And, whereas the said declaration of accession has been duly ratified on both parts: Now, therefore, be it known, that I, JAMES K. POLK, President of the United States of America, have caused the said declaration to be made public, to the end that the same, and every clause and article thereof, may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this second day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, and of the independence of the United States of America the seventy-third. By the President: JAMES K. POLK. JAMES BUCHANAN, Secretary of State. REGULATION OF TELEGRAPH COMPANIES IN NEW YORK. The following law, providing for the incorporation and regulation of telegraph companies, passed the Legislature of New York State April 12, 1848, and, being duly approved by the governor, is now in force. AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE INCORPORATION AND REGULATION OF TELEGRAPH COMPANIES. Sec. 1. Any number of persons may associate for the purpose of constructing a line of wires of telegraph through this State, or from and to any point within this State, upon such terms and conditions, and subject to the liabilities prescribed in this act. Sec. 2. Such persons, under their hands and scal, shall make a certificate which shall specify 1st. The name assumed to distinguish such association, and to be used in its dealings, and by which it may sue and be sued. 2d. The general route of the line of telegraph, designating the points to be connected. 3d. The capital stock of such association, and the number of shares into which the stock shall be divided. 4th. The names and places of residence of the shareholders, and the number of shares held by each of them respectively. 5th. The period at which such association shall commence and terminate; which certificate shall be proved or acknowledged, and recorded in the office of the Clerk of the County where any office of such association shall be established, and a copy thereof filed in the office of the Secretary of the State. Such acknowledgment may be taken by any officer authorized to take the acknowledgment of deeds of real estate, at the place where such acknowledgment is taken. Sec. 3. Upon complying with the provisions of the last preceding section, such association shall be, and hereby is declared to be a body corporate, by the naine so as aforesaid to be designated in said certificate; and a copy of said certificate duly certified by the Clerk of the County where the same is filed and recorded, or by the Secretary of State, may be used as evidence in all courts and places, for and against any such association. Sec. 4. Such association shall have power to purchase, receive and hold, and convey such real estate, and such only, as may be necessary for the convenient transaction of the business, and for effectually carrying on the operations of such association, and may appoint such directors, officers, and agents, and make such prudential rules, regulations, and by-laws, as may be necessary in the transaction of their business, not inconsistent with the laws of this State, or of the United States. Sec. 5. Such association is authorized to construct lines of telegraph along and upon any of the public roads and highways, or across any of the waters within the limits of this State, by the erection of the necessary fixtures, including posts, piers or abutinents, for sustaining the cords or wires of such lines; provided the same shall not be so constructed as to incommode the public use of said roads or highway, or injuriously interrupt the navigation of said waters; nor shall this act be so construed as to authorize the constraction of any bridge across any of the waters of this State. Sec. 6. If any person, over whose lands said lines shall pass, upon which said posts, piers or abutments shall be placed, shall consider himself aggrieved or damaged thereby, it shall be the duty of the County Court of the County within which said lands are, on the application of such persons, and on notice to said association (to be served on the president or any director) to appoint five discreet and disinterested persons as commissioners, who shall severally take an oath, before any person authorized to administer oaths, faithfully and impartially to perform the duties required of them by this act. And it shall be the duty of said commissioners, or a majority of them, to make a just and equitable ap praisal of all the loss or damage sustained by said applicant, by reason of said lines, posts, piers or abutments; duplicates of which said appraisement shall be reduced to writing and signed by said commissioners, or a majority of them; one copy shall be delivered to the applicant, and the other to the president, or any director or officer of said association or corporation, on demand; and in case any damage shall be adjudged to said applicant, the association or corporation shall pay the amount thereof, with costs of said appraisal, said costs to be liquidated and ascertained in said award; and said commissioners shall receive for their services, two dollars for each day they are actually employed in making said appraisement. Sec. 7. Any person who shall unlawfully and intentionally injure, molest, or destroy any of said lines, posts, piers or abutments, or the materials or property belonging thereto, shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the County jail not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court before which the conviction shall be had. Sec. 8. It shall be lawful for any association of persons organized under this act, by their articles of association, to provide for an increase of their capital, and of the number of the association. Sec. 9. Any association or company now organized and using Morse's Telegraph, may organize as a corporation under this act, on filing in the office of the Secretary of State a resolution of its board of directors, signed and certified by the officers of the company, of its desire so to organize, and upon publishing notices to this effect in some one newspaper in the city of New York, and the city of Buffalo, and the city of Albany, three months previous to such organization, provided that two-fifths of the owners of the stock of said company or association do not dissent therefrom; provided that any stock or share. holder in any such association or company, may, on giving thirty days' notice to the officers or any of them of such association or company, at any time before such organization, refuse to go into such organization, and thereupon such stock or shareholder shall be entitled to receive from such association or company the full value of his shares or stock in such association or company. Sec. 10. The stockholders of every association organized in pursuance of this act, shall be jointly and severally personally liable for the payment of all debts and demands against such association, which shall be contracted or which shall be or shall become due during the time of their holding such stock, but such liability of any stockholder shall not exceed twenty-five per cent in amount, the amount of stock held by him; and no stockholder shall be proceeded against for the collection of any debt or demand against such associa tion, until judgment thereon shall have been obtained against the association, and an execution on such judgment shall have been returned unsatisfied in whole or in part, or unless such association shall be dissolved. Sec. 11. It shall be the duty of the owner or the association owning any telegraph line, doing business within this State, to receive despatches from and for other telegraph lines and associations, and from and for any individual, and on payment of their usual charges for individuals for transmitting despatches, as established by the rules and regulations of such telegraph line, to transmit the same with impartiality and good faith, under the pen. alty of one hundred dollars for every neglect or refusal so to do, to be recovered with costs of suit in the name and for the benefit of the person or persons sending or desiring to send such despatch. Sec. 12. It shall likewise be the duty of every such owner or association, to transmit all despatches in the order in which they are received, under the like penalty of one hundred dollars, to be recovered with costs of suit by the person or persons whose despatch is postponed out of its order, as herein prescribed; provided, however, that arrangements may be made with the proprietors or publishers of newspapers, for the transmission for the purpose of publication of intelligence of general and public interest, out of its regular order. Sec. 13. This act shall take effect immediately. NEW DUTIES ON SPIRITS IN ENGLAND. The act of Parliament to alter the duties payable upon the importation of spirits or strong waters, 11 and 12 Vict., cap. 60, came into force on the 14th ult. The duties now levied, are as follows:-If imported from any British possession in America into Eng. land, 88. 2d. the gallon; into Scotland, 4s.; and into Ireland, 3s. Rum, the produce of any British possession within the limits of the East India Company's charter, not being sweetened spirits, or spirits so mixed as aforesaid, in regard to which the conditions of the net of the fourth year of the reign of Queen Victoria, cap. 8, have, or shall be fulfilled. If imported into England, the same duties as already mentioned, and the like duties on rum shrub, however sweetened, the produce of, and imported from, such possessions, in regard to which the conditions of the recited act have or shall have been fulfilled; or the produce of, and imported from, any British possession in America. COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. COTTON CROP OF THE UNITED STATES. STATEMENT AND TOTAL AMOUNT FOR THE YEAR Ending 31st august, 1848. EXPORT OF COTTON TO FOREIGN PORTS FROM SEPTEMBER 1, 1847, to August 31, 1848. CONSUMPTION OF COTTON. Total crop of the United States, as above stated.............. September, 1847: In the Southern ports. In the Northern ports...... ......bales 2,347,634 104,928 214,837 QUANTITY CONSUMED BY, AND IN THE HANDS OF MANUFACTURERS. Our estimate in this statement of the quantity taken for consumption in the cottongrowing States, does not include any cotton manufactured in the States south and west of Virginia, but it cannot have escaped observation that the consumption at the South and West is gradually increasing, and it seems proper in making up an account of the produc tion of the country, that some notice should be taken of it. The following estimate, from a judicious and careful observer at the South, of the quantity so consumed, (and not included in the receipts at all,) may not be devoid of interest. Thus, in To which may be added the quantity burnt in the interior, and that lost on its way to market; these, added to the crop as given above, received at the shipping ports, will show very nearly the amount raised in the United States the past season. The quantity of new cotton received at the shipping ports up to the 1st inst. amounted to about 3,000 bales against 1,121 bales last year. The shipments given in the above statement from Texas are those by sea only; a considerable portion of the crop of that State finds its way to market via Red River, and is included in the receipts at New Orleans. The receipts at Philadelphia and Baltimore overland from the West this season were 1,479 bales against 1,828 bales last year.-Shipping and Com. List. EXPORT TRADE OF NEW ORLEANS. We have usually compiled from the annual statement of the New Orleans Price Current, and published in our Magazine annually, in October, the full and complete statistics of the trade and commerce of that city for the years commencing on the 1st of September and ending on the 31st of August. The tables furnished by the Price Current we are induced to omit this month, with a view of embodying them in an article designed for our series of papers on the "Commercial Cities and Towns of the United States," which we shall endeavor to lay before the readers of the Merchants' Magazine in our next (November) monthly issue. In the meantime we have concluded to publish the subjoined tables of the domestic export trade of New Orleans, as derived from the annual statement of the New Orleans Commercial Times. In summing up the trade of that city for the year just closed, the Times submits the following tables, showing the transactions of each month in the leading articles delivered in market, in addition to the usual statistics furnished by that journal. This condensed view will, no doubt, be most acceptable and satisfactory to business men. As the depot of an immense, fertile, aud expanding region, New Orleans sends off in value more than half the produce exported from the Union. The articles enumerated are from the cotton, sugar, and provision States, which find sale and supplies in that Emporium of Commerce. The price of cotton quoted to each month, s for middling fair qualities, which perhaps better represent the average than any other class. The Times has not pursued the fluctuations of the market in the other articles, but has valued them at fair rates, avoiding excess-tobacco at $50 per hhd.; whiskey, $8 per bbl.; lead, $250 per pig; sugar, $50 per hhd.; molasses, $8 per bbl.; flour, $5 per bbl.; corn, 40 cents per bushel, or 90 cents per sack of 24 bushels; pork, $10 per bbl.; bacon, $50 per hhd.; lard, $3 per keg; and beef, $8 per bbl.-twelve in all--the proceeds of which, as shown by table No. 5, amount to $60,000,000. Table 1.-receipts, EXPORTS, VALUE, AND STOCKS OF COTTON AT NEW ORLEANS, IN MONTHLY TABLE 2.-EXPORTS AND VALUE OF TOBACCO, WHISKEY, AND LEAD, AT NEW ORLEANS, 1847-48. 89,555 64 2,569,109 45,924 68 1,279,757 38,885 |