The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-01 00:00:00

PRICE OF SUGAR.

EFFECT OF MONOPOLY.
,41,4.1)1i1e thawing the ex-duty price of West India Sugar.
`'.llc
lane,in and comparing the same against that o,
Sugara:—

The London, May 1, 1840.
Gazette of this evening will quote the
average price of British Plantation Muscovado Per Cwt.
,ougar, exclusive of duty, at
or The actual quantity of West India Sugar sold on account
e„„the importers, in the week ending the 28th ult, ac-
Gilng to returns made upon oath, by the West
414 Sugar Brokers, in conformity with the Act of Par.
bstillerit, and on which quantity the above price is corn-
' consisted of 1,145 hhds. 80 trs. and 305 barrels.
in.:, he amount of duty paid on about 1,320 libels of West
17'5,'4 Sugar, at the Custom-house of this port, from the
,i,' to the 23d of April, both days inclusive, was 23,8601.
hou he practice removing Sugar from the bonded ware-
to,2e4 of London to those of other markets under a cus-
"111 certificate, frequently deceives the public into
.33 belief that the sales of West India Sugar in Mine-
te-lane exceed the quantity sworn to by the Brokers ;
c bock Companies supply weekly returns of the
number of casks delivered from their warehouses,
but they make no distinction between those Sugars deli_
Ir2red, on which the duty has been paid, and those shipped
under bond to he sold at the outports ; unless, therefore,
Attention be paid to the broker's returns of sales, the total
quantity of Sugar delivered from the docks would be mis-
taken for the quantity really disposed of for consumption.
To guard, however, as much as possible against error, or
misconception, we publish, besides an account of sales, the
weekly amount of duty paid on West India Sugar—the
litter statement corroborating the accuracy of the former.
Foreign Sugars may be bought on much the same terms
as our last week's quotations, and are, taking quality for
quality, about 19i. per cwt, cheaper than West India
Sugar. In order to protect, as it is called, the interests
of the West India proprietors, foreign Muscovado Sugars
are landed with a duty of 635. per cwt., being 395. per
Zt. more than the duty imposed on British Colonial
t 4
`u • gar until, therefore, the price of the latter exceeds
st r. hh, o. t.e former 355. p cwt. the laws insist
Br that
„„.' nation shall have be no other Sugar, than that of itish
o,oV‘th.
daritefined Sugar, equal in quality to the double loaf stan-
d
is manufactured in London from foreign raw Sugar,
ed
,s sold for exportation at (deducting the shipping
4rges) 335. per cwt. If it were not for undue fa-
:uritsai towards the West India body, this Sugar
'uld be retailed, duty paid, to the public at 7d. per
pij(l44d• There is no question but that the lowness of this
sriee
, w)nld so materially augment the consumption of
at -Far that the revenue derived from it would be increased
r,,reast by a million and a half per annum.
eh 'nder the pretence of supplying the poor man with a
fr Cap sneet, West India Treacle is admitted to home use
tielea't)fri d uty ; the value of the treacle, however, being re-
e'4 hy the monopoly price of West India Sugar,
pus's the poor man just as much as he would have to
for duty free double refined Sugar, made from foreign
1.14". If the Government were sincere, and really de-
°rod that the poor of this country should enjoy the use
°1
a chev sweet, for which purpose they state they are
e
-Irltt•nt to sacrifice the duty on treacle—why do they not
U` mat the treacle resulting from the process of refining
in'reign Sugar to be admitted to consumption without pay-
tl-1"t of duty The working classes could then supply
Lemßelyes with good and wholesome treacle from the
a "den refineries, at 13s. 6d. per cwt., instead of paying
is they now do, per cwt. for an inferior kind, made
'rem 'West India AlolaFscs.

I, 'DISTURBANCE ON FIIE YORK AND NORTH
ITht•ANI) RAILWAY.—On Tuesday last a serious and dm-
trrakeful disturbance took place on 111 r. John Stephenson's con-
Naetion the above line, immediately adjoining the Altofts
("4 Midland contract. A general row. and many pugilistic
combats took place amongst them. On the arrival of the police
missile were thrown at them. A brick bat struck and stunned
jr• Stephenson. On Wednesday the whole were examined
uqorts the Ites at the Town-hall, Pontefract, and seven
theta fuilya'&sm'rmitted to take their trials at the next West
Sessions.—Leeds Mercury.

malia.

MAGAZINE DAY.

BLACKWOOD.

The tale of " Ten Thousand aYear"—the pro-
duction evidently of a lawyer—again " drags its
slow length along" in this Number. We do n©t
mean by this to imply that the story is an indifferent
one, but that there is too much of it. The inci-
dents are overdone—the descriptions amplified
without mercy. A little judicious curtailment
would add greatly to the vigour and animation of
the narrative. The best portion of the present
chapter is the sketch of the dinner-party at lawyer
Quirk's, which exhibits some racy touches of humour,
closely bordering, however, on caricature. " Frew-
deville's Milton" is a delightful mixture of arch
sarcasm and sound criticism. The Reviewer, in
opposition to the Reviewed, stoutly contends
for the superiority of Homer to Milton—and with
some reason, for in fire, simplicity, and direct
straightforwardness of manner, the old Greek is
incomparably the best of the two. If we except
his auctioneer-like catalogue of ships, which George
Robins might have drawn up with quite as much
skill, there are no such cheery passages in the
" Iliad" as those in Paradise Lost, where " God,
the Father, twits a school divine." But then
again, there is no description in Homer—not even
where Neptune in the, full might and majesty of
godhead, is represented as striding forward to the
assistance of his favourites—so full of pure, un-
leavened sublimity, as that of Satan, whose
brow " deep scars of thunder had entrenched."
To find the equal of this, we must turn to Job
and Isaiah, and the mat vellous picture of Tyre in
Ezekiel. The Reviewer, we sea, makes a passing
allusion to Addison's Criticism on Paradise Lost.
It is smooth enough, and elegant enough ; but it
wants depth, feeling and discrimination. Addi-
son had no very subtle or elevated notions of
poetry ; and when he puts on, what ALlton calls,
" the singing robes of the poet" himself, he cuts a
most awkward and constrained figure, like a man
attempting to dance a • hornpipe in fetters. What
is his " Cato" but an elegant petrifaction ? What
his " Campain," but a series of monotonous rhymes
addressed exclusively to the ear and the eye ?
Alluding incidentally to Milton's early life, the Re-
viewer charges Mr. Prendeville with pronouncing
" the well-established fact that Milton had incurred
severe academical censure, a pure fiction." For
once in a way Mr. Prendeville is right. The story
is a pure fiction. Here are the great poet's own
words, which we quote from his account of his
" Early Life and Writings." We cannot choose
but believe him, for who would think of coupling
the august name of Milton with base, deliberate
falsehood ?—" This libeller of my youth spent at
the University lath given me an apt occasion to ac-
knowledge publicly with all grateful mind, that
more than ordinary favour and respect, which I
found above any of my equals at the hands of
those courteous and learned men, the fellows of
that College wherein I spent some years ; who at
my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the
manner is, signified many ways how much better it
would content them that I should stay ; as by many
letters full of kindness and loving respect, both
before that time and long after, I was assured of
their singular good affection towards me." John-
son, who was well acquainted with the prose works
of Milton—as some of his most striking thoughts
in Rasselas show, especially where Imlac is the
speaker—should have borne in mind this pas-
sage, before he sate down to write the memoir
of our great Epic poet. " Judith ; or the
Opera Box," is a translation of one of Scribe's
nouvellettes. The tale is amusing, and gallops on
at tailway speed. " Goethe's Life and Works "
old Goethe again ! We arc quite sick of the sub-
ject, and would just as soon read through Cocker's
Arithmetic, as a criticism ol the overrated author
of Faust. " The Dead Man of St. Ann's

Chapel " is a tale of murder and mystery—two
most popular ingredients in a work of fiction—and
will doubtless be soon transmuted, by the magic
touch of Mr. Fitzball, into a Coburg melodrame.
From the piquant strictures on " Prendeville's
Milton," we quote the Reviewer's speculations on
the " Leviathan

Mr. Prendeville is at pains to prove, from Newton
and others, that the leviathan here described is not the

crocodile, but the whale. He is certainly very like a
whale ; whereas the crocodile is in the habit of standing,
and lying too, with his hands in his breeches pckets—a
picturesque peculiarity pointed out by the late lamented
Lord Castlereagh ; but of which no mention is made by
Milton. Bishop Newton holds him to be a whale en
two grounds : first, that " the crocodile is not found
on the Norway coast ;" and second, that he is " too
small and agile an animal to answer the description."
These objections are fatal to the claims of the croco-
dile ; but leave it an open question—may he not have
been the sea-sarpent ? Yet of the three—crocodile,
sea-sarpent, whale—the long odds may be safely offered
on blubber. " Scaly rind," the Bishop candidly admits,
may appear to point to crock) ; still he holds it is "but
a poetic figure to express the rough, wrinkled, hard
skin of that animal"—the whale. Mr. Prendeville, in
a note of his own—annotating on another description
of leviathan " tempesting the ocean," exclaims exult-
ingly—" It is evident that by leviathan here he means
the whale, no matter how learned critics may apply the
leviathan in the Book of Job to the crocodile. He

distinctly mentions the crocodile (B. vii. 1. 474) as an
amphibious animal—whereas leviathan is a fish." But
why may not an amphibious animal " haply slumber on
the Norway foam ?" Finally—if leviathan be a fish,

then he is not a whale ; for though, " as seamen tell,"

the Kale of Aberdeen comes home from the Straits

clean, and the Gin' of Peterhead full of oil ; yet ich-
thyologists tell a still stranger story, and class the
whale, as well as the above whalers, among the mam-