The Sun.
London, England, 1840-08-20 00:00:00

trr,ht -I.llx+

LONDON:
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 1840.

Amongt the facts stated in the Second Annual
Report of the Registrar-General, the greater num-
ber of deaths in the towns than in the rural districts
is worthy of notice. Thus, for example, the
deaths of children under three years of age, out of
1,000 in 1839, were, in Manchester and Salford
suburbs, 475; in Leeds, 447 ; in Birmingham,
440 ; in Liverpool and West Derby, 437 ; in Dor-
setshire and -Wiltshire, 281 ; in Devonshire, 286 ;
and in the North Riding of Yorkshire, &c., 282 ;
in England and Wales, the mean is 343 ; showing
that the death of infants in towns is proportionably
greater 12 or 13 per cent. than the average of all
England, and very much greater, about 40 per
cent., than the average of the deaths of infants in

rural districts.
A similar fact is true of the extreme aged as well
as the extreme young. Out of 1,000 deaths, there
were at the age of 70 and upwards. in Manchester,
53 ; in Liverpool, 60 ; in Leeds, 68 ; in Birming-
ham, 78 ; in the Metropolis, 99 ; in the North Rid-
ing of Yorkshire, and agricultural part of Durham,
202 ; in Devonshire, 208 ; in North of Lanca-
shire, &c., 210: Mean of England and Wales,
140. It is inferred, therefore, tat great towns
and cities are much more fatal to life than rural
districts. Although we have some doubts of the
reliability of these returns, seeing that to the towns
the aged come for medical advice, and the poor
and the friendless to hide their misery, and that to
tithe country those in opulent circumstances retire to
-pass in peace the evening of their days, we adopt the i
.a.wertion, though not to the extent stated, that mor-
tality is greater in our towns and cities than in our
rural districts. There remains, however, an in-
quiry into the cause, for it will not do to assert that
the mere increase of the people in towns vitiating
the air causes the greater mortality ; because, it
is well known that as the town population of
_England has increased, the value of life has in-
.creased ; and it is equally well known that the
value of life is not so great in the United States as
in England. With the increase of the people in
towns, improvements in the medical arts have been
.coeval, and they tend both to rescue infants from
the grave and extend the lives of the aged.
We have already in The Sun stated that this
increased mortality is rather to be ascribed to the
poverty of the inhabitants of our cities than to
their being crowded together. In the metropolis,
for example, which surpasses all other places for
the immense number of persons congregated to-
gether, but where the poverty is not so great as
amongst the weavers of Manchester, &c., the num-
ber of persons who live to be above 70 is nearly
double the number of :Manchester, and the mor-
tality amongst infants-388 out of I,ooo—is ac-
tually less than the average mortality of all England
and %Vales. This view is confirmed by the noto-
riety of the fact that it is amongst the poorer classes
of the towns, and in the places where they are
huddled together, that the mortality is greatest.
The following observations of the Glasgow Herald
tend to the same end :
We are led to touch on this subject principally
from having perused a painfully interesting Report, re-
cently published, entitled, " Report from the Select
Committee on the Health of Towns, published by
authority of the House of Commons." Amongst the
large cities of the empire we observe that Glasgow has
an unenviable prominence for the wretchedness of the
lower portions of its population. Bad as it is, we be-
lieve it is gradually growing worse ; and we have heard
an official gentleman in this city, than whom no one
has better opportunities for observation, i state that,
year by year the distance between thneowcih and the
poor is increasing, and that there are
and barefooted
instances of reckless men, of squalid
females, and of sickly children, which Were
rarefooted
twenty years ago—that in fact the lower ordersaieevc_ierlez
rapid/y sinking into that apathetic state in which they
care not to help themselves. The Quart
erly
states that, " The miseries of Glasgow, as deyscribevdiewv
Dr. Cowan, are almost incredible in a country ewhich
is sending its gold al.@ its missionaries to the country
millions
who need them less than the amalgam of
000
Irish and Highlanders, that wallow in filth,
crime, and wretchedness, in the cellars and wynds
of this great commercial city. From ten to twenty
persons of both sexes lie huddled together, amid
their rags and filth, on the door of a small apartment,
,:;!tach night. The cellars are beer and spirit shops.
liMultitudes of the younger girls, says Mr. Symmonds,
B3lipplied to Captain Miller, the head of the Glasgow Po-
lice, to rescue them from these scenes, to which they
were driven by sheer want. A year or two served to
'liarden and hurry them, from drunkenness, vice, and
'disease, to an early grave." " Paradoxical as it may
.I,,PPear," says the same authority, " it is certain that a
man's health, nay life, is nearly as much in the keeping
j of those of whom he knows nothing as in his own. Of
~,the three influences mainly acting on it—himself, so-
„ciety, and external nature—the first bears on it most
intntly. ensely, the second most covertly, the last most con-
sta
It is a curious fact that a wretched dwelling—one which has no tidiness and sweetness about it—has a
g
most humbling and debasing influence upon its occu- I
pants, and it is plain that so long as the hideous wynds
re.
sold closet are permitted to
nain so lone will they be •

nursing beds of vice and disease, and so long will the
latter permeate every portion of the conimunity.
That reveals the secret of the great mortality. It

is the crowding people together in _hideous wynds
(alleys or cellars in England), it is the sinking into
apathy of the lower orders from extreme wretched-
ness, in which they care not to help themselves,
which causes the mortality which alarms our phi-
lanthropists. From our own experience, and from

what we have read and heard, we believe also that
the increasing distance between the opulent and the
lower classes, as described by the Herald, is not
confined to Glasgow, but is spread all over the
empire. The working classes of England and
Scotland have been overwhelmed by the desti-
tute, lumper-fed Irish, and have approximated
to their level. This increased distance between the
classes—for the opulent have only grown more
opulent, and the luxurious more luxurious, in con-
sequence of having at their command a large mass
of labourers, willing to work for the smallest pos-
sible quantum of subsistence—has caused those
lamentations which have of late been made by
some opulent people about the condition of
the poor in our towns, and which are of mo-
dern origin. It was only lately that much
attention has been given to dividing towns into
districts, to clean out their wretchedness, to
draining them effectually, to removing nuisances,
and to providing places for recreation. These are
proofs not only of the deterioration of the popula-
don of England, but o a general and increasing
distance between the different classes, such as is

remarked in Glasgow.

To trace this to any causes which it is in our
power to remove, should be a welcome work to our
philanthropists, who are acutely pained by the
miseries which they endeavour in vain to relieve.
Apart from the influx of Irish, which is very
much promoted by the importation of food
from that country, after which the peo-
ple come, and which would be checked by
bringing food from other countries, whence the
people would not or could not follow it—the con-
tinued deterioration of the lower classes is no doubt
mainly to be ascribed to the laws impeding the
supply of food. The whole human race are, and
ever have been, prompted by a desire to better their
condition, and there must be some most mischie-
vous and powerful cause to overcome this desire,
and consign multitudes first to hunger, and then to
despair. The Corn-law operates in this way. It
has no direct influence in stopping population ;
it stops its progress by limiting the supply of
food, by lowering wages, by increasing the offer of
labour, and lessening the capitalist's demand for
it. It thins down population to the level of the
home-grown supply of food, by misery and famine,
and makes the multitudes it starves submit to every
degree of wretchedness before they will finally give
up their hold of life. The weak, of course, go
first, and hence the great mortality of the young and
the advanced in life, amongst the poor in towns.
A great, and not an unworthy, stir has been made
by some benevolent men, on account of the deterio-
ration and destruction which civilization has car-

ried amongst the coloured aborigines of our colo-
nies, but that destruction has not been more ex-
tensive, nor brought about by more continuous
misery, than that of our own people by the Corn-
law•s.

In 1834, 1835, and 1836, the harvests were
abundant and prices low ; in 1838, 1839, and

1840, the reverse has been the case. In the for-
mer years enterprise was much excited, there was
a brisk demand for most kinds of labour, and wages
were comparatively good ; in the latter years,
the reverse was the case. In the former
years population would spring forward ; in

•
the latter, it would be cut down by the
process of starvation to the scanty supply.
As a writer in the Times yesterday observed, there
have been, taking the monthly average, 69 periods

since 1793, when the price of wheat has -varied

between 48s. and 355. per quarter, and 333 periods
above 655. Now population may be considered
as a steady and constant force, having, like a
falling body, a tendency to accelerate its move-
ments, but the supply of food is an extremely
varying quantity. Lord ASHBURTON, we know,
says that this cannot be helped ; but all our mer-
chants, who can draw supplies from all parts of
the world, affirm that the harvest never fails every
where, that the failure of the crop in one place is
compensated by an abundance in another, and
that, taking the whole world through, the annual
supply of food is as little varying as the popula-
tion. But to limit our people to our own soil ,
for food, and consequently to a varying sup-
ply, is the object and effect of the Corn-laws.
They, therefore, are the cause that the supply is
a much-varying quantity, while the increase of po-
pulation is a constant quantity. The people are
required to adapt their numbers to their food, but
how can they when the supply varies so much ? No
wisdom can accomplish it, and the lower classes
have exclusively to bear, in the first instance, all the
terrible consequences of the stimulus to population
being great in cheap years, and of thinning down
the populati on in dear years. Over the progress of
population legislation has no direct control, and as
it cannot, by requiring certificates of wealth be-
fore allowing marriage, check population, though it
can by those certificates degrade the people, it is
not justified in meddling with the supply of food,
and causing it to vary.

To trace the effects of this on the morality of
the people, producing recklessness and disregard of
life, is now beyond our space. We may, however,
safely assert, that the Legislature has never taken
these consequences of its own laws into considera-
tion. In fact, it knows not of them. It passes
laws in ignorance, and it assassinates at random.
The best that can be said for it is, that it knows
not what it does, and murders by mistake.

We borrow from the Manchester Guardian an

instructive account of an inquest held at Colne, to
inquire into the death of the special constable, Mr.
HALSTEAD, who was killed there in a riot on
Monday week. The Jury, after a patient investi-
gation, and hearing much more evidence than is
reported, brought in a verdict of Wilful Murder
against RICHARD BOOTHMAN as principal, and
JAMES WILKINSON and THOMAS RILEY, as ac-
cessories. The evidence went to show that Mr.
HALSTEAD was struck by BOOTHMAN on the
head by an iron bar, and killed.
We look on this event as of much importance,
mingled with much apprehension. There have
been, we know, two or three instances of
master-manufacturers secretly assassinated, but
to the best of our recollection, this is
first
the instance of late years, in which,
under circumstances of an avowed contest, one of
the middle classes has fallen by the hand of one of
the lower classes.
but we dread, shoulNdVehewish
present
he m
exasperation a ybe the
flraosmt ,
poverty and oppressiont continue, lest he be only the
first of a long series.

Who Mr. WOOD may be, and what may be
his acquirements, we are perfectly
uninformed; but
in the present temper of the
people, it is the duty
of the Government to allow no
persons to admi-
nister the law but those of approved discretion
and sagacity. That is due to the suffering, even
if misled, people. Now, we cannot say that Mr.
WOOD seems to have acted either discreetly or
sagaciously. lie expected attacks when none

were made, and provoked them by the very excess
of his precautions. According to his own descrip-
tion, he trotted about the town reading the Riot
Act when there was no riot, like a child beating a
new drum. He flitted about, creating alarm, un-
easiness, and irritation, where there was obviously
no riot, and thought it best to remain where he was
when the mob challenged him, as he thought to
meet them. It may be that the report is imperfect,
but we are bound to say, from what is given, that
Mr. WOOD'S conduct did not evince that discre-
tion and sagacity which are now required in those
who administer the law.

But whether the people be exclusively in fault,
whether the Magistrates ought to share the blame,
and whether the Legislature may not deserve cen-
sure, the result is equally to be deplored. One re-
spectable citizen has lost his life, and three others
of her MAJESTY'S subjects have put their lives in
great peril. Colne, too, is to be converted into a
garrison town, and the inhabitants, not being able
to rely on the constable's staff for protection, hum-
bly solicit militaty help, and profess themselves
ready to pay all the expenses for providing barracks
and accommodation for soldiers. The precautions
for preserving peace are banishing peace. First the
police is augmented, which, provoking broils, the
inhabitants are obliged to trust for safety to the
military. Is this England, the land of which it
was wont to be the boast that the constable's staff
was more powerful than the bayonet of the soldier ?

" WHOEVER WINS THE CHURCH WILL
LOSE" was the exclamation of one of Parson
MOLESWORTH'S friends when he observed the
violence of the proceedings at Rochdale. It is a
sentence that ought to be engraved on the heart of
every Clergyman, and every Churchwarden, who
feels an inward motion to gird up his loins for a
Church•rate struggle. The Church is unpopular
enough already, from her standing in the way of
every amelioration, local or institutional, which is

called for by the wants of a rapidly-advancing civi-
lization. It is, therefore, the height of madness
in her ministers, and those who call themselves
her friends, not only to enlist against her the reli-
gious principles of her natural enemies the Non-
Conformists, but the passions of the populace,
which every Church-rate contest uniformly brings
to bear upon her, and the disaffection, if not
disgust, of those of her own community, who
have too strong a regard for justice to stand by and
see her exercise her oppressions, without taking
part with the oppressed. What but ruin can be
the result of conduct so infatuated ?

But, after all, is this wonderful ? The grand
error of ecclesiastics has always been, that as they
do not themselves advance with the times, they
cannot be made to understand that others are ad-
vancing. Because they sec, in their own little
world of the Prayer-book, everything standing
exactly as it did three hundred years ago, there-
fore they imagine that the mind of man has been
equally stationary. That changes in religion, in
modes of thinking, in social habits—that the dis•
enthralment of the popular mind from the shackles
wound around it by priestcraft, and contempt for
those who preach holiness and practise wickedness,
should be the natural consequences of the light of
knowledge beaming upon the human soul, seems
beyond their power to comprehend.
As one of the latest examples of this infatuation,
let us look at the conduct of the Vicar of Roch-
dale. For five years there had been peace and
harmony in that town. It was not found that the
parish church had tumbled down, because no at-
tempt during that period had been made to keep it
up by fines levied on persecuted Non-Conformists.
All went on well. Anon there comes a new Vicar-
Dr. MOLESWORTH has no notion of this good
agreement between Churchmen and Dissenters.
His element is war—as best beseeming a minister
of the Gospel of peace—and one of his first acts
was to stir up the religious strife which had long
subsided, by arraying the one half of his parishion-
ers against the other on the irritating question of
Church-rates. For a whole week a populous
town is not merely thrown into a state of disorder
and confusion, but the fiercest passions are let
loose, the powerful coercing the weak, the rich
oppressing, or, where they cannot oppress, corrupt-
ing, the poor, and the weak and the poor taking
their revenge on their powerful oppressors, by
curses " not loud, but deep," against them and
the Church, which is the cause of all. Is it in
nature that such scenes as these should not com-
pletely uproot any feeling of respect or regard
which the persons engaged in them--and may we
not add, those who hear of them—might have en-
tertained for the Establishment and its ministeri?
Is not the inevitable result of such proceedings on
the part of a so-called Christian Church, to bring
into hatred and contempt with the mass of the
people both the Church, and the religion which it
professes to uphold by means so disgraceful and
wicked ?

We resume our observations on the sugar, or
rather, to be consistent with ourselves, the " tea-
cup question," with a view to do more justice than
our space on Saturday admitted, to Mr. INNEs'
" Thoughts" upon the state and prospects of our
West India Colonies. Mr. INNEs finds a great
deal wrong in the, management of the colonies, and
much to blame in the conduct of the colonists
themselves, but he is either by far too charitable or
too good-natured to lay the lash upon the shoulders
of any class of delinquents. The Government
sins, but then it is from excessive tenderness for
the liberty of the subject ; the planters act
amiss, but they do so from a mistaken idea of
seif-interest ; and the coloured labourers, because
they know no better, prefer a bare subsistence and
idleness to luxuries and incessant toil.

Without having recourse to the theory of the
absence of artificial wants, upon which Mr. INNES
lays so much stress, it was always clear to us that
the emancipation of the negroes would create a
comparative scarcity of labour in the slave colonies.
It would even have grieved us to think otherwise,
however the planters might have suffered by it.
Notwithstanding the debasing effect of slavery upon
the kindlier affections of our nature, we did not
doubt that there were thousands of the
poor Africans who, in a state of free-
dom, would toil the skin off their bones
to spare their wives and their infant
offspring the endurance of the out-door hardships
with which they were then familiar. We expected
from filial piety instances of rest for the weary and
withered bones of the aged and infirm parent.
We expected to hear that the head of every negro
family was more easily persuaded of the inability
of an inmate to work, by whatever infirmity afflicted,

. .
than were the slave-drivers, whose authority he
superseded. When, therefore, it was first an-
nounced, after the emancipation of the negroes,
that free labour was not so abundant as slave
labour, under the old system, we were only sur-
prised at the disappointment exhibited in the coun-
tenances of several leading Abolitionists. They
absolutely looked as if the experiment of the su-
perior efficacy of free labour had failed, in apparent
ignorance that one of the blessed effects which the
voice of nature, in their own breasts, should have
told them would flow from the freedom of the
negroes was thus realised. They seem never to
have reflected that the love of the African hus-
band for his wife; and of the African father for Al 5

poor " piccaninnies," would be manifested in with-
drawing
from labours unsuited to the sex of the
one,anim
dtt'heetender years and fragile frames of the
other.

Et remedy for evils
which, lifN Nneglected
proposes, o swill e
yet desolate the West
India Lianas, the importation, under the agency
of the Government, of free labourers from
Africa and the United States. Portuguese la-
bourers he thinks unsuited to the description of
work to be done in sugar colonies, whereas Afri-
cans are well adapted to the cultivation of sugar-
cane plantations, and the manufacture of rum and
sugar. He thinks the planters ought to be per-
mitted to contract for longer periods of service than
is allowed by the Government in the case of la-
bourers yet to be imported, and, consequently,
strangers to the climate and the work ; but, to pre-
vent a system which may not improperly be called
kidnapping, he suggests that the Government
agents should be required to give the labourers
before embarking the most correct information, and
to publish from time to time, for the benefit of all
labourers about to proceed to these colonies, the re-
lative prices of labour, and every kind of food in
the different islands. Under such a system he
maintains that free labour would produce sugar at
a cheaper rate in Guiana and Trinidad than it
can be produced by slave labour in Brazil; and as
these two islands are capable of
supplying more
I sugar than is required for the consumption of the
whole human race, Mr. INNES does not seem to
think that anything more than its adoption is ne-
cessary to inflict a mortal blow upon the slave trade.
We are, however, not quite so sanguine upon
this point. We do not think that Mr. INNES'S
plan, if carried into operation, would rid the world
of slavery ; but we do think that it would repro-
duce a state of society not far removed from
it in the West Indies. We grant the plan is not
absolutely impracticable. Russia, by means of her
military system, could easily carry out such a
scheme ; but we hold it to be inconsistent with the
entire policy of a Government like that of England
to assume the agency of regulating the supply and
the price of labour in any part of her dominions.
To enforce justice, to protect the weak against the
violence of the strong, and to allow to each the
uncontrolled exercise of property, whether in
the body or the purse, rightfully belonging to
them, includes nearly all the functions of a profes-
sedly free government towards its subjects, what-
ever may be their clime or colour. We are rather
for restricting than extending the interference of
Government. If free labour be wanted in the colo-
nies the wisest plan, in our opinion, will be to leave
the planters themselves to supply it. Experience
will soon teach them what races are fittest for the
labours they require ; and we are under no appre-
hension that they will scour the shores of the Medi-
terranean for lazy Maltese, Italians, and Portuguese,
while for a little more wages they can get healthy,
willing, and industrious labourers from the
United States and the coast of Africa. They may
make blunders at first, but in a little time such
blunders will be corrected. At the same time the
Government may co-operate with them by encourag-
ing emigration ; and affording facilities for cheap
and speedy intercourse between the several islands
and the best labour markets in both hemispheres.
We have not touched upon the religious view of
the West India question taken by Mr. INNES.
We, however, entirely agree with him, that the
giving encouragement to labourers from Africa to
return to their native country after a.few years spent
in the West Indies, would greatly contribute to the
civilization of the native race. But, as a qualifica-
tion, it is essential that they be made something
more than Christians. They must be taught use-
ful trades, and made well acquainted with practical
husbandry. When men acquire industrious habits
and multiply social wants, they become easily
weaned from the practice of cruel and debasing
superstitious rites and ceremonies.

The Paris Journals of Tuesday have all reached
us.
is
again
talkedle i majorityo
fa s
probable. of them
nr
ac
ci toh u
ntEnglandof t h
e
danger of shipwreck to which the King of the
FRENCH and the Royal family were exposed off
Calais, had reached the capital, but it was so worded
as to create as little alarm as possible. In the
Moniteur of Tuesday we find the followinc, tele-
graTphheicmdaes.pr
of CalaisiCALAlS,atcl
y :
to
kr -
G. 17, IiALF PAST. 3 o'CLOcK.
the Minister of the Interior.
The King and Royal family have just landed at Calais
froTmbtehireiNripa
jleeastsiuerseanbdoaßtoyal
11.
health, and have been receTivoeuditlgvihtbneesnsetbsoasriaesmin. excellent
einigoisOef than meaning in the Minis-
terial preparations for war,on having stated that
andth the statement having
press, the same official orayan has Parise Opposition
thought proper to
been eagerly repeated b
Ministerialf contradiction :_....
publish the following
announcethaotrhsome days past, on the
faith
hoomf ea
pjorouvrnfriaclsial journal,
the armaments commenced
in one of our ports have been
mslackened,,stfo inlconsequenco of
to this
peogseivdecitthizeens alone could have invented
says the Commercerma odfantilaile
nseecwrse,t orders.whichil l _
dliVs
and,,p7,phaigsanteodt.e,,,
date, " is very much in M. DE MONTALIVET'S
choice. style. It affects, to contradict something,
but it contradicts nothing. It was not asserted that
preparations were slackened ; but it was asserted that
they were never sufficiently active. And we still
persist in asserting, that we have heard so from
eye-witnesses as trustworthy as the Minister of Ma-
rine or the President of the Council, and conse•
fluently that it was our duty to make it public." It
must be admitted that with an opposition so cap-
tious as this, and at the same time mad for war, the
French Government has a difficult game to play.
But much of this difficulty is of its own creation.
M. THIERS, whose fingers itch when he has not a
pen in them, is as much a journalist as he is a
Minister, and consequently contrives to keep him-
self constantly in hot water with the press.
The Journal des Debats of Tuesday—which
continues to treat the question of war or peace with
the utmost gravity—has a long article on the de-
fenceless condition of the French colonies, and the
certainty of their falling into the hands of England
in the event of a rupture. As the observations of
the Debets, dictated as they are by the Court, are of
great weight in determining the degree of confi-
dence actually reposed in the much-vaunted invin-
cibility of the French navy, we subjoin them at
full length. The Abolitionists will be delighted to
learn, that whatever be the result, the emancipation
of the slaves in the French colonies rill he greatly
accelerated by the bare probability of a conflict with
this country.
IN THE EVENT OF A WAR BETWEEN FRANCE
AND ENGLAND, Wt-IAT WOULD BECOME
10i, bw'aTr,l-IwhEichFßonElyNaCfHewy
COLONIES?
°NIES?
( From the Journal des Debats of Tuesday.)
ago appeared imminent,
should break out between England and France, which
God forbid, what would become of our colonies ? This
question ought to have presented itself to the minds
of Ministers, and merits the serious attention of the
colonies
tiown ou
alndd fall imEmmedrieat;ely
Roore esai
country. The most probable hypothesis is, that the
e
into the power of the
English ; this is what happened during the wars of the
and such is the want of
opinionf has been brought
on this subject by the Government, that the other
gphattby and
to c
warbeicobf opuori bl cioolonial administration, such is
thday one of the most warlike of the Ministerial
journals announced without comment, that the Govern-
ment, obliged to concentrate all its naval force in the Me-
diterranean,
wolutldwaasbatbndoosn
thatt o , themselvesof
geouusrsciooolonoifestbe
Sugar Bill, the favourite argument of all the partisans
the Atlantic.
of the beet-root sugar manufacture was,
was,
itthbattbiet wou
would be
imprudent to admit to an equality
beet-root
sugar manufacturers those of the colonies which at
left
h e firstto diewar
ofw would be
pitniofan,llibly taken from us; which
was as much as to say that the colonies should be
lest they should be lost
to us by a contest. The loss of Canada, of Louisiana,
of St. Domingo—all these disasters of our revolu-
tionary troubles have thrown a fatal discouragement
over public opinion as regards the colonies ; and instead of
seeking to extend our colonial system, and allowing it to
become deep-rooted—instead of even endeavouring to
render our insufficient possessions useful to us, it is a com.
mon-place admission with many persons, that our colo-
nial possessions ?Are not important enough for 113 tc) give

ourselves the trouble of attending to them, and that it is
useless to think of extending them, as we could not keep
them. These deplorable opinions have even acquired the
dignity of a theory. The colonies have been so much
kept under in the name of the absolute principle of free
trade) the disasters of the revolution, the immemorial neg-
ligence of the Government; the exaggerations of the par-
tisans or the beetroot manufacture, and the Mad dogmas
of certain political economists, that an absurd belief has
been created that they are either burdensome or useless,
and that in time of war no great sacrifices ought to be
made to preserve them, We will not attempt to show,
for it is self,evident, the immense value to the mother
country of an exclusive market, protected from all the
modifications which may be effected by treaties of com-
merce in international relations ; we will merely observe
that England, which has the reputation of understand-
ing pretty well her own interests, is far from partak-
ing of our apathy as to colonies, and that, not satisfied
with governing 120,000,000 of subjects in India, and
with supplying Canada, the Antilles, Guayana, her pos-
sessions at the Cape, and her factories on the coast of
Africa, with her productions, she is daily making new
sacrifices to extend her Indian frontiers on the side of
Affghanistan, to create in New South Wales the nucleus
of a population, and to found important establish-
ments in New Zeal.md. It is in the interest of her co-
lonies, or her factories, and to protect her commercial
outlets, that she is constantly endeavouring to lay hold of
military positions. Why did she take Malta, Gibraltar,
Aden, Buschir, and Karek ? Why has she taken posses-
sion of the Falkland Islands? Why does she plant her
standard on the smallest island that she discovers, if it be
not in order that she may be everywhere present, and
protect with more efficacy her immense colonial interests.
It is to her colonies that England owes not only
her wealth, but her naval supremacy, the number and
experience of her sailors. All enlightened men in France
see with pain the slight extension of our maritime com-
merce, and the consequent insufficiency of our navy ; they
are convinced, that the greatest encouragement which can
be given to navigation consists in the prosperity and exten-
sion of our coonial possessions. Whilst waiting for
new acquisitions, we cannot, however, reasonably think
of abandoning the colonial possessions which we already
occupy. Our four productive colonies now employ 6,000
seamen; that is to say, one half of the whole of the mer-
cantile navy, exclusive of the coasting trade. We must
add that Guayana, which now supports 22,000 inhabitants,
would be capable of feeding 20 millions, if the govern-
ment would take the trouble of cultivating it, and pro-
moting a spirit of association. But in waiting until some
`true
statesman shall comprehend the political and com-
mercial importance to France of a vast colonial develop-
ment, we have an immense interest in not allowing, in
the event of a war, so valuable a naval station as Fort
Royal, the finest of all the Antilles, to be wrested from
us, and in remaining masters of our islands, which,
neglected as they are, still occupy a great place in our
commercial movements. Whilst one Ministerial Journal
announces the abandonment of our colonies, another says
we are going to reinforce the garrisons. We cannot
but approve of this project, if it really exists. But in
approving of it, it is impossible to dissimulate the insuffi-
ciency of such a measure. Martinique has 78,000 slaves,
out of 116,000 inhabitants; Guadaloupe 96,000, out of
197,000 ; Bourbon 69,000, out of 109,000. In the event
of attack on our possessions, the English, who have now
emancipated their slaves in the Antilles and the Mauritius,
would endeavour to excite the black population of the
French islands to insurrection, and we must acknowledge
that, if they were to succeed, which is not doubtful, the
success would give them a formidable point d'appui for
external war against us. Here is the whole difficulty;
so true is it that, turn which way we will, this unfor-
tunate slavery question opposes every kind of ameliora-
tion. Political rights, commercial equality, military se-
curity, all are compromised by slavery, and it may be said
that slavery is at the bottom of all the evils that besiege,
and all the dangers which threaten us. It is to this point,
therefore, that the attention of the Government should be
chiefly directed; and if the chance of war should become
more distant, it should profit by it to take into considera-
tion the only measure which could protect the colonies from
a coup de main, for it is clear that a reinforcement of a
few hundred soldiers would be a very illusory measure, if
there were reason to fear that two-thirds or three-fourths
of the population would extend their arms to receive the
enemy."

(From the French Papers.)
Ail the accounts frome Rome agree that the health of
the Pipe is considerably improved. By order of his High-
ness the treaty which is to be concluded between the Court
of Rome and that of Portugal is to contain a❑ article by
which Portugal is to bind itself in the most express manner
to remove the negro slave-trade. This is a point which we
know it would never concede to England.— Gazette de
France.

It seems that the number of persons under arrest on ac-
count of the affair of Boulogne is much more considerable
than has hitherto been stated. It was affirmed to.day
that the number of writs issued amounted to eighty-nine.
Some of them have not been executed because the persons
against whom they were issued have fled. Others are
said to have been released after a few days' confinement.
In fine the number of persons now in the hands of the
police is said to be seventy-six, including the crew of the
City of Edinburgh.
The Semaphore of Marseilles says that M. Gourio du
Refuge, commander of the Lycurgue, accused of having
by imprudence caused the death of a sailor, has been con-
demned by the court-martial to three months' imprison..
ment, and a fine of fifty francs.---Le Constitutionnel.

Ve have just received by express news direct from
Naples of the 6th of this month. The King had returned
to his capital, and had recalled from Sicily the troops that
were sent thither during the differences with England.
Three ships of the Neapolitan navy, with a part of their
troops, were in sight of the port on the 6th.
It was reported at Naples that in case of war Ferdinand
would furnish a contingent of 20,000 men to Austria. The
capital was tranquil. —Le Commerce.