The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-01 00:00:00

FRASER.

Fraser opens this month with a slashing review of
Lord Cloncurry's recently published autobiography,
the perusal of which, however, the reviewer confesses
to be a treat for which he is thankful. Mr. F. 0. Ward
contributes a series of chapters entitled " Order
Restored, an episode of 1848." These chapters,
written in Paris in July, 1848, immediately after the
victory of Cavaignac, express the sympathies of the
author with the Socialists, and are overflowing with
ill-concealed bitterness against the Garde Mobile and
the National Guard of Paris, and yet it is evident that
the author is no democrat, he hates the rich rather
than loves the poor, and would fain crush both
beneath an aristocracy of rank. The " Familiar
Epistles from Ireland" are continued, as are the
" Peace Campaigns of Ensign Faunce." Our old
friend Michael South has acquired, like Homer, the
privilege of occasionally nodding, and he has this
month exercised it. The Peace Campaigns of the
Enbign are in the present number somewhat of the
dullest ; we have too inuch.of the old vicar, an ex-
cellent man no doubt, but prosy and sermonizing on
occasions when he cannot plead his privilege of pulpit.
The papers on "North Devon" are the work of a
poet and a painter. liis description of Norte and
Clovelly are exquisite specimens of word•painting,
they fluid the best things of the sketcher. The " Oc-
casional Discourse on the Negro Question" contains
under the guise of extravagance much common
sense. Speaking of the present state of the emanci
paced Blacks, and contrasting it with that of our own
poor, he pithily observes—
" Exeter Hall, s►y philanthropic friends, has had its
wsy in tt. is matter. The twenty millions, a mere trifle,
dispatched with a single dash of the pen, ate paid ; acd
far over the sea we have a few black persons rendered
extremely free' indeed. Sitting yonder with their
beautiful muzzles up to the cars in pumpkins, imbibing
sweet pulps and juices; the grinder and incisor teeth
ready for every new work; and the pumpkins cheap as
grass in those rich climates; while the augar.crops rot
rcund them uncut, because labour cannot be hired, so
cheap are the pumpkins; and at home we are but required
to rasp from the breakfast loaves of our own English
labourers some slight 'differential sugar-duties,' and
lend a poor half-million, or a few poor millions now and
then, to keep that beautiful state of matters going on."
He then, after some further discourse, proceeds to lay
down the following principle :
" That no black man who will not work according to
what ability the gods have giten him for working, has
the smallest right to eat pumpkin, or to any fraction of
land that will grow pumpkin, however plentiful such
land may be."
This excellent principle is as applicable to Whites as
it is to Blacks, and we recommend the aristocratical
readers of Fraser, the fruges consumers nati of our
own land, to ponder well this maxim of their high
Tory friend, which is however merely a variation on
M. Proudhon's La propriete c est le vol. The author
in fact seems to be thoroughly imbued with Socialist
doctrines. " Any poor idle Black man," says he,
any idle White man, rich or poor, is a mere
eye-sorrow to the State; a perpetual blister on
the :kin of the State." The writer indulges in a
prophecy which, judging from the experiment ?f
Hayti, will, we fear, turn out correct. He is of opi-
nion that the West Indies, deserted by the Whites in
consequence of the indolence of the emancipated
Blacks, will be taken possession of by Brother Jona-
than, who will get the work out of the Blacks, and
restore the productiveness of the islands. There are
several other papers of great merit in Fraser, but we
miss the " IliAory of the Month."