The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-08-12 00:00:00

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their religious

Lately, a labouring man, named Tacker, after being
prevented hanging himself, laid himself across the rails
of the Great Western Railway, but, being discovered, the
speed of the train was slackened, and the iron engine
guards swept him off with little injury.
At the half yearly meeting of the South Western Rail-
way Company, on Saturday, a dividend of £1 17s. 6d.
per £5O share was declared. The directors were
authorized to take the necessary steps for carrying out
the projected new lines of railway.
The directors of the Paris and Rouen Railway have
declared a dividend of 23f. 10c. (about 18s. 6d.) per share,
and a small balance remains for the next account. The
expense of working the line is about 43 per cent. The
gross receipts have been 4,718,3861.22 c., and the expenses
2,752,4661. 93c., leaving as profits 1,965,919 f. 22c.
The meetings of the Leeds and Bradford, the Leeds,
Dewsbury, and Manchester, and Huddersfield and Shef-
field Junction Companies, all new undertakings, were
only important as showing that the directors are making
progress with the works. The several reports, of course,
speak in terms of perfect confidence of the favourable re-
sults of traffic.
RAILWAY TRAFFIC.--From official returns, it appears
that the amount of traffic for the last week on nearly
1,800 miles of railway was £155,956, of which £83,552
was received for the conveyance of passengers, and
£22,286 for the carriage of goods. For the past month
the receipts were £588,150, being £109,868 over the cor-
responding period of last year.

Shortly after the bill for extending the Durham and
Sunderland Railway was lost on technical grounds before
the Select Committee of the House of Commons, the old
shares in that undertaking fell in value from £3O to about
.ClB, and since Mr. Hudson became a candidate for the
borough they have gradually advanced in the market, and
are now freely purchased again at £3O, with a prospect of
further advance.
NEWCASTLE AND DARLINGTON.--The half-yearly
meeting of this company was held in the same room, im-
mediately afterwards, Mr. Hudson again in the chair.
The report showed a balance of £39,439 7s. in favour of
the company, out of which a dividend at the rate of 8 per
cent. per annum, leaving a surplus of £8,856 Os 4d., was
recommended. The report was adopted, and resolutions
in favour of the testimonials to Messrs. Stephenson and
Hudson agreed to.

The Dublin and Kingstown Railway Company have
reso►ved at a special meeting held for the purpose to
apply next session to Parliament for an extension of their
line to Bray. The estimated expense of the extension
is £50,000. It was also proposed to pay off the debt due
by the company to the Government, and to buy up and
cancel the scrip already issued. To effect this it was
resolved to raise £300,000, in 4,000 new half-shares at
£5O each, and 4,000 new quarters at £25 each, £7 per
share to he allowed for the Bray scrip. The Dublin and
Bray company have accepted these terms.
TRENT VALLEY, MIDLAND, AND GRAND JUNCTION.
—On Monday, the provisional committee held a meeting
at Wolverhampton. The meeting was called to consider
the plans of Mr. Robert Stephenson for the construction
of the line. The line oriqinally projected by the company,
with some slight alteration, was adopted, and the inten-
tion of giving Wolverhampton a direct line of communi-
cation (by a junction with the Birmingham and Derby
line) with the north and east of the kingdom was adhered
to. This portion of the line will pass through Wednes-
field, Bloxwich, Pelsall, and Lichfield, to join the Bit=
tningham and Derby line, in the neighbourhood of Alre-
was. It was also determined to give similar direct com-
munication to other portions of the great mining and ma
nufacturing districts of Staffordshire, by a line commenc-
ing at Dudley, passing by Wednesbury, through Walsall,
to unite with the Wolverhampton line at a convenient
point between Walsall and Lichfield. The provisional
committee announced that, acting under the advice of the
engineers, they bad determined on increasing their capital
to £600,000.

YORK AND NORTH MIDLAND.—The half-yearly.
general meeting of this company was held at Yerk, on
Wednesday, Mr. Geo. Hudson in the chair. The report
showed a balance in favour of the company, for the half
year ending the 30th of June, of £49,307 155., out of
which a dividend was recommended at the rate of £lO
per cent. upon the original £5O and £25 shares, and
after the same rate upon the new shares created for. the
Leeds and Selby purchase, deducting interest at £4 per
cent. on the amount not called up on those shares. The
report was unanimously adopted. A vote of £2OOO
towards the testimonial to Mr. George Stephenson, and
a resolution in favour of one to Mr. Hudson, wereagreed to.
ACCIDENT ON THE EASTERN COUNTIES RAILWAY'.
An accident occurred on Monday to the train leaving town
for Noreich at half-past eleven o'clock, a.m., by which
the fireman on the train lost his life, and one of the guards
was seriously injured. The engine was thrown off the
rails when passing over the embankment near Wendon,
about twelve miles below Cambridge. It is thought that
one of the wedges having started from its position was the
cause of the accident. • On Friday morning the unfortu-
nate guard died at Cambridge. The injury he sustained
' was a compound fracture of the right leg, caused by the
carriages clashing together, and the limb would have been
almost immediately amputated had not delirium tremens
set in, rendering the operation extremely dangerous. He
never recovered from the fearful malady, but expired in
the most excruciating pais.
RESULT OF THE LONDON AND YORK INQUIRY.—The
committees of the Lords and Commons appointed to in-
quire into the allegations of irresponsible parties having
signed the contract deed, presented their reports on Sa-
turday. The Lords recommend " that the bill should
not be allowed to be read a second time until a further in-
vestigation has taken place ; but, as their inquiries cannot
be brought to a close during the present session of Parlia-
ment, they do not propose to report the evidence taken
before them to the house." The report further states,
that the allegations against certain parties, to the number
of thirteen, have been disproved ; that the opposers of
the bill have withdrawn all imputation against other
twenty subscribers; and concludes with an expression of
disapprobation of the hasty and inconsiderate manner in
which personal abuse has been brought forward against
parties who appear, in several cases from the admission of
the opposers of the bill themselves, and, in others, upon
investigation, to be free from all imputation. The Com-
mons report that in some cases the charges were proved,
but that in others they were not sustained. The commit-
tee stated, " that, considering the case as it stood before
them, they were of opinion that ' Mr. Bruce had abused
the right of petition,' inasmuch as he had made charges
against parties which were not founded on fact." The
committee came to no resolution as to resuming the inquiry
next session.

THE NEW RAILWAYS OF THE SESSION.—Now that
the mbst eventful session of parliament recorded in rail-
way history has reachedits close, we are 'enabled to an-
nounce, from our official returns, the following as the
great. results of its legislation. Parliament has sanctioned
the construction of 2,
ano9o miles of new railways in Eg-
land and Scotland, d 560 miles in Ireland. This isn in
effect to double the'extent of the railways in Great Britain,
exclusive of Ireland. The capital authorized to be raised
in shares for this purpose amounts to £31,690,000. exclu-
sive of £6,800,000 required for the Irish lines, making in
all £38,480,000 to be applied in England within the next
two or three years for our own railways. The cost of the
new railways per mile will be thus very much less than
that of existing lines. The average of the new is nearly
£15,000 per mile, and that of the old exceeds £30,000 per
mile. It will thus be seen that the amount to be pro-
vided for the new railways is not so enormous as has been
supposed from the number of bills before parliament. At
the same time it is sufficiently large to require serious
consideration, and to arrest the progress of rer k'ess specu-
lation. Ten millions a }ear for the next three years can
be easily spared by a nation whose annual savings are
calculated to exceed fifty millions. By an investment of
these thirty millions profitably the country will be en-
riched, and multitudes benefitted both at present and per-
manently. At the same time the demand for money,
when the calls for these works come to be made, wia be
sufficient to put a check noon all idle and foolish schemes,
such as those against which we have warned our readers.
The expected revenue from these new lines considerably
exceeds £2,000,000 sterling per annum.—Railway Chron.
ST. HELEN'S CANAL AND RAILWAY CoselsNy.—A
special general meeting of this company washeld on Tuesday
at the Clarendon-rooms, for the purp,se of creating, as re-
quired by the act of parliarne4t just passed, 1,440 pre-
ference shares in the capital stack of said company,
agreed to be made to raise the purchase money for the
canal. The meeting was rather numerously attended.
The chairman, Peter Greenall, Esq, M.P., having read
the clause of the act of parliament under which the meet-
ing were about to act, proposed that 1,440 new shares le
created, to be denominated preference shares.—The motion
having beer. carried unanimously, the Secretary read the
r,:port, from which we take the following abstract :—The
income from canal and railway, from Ist January, 1841,
to 30 h of June, 1815, deducting working expenses. was
£19,266 13e 10d from which must be deduced for inter-
est £12,135 1-IN 11d, which leaves a sum of £7,130 18s I ld.
out of which the directors propose that the shareholders
should declare, as required by the recent act, a dividend
at the rate of five per cent per annum to the 30th June
last, on the amount paid on the preference shares, viz :
On 480 taken in part of the purchase money of the canal,
and deemed to be fully paid on Ist January, 1844, one
year and a half, at five per cent, £3,600; and on 960 on
which £2O each was paid in March, 1841, one year and a
quarter, at five per cent, £1,200. From the surplus still
left of £2,330 18s 11d. must he deducted the total
loss
incurred in working the railway from its opening to 31st
flecember, 1843, £1,813 3s 7d. ; leaving a balance to be
carried to next half-year's account of £517 15s 4d.—The
report was then adopted ; the retiring directors. Messrs.
Kidd, Gilbert, Greenall, Stewart, Thompson, and All-
card, were re-elected ; and the dividend of five per cent.
on the amount paid up on the preference shares was
declared.

LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY.—The half-
yearly meeting of this company took place on Thursday
last, at the Euston-square terminus. The chairman, Mr.
Glynn, dwelt with regret on the loss of the Tring and
Worcester line. He expressed surprise at the conduct of
the Great Western and Grand Junction companies. The
first company had taken advantage of circumstances to
tie up by bond railways in their own districts from carry-
ing any line in competit;on with them ; and the Grand
Junction had acted in a way that their directors had not
anticipated. He then detailed the future intentions of the
company. They intended to propose, with the future
sanction of the proprietors, making a branch railway from
Watford, by St. Alban's, to Luton. They proposed also
to carry a line from Northampton to Banbury. They pro-
posed also to connect the Leamington and Warwick line
with Coventry and Nuneaton, and by that means to con-
nect it with the Trent Valley line. They had also in view
extensive projects in connexion with Warwick and Buck-
inghamshire. They proposed to continue the line from
Hampton to Warwick and Leamington, and thence to
Banbury ; and he believed that the same company would
carry it on to Cheltenham. They proposed also to carry the
line to Aylesbury, Brackley, and Missenden, into their
own line at Harrow. In addition to this, they'had formed
a connexion with the Birmingham Canal Company, with
the intention of forming a railway connecting Birmingham
with Wolverhampton and the Shrewsbury and Wolver-
hampton line. And, although they had lost the South
Staffordshire Bill, the proprietors would see that this ar-
rangement would insure, if carried out, the great mineral
trrffic of South Staffordshire flowing into the Birming-
ham line. Another line which they proposed was one
from Wolverton, to Buckingham, in connexion with a
branch from Wolverton, by Buckingham, to Bicester and
Oxford. He stated in conclusion, that the London and
Birmingham Company wished to come to an amicable ar-
rangement with the Grand Junction Company. The re-
port recommended that, to meet their engagements with
the Chester and Holyhead, Trent Valley. Lancaster and
Carlisle, West London, and Aylesbury lines, a new share
of £2O be offered to each proprietor of £lOO stock, leaving
a proportional reserve of shares for the capital of the
Manchester and Birmingham Company—the new shares
to participate in the future dividends from and after the
Ist of October next, subject to the deduction of 5 per
cent, interest on the amount not called for and paid. A
dividend of 5 per cent. was then declared, and after a
brief conversation, the meeting adjourned.

RAILWAY SPECULATIONS

A correspondent of the Times gives the following
strange account of a new system of fraud introduced by
railway speculation ; it is called the " stagging " system ;
and the first step, he sacs, taken by the delinquents in it
is, when a new railway project is announced immediately
to have written a large number of letters applying for
shares (some of the pi incipal " stags " keep four or five
youths for no other purpose but to write these letters,
and their payment is id. or 2d. a letter, according to the
variety they are able to give to the writing ;) these letters
are addressed as from the country, and are sent down in
packets to postmasters already sealed and stamped, with
the request that the postmaster will forward them through
his letter-box. A few days after the postmaster receives
a letter, in many cases containing envelopes directed to
some address in London already stamped, stating to the
postmasters that some letters (which are letters of allot-
ment of shares) will probably arrive in the name in
which the envelope is directed; that they belong to the
writer; and that he requests the postmaster will put them
in the envelope and post them, so back they come to Lon-
don. In other cases the postmaster is requested simply
to strike out the original address, and re-direct the letter
according to the new address given ; these also find their
way back to London, as the following cases will exem-
plify. Letters addressed to postmasters at Reigate, St.
Alban's Bull, Staines, Watford, Rickmanswortb, Hud-
dersfield, Leamington, Doncaster, and almost every other
post-office in the kingdom, are returned to London re-
directed to-various addresses, several of which the writer
in the Times communicates.
To these addresses very large quantities of letters come
from all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The
letters arriving at the first four named addresses are all
received by the same person ; letters addressed to Castle-
street, Holborn, to the name of Hutchins and Hitchins
were traced through the postman to be delivered at No.
14, Darlinglon-place. to a person going by the name of
Hitchins, whom he knew by sight. The postman deliver-
ing letters to 3, George-street, in a variety of names,
knows the person by sight who takes them from the
keeper of the chandler's shop there, to be the man calling
himself ilitchins. The postman delivering at No. 1,
Newington-terrace, Dover-road, who has an enormous.
number of letters in almost as many names, knows the
person by sight to be a man calling himself Ilitehins;
and these several postmen have been taken to the neigh-
bourhood of the Stock-Exchange, each of them pointed
out the party calling himself Hitchins, who turns out to
be one and t •e same person; so that the receiver of the
letters directed to these four places is the same person, al-
though in the city he is known by another name alto-
gether.

ark
The next case is that of letters addressed to =r - P
place, Devonshire-street, Mile-end-road. grer ass
the number of letters delivered here that additiona.:sm
sistance has been given in the duty. Upwards of 1
...T;
letters have been delivered here within nine months; °.".4
last week 120 were taken in one day, of which at one tit.
no less than sixteen, and at another thirty letters sr:
delivered. This No.'
1, Park-place, is up an obs 4,i;
court, consisting of three small houses, of about s•itor
per week rent. No. lis occupied by a man and w°,11:700
and the next door by their daughter. The Peeuflo s
of these persons have been closely watched. Diree"d
packet of letters has been received in the Wornieff:
starts the old man and woman, and sometimes the el,ato
ter, to the places appointed to meet the receiver. °leen
first occasion the old Inman, who had received siArop,
letters, evidently wanted to deposit her treasure at via/
by Hall Chambers, for opposite them she halted, Ore was
looking about her, but unfortunately she found Alba-
watched, and escaping through the Excise-office, hi" op
self somewhere till her pursuer lost her. The next ta°_,o
ing another packet was received, with which the old obi
was intrusted ; he started immediately, and after a 112 0,
circuitous route, to avoid detection. as to where he alas
sited his treasure, he was seen to enter the King's Stirs.
Tavern, Bishopsgate Church-yard—the scene of the' de,
ton and Bastron transactions—where he was seen t° am
liver his despatches to a smart, dapper Jew, well lgise,
who, after a few moments' deliberation, left the 11", op
and was speedily joined by several confederates at theL,
of the church-yard, who, after dividing the letters, ees"'g
persed as instantaneously as can be imagined. Theinnrce;
day it became necessary to augment the detective 1"
eat
for the old people became more chary ; the old man vdi its
out before post-time, and the daughter was selecte ,at
the messenger with despateaes ; she was fleet of foot, °
she had been carefully identified, therefore that aid a
avail her much, as the detective force was divided Sbo
stationed at such places as were likely to Qucceed• I. I,
took a most circuitous route, but eventually fourid.P:at
self opposite the Auction '
Mart, evidently lookina pci
away she started, and after along round found
anxiously for some one ; she saw she was watched' ilia
Maidenhead-court, Aldersgate-street, in a little staltnn
shop, which turned out to belong to the identical PeLse-ra
who resides at No. 1, Park-place, where the letters "
first delivered. Here pursuit was given up. fee t°
How,.it may be asked, do they procure the signs-- „nt?
the deed, one party holding so many letters of allotn; as
The system is this—one party signs the deed as °`b"„--Cce.
disguise will shield him from discovery ; then the Prtt oild
is resorted to of procuring persons, from fifteen Year:,,lat
to sixty, to accompany the holder of the banker's re' la
to the railway-office, to sign the deed in such name as
A,
may direct, for which, when done, he receives rernueetrli`e
tion, varying from one shilling to ten, according to
premium the scrip may bear in the market. sheltet:o

THE COURT lk FASHIONABLE Wollo'

Her Majesty and Prince Albert arrived at Buckioghdarit
Palace on Friday, at noon, from the Isle of Wight, an eg.
half-past two o'clock held a Privy Council, which cct,
attended by most of the Cabinet Ministers and great °A;
cers of the household. The royal speech on prorogtn
parliament was finally settled. sr
her
HER MAJESTY'S EMBARKATION.-011 SatUruail d
Majesty embarked at Woolwich for her long- projeehteo
visit to the continent. The royal party left Bucking"rao
Palace soon after four, and arrived at Woolwich a
her',
minutes after five. The queen was coAucted to oe
barge by the Earl of Haddington, Lord Aberdeen,
a
Lord Chamberlain, and the Lord Steward, and accornPo,
nied by Prince Albert, and Lady Canning and the C°is
tess of Gainsborough, ladies in waiting Sir rr'ller
Collier had the honour of steering her MajestY•
Majesty was speedily rowed alongside the royal 1"0-01
which was moored a short distance off; and, the ~
standard being hoisted at the main, the noble vessa
ceeded down the river. Opposite the royal arser;
where the artillery and sappers and miners were dra`filuori
to welcome their royal mistress, another park
erg
artillery gave forth its boisterous welcome, and ch,
og
arose from windows; balconies, and house-tops alfred
the river-side, where the population had congrePrbe
to witness the pageant. The Black Eagle and ed
Porcupine followed in the wake of the Albnlii the
Victoria. At Erith, Greenhithe, Gravesend, an" ith
whole way down the river, the piers were crowded lee
thousands to witness the royal progress. In less there
half an hour the royal yacht reached Sea Reach, vl"
she anchored for the night. The following has been P".:
fished as a correct programme of the royal movernedt"r,
—The royal yacht, after lying at the Nore during SI Say
day night, would proceed at an. early hour on Sua•oes
morning to Antwerp. Her Majesty and her illustrt
5d
consort, landing on Monday morning, would Prn"itie
thence, by railway, to Bruhl, a palace belonging "),i,csa
King of Prussia, near Cologne, and remain there to", 'itie
Upon leaving Bruhl, her Majesty, accompanied L'r to
King and Queen of Prussia, will proceed by -13"nn- ,„
,tz,
Stolzenfels, a small castle on the Rhine, nearal
also belonging to the King of Prussia. Here the ;feYy-
party will remain two days, proceeding thence, ria
burg
ence, Frankfort, Wurtzburgh, Bamberz, on to C"
and Gotha. for
Tbe King of the Nertherlands embarked on Fri

. -
Ins own dominions. t her
The Morning Herald states "on authority," that Ito
Majesty the Queen Dowager is to pay her first visa
the north of Scotland, this season. (311
Her Majesty witnessed the Ryde rowing regat ions
Monday last, and was so well pleased with the exert ..he
of the winners, the crew of a four-cared boat, that ""
presented them with the sum of £5.