The Sun.
London, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 24. 1840.

on the motion of Sir R. INGLIS, postponed till Monday,
after a division, when his motion was supported by 92
and resisted by 48. It is said to be the Hon. Baronet's
intention to try to rescind the vote the House lately '
came to in favour of compensating the lessees ; but to
several questions whether such was his intention the
Hon. Baronet resolutely refused to answer. The spar-
ring which took place was rather brisk than agreeable to
those engaged in it.
A petition from Troubridge, Wilts, which referred to
some statements made by Mr. BRUGES, the Member
for Bath, concerning Messrs. CARRIER and POTTS, was
not allowed to be presented, because it infringed on the
privileges of the House.
The Insolvent Debtors and the Municipal Boun-
daries (Ireland) Bills were read, the former a third,
the latter a second time, so that this Bill will go
speedily up to the Lords, to enable them to pass the
Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Biil, and bring the
Session triumphantly to a close.
The House went into Committee on the Railways
Bill, and was occupied with that the greater part of
the evening. The several clauses occasioned a good
deal of discussion, but finally the Bill passed through
the Committee with amendments, and the Report was
ordered to be received on Monday next. Alterations
will yet be made in it.
The Bill concerning Rating Stock in Trade occu-
pied the House for the remainder of the evening.
It sat till a Quarter past Two.

The last number of the Quarterly Review con-
tains an elaborate article on public health and mor-
tality, several extracts from which have made the
rounds of the Journals, and are already incorpo-
rated, as it were with the public mind. As long
as errors are buried in heavy Parliamentary reports,
or huge quartos, which the bulk of the people sel-
dom read, they are comparatively unimportant ;
but when they are spread by the Journals through
the length and breadth of the land, they have a
great influence over our actions, and may be inju-
rious to the national welfare. On this account
we are about to notice one statement in this article
of the Review, not so much to refute as to limit
and illustrate it.

The population of Great Britain has increased
more rapidly since the commencement of this cen-
tury than ever before. There is good reason to
suppose, notwithstanding the many impediments
laid in its way by our absurd and cruel system of
restrictions on the national industry, that it con-
tinues to increase. The increase has been, and
continues to be, chiefly in the population of towns.
There has been comparatively little increase in agri-
cultural districts, which continually draft off their
population into the towns :
"In 1790, the workers in towns to the labourers in the
country were as one to two. In 1840 it is just the re-
verse, the workers being to the labourers as two to one.
The proportion of manufacturers, miners, and artisans to
agricultural labourers is, for Staffordshire, three to one ;
Warwickshire, four to one; West Riding of Yorkshire,
six to one ; Lancashire, ten to one ; Middlesex, twelve
to one."

The tendency of all agricultural improvements
is to raise an equal produce by less labour, and it
is only as fresh ground is taken in cultivation,
now a comparatively rare occurrence in England,
that more hands are employed in agriculture. It is
probable, therefore, that the future increase of
population will be, like the great increase in the
present century, chiefly of the inhabitants of towns.
As commerce and manufactures, on an extensive
scale, have come into existence subsequent to agri-
culture, as that followed pasturage and hunting in
its turn, so we may infer that they are to continue to
extend, and that the further increase of our race is
to consist of town population. If such be the
destiny of mankind, we may feel some alarm for the
future fate and fortunes of our successors when we
find it broadly laid down that
" The concentration of population in cities doubles
the deaths from the epidemic diseases and those of the
nervous system. In counties compared with cities the deaths
by convulsion aro as one to three, nearly; so also deaths
by water on the brain ; acute diseases of the lungs are in
counties as compared to cities as one to two and a half,
nearly.

" the deaths from consumption are increased 39 per
cent. ; those from childbirth 71 per cent. ; those from
typhus 221 per cent. in cities as compared with counties."
Though it has not occurred to Mr. FARR, from
whom the Reviewer largely quotes, or to him, to
remark that most of the statements from which these
deductions are made are of modern date, that is
they date from within the last ten years, when
hand-loom weavers have seen their children perish
at the first blow of disease, because they and the
parents, as Mr. FLINN remarked at Manchester,
are in an emaciated condition for want of food—
and that consequently these statements refer to the
period when the man-and-child-slaying Corn-laws
have been in full vigour, we must not forget to remind
our readers of that circumstance, so that they may
place the increased mortality at the door of its own
unrighteous parent. That it is owing merely to
the increase of people in towns, and that conse-
quently subsequent generations will be still more a
prey to disease than the present generation—that
the race is to become diseased and miserable, as it
ceases to become agricultural, is not positively as-
serted by the Reviewer, it is regarded as doubtful by
Mr. FARR, and it is the peculiar inference against
which we wish to caution our readers. It is a very re-
markable fact, attested by all our statistical writers
of the least eminence, which Mr. FARR and the
Reviewer ought not to have forgotten, that since
the great change in the relative proportion of our
population mentioned in the first quotation, the
average duration of life in England has increased.
That fact, taken in conjunction with the increase
of a town population, knocks on the head the infe-
rence that dwelling in towns is necessarily injurious
to life.

The same inference may be overthrown by com-
paring the mortality in the opulent districts of Lon-
don, or any large town, with the mortality of the
rural population of Ireland. We know from sta-
tistical returns that the average duration of life in
the former is nearly equal to the average duration of
life in any part of the world ; and we know, without
statistical returns, from the annual prevalence of star-
vation and typhus amongst the rural poor of
Ireland, that the average duration of life amongst
them is not equal to its value in St. George's Ha-
nover-square. The true deduction, therefore, from the
facts lately accumulated by our " vital statisticians"
is, that poverty or wretchedness, and not merely the
increase of the people, whether in town or country,
is the cause of those numerous diseases and that
terrible mortality amongst the poorer classes in
towns, which have of late, on several occasions,
been prominently and painfully brought under the
public notice.
Mr. FA R R says " there is no reason why
health should be impaired by residence in one more
than in one hundred square miles, if means can be
devised for supplying the two hundred thousand in-
dividual: located in the former space daily with the
requisite supply of pure air, and for removing the
principal sources of poisonous exhalations." -It
is also known that nourishing food will
enable the body to resist external sources of disease,
which overwhelm those who are feeble from the
habitual want of nourishment. The good cheer so
common in large towns amongst people in easy cir-
cumstances, which some persons, from want of
understanding, speak of with contempt, is necessary
to resist the deleterous effect on the health of a
crowded population. Now, it is a somewhat re-
markable fact, which deserves to be well considered
by those who speculate on vital statistics, the mate-
rials of which are drawn chiefly from the lives of the
poor, that the number of persons who are able to
live without manual labour is continually increa-
sing ; or, which comes to the same thing, the labour
of one individual in the progress of society, is
able to nourish a continually increasing number of
persons. In that circumstance there is a provision
for the attainment by the masses--if rightly ap-
plied—of those comfortable means of subsistence
by which the opulent counteract the influence of
most of the external agents which are noxious to
health in a crowded town.

The subject fa: outweighs in importance the time
and space we can devote to the discussion ; we hope,
been
o
make
a rnoeur
mere
readers however, t atdiscriminate enoughhe t
wha
e es
hthe
etre
increase of town population and the effects of po-
verty, which is not the necessary :consequence, as
the increase in the productive power of man shows,
of an increase in the number of people. We may
hope also that our hints, helping out the reflections
of our readers, may serve to dissipate any gloomy
forebodings of the disease, wretchedness, and misery
of the next generation of town dwellers (which the
Corn-law advocates now love to point out), to which
the unexplained statement of the Reviewer may give
rise. The vast misery and disease which the re-
cent investigations into the habits of the poor have
shown to prevail in society are in a great measure
the consequences of that MURDEROUS LAW, made
for the benefit of the landowners, which strikes the
industrious poor with poverty, and makes them, as
the weavers of Manchester are well aware, the prey

of disease, and hurries them to an untimely death.
Extended as our remarks already are, we can-
not neglect to draw one practical deduction from
them, and from some observations of the Reviewer.
He makes it a matter of reproach that " England is
the only European country which is devoid of a
medical police, and in which the public health has
been allowed to shift for itself." That remark ac-
cords with a prevalent opinion, and there is a very
general desire for the appointment of such a police
in England. We look on the recent investigations
by Commissioners into the health of the metropolis
and other towns, and the investigation of the same
Commissioners into the health of towns in Scot-
land, as intended to lay a Parliamentary ground for
the appointment of such functionaries. It may be
doubted, however, from another remark of the Re-
viewer, whether, after all, the English plan of
" letting the public health shift for itself," be so
injurious as is implied in the reproach. The Re-
viewer says—
London is, after all, the healthiest of the great capi-
tals of Europe. The pure climate of Naples has little
power over the filth, the misery, and the vice of a popula-
tion in khich the annual mortality is 1 in 28, while with
us 1 in 44 only dies in the year ; in Vienna, 1 in 92 ;
in Paris, 1 in 36; in Brussels, 1 in 29; in Geneva, 1 in
43 ; in Rome, 1 in 24 ; in Madrid, 1 in 35 ; in Amster-
dam, lin 25. As compared with these, then our land
and city are blessed."
In those facts we see no encouragement to imi-
tate the other countries of Europe in establishing
a medical police ; and if much disease and much
mortality be caused by poverty rather than any
other circumstances, the multiplication of Com.
, and of all the cum-
thsinery of Government,
missbrou i
so nand
s ,c oo fr u thep ii c da et
epde n
md ea tic
which is now maintained at an enormous cost, and
is one of the chief causes of the poverty of the
people, will only increase that poverty and increase
the very evils it is intended to remedy. The
opulent and intelligent know how to help them=
selves, and we doubt whether it will not be wiser,
instead of appointing more Commissioners to
lin-
crease the poverty and continue the pupilage of the
masses, to set diligently about removing all kinds
of restrictions, lessening the number of Commis-
, sioners, and diminishing all the machinery of
Go-
vernment, so that opulence may descend and spread
as far as possible amongst the industrious and
lower classes. This consequence gives to the first
part of the article some immediate practical im-
portance.. .
_

Our readers will find in another column, copied
from the Morning Post, an article of " A Dis-
tinguished Correspondent," on the Oriental ques-
tion, which, proceed from whence it may, is writ-
ten with ability, and with a seeming acquaintance
with facts as yet but little known to the public.
As events in the East have suddenly assumed a
portentous attitude, and as we differ altogether
from the view taken of the entire question by the
Correspondent of the Post, we shall endeavour
calmlyto examine his positions—overlooking the petty
allusions made to the weakness and the disunion
of a Cabinet than which a stronger or a more united
could not now be formed by any party,or all par-
ties, in England. The:Oriental question is too impor-
tant in its bearings upon the policy of Europe to
permit us to discuss it on the insignificant basis of
domestic faction. It is exclusively neither a Whig
question nor a Tory question ; but it is even in its
most limited sense a British question, and, in a
more extended point of view, an European ques-
tion, the influence of which must one day or other
be felt through every part of the old world.
The " distinguished Correspondent" of the Post
states explicitly that Lord PALNIERSTON has been
made the unconscious instrument of Russia from a
petty personal jealousy of France, whose suggestions,
had they been attended to by England, would already
have produced an amicable settlement of all dif-
ferences between MEHEMET ALt and the SUL-
TAN. This has been often stated before, but on
no occasion has the basis of such an amicable set-
tlement been clearly explained. We know the
proposal made by the VICEROY to the Porte, after
the ,battle of Nezib, had laid the Ottoman mo-
narchy prostrate at the feet of a victorious vassal.
That proposal stipulated that the Porte should ac-
knowledge the hereditary claims of MEHEMET
ALL and his family to the Sovereignty of Egypt,
Syria, Candia, Adana, Bagdad, and the whole of
his conquests on the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf. Had it not been for the interference of Lord
PALMERSTON, the SULTAN must have accepted
this proposal ; and thus MEHEMET ALI would
have but, in the course of a year or two, to pick a
fresh quarrel with his Imperial Master, to dash at
once upon Constantinople, and seat himself upon
the throne of-the Osmaulis.
Nor will Lord PALMERSTON'S jealousy of the
SOULT Administration in France, relative to the
independence of Turkey, surprise those statesmen
who are familiar with the events which immediately
preceded and foltlioiewcycilettohrey
obfatitlße
RoAf
uNi emz
e'rllhAe
jwoayswreiteleiwvehdichat the Court of France was not at-
tempted to be concealed, and it is now notorious
to all Europe, that but for what transpired at the
interview between Admiral LALANDE 'and the
Capitan Paella, the latter would not treasonably
have delivered up the fleet to the declared enemy of
his Imperial Master. To have supposed that the
French Government at that time sought only to
obtain for MEHEMET Au those possessions to
which, in his Highness's
despatches to the Porte
of the 13th ult., he has restricted himself, would
have evinced a degree of silliness on the part of a
British Minister, which would have justified his
colleagues in sending him to Bedlam. And what
better proof can be advanced of the triumph of
Lord PALMERSTON'S policy than the Viceroy's
limitation of his original claims—,a limitation not
only not denied, but proclaimed, by the Correspon-
dent of the Post ?

We now come to more recent events, and here
we take leave to doubt the fact of a treaty being
signed by four of the Great Powers, without the

concurrence or even the knowledge of France. In-
deed we are satisfied that this Treaty only exists in
the lively fancy of the writer. Since the accession
of M. TIIIERS to office, the conduct of the French
Government upon the Oriental question has under-
gone an entire change ; and we may confidently
affirm that between Lord PALMERSTON and M.
G uizoT not a shadow of jealousy or distrust does
exist, or has existed, either upon this or any other
question. We question not the sound policy
evinced by MEHEMET ALI, in abandoning his
conquests in Arabia, but the fact demonstrates
his weakness, .vhich is now admitted by his
Parisian advocates of the press, including the
Journal des Debats. The writer's hypothesis of
a Russian army taking possession of Constanti-
nople to save it from the victorious Viceroy rests
upon the supposition that the Pacha can put
down, in spite of England and the Northern
Powers, the insurrection in Syria. This recent
events have proved to be impossible. If military
stores be only supplied to the DRUSES and their
Christian allies of the mountains, before four
months have elapsed 'MEHEMET ALI will not pos-
sess a fortress in all Syria.
Nor would England and the other Great Powers
ever consent to entrust Russia with the sole guar-
dianship of the Turkish capital. Even Russia
herself would not at such
a time, either dare to
make such a proposition,
or to risk the conse-
quences of attempting to carry it into effect.
Powerful as she is, and much as she desires to see
her eagles floating victorious on the shores of the
Bosphorus, it is not when a British fleet must be
riding in the Straits, that she will thus hurl defiance
at the rest of Europe.
Any movement of Russia
against Constantinople would soon, under the circum-
stances assumed by the writer in the Post, brim,.
France back to the side of England, and who would
then answer for the integrity of the present Russian
empire ? Would we not hear a voice from
Poland, which neither Austria nor Prussia would
dare to stifle ? Whatever dangers, then, beset the
peace of Europe from Lord PALMERSTON'S
policy upon the Eastern question, we are unable to
discover in what way they
could be decreased by
adopting the supposed views of Fiance during the
Premiership of Marshal SOULT. On the contrary,
any departure from the
system of which Lord
PALMERSTON is the advocate, must leave
the SULTAN at the mercy of the VICE-
ROY ;. -destroy the integrity of the Ottoman
empire ; establish a Russian Protectorship at Con-
stantinople ; and arrest the progress of Imperial
reforms which promise in a short time to revivify,
and restore to more than pristine energy, the decay-
ing members of the yet vast empire of the Osmanlis.
It is no longer a contest between barbarism and
civilization. MEHEMET ALI, of whom the civil-1

ized world once expected so much, is not now so
intrepid a Reformer as his Imperial Master.

Marshal VALLEE'S account of the military operations
in Africa during the month of June occupies the cc-
lumns of the Wonitcurof Wednesday. We have no
space for the details, which we the less regret, as they
would prove very uninteresting to the great bulk of
English readers. With a cool indifference, which makes
us involuntarily shudder, the Marshal informs his Go-
vernment that " all the Kabyles who attempted to op-
pose his march were slain, their wives and children
made prisoners, their crops utterly destroyed, their
houses burned to the ground, and all their cattle
driven away or butchered on the spot"—leaving the
country through which the army passed a sterile wilder-
ness! And this, then, is the boasted civilized system
of waifare in the nineteenth century! We need not
wonder that Socialism is on the increase in France,
when such spectacles as this are contemplated witia
approbation by the Government, and not discounte-
nanced by the Ministers of the God of Peace and Love.
It is stated in one of the papers that Prince Auous-
TUS of SAXE COBURG, brother of the Duchess of NE.
MOURS, is to marry the Princess CLEMENTINE, third
daughter of Lou►s PHILIPPE. The Prince is one year
younger than his intended bride.

There is very little news of any interest in the Paris
Papers of Wednesday, and that little will be found in
the subjoined extracts from them :
A letter from Oran of the 6th of July, says, " The
Dragon brig sailed on the 30th of June, from Rachgoun
and Tangier, it had on board a Captain of the Staff, and
Aide-de-Camp to the Lieutenant-General, commanding
the division, who is said to be charged with an important
mission to the Emperor of Morocco. It appears that this
officer received instructions from the Ministry, which
brought the mail on the 24th of June.
" We believe we may positively affirm that Marshal
Valee is going to be recalled from Africa. Generals Ber-
thois and Lamoriciere were not to depart till the recal of
the Marshal should be decided on. Now, Mr. Cartel,
Aide-de-Camp to General Berthois, has set out. The
General will set out to-morrow, and General Lamoriciere
the day after."
The following notice has been given by the Vice-
Consul of Mexico at Marseilles :

" For the interest of the merchants trading to Mexico,
I have to inform you that the insurgents of Yucatan, havi-
ing equipped a vessel with the national colours, the
Mexican Government has declared to the diplomatic and
consular agents of foreign powers in Mexico, that it does
not recognise the colours of this ship, and that it will in
like manner disavow them on board all other ships which
may be illegally armed by the insurgents of this depart.
ments, as well as by those of other parts of the republic ;
that they are consequently to be considered and treated as
parties by the ships of Powers in alliance with Mexico, and
that the Government disclaims all responsibility for any
damage or injury whatsoever which the ships in question
may occasion to foreign commerce."—Le Commerce.
Private correspondence from Brive, of the 2d, informs us
that Madame Laffarge still lives, the report of her death
from poison being unfounded. The " Chambre des
Mises en Accusation" of the Royal Court of Limoges has
found a true bill against her for poisoning her husband,
and she is to be tried at the Court of Assize at Correze,
in the beginning of August. She has appealed against the
sentence in the affair of the diamonds, but no doubt exists
of that appeal being rejected. Her health is very much
broken, and she seems now quite unequal to bearieg up
against her complicated sufferings.
The account of the catastrophe on the railroad from
Naples to Portici has fortunately turned out to be a false-
hood. The following is from Vienna of the 11th July to
the Prussian State Gazelle :

.4 The news which 1 sent you in my last letter of the un-
fortunate affair which took place on the railroad of Naples,
fortunately turns out to be a fable. They are in search oi
the inventors who gave the report."
BO URSE.PARIS, WEDNESDAY, JULY 22. _

. _
First Highest Lowest Lan
Price Price. Price. Price
French 5 per Cents ll9 5 ... 119 20 ... 119 5 ... 119 10
434 per Cents ll3 25 ... 113 25 ... 11.1 25 ... 113 25
4 per Cents 2OB 75 ... JOS 75 ... 198 75 . .. 108 75
3 per Cents B6 50 ~.. 86 65 ... 86 50... 86 65
Bank of trance 3760 ...3760 ...3760 ...3760
Laffitte Bank I,ooof. MI ll5O ...1150 ...1150 ...1150
5,0001. Si 5270 ...5270 —.5235 —5270
Belgian Bank
5 per Cents lO6 ... 106 ... 106 .., 116
3i er Cents 77 50 ... 77 50 ... 77 40 ... 77 40
Spanish Active °N ••• 28!_.4 ... 28% ... 284

Passive .. _
6i ... 6'77 ... 634 ... 63
Portuguese 3 per Cents 23i4 —. 2:3i 2374, ... 2344
Neapolitan lO5 90 ... 105 00 ... 105 80 ... 105 65
Roman lt6li ...106% ...106 ... 106
RAILWAY SHARES,

St. Germain 705 ... 705 .., 705 ... 705
Versailles, IL B 525 ... 525 ... 520 ... 52C
LB.
Orleans .
Strasburg to Bale 413 75 ... 413 75 ... 413 75 ... 413 75
DUTCH FUNDS.—AMSTERDAM, Jut 21.
Money. Bill',
Actual Debt, 214 per Cent
Ditto, ditto 5 per cent.
Amort Syndic, 4% per cent 92 9234
Ditto, ditto, 334 per cent 76% 774
Commercial Company, 4,4 per cent 17214 172%
Ditto (1835 and 1837) 5 per cent. ......
Loan 1837, 5 per cent. 9914 993.,
Exchange on London, One month... .....
Two months .....
—Dutch Papers, July 22.

CLERICAL MAGISTRATEE.—A return to the House
of Commons has been published of the names, addresses,
and residences of Justices of the Peace, being ministers
of the Established Church, which makes the total
number above 2,000. They swarm most in Norfolk
and Suffolk. In the former there are 102 Reverend
Justices of the Peace, and in the latter not less than 111.

THE SECOND-SIGHT OF POLITICIANS.—Twenty
years ago the elder Bourbons were in possession of the
thrones of Spain and France, and formed a compact alli-
ance w;:!: Russia, Prussia, and Austria, against the grow-
ing democracy of Europe. The Holy Alliance was then
in full vigour, and any politician, however foreseeing,
who had then predicted the present condition of Europe
and shaped his policy to conform to it would have been
considered fit for Bedlam. That is but one illustration
of the errors politicians are likely to fall into who
frame their policy and subject their people to
enormous expense in order to provide against some
supposed future evils, which most probably never will
come. Untaught, however, by this experience, and in
unteachableness quite as bad as the Bourbons, the Times
of yesterday called on the country to provide for, the
contingencies of the next `° quarter of a center}." The
foresight of an individual providing for himself seldom
extends so far, but for an individual so to provide for a na-
tion, and now prepare for the exigencies of the next 25
years, is about us wild a scheme as ever entered the head
of a political writer. It will appear feasible, however, to
those who have n"t been taught by the great events of
the last half century, that politicians and political sys-
tems do not direct the progress and the affairs of society.

TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

MY LORD DUKE—The sentiments expressed by your
Grace on presenting the petition from Oxford (and as
reported in the Second Edition of The Sun this even-
ing), must prove gratifying to all honourable and right-
thinking persons—it is a proper application of Church
revenues and resources ; and also a proper and atten-
tive performance of clerical duties, as regulated by the
law, that will remove the lameatable feeling which now
unhappily exists against the Established Church.
Perhaps it would be as well that the Church profes-
sion were placed under martial law, as well as the mili-
tary and naval profession. There can be no good rea-
son why one MILITANT profession should be more se-
verely punished for neglect of duty than another.
I am, my Lord Duke, your devoted servant,
OLD PENINSULAR.
Thursday, July 23, 1840.