The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-04 00:00:00

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TIIE FUNDS-(CLOSING PRICES.)
BRITISH FUNDS.
B trik Stock I3 India Stock ......... ... .. —pm
3 nor Cent. Red.
3 Ike/ Cent. Cons.
3j, per Cent. Red... 10214 .Ditto New Annuities...
.141ew 3i per Cent.... Ex. Bills, 1,0001. lid. 67 orn
N. 6 per Cen'.. — I Ditto 600/...... 67 pin
Long Annuities to expire Ditto Small
Jan. 1860 ... l', 11-16 Bank Stock for Acct. 186
4.ix t. 1859
Jan. 1860 ...
FOREIGN FUNDS.

kustAan, 5 per cent , Portuguese, 5 per cent.
Belgian. 5 per cent — Ditto, New Ditto —
Brazilian 80nd5.... ...... 73,1 Prussian, 5 per cent —
Blenos Ayres6 per cent Russian. 5 per cent —
Claim, 6 per cent. — Ditto, Nletallic ...... .
Col:mil/len, 6 per cent... 11* Spanish, 5 per cent 214
Ditto 1824 Ditto, 3 per cent... SO*
Calm Bonds, 6 per cent lll, Ditto, Deferred.... .. 12
Danish, 3 per tent —
French,
5 per cent. —f. —e.
Greek, 1825, 5 per cent. Exchange ...... .... —f. —c.
11Iexican, 5 per cent.
Ditto, 6 per cent. 1837 : Dutch, 2* per cent. 54*
Peruvian, 1825,6 per ct. Ditto, 5 per cent.... 100*
SHARES.
Bristol :.nd Exeter (70 paid) ~. ...... ... .. 66&
Eastern Counties (23 paid) ll
Ditto Debentures (81 6s Ed paid)
Great Western (65 paid) ... 97
London and Brighton (50 pa d) . .
Ditto Loan Notes (10 paid ) ... .
London and Blackwell (161 13s 4d paid) .. bi
London and South Western (4116 s 10d pd) 74
London and Croydon Railway (Trunk) ... 141
Manchester and Leeds (70 paid) .....
Ditto Quarter Shams ( 2 paid) 8
Newcastle and Darlington Junction(ls paid` 2E4
Northern and Eastern (45 paid)
Ditto Scrip (15 paid) ... 22*
Paris and Orleans (20 paid)
Paris and Rouen (20 paid) .. . .•. 34
ltouen and Havre ( 6 paid)
South Eastern and Dover (50 paid)
Ditto Scrip (25 paid)
Yarmouth and Norwiah (13 paid)..... ...

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—Some men are born to fame ;
others gradually work their way upward from
obscurity to distinction ; a few burst upon the
astonished vision of their contemporaries, and
become the " observed of all observers." Mr.
Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs is of the latter
class. The fame of this worshipful and worthy
civic. functionary has travelled far and wide. The
press has largely chronicled his feats. Punch has
burlesqued his punctuality, skill, and fidelity,
as a keeper of cash-accounts pertaining to public
busine,s. The Court of Chancery will shortly
record, if it do not confirm, his claims to
the unlimited and enduring respect and confi-
dence of the citizens of London, and exhibit him
as the model after which all public officers should
endeavour to form their habits. These, it is true,
are perishable records—memorials which may
be obliterated from the public mind by the
action of passing events upon it ; and thus
injustice be done to the now acknowledged
merits of Mr. Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs.
The Rev. Dr. Croly, the Rector of St. Ste-
phen's, Walbrook, the parish of which the
Alderman is Churchwarden, has prevented the
occurrence of an event so much to be deprecated.
The waters of Lethe would be inoperative in pro-
..lucing obliviousness of Alderman-Churchwarden
Gibbs' name and achievements. Dr. Croly has
secured to this distinguished character immor-
tality among mortals. The man may die—the
memory of the functionary will survive the tomb.
tor. Croly has rendered a monument unneces-
sary- ; or, if the customary marble record of the
living merits be• placed over his remains, the
most appropriate inscription would be in extracts
from the speech of the Reverend Doctor at
the vestry meeting of yesterday. The mira-
culous achievement of " the select"—wrought
iu the presence of Dr. Croly, lon the ‘22d ult.
when they did the work of weeks in a few
aninutes—is hit off with a felicity of description
-truly graphic. The precautions taken against
interruption, by planting police-officers at the
church doors, and the Alderman's "foolish son
John " at the inner door, which was also locked
against intruders ; while the self-chosen and ap-
proved select assembled in the vestry-room,
with- the sextoness standing without, her back
to and in contact with the locked door,
to defend the sanctorum of the self-con-
stituted body—the difficulties which the Rev
Doctor encountered and surmounted in gaining
entrance to this scene of parochial hocus
pocus—
the endeavours he used to convince the Wal-
brook Magi of the inutility of the performance
in which they were engaged—the rapid progress I!of the proceedings—and- their gratifying result
to Mr. Alderman-Churchwarden Gibbs—all these
are sketched by the hand of a master. They
constitute but the back-ground of the picture—
the mere attendants on the chief personage; and
are introduced to give effect to the piece. A full-
length figure of the hero is exhibited—paintedin
a style of art which, for the fidelity of the likeness,
commands, and will obtain, general admiration.
The Rev. Doctor supplies a companion-picture to
that already given of Alderman Gibbs, in the
character of Trustee of St. George the Martyr
Apprenticeship legacy. The guinea legacy left
by some pious parishioner of days long since
joined to the yearsbefore the flood, to be paid to
the Minister of St. Stephen's for preaching a
sermon on Good Friday, had passed into Alder-
man Gibbs' keeping, as perpetual churchwarden ;
whence, with considerable difficulty, it was
extricated, and the arrears of eight years—
the whole period of Dr. Croly's incumbency
—paid. Whether Doctor Croly's predeces-
sor was equally successful in obtaining the pious
legacy may be doubted. Alderman-Church-
warden Gibbs' eighteen years' unaudited aecounts
with the parish, when printed and published,
will probably give a satisfactory explanation of
this, and many other parochial mysteries, which
have been long concealed, but will be then made
manifest. Alluding to the worthy functionary's
skill in keeping the parishioners out of their
church, Dr. Croly, by a flight of genius,
assumes that Alderman Gibbs ;vould make an
excellent Governor of Newgate. His arrange-
ments tbr keeping the prisoners in gaol would,
it is thought, be as effectual as those employed
for keeping the parishioners out of church :
" He would make a capital Governor of New-
gate, with the wards as a provision for the minor
branches of his family and, perhaps, the Trea-
surership of the Sheriffs' Fund (1) to complete
-the recreations of his cell." The following allu-
f;ions are too plain to be mistaken, and too
admonitory to the body to which they are
addressed to fail of their effect :—" It is no
matter to me if tine livery of London will
harness themselves to his chariottor his sledge—
if the Corporation hold out to him their embrace,
shape themselves into a select vestry, and make
him their perpetual churchwarden—(Laughter)
—if the Board of Aldermen take him into their
boat, and take their chance of the navigation—
(Cheers)—if the Mansion-house feel the weight
of his footsteps, and placo him in its tribunal—
(Cheers and laughter)— l care not. But when I
am told, ' %Ity trouble yourself about so unim-
portant a personage ?' the true answer is, that he
*s not an unimportant personage." We have said
that Dr. Croly by his speech of yesterday has
immortalised Mr. Alderman Gibbs. He has
done so ; but in a style which has effectually
barred his way to the attainment of higher civic
distinction. After such an exhibition of Mr.
Alderman Gibbs as Dr. Croly has supplied, the
Livery of London would be as likely to return
to the Court of Aldermen, as a fit and proper
person to fill the office of Lord Mayor for the
,nsuing year, one who had been a " surveyor of
he pavements," as the Alderman who now stands
.1s xt upon the list. The thing is impossible.
STANDARD. —The Times has to-day an
lrticle upon the state and prospects of manu-
factures, with most of the propositions of
vhich, as well as with its general conclusion,
we entirely agree. It is quite true, as our Con-
temporary asserts, that " employment in the
great manufacturing business of this country is be-
comir, more the staple employment of her people,
and the prosperity of her manufacture more and
more the staple prosperity of the empire." No
less true, and much more gratifying, is it that at
present " the return of the state of manufactures
is not simply favourable but highly encouraging."
From these truths many useful and important
inferences may be drawn. First, that the pur-
suit which thus advances in absorbing the
employment of the capital of the country—
for without absorbing the capital it cannot
engross the employment—has certainly suf-
fered no undue depression under the exist-
ing state of the law ; secondly, we must add
with pain, that this progress of manufac-
tures is not necessarily accompanied by any
imprOvement of the labouring classes, either
as its cause or its consequence. Indeed, we
see enough to demonstrate that even an infi-
nite increase of manufitctures would not and
could not permanently improve the condition
of thO'se classes ; it would merely lead to
larger investments of capital, and fiercer com-
petition among capitalists ; while the wages
and condition of the labourer must remain
the same, or, if possible, suffer a depression.
from the influence of competition—for the profits
of capital must be retie:net!. whoever is to lie the
sufferer. One can imagine the case of a society,
composed of a single employer, and a population
of slaves, employed in manufactures; what
would the population( of slaves gain by any