The Sun.
London, England, 1825-09-15 00:00:00

[MORNING CHRONICLE.]

With the spirited description of France and
Italy, in the Notes of a Journey through these
two countries, inserted from time to time in the
columns of The Chronicle, our readers must have
been often highly delighted. In our communica-
tion from our Correspondent, in this day's paper,
he gives expression to the feelings of delight
with which he was inspired by the view of the
magnificent and highly cultivated plan of the
North of I taly,every acre of which, for four hun-
dred miles, was cultivated like a gentleman's
garden, or the nursery grounds in the neighbour-
hood of London. Arthur Young, 35 years
ago, was struck with the agricultural superiority
of the North of Italy to England. Since that
time considerable improvements have, no doubt,
taken place here ; but, as practical agriculturists,
we are still far behind the Italians. Indepen-
dently of their climate, and the greater extent of
fertile soil (for England, though possessed of a
great breadth of cultivated soil, cannot be said to
be on the whole a fertile country), the Northern
Italians have carried irrigation to a degree
of perfection, of which there is no example
in any other country in the world. The
whole of the great plain is connected to-
gether by one grand system of irrigation, by which
the water is distributed over every portion of
it. No wonder that this fine and highly culti-
vated country is so much the theme of our Corre-
spondent's praise. But we advert to his commu-
nication to notice an . error into which he has
fallen with respect to Mr. Malthus.—" Another
idea {he says) that the aspect of this country, and
of the country people suggests, is the fallacy of
some of Mr. Malthus's theories. The soil is here
cultivated to the greatest possible degree, and yet
it seems to lead to no extraordinary excess of po-
pulatim Plenty and comfort abound ; but they are
not accompanied by an appearance of proportion-
able want and misery tracking. them at the heels.
The present generation of farmers and peasants
seem well off ; the last probably were so ; that
circumstance, therefore„does not appear to have
given any overweening presumptuous activity, or
headstrong impulse to the principle of population,
nor to have determined those fortunate possessors
of a land flowing with milk and honey, from an
acquaintance with the good things of this life,
to throw all away 'at one desperate cast and
entail famine, disease, vice, and misery on them-
selves, and their immediate descendants." Mr.
Malthus 'has not always expressed himself so
guardedly as might have 'been wished ; but we
think no one can have read his work carefully,
without perceiving that his object was not to
prove that men, in a state of prosperity, will ne-
cessarily abandon all forethought, and, by a too
rapid increase of their numbers, entail famine,
disease, vice, and misery on themselves and their
descendants, but that, if full effect were given
to the principle of population, the balance be-
tween food and population could only be restored
by vice and misery. Mr. Malthus maintained that
this dreadful consequence could only be obviated
by prudence and forethought. In an old and densely
peopled country, prudence and forethought with
respect to marriage, are the condition on which
the prosperity of the people must depend. Mr.
Alalthus, on seeing the prosperity of the densely
peopled provinces of the North of Italy, so far
from deeming his opinions refuted, would at
once infer that the people were under the influ-
ence of the prudential check to which he attached
so much importance, just as he inferred from the
conditio❑ of the inhabitants of another densely
peopled country. that the prudential check
was not in operation, and that the other agent
for restoring the balance, must and will be pe-
riodical famines, and the diseases to which they
lead. Our correspondent labours under a griev-
ous mistake, if he supposes that Mr. Malthus, or
his disciples, deem existing prosperity as the
parent of heedlessness and imprudence. On the
contrary, they all readily allow, that a people
who possess something, will struggle hard not to
lose that something,. Prudence is the child of
property. The great difficulty is with those who
are already in the lowest stage of existence, a
people, yet a stranger to civilization, such as the
Irish. Such a peovle, having nothing to lose,
abandon themselves, without restraint, to all
their natural impulses.

On the V inst. the Cour d'Assizes of Ghent
condemned two individuals to death ; one convict-
ed of having drowned his infant daughter, in
order to inherit 1050 florins left to her, and the
other of being an accomplice.— (Journal du

A person who resides in Gilligate, at Durham,
has a dog fox, which he has brought to a state of tameness.
hardly to be credited. It will fawn about and follow the son of
the above (who has indulged it not a little) precisely as a dog
would. They sometimes hunt him in a large garden by a
couple of terriers, which he easily avoids by his alertness, and
seems to take delight in it.

REMOVAL OF CONVlCTS.—Yesterday morning
a number of felons, who were convicted at the
York Assizes, were removed from the Giltspur-
street Compter on their way to Chatham, prepa-
ratory to their embarkation to New South :Wales
for life. One of tie prisoners is upwards of 70
years of age, and has long been connected with
a notorious gang of horse-stealers in the north of
England.