The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-22 00:00:00

Waterloo—to find themselves obliged to yield
precedence to some Lord-Lieutenant's Knight,
who had only gained that rank for steering the
Viceroy in a cock-boat across a river, or for hav-
ing held some subordinate situation in the house-
hold at Dublin! 'Tis time that these things
should be amended; and no period can be more
auspicious than the present, when England has
just the happiness of possessing a direct heir to
the throne.—Xaval and Military Gazette.

ENGLAND BY A FRENCH ARTIST.
The following representation of English manners is
made by a writer in the Quotidienne :
" Two things are much talked of concerning London,
the comeliness of the people, and the cleanliness of the
street•. For my part I was struck with the ugliness of
the inhabitants, and the filth of the thoroughfares.
" I was told, again, of the beauty of the banks of the
Thames ; I found them very inferior to those of other
great European rivers ; scenery or landscape they have
none. It is only as a maritime and commercial river
that it can be looked upon indeed as marvellous.
" We are told, again, that the soil of England is
better cultivated than ours. This we may allow, but,
on the other hand, France possesses a deal more of pie-
, turesque and graceful landscape and woodland scenery.
" The appearance of London is immense, rich, sump-
tuous ; be it so. But the aspect of Paris is elegant.
London is, in a commercial point of view, prodigious ;
but it is a mere hodge-podge of things that annoy one.
Paris is more complete; more finished. If the London
streets are wide, and of interminable length, the streets
of Paris have an air of majesty not to be found in those
of London. If London, from its wealth, is the first
city in the world, Paris is the first from its intellectual
qualities. All that money can give or can procure you
will find in England ; not so in intellectual researches.
In London people not only wish to be rich, but to ap-
pear so ; in Paris we are less anxious for public admi-
ration; we are more modest, and our instincts are far
more refined. In London the mansion of a nobleman
or of a wealthy man is right upon the street, staring
you in the face, courting admiration ; in Paris it is hid-
den with care in
,a court and garden, and thus sheltered
from the•prying eye of the public.
" If we acknowledge that the English are a busy
people, more stirring than the French, who are so fond
of lounging, we must add, that the English appear in
the walk as a heavy, calculating species. The French-
man, on the contrary, has a vivacious and inquisitive
look, animated by a cheerful heart. If an Englishman
meets a relation or an intimate friend, be assured that
he will not lose a moment, if ho is on business, in ex-
changing a few words with him. The Frenchman, on
the contrary, will forget his most important affairs to
give himself up to the pleasures of chit-chat with his
friend. The two nations put me in mind of the fable of
the ' Hare and the Tortoise.'

" The man who first compared England to a magni-
ficent steamboat, regular in its march, going and com-
ing, about its affairs, should compare France to a beau-
tiful sailing vessel, often impeded in its course by con-
trary winds, but always noble, grand, and picturesque.
It is said that the parks in London are superior to
our promenades. I do not absolutely deny that, but
the London parks have not the appearance that be-
longs to a 'great city—they are too rural. The little
river that Bows in St. James's Park displeases me, for
it intercepts circulation; and the tame ducks that are on
its waters remind me of a farm, and I am inclined to
inquire for Clarissa Harlowe to feed them. Some willsay
that Hyde Park is preferable to the Boise de Boulogne.
It is not so—or, if it is, place it to the account of the
Serpentine River, which flows through it to Kensing-
ton. And mark, that the English people, who pretend
to be so chaste and so modest, allow little blackguards of
all classes to bathe in the waters of this river, so that
a noble lady, or a delicate miss, may be sure of finding,
when she goes out to take a morning's walk, a naked
male population swimming in the river or running upon
its banks.

" Of a Sunday, you find in the parks itinerant
preachers, who gather round them groups, like Punch
in our Champs Elysees—sometimes a Wesleyan, some-
times a Lutheran, mount a chair or a tub, and very
often these sermons end in a general fight. All these
sacred orators are mere spouters without talent—they
will talk and talk for ever. Indeed, I have remarked
that there exists in England an intellectual malady,
which I should call a mania of being a speaker.
" The immorality of Paris is much talked of, parti-
cularly by the English ; but it is nothing compared to
that of London. Would you believe that in a country
where religious feeling is carried to austerity, where
the Sunday is so sanctified that the most innocent re-
creations are forbidden on that day, that debauchery
reigns triumphant, without restraint—wild, disgusting,
hideous. In Paris, vice seems to be accompanied by
remorse and shame—there, it is the result of misery, of
hunger, or of neglect ; in London, vice is vice for vice
sake, from a delectation that is felt in its enjoyment, and
may be looked upon as a sort of business among the
English. What adds to the disgusting features of de-
bauchery in ',laden, is drunkenness.
" The English are not aware that the focus of in-
tellect is in Paris, and they fancy themselves original
when they are mete copyists. The English are too
proud, however, to lay hold of customs actually in
fashion with us, but they go and look for types and
figures in our former history. The British aristocracy
of the 19th century are , a proof of my observation.
Like the aristocracy of Louis. XIV. it is magnificent,
luxurious, and hypocritically religious ; and be assured
that it is because Louis-XIV. danced in the ballets of
Fontainbleau that Queen Victoria sings at this day at
the concerts at Windsor.. The English, therefore, have
no originality ; they have only manias."
This very amusing, and well-informed ! Frenchman,
promises on some future day a sketch of the domestic
manners, the ladies, the politics, and on the state of the
tender passion in England.

CONCENTRATION OF THE WEST
INDIA STEAM-FLEET AT SOUTHAMPTON.

(From the Greenock Advertiser.)
This large fleet is rapidly assembling at the port of
departure, and the Southampton river will soon present
one of the most splendid scenes that has ever been wit-
nessed in any of our harbours ; fourteen steam-ships of
the largest s;ae and power, all of the same dimensions,
the property of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Com-
pany, are rapidly coming forward to this station as they
are in succession completed. Three of them, the
Clyde, the Tweed, and the Solway, have already,
arrived from the place of their construction in Scotland,
at Southampton, and others are soon expected from
the Thames, the Mersey, and other ports, where
they are rapidly progressing. Already, however, the
capability of the Company's ships has been shown by
the passages they have made.
The following are the fastest trips yet made by each ves-
sel on her trials, and they show the speed of these large
ships to be greater than that of any vessels of a similar
class. A measured distance of rather more than
15 2-3ds statute miles has been performed on a trial
trip as follows :

By the Clyde, 1 hour 11 min., being at the rate of
13 miles an hour. •

By the Tweed, 1 hour 13 min., being at the rate of
12 3-sths miles an hour.
By the Solway, 1 hour 17 min., being at the rate of
12 miles an hour.
By the Tay, 1 hour 9 min., being et the rate of 13i
miles an hour.
These trials are the more interesting on this account,
that three of these ships have precisely identical engines
—viz., the Tay, the Tweed, and the Clyde ; and there-
fore the difference of speed is to be attributed solely to
the slight differences in the form of the ships them-
selves. The chief peculiarity in the form of the Tay
is the introduction, to a considerable extent, of the
wave principle at the bow. The differences of these
ships in going round loaded from the Clyde to South-
ampton are equally remarkable. The distance of 15
2.3ds statute miles was performed by the loaded sl • ups
as follows :

Clyde, with 425 tons of coals, lh. 17m., being 12
miles an hour.

Tweed, with 265 tons of coals, lh. 16m., being
12 1-5 do. do.
saiWay, ' with 250 tons of coals, lb, 24m., being
11 1-6 do.' do. • -
in. like manner, the passages of the ships to South-
ampton show a speed which is the greatest attained by
Clyde completed the passage
fsrhoipma of this, class. The
the Clyde to the Needles at Southampton in 6.5
hours, the Tweed in 56 hours, and the Solway in 73
hours—a distance of 650 statute miles, in weather by
no means favourable.
These performances of the ships give grounds for the
most sanguine hopes of the success of all the other ships
of the Company, and augur well for the prosperity of a
system of inter.colonial communication, which will con-
tribute in no ordinary degree both to the prosperity of
the West Indies and of the mother country.

IN THE TDurinHgE WEATHER M
the whole
south-we hole of Saturday night and
strong gale with heavy squalls from
about st accompanied at intervals with heavy
, EtThrßoOuPghOoLultsy.e—s-
terday, it blew a
falls of rain. The accounts received from sea of the in-
jury done
to the shipping, particularly on the York-
shire coast, coast, are gloomy in the extreme, several ves-
yleasvtieirgdabyee, been lost with all their crews. Notwith-
standing the violence of the gale throughout Saturday
and none of the shipping on the Riversustained
any_ serious damage. Several vessels in the London and
St. Katharine's Docks were yesterday ready for sea, but 1
owing to the tempestuous' tate of the weather they did
not take their departure. Numerous coasting vessels are I
also detained at the wharves on both sides of the River 1
from the same muse. The gale moderated last night,
but it still continued to blow strong from S.S.W., occa-
sionally with heavy squalls. Such boisterous weather at
this period of the year has not been experienced for many
years.
The three Poor-law Unions comprising the
manufacturing population of the borough of Manchester
and Salford, with their immediate neighbourhood, con-
tain altogether no less than 354,142 individuals.
, The severe indisposition of the Very Rev. the
'' isean of Down, at his residence near Downpatrick, con-
tiiitles.--BeYast- News Letter.