The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-17 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Ste,—l have read with_ great pleasure your excellent
remarks upon the late Jamaica question. Having spent
some montns in that beautiful island, and witnessing the
sad misrule of the House of Assembly I confess I was
greatlydisappointed by the decision of the House of Com-
mons—the aristocracy and large landed proprietors of
Jamaica are blindly injuring their estates by their sanction
of the Assembly, which is almost wholly composed of
violent minded men, who have raised themselves on the
miseries of the negro to the station they now hold, and
who, having been in enjoyment of unlimited power for
years, feel a strong dislike to those who attempt to en-
croach on their tyranny. I have frequently heard the
planters say, however good a Bill might be for Jamaica,
if it was recommended' by the Home Government that Act
they would not pass. In this way they throw a blight on
every measure which can assist in raising the negroes from
a state of dreadful ignorance. I was surprised by the
want of knowledge displayed by those Members who spoke
against the Bill, in bringing " Barbadoes" as an example.
Are they aware that that island is fully half a century in
advance of Jamaica, in the civilisation of its negroes, in
all the comforts of life, in its humane institutions? They
have a good and efficient police, which Sir Lionel Smith,
during the period he was Governor there, was allowed to
organize. Sir Lionel Smith, as Governor of Jamaica,
has acted a most upright part, giving impartial justice to
all classes, watching over the poor ignorant negroes, seeing
mercy and justice done them, as far as in his power, a most
liberal subscriber from his private purse, to all schools and
institutions which can assist in raising the negroes from
their present abject state. This is the enlightened noble-
minded man, whom Sir R. Peel and his followers have
attempted to stigmatise, whose study has been since he
assumed the Government to dispel prejudice, to encourage
industry, and by acts of goodness to fulfil the wishes of his
Sovereign, and the people of England, who have so gene-
rously tried to give happiness to thousands of their fellow-
creatures. A CHRISTIAN.

At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Asiatic
Society on Saturday, the Prince of Oude was elected a
member, on the proposal of Sir Gore Ouseley, who passed
a high encomium on his intellectual acquirements. As as
instance of the increasing liberality in the minds of the
natives of India, it was stated that a Parsee had sent over
two young Parsecs to this country to Sir Charles Forbes,
with a request that their education might be entrusted to
the care of a Protestant clergyman.
Six MONTHS AY l'E It MAItItIAGE.—A- man
named Blenco was on Wednesday held to bail by the Magis-
trates of Union-Hall, for assaulting his wife. It appeared
that the parties had been married only six months, and
that during that brief period the man had blackened com-
plainant's eyes fourteen times, besides prosecuting her on
a charge of bigamy. Iu clef;,nce he said the woman was
always " nagging" him, while, according to her repre-
sentations, the only fault she had committed was having
remonstrated with him on his drunken habits.
ALLEGED DEATH OF A WIFE FROM VIO-
LENCE.—An inquest was taken on Wednesday afternoon be-
fore Mr. Wakley, at the Anchor, I3agnigge Wells-road, on
the body of Mary Hookes, aced 40, who was admitted into
Clerkenwell workhouse on Saturday night last, upon an
order of the parish surgeon, to whom she had stated that
she was very ill, in consequence of her husband having
kicked her in the side about three weeks before. Mr.
Clarke, the surgeon, deposed that deceased made the above
statement, and that when he saw her at the workhouse she
complained of pain in the chest. She died in the after-
noon of Monday. On examining the body he found no
marks of violence whatever. The liver was much en-
larged, and possessed all the appearances of ardent drink-
ing. There was great vascularity of the peritoneum, ex-
tensive adhesion of the pleura to the side of the chest, and
the lungs were gorged with blood. Was of opinion that
death had been occasioned by pulmonary inflateation,
brought on by ardent drinking. Mr. Wakley, after view-
ing the body, observed that there was enough disease to
have killed half a dczen horses. Other witnesses having
spoken to the intemperate habits of the deceased, the jury
returned a verdict of " Natural death, accelerated by the
drinking of at dent spirits."
THE WEATHER.—The impression that an un-
usual display of aurora borealis is generally followed by a
succession of boisterous and ungenial weather, seems to
be corroborated by the occurrences of the last few days.
For nearly a week the weather has reminded us more of
mid-winter than of the middle of the genial month of May.
After a succession of very cold and boisterous winds, we
were visited on Monday evening by a copious fall of snow,
which whitened the ground a little after nine o'clock , and
we understand that it was considerably heavier both to. the
southward and the northward, than it was in this neighbour-
hood. At Whitmore, on the Grand Junction Railway, the
snow lay three or four inches deep yesterday morning. It
was we believe, about the same depth to the northward of
Bury ; and the hills to the eastward were perfectly white
yesterday. This unusual fall of snow was followed by a
severe frost, which, we fear, will have done extensive mis-
chief to the bloom of the fruit-trees. Within thirteen days
there has been no less a change in the temperature than
thirty-four degrees, a thermometer in the very heart of the
town reaching as high as 67. on the Ist of May, and falling
to 33. (only one degree above the freezing point) on the
13th, Monday last- No doubt a few miles out of town the
temperature would be much lower.—Manchester Guardian.
MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.—Wednesday morning
the family of Captain Galloway, R. N., residing at No. 7,
St. Peter's-square, Hammersmith, were plunged into a
state of deep distress in consequence of the following
melancholy event. It appears that Captain Galloway, who
is upwards of seventy years of age, partook of breakfast
with his daughters about half-past nine o'clock, after
which they retired, leaving their father alone in the par-
lour. About half- past ten the baker called, and the outer
gate being locked, the servant went into the parlour
to look for the key, when she was horror-struck to
find her master hanging from a closet door. She gave an
immediate alarm, and the baker having climbed over the
rails, came in and cut the unfortunate gentleman down.
Mr. Perfect, a surgeon, of Hammersmith-terrace, was sent
for, who arrived almost immediately, and used every exer-
tion to restore animation, but without effect. It was his
opinion that the deceased had been suspended full half an
hour, but the means he had adopted to destroy himself would
have produced death almost instantaneously, the deceased
having suspended himself with a thin piece of string,
which had drawn so tight round his throat as to cut com-
pletely into the gullet. The deceased lived together with
his daughters, but recently came from Dover, and had
taken the above-mentioned residence for the purpose of
establishing a ladies' boarding-school. It is supposed that
the dread of the project not succeeding produced sudden
derangement.
CAUSES OF THE VALUE OF LAND.—vve
present the following extract of a letter from Sidney
Smith, Esq., lecturer of the Anti-Corn-law Association,
dated 22d instant, as a lively illustration of a truth, which,
if duly attended to, would speedily cause the bitterest ene-
mies of repeal, those who act -from
warme mista
stken views of
their own interest, to become its friends :
" From Manchester to Wakefield I saw scarcely one
field of corn. All was pasture. There was evidently
not even so muck grain raised as would subsist the
horses, cattle, and family of the farmer. Throughout
Lancashire, and a conaiderable I fraction f Yorkshire,
where rents are all enormvsly bigh— should say
three times as great as they are in places of much
greater fertility in Scotland—the Corn-law has only the
effect of taxing the farmers, nay, the landlords, to the ex-
tent of the protective duty, on all the grain that is con-
sumed in the district. If any man wishes to see the effect
of the Corn-law upon the value of land, let him come
here, and see that manufactures have trebled the amount
of rent, and that mere contiguity to a vast population,
created entirely by commerce, produces agricultural wealth
that exceeds that produced by a protective duty threefold.
Never did I expect to find, in the existing circumstances
of society, such abundant evidence of the fact, that agri-
culture ow es its prosperity entirely to manufactures, and
that no foreign competition can ever affect the value land
enjoys which is on the site of a consuming population."