The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-02 00:00:00

the eraneoo.

TO
• eteeoud Ultimo The Eames,. tesstatatae tbe WM. neniPel
"faults," pubtlabed every Tuesday sad Friday eight. to Wes
for post
• int tlessestsiatso•ed tor .4 The Express," Loudon !Issuing paper,
neat be at the Otis, l 0 Bouverbs4drest. by Two *Week ea Use
Oyof peddiestiosh

[DENTS.

HIOR WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tiao Der —Meralse. II I lin Afternooa. 1I n
Teorozooor —Morning. lb. ..........Afternoon. Ob. G.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 2.

IN the list of Notices of Motion for to-night in
the House of Commons we find " Mr. MITCHELL in

Committee on Customs to move that the Duty on

Raisins, not of British Possessions, be reduced to
10s. per cwt., as proposed in the first edition

of the New Tariff." This subject is important,
not only in a free-trade sense, but also as a
question of governmental good faith. Having
before him the facts furnished by the deputa-
tion upon the Raisin Duty, we do not see how
the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER can do other-
wise than reduce the duty as originally proposed.

The question is not one merely of consumption and
revenue, but of good faith with merchants and
dealers. On the faith of the reduction, contracts
have been made for imports from the continent
amounting to several thousand tons. No doubt
strong representations must have been made to
Mr. GLADSTONE before he was induced to take
the very unusual course of rescinding a reduc-
tion that had been for some weeks before the world,
and which had been received by the public, not
only as a boon, but as one of the items of
compensation for the continuance of unpopular
taxes. But even had such representations been
founded upon facts instead of most utter fallacies,
the circumstances must have been strong in-
deed to justify Mr. GLADSTONE in throwing such
heavy losses upon individuals as must result from
his rescinding the promised reduction. Had the
change been made within a few days of the original
announcement, the only evil might have been a very
general disappointment; but it is quite a different
matter when three weeks are allowed to elapse
between the duty being set down at 10.., and re-
placed at 15s. 9d.
Three weeks are sufficient, by the help of steamers,
railways, and the electric telegraph, to speed com-
mercial intelligence over half the world—not a
region in which raisins are produced, or a town in
Europe or the United States in which there is any
stock on hand, but has long since heard of the reduc-
tion, and on the faith of it made preparations for
meeting our increased consumption. There is no
waiting now, either amongst producers or merchants,
for any particular reduction of price, to establish an
increased consumption. In the last few years the
lesson has been thoroughly learned, that in England
price is the only limit of consumption, and no sooner
is a duty reduced than new supplies are hunted up
in all directions. How diligently our merchants have
gone to work in the article of raisins is shown by the
fact that whilst this time last year the stock in Lon-
don did not exceed 700 tons, and had fallen by Sep-
tember to 200, it is no* upwards of 6,800 tons, with
several thousand tons besides actually bargained for
to arrive. These raisins have been bought at prices
on which, at the 15s. 9d. duty, there would be a
heavy loss. They would not have been bought but
for the announcement that the duty payable upon

them would be 10s., and we cannot imagine that
Mr. GLADSTONE, when made aware of this fact, will
for a moment hesitate about confirming the reduction
he first promised, and now proposes to withdraw.
We owe our present extraordinary stock of raisins
to the general belief that they would come into con-
sumption in the place of currants. The price has,
however, so far kept them above the means of the
working classes; and it is an ascertained fact that if
the duty be not reduced, the greater proportion of
the fruit now in England will be re-exported.
A shilling difference in price is sufficient to deter-
mine the current of supply to us or to the north of
Europe. The retail grocers, it they could buy
raisins fitted for the ordinary use of the working
classes, so as to enable them to sell them at three-
pence per pound, would advertise them by circulars
and in their shop windows,—make them the
means of attracting custom in other articles, and
rapidly succeed in pushing an immensely increased
quantity into consumption. And with the more
facility, from the fact that last year the work-
ing classes were obliged to give up the use of cur-
rants to such an extent that the consumption fell off by
more than 4,500 tons ; and the diminution would have
been considerably greater, but that in the early part of
the year the grocers did not raise the price upon'
their stocks in hand, as an advance in proportion
with the wholesale market would at once have
stopped their sales. The great mass of people, im-
mediately upon a rise of price, give up their pur-
chases, but very gladly resume them in increased
quantities upon a fall. Nothing, therefore, can be
more certain than that at such a price as the 10s.
duty would enable them to sell at, our grocers would
speedily clear off the existing stock of raisins, large
as it is, and swell the revenue by the duty on 6,600
tons, not a sixth part of which would otherwise
come into consumption in this country.
It is a curious fact that the damage to the currant
crop last year has been the means of injuring the
quality of a large quantity of raisins. Immediately
the currant blight became known in the raisin coun-
tries, extraordinary efforts were made to prepare the
raisins for our market. The fruit was gathered too
early, was too hastily cured, and too soon packed. The
result is that a very considerable weight of raisins
are not in a condition to keep for any length of time,
and must either be consumed here at once, or at
once be sent abroad for consumption. The quantity in
dde state is probably not less than 4,000 tons. Sup.
pose the merchant's price here, duty paid, is 275. to
28s. per cwt., if the ss. 9d. be taken off, they can of
course be sold from 225. 3d. to 235. 3d. The dealers
are always satisfied to sell at an additional shilling to
the retailers, who would thus have the fruit at
235. to 245. It would be their interest to push the
sales u fast as possible—cheap raisins would bring
custom to their shops. They would be content to get at
the rate of 28s. per cwt., and would therefore sell at
3d. per lb., and on a consumption once got up at that
price the increase would be steady. Nor does it
seem that there would be any difficulty as to meeting
the demand. Sardinia, Sicily, the Roman States,
and other parts can, it seems, supply us with almost
any quantity of low-priced raisins; but at the price
, such fruit must be sold at in the shops under the
los. 9d. duty, people will not have them, whilst under

the 108. they would be largely used, and would yield

a steady and considerable income to the Exchequer.
In evidence that low-priced raisins are in demand, we
hava the fact that the last Smyrna boat brought no
less than 110 tons of what are called black raisins,
and that of the same sort there are on the way 200
tons more in the steamer shortly to arrive, whilst last
year the entire import did not exceed perhaps 100
tons. The fruit is small, but good, and has hitherto
been chiefly used, instead of currants, in the Royal
Navy. Under the reduced duty it would be sold at a
very low price, and of these again almost any e.,,an-
tities are to be had; but at the high duty they cannot
be expected to come much into use—the high duty

in short, sending to foreign markets the fruit which
the working classes of England need.
On every ground, therefore, of commercial expedi-
ency, financial policy, and justice, the CHANCELLOR
of the Exuma:En would take the moat prudent,
popular, and equitable course in reducing the duty
to 10s. as he at first proposed.

A NUMBER of very curious facts are afforded us by a
long looked-for public document just given out by the
Census-office. Rather more than two years have
elapsed since the day selected for the last national
enumeration of the people of Great Britain, and
that period we may assume was needful for the
completion of the volumes now before us. Indeed,
a mere glance through the books is enough to show
that if their preparation has been slow, the results
are very elaborate, as well as interesting and
valuable. Every parish of course finds its proper
place on the roll, with the number not only of its
inhabitants in 1931, but also in each of the past
decennial periods of the present century. The num-
ber of houses in each portion of the couatry is
likewise given, with a large amount of original
information illustrating the relations of popula
tion to other circumstances—as, number of per-

sons to a house ; number of children in-
families; number of persons enjoying abundant
house room; numbers subjected to deficient house
room, and so on. Of course, the great fact, which
forms thesgroundwork whence all the rest may be
said to spring, is the total of persons forming else
people of Great Britain. The number of these on the
night the Census was taken—the 31st of March,
1851—was twenty-one millions one hundred and
twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven
(21,129,967). After stating this chief fact resulting
from the labours of the Census takers, they say with
great truth:
It is difficult to form-any just conception of these large
aumbers, for men are rarely seen in large masses, and when
seen their numbers are seldom known. It is only by collect-
ing, as in other cases of measuring, the units into masses,
these masses into other masses, and thus ascending progres-
sively to an unit comprehending all others, that the mind
attainsany adequate notion of such a multitude as • mil-
lion of men. Thus from • file of ten persons, which the
eye takes in at one view, the mind readily conceives ten
such groups or • hundred, and again ascending to ten
hundred or • thousand ; to ten thousand or a myriad ; to
ten myriads or a hundred thousand ; and to ten hundred
thousand or a million—arrives at a conception of the
twenty-one millions of people which Great Britain con-
tained within its shores on the night of March 30, 1851,
Another way of arriving at this conception is by considering
the number, in relation to space ; as 4,840 persons might
stand without crowding on the 4,840 square yards in an
acre, 3,097,600 persons would cover a square mile (equal to
840 aeries) ; and the twenty-one millions of people in Great
Britain, allowing a square yard to each person,would there-
fore cover seven square miles.

Doubting whether this statement conveys a com-
plete idea of the number of people in Great Britain,
the Report attempts another mode of illustration:

The building of the Great Exhibition in London en-
closed 18 acres, and 60,000 or 60,000 persons often entered
it daily ; on the 9th of October 9341 persons filled its
floor and galleries, and could almost be surveyed by the
eye at one time. Of 100,000 persons a general notion can
be formed by ►ll those who witnessed this spectacle at the
Crystal Palace ; it is a number greater than were ever, at
one time, in a building covering 18 serer, but somewhat
less than the greatest number (109,915) that ever entered
it on one day, October 7th. The population then of Great
Britain, including men, women, and children, exceeds 211
hundred thousands; and at the rate of a hundred thou-
sand a day, could have passed through the building in 211
days ; the English—as they are 169 hundred thousand—in

169 days ; the Welsh, 10 hundred thousand, in 10 days;
the Scotch, 29 hundred thousand, in 29 days ; the 143,126
Islanders in the British Seas, in less than a day and a half;
the 162,490 soldiers and seamen absent from the country
when the census wu taken, in less than two days. The
population of Great Britain in 1801 amounted in round
numbers to 109 hundred thousands; and 102 of the 211
hundred thousands in 1831, or as many as could pass
through such a place in 102 days, would represent the
increase of the people of Great Britain in half a century.

These two extracts give perhaps a tolerably vivid
idea of the amount of the family of JOHN Bell..
But our numbers are far from being our chief cha-
racteristic, for when we recollect the influence
now-a-days exercised by England all over the globe,
the amount of our population seems absolutely trifling
as compared to our action on the destinies of the
world. Passing however from these considerations,

let us note some of the Curiosities of the Census.
First, we have the comparative numbers of the
sexes. Here the ladies are seen at once
to be in a large majority. The females
exceed the males by more than half a million.
Excluding from calculation the men absent from
England as soldiers, sailors, and so on, there are to
every hundred females a fraction more than ninety-
five males—the excess of women over men being
now in very much the same proportion as it was at
the Census just half a century ago. Of the children
born alive the number of boys considerably exceeds
the number of girls-104 boys being born to 100 1
girls. This fact, compared with the one men-
tioned
just before it, tends to show how
much greater is the risk of early death,
or removal beyond the seas, amongst males than
females. The disparity of the sexes is greatest, it
seems, in Scotland. The rate of increase of popula-
tion during the half century has been nearly 93; per
cent. "It is shown (says the report) that the half of
a generation of men of all ages passes away in thirty
years, and that more than three in every four of their
number die in half a century. The English popula-
tion, owing to its rapid increase, contains an ex-
cessive number of children and young people,
and will live longer than a generation normally
constituted. At the present rates of mortality
a few of the present generation (a few, only, out of
21 millions) will live a century, and survive the year
1951." The estimate is, that nearly five millions of
those now living will survive for fifty years, and see
the advent of the twentieth century. What an ex-
perience of human progress is likely to be theirs!
Judging by the last half century, and supposing the
past rate of increase to be maintained, the population
of Great Britain will double itself every fifty-two
years. Should our present prosperity continue, the
necessaries of life remain abundant, and labour meet
a ready market and liberal remuneration, our num-
bers will undoubtedly be doubled in a shorter
period,—provided always no fatal choleras or
other pestilences step in to spread untimely death
through the land. " The numbers of the population
are increased by an abundance of the necessaries of
life, and reduced by famines, epidemics, and public
calamities, affecting the food, industry, and life of
the nation. The pestilences of the middle ages—

the famine, the influenza, and the cholera of modern
times—are examples of one class of these agencies;
the security and freedom which England has latterly
enjoyed are, examples of the beneficial effect of
another class of influences, not only on the happiness
of the people, but also on the numbers which the
country can sustain at home, and can send abroad to
cultivate, possess, and inherit other lands."

The first, most intimate, and perhaps most important
community, is the family, not considered as the children
of one parent, but as the persons under one head ; who is
the occupier of the house, the householder, master, hue-
band, or father ; while the other members of the family
are the wife, children, servants, relatives, visitors, and
pf.rsons constantly or accidentally in the house. The head
of the family supports and rules the 1..11114—occupies the
house. " Family," in the sense which it has acquired in
England, may he considered the social unit of which
parishes, towns, counties, and the nation, are comrosed.
But, in its essential sense, a family, though generally com-
posed of the several members described above, may con-

silt only of a widower, children, and servant., or a bache.
ler and servants; or, finally, of a single woman, occupying
a small cottage. Mr. ltickmsn adverts to the difficulty of
defining, in an act of parliament, the degree of coonexion
between the head of a family and lodgers who reside
under the same roof ; and states that the overseers or school-
masters who took the censuses (ISOI -11-21.31) were informed
"that those who use the same kitchen and board toitether
are to be deemed members of the same family."
he proceeds to say, " even then remains the question whe-
ther a single person inhabiting a house solely, or lodging,
but not boarding, in another man's house, is to be deemed
a family. This admits only of an unsatisfactory reply,
• that it cannot be otherwise,' and by this negative para.
logism is decided in the affirmative." A lodger, then, who
did not board in the house in which he lived, was by this
decision " a family."

From individuals we pass—with the authors of
the Report—to Families, to learn the fact that
" 1,815,567 new lines of English families hare been
established in the country in fifty years." An
amusing illustration of the difficulties of census-taking
is afforded in the division of the subject. To class
men under families in strict statistical order, we
must be able to answer the question—" What is
family ?" Hear what tho registrars say about this :
Whether a family can be constituted by a person who
lives alone in a house, or a lodger who either boards is a
family, or oily occupies the chamber in which he sleeps,
and, as in Paris or London, lives in the daytime at coffee•
houses, clubs, or other places, may be disputed.

Can a single person constitute a family, and thus "be
head and members at once l" may be asked as well as the
other questions : " Can a single family eonstitute g
town ?" " Can a single town constitute a state i" In the
case of the family it has been decided in the affirmative,
by taking the occupier of a house, or even a door of a
house, as the representative and equivalent of a distinct
family; and it is evident that under this definition a son
married, and living in his father's house, forms a part of
his father's family.
_ _

And here, for the present, we must close our notice
of the cumbersome, but valuable and curiously in-
teresting new volumes of our Census-takers.

TURKEY.

While the question of peace or war hangs in sus-
pense, the capabilities of Turkey for resisting attack
are naturally an object of interest. In the Pr, .54e of
yesterday, M. E. Girardin discusses some of the
difficult conditions under which an attack by Russia
would have to be carried out. Having come to the
conclusion that Russia will not risk her navy against
the combined forces of France and England, be
says:

" She must then prefer an expedition by land, as
in 1828 and 1829. But here an important point is
to be noticed. Iu 1828 Russia, advancing on
Adrianople, was acting in harmony with France,
England, and Prussia. In 1853 Russia, marching
on Constantinople, would do so in opposition to
France and England. Can we doubt that the sup-
Port of these powers would double the courage of the
Turkish army and the force of the Massalman popu-
lations? Constantinople has barracks which may
rival the finest of those of France or Russia.
Two of them, situated in the environs of
the capital, are really entrenched camps,
and capable of sheltering an entire army.
One of these two barracks is called Daoud Pacha, the
other Damis Tehiftlich. It was in the latter that,
during the late war in 1829, the Sultan planted his
standard and announced his resolution to bury him-
self beneath the ruins of his empire. The military
arsenal called Topkhana contains a manufactory of
arms. The ramparts which surround the city con-
sist of a double wall with fosses and towers capable
of a formidable defence. If the Bosphorus presents
an opening at which a Russian fleet may arrive from
the Crimea in 48 hours, the fortifications raised at
the entrance of the Bosphorus, among which the fort
of Roumilly Hisser is distinguished, render the en-
trance of the fleet both difficult and perilous, and the
coast offers no favourable spot for effecting a disem-
barkation. The nearness of Constantinople would
make it easy to send a force to resist an attempt by
land, during which we cannot suppose that the fleets
of France and Russia would be irate."

As soon as we assume the combined intervention
of the French and English fleets, we must give up
the hypothesis of an attempted landing at the en-
trance of the Bosphorus, and limit ourselves to that
of a new occupation of Adrianople, as in 1829. The
city of Adrianople has a population of 100,000, a
citadel and an arsenal. From Adrianople to Con-
stantinople the distance is 170 kilometres, or 42
leagues; but a Russian regiment, destined to a
long march, cannot accomplish more than 20 kilo-
metres per diem, marching two days and resting on
the third, without increasing the risk of having to
leave a number of men on the road. The Russian
soldier is fed on hard black bread, and carries on his
back a considerable weight in arms, ammunition, and
equipments. The official report of the campaign in
1828.1829 shows that the Russian army lost one
hundred and fifty thousand men from fatigue and
sickness alone.

In 1828 the Russians passed the frontier to the
number of 163,000. For several weeks all their
efforts failed before the small fortress of Brailow.
The Emperor Nicolas scarcely succeeded in defeating
the enemy at Bonlanlouch. The siege of Varna lasted
nine weeks, and at last it was bought of Joussouf, its
commandant, with gold. Joussouf retired to Russia,
and there lives on a pension. It is true that the
Russians repulsed the Turks at Tchorlaa and Shumla,
but without defeating them, notwithstanding the
enormous sacrifices which they made there. The
' succeeding campaign was commenced under Diebitch;
Rechid Pacha only had 30,000 irregular troops, and
6,000 vagabonds. At Bazar-Yeni, the demoralised
Ottoman army gave way almost without combat, but
at Koutcfcka made a vigorous resistance, and little
was wanting to tarn the balance of fortune in their
favour. It was then that Diebitch advanced on and
occupied Adrianople. Yielding to the influence of
England, the Divan asked for peace. Would Turkey
follow the same course in 1833, having the support
of France and England? But it is already too late
to undertake a war, for at the end of May forage fails
completely in the principalities, and on the banks of
the Pruth.

I

I

I

.esd frith all tht ir power tech of Unit subjects as may
to take pan in this competition. Ail give an
*ewe that th y have hosed atnungst the masufavturs to of
owe t.matry the greatest Ito:lnce, to accede to the invite-
muet „( the Frcueh vt.rr eurnt ; end, ',enameling ta the
then smut which has mar.ifested itself amongst
pl,.;acert, the cowsiderattle efforts which they will
art with credit the ind • 'struggle to which
g.ey an issited may be beforehand imagined.