The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

MAY 14, 1853 We believe this to be strictly true—and so it will be, until the one great reform of sugar making be accomplished—the separation of cane-growing from the manufacture. and the establishment of central mills. But here prac tical difficulties intervene, the solution of which we must leave to the " Landowner" anti the blue-books. Last and lowest in the social gradation comes the emancipated slave, who sometimes holds land individually. though more often in joint tenancy with others. Hero is his portrait at fall length, and not a shade blacker than the original : The black proprietor of a joint-stoek estate never w,,rks with his own hauls, although not u► acquainte. with manual labour, for who ever saw a white gentlema l n w ith a shovel or a hoe? He is well aware that property tuts its privileges as well as its duties ; au t. as he reads tin an, the former eousists in wearing a high stock flea close fitting trousers tightly strapped over au •• extra-sized" fancy cloth hoot, in loading a life of p or p e t im i sem i. intoxication, and galloping about the country tat a half starved pony. The duties of his station are to pilfer from his neighbour on every occasion, to three his ageil parents to labour on his land for a mere pittance, and, when too feeble any longer to work, to allow them to perish from neglect. .k visit to one of these negro properties is a melancholy sight. There stands the once elegant man sion-litalse, now filst decaying, and from which a plank or a post is torn whenever simnel; the gardens are gone, and the orchards cut down for firewood; the doors and Van ilows of the boiling-house swing on broken hinges; and the wild fig-tree, with its long air roots, grows vigorously on the crumbling brickwork ; everything denotes desola tion; and the visitor turns away with a sigh, r.s he behohis a lien! of swine rooting beneath the ehunp of tamAriml and palm trees, which mirk the burial-place of the former owners. " twins lime tam Nitta novalia, • ttijer' haboblt? Harbarus has si getes? queis eons: vimas sgms." Vitton., I. The end of these estates is quickly accomplished : the sea breaks in, and out, through the ill-kept sluices unit • neglected sea-dams, until an equinoctial spring-tide, rough and high, overwhelms the laud, destroying every vestige of cultivation. Disputes ensue, a land surveyor is called in to divide the property. and allot to each shareholder a separate and individual portion; and the Legislature is petitioned to puss an act eamis-lling the several ownem to keep up the dams 111111 drainage, for their mutual benefit. The one hope of the colony rests on Coolie immigration. which has succeeded better than even the authors of it anticipated. Large sums have been made by the immigrants, and each man who returns with his savings encourages others to go out. The Liteknoir, which left for India in August, 1851, took back 250 coolies. with earnings amounting to an aggregate of 4,0001. Docile, industrious, and deficient hi no quality of a labourer, save physical strength. these natives of the East seem likely to replace the African races hi the position which the latter have so long occupied, as cultivators, under the English planter, of a tropical soil. Fifth Annual Report qf du. Poor Law Boa of . 1852. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode. Amos° the innumerable yearly reports which feed the statistical appetite of the public. none is read with a more mingled sensation of pride and pain than that which records the history of pauperism and its cure. Pain—that in time of national prosperity, with an overflowing treasury, boundless trade, external pence, and a contented people, there should still remain a class, varying in number from one twentieth to one twenty-fifth of the whole population of England and Wales. who suffer the penalties of imprisonment without crime, and the pri vations of extreme poverty amidst abundant wealth. Pride—that for the relief of this class, the existence of which, in an old, a crowded, and a commercial country. seems to our present ideas inevitable, legislative wis dom should have provided resources, insuffi cient, indeed. as all such must be for the pre vention of suffering, but tending at once to alleviate its pressure and to circumscribe its extent. The English poor law. compared with an ideal standard of perfection. is full of faults : compared with the practice of any other nation. it is an institution in which we may glory. The well working of this law is attested briefly but sufficiently by the statis tical returns issued every year. Those of 1852 are now before the public, and a brief abstract of tllcm may not he unacceptable : The total sum expended in Eng land and Wales for the main tenance of paupers was, in 1K) l X 4.962,70.1 157)2, 4,97,655 Showing a decrease of X67),019. THE PRESS. And. slight as is this diminution of expendi ture, it indicates n Mrther augmentation in the material prosperity of the country. which for some years past has been steadily advancing. Since 154 4 , when the poor-law expenditure exceeded 6,150,000/., not less than 1,2,80,000/. has been saved to the rate-paying Pnblie. SUltiOlil the statistics in a tabular form : 1 Amount of Mit. 1 , 44.1141 , r per, Mxpentled IDeerease in 1,,1 , Ile id iii I :: tr ie l d f 1 iti...lief ~f 1 each Year , Devrse. 1 ii . , , , , „ ml i ~,,,. 1,4 , th e p urr all Il an I . ollll4lEcti per ~li 4'ollll/rea 14 A, ).. Etarbuttl and with the Cent. r„ ii . ~;1 1 , i ll , pr,.. '^Y• WaleA, Preecate:: !mien. eeiling N 1.01% Year. ---- - - - Y t it. d. s. d. 11 4 48 6.11F41,164 -- -- 7 if ... 1819 5,791.91' 4 1 357,101 tril 66i 41 ; 1850 5,395,0t2 397,11111. til 6 1 II DUD 4,9611,704 4510`115 tett 5 6 ti tit 1852 4,897i 565 65,619 I'3 5 ri U 1 !,4 t 1 Si Ara i 1 . D,erense In 1559. ) 1.263,07t4 a., velar. with In IN i .4 al And a proportionate decrease has taken place in the numbers of paupers relieved. There were in IM3I. 862.000 ; in 1S:12, µ35,000s show ing a diminution of 27,000, or something more than 3 per cent. upon the whole. As regards their classification it may he said in round numbers, that the adult able-bodied those who would work if they could find employ ment—fin-in (including women) between one fifth and one-sixth of the total number It is significant of the present state of the labour market that the falling off under this head is eight per cent. greater than it is upon the en tire calculation. It now includes only 137,000. in lieu of 114.000, the number of the pre ceding year, indicating thus a decrease of pau perism among the able-bodied to the ammint of eleven per cent. There is a slight increase in the number of the insane ; a large decrease, amounting to fifty per cont., under the head of va grants ; and, apparently, some reduction among the aged and infirm. On these last it is evi dent the rise of wages can have no effect, ex cept as it may enable their children and other relatives to restore them to independence and their homes. The following facts may also be deduced from the report. The maintenance of each pauper, taking fixed and casual rharges together, and striking an average, ought to be reckoned at something loss than six pounds per annum, or 2s. 4d. weekly. Assuming, as we have a right to do, that the scale of living in the union is the lowest at which health and strength can be maintained, and taking 1 tt. per diem as the average remuneration of un skilled labour throughout England, we have this result—that, by the labour of one day and a half in the week, the operative, whether in town or country, can provide himself with the absolute necessaries of life—a conclusion not wholly unsatisfactory. In oue respect the Poor Law Report hats dis appointed our expectations. Knowing the eagerness with which vast masses of 4)111. coun trymen have sought, and are even now seeking, the means of emigration, it is difficult to un derstand why nearly 140,000 able-bodied per sons should be supported in eomparative idle ness at the expense of their neighbours, with Australia and Canada so near. Facilities for emigration are given by the existing rules of the board ; but only 3,271 individuals were found to profit by them in the last year, while in 11. 4 51 the number did not exceed 1,540. Is it that the dependence and tluusi-degraalat ion of parochial relief tend to repress the energy of its recipients, or that rate-payers fear to incur the odium which popular prejudice might attach to a supposed deportation of the poor? t 11• that they ore bootie fide afraid of a want of labour, and choose to suffer a tempo porary inconvenience in preference to a pernut nent evil ? All these solutions, or none of them, may be right ; but the fact is noteworthy. It is not easy to trace out any general ope rating muse for the remarkable diserepancies which exist between the condition of different counties. The following table, IlloEcoVer, is deficient in this respect—that it measures the increase or decrease of pauperism in each county only by a comparison with the state of the same county during the year immediately preceding. A c•anparis44ll with its ascertained state dining the last five or seven years. though nnire laborious to the framers of the report. would have been inure convenient to the pub- 41 lie. Evt'u 41S it stands, however, the table ix lull of interest : Th,. retes per NIA. the increase wad tlerretete la the several colitiLic4 urn ra 11,11. M...-- I St itrAslG per colt. I 'hirliatul Ol4 York (E. Riding) $ ' . . I au least vu I ~. lerlit et. Eilleolit MOllltloUtit ..4 4 1 1 1 Si Itt .1k M . /11 1 1‘ 1 , k Mc REAsc. per emit. Redford 3l 0 \ ford 1101 . 4. 7ll liittlaiiil ll I Itlckiwzliam 4 ii....ter I . I.nis% all I 1 tutilwrhold ll2 Sul re) . I ),•ii, 4'; :• , itiiiii.x 111 , a"11 I 11 , 1'401 .1•!:: Wilt, 1: , ....... -I W.ireeiiter 4 ;10iiei.st.'r I I i•riiiiril I I ertforil I I mit ingilon hem M 1 11110,4I.‘ Nt111 . 0116 NOE111:1111141.411 .4 ' 44 N.W4.111111111...11.11141 Not I ii 4 liiiiit It. thus appears that. Leicester. Monmouth, (.'artligtin, and Radnor are the severest mutter ers from pauperism ; while perks, Westmor land. the Nortlt 'tiding of York, and Brecon exhibit the most rapid progress. But, its before observed, these indications may be fallacious, when lS:c..! is compared only with 114: 5 4. It &ea out. 4 4 4‘4141. M 4 far *ll4 thiS imperfect information enables us to judge, that tither the agricultural or the manutiiciitring interest eau show any marked superiority over its 01111. 1111 . V011 I itrillArtilt'll Will.ivlt Flint Mert. , tirtli NloiltvanclD 2l The Autobiography of Captain Diyby Grand.— London : W. Parker and Son. THIS is the first novel we have met with for a very long time of it class which was 01103 very popular, flint. namely, which depended for its interest upon the adventures, on or oft' service, of a " dashing Sub." Time was when we were inundated with books which smelt of powder too strongly for the peaceful table of a reviewer. " The Subaltern," "The Hussar," " The Bit on ay," " The Connaught. Rangers," " Almiteks Re visited"—(that sneh a name should have been given to a book which had us vivitl an uecount of two or three passages of Peninsular campaign ing as one could wish to read !)—and, bet ter than all, " Cyril Thornton"; these were hooks iu which something of a story was made the peg upon which to hang the writer's experience of HS it had shown itself' to him in camp and field. And excellent they were, with their guerrilla ehieftitina, bewitching senoras, and comic surgeons or tplartermitsti, thrown in ad libi tum, and sometimes eVell with an imprisoned nun, freed by an impassioned heretic in the scarlet uniform of " the galliuit —th," capping the pathos and emitting an excitement unpa ralleled in the annals of circulating libraries. At length the race died away. Every one who had a personal reminiscence of the war to tell, and a pen to tell it with, has long since worn Ilia pen to the stump. 'Mr. Lever, the last and by no means the worst of the veteran corpm, is deaf to the sound of the drum, and wakes but to an Irish howl ; and the popular novels are those only which are written for a purpose, and which present us with single-minded Jesuits and strong-minded perverts, refined factory girls, or spiritualised niggers. Digby Grand, however, though he tells a soldier's story, is forced to draw spun the piping times of peace for his materials. And we are bound to say lie does it. with a fair SUCCCKS. The only son of a baronet of large nominal possessions and ancient descent, who " knows his position," Rigby leaves Eton with his good qualities carefully obscured, and his bad ones sedulously developed by his early training, to join a regiment of the line in Canada. He there signalises himself as a fast youth, makes love first to a " garrison hack:' than a /misalliance with whom he is only saved by the timely discovery of her too great intl. macy with a " brother" officer, and then to a pure and highminded young Canadian lady, Ztfil de Grand- Martigny. Digby soon ex ehanges into the Guards, collies home, and, plunging with recklessness into all the follies and vices which now-a-days make up !the ex ' iateuee of a " swell," throws to the winds his. i -