The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-11 00:00:00

✓eeeriTh beeds,it is difficult tansy whether the amazing
imbue which has taken place in materials of mann-
facture or in articles of very tedium) comfort, is
the mat significant. When we read, for example,c4
the consumption of lilted a production us sugar
diminishing in one year by very nearly 30 per cent.
smong the people of a country Ilke France, we are
at • loss bow to estimate the violates of &crisis which
Isis been able to make so desperate an inroad upon the
habits of a vast populatioo. The same remark,
eameehat relieved of its startling per entage, applies
to coffer, and to several other description* of impacts
which enter into daily use. Nor is there any im-
provement of the picture if we extend the compariann
to slicks of clothing. Woollen goods werecleared for
home use in 1846 to the eras% of 167,000 met.
quiste.s. sod in Ib4B they had fallen to cousiderably
Tess than a moiety of that amount (72,000). In the
sumo wa7 the cassemption of linens fell from 22,000
quintals in 1846, to 7,000 quintals in 1848.
But lamentable as is the tenor of all this evidence,
it dots not exhibit to en the dilapidation which has
befallen France so emphatically, as the beggarly
account of imported raw materials. It is the ex-
tent aid the character of its demand for the rude
eleMrn s of produeive labour, upon which, in these
modern times, the material prosperity of a country &-
pude Men may consume luxuries—they may in-
dulge themselves with delicious drinks mid sumptuous
decoratoes, without b. either richer or more
genterful. In truth it is almost certain that en im-
portation of mere articles of indulgence and subais-
team as ..n infallible sign of decay and poverty. But
wehave so example of • people becoming tit gra, and
spludthnfis whose ports have been crowded with
Teasels, from every quarter of the compass, laden with
worse than melees to men without hands,
cer=it heads, sad destitute of industry.
Is 11146 the oonsumptin of cotton wool in France
was 607.000 quintal., in 1848 it had &L en to 396.000
quint Is. In 1848 linen yarn was absorbed to the ex-
tent of 41,000, and in 1848 to the event of only
4,000 quit tals Olive oil has declined from 296,000 q.
in 1816 to 190.000 q. in 18181 indigo, from 11,000 q.
in 1846 to 8,000 in 1848; and, what is a most im-
portant alteration, the demand for raw silk, 'dice in
1848 and 1847 took up 13,500 q., was more than sup-
plied in 1848 with less than one-half of that quantity
(0.62044)
And nithont prolonging the comparison—which
with here and there a diversity of degree conducts us
to ore uniform result—we may content ourselves
with the general fact that, comparing 1848 and 1818,
the customs digit son seven articles of raw produce
(cotton, linen yea n, olive oil, indigo, nitrate of wash,
nitrate of soda, raw silk) have fallen from 23,000,0001.
to 15,090,000, and the aggregate quantities from

11,015,000 qs. to 647,000 tr.- .
On the other hand, while the volume of the export.
from France exhibits no extreme departure from the
general result of previous yews, there are none of those
marked alterations with reference to particular
articles which it was perhaps seasonable to look for.
To select, for example, the artic.e of silks, of which it
is believed that a very soermons quantity wee pur-
chased by this country in thoeszly.monthe of the past
year, the figures of the Maui!~ give no countenance
to the prevalent opinion. In 1846 the export of silk
fabrics from France wan 14,684 qe ; in 1847 it was
17,188 qs.; and in 1848 it was 14,283 qs. But it
must be oberved that while the trade in manu-
factures of silk appears to have remained without
material change, the exportation of the raw
materials of that manufacture underwent very impor-
tant modifications. In 1848 the quantity of silk, raw
and prepored, exported from France, was 6,520 tr.:
is 1847, it was 5,971 qs. ; bat in 1848 it suddenly
became 10,145 go.; and this branch of trade seems
to have been as Sail* in the month of November,
1848, as at any previous period of that year. Expens-
ing en individual opinion, this is not a result which
comes upon us by surprise. We have on several oo-
casions pointed out the importance of that silent re-
volution which was transferring the trade and the
ingenuity of the Loire to the great cotton inetrop tie
of our own country. Acid we have been quite aware
that even in this ye-r of losses and paralysis in
almost every channel of trade, there has been one en-
terprise which enjoyed success and anticipated eater.-
sion, and that that enterprise was the silk trade. With
the exception of a slight increase in perfumery, in
salt, in wine, in brandy, and a considerable increase
in corn, there is no other marked change in the list
of exports. From this remark, however, there is
one important exception—and an'exoeptii n which fs
exceedingly characteristic of the pressure on both
aides of the English CnanneL In 1846 that peculiar
species of interchange carried on between the chief
cities of the two greatest nations of christendom in ar-
ticles of millinery, frills, and fancy stitching, and called
by the French exci.emen, modes, amounted to
3,936,000 f. But in 1848, so deplorable had become
the taste, or so straitened the resources of those
who live among the luxuries of fashion, that this in-
teresting branch of commerce and of the fine arts
woduced to France only the comparative trifle of
4,545 000 f. Behind th a array of figures from the
French enatombouth there are concealed several in-
ferences which will assist us to explain the extraordi-
nary circumstances which for the space of nine
months have distinguished the currency of France.
We have seen—oertainly for the first time—
s national bank suspend its payment. in specie,
and, in the face of an executive government tottering
every hour upon the verge of an awful abyss of bank-
ruptcy, maintain not merely the sol.dity of its consti-
tution, but also preserve its paper from the slightest
symptom of excess or depreciation. How this has
happened—how far it has been aided by a most ez-
traordinery combination of accidents in the posture of
the external commerce of the country—are questions
which do not fail to press for a solution upon the
minds of reflecting men.

A CoRaLsPONDENT, whoaeletter appeared in Satur
day's Ezpress, has brought undo, public notice a
subject of very cousiderable intend to the two m at
northon counties of England. It is, however, one
of which very little mute than the name is kr.own
oven there; for the wiry simple nations that the means'
of obtaining ►nformation are few, and that access to
the means has always been difficult. We refer to the
Crewe Charities.

Beyond en oceseional notice in the local journals
that Lord Catwas trustees have sent a donation to this
public inetitutiee, or have subscribed to that charity ;
have assisted in the building of that church or of this
school; or have distribu•ed at Christmas more or lees
than the usual quanth irs a coal, blankets, and beef at
Bamberoogh and at Blatichland, the great bulk of the
inhabitants of Northumberland and Durham, for
WlbollB brnefit a former diocesan left such toble estates,
brow as little—perhaps lees—of his bequests as they
do of Dulwich Hospital or of the Blue-coat School. From
the decease of its founder to the present time, the Crewe
Trust hem been managed by three or four self-elected
Durham prebendaries or other ecclesiastical digni-
taries of that diocese ; and though there may have been
nothing to conceal it their administration of the Che-
eky, their policy has been to keep its management all
SOS/ and comfortable. And it was not without being
assured that they had no legal ground of refusal, that
they submitted, voluntarily, the trust affairs to the
examination of the Charity Commissioners; whose
report is, as usual, meagre and unsatisfactory.
Let us tenderly raise the veil on this Charity.
Its founder was the notorious Bishop Cezwa.
who," say. BURNZT—sod be is writing in the pre-
late/8 life time—" batirg the dignity of being born of a
noble, though a puritan family, hes not one quality
to recommend him, unless obedience and compliance,
could supply all other defects. He has neither learn-
ing nor good sense ; and "—adds GILBERT of SA-
RUM, in the pride of his own ability in the pulpit—
"heis no preacher." " Mean, v in, and cowardly,"
are the contemptuous epithets with which MACAU-
LAY does summary justice on his character.
He used to excuse his political profligacy by an
anxiety to secure a place in history. Both the con-
tempornry annalist and the philosophical historian
have given him an onenvi .ble niche in the national
Walh .11a. And in truth, NATHANIEL Lord Cnewg,
who died Bishop of DURHAM, was as worthless an
ecclesiastic and as venal a politician as ever disgraced
the lay peerage or the ecclesiastical hierarchy. " Ne-
phew," was the advice he gave in his old sge to one of
his MONTAOUR kit amen, " do as I did when I began
life et court. Stick fist to some one gnat man
there r JAMS, Doke of Trim, was the " greet man"
to whom ties prelatical leech stack; and by his favour,
masted however by no little pseaniiry bribery of his
own, three bishoprics in eneermion, the last Durham,
were Canwa's reined— In 'Ames reign, he was, of
coarse, a member of the High Commiasion Court; as d,
it is sad, was with difficulty prevented from attending.
if not *steely performing, High Maas Wore the Court.