The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-24 00:00:00

THE WEATHER AND THE CORN-

LAWS.

The heavens rain repeal—the Corn-laws will be
washed away ! A nervous anxiety agitates every
bosom ; be he landlord or farmer, agriculturist or
tradesman, master or labourer, the first greeting a
man gives to his neighbour is " What melancholy
weather—what will be the consequences I flow
shall we get over the winter !" And justly indeed
may there be dismay.—Somerset County Gazette.
We have not yet learned what course the work-
ing men of Bolton mean to adopt this winter, as it
regards the Anti-Corn-law movement ; but we
trust they will not allow themselves to be so far
misled as they were formerly. We observe that at
a late meeting of the Bolton Working Men's As-
sociation, a vote of thanks was given to Mr. Car-
penter, editor of the Charter, for his services as
delegate for Bolton to the. General Convention. As
they appear to have confidence in him, let them
follow his advice on this point. He says, in his
journal, that the course which the Chartists took
last year, in opposition to the Corn-law Repealers,
was most unwise ; and he advises them to adopt a
different line of policy in future. We still repeat,
what we have argued all along, that by joining with
the middle classes, the working men may carry
almost any measure : by standing aloof, they can
do nothing.—Bolton Free Press.
Nineteen-twentieths of the whole Press of England
is doing its best to conceal and palliate the state of
the wheat crops and the results of the harvest in
general. This harvest of 1839 will turn out very
dt:ficient. No part of the kingdom has'escaped the
effect of the rains that have fallen duriiig the last
two months, and sound corn will, ere long, be found
to be a scarce and dreadfully dear article. The
yield is also expected to be very bad, even where
the grain has been most favourably circumstanced ;
such has been the want of sun. In the six Northern
English counties and in Scotland, we firmly believe
that a part of the grain will not ripen at all—and
that a large portion will be seen to have been much
damaged. Whether the veracious Journals of this
part of the country will mention the effects
of the recent storm of rain, we do not know ;
but we can state, on our own knowledge, that
the injury done must have been great. The
quantity of water that fell in this immediate neigh-
bourhood must have been prodigious. The Tyne
came down so rapidly it completely beat back the
tide. In the Tweed, the Coquet, and the Wang-
beak, the water rose higher than it has done for
many years ; and besides corn being swept away,
sheep, cattle, and horses, were drowned in great
numbers. To suppose after the experience of last
year, which was fair compared with this yea:, the
crops can be otherwise than deficient, seems to us
the height of infatuation. Few or none do spontane-
ously think this ; but many are deceivers, and
.
many wish to be deceived ; and it in order that
truth may have fair play that we make this counter-
statement. By the way, some fools are drawing
comfort even from bad corn, thinking the badness
will keep down the average. They forget that in
proportion as the good corn is scarce it will be dear.
—Northern Liberator.
Thanks to the working of the abominable Corn-
laws, the people of this country are, in all proba-
bility, about to be subjected to new miseries inad-
dition to those which they are already enduring.
For the last twelve months, while wages have re-
mained stationary, they have been compelled to buy
their bread at almost a famine price. The great
bulk, therefore, of the working classes have just
been able to exist, and nothing more. But we
fear that they have only escaped famine to be the
victims of plague and pestilence. The bad weather
which has prevailed during this year's harvest,
has had the effect of forcing up fair samples
of grain to a price far above the reach of
the poor, while the quantity of damaged corn
brought into the market will keep down the
averages so that no relief can be obtained from
abroad. The consequence will be, that the working
classes will have to live upon the damaged and un-
wholesome food which will be so abundant in the
country until the harvest of 1840. Bread will be
scarce, but fevers and sicknesses of every other
kind will be in plenty. The poor will suffer, but
landlords and doctors will flourish. From some
districts such accounts of the health of the people
already reach us. But then, we are told, "It is
the weather." Meagre and poor diet, and bad food,
the offspring of the starvation laws, have nothing at
all to do with it. It is the weather-0 ! yes ! it
.s the weather altogether.—Liverpool Chronicle.

Since our last notice the rain has poured in tor-
rents almost incessantly by day and night.; the con-
sequence is that the whole country is inundated.
The barley crops are in a most deplorable state ;
about half is cut, and the other half will quickly
spoil unless it be speedily mown. In the backward
districts there is still much wheat not gathered, and
it has of course been seriously injured. Hop-pick-
ing has become general ; the hop is mostly large,
but it is not matured, and nearly every where the
hops are " tagged," so that in colour and quality
they must fail. It is feared that the continued tains

have damaged the potatoes very considerably; the
soil is so saturated with water, that if we have not
two or three weeks of dry weather the potatoes will
rot in the ground. An agricultural correspondent
has sent ua the following gloomy picture :—" Never
was there a time more distressing to the farmer than
the present week has been ; the unhoused wheats,
and indeed the uncut wheats, have grown the length
of one's finger within the last few days ; barley,
oats, peas, and vetches, are sharing the same fate,
and cannot be turned to any account except for ma:

nure ; a very great portion of the hops are mine('
by the wet, cold, ungenial weather, and in many
places will not pay for picking, as they will neither
possess colour, quality, nor condition this year, and
they continue to get worse and worse every day.”—
Hereford Journal.
We regret to have the unuleasant task of record-
ing such a continuance of heavy rains, that in the
month of September, floods upon the Kennet and
Loddon have swept away crops of aftermath, and
on the former river have quite impeded the naviga-
tion. At Shalford several loads of oats belonging
to the Ea.l of Falmouth were swept away by the
flood. But the most serious damage is sustained by
the crops of oats, barley, and beans, vast numbers
of acres of which are (cut and uncut) receiving irre-
parable injury : this is particularly the case near
Windsor, and in the northern part of Wiltshire.
We have only a faint hope of change, the full moon
and equinox occur on the 23d inst.; high dryinc,
winds might, as heretofore, set in. Last year, anti
in the previous summer, there was a scarcity of water
on high lands, and this continued till the month of
November.—Reading Mercury.
We regret to say that the heavy rains of the past
week have entirely suspended all operations in the
fields. The wheat crop has been, generally speak-
ing, got together in capital condition ; but it has
not yielded so well as could be wished. A great
deal of barley still remains out, the bulk of which
unfortunately is on the ground, and let us have ever
so fine weather, it is feared the damage cannot be
retrieved. Barley is looking up, and the holders
of last year's samples will dispose of the remaining
part of their stock to great advantage.---(From
Winchester Correspondent.)
WALES.—In this part of the kingdom, we have
had scarcely a day that could be considered favour-
able for harvest operationTsoforadtdhetolastthitshrdeeep weeks.
and the wheat crops in consequence has suffered
beyond calculation, in some situations, we fear,
completely destroyed.
prospect, there appears at present not to be the
slightest indication of a favourable change in the
weather.—Cambrian.
With the exception of the wheat crop, which
t ry thereil a was absu
the gettingin, the
harvestcoun-
try of this
yeal. Even the wheat has suffered much from the
frosts at the close of the spring and beginning of
summer, and the grain, though not defective in
assuredlysqiulrainvteilti)er,d.is\\yeilave readi with
s 0 '
much surprise in the
Dorset Chronicle—a paper in which it is not usual
quality being
to find inaccuracies—a statement under the head of
l nipt and
" Salisbury," to the effect that " one gentleman, in
the neighbourhood of this city, has crops to the
value of 1,500/. in barley and oats irrevocably
ruined." We have made diligent inquiry on the
subject, but without being able to find, even
amongst gentlemen who have the best means of in•
formation on agricultural subjects, any one who
was in the slightest degroe aware of a loss Which,
from its extent, must, we should think, have been
generally known, had the: fact been as stated.—Sa-
lisbury Herald.
Very great anxiety prevails in our district, as to
the fate of the harvest. High priced provisions,