The Press.
London, England, 1857-04-11 00:00:00

366

mighty's works, an.l the humiliating feeling of their own
littleness. _ _

The freshness of the attnosphera, an 1 the splendour
of the scenery, are admitted by all, and extolled by
numberless Europeans who have ascended the lisdagauttwa
Pass.

The Pearl Fishery, the talipat tree, and
many other subjects, are touched upon in this
volume. But we surmise that general readers
will be satisfied with the description of many
of the topics in this work, given in Bishop
Heber's Journal. We shall turn to " the pre.
sent" aspects of Ceylon, as given by Sir
George Barrow. The enormous resources of
this valuable island %will be seen at a glance in
the following statement:—

The revenue of Ceylon for the yenr 1415 arnount,,d to
476;2731., the expenditure to 10:),609/., giving an excess of
revenue over expenditure of 70,6641. ; and to this sum
may be added 30,001/ (making together 10;1,0001.) from
the savings of preceding years, after paying off treasury
notes to the extent of 87,:f001. and all other liabilities of
the local Government.

The value of imports into the island for lS3t, according
to their declareti value, amounted to 2,597,325/ —hut cf
this sum 1,371,975/. was specie and bullion from India, of
which 642,897/. was reexported.
A I tree amount of coin is exported every year for the
purchase of rice, and by the operation of the exchanges
the rupees are brought Wok at a profit.
The value of exports of Ceylon produce amounted to
1,236,93H1., to whioh may be added 325,512/. for imports
re-exported, and 6.12,807/. for specie re•exported, making
together 2,245,2841. The number of vessels inwards at
the several ports of the island in 1831 was 2,879, and their
tonn.ige 325,616; the number outwards was 2,1116, tonnage
329,310. The number of square rigged vessels belonging
to the colony is 53, touuage 3,219; number of dhoniea 432,
tmitage 19,359.
The export of cinnamon amounted to 784,284 lbs., of
the value of 41,1831.

Although Ceylon produces the best cinnamon, yet, as
low prices are the order of the day, the " trite bark " has
to encounter a formidable competition, since the exemp-
tion of cinnamon from duty, with the inferior kinds in the
island and with the increasing quantity of cassia grown at
Java. There are ninety-eight cinnamon estates in the

The number of square-rigged vessels as given
in the above return seems very small, but the
compactly precious character of their freights
must be considered. The money value of the
cinnamon seems understated.
The coffee estates, as is well known in " the
City," atl'ord tempting fields to speculators.
A few years since there was a mercantile
mania about Ceylon coffee. Capitalists from
England and India eagerly invested their
funds in its cultivation. Since 1834 about
100,000 acres had by European capitalists,
been brought under cultivation, and land had
been bought from Government for that pur-
pose to the extent of 400,000 acres. There are
now 317 coffee estates in the central province.
Vigorous efforts have been made to diffuse
Christianity in Ceylon. Sir Emerson Tennent
has stated that the great body of natives in
Ceylon have exhibited no antagonism to
revealed and pure religion, such as prevails
amongst Hindoos,and Mahommedans. Apathy,
according to that eminent person, is the chief
obstacle which the missionaries have to en-
counter, and Lord Torrington seems to be of
the same opinion. The Church of England is
active in forwarding, education there, and the
Presbyterian Church has lately established a
number of female schools. The Wesleyans,
also, have several missions in the Singhalese
and Tamul districts. Sir George Barrow
writes:—

The Baptist missionaries have likewise several station%
in the Singhalese districts; but the Church of Rome, here
as elsewhere, sweeps into its folds all it can get.
In IS-Pt there were stated to he 115,000 Raman Catholics,
including a large number of natives merely nominal
Christians, or " baptised heathens." They have a bishop,
a vicar apostolic and his coadjutor, twenty•eight "apostolic"
missionaries, and :321 churches. lint they have few school.,
poorly supported, their main object being to create mem-
bers of their Church.

Lord Torrington has stated that multitudes call them•
selves Chrtatians, and attend to all the outward observances
of the Church, but in secret they are still more closely
attached to the doctrines of the Buddhists and the Hindoo
mythology, and on every emergency, especially at the
approach of death, it is but too frequently their custom to
turn doubtingly from the sacraments of their nominal
Church, and to repose their last confidence in the cere•
monies of devil•worehippers and the priests of Brahma and
Budtiha.

There must be a vast number of the " 11.1,000
Roman Catholics " merely titular converts.
The Church of Rome has always loudly
vaunted of its success iu converting the
heathen ; and that its boasts are not true, we
think can be conclusively shown in the history

SATURDAY,

Tory Opposition instinctively sympathises with
despots. Now, independent of the fact that the
writer is here committing precisely the same fault
which he elsewhere atttibutes to the Opposition--
i.e., the unworthy imputation of motives—it is noto-
rious that none have ever been such foes of genuine
despotism as the historical supporters of the Eng-
lish monarchy. This writer also seems to rely on
the argument which Lord Palmerston's sup-
porters have discovered for him at the eleventh
hour—i.e., that, be his disposition what it
may, he kept the peace for forty years. True,—
though even that pence was interrupted by per-
petual broils and misunderstandings. But the fact
is, that in proportion to the aversion with which
civilised nations learn to regard war is the amount
of bullying they will submit to rather than have
recourse to it. The recent policy of America to-
wards this country was neither peaceable nor cour-
teous, but it did not produce war. It generated,
however, a vast amount of ill•feeling and irritation ;
and should any future difficulty arise, America will
have no reason to congratulate herself on the tone
she adopted. Exactly identical has been the result
of Lord Palmerston's policy : peace has been main
tained, certainly, but at the cost of an accumlated
and accumulating odium which will render the con-
test whenever it does break out tenfold more bitter
and more desperate. The National reviewer, while
favourable on the whole to the Government, is com-
pelled to say of the China proceedings:—

The British name has been disgraced, not by violence
only, but by untruth. The honour of our flag bas been
stained, not by the Chinese commissioner, but by the
English envoy. Almost, if not quite, for the first time
since the during forgery of (live, has a representative of
the British Crown stooped to what looks almost like false-
hood. To our minds this is the saddest part of the whole
sad transaction. In all our dealings with Orientals, we
have been accustomed to pride ourselves upon our spotless
and scrupulous honour. Their habitual faithlessness and
chicanery is undeniable; and we have always been acens•
tented to reproach them with it, and to contrast it with
our undeviating integrity. We have now enabled them to
cast back the taunt. So hasty were both the consul and
Sir John Itowring, that they acted before they had fully
ascertained the facts of the case : they made represents.
tions and demands on an erroneous assumption ; and
then, being ashamed to withdraw the one or confess the
other, they were not ashamed to uphold their mistake by
assertions which they had ascertained to be untrue.
The " Memoirs of St. Simon" are cleverly reviewed.
The following observations deserve deep attention;
they point to the same truth which has been so ably
illustrated by NI. de Tocqueville

This is the union on which St. Simon fixes our atten.
tion—the union of dependence on a few intimates, end
reserve and distrust towards the bulk of the nobility. The
fact that Louis XIV. suffered himself to be guided by a
succession of cliques. and that he stool aloof from the
great nobles, who might have offered him independent ail
and advice, is indisputable. To us who look back, it seems
one of the stages in the transition that changed the o.wern-
meat of France from that of an aristocracy to that of a
bureaucracy. To St. Simon it appeared to spring
directly from certain points in the character and history
of Louis. He views the fortunes of his country from the
point which his position had enabled him to occupy—that
of watching the trust and distrust felt by the ignorant but
shrewd man, who said that the State was himself.

The most popular article in the present number will
undoubtedly be that upon " London Clubs." The
writer confines himself to such as existed under the
old regime, when clubs were places of political and
convivial meetings, rather than the substitute for tixed
residences which they have now become. From the
days of Charles 11. to his descendant Charles Fox
we have a collection of capital sketches and
anecdotes which combine into one of the most
charming papers we have met with this quarter.
The other articles are all of serious and solid merit,
and well calculated to preserve the high character
which the review at once established for its 31f.

The London Quarterly Review contains some able
writing, though rather• sectarian. The notice of Mr.
Kingsley scarcely does him justice. " The Emperors
of Austria" is an excellent paper, clear in arrange-
ment, fluent in style, anci pregnant with matter.
Those who would gain a bird's-eye view ot• Austrian
history since the Reformation cannot do better than
peruse it. "Insanity, Disease, and Religion " is
rather a disappointing essay; nor are we quite sure
that we perceive the author's drift. The essay on
Da Quincey seems well done.
The sooner the Church of England Quarterly
Review assumes the title of the Evangelical Quar•
terly Review the better for truth and candour. The
contents of this number are so entirely confined to
one sort of subject that we cannot discriminate
between them. All the articles seem good of their
kind; and we doubt not the Review will form an
able and faithful expositor of its peculiar tenets.

The Bom'Jay Quarterly Review has singled out
Professor Aytoun for a violent onslaught. What it
is in the writings of this talented gentleman that has
excited the East Indian bile we know not; but the
writer runs headlong at him like a mad bull, billow-
ing and blundering through all the graces of hii