortunately now most inopportunely suffering
from an attack of sore throat, which would make
travelling most imprudent, indeed more than impru-
dent, and even if I could move, would find it quite out
of my power to take part in a public meeting for some
days.
"I feel very deeply the deprivation of not being pre-
sent at a meeting in which I had promised myself so
much interest. I trust the disappointment to you and
the committee will be very slight, as you will easily find
a more able chairman, though, believe me, none who will
feel more pride and pleasure in occupying that position
than I would.

"I have the honour to be,
" Yours very faithfully,
"ISAAC BUTT.
"I ought to add, that until to-day I had no apprehen-
sion of being unable to go, or you should of course have
had earlier intimation."
Dr. WIT in taking the chair, remarked that he had
agreed, on the application of the committee, to do the
duty of chairman till Mr. Seymour should arrive. He
could only express his great disappointment that a gen-
tleman of Mr. Butt's talent was prevented from being
present. His high professional character and eminent
literary attainments would have rendered him a most
suitable chairman, had he been able to fulfil his promise.
Had Mr. Seymour been present to fill his place, they all
knew that they would not have had so much cause to
complain. As it was, however, they would have to de-
pend more upon their own resources; and he hoped that
in the absence of those distinguished strangers they
would render themselves mutually more agreeable.—
(Cheers.) If he had bad the least idea that he should
have been called upon to fill the chair, he would have
prepared himself to come before them with some details
with reference to the institution; but as he had only had an
hour or two's notice he was unable to do this. He un-
derstood, however, that as to financial affairs the society
was in a better state than it had been for many years
past.—(Cheers.) The number of members was increas-
ing from year to year; and their library was increasing
not only in the number of volumes, but in the acknow-
ledged value of the works admitted. He hoped they
might expect a still larger number of members. With-
out saying anything more, he would call on Mr. Spencer
Hall to address the meeting.
Mr. HALL said he had certainly come there that even-
ing with an idea that he would be one of the quietest
persona present; and having been called on so unex-
pectedly to speak, he must claim their indulgence and
forgiveness if his remarks might be in some degree
incoherent and wanting in that consecutiveness
which they might have had, if he had been
prepared. If there was in the company any
one who from boyhood had been compelled to struggle
against a thousand obstructions to the develop-
ment of his mind, but who had in spite of all
obstacles risen step by step to the enjoyment
of the exercise of the higher faculties of his being,
he could sympathise with him truly and deeply, for they
were brothers. It was impossible for any one to under-
stand the value of institutions such as that in connexion
with which they had met, without understanding first
the want of them. Born in a remote rural district where
it was at that time hard to get a book without going a
great distance, or paying a very large sum for it, he
knew well the disadvantages under which many thou-
sands laboured, in improving themselves. It was evi-
dent that in such a town as Sunderland there must
either be a want of knowledges of the advantages of this
institution, or some conventional feeling ndierse to it,
or else there would have been a en' larger audience
present. He was glad to -say that it was the earnest de-
sire of the committee of this society that its advantages
should be extended far beyond the mere limits of mem-
bership, that no grade in the town should be excluded
from it, but that for the future classes would be formed
which all might attend, whatever was their rank or po-
sition in society.—(Cheers.) When they considei ed how
much was frequently owing to the cultivation
of a mind which otherwise might have remained in ob-
scurity, when they remembered that many of those who
were called great men owed their greatness to simple
ple influences of which the world might never have
heard, they could not over- estimate any effort, however
trivial, to extend the knowledge of the advantages of
such an institution. If it was true that it was impossible
for a labourer to prattle to his child without influencing
mankind to the latest generation, if a Chantrey owed so
much of his fame to the simple circumstance of seeing a
rude artist at his labour, from which he learned to carve,
and having a taste for sculpture led to the prosecution of
that art, how unable must they be to calculate the ad-

vantages to every class of society from the efforts which
they might all make to extend the influence of such an
institution.—(Cheers.) It appeared to him, drawing a
comparison between this town and others which he knew,
that with reference to intellectual attainments, Sunder-
land stood in the rank of a full grown youth. It was a
thriving, industrious town, and possessed of considerable
animal spirits, but intellectual pursuits were not appre-
ciated as they might be in a short time; and for
that very reason it became of the more importance
that good principles should be established in its
mind, so to speak, that it might one day be-
come, as he had no doubt it would, a town of far higher
rank in that respect than at present. He, there fere, felt
the importance of every one doing what in him lay to ad-
vance such an institution. In proportion as they did so
they would be developing the purpose for which they
were placed on the earth, aild approaching the time
when all shams, guile, oppression, and deceit would be
consumed in one grand blues of the light and wisdom of
the Omnipotent. In so far as they thus accomplish the
grand end of their existence, in so far would they have
realised a conjunction with that principle from which all
truth and love proceeded—that state in which it would
probably be found that this world had been a simple
school, and that all their difficulties and trials, and every
event, as it were but eincle letters or words on the grand
page of creation, which was itself an embodiment and
index of some grand corresponding principle in the
Divine mind, from which the whole for our use and in-
struction had emanated.—(Loud applause.)
The Philharmonic Society having performed several
pieces of music, the Chairman announced that Mr. Sey-
mour had arrived, and he desired to give up the chair
to that gentleman. At the request, however, of Mr.
Seymour and others he retained it.
W. DICEY SEYMOUR, Esq., barrister-at-law, was re-
ceived with loud cheers, and in a few preliminary re-
marks, expressed his regret at the absence of Mr. Butt,
and stated that he himself was wholly unprepared to
make any speech, having been engaged till after two
o'clock at York, and having only arrived in wan a
few minutes. He had, however, on his way been
thinking on a few points, which he would endea-
vour now to state to the meeting. What, he would
ask, was the object of their presence there? It was not
for the simple purpose of hearing the music, although it
was very pleasing; it was not merely to meet each
other, and exchange words of mutual congratulation;
but for a more noble and dignified purpose—to promote,
as far as they could, by their example, and encourage-
ment, and co-operation, a taste for education, and, above
all, for self education among the labouring artixans and
the mechanics of this growing and important town and
neighbourhood. This object persons connected with
such institutions ought always to have in view. In what
light then should they view the effect of education on
the working classes? Did not education, and especially
self-education, show itself in their social, moral, intellec-
tual, and political development? The working classes
of this country could not assume an attitude worthy of
them in this age of progress, unless education had
exerted its influences on them intellectually, socially, and
politically. And what was the present condition of the
country as to social progress? Looking abroad with a
philosophic eye on this age, there were two things a hich
must strike them all—one was that there was a spirit
abroad, and the other that there was a fact giving lite to
that spirit. The spirit was life in as age of progress, and
the fact was that they lived in an age which was deve-
loping a people. It was because they lived in an age of
progress that they should enccurage social progress
among the working classes.
" Men the workers! men my brothers!
Fore ardp forward let us range"—
to quote an American poet, was the language he would
use in urging on the working classes to the noble and
dignified pursuits of literature. Man was to bo edu-
cated because of his inherent dignity as a man, and not
because it was his misfortune or his lot to be employed
at a certain trade. It was the spirit of man which
ennobled him, and rendered him worthy of education;
not the lot in which he was cast. The devolopment of
the grand intellectual powers which Providence had be-
stowed on him was the first effect education ought to
have on the working classes. That ought to exalt the
labour by dignifying the labourer. But there was another
reason why they should regard the education of this
elan as most impo. taut. They lived in days of progress;