The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-03 00:00:00

)NDON, TUTSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. 1839.

politicians of wh ch the House of Commons has ever
been able to boast, Sir George Murray, to un-
take the honourable duty of representing them.
We rejoice to find that he has not only accepted the
invitation, but has gone through the preliminary cere-
mony of entering into an exposition of his sentiments
with every prospect of success."
CHARACTER OF LAFAYETTE.

(From the Etudes sur les Orateurs Parlementaires, by
Timon.

Opinion has its prejudices, and thus it has been said
of three Liberals, namely Lafitte. Dupont (de l'Eure),
and Lafayette, that Lafitte did not make his own
speeches, that Dupont was a good sort of man and no-
thing else, and that Lafayette was a simpleton.
Now Lafitte has the most extended and the clearest
financial mind of our time ; the good sense of Dupont,
as far as it goes, could hew out more speeches than one;
and then Lafayette is only a simpleton—is he ? Oh
very simple, I confess, for he confided, like a lot of ns
other simpletons, in the promises of the governocracy
of July.
He has fancied (the simpleton !) that he could meat
with kings totally unlike other kines ; that people liked
liberty because they strained their throats in singing
liberal bravuras ; that the golden age had returned, and
that we should let the reins of power fall on its neck,
and that it was perfectly fit to curb itself. Since then,
when be saw the same piece still acting on the great
theatre, and that the only change of decoration was the
substitution of a cock for a lily, he repented, wept bit-
terly, beat his breast, and exclaimed, that he had been
the dupe, and not the deceiver. Not the deceiver ! I
believe it, but it was too bad for Lafayette to be duped.
There are few men to whom Providence has given the
means and the opportunity of regenerating their country
and establishing liberty, end a neglent by these of this
opportunity is a a crime against their county. Lafayette
has committed two great faults from which posterity
will not absolve him.
By opposing Napoleon after the battle of Waterloo,
▪ both in the tribune and the Cabinet, he divided our
forces, and thus, without willing it, contributed to the
dismetrbermant of France. He did not perceive, like
5 the great Carnot, that Napoleon alone could save the
' country, whereas national independence ought so to
possess the mind of a citizen, that (parvis componeie
magna) I should not hesitate myself, in spite of my indi-
vidual repugnance, to talk like Manuel, or to follow
the ranks of a certain person, if it were clearly demon-
strated to me that that person alone, under certain cir-
eumetances, would prevent the enslaving and dismem-
berment of France : for the safety of the nation, as a
nation, stands before all liberty, all forms of govern•
meat, all social and political organization, all interior
power--in short, before everything.
Lafayette's second fault was his fault of July. The
seat of Government was vacant: Lafayette reigned
over Paris on the third day, and Paris over France.
Three pumice (I need not mention names) were deli-
berating. What was expected by our youth, our
army, and our people, is well known. Lafayette,
however, allowed himself to be twirled giddy
by the hands of the Orleanists. Visions of the tri-
coloured flag was made to dance before the old man's
eyes, his hands were seized and covered with kisses,
he was stunned with the sonorous words, " Eighty-nine,"
JemallPe," " Va!my," America," " Liberty," " Na-
tional Guard," " Republican, citizen, bourgeoise," and
" Transatlantic monarchy," mad Heaven knows what.
In short, in the Place de Greve, and before the people,
the jugglers clapped him like a ball under their cup,
and played legerdemain tricks with him.
Lafayette, with his childish simplicity, never dreamed
that he had to do with roues who were more roues than
those of the Government. \ Vhen the patriots intrusted
him with their apprehensions, he laid his hand upon his
heart, and, judging from his own fidelity to liberty,
answered for that of others. In his deplorable state of
blindness he left all to be done by the majority of the
Chamber, who had done nothing, and nothing to be don,
by the people, who hid done all. If the patriots had
not trusted Lafayette's word, who innocently repeated
all that had been told him, things would have heel)
ordered very cliff renily, and /I (tor my part) should nor
have Ven hindered by the laws of September front
writing a history of that. politiicel drama in which all tai
members of the Chamber were 'actors, and which no ore
could write more faithfully alien myself, because tie
piece was played at the wing where I stood, and when
I alone was not one of the pl ayers.
" Oft ! ye actors," cried Lafayette, when they had
dragged him from the stage, and shown him the door,
"Oh actors, you only trayestie liberty ! This is no
tile liberty of which I dreamed, and which I has,
served. No ! I cannot recograize her!" The actors 0.
July laughed at his lamentations , they had put on tie
buskin, and stalked about the stage in their epilogiun,
f silk and pu"pie. Geld rings were sparkling on thee
fingers, instead of the daggev- of the Carbonari. Wi!l,
a diadem on their brow, th ey recited pompous decla-
mations against the monst yr of anarchy, and dreg
applause from the stupid null ititudt,.
At this fatal and decisive moment, Lallyette want,l
character and genius, and, it 3deed, it would have beet,
better for us and for liaise! 1, had he not been there.
However, his illusion lasted ;it a day ; nor.e saw waner
or further than he where vie led, and we may say the,
history does not offer an exPl.nsple of a more artful an:
tnigrareful act of treachery ,”tercised on a more nohl,

- veteran.
• Lafayette was no orator—if by oratory we mean tha•
1 emphatic and sonorous moth! of speaking which stuns
the hearers, and lets nothing ;but wind enter their ear,
He had a serious yet far:3i ;liar conversational style.
• grammatically incorrect, if you will, and alittle dit
fuse, but pointed and set off' by felicitous turns of ex-
• pression. He had no fight es nor highly coloured
• images, but his words were it ist calculated to expres;
his meaning and no more. There was no passionate
,ctinn, but his discourse hot •s the acc.ent of convictioh.
His logic was not powerful, o v erwhelmiog, or elaborat.,
hut his arguments were well put together, followed ont
another without effort, and naturally flowed from the
exposition of facts.
Whenca h
Pane and said, " I am a Re
p u
n,
"no ascended
onetemp
lvasthe tri
ted to ask what he meant
ie
by that, and why he said it , for every one knew tha,
the friend of Washington co tid not be otherwise than
a Republican. Ho spoke fr eely about the kings 0!
Europe, whom he unceremo ni ously treated as despots,
kindling against them in hi s vast propaganda all the
fires of popular insurrection. To the oppressed of all
countries he opened his pun; to , his house, and his heart.
He obstinately opposed at Ole tribune the cowardly
abandonment of the Poles aad Romagnols. Then his
indignation, let loose, flow, tcl
forth in vast torrents,
virtue held :he place of t tlequence, and his words,
generally mild, were armed • sith fire and lightning.
Lafayette had more th; in mere ideas, he had prin-
ciples, fundamental princii ;.es, to which lie adhered
with inexterminable obstin aey. Both in theory and
in practice he desired the sovereignty of the people ;
;Intl, indeed, that is all.
But, he did not like the tyranny of the whole better
than the tyranny of one. He considered foundation
before form, justice before law, principles before go.
vernments, and the hums n race before nations. He
wished for minorities to be free under triumphant ma
jorities.
When the strongest ell, tractors gave way, when the
geniuses passed in seccessir in under the triumphal forks
of Napoleon, and the nation, mad with glory and con
quest, ran before his car, L infayette resisted the stream
of men and things, without violence towards others, or
struggle with himself, by th( firmness of his convictions
alone, resembling a rock wl 3ich stands upright amid the
fluctuating agitation of the waves.
His great mind was nev( tr tormented by the passion
for gold, which can govern kings themselves. The vul-
gar ambition for a throne v ras beneath him, and had he
not been Lafayette, he tvo• aid have desired to be Wash-
ington.

Even in his old age, Laf 'ayette was beloved by every-
body—the greatest deligh; of an affectionate heart:
But this noble clime of being loved, which is so sweet
in private life, is, in politi cal life, nearly always hazar-
dous. A true statesman s hould be able to sacrifice his
friendship and even his par ularity to the interests of his

country.
While he remained Corr mender-General of the Na-
tional Guard of the kingd om, and thus walked nearly
hand in hand with Louis I Philippe, the Camarillas shel-
tered their own fears um kr his popularity, and heard
his words in respectful sate ace.
But when, after havint made all the use it could of
him, the Court dismissed him, together with Dupont
(de l'Eure), Lafitte, and C Idillon Barrot, these gentry
of the centre no longer rest rained themselves, but turned
their low whispers of in( lifferenee into low murmurs.
The base flatterers! The Opposition, however, which
has not the ungrateful Cc iurt memory, always retained
its veneration, and when tl le venerable old man appeared
in the Assembly all the E teputies rose spontaneously to
pay him homage,
In his face and person there was a happy mixture of
French grace, American l Allegin, and antique calmness.
Lafayette was the most ; really and resolutely revolu-
tiotory man of our time. He entered with ardour and
impetuosity into every col ispiracy which had for its eud
the overtik.row• of despotic m, and life itself was to him a
stake of small importance . Had he fallen a martyr to
his political failit, he woi 31d have mounted the scaffold
and presented his bead t, ) the executioner with all the
serenity of a young-igiri wlt 0 falls asleep at the close of a
banquet, with a wrytth of b sec on her brow.
It is said that at the .clos,s of a funeral oration, some
conspirators had the horrible design of killing Lafayette
in the triumphal car in wi tich they were conducting him,
and, like Mark Antony, ad" el -Posing his bleeding corpse
to the people, and thus in ti‘i .ing them. When this was
told Lafayette, he only sm. '%\,t ;d, as if he thought the design
natural and the stratagem ngenious.
I believe, without posi -ti.vely affirming it (for who can
affirm it or contradict it 1)) that Lafayette, on his death
bed, snd in his last flicke rings of thought, flattered him-
self that a popular instil Tection would break out when
his ashes passed, would reatiaiate liberty, and thus ce-
lebrate his obsequies.
There are stormy love
very aristocratic if they

ra of democracy who Hould be
had been born among ariato-

crats. Their love of equality is bat a vain jealousy oo
account of privileges they have not themselves. It is
difficult to discover whether they are Liberals from con-
viction or from spite. But when great lords turn demo-
crats, the people surround them with confidence, because
it feels honoured by their abjuration. One of tlice was
Lafayette.

Of the old aristocsacy he had only preserved that
sprightly and refined naivete which adorns discourse, and
that elegant simplicity of manners which is no more
seen, and will not again return. But his soul was en-
tirely plebeian, he ►oved the people from the bottom of
his heart, as a father loves his children, and was -ready,
every hour of the day or night, to rise, march, fight,
suffer, conquer, or be conquered for the people ; to give
up his fame, fortune, liberty, blood, and life.

STATE OF THE CHINA TRADE

In the annals of commerce there does not present itsel
so extraordinary an instance of traffic as that which charac.
tensed up to a very late date the trade of India with Coin
—a company of merchants, representatives of the first Chris.
tian nation of the globe, and governors over a hundred mil
lions of subjects, engaged in the growing and manufactur
;ng of poison, to be exported and exchanged for an sliwen
prod.,ced by another overgrown nation.

The Chinese, whose" resources for supporting their popu-
lation are so restricted that it is a common practice with
their to put to death their children for want of
means of maintaining them, have recourse to opium
to give them imaginary pleasures and excite-
ment amidst their misery, in the same way as
our manufacturing population have recourse to gin. The
effects of the former pure poison are much more baneful,
and, when once addicted to it, its victim adhi refs to it unto
toe grave. However, until the year 1813, the distribution
of this poison was comparatively limited. The ,s"zartation
from the East In !les amounted to only enests at the
utinewt, or which only tour-fifths were taken to China,
and there sold at the high price of 4,000 rupees, or about
4001. per chest ; so that a very large quantity of
specie got into the hands of the Chinese as balance for
the purchase of tea. The East India Company were,
however, very soon able to balance more nearly the pur-
chases of that agreeable article of refreshment. Immense
tracts of land were devoted to the cultivations of the poppy,
and, in 1829, 24,000 chets were exported from India, of
which 20,000 were sent to its v;ctirns of the Celestial
Empire; and, to increase the evil, this baneful article was
put within the reach of the poorest classes, the price of the
chest being reduced to 85/., or 850 rupees I A still more
extraordinary tact is, that this lame-Ilse trade was carried on
from the beginning by smuggling. Decree after decree is•
sued from the Governmese prohibiting the use of the dele-
terious ding. However, as long as this nefarious trade
remained to the hands of th,.. East India Company, it was
easy for the later, through its agent at Canton, to
bribe the Mandarins, and through their silent acquies-
cence and collusions, as well as aided by the miseraebl
slaves of the intoxicating drug, to introduce it in quan.
titles, however immense, along the wide extending shores
of the great empire of China; but since the commerce
has been opened to speculators in general, the collisions
of private interest and jealousies have prevented the trade
irom being carried on with that secrecy and discretion its
horrid nature required in the face of the most just amid
necessary laws. The Chinese Government at last were
so vigilant and so determined that there appears but little
chance of its being continued any longer. The conse-
quence is that 17,000 chests of opium amounting in value
to 1,260,0001., have been stopped in their progress at
Canton from December up to the middle of April, the date
of our last information. The drug, therefore, remains un-
saleable. The bills upon great houses in London, by which
the opium was paid, are now being due, and must be cashewin the present crisis of monetary affairs, with the uncer-
tainty whether the drawers of the bills in the present state
of the market for their poisonous produce will be able to
face the pressure of circumstances. The decline in the value
of opium is already enormous. No nation but the Chinese
and their immediate neighbours have recourse to this drug
in any large quantities, unless it be the Turks and Per-
slang, who, of late, setting the Koran and Mehemet at defi-
ance, have found a more agreeable stimulant in cham-
pagne, which has just burried the greatest reformer of our
times to the grave. The Arabs and Africans find their ana-
logous in bang arid }welly, which being extracted from
limp, is not so exclusively produced under the torrid stn.
of India. Last year the opium was introduced into
China by main force, in spite of the Celestial decrees.
We know Indians who will tell us that an insurrection.
amongst the people of China will forge their Govern
,cent to submit to the introduction of the intoxicatitip
poison once more, arid restore the trade of India. Bu
,ve also know many wise and judicious men, conversant
with the affairs of the gist, who think that the trade is
abrogated for ever. Every man gifted with the slightest
legree of philanthropy can but hcipe that such will be the
ease, and that one of the blackest pages of the modem
oistory of English commerce will be torn from its ledger
foe fields of India will then be restored to the cultivation
1 the elements of natural food (of which its miierable in.
labitants stand in such need that in favourable years thou
ands ' die of want), whilst opium will no longer be user,
but to calm the agonies of the sick, instead of being
aestowed in hurrying to the grave thousands of human,
icings in the ravings of riebauchery.

CALF REEDS.-"Phis may seem a strange title
a paragraph, hut we are fond of peering into- odd
-orners, and picking up, as opportunity serves, eve,
'andle ends and cheese parings of statistical information
Reeds, as they are called, or the stomachs of calves, sub
-.erve important purposes in the business of the dairy. Co.
'gulation is the first step towards making cheese, and every
..ahful housewife must be prepared with a teaspoonful of
reed liquid before he can make a dish of curds and cream
It is true there are substitutes in the shape of whisky,
Irish moss, and the various acids ; but agents of this
s,irt leave a flavour behind which is the reverse of agree.
able, and are, on that account, only used in cases of no.
cessity. Reeds, therefore, maintain their ground, and sell,
According to size and quality, at from Is. 6d. to 2s. each.
lint the time has been when they were higher priced ;
for when the mart system was universal, and men on land
foolishly subjected themselves to privations, which are, in
a great measure, unavoidable at sea, by eating salted
meat during a great part of the year, far fewer calves were
killed. The stomach of a bullock, heifer, cow, or bull, is
suitable for curding purposes, a:.d the same remark applies
,o such calves as are debarred from draining the udder;
and, as this sometimes happens, bad articles are occasion-
ally brought to market unknown to the venders. The
reeds of hares, pigs, and lambs possess curding properties ;
out as th,t size must be attended to, as well as adaptation.
they are very rarely if ever tried. A fortnight or
so ago, our attention was directed to this subject
by the number of curious looking substances we observed
laid out to dry in front of some of the principal
butchers' shops in town. An exhibition so novel to
eyes led to a series of conversations and the elicitation of
the following facts:—When a calf is killed its stomach is
laid aside, and as soon as possible salted; and, week after
week, the fleshers are engaged in accumulating such
articles during the whole of the veal season. There is a

trader in Maiwell.town: who purchases calves very exi-en--
iively, when only a few days old ; few of these cost him
more than five shillings, a sum he covers by the skin and
the reed, and findsa very fair profit on the carcase, which,
tiny as it may be, he cuts into small pieces, down to
a pound or two, which are eagerly bought by such
as cannot conveniently aspire to a joint. Reeds are
most in demand in summer, and, in a general
way, lie in salt for the better part of a year; and as the
dried ones go off, the green ones are collected, so that the
trade is unremitting. In such districts as Ayrshire, Che-
Aire, and Gloucester, the sale of calf stomachs must be
astoundingly great, and were it possible to get at what
the Hon Member for Kilkenny calls " the tottle of the
hole," the return would form a new and curious item in
rural statistics. From the Messrs. Primrose we learn that
they purchased from their neighbour, Mr. Kerr, 256 calf-
Alas in one year; and if even err better employed
butchers kill veal in anything like the same ratio,
the annual supply in Dumfries alone must amount
to some thousands. When a reed requires to be
used, it is steeped in water, which has the eff.et
of extracting the gastric juice, or cording principle, and
we learn from a lady, who keeps a fine bowers of cows,
hat a single teaspoonful will curd a pint of sweet milk
Reeds, as we have said, vary greatly in quality ; but when
a good one is obtained it will curd all the milk which six
cows yield during the cheese-making part of the season.
The trade, in short, into which we have dipped for the first
time, if small in the detail, is great in the aggregate, and
must yield, over the whole country, a sum of money
which would go far to purchase a large landed estate.
Let Mr. M Culloch, therefore, look to it, and be prepared
for quite a new article in the next edition of his Diction-
ary of Commerce. The late Deacon Roan, who was long
in business, and than whom no man was more deservedly
respected, whether as a tradesman or a member of society,
used to say, in speaking of doubtful characters—" I would
hardly trust him a calf's reed."—Dumfries Courier.
TESSELATED PAVEMENT.—In a field adjoin-
ing the road.leading from Rudaton to Kilham, a tesselated
pavement, about six inches from the surface, was uncovered
—the tessera) differing in size from one inch and a half to
half. an inch, colours white, red, and blue, white prevail
ing; laid in lines and forming diamonds, extending over a
'surface of four yards by three, walled round on three sides
With large rough stones, similar to the chalk stones of the
Wolds. A great part of the pavement had been destroyed
at a former period by some labourers, who had dug it up
in the hope of finding treasure, and the place filled up
again promiscuously.—Hull Advertiser.
A BOTTOMLESS MEADOW.--AS the line of
the Glasgow and Ayrshire Railway crosses from Ayrshire
into Renfrewshire, there is a meadow, about three miles
long, belonging to W. Patrick, Esq., W. S., through
which it has to pass. and where it has to be embanked four
or five feet high. The conti actors lately entered upon it,
and commenced the embankment, but were not a little sur-
prised to find that their labours, like those of Tantalus,
threatened to be of an endless nature ; as, after having
embanked 30 yards, they found that about 10 had sunk or
subsided below the level of the line. They next day re-
peated their work, re-forming the embankment to the ordi-
nary level • but, strange to say, the undersoil again gave
way, and although they have since continued day and night
to heap earth upon the spot, having put about 300 square
yards upon a surface not exceeding 36 feet, the greedy
bowels of the meadow receive it as fast as it is applied,
.
and the workmen are now, not without reason, despairing
of finding a solid foundation. This most singular pheno-
menon attracted a party of engineers to the spot t n Satur-
day week, who could account for it in no other way than
that the meaflow is floating on water ; which supposition
seems the more feasable, as the ground rises on each side
of the sinking portion, and splits into deep cracks or hagr.
have
ocular people of the district have flocked in hundreds to
ocular demonstration of the above facts.— Glasgow aurter.
A small body of Chartists attended Halifax
parish church on Sunday; and many of them were griev-
ously wearied long bolore the service
Some of them attempted to go out, but werevasconcluded.
not allowed
to quit the place, daring service.