The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-11 00:00:00

die
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LONDON,
MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11, ISSO.

Our readers will observe in another column a
circular from the Secretary of Lunatics, addressed
to the Keepers of Lunatic Receptacles, sent by
direction of the LORD CHANCELLOR.

We have heard that doubts are entertained in

a high official quarter of the propriety of renew-
ing the license to keep a receptacle, to a well-
known Mad Doctor. We hail the circumstance
as the forerunner of an early abolition by law, of
Physicians keeping receptacles—for the mere
withholding'a license from one individual, how-
ever gross his misconduct, would effect but little
benefit, while it left to the same class of per-
sons the same opportunity, the same means, and
the same motives to pursue a like course. Un-
happily there are persons always ready to resort
to any occupation, however base—provided it
yields profit—thus the low haunts of immorality,
the Hell arid the Receptacle, alike find keepers
and victims ;—the victims of the two former
however are mostly voluntary, and minister to
their own miseries—while the victims of the lat-
ter are beings suffering under the heaviest dis-
pensation of Providence, or persons who, from
the foulest motives, are falsely alleged to be so.
As Physicians of reputation, station, and cha-
racter, never keep receptacles, it has often ex-
cited our surprise that the profession do not
stand forth and vindicate their own character, by
annulling this unseemly connexion ? Why is it
that a Physician, directly he becomes con-
cerned in the sale of drugs and medicines, ceases
to be a Member of the College, and that Mad
Doctors, that is, Physicians who keep recep-
tacles (often apothecaries who have contrived to
obtain diplomas), are allowed to carry on that
disgraceful trade, and continue members ?
Is it that the College, like other ancient and
decrepid Corporations, is incapable of any active
or generous exertion in its corporate character,
and is alive only to the litdenesses that perpe-
tuate its decrepitude, or serve the interests of
sonic of its members ? The public cannot but
recollect that the nomination of the Coin-
missioners to superintend lunatic receptacles
formerly rested with the College of Physicians,
and that it was under their visitation, the atro-
cities committed reached the height that ulti-
mately compelled the Legislature to vest their
nomination in the Secretary of State, with whom
it very properly now rests. By the unnatural
and degrading union of the two distinct offices
of physician and receptacle keeper, the care of
lunatics unhappily mills into the hands of the
lower order of medical practitioners, and as a
natural consequence, that important branch of
medical practice sinks into a species of empiricism,
accompanied by that daring and hardened effron-
tery, the leading characteristic of quackery of all
descriptions,—that pompous self-sufficiency that
never accompanies true merit, and a perfect de-
votion to the principle of self-interest,—the only
principle with which quacks ever are acquainted.

Insanity requires to be treated by a mind of
superior order. Had we the misfortune to have
a near connexion afflicted with that awful visita-
tion, the last advice we should seek or listen to
would be that of a Mad Doctor, who, even sup-
posing him to possess the talent, to use the lan-
guage of the SOLICITOR-GENERAL 44 has a
direct interest against the honest advice he ought
to give."

He, " of course, wishes his establishment to
be full," and it has been slim', by the evidence
of Mad Doctors before DAVIES'S Lunacy Com-
mission, what ample latitude a Mad Doctor
takes to fill his reuptacle,—since even the most
innocent or ordinary acts in life, of every day
occurrence, whether they arise from accident or
volition, are by him deemed evidence of insa-
nity, that is, when there is any one to pay the

Mad Doctor for inearcerafug the unfortunate
object—thus:—
To complain of a sore throat, is evidence of

insanity
To purchase a country house is evidence of
insanity!
To ride fast on a grey horse, is evidence of
insanity !
To deny to-day that he was mad at any past
day the Mad Doctor may think fit to name, is
damning evidence of insanity ! !
To express joy or satisfaction at passing the
walls of a receptacle, after nine months' incarce-
ration, is evidence of insanity,—and the Mad
Doctor is right for once (perhaps the first time)
when he twits his victim, who is taken back to
the receptacle, instead of re-entering the world,
with haring suffered—A DELUSION !
The above is all in evidence, and has been
sworn to by Mad Doctors ;—whether they will
swear to the converse of what they have sworn,
when their interest requires and opportunity
offers, time must shew ;—as to what they may be
capable of swearing, after what they have already
sworn, we leave the public to form their own
opinions.

The following are extracts from St. Peters-
burg, Dutch, and Hamburg Papers, received
this morning :

ODESSA, DEC. 12.

Our port has been frozen over since the Sth, but on the
9th, a gust of wind having broken up the ice for a few
hours, three English and one Sardinian vessels took ad-
vantage of the opportunity to put to sea. Many other
vessels might have followed their example, but most of the
Italian captains are so unskilful, and their crews so little
accustomed to obedience, that several vessels which were
already laden, could not get out, and must pass the winter
here if the cold should continue.

Our journals contain numerous promotions and flivours
conferred by the Emperor.

AXSTERDAM, JUNE 5.

The plan of saying a passage through the ice in the
Canal of North Holland, in order to let some ships that
have their cargo on board proceed to the Niervoe Deep,
has been checked, but not hindered, by the severe frost.
The work is continued, and the !ships must arrive this
evening at Ilpendam.

EFULIN, JAN. 4.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert is gone to St. Pe-
tersburgh.

His 'Majesty has conferred the Order of the Black Eagle
on Counts Dieldtsch and Paskewitsch, and that of the
Red Eagle of the First Class on Baron Alexander Von
Humboldt.

The whole population of our kinge.om at the end
of the year IS2S was, according to official statements,
12,726,110 souls:—viz.

Protestants
Catholics ..
Anabaptists
Jews 160,778
HAMBURG, JAN. 5.

BORSEN-ITA LLE, FOUR O'CLOCK—Our Stock Market
has been extremely animatrd. A good deal of business was
done yesterday ip Polish Bonds, which fluctuated between
1 ls} and 1184. To-day business has not been so brisk
as yesterday. Discount, 2i.
Anglo-Danish Loan 3 per Cent 74%
Anglo-Russian Loan 1074,
Hamburg-Russian Loan lO2
Polish Bonds 11734
Austrian Bank Shares 1173
Austrian Metalliques 10434
New Austrian 4 per Cents.
Anglo Neapolitan Loan 91%
Falconets 92111
STOCKHOLM, nrc. 22.
The exportation of iron from this port has been much
less this year than in 1828. Of bar iron only 211,193
ship pounds were exported, and the whole exportation
amounted only to 242,269 ship pounds.

COPENHAGEN, DEC. 26.

We find in the Swedish Journals a comparative view of
the latest prices of corn in Europe, from which it appears
that they were lower in Alm than at any other place. In
the month of November, no less than five ships, two of
them Swedish, were strandtd in Gothlaad.

FRANKFORT, D.C.r 31.
We learn that several great bankers will shortly meet at
Paris, in order to bid for the new French loan of eighty
millions, on the 12th of next month.

VIENNA, DEC. 27.
The Duchess of Parma must have recovered from her
illness, for on her birth-day she had a drawing-room, and
the day before a chapter of the orders of the Duchy.

HAMBURG, JAN. 1.
In the course of last year, according to the official lists,
there were births, 4,120; deaths, 4,771 ; excess of
de ithe, 651.

The number of ships, large and small, that arrived here last
year from the sea, was 2,089, including 60 that winter at
Cuxhaven. Among them were :—From the East Indies,
4 ; Colombia, 11 ; Brazil, 101 ; Holland, including the
steam-boats which have performed 31 voyages, in all, 394 ;
Great Britain, (including those in ballast, and many small
vessels laden with cement, and the four steam-boats which
have performed 61 voyages) 809 ; France 106 ; Mediter-
ranean, 91. At Bremen the arrivals were 881, (199 fewer
than in 1828.) Among them were:—From Great Bri-
tain. 110 ; United States of America, 66 ; France, 37 ;
Russia, 90 ; Hanover, 131 ; Oldenburg., &c. 99.

STOCKHOLM, DEC. 22.

The Diet has granted the loan of 746,000 rix-dollars to
complete the Gotha Canal. Oar diet, which has now
been sitting above a year, has cost several farmers, for the
support of their deputies, more than the taxes on their
farms for four or five years.

The French Chambers meet on Tuesday
the 2d of March. An ordinance to that of
fect appeared in the Moniteur of Thursday.
This long delay is conclusive as to the present
ability and future hopes of the French Mi-
nistry.

The elevation of Prince LEOPOLD to the
Throne of Greece still forms the theme of
the French Journals. The following, from the
Constitutionnel, is at least curious. Who would
have supposed that the heiress to the British
Crown was indebted to its greatest enemy for a
husband ?

(From the Constitutionnel.)

" SINGULAR ORIGIN OF THE PRINCE LEOPOLD OF SAXE-

COBURG'S ELEVATION TO THE THRONE or GREECE.

" All eyes are at present fixed upon Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg. This Prince's fortune is singular. It is
not owing to the lustre of his birth, nor to any cause per-
sonal to himself, that he thus occupies public attention.—
He is indebted for it to his character of son-in-law to the
King of England, and to the chances which this character
gives him of aTiring to rule over modern Greece. If this
event should occur, he will be much indebted to Napoleon;
for he was the primary cause of his alliance with the heiress
to the throne of Great Britain, from whence now originate
his pretensions to a new crown.
" It may be supposed that such an assertion stands in
need of proof to support it. To supply it we must go
back a little.

'• WhilA Napoleon marched on Moscow, England ne-
glected no means of arresting the torrent which threatened
to sweep all before it. It was no longer possible to raise
up opponents to Napoleon amongst monarchs. They had
all submitted to him, his slaves or allies. The people,
until that time so despised and since considered of no ac-
count, were next thought of. Advantage was taken of
the discontent occasioned by a state of permanent war, and
all the evils resulting from it; and in the name of public
interests, the support of multitudes was solicited towards
the restoration of thrones.

" Amongst the people oppressed by the existence of the
continental system, the inftaction of which wis declared
to be the cause of the invasion of Rucia, none suffered
more than the Hollanders from the interruption of com-
merce and navigation. The position of Holland, border-
ing on ancient France, and her proximity to the British