The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-08 00:00:00

TO CORRIMPONDENTS.

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LONDOY, THURSDA I', SEPTEMBER 8.

Ar length, on September the 7th, the Board of
Trade t.tbles for the month ending August the 3th,
ire published! Merchants circulars, Customs' hills
',entry, and other documents, have already supplied
na with much of that sort of information contained in
these tables to as late a period as the 27th of August.
There could be nothing to prevent all the returns
being made to the Board of Trade by the Custom-
house a fortnight ago, and why the officials at the
Board should have taken fourteen days to arrange
what a merchant's clerk would have arranged in a
few hours, they ought to explain to the mercantile
immunity. They wish probably to keep up the
distine'ion between the performance of private and
public services—the former prompt, efficient, and po-
litely rendered; the latter sulkily gone through,
never quickly, and rarely well done. However, now
we hare got the tables, though several days late, we
may use the information they supply.
The most interesting subject now connected with
trade is that of the comparative value of exports and
imports as an index to its success. If the value of
the imports excited* that of exports, we are carrying
on a successful trade, and whatever temporary defi-
ciency of capital there may be, it will soon be re-
placed. But these returns, while they take no notice

whatever ut bullion,- -now a very large item in our
trade,—tell us only of the quantities of the articles
imported, and nothing whatever of their value. Like
too many of our official returns, they are one-sided,
imeouiplete, and may mislead. They give us the
alien.. of comparing the quantities imported in one
spot It with quantities impor•ed in another, and the
values exported in one month with the values
exported in another; bat they do not give
the values both of exports and imports, so
that we might now compare the value brought in
with the value sent out,—in the present state of the
Mosey market, the great subject of interest. What,
would be thought of a merchant who entered in his
books only the number of hogsheads of sugar and
hundredweights of coffee he imported, and took no
Lode, of either their estimated or sale price, while
he put down to the fraction of a penny the value of
all the haberdashery and hardware he sent abroad?
Oer Board of Trade tables, however, are constructed
on such a principle; and reform is as much needed in
!bp Statistical as in the Electoral details of our go-
vernment. We have an endless number of returns,—
we are renowned for our enumerations, all drawn
upon a similar principle, bet to reduce them into order,
so that they shall throw light on each other, is
a task yet to be performed by some clear head.
Till some system beginning with districts and
population be udopted for keeping the national
accounts, it is only a waste of time and money to
extend them.

Comparing the month of July, 1833, with the
month of July, 18.52 and 1851, and the seven months
ended August 5 in the same years, it is at once
apparent that the quantities of the articles imported
in the month of July, 1853, and in the seven months
aided August 5, 1853, exceed in the great majority
of came the quantities imported in the previous
years. The exceptions, which we may enumerate
on account of their fewness, are ashes, bark, bones,
brimstone, manufactured cottons, cotton yarn—the
declared value of which is given to show us
that the declared value might be easily given of
every article imported—most dyes and dyeing stuffs,
embroidery, currants, white flint glass, guano, hemp,
mahogany, tin, rapeseed, spices (except pepper), rum,
tallow, tea (in the seven months, but not in the
to9nth), and turpentine. Whenever the consumption
of any of these articles is known from their paying
duty, the consumption hu increased, as of tea,
though the importation in the seven months has

been !es% while the quantities of the bulk of the
articles imported, whether they are for consumption,
like coffee or sugar, or the raw materials of our ma-
nufactures, like wool or cotton, go on increasing.
Their vain', we repeat, is not stated, but in the
month and in the seven months as compared to
former years, we have imported larger quantities of
the materials of enjoyment and of wealth.
The table of foreign and colonial merchandise ex-
ported informs us of the transit trade carried on, and
that the quantities of foreign cheese, cocoa, coffee,
corn, most kinds of cotton and leather manufactures,
of glass, quicksilver, pepper, spirits, tobacco, wine,
cotton, woollen manufactures, &c., exported in the
seven months of 1863 were greater than in the seven
months of the previous year. If the quantity of
cotton exported was more than in former years it
wu less than the increase imported in 1863, so that
• we have 147,192 owts. more to work up than in
1852, while other nations have more also. The

quantity of foreign and colonial wool exported is
1,719,933 lbs. Ism in 1853 than in 1832, so that we
have upwards of 14,000,000 lbs. more of foreign
wool to work up already this year than to the same
time last year. As no raw material has been rela-
tively so short as wool this increase corresponding to
oar wants shows how completely we may rely on
trade, when free, to supply everything for which
there is a demand and which an be supplied.
Between the quantities of the commodities im-
ported and the declared Taloa of the exports there is

nocommon mimeo ; but we conclude that the increase
is the latter, no less than 1,40.5,918!. in the month,
and 9,723,0031. in the seven months, is relatively much
greater than the increase in the quantities of imports,
great though that be. A large part of oar exports has
been sent in exchange for Australian gold, which
does not appear in the imports; another part has
been sent to Australia on a venture, for which no
retern has yet been received, which accounts for
• present scarcity of capital, to be hereafter
abundantly supplied as the returns come home.
As 00 Amer occasions, the present increase

in our exports is spread over pretty equally Dearly
all the articles. The declared value of the linen
yarn exported in the month is a little less as com-
pared to July, 1852, bat in the seven months, like
other things, it is greater. We see nothing else of
the least importance that has declined, and the ex-
ports of July, as of all the previous months of the
year, show that our trade is rapidly enlarging.
The shipping continues much as before; that is,
the total quantity employed increases very fast, and
the foreign shipping rather faster than our own. In
the month, as compared to July, 1852, the entries
inwards show an increase of no less than 152,98.3
tons, but of this increase only 40,858 tons are British
shipping, and 112,125 tons are foreign shipping. Of
the foreign the principal increase is in Italian ship•
ping, which has brought ns corn, and in United
States shipping, which has brought us coven. For
us shipping could not be more usefully employed
The entries outwards in the month exceed those of
July, 1852, by 90,216 tons, and of this excess 49,419
tons are British, leaving 40,797 tons for foreign
shipping. There is a wonderful increase of naviga.

tion, and there is no room fur envy or jealousy, for it
is shared by all.
It is very satisfactory also to notice the coral,.
nued increase of the tonnage 4f our coastior
trade, notwithstanding the immenes quantktics
of goads now carried by rail /COO ono. end
of the kingdom to the other. The tonnage'.
engaged in the coasting trade, waived inwards and

outwards, was, in the seven months of 1831,
15,021;385 ; of 1852, 15,028,1'96; and of 1853,
15,448,748. Both the coasting and foreign trade
show a great additional employment for shipping
and seamen, and the increase in both explains why
seamen are so much in demand. Let us add, with a
view to some late proceedings of our sailors, that it
is quite plain, from the increase of foreign shipping
in our trade, if they continue to resist the employ-
ment of foreign seamen in our ships, they will force
the merchants to hire foreign in preference to Eng-
lish ships, and so drive English sailors themselves
out of employment.
To the usual tables we find appended this month
an account of the total declared value of our exports
in 1832, specifying the countries to whick they were
sent; and we might be inclined to excuse the delay
in publishing the tables for the sake of this addition,
were we not aware that it has been, or might have
been, ready some weeks, or even months ago. It is
only necessary now to say of it, that it shows a con-
siderable increase of our exports to the United States,
part of which, no doubt, went to California; and
shows also a large increase to Australia. To
all the British settlements in Australia, the
declared value of our exports in 1852 was 4,222,2051.
And in the long list of countries to which our export
go them are only three—the United States, to
which we send 16,134,3971.; continental India, &c.,
7,352,9071.; Hanseatic Towns, 6,872,7531.—which
buy from us more than the colonies that were
established within memory, upon lands discovered
by the men of the last generation ! If we reflect
for a moment on the many hundred years it formerly
took to raise up a trade of 4,000,0001., we are asto-
nished at the rapid progress now going on, and
utterly teat in astonishment whips are ask whither is
this development to lead, and vi ma will it end ?

ON E domestic subject is again exciting universal
remark, and must surely lead to action of one kind
or another. Everybody is talking about the conti-
nued revelation of the brutality with which women
of the working classes are treated, as disclosed by
the reports of the police courts. Not a week passes
without a report of some dreadful case of husbands,
drunk or sober, ill-using their wives to a degree
which, if practised upon brutes, would be followed
up by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals. One fellow cooks his steak and eats it in the
presence of wife and children who are famishing for
bread. One, two, three, halt a dozen, drag their
wires about by the hair, knock their heads against
the Boor—and, even when pregnant, kick them about
the body till they are insensible. Here a woman
rushes into the street in the middle of the night,
followed by her scared and naked child rec. Another
is thrown down stairs, and is found by fellow•lodgers
half dead at the bottom. It is painful to write these
things; but they are constantly being written by
police reporters : and they engaged, as we know, so
much notice from Parliament, whilst it was sitting, as
to cause the paeans of a new law for the punishment
of brutality to women. This law, however, seems to
avail little or nothing. It is observable that the cul-
prits are often " amazed," " astounded,"and so forth,
at the severity of the sentences: but such a law can
scarcely suffice to keep in check men who can be so
amazed, and who thereby show how insensible they
are to the seriousness of their crime.

To the thoughtful observer, a most painful, and
by far the most pathetic, part of the business is the
unwillingness of the wives to prosecute. The
avowal of " who did it", which is the first natural
impulse, is retracted when public justice takes up the
sinner. The reason of the reluctance is only too
mournfully obvious. One poor creature recently ex-
claimed, when her husband was committed to prison,
"Thank Clod ! I shall have quietness for two months r
But for one such there are a dosen who know not
how their children are to he fed in the interval, and
who look forward with evident horror to the day
which shall bring their husbands home again, exas-
perated by vengeance, full of the hatred which men
feel towards those whom they have injured, to inflict
a slower and more concealed torture—penalties which
the law cannot take hold of—a gradual murder,
which can never be brought home. We need not
enlarge on this. What such a home must be, every
one can imagine for himself.
One obvious feature of this clam of cases amongst
the lowest ranks of society is that the mistress is in
a better condition than the wife. The mistress can free
herself from her tyrant at any moment, while the
wife has no escape. What say our moralists to this P
Could human wit devise a more effectual way of
discouraging marriage amongst certain classes, and
countenancing illicit connexion ? And what is t►e
actual effect, at this moment, in our moral and Chris-
tian England? If what we have to tell-shocks the
moral reader, and strikes alarm into the hearts of all
who truly and wisely believe that the institution of
the Family is the only basis of public and private
morality, it can only be said that it is time such men
were shocked and grieved, for it is truth which
strikes the blow to their feelings. All such should
be called upon, by all their veneration for the
institution of the Family, by all their interest in the
national morality, by all the principles and pre-
possessions which fortify and endear their interest
in Home, to take heed of a sign of the times.
What must be done ?

We may turn first to the Commission on
the Law of Divorce, whose Report was presented
to Parliament early in the late session. From
that report we learn, first. that it is proposed
to refuse divorce to women (in England) alto-
gether, except in cases of such rare atrocity as
to constitute, practically, so exception at all; and
next, that in Scotland, there were 95 cases of suo-
woeful snit for a divorce in five years,—the parties
being almost all of the labouring classes, under
favour of the smallness of the cost; one-third of theme
divorces were at the suit of the wife. Such is the
state of the law beyond the Tweed, while, on this
side of it, the expense of a divorce rises from 5001. to
several thousands, and, as we said, the wife is, prac-
tically speaking, excluded from release altogether.
The Commissioners propose various and considerable
relaxations; bet all in favour of the husband; and
their strange doctrine is that such facilities are good
for the husband, while yet the impossibility of
divorce is good for the wife. Such a view will not
be sanctioned by the sense and feeling of the English
people, if fairly brought before their judgment ; and
the present disclosures of the liabilities of wives will
infuse new animation into that sense and feeling on
behalf of the weaker party. It had need be so ; for
in this case only one party is represented. The hus-
bands are the law makers; and the wife is dumb
before the law, and Parliament, and the Commission
which is to decide upon her interests. The case
of divorce is proposed to be transferred from
the jurisdiction of Parliament to that of a common
law court, from being a matter of exceptional
lation to a pnition within the domain of cfnumon
law. Divorce is to be obtainable by the laws of the
country, which now interdict it. This is good, as
far as it goes ; that is, it is good for the husband.
But the wife gains nothing by it. Another impor-

tent benefit will be that pauper suits will be admis-
sible in this, as in other cases, under the law of the
land. But here again the wife gains nothing. Legal
rparutio is to lib rte. moti(tsttainibble by both
peruse; and in this re is
,tio much of good that
we are arislious to obtain it without delay. But
there will be no permanent settlement of the ques-
tion tia English and Scotch wives are placed on the
same footing. Nobody pretends that the Scotch law
is profligate: and if it is not, it follows that the Eng-
lish law is cruel. That cruelty must be abolished,
and soon, or the cruelty of husbands, at which
society now stands aghast, may, within a certain space
of the social area, overbear marriage altogether.
One more appeal must be made—to the Catholic
clergy, especially in London. It is observable that
the great majority of brutal husbands sentenced in
the police courts are Irishmen. We commend this
fact to the notice of the priests of their religion.
The Catholic doctrine is that marriage is indissoluble,
and the more imperative is the obligation on the
clergy of that faith to see that the institution is pre-
served from abuse. They have more influence over the
conscience and conduct of the poor and ignorant than
any other clergy ; and it is unavoidable, therefore,
that any cla-s of offences which particularly dis-
tinguishes their flocks should be imputed to some
imperfection in their discharge of their Ape. We
appeal to them to look seriously into this matter, and
to try whether they cannot preserve the sanctity of
marriage by procuring better conduct among those
whom they have admitted to that sacrament. In
proportion to their dread and dislike of all relaxa-
tion of the bond should be their care to prevent its
becoming unendurable. They can, if they will, re-
strain the brutality of men whom they hold in their
spiritual charge; and they cannot be blind to the
nature and extent of the consequences if they neglect
the duty.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.