The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-15 00:00:00

(From the Courier.)

The justice and generosity of the grand measure of
emancipation do not rest on the contracted rules by
which Mr. Scoble would square and pare down its
magnificent proportions. The twenty millions are there
in evidence that it was no huckster's affair of profit and
loss. That splendid gift was in the nature of an atone-
ment and peace offering. What sacrifice more sublime
and self-denying was ever offered up on the altar
of national repentance ? We believe that with
the few wants of the negro race under such a
climate, it is vain to expect the perform-
ance of distasteful work beyond the average amount of
subsistence required, and the example of St. Domingo
corroborates this opinion. Lord Stanley, the able and
conscientious statesman who planned and carried through
the great measure of emancipation, would perhaps have
hesitated to have awarded twenty millions sterling of
compensation to the West Indian proprietary, had the
suspicion crossed his mind ever so slightly that
the freed negroes were to remain still the ad-
scripti glebe', the serfs of the soil, bound to
toil and expected to produce as much as ever. That
result may yet be arrived at with increasing civilization,
leading to new and increasing wants under continually
progressing changes and advances of society. In the
meantime the Colonies, and Colonial Proprietors, will
do well to persevere in their projects to promote immi-
gration from all parts of the world upon equitable princi-
ples, and with liberal provision. This, with the progres-
sive increase of an easy and well-satisfied population,
indigenous and attached to the soil, must in the re-
gular order of nature gradually effect the cure for pre-
sent disappointments.
(From the Standard.)
This, so far as the general principle goes, is plau-
sible enough ; and so far as his conduct may have
entitled bins to the character of a good peace officer,
Admiral Fleeming (had he net been disqualified by
the number and value of the appointments which
have already been bestowed upon him) would have
been as eligible for Greenwich Hospital as any other
candidate whose services have been of the same
description. But it will not surely be denied by our
hard-run Contemporaries, that those men who, besides
being " thorough seamen," have not only seen longer and
more severe service, but have earned a title to the grati-
tude of their country by the number and brilliancy of their
exploits, have a far stronger claim to reward than he can
possibly exhibit. But the very negative merit which
the apologists of this atrocious job have attributed
to their fortunate protege, are, unhappily for him,
so general in the British navy that it would be
difficult to find half a dozen officers in the higher
ranks of the service who cannot fairly lay claim
to it. To escape censure in the performance of
that routine duty, which must devolve upon every
British sailor of Admiral Fieerning's rank ; to see
that the rations provided for the men under his command
are sufficient, and of the proper quality ; to be
" courteous," " bland," and even "friendly," to those
about him (under circumstances but little calculated
to ruffle the evenness of his temper), are all
virtues of that negative kind which are aitiong the
easiest and more gratifying portions of the duty
which devolve a upon a naval commander. Not to have
attended to matters so indispensable to the maintenance
of nautical efficiency would have deserved the penalty
provided for disgraceful neglect. of duty; but to have es-
caped the censure with which such neglect is usually visited
can never be assigned as a sufficient pretext for one half
the good things of which Admiral Fleeming has already
been the recipient ; much less for an appointment
which ought to have been consecrated to the reward
of an officer to whom the country really owes
something. Were the I.2alance of services rendered
by, and benefits conferred on, Admiral Fleeming, sum-
med up, the account would, even a month ago, have
presented an awful balance against him.

A correspondent sends us the following :—" M.
Jaudon's arrangement has been completed we under-
stand for some days past. The whole loan was imme-
diately subscribed for, and he might have increased the
amount, but the sum raised is sufficient to discharge all
his obligations in Europe. We were misled, it appears,
in stating that this loan was obtained under the sanc-
tion of Baring and Co. ; they, in common with others,
are probably subscribers, but the bonds are, as securi-
ties, placed in the hands, not of Barings, but Denison
and Co., who are Mr. Jaudon's bankers.—Evening
Paper.
Two nights since, at a late hour, a gentleman
was attacked at the corner of the rue Pierre Sarrazin
and the rue de la Harpc, by five men, who beat him
cruelly, and robbed him of his purse and watch. An
inhabitant of the street, who was awakened by the cries
of the victim, put his head out of the window, and m
naced the thieves, upon which they took to flight, with
the exception of one, who was taken into custody b•
some national guards.—Galignani.

AN ODD FrsH.—Mr:Filgate, a shoemaker at
Egham, has upon three several occasions, while fishing
in the Thames, near the weir, hooked a fine trout ; but
each time the fish broke his tackle, carrying away Ira
set of hooks. A short time since be was again angling
in the same spot, when he a fourth time hooked the
identical trout, but more fortunately succeeded in land-
ing it, when he found his three sets of hooks fixed to
its jaws. The fished weighed upwards of 71b.

CHARACTERS OF M. L AFITTE

AND M. CHARLES DUPIN.

(Fro :1 coon's Eludes sur les Onteurs.)
M. LAFFITTE.
Is there a greater citizen than M. Laffitte ?
Is there a Minister who has entered upon busi-
ness with more devotion and sincerity, and who
has left it with purer hands, and a heart more
truly French ? Is there in the world a better-
hearted man ? How many Kings have abused
the facile temperament of this good and amiable
character ! What an agreeable voice ! What
animated gossip ! What a varied, abundant, Inn-
pid, and lively flow He has the enthusiasm of a
young man for all that is true and good ! Then
he unites to Court graces (i. e., when the Court
had graces) the simplicity and bonhommie of a
merchant Is it not better to hear for a hundred
times, MM. Laffitte and Dupont, substantial, full,
and lucid as they are, than so many long-winded
orators and provincial advocates, who pull out their
watches and discourse for the hour together, for-
getting that speech was not given to man that he
might fabricate mere words, but that he might con-
vey ideas !
The private life of M. Laffitte might serve as
a course of morals shown in action. His public
life might serve as a course of politics for the use
of people who, though able to conduct themselves,
harness themselves broken-backed to the King's
heavy chariot.
M. Laffitte has a genius for finance, which is
still more uncommon than a genius for eloquence.
He has solved the problems of the conversion of
annuities, banks, and sinking funds, with a neat-
ness of expression which adorns science without
concealing it. His speeches on the budget are
models of theoretical exposition, and his discus-
sions are models of the deliberative kind applied to
the management of figures. Under the Restoration
he established public credit, and he now established
private credit, being unwilling that a single day of
his noble life should pass away without his con-
ferring some benefit on his country.
The character of M. Laffitte is republican at
bottom ; not that he believes the present possibility
of that form of government, but he thinks with La-
fayette, Arago, and Dupont de l'Eure, that the
Europeans are tending towards it, and that it will
be one day the highest expression of the most ad-
vanced state of civilization.
His mild soul, which, might even be thought
weak, can offer resistance and strengthen itself at
present junctures. He struggles courageously
against dangers, meets them with energy, and over-
comes them by decision.
Ingratitude, from whatever quarter it may come,
fills him with a noble disgust, and the oppression
of liberty, under whatever pretext, fires his indig-
nation. Then words escape him which it seems
none but a giver of crowns and founder of dynasties
like himself can utter ; and the Minister who is
called on to hear or to reply can only lower his eyes
and blush.
M. Laffitte has borne reverses with the same
serenity as good fortune, and his fate has been to
find ingratitude both in the highest and the lowest
places. No man of our day has been more magni-
ficent, for after opening his house to all the pro-
scribed, and his purse to all the unfortunate, he
ended by bestowing a sceptre. Who presided in
the Chamber of the 29th of August ? Who was
the soul, the chief, the conductor, of the Orleans
party ? Who was in league with Lafayette ? Who
brought together the Valais Bourbon and the
Hotel de Ville ? Who, in a word, conducted and
terminated the whole affair, but M. Laffitte ?
Yes, it is M. Laffitte who picked up the crown of
yin°. in the public way, and
France, which was l
placed it on the head of Louis Philippe.
The laws of September stop me just as I am about
to paint —. Another day, M. Laffitte, I will
finish your portrait.
M. CHARLES DUPIN.
The manufactory of St. Gobain has lately cast
an enormous plate of glass in a single piece, which
is 195 inches high by 138 broad. A single sheet
of paper of the smallest dimensions would more than
suffice M. Charles Dupin to write in a fine close hand,
without leaving space or margin, every one of his
reports.
They say it was he who furnished the model for
Perryan pens, which are made of fine well-tempered
steel, which never want mending, and with which
one may write from the dawn of the day to sunset
without losing a minute.
We are also assured that the hand-press, not being
rapid enough to follow him, the steam-press was in-
vented for that purpose. Thanks to N. C. Dupin
for having been the cause of this discovery ! And
truly the steam-press has not been ungrateful, for,
since the time of its invention, it has worked almost
for him alone.
Now, pray don't tell M. Charles Dupin that
erudition is not always argument, and that when on
the subject of the American indemnity, he might
save himself the trouble of talking to us about the
Doges -of Venice, the Suffetes of Carthage, the Se -
nate of Rome, the Cortes of Spain, and the Great
Turk. Do not tell him that words arc not ideas, that
one might put in 10 pages what he puts in 100—
that you do not know the navy budget any better
because he says how many nails and pegs there are
in the sides of a ship, how many fibres of flax are
requisite to form large cables, and how many
grains of salt are necessary to powder sailors'
biscuits. Do not tell him that he, who is a phi-
lanthropist, should have a little more pity for the
poor compositors of the Royal Press, who ex-
haust their cases, pass sleepless nights, and are
visibly wasting away, that they may bring to
light the lucubrations of his brain, printed on
fine China paper. The current of his wandering
eloquence is too strong for him ; he cannot re-
strain it, but must talk,- talk, talk. He has an itch
for quarto pages, and must print, print, print.
M. Charles Dupin accumulates words which are
unproductive to us, and offices which are productive
'to him. He is in France almost everything that a
man can be. He holds the office of Engineer, the
office of member of the Admiralty, the office of Aca-
demician (this last double), the office of Professor
of the Conservatoire, the office of Councillor of
State, the office of Peer of France, the office of per-
manent reporter to the navy budget, and, further,
has the office of fastening crosses to his buttonhole,
besides the office of Baron, haul Baron. In the
colonies he is a delegate, without work, but not
without appointments. In Sweden he is a knight
of the orders of the kingdom ; and travellers who
come from Italy say that the Pope reserves for him,
in pelt°, the Cardinal's hat, on account, you must
know, of the famous sermon on bishops which he
so admirably preached.
I do not even despair of his being one day raised
to the dignity of Saint, that he may accumulate the
joys of Paradise, together with the joys of our val-
ley of tears.
Besides this baggage of crosses, dignities, chairs,
offices, diplomas, mantles, ribands, swords, Perryan
pens, galloons, uniforms, bank bills, money bags,
and trinkets of all sorts, with which M. Charles
Dupin goes enwrapped. decorated, loaded, and en-
cumbered, and which are dangling and draggling
from every part, he has his books, his manuals, his
maps. his plans, his manuscripts, his projects for
bringing the sea to Paris, where it is to appear
neither more nor less than it does at the Havre,
and his studies on Demosthenes, who, by the way,
was not the most long-winded of orators.
The electors said to M. Dupin—" Speak, and
you shall be a Deputy, but be sure to speak !"
Then the Ministers said—" Hold your tongue, and
you shall be a Peer I" Here was an embarrassing
situation " Hold your tongue I" The poor
man was in torture.
I would not, however, speak too ill of M. Dupin
the savant—in the first place, because I should
laugh at savans with a very bad grace, not being
the least
afterofon all,
one myself ; and, in the second place,
men of equal merit with M. Du-
pin are but rare in any country. I should not,
entre sous, for my co,vn part, have any objection
to accumulate not only as many offices, but also as
much knowledge , and I would willingly leave off
being Timon tob-become M. Charles Dupin. How-
ever, I would much rather be his brother.
e-

Sir E. L. BUINVCI'S new five-act play has been
received by Mr. Macready, accepted by M r. Webster, and
was read in the Haymarket Theatre on Saturday for the
first time. Many of the scenes are laid in Devonshire and
Cornwall,
and will give Pliihips a fine opportunity to
display his highly cultivated talent in the scenic depart-
ment. The play will be put into active preparation im-
mediately, and brought out as soon as circumstances
. permit—most likely early in the ensuing month.
The enterprising lessee has a large stake in its success
—a stake amounting positively to several hundreds of
pounds.