The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-28 00:00:00

JUSTICE.

Ilfracombe, March 25, 1842.
P.S. The lerk of the Commissioners of Taxes issues
a precept to the Churchwardens and Overseers annu-
ally, to call a meeting of the parishioners to return fit
and proper persons to be assessors and collectors for
the year ensuing, but these precepts are generally given
to the old collectors to serve on the parties who, neg-
lecting to do so, get themselves reappointed by the
default of the parishioners.

DISGUSTING ADVERTISEMENTS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—l congratulate you most sincerely upon your
very laudable determination to exclude from your valu-
able and greatly improved journal, a certain class of
advertisements. It is a disgrace to • the English press
that it has tolerated the nuisance so long. lam a family
man, and I declare, Sir, that I could never consci-
entiously suffer any paper containing such disgusting
insertions to be placed before my children. The country
papers are teeming with them, and for this reason 1
never take them in, nor will I, even my own local
journals, till the proprietors follow your example.
Your publication of my sentiments will oblige Sir,
A TEN YEARS' SUBSCRIBER.
Southampton, March 26, 1842.
P.S. By-the-bye, I thank you individually for your
honest endeavours to expose our wily Premier's nostrum
of the income tax. I assure you it is anything but
palatable to the inhabitants of this town, not even the
Tories excepted.

LORD HILL AND THE ARMY.
We believe we can now state that the arrangements to
which we alluded last December, in respect to the retire-
ment of Lord Hill from the Horse Guards, and which
were contradicted by some Contemporaries, are on the
eve of being completed, and that the Gallant and esteemed
Nobleman will, shortly after Easter, resign his office
into the hands of Lieut.-General Sir George Murray;
Lieut.-General Sir Henry Hardinge will probably re-
move to the Ordnance Office. It is rumoured that Lord
Fitzroy Somerset will succeed Sir Edward Blakeney in
the Command of the Troops in Ireland, or be appointed
Secretary-at-War, and Sir Broke Vere be Military Se-
cretary to the new Commander-in-Chief.
Numerous other arrangements are in contemplation,
including, we expect, the abolition of the Depot Systata.
To the Staff Appointments and Changes, given with
our Military Intelligence, we have to add that Major-
Generals Sir James Hope and Sir Richard Armstrong
are to be appointed to the Staff in Canada.
Four regiments and the two battalions of Foot Guards
are ordered home from Canada.
The 29th and 86th Regiments will be replaced in
Ireland by, it is supposed, the Depots of the 75th, 77th,
and 95th Regiments, whose places at Chatham and
Sheerness will be temporarily taken by the corps ordered
for Foreign Service.—Naval and Military Gazette.

The Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry has had
another severe attack of illness. His Lordship was in
great danger for some time, and still remains extremely
unwell.

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SlR,—Though of opposite politics to you, I am
induced (from observing occasionally, perhaps
more so of late, a spirit of candour and fairness
pervading your columns) to trouble you on a
question of vital importance to this country.
Now do not throw away this when I say it i>
the Church question.
I am neither Minister, Elder, or Deacon, but
we of the many interested deeply in the present
struggle.
I write you in consequence of your rather se-
vere remarks upon the clergy of our Church
You seem to think them the cause of the pre-
ient dissensions, and that arising from a spi-
rit of vain distinction among themselves. These
iro nearly your words, at all events your meaning.
Now, permit me to say, that the clergy you
so much blame, would be very powerless miless
itrongly backed by the quiet, solid, thinking
multitude. And let the boon—which must in
,he end be conceded—the abolition of patronage,
be granted to-morrow, then you silence the
lergy effectually.
Your vocation is to advocate the cause of the
people. Why do you depart from your prin-
ciples in this important matter ? The clergy re-
fused Lord Aberdeen's Bill, because, in place of
giving the power of electing the clergyman to
the people, as the clergy are now at this
time, and as they have all along been so honestly
contending for, it proposed to vest that power
in the Church. Is this like priest-riding? You
should know from past history that the Church
of Scotland is essentially Republican in its con-
stitution, and has not been lagging, when the
people's political, as well as ecclesiastical, rights
were in jeopardy, in former days. How you
quarrel with her now, I do not know. The
right spirit, after a long withering slumber
during the moderate ascendancy, is now shining
forth; and I submit, Mr. Editor, that you
should inquire and see if you are not wrong in
crying it down in place of defending it.
Yours obediently,
A CONSTANT READER.
Edinburgh, March 19.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Intimately acquainted with the general tone
of mind pervading the great majority of the
lower and middle ranks of the members of the
Church of Scotland, before the Veto Act, or the
Reform Act agitated the land, I beg leave to say
that the assumption (that the clergy of the Church
of Scotland are actuated by motives of ambition,
and not the good of the people) is without good
foundation to rest on, and that no good proof can
be established on its behalf. It is urged as a
proof of the designs of the Non-intrusionists,
that the clergy can keep from the Lord's Table
any whom they choose, and extreme cases are
hailed as a perfect. god-send to make a point in
this defence, and show how little power the people
would possess, even it' the veto were honestly
acted on. It is next stated, that in some northern
parochial districts the ministers have thus only
a few possessing the right to exercise the veto,
amidst a numerous population, and these few are
at once set down as under the influence of the
clergyman or Presbytery.
With your permission, then, I will briefly
touch on each of these allegations to show that
they rest on no solid basis.
First, then, as to the " aggrandisement" of the
clergy, being the motive of their exertions to
establish popular rights, I must confess inability
to discover any grounds to erect such a hypo-
thesis upon. Grant a decisive voice to the ma-
jority of communicants in any district in the
choice of their ecclesiastical teachers, and I
fear not the influence of a Presbytery in de-
priving the people of the benefits of these
rights. True it is that .men ushered into paro-
chial charges under the moderate sway, will
continue to offer their unrelenting hostility to
the veto and popular privileges ; but that oppo•
sition must of necessity die its own death, for
gradually would able and more talented men
have taken their place, until the Church of Scot-
land had been restored to all her pristine vigour
and purity when dissent was unknown among
Presbyterians in Scotland.

The second allegation to be considered is, that
the clergy, by keeping people from communi-
cating, on trifling pretences—such as travelling
on Sundays, attending a funeral on Sundays—
would thus control the whole influence of those
who exercised their Christian rights. This re-
quires little consideration, for it is evident that
the cases are only extreme, and not likely to
take place again in half a century. That it is
therefore not in the power of a minister to de-
prive any one of their Christian rights; and it is
only those ministers whose very inadequate per-
formance of their duties, which make the mem-
bers attending the parochial churches so few,
whilst the intelligent and active-minded gene-
rally travel a distance of many miles to attend
the chapel of some able "and influential dissent-
ing minister. A WORKING MAN.
Marylebone, March 18.
[On account of the great length of the letter
sent by a " Working Man," we have given only
extracts, but the main points have been retained.l

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—The progress of the railway system has
now become a subject of national importance, and
hence a review of the leading occurrences connected
with it during the last week or two, not already no-
ticed among the events of the day, must be acceptable
to the public at large, as well as to parties having an
immediate stake in it.
The prominent feature perceived is perhaps the
growing desire manifested by railway shareholders
to investigate fully, at their periodical meetings, the
management under which the several undertakings
are conducted, and the suggestions they freely and
unreservedly offer to the Directors, respecting the
curtailment of the heavy expenses connected with the
" board and engineering departments," which appear
to clog heavily and obstruct that profit the subscri-
bers look for. In several instances it has been found
that the management of railways is carried on at a
. rate of expense so far above the receipts, that divi-
dends seldom or ever increase, while in others the
expense of working being in the half-yearly accounts
augmented in proportion to the increase of receipts,
the " old dividend ' is proposed for Payment, though
no real cause for the excess of expense of one-half
year over the other is shown : this is particularly
referred to in the case of the last meeting of the
South Western Company, in respect to which it is
alleged, that notwithstanding the increase in receipts
was upwards of 10,0004, and the line is in such a
forward state as to induce the belief that the expen-
diture had reached its height, the management? is
still charged at the rate of 40 per cent., and hence
the shareholders only get a dividend of 30s. per share.
It is further alleged, in respect to this com-
pany, while many others can also be pointed out as
pursuing similar practices to the detriment of the
proprietary at large, that the Directors are not suffi-
ciently cautious in confining their attention to the
management of the line, but are anxious to connect
undertakings of an auxiliary character, such as
steam-boat companies and branch common road
coaches, which, in most cases, instead of prov-
ing advantageous and a source of profit, turn out
to be an encumbrance and an ultimate loss. The
restrictions sought to be put by the share-
holders of these undertakings on the exercise of
the power of the Board of Directors may, how-
ever, be carried beyond bounds of discretion ;
but, nevertheless, the suggestions thrown out in this
and several other instances show the Proprietors to
be mindful of their own interests, and, at the same
time, tend to the stability of the undertakings with
which they connect themselves. The practice which
has now and then crept into Railway management,
namely, that of the Directors having in that capacity
taken advantage of the information they could so
derive, and become contractors for works or materials,
was brought into discussion at the meeting of the
Ulster Railway held on the 16th, and, after being
strongly commented on, a resolution was passed by a
large majority condemning such practice, and making
it a ground of incapacity for further service in the
office where it was discovered.

The statistics of railways which appear in the
publications devoted to the subject are often instruc-
tive and interesting, and as a sample of the imforma-
tion so conveyed the following connected with traffic
is, given is stated that the Birmingham Railway,
112- miles in length, produced in the first half-year
after it was open throughout 270,0001., or 2,3181.
average per mile ; the Grand Junction, 79 miles in
length, 119,0001., or 1,5061. average per mile; the
Manchester and Leeds, 50 miles in length, 116,0001.,
or 2,3201. average per mile ; the Manchester and Li.
verpool, 31 miles in length, 66,0001., or 2,1291. aver-
age per mile ; and the Great Western, 338,0001., or
2,0001. average per mile. The receipts of the three
principal of these railways, comparing the former
with those for the last half-year, ending December,
1841, increased on the average 80 per cent., the Bir-
mingham receipts being 429,0001., the Grand Junc-
tion, 241,0001., and the Manchester and Liverpool,
137,0001. The cost per mile of these several rail-
ways, with the dividends they are now paying, is
given as follows :—Birmingham cost per mile 51,8421.,
dividend payable 121 per cent.; Grand Junction cost
per mile 21,8591., dividend payable 12 per cent. ;
Manchest(- and Liverpool cost per mile 46,2811.,
dividend 10 per cent.; Manchester and Leeds
cost per mile 5,4561., dividend payable 6 per cent.;
and Great -Western cost per mile 53,2411., dividend
payable 6 per cent.
SUN.—Some few purchases made in Consols during