The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-17 00:00:00

FRENCH RAIL-WA/tn.
. .
YTrom the Constitutionnel.)
A circular of the President of the Committee of Stock-
brokers recommends the members to abstain from all
negotiations in reference to the railways which have re-
cently been adjudicated, until it receives the royal sanc-
tion. A Ministerial journal published the abOve cir-
cular this morning:, acnompanyibg it with a Warning to
the More ardent speculators. This is very well ; but
there will be some difficulty in repressing speculation,
which is the inevitable consequence of the system of
financial companies adopted by the law of 1842. Spe-
culation was not relaxed with regard to promises of
shares in the Bordeaux and Vierzon railways, and the
jobbers are yet on the Bourse using the activity of
cartesien atoms. We do not know if they profess to be
stock-brokers, but true it is that promises of shares in
the Bordeaux and Vierzon lines realise enormous pre-
miums to the profit of those men Who are most conver-
sant with the usages and resources of the Bourse.
Without doubt these operations have no legal character
any more than bargains for time, which, however, do not
inspire the Committee with similar scruples.
Although the circular of M. Courpon does not appear
to us to produce a great effect upon the speculators, we
think, however, that it would have been mere proper to
have published it on the Sth than the 12th ; that might,
perhaps, have prevented some dupes from trusting, be-
fore the adjudications, to the promises of shares in a
rival company, and of losing 10 per cent, upon the spe-
culation. Now this company seems to play, with regard
to the Mackenzie Company, the part of the fox in the
fable of the "Fox and the Raven." In effect, all is not
over with the adjudicated company. Many things re
main to be arranged, and more than one detail may
stop the confirmation. With regard merely to the
sinking fund, how will it be fixed ? To redeem the
capital in twenty-eight years will require a large redue,.
tion from the receipts, or else a combination, which the
company does not seem to have agreed upon, and which
M. Dumon awaits with impatience. However, it may be
the excluded companies are still in hope, and are using
more means than one to carry off the prey from the pro-
visional conqueror.

(From La Patrie.)
K Courpon, President of the Committee of Stock-
holders, has, by a special circular, recommended the
members of the company to abstain from all speculation,
in reference to promises of shares in railways. Why
was not this circular published before the late adjudica-
tion ? It might have opened the eyes of some dupes
of the second order. As to the speculators, they know
what they are about, and it is perfectly useless to give
advice to them. Besides, the three excluded companies from
the late adjudication do not despair of resuming their posi-
tion in the affair. It is said that the victorious company is
sufficiently embarrassed respecting the redemption of its
capital in the short and unheard-of space of twenty-
eight years.

- (From La Patrie of the 15th.)
A report was current this afternoon on the Bourse, that
two of the companies who had presented themselves for
the adjudication of the Bordeaux Railway, had proposed
to contest for the Vierzon line, in case the Minister,
withholding his sanction to the adjudication made to the
Bartholony Company, should make a new adjudication.
(From the Paris Globe)
_ _ _ _

We frankly avow that we are of the number of those
who are astonished at the boldness of the company to
whom the Bordeaux Railway has been adjudicated.
Until proof to the contrary, we believe ourselves to be
fully authorised by the most simple calculations to ex-
pect a reduction: of duration of near fourteen years of
the lease; the chances of success are but little favourable
to the operation. The National more penetrating,
without doubt, than the general good sense, than the
Government and the reporter himself, pretends to de-
monstrate that the term of the Mackenzie tender pro-
duces the identical results of the expose of the Minister
of Public Works, as well as the estimate of M. Dufaure.
In short, if the National is to be believed, the forty-six
years of the Minister, the forty-one years of M. Dufaure,
and the twenty-seven years of the company, aro in
reality the same. " The calculations of the Minister
and M. Dufaure," says this Radical paper, "were
equally wrong, because they had both a basis equally
wrong. Thus, the Minister and the reporter both admit
that the company would expend a capital of seventy
millions, whilst the capital. necessary is only sixty-five
millions. They both admit besides that the sinking
fund must be of the entire capital, which is a palpable
error. The capital will, in effect, be divided into two
parts—two-thirds devoted to the laying down of the
rails, and which will not be repaid, and one-third to the
acquisition of material, and which will be repaid at the
end of the term. Now, what is the object of a sinking
fund ? The reconstitution of the expended capital.
Therefore, since a third of the capital will be restored by
the repayment, it evidently follows that the sinking fund
need only provide for the two-thirds which will not be
repaid."
If ever the National has been an imprudent and dan-
gerous friend it is now. In desiring to prove too much
it compromises that which it seeks to defend, and raises
arguments to answer itself. It is true, as it pretends, that
a third of the capital is devoted to the acquisition of
material, but it is not true that this third is to be re-
imbursed to the company. No one is ignorant, except
the National, that this reimbursement is never made
upon the original price ; we know on the contrary, that
at the end of the term the company receives only, as a
valuation of old materials, what they may be declared
entitled to—that is to say, after a reduction of fifty per
cent. at least. In adopting, then, this fifty per cent., as
the amount of reimbursement for the company, it will
be seen that a sixth only of the entire capital escapes the
necessity of a sinking fund.
Until the most ample explanations on the part of the
Mackenzie Company, we are warranted in expressing
our doubts upon the advantages of its operatigns. We
will add, that it is impossible that this company can fix
its sinking fund upon a higher rate than one per cent.,
as has been established in the report of the Commission.
Now, by the system of annuities, we only reimburse, at
the end of twenty-seven years two hundred and
seventy days, a capital of forty-four millions
(according to the calculations of the National),
and not the total sum of sixty-five millions, from which
it is true would have to be deducted seven or eight mil-
lions paid by the State under the head of reimbursement
of material. We sincerely wish that the Mackenzie
Company may be able to furnish in this respect the ne-
cessary explanations. We are, as it is well known, far
from being opposed to the system of companies, but we
are also desirous that these companies may never become
the subject of ultimate embarrassment to the State, and
on this head we will quote the words of M. Dufaure, in
his report upon the railway from Orleans to Tours (ses-
sion 1844), relative to the Barry Company,
pre-
sented itself in competition with the Drouillard Company :
—" We ought, which
gentlemen, to receive with some dis-
trust the advantages which are promised to us by the
competition excited between the applicants for conces-
sion of railways. We know the results which have been
already produced. It is because the Government and
the Chambers had too favourably listened to them, that
the two sessions of 1839 and 1840 have been employed
in affording aid to so many companies who were on the
verge of ruin—in discharging some from the terms of
their contract ; in dispensing others from onerous obli-
gations which they had themselves incurred. The dis-
credit which has attached for so long to all railway pro-
jects has, perhaps, had no more direct or powerful cause
than that which we have just referred to."

THE MANCHESTER REGISTRATION.—The labours
of the revising barristers of this division of the county
are closed, and the following is the result, as far as the
Manchester polling district is concerned :—Objections by
Conservatives, 550 ; struck off the list, 404. Objections
by the Leaguers, 1,355
; struck off, 215. Gain upon
objections to Conservatives, 189. New claims by Con-
servatives, 1,015 ; allowed, 756. New claims by
Leaguers, 1,898 ; allowed, 1,189. Leaguers gain upon
new claims, 443. Deduct from this number 189 gained
by Conservatives on objections, makes a total loss to
Conservatism of 244.

Du. WooLF.—The German papers received yester-
day contain a letter, dated Constantinople, September
25, relative to this enterprising
It would not
i
deserve notice after the m traveller.
important communication which
appeared in The Sun, of Monday, if it did not state that
the Ameer, who, according to Dr. Woolf's letter of June
27, was then at Samarcand, had returned, and manifested
great kindness to the doctor. We therefore presume
that the information, whatever may be its authority on
which this letter was written, must have been of later
date than that transmitted by Dr. Woolf from Bokhara.
The following is a translation :—" Constantinople, Sept.
25.—The most recent accounts from Teheran speak again
somewhat more favourably for our countryman, Dr.
Woolf. The Emir, of Bokhara, after his return from
Samarcand, sent for Dr. Woolf, gave him a very good re-
ception, presented him with 100 pieces of gold, a horse,
a kaftan of honour, and gave him permission to commence
, and strongly suspected
missionary to be over-
takenhis return journey. Nevertheless, people in Teheran
and murdered on his journey. Of his actual de-
had
parture we have yet no intelligence. It seems he was
I ittht lee cEo neifitdr e nvicee
eilnd t
ehaeuas
theeffair
waiting until the Persian embassy, then in Bokhara,
should set out. Should he succeed in joining it, his
safety may be regarded as secured."
A curious delusion appears to have prevailed for
centuries amongst the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight
with regard to a royal residence being established in it.
The general impression was, that, in the event of the
Sovereign sleeping a night on the island, all claim to the
territory was forfeited by the British Crown. This delu-
sion appears to have been favoured and encouraged by
the course adopted by King George the Fourth, who,
when he was in the habit of visiting Mr. Nash, the
architect, at East Cowes Castle, as Prince Regent,
always slept on board the Royal George yacht,
anchored in the roads, and, subsequently, after
his accession to the Throne, when the Manor
House was purchased, and fitted up as a royal
residence, and called the King's House, he was never
known to pass a night under its roof. So popular had
this absurdity beccme, that many people in Cowes might
be found at this moment, who really believe that her
Majesty passed the night on board. the yacht, but that,
for obvious State reasons, the fact is not avowed. Hcw
this delusion could have continued, after King Charles's
captivity in Cariabrooke Castle, is astonishing ; but the
natives account for that by pointing to his unhappy end.
THE LATE DUCHESS or MARLBOROUGH.--By the
demise of the above estimable Duchess the families of
the Earl and Countess of Galloway, the Honourable
Captain Keith Stewart, RN., the Hon. E. and Lady
Katharine Stewart, Lady Charlotte Crofton, Lady Eliza-
beth Inge, Lord and Lady Churchill, 86c., are placed in
mourning.
THE BOOK OF THE SEASON.—Shortly will be
published, handsomely bound in calf, " The--Myster'i'es
of London." The first number will be filled with and
account of the election of Alderman Gibbs as or
Mayor. The second will give facsimiles of the receipts
of the Alderman during his churchwardenship of St
Stephens, Walbrook.—Punch.