The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1835.

INSTANT ; and that they are not required to take the
oaths BEFORE THE ELECTION.

We have received the whole of the Paris papeis of

Tuesday, with intelligence from Bayonne of the 6th
inst. The somewhat disorganized state of the French
Government—the debate in the Chamber of Deputies

on the recent petitions for electoral reform (of which
we shall treat at proper length to-morrow)—and the
proceedings, respecting the claims of the United

States of America, furnish topics for various comments

Ln these journals : but the only really important sub-

jects discussed in them, is the strange appearances

which public affairs begin to assume in the East,
and the part which the Northern Powers may be pre-
sumed to take, in imparting to them their present
aspect. The conduct of the British Government,
in ordering our fleet to leave the Dardanelles,
for Malta, on the morning of the Bth ultimo, has

cleared the coast for Russia, and afforded to the CZAR

an opportunity of making further encroachments on
the dominions of the SULTAN, which he is very likely
to turn to some profitable account. Something very

extraordinary must be at the bottom of our foreign
policy. No nation in the civilized world, with every
means of making herself respected by her friends and
feared by her foes, has succeeded so strangely in ob-
taining the derision of the one, and the contempt of the
other, to half the extent that England has done
within the last three quarters of a century. During the

long reign of GEORGE 111. we were continually at war
with two or more foreign Powers—not to augment our

territory by conquests—fill our coffers with treasures—
relieve bondsmen from the yoke of tyrants—or to esta-
blish liberal institutions in countries trodden under the

ho-ives of despotism. We gave our wealth to the winds
and waves—our liberties to the guardianship of a
shackled press and a corrupt Parliament—our blood
and the blood of the bravest in the land to saturate the
fields of Spain, and dye the shores of Egypt, for no
earthly or heavenly purpose, other than to gratify the
ambition, and soothe the indomitable pride of a
stripling statesman ! As to fighting for any par-
ticular object, that was a question which the
belligerents of Great Britain never once asked them-
selves. They neither knew nor cared what they fought
for—it was enough that they made war on France.
Never were warriors more disinterested ; and never was

nation more easily persuaded to gratify the whims o
her children, than was England during that eventfu
period. Our campaigns were conducted on the true
Hibernian principle—we fought for fun ; and if we
had an ulterior object in view, it could only be pre-
sumed to be a desire to render the country prosperous
by increasing the public debt. Having wearied ourselves
out with fighting, and obliged all our acquaintances to
confess that we could stand as firmly to be shot at as
rocks, or any other description of fixed inanimate ob-
jects, we sheathed our swords ; and to show that our
generosity was only surpassed by our valour, we re-
turned what little spoils we had gained, protesting that
we loved to bear our own charges when fighting for
our friends : and to prove that we were in earnest, in
the fulness of our joy, granted pensions to every foreign
pauper whose fences had been broken down by the
march of our conquering hosts. Men who have no
fixed principles for the regulation of their conduct al-
ways ruin themselves by running from one ex-
treme to another i❑ the opposite direction ; and
this proposition is equally true with respect
to nations. From being the Nee-Mee-Nam-Qua►n, or
Thunder and Lightning of the Battle-field, England
all at once assumed a look and demeanour as pacific
as if our armies had doffed their scarlet and blue
uniforms, and exchanged their martial accoutrements
for the sober brown habiliments and formidable um-
brellas of the Society of Friends. From being the
arbiters of nations in the field, the British Cabinet
commenced the more diff►ult task of arranging all dif-
ferences by superior diplomatic movements. Maids of
Honour, and men whom nature seemed not to have de-
signed.for the fulfilment of offices more important than are
supplied by the superintendence of a royal kitchen, or
dog-kennel, superseded our armies and our fleets in the
pacification of mankind. The only trait in our character
which we carefully preserved under all extremes of action,
was never to be found idle ; no matter with whose af-
fairs we might be forced to meddle, when our own
ceased to supply us with any thing to do. Bake
who might, we were sure to have a finger in the pie.
Having established a reputation for valour, at no
greater cost than a few hundreds of thousands of mil-
lions of debt—the corruption of our legislative assem-
blies—the ruin of some of our most valuable in-
stitutions—and a large influx of crime, which might
be considered in the light of a new species of floating
capital—our sagacious Government began to consider
that nothing was wanted to complete the glory of
Great Britain, but to manifest to the wondering
nations of the earth, that her heroic progeny were as
inscrutably wise in the council as they were known to
be invincible in the field. This noble resolution taken
we assumed mysterious airs, shook our heads when
there was nothing in them, looked excessively grave
at a pleasantry, and now and then dropped significant
hints about the strange movements of certain illustrious
personages in the confidence of the Chan of Tartary,
or some other such powerful Prince. In the mean
time we were the laughing-stock of half the Courts in
Europe. Nature intended us for a brave, generous,
manly people, above subterfuge, and abhorring deceit ;
and the moment we departed from her laws, by becom-
ing braggarts on the one hand, and schemers on the
other, we betrayed an imbecility of mind, which ren-
dered us contemptible in the eyes of all Europe.
Taking into consideration the consequences of our
two-fold madness, it is hardly possible to determine
whether our excessive fondness for war, or our no less
excessive admiration of peace, has been most injuri-
ous to the liberties of mankind. Europe reeled under
the vigour of our arm ; and now Asia perishes, be-
cause we refuse to raise it in behalf of her rights.
The Northern Powers have twisted our ablest states-
men round their fingers, as if they were the shreds
of the red ribbons which adorned their persons ; and
evhile befooling them with notes and protocols in
praise of the Eight Beatitudes, have seized with
iron talons on the unhappy subjects of our di-
plomatic commisseration whether princes or prin-
cipalities. Russia, especially, has played ns som•
strange tricks in this way. In 1809, we en-
tered into a solemn treaty with the Porte, that
the Dardanelles should be closed equally against all
- —4 *he Porte

Powers in time of war ; shortly atterwa,,.—_
was collstr4iped
enter into a treaty with Russia,
3110 as a sijie qua was compelled to guarantee the
of. the`barciaiteltes to the Russian fleet, when:
` ;
'sum was Mt: 'pleasure
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his Highness as if he were the serf of Russia—and to '
complete the ignominy of the Porte—compel the
SULTAN to declare in the hearing of England that all
that was wrested from him was a voluntary offering on
his part. In this way Russia possessed herself of
Wallachia, &c. ; and now claims possession of Silis-
tria as a bond for a debt never due to her. Every
day beholds the accession of some new division
of territory on the part of the CZAR. His
armies march whither they will throughout every
part of the SULTAN'S dominions—England looking
coolly on, or remonstrating by means of huge paper
missives, with which the Russian Minister lights his
pipe. A curse seems to hang over all our foreign
policy ; and the leaving the Dardanelles in the posses-
sion of Russia appears a proof of it. There was time
when we commanded respect abroad, but that time
appears to have passed for ever. In Constantinople
we must on all occasions yield precedence to Russia,
and even the meanest subjects of that Power are more
respected in public than our diplomatic agents. This
state of things, which we so often complained of during
the Government of the Whigs, is now, we are assured,
about to be perpetuated under the Tories. The Duke
of WELLINGTON has already shaken hands in cordial
good fellowship with NICHOLAS, and as far as Eng-
land may be presumed to possess the power, has con-
stituted the EMPEROR the parental guardian of the
interests. of the Sublime Porte. We have now no
hope but from the representatives of the people, and

to them, as the last resource, we appeal with confidence.
Let England once more assume her majestic part
among the nations of Europe, and give up the systems
of indiscriminate warfare, and craven protocolling.
They are alike unworthy the dignity of a great and
free nation.

The domestic intelligence contained in the French
Papers, are given in our extracts from these journals.

In the February number of the Medical and Sur.

gical Gazette, among various articles on professional
subjects, we find some of considerable interest to the
general reader. From the report of Dr. GRAVES'

(of Dublin) Ninth Lecture on the Institutes of Me-
dicine, we select the following passages, which, if they
make the hair of the Malthusians stand on end, ought

to reconcile our two querulous countrymen to their
cloudy skies and humid atmosphere. An occasional
excursion to France or Italy is pleasant enough, but

we must live at home if we want to live long :
" In England the rate of annual mortality has considerably
diminished within the last seventy or eighty years. In 1780
it was calculated that one person out of forty died in the year ;
in 1790 only one in forty-five died, and in 1821, the mortality
became so low as one in fifty-eight. Here we have a cause
capable of producing an amazing difference in the state of the
population. With respect to the European states, the follow-
ing is a comparative estimate of the rate of mortality :—One
in twenty-eight in the Roman and Venetian states ; one in
thirty in Italy in general; one in thirty in Greece and Tur-
key ; one in thirty-nine in the Netherlands, France, and
Prussia ; one in forty in Switzerland, Austria, Spain, and Por-
tugal ; one in forty-four in European Russia and Poland ; one
in forty-five in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden ; one in
forty-eight in Norway ; one in fifty-three in Ireland ; one in
fifty-eight in England; one in fifty- nine in Scotland and Ice-
land ; so that you perceive the duration of life in this country
is very great when compared with others, and that whatever
foreigners may say about our dull and foggy climate, it is a
fact that we live much longer than those who dwell in the sunny
climes of southern Europe. The boasted climate of Italy,
with its soft vernal breezes and cloudless skies, gives a mor-
tality of one in thirty, whereas among our Irish bogs it is only
one in fifty-three, while in the Roman and Venetian states,
more than twice as many out of a given number die as among,
the bleak districts of the Scotch Highlands. It is then per-
fectly well ascertained that in England, Ireland, and Scotland,
the mortality is much lower than in the poetic " lands of the
sun," Italy and Greece. But we are not to attribute the su-
periority of any country in this respect, either to its soil or cli-
mate, for there is no doubt that if civilization, the blessings of
a free government, and the enjoyment of the comforts of life
were as extensively diffused among the Greeks and Italians as
they are among the inhabitants of the British Islands, the rate
of longcvlty in these countries would be remarkably increased.

" In order to give you some idea of the vast quantity of
human lives saved by the introduction of vaccinnation, I shall
call your attention to a brief statement of some facts bearing
on this interesting question. In 1790, one out of every eight
children born died of the small-pox ;in 1820, only one of
2,066 ; that is, out of this number there are now saved 250,
who forty years ago would have died of small-pox. In 1779,
the small-pox destroyed in Sweden 15,000 persons ;in 1784,
12,000 ; in 1800, 13,000; in 1822, eleven."
The admirers of JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU'S
ravings about the superiority of savage over civilized
life, and those poetically disposed persons who
fancy that primeval happiness, and antediluvian longe-
vity, are the natural accompaniments of poverty and
filth, should listen to what Dr. GRAVES has to say

upon these points :
" I have told you, gentlemen, that the average duration of
human life has proceeded, pari passu, with civilization and an
improved state of living, and that men are generally much
longer lived at present than they were during the middle ages.
Yet some persons, more poetical than discriminating, believe
that poverty and barbarism are the promoters of health, and
that longevity is only to be found in the hut of the savage.
The savage, it is true, displays great vigour and activity of
body, and an astonishing endurance of hunger, fatigue, and
Pain ; but it has been fully established that the mean duration
of life among them is far below that of civilized man ; whole
tribes of them are frequently swept off by epidemics, and the
mortality among their children is enormous. Poets have taken
a particular pleasure in singing the praises of him who derives
food, clothing, and health from the chase, who quenches his
thirst in the cool spring, and makes his bed beneath the canopy
of heaven, and they have given to poverty the reward of health,
peace, and longevity ; but unfortunately statistical inquiries
have, by the dull realities of facts, destroyed all these beautiful
illusions, and have stripped poverty of all its charms, by prov-
ing that the liability to disease is increased, and the duration of
life diminished, in proportion to the privations man is doomed
to undergo. If you take thirty or forty persons in the middle
class of life, and compare them with the poor of the Liberty in
Dublin, or St. Giles's in London, you will find that the annual
mortality among the latter is much greater, and that the term of
life diminishes in proportion to the extent of their poverty.
" It appears from a very interesting essay by M. Villerme,
on the comparative mortality among the indigent and those in
easy circumstances, both in the capital and in the departments
of France, that there is a striking and remarkable difference.
Througkout the departments, he states, the mortality is one
in fifty among those who are in good circumstances, while
among the poor it is one in twenty-four.
" A similar difference, be stales, exists between the mor-
tality of the poorer and more opulent parishes of Paris. The
denstty of the population, narrowness of the streets, and other
local circumstances, generally supposed to very influential on
the public health, were proved to be very unimportant when
compared with the single element, the general state of the
people as to the possession or wants of the comforts of life."
In the conclusion of his lecture, Dr. GRAVES, after
stating the extraordinary fact that the Irish peasantry
(owing, no doubt, to their extreme poverty) are almost
as subject to the attacks of epidemic disease as the in-
habitants of the towns, thus feelingly alludes to the
state of his unhappy country :
,c To explain the origin of that poverty, which excites the
sympathy of even strangers,—to account for a scarcity of pro-
visions in a country whose ports are crowded with shipping
employed in carrying away corn and cattle,—to investigate the
sources of that pollution which has demoralized a people natu-
rally open, frank, and generous, and has rendered excessive
intemperance and improvidence the most venial parts of the
national character,—belongs not to statistical medicine ; the
duty of the physician extends not to these subjects ; his em-
ployment is to alleviate the effects without discussing the
causes of misery and vice : but he owes it to his society—he
owes it to his country—to proclaim aloud the existence of the
evil."

The report of Dr. FARADAY'S lecture at the Royal
Institution on the 23d January, is extremely interest-
ing. The subject is " Radiant Heat," and the Doctor
gives a lucid explanation of some important discoveries
in this branch of natural philosophy, by M. MELLONI,
a young Italian, residing in Paris. M. MELLONI
"-A to make these contributions to science

real instrument,

has been en...—
by means of a very ingenious thereto,...,.._--
of his own invention.
At the meeting of the London Medical Society
he
,
held on the *1 iinst., the subject discussed was t
to have

I:_l,t epems