The Sun.
London, England, 1852-01-27 00:00:00

JANU 1. Y

accused of any undue partiality in according to Mr.
Watkin's production our earnest approbation. It is a
daguerreotype of North America.
" It is but sixty, two years since the foundation of the
Republic. It then consisted of thirteen small states.
It new comprises twenty-nine states; without reckoning
the new dominions of Oregon, California, Now Mexico,
and Texas. Ten years ago its area was 2,000,000 square
miles, or more than 1,300,000,000 of acres. That area
has 19+ come, in 1850, 3,252,689 square miles, or
2,081,717,760 acres. It is thus nearly thirty times the
size of Great Britain and Ireland.
" The Republic now possesses an ocean coast of 5,140
miles —viz., 1,920 on the Atlantic, 1,620 on the Pacific,
and 1,600 on the Gulf of Mexico.
" Its population in 1790 was less than 4,000,000; in
1840 it stood at 17,000,000; it is now 25,000,000. And
if its vast territory, with a more productive soil, and
greater resources of all kinds, should some day become
as thickly peopled as our own island, it will then contain
a population of 800,000,000 of souls speaking the
English tongue. If the Federation bold together in
peace, why should this result, though distant, be
doubtful? For it now comprises almost every variety of
soil, climate, vegetable productions, and mineral wealth.
Its 20,000 miles of river and lake navigation—its 10,000
miles of railway—its 4,000 miles of canal—and its
11,000 miles of telegraphic wire—connect every part of
its vast territory together, and give to an interminable
continent the compactness of a small island. The
facilities of communication, too, place at the command
of the people of one part of the country the climate of
every other. When the thermometer is below zero at
New York, a journey of three days will bring the tra-
veller to Savannah, where a genial temperature of GO
degrees, clear skies, and verdant nature, await him.
And when a scorching sun is filling New Orleans with
fever, the cool weather of the North, and upon the
great lakes, is healthy and delightful. The apple bloomed
a Natchez in 1850, as early as the 24th March; while
at Montpelier, in Vermont, it bloomed on the 10th June.
The distance between the two places is but three or four
days' travel.
" One can hardly name a staple article of production
which some part or other of the States will not grow—
not as a mere garden curiosity, but as an article of pro-
fitable cultivation. The champagne of Cincinnati is be-
ginning to bo noted, and tea is under experimental
cultivation in South Carolina.

" The mineral resources of the country are enormous;
and their development is only limited by the present
want of capital to work them more efficiently. The
coal of Pennsylvania—the iron in various parts of the
Union—the copper of Lake Superior—the lead about
Galena on the Mississippi; and lastly, the gold of Cali-
fornia, which has already put in circulation a coinage of
15,000,000/. sterling—all these. are but the first tapping
of almost:boundless resources.
In 1791, bho puLtio debt of the United States was
5,000,000 of dollars. It is now, with six times the
population, only 64,000,000; and in the same period the
imports of the country have increased from a value of
52 000,000 of dollars, to 147,000,000: the exports from
19,000,000 to 145,000,000; and the tonnage of shipping
from 500,000 tons to 3,300,000.
" The post-office statistics show how the transmission
of intelligence has outstripped even the march of popu-
lation. In 1790, the number of post-offices in the entire
States was 75; in 1850, the number was 16,789. In
1790, there were 4,875 miles of post routes; in 1850,
there were 167,703. In 1790, the whole post-office
revenue was 37,905 dollars; in 1850, it was 4,905,176
dollars; which bum consisted of 4,082,762 dollars for
letters, and 819,016 dollars for newspapers and pam-
phlets. The mileage run in transportation of letters in
1830, was 42,544,069 miles, at a cost, for transportation
only, of a little more than twopence-halfpenny per mile.
And the total number of letters conveyed was
67,500,000; 62,000,000 of which were paid, and
5,500,000 free and franked.
" To come from letters to arms, it is a curious fact, as
exhibiting the real military strength of this great
country, that the militia force of the States amounts to
1,960,265 men, or as many as the whole population of
Canada, or two-thirds of that of Scotland, who could be
called out and in the field in less than a month.
" The school funds belonging to the respective states,
swelled by the constant addition of every sixteenth sec-
tion of Government land sold, are very large. Those
belonging to seventeen free states amounted in 1850, in
fixed value, to 21,400,000 dollars. Popular education is
the condition on which all new states are admitted into
the Union.
" There are 121 colleges in the States; with a total
of 950 instructors; 50,115 alumni; 9,028 ministers; and
11,565 students; and having 769,079 volumes in their

libraries.
" And without a farthing from the State, or from
any source beyond the free-will offerings of the people,
to support them, there are in this country of yesterday,
30,217 churches (exclusive of those belonging to the
Wesleyans) connected with the various sects of Chris-
tians; 26,588 ministers, and 4,558,168 communicants, or
1 in 5i of the population.
" This country, then, possesses all the elements which
are usually considered as contributing to civilization and
to power. It has far outstripped us in the rate of its
progress; and it becomes every day, more and more, the
refuge for the industrious poverty, not only of Great
Britain, but of Eurepe."
We cannot forbear adding the following dispas-
sionate and sensible remarks on the thorny slave
question
" I have found throughout my tour, what all English
travellers must find—that slavery is a question which it
is better not to go out of one's way to discuss. For,
although I have had many friendly conversations with
its most ardent supporters and most violent opponents, I
soon discovered, on the one hand, that the question is
practically compromised by the great political parties in
the free states, from time to time, in order to conciliate
Southern votes; and, on the other, that the slave-owners
consider the word abolition' as synonymous with con-
fiscation and servile war. The latter meet you at the
outset of the argument by stating, that their whole pro-
perty consists of land and slaves. That their lands of
course derive their value from cultivation; and that,
apart from the mere question of cost, that cultivation is
impossible in the hands of the white man. They tell
you, that while the negro endures the labour of the rice
field mid-leg deep in water, and with a scorching sun
above his head, without danger, and can withstand the
miasma hanging in the night air on the plantations; the
white man is attacked with hopeless fever if he expose
himself to these influences. They declare that the un-
conditional abolition of slavery, in a country abounding
in unappropriated lands, where men may squat without
being disturbed, means simply the confiscation of three
hundred millions sterling, the value of the slaves in the
first place, and the abandonment and the destruction of
the entire planting interest, in the second. To urge the
morality of the question with these men, would be as
successful as a similar appeal to our opium traders; to
the maker of fire-arms certain to burst; or, to use an
American free. state illustration—to the successful ma-
eufacturer of wooden nutmegs.
" After hearing these statements, doubtless exagge-
rated, but which were made with earnestness, and are at
least partially true, I was not surprised to learn, that
since the forcible seizure of a slave at Boston, some
months ago, by the abolitionists of that city, many of
the Southern merchants have transferred their pur-
chases of manufactured goods to New York, to an extent
which, were it not stated on authority, would be beyond
belief. Indeed, I learn that so strong is this anti-aboli-
tion feeling, that were any option exists, the avowed
abolitionists are systematically avoided in business
dealings. A first class firm in New York, having a
magnificent shop in Broadway, see their old Southern
customers pass by to a rival establishment in the same
street, the only reason being that they are known to be
earnest abolitionists, while their rival has never publicly
expressed his opinion on the question.

" The ' fugitive slave law' is, indeed, simply a decla-
ratory Act. For it is unfortunately the fact that the
Southern States gave in their adhesion to the Federal
Republic solely on condition that, while the slave trade
should cease, the institution of slavery should bo re-
spected, and they should have the right to follow and
seize fugitive slaves in any part of the Union. The
' fugitive slave law' was the work of the ' Union' party—
a party composed of men of all shades of opinion, who
wish, by conciliation, to prevent the threatened with-
drawal of South Carolina and other slave states from
the Union.

" Greatly as all just and dispassionate men must ab-
hor slavery, every one must admit the difficulties with
which its immediate abolition is bore surrounded. The
negro does not possess the cordial sympathy of the white
man.
.For while a small, and, politically speaking, un-
influential party are prepared to make every sacrifice
and run all risks in order to blot out slavery on the in-
stant, the influential and acting leaders of the majority,
whatever their occasional language of denunciation, and
affectation of horror, are not disposed to brave the re-
bellion of the South, and the possible disruption of the
Republic, for the sake of shortening the thraldom of the
negro some fifty years. They profess to rely upon the
natural progress of events, which, by quiet change, has
already banished slavery from the majority of the states
originally parties to the Union; and has, within the last
few years, forbidden the future existence of slave states
north of latitude 36 deg. 30 min.—for the gradual ex-
tinction of the system; and in the mean time they are
prepared to alleviate the lot of the slave; to refuse any
extension of slavery; and, as far as concession can ob-
tain it, to narrow the area which it now occupies..
" Perhaps, should these cold political views still bold
t
possession of the moving spirits of the country, the nest
practical step in advance may be to secure to the 1
atheeprrsoodnualceriogfhht
his
so
lsaobmouersminaltlhpaotrtpioonrtioofnt;h_e
tdosys,asyna,d:itno
fact, that after a stipulated number of hours'
his master, the remainder of his time shall bally
labosurowtonr
The effect of this would be to enable him. leag minimumt° ac:
cumulate property. And if, addition'
be bound to
price be fixed at which his master shoal.e'
freeba_arnknsi were
allow him to redeem himself, and saving
opened to receive the produce of sawn upon upoen b'ngs—
is lot,
some glimmering of daylight
to bao bought
and sold,
and his condition, as a chatte" -
would not be hopeless."

THE EARTH AND MAN ;
Lectures on co
imt
hiel a ra
ustuhbojre ctns: tin
observes
parative Physical Geog,raphy. By Arnold Guizoint-
tle
This volume is translated from the French,
by
c
azo E:
C. Felton. It treats of the figure of the continents,
the oceans, the winds of thenan
e temperate regic
sdpisetarkibinugtioonf
tohfethmearriatiinmse,
of the East Indies, after describing its
singular vege-
tation ;
" Everything most grand and powerful
ductions of the animal world is there of the pro-
rhinoceros, the huge royal tiger, the encountered. The
all inhabitants of those countries. IF to these we add
orang-outang, are
the mineral wealth, the gold and
there abound, we may pronounce thesetae
diamonds which
richly endowed of the un;'_T_
yre e regions the most
• But let us raise our-

ISP,
•

solves above the limits of the natural, into the regions of
the historic world. Where have we beheld all people
end suctitios arrive at their highest perfection, if not in
Europe, that peninsular continent, the most indented
and most. maritime
of all continents? Call together your
historical recollections, and cast your eyes upon the map
of the world, and you will see that all the highly chi-
with the exception of one or
civi-
lised peoples of the world,
two primifsve nations, have lived, or still live, on the
margins of seas or oceans.

DICTIONARY OF GREEK AND ROMAN
GEOGRAPLIY. Part). Edited Ly William Smith,
LL.D.. Taylor, Walton, and Itlaheony.
Scholars will not fail to welcome another classical
dictionary, edited by a man as experienced in such
matters as the learned and pains-taking Dr. Smith,
to whose erudition and to whose industry they are
already indebted for many other works of a similar
and equally valuable description. His dictionary,
for example, of Pagan Mythology, has long since been
recognised, and deservedly, as the standard bock of
reference on the religions and divinities of Heathen-
dom. His Dictionary of Antiquities, in like manner,
has come to be regarded with implicit con-
fidence by archmologists. A kindred compila-
tion is here adventured upon, and this time
the energies of Dr. Smith and his gifted
corps of contributors will be directed to the elu-
cidation of the difficulties of inquiry in relation to
Greek and Roman Geography. Part 1., as the in-
itial number, gives large hope of success in the un-
dertaking. Throughout the letter-press is embellished
with appropriate illustrations. Additional portions
are promised, in the form of a quarterly periodical,
until the work is completed—its contents being com-
prised in cue large volume, as in the instance of its
two remarkable predecessors. Conducted to its close
with equal spirit, we doubt not that the book here
commenced will in every way prove worthy of its
editor's reputation.

TWO FAMILIES. By the Author of
" Rose Douglas." Smith and Elder, Cornhill.
This tale is called "an episode in the history of
Chapelton," a small country town. The characters
are well drawn, and although none of them possess
qualities to inspire admiration, with the exception of
Mary Wilson, the story is entertaining. The hero of
the first volume is Ben Wilson, the son of a pauper
woman, who runs away from his home to escape
being apprenticed to some trade. After the lapse of
many years he returns from India with a fortune,
buys an estate in the neighbourhood, and appears the
wealthiest inhabitant of the town where he once lived
nu charity. The concluding part of the narrative
provoa the vilokerinpias of bringing up an bpiross in
self-indulgence and flattery. Eliza, who succeeds to
her father's estate, is a lamentable instance of early
mismanagement.