The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1879-04-24
OUR EUROPEAN LETTER,

FFuVctS HuuWS CHuI'teT on Effe N
English FinoncicrS.- Tarcls in AZ
RIGA. ~
LONDON, England, April s., 1879.
A very lively fight is going on here
between the trustees of the Atlantic
and Great Western Railway Company,
who propose TO lease the road to the
Eric Company for ninety-nine years,
and the shareholders, represented by
Mr.. James McIlcnry, who built the road
aud is strongly opposed to the lease.
The most conspicuous antagonist of the
McHenry party is one Rev. j. Bates,
who, instead of tending to his little
parish of seven hundred souls,
for which he receives $3.50 a year, in
terposes his "sacred Office" and secular
ability, against the very nan who APP
pointed him trustee, and gave him
money to visit America for the pur-
pose of looking after Atlantic and
Great Western interests. ,Jewett's ar
guments and Barlow's dinners were
too much for the parsons fidelity to his
employer. Mr.. McHenry ought by this
time TO be a better Judge of men.
When parsons come down from their
pulpits to dabble with finance, forfeit
ing allegiance to their "holy calling"
then look out for treachery. This rev.
erend %financier should either quit the
pulpit or Stock Exchange, the House of
God or the Hous, of Merchandise. He
cannot serve both God and Mammon.
The Atlantic and Great Western Com
panv, which owns over 600 miles of
road, and represents a capital of $780,
000 000 tc in x-orx, hol La,.1o N.tl:.-
is wanting but an honest administra-
ton to bring the stock up to par in the
course of a very few years. Its freight
and passenger business is rapidly in
creasing, and during the last year it
has effected several very profitable eon.
nections. But, as in the case of Erie,
there is a perpetual quarrel among the
sharks of London and New York, who
wish TO wreck the road for the sake of
the ''salvage." The committee of
shareholders named at the McHenry
meeting on the 18th of last month, do
not seem to hold together, and the Erie
lease seems now to be the inevitable
solution, n contract which Mr.. Nc
Henry declares will prove a loss of a
million of dollars q year TO the share
holders TO begin with, and before the
expiration of the lease, a loss of per-
haps twenty millions a year. The
amount of business that such a roal
will do a hundred years hence, when
every village through which it runs has
become a large city, is almost incom-
putable. The shareholders who have
the sagacity to sec this are vigorously
protesting against the proposed rob
berry.
The distress and misery that has been
brought about in the west of England
by the Cornwall bank failures, and the
fragrant mismanagement and wanton
extravaganza that examination of the
official liquidators has exposed. recalls
to mind Mr.. Charles Francis Adams
"Chapter on Erie" lie avows that he
has a distinct preference for Dick Tur-
pin and Jack Shepherd as compared
with modern "inancicrs." who. under
the protection of law which is weak TO
reachtthe rich, devour widows houses,
and swindle the helpless and credulous.
1t would seem that the holder and
more hardened villains who "took
the road when Gay wrote his "Beo-
gals' OPERA" have transferred the scene
of their operations from I~Iounslow
Heath and Burnham Beechcs TO snug
board-roOms and bank parlors, where
in sumptuOus security they cause their
victims TO "stand and deliver without
the risk of defeat and capture that the
old-fashioned highwayman incurred.
There are several discount companies
in London, whose accounts, if they
were carefully scanned at the present
moment, would present n neat compli-
cation that would cause the. depositors
serious uneasiness. The art of finance
(some call it a %science), as practised al
present in England, demands careful
revision, and l may add, publication.
An acquaintance who went to AL.
giers in search of sunshine and reDose.
writes me that he found the former
but complains bitterly of the bad ac.
commodation of the hotels. The
weather the past month has been de.
lightful, and the 10Th of March green
peas, new potatoes and Strawberries
abounded in the markets. My own ex.
perience of Algiers hotels is not of 9
roseate character. The cooking of the
establishment at which | soiourned did
not remind me of BigHon's or the nice
little dinners that my good friend Zoppi
of the Hotel des Etats Unis, can com
pose when the spirit moves him.
hear that a large and elegant English
hotel is to be erected on the boulevard
de la Republique. If well masagcd if
will achieve a great success, as GRIM.
bling among the English and American
visitors is the rule both in respect to
food and accommodation at the proscn,
establishments. An English friend OF
mine, who, when at home at his castl6
on the Isle of Wight, prides himself on
his substantial hospitality, protests thai
though his bill at his hotel is never less
than 0 francs a week, he has neye,
had a decent dinner in a two months
residence in Algiers. 1t is to be bopef
that the new Grand Hotel will remedy
this unsatisfactory state of things. | an
reminded in this connection, of two
English gentlemen going to Blishaf
I'm Algeria) and arriving late at night
were shown into a room at an inn, The
ceiling OF which swarmed with vermin
The beds were narrow, hard and unin.
Wiling, and the night was hot. The
guests summoned the landlord
pointed to the ceiling Che shrugged hi,
shoulders in the approved French fash.
ion) and ordered a hundred cigars and
a bottle of cognac. BY dawn of day
they had finished the fluid, and
smoked the last of the cigars, and the
floor was covered with the slain. The
two travellers paid their bill, resumed
their journey and spent a delightful
week at the baths of IIamman RI Isha
near Bow-Medfa, a place, by the way,
to which l would direct the attention
OF travellers bound for Algeria.
ALPHA.