BRITISH COIN AND BULLION STATISTICS. Amongst the British Parliamentary returns, one relating to the export of bullion from the United Kingdom is very interesting. From this document, prepared by the Inspector General of imports and exports at the custom-house, the following appears to have been the aggregate exports of coin and bullion from the United Kingdom for the years undermentioned:: 166,485 34,996 Years. 1837.. 1838.. 1839.. 1840.. 1841.. 1842. 107,829 1843. 564,509 28,296 1844. 23,979 40,209 201,481 285,920 13,354,084 13,640,004 481,431 464,918 12,894,904 13,359,822 657,322 779,257 13,021,226 13,800,483 374,571 471,869 15,496,408 15,968,277 31,635 502,243 14,812,180 15,354,423 117,192 149,832 13,832,956 13,982,788 592,805 553,586 11,809,408 12,362,994 64,188 325,721 13,403,310 13,729,031 58,371 429,458 14,439,174 15,368,632 138,305 237,209 9,380,419 9,617,628 1,242,637 952,955 14,320,824 15,273,779 Of the 1,242,637 ounces of gold and 15,273,779 ounces of silver, thus shown to have been exported in 1847, it appears that 1,005,651 of the gold and 952,955 of the silver was in the coinage of this country, the remainder being foreign. While, however, nearly all the gold exported was British, the silver was almost exclusively foreign, the proportions being as follow: On an analysis of the account, the total amount of specie exported appears to have been shipped to foreign countries in the following proportions:- Valuing the above amounts at the mint price of gold and the average price of silver, it would appear that the bullion exported exceeded £10,000,000 sterling, of which sum about half was gold and the remainder silver. From this amount, however, in order to ascertain the nett sum exported, the value of the specie imported must be deducted, but the custom-house returns do not afford any information on the point. The Bank of England returns show that the highest amount of gold and silver held during the year 1847 by that establishment was £14,951,575 on the 2d January; and the lowest amount £8,312,691 on the 23d October; the difference being £6,638,881. This may afford sufficiently correct data to estimate the actual amount of specie exported over the amount received.* COINAGE OF THE BRITISH MINTS IN 1847. According to a Parliamentary return, the total value of the gold coinage in 1847 was £90,029,763, of the silver coinage, £13,573,906, and copper, £243,051. The numbers of the different coins were 16,119 double sovereigns, 81,711,149 sovereigns, 16,572,717 half-sovereigns, 2,319,561 crown pieces, 38,560,098 half-crowns, 119,508,840 shillings, 76,017,875 sixpences, 16,575,200 groats, 88,209 fourpenny pieces, 1,463,308 threepenny pieces, 121,308 twopenny pieces, 271,920 silver pennies, 24,299,500 copper penny pieces, 34,379,520 half-penny pieces, 66,296,832 farthings, and 12,902,400 half-farthings. * Wilmer and Smith's Liverpool Times. RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. THE BOSTON AND MAINE RAILROAD. THE last annual report to the stockholders of the Maine Railroad, made at their annual meeting held September 13th, 1848, exhibits the financial affairs of the company as in a prosperous condition. This road, extending from Boston to Portland, a distance of 111 miles, was opened to travel as far as Andover in 1836, to Dover, N. H., 1841, and to South Berwick in 1843. The capital stock of this company is $3,236,541. The receipts and expenses for the financial year ending June 1, 1848, to which time the accounts of the corporation are made, as per report of the Treasurer, are exhibited in the following table: RECEIPTS. Reserved profits, June 1, 1847.... Reserve of account of repairs of engines and cars, June 1, 1841.. Passenger fares.... Freight....... Mail. Rents........ Total........ $280,129 67 Nett profits........ $316,705 22 Dividend of $500 per share, paid January 1, 1848.. $119,015 00 66 $4.50 July, 1, 1848.. $40,000 00 This, like all the railroads from Boston, furnishes great facilities to the merchants and business men of the city, as well as to residents in the towns from two to ten miles from Boston. Trains run to and from Medford, a distance of five miles, fourteen times a day; fare, 12 cents; time, fifteen minutes. Season tickets, with privilege of going over the road that distance at pleasure, are sold by the company at $25. Packages of tickets are sold at one-half the usual fare for any place on the route. The following table, furnished by Charles Minot, Esq., the efficient superintendent of the road, gives the places, distances, and rates of fare for single and season tickets:DISTANCES, RATES OF FARE, &c., ON THE BOSTON AND MAINE RAILROAD. On the 1st of July, the Directors of the road reduced the passenger tariff from 2 60-100 to 2 25-100 cents per mile. The receipts for July last fell off from those of the corresponding months of last year, but in August there was a gain over August of last year, another fact in favor of low fares. AMERICAN OCEAN STEAM NAVIGATION. It is a well known fact that the entire enterprise of ocean steam navigation was but recently in British hands, and conducted by British capital. The following particulars of the progress of this enterprise in the United States are furnished by a correspondent of the Journal of Commerce: The gigantic enterprise in which E. K. Collins is at present engaged, is the most extensive of any of the same character yet undertaken by a single individual in the United States one in which upwards of $2,500,000 are involved. Mr. C. contemplates the construction of five steamers of immense size to ply between this city and Liverpool, and carry the United States mail. Without exception, they will be the largest frame steam vessels ever built. Two of them are now far advanced; one in the yard of William H. Brown, and the other in that of Jacob Bell, and will probably both be launched in November next. Their extreme length is 285 feet, breadth of beam 40 feet, depth of hold 31 feet. They will measure 3,000 tons, or about the same as the Great Britain (iron.) It is intended that they shall be completed in season to make their first trip in the early part of the fall of 1849.. In model, they are unlike any steam vessel heretofore built, having more floor and sharper ends. They are also without a cut water, and carry no bowsprit. Their frames are all sided, 12 to 14 inches, and floors 21 inches, moulded, filled in solid to the floor heads, and coaged with locust throughout. Some idea of the extent of this department of naval architecture may be gathered from the following list of steam vessels that have been recently, or are soon to be, built in this city. Charleston packets.......... Southampton and Bremen......... Howland & Aspinwall's Pacific line... New York and Savannah.......... Howard's New York and New Orleans... Law's New Orleans and Chagres branch.... Collins' New York and Liverpool line....... Southerner 1,000 1,100 1,750 Hermann.. 1,805 Franklin... 2,200 California... 1,100 Oregon....... 1,200 1,100 1,250 Pawnee...... 1,200 Crescent City.......... 1,500 Empire City... 1,600 United States... 2,000 Ohio..... 1,500 (Mate) 2,706 Here we have 22 steamships whose aggregate tonnage is about 40,000 tons, and in which is, or is to be, invested a capital exceeding $9,000,000. FRENCH RAILROAD TRAFFIC. The traffic returns of French railways for each month of the present year, ending July, 1848, show the effects of the revolutions upon commerce and general trade. The carriage of passengers and goods of every description has very much declined, and of course the receipts have been proportionably small. The number of passengers by all the lines during the month of July was 325,565, against 363,127 at the same period of last year, and against 377,640 in 1846. The receipts had been 997,539 francs during the same month in the present year, against 1,384,032 francs in July, 1847, and 1,354,108 francs in 1846. The total receipts from January to July, inclusive, this year, had been 6,726,293 francs against 8,005,031 francs to the same time last year, and 7,218,137 francs in 1846, for the same period. PASSENGERS ON THE RAILROADS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. A British Parliamentary return shows that the number of passengers carried on the va rious railways in Great Britain and Ireland, in the half year ending June 30, 1848, was 26,330,492. In the same period 90 persons were killed, and 99 injured by accidents. Of the persons killed, 11 were passengers, 59 servants of companies or contractors, 19 trespassers, and one suicide. NOISE ON RAILROADS PREVENTED. Mr. Grant, one of the engineers on the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad, states that a plan has been devised and carried into effect on that road, to prevent the noise which causes so much annoyance on railroads. The plates in general use are abolished, and the ends of the rails are connected by dowel pins, entering about 14 inches. The cars glide over the rails without any disagreeable jarring or noise. MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. THE UNFORTUNATE AND THE CRIMINAL CREDITOR. THERE is a certain innate feeling of contempt in the breast of the creditor who makes a pecuniary loss for the individual or individuals who, having proved unfortunate, are obliged to offer a portion only of what they justly owe to their creditors, and a man who has suffered in his purse, is apt to look upon those who have caused it with a sharp eye. The creditor is not apt to take into account the uncertainties incidental to every business, but judges at once, and oftentimes too harshly. There are failures which are caused by gross negligence and the private extravagance of the partners, and cases also occur when a failure seems to be the result of no lack of integrity or business qualification, but occasioned by a sad run of what is called bad luck, entirely beyond the control of human beings. If this is true then there should be a distinction made, and such persons certainly deserve from those even who suffer better treatment than the man who under false pretences obtains credit and then leaves the creditor in the lurch. There are many, we are thankful for it, who make this distinction, but there are also those who are hard-fisted and overgrasping, who pursue the unfortunate debtor as well as the culpable creditor to the last point; hesitating not at invading his household and taking from his wife and family the smallest article to cancel their debt, and when he again endeavors to rise, he is crushed by those to whom he has relinquished his last farthing; and worried and harrassed till his energy is subdued, he is driven as a last resort to intoxication to drown the thought of his cares and perplexities. Such instances have occurred, and may occur again. We can point out a man in this city who has been driven by such treatment to be what he now is. He was an honorable man at heart, but he was an unfortunate not a criminal debtor. Driven by the demands of his creditors to the brink of the precipice, he was there kept till he fell. Had he been allowed his time, not one man would have lost a penny by his unfortunate failure. There is a vast difference between the unfortunate and the guilty, which creditors should reflect upon before they condemn or before they act.-Boston Evening Gazette. A MODEL STORE IN PHILADELPHIA. The Dry Goods Reporter gives the following description of a store recently erected in Philadelphia, where convenience is combined with comfort, and utility has been made the handmaid of good taste : Many elegant stores have been erected in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, within a few years, but perhaps none is better entitled to the appellation of a model store, than the one recently erected in the latter place, built partly upon an old burying-ground belonging to the first Presbyterian Church. This burying lot, fronting on Bank-street, and lying in the rear of a tavern and an irregular pile of buildings which opened on Strawberry, (a parallel street,) has been neglected for many years, and having lately been sold by the church, has only just been opened for improvement. The most of it was purchased by an enterprising importing and commission house, who have erected upon it a block of stores, the largest of which is for their own use. It is of this last that we design more particularly to speak. This store has two entrances, as it runs entirely through from Bank to Strawberrystreet, making a length of 135 feet. The first story is of hewn granite, massive and substantial as the fortunes of the proprietors. The remaining three stories are of brick, and the whole building is handsomely lighted, and rendered more secure by fire-proof shutters. The main front is on Bank-street, where it has a width of 35 feet: after running back about 85 feet, the line on which the store is built widens abruptly 10 feet, so that the remaining 60 feet, back to the entrance on Strawberry-street, is 45 feet wide. The extra width thus gained, which, as will be readily seen, is 10 feet by 60 feet, is partitioned off from the main room on the first floor, and is divided into four distinct apartments, with glass-doors; the first one is used for a private counting room by the members of the firm, the second and third are withdrawing rooms for the reception of persons calling on private business, and the fourth is occupied by the clerks of the establishment. The main room on the first floor is a noble show room, 136 feet in length, 35 feet in width, and 13 feet in height. It is lighted in the centre by an enormous skylight, which |