The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-28 00:00:00

ILIDAY MORNING,- MARCH 28, 1845.

all in their power to :make 'it plenty and chap.
Oh is the echo; the Straits of Malacca and Burman set-
tlements are too weak to make any noise in Parliament
that will be listened to or attended to, so we may crush
them without fear of consequences (I have nothing at
stake there now, !neither for myself nor any of my fa-
mily, our field ie. Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Manilla,
so I write disinterestedly) The present would appear
to be a period the most inviting to the enterprising, for
the profitable employment of means and science in the
soil of British India for the produce of sugar, from the
rivers Berhampootia to the Indus, to the latter of which
rivers suitable steamers and flat-bottomed boats have at
last been sent and established for the purposes of com-
merce and for the quick transport of troops, instead of,
as heretofore, transporting them by land through the
swamps on the banks of the Indus by long and harassing
marches, by which fearful losses of life have occurred
from such exposure. The 78th Highlanders (if they be
now what they were in 1811 when at the capture of
Java) are the most unfit men of the United Kingdom for
such exposure from being la men, as was found to the
grief of all who knew it, for they died by dozens when
exposed to the swamps of .lava and its low lands, whilst
the 89th, a purely as wild an Irish regiment as the 78th
was Highland, suffered comparatively little by deaths.
Give honest Donrld his hills, snow capped, and pure air,
and he will do all that man can do. No man will feel
more severely the losses in the 78th than Sir C. Napier;
still the experience, though acquired, is indeed too dearly
bought! But still the Indus and its banks are our strong-
holds on the south western frontier, and the sooner they
are so on the north-west frontier the better. The soil
and position are both favourable to sugar production,
transit will be hereafter be quick and good, and the cli-
mate not inferior to many other of our tropical posses-
sions, if prudence be duly exercised in biding away from
unhealthy spots at certain periods, as is the practice in
other low tropical climates. It appears to me, that he
who stimulates the enteprising to embark in East India
sugar production, conduces more substantially to the
comfort and benefit of both .the labourers and Govern-
ment of this country, than all the so-called farmers'
friends put together ; toe middle and upper classes
will get their share of the benefit by lightened taxation
arising from more contributors, and slavery abolition
will be hastened thereby by free beating slave labour.
Would that the rage was as great at present for producing
sugar as for railroads, good indeed though the latter be.
It appears to me, considering the teeming millions of
India, and the suitableness of the soil, together with the
prospect of an almost limitless market for absorption,
that the prospects of large returns from means invested
in East India sugar cultivation, en inferior to no other
description of investment. The day Sinde became
British, that moment all France's hopes vanished of
making the Panjaub a thorn in our side, when the time
arrived ; and hence, away went all the French officers,
clean off, and away, from the dominions of the Old Lion
of Lahore, the Sinde policy, and in fact its justice and
humanity, the East India Company either cannot see,
or from policy or infatuation will not acknowledge.
When we have only the two high roads from the West
into India to guard, the Kyber Pass and the Bolan, then
peace will reign in India, but never before ; every day's
experience shows this more clearly—even though we
now hold the key to the Panjaub and into Western India,
by Sinde and the Indus.
It seems to me that that the Southern United States
will enjoy an advantage over all other sugar-producing
countries, to some considerable extent at least, for at
present many of their cotton-loaded ships, ballast with
copper-dross or stones, whereas, in future, sugar can be
taken for ballast, which can afford to be carried at a no-
minal rate of freight ; and although it be a small item,
still a saving of about two shillings per cwt. is a profit
of itself of ten shillings on the first cost of the sugar.
The monopoly which the West Indies have so long and
so disadvantageously enjoyed, both to the United King-
dom and to themselves, has had the effect of causing the
planters to disregard the cultivation of cotton, and hence
their bad position in comparison with the United States.
The East Indies is too far off, and the voyage, therefore,
too expensive to enable our shipowners to cary sugar as
ballast, at a nominal freight, from India to England.
The West Indies, however, are, or may be, made
valuable colonies, and the owners of land therein will
awake from their slumbers, see their present proper
position, and act consistently to themselves and to the
mother country. They have at present many advan-
tages by steam, a civilised population, a cleared country
under a regularly settled Government, &c., the happy
position of their black population will naturally, .the
perhaps slowly, induce Africans and coloured men from
all quarters in their vicinity to make our West India
colonies a refuge and a home. It seems to me that the
system of emigration adopted for supplying of labourers
to the West Indies from Africa and from India is bad
and vicious; the proportion of females to males is ex-
tremely so, and especially so from the East Indies. The
races never did yet harmonise or amalgamate: and a
Hindoo Coolie thinks of nothing when he has no wife or
home, but getting back to the East Indies ; whereas, if
young men and their wives were brought over from Ilin-
doston to Demerara or the West Indies they would settle,
colonise in villages by themselves, and increase an-
nually in numbers. Chinamen would do the same, if a
point were made that every man must bring his wife
with him. He could not, it is true, bring a Chinese
wife of pure blood, but he would have no difficulty in
obtaining a Malay wife, and right nice women they are,
and very thrifty and cleanly, though the Malay men be
otherwise. It is not over creditable to Great Britain to
draw so large a number of the labourers for the West
India colonies from the captured slavers, no doubt,
though there be, that the poor captured negroes will be
ultimately benefited thereby. The West Indians will
but deceive themselves if they believe in the delusion
and art thereon, that the consumers of West India
produce (for they pay the piper) will long submit to
pay the expense of transporting to and from the coast
of Africa to the West Indies, and to and
from India to the West Indies. Male la-
bourers, for the sole purpose of tilling by a bad
system their West India estates. If they mean to make
the most of their present breathing time, they would act
wisely by being up and doing, and using every effort
while they yet enjoy the power, of inducing young
couples of Africans, of Hill-coolies in couples, and of
young Chinamen and their Malay wives (each male with
a female and children, if they have them), to emigrate
and to finally settle with their families in the West
Indies. It may, perhaps, be too much to believe that
the late British slaveholder has already changed his
opinion, that " it is cheaper to buy labourers than to
breed iem." But be this as it may, it is now, or ought
to be, out of his power " to buy instead of breeding;"
and if he be still infatuated enough to dream of acting
on that exploded opinion, and as far as in him lies do
act thereon, he must prepare himself at an early period
to see his estates pass into the hands of others more
worthy than he, who will do the needful justice to him-
self and his country, and this too, to witness this loss of
his property by circumstances which will then be out of
his power to control. Contracts I see have been entered
into by the owners of estates in the Malacca Straits
settlements with gangs of Chinamen, whereby the China-
men are to cultivate those sugar estates, and cure the
sugar fit for exporting to Europe (the latter finding im-
plements and other materials for agriculture and curing),
and the suga.is so cured fit for shipping, &c., to be deli-
vered to the owner of the estate, at the rate of 1 Spanish
dollar per picul, or 7s. 3d. per 133 1-31bs., the China-
men to get his remuneration for his labour and capital
employed by his gang out of the price he receives for
his sugars. This is a species of farming; and perhaps
this has so far frightened the West Indians out of their
propriety, as to cause them to force Sir Robert Peel to
deal so cruelly with those young, but still the first, of
our free-trade settlements and self-supporting settle-
ments—Singapore, Malacca, province Wellesley, and
Penang at least. The Mosquito shore, Natal, and the
north half of New Holland, may all be made sugar-
producing colonies; but the white man is required to
direct and superintend his black brother in the operation
ftillage and curing. IL W.

*HOCKING AFFAIR AT WHIT
TINGTON.
(From the Derbyshire Courier.)
On Thursday morning, about ten, the village of Whit
tington, two miles from Chesterfield, was the scene o
great excitement, in consequence of the rumour that a
Mrs. Green, who resides there, had either been mur-
dered or had committed suicide. It appears that, shortly
before the hour named, she had been seen by several
neighbours to enter the gate of her own premises, lead-
ing one of her grandchildren by one hand, and holding
the other hand to her throat. One of the neighbours
going to the place, she found Mrs. Green reclining
upon a stone in the yard, and bleeding pro-
fusely from a frightful wound in the throat. She was
unable to speak. The alarm was at once given, fled a
messenger dispatched to Chesterfied for medical aid.
Mr. Boddington arrived in a very short time, but life
was extinct before his arrival. Tire wound was exceed-
ingly largo and deep, extending from " ear to ear."
The oesophagus and jugular vein were partially severed,
and the carotid artery was laid bare, although
not cut. A razor marked with blood was found
lying on the hearthstone. It is stated that
she was seen to rin out of her house, hold-
ing her hands to but throat, and to go to .the door
of the Cock and Magpie public-house, and then to
another neighbouring house, but it appears that she
failed to make any person hear her. Her house adjoins
that of her son-in-law, Joseph Hawksley, and it is stated
that he was the only person about the premises beside
the deceased at the time; Mrs. Hawksley having gone
out shortly before, and a boy aged six years, named
Green, a grandson of the deceased, who was staying with
her, having been sent away from her house the same
morning. The farm belonged to the deceased Mrs.
Green, of whom Hawksley holds it as tenant. Many
disputes have arisen between Mrs. Green and her son-
in-law of late, and it is not long since they appeared be-
fore the magistrates, on which occasion Mrs. Green ap-
plied for Hawksley to be bound over to keep the peace.
The application was refused by the magistrates, who
reprimanded both parties. At the same time, a son of
the deceased was fined for wilfully damaging a plough
belonging to Hawksley. The origin of the melan-
choly affair of Thursday last is at present a mystery.
Deceased was in good health and spirits at eleven on
Wednesday night, previous to which hour Hawksley
attempted to force his way into her house, but was pre-
vented by Sydney Green, her son. Hawksley states, we
learn, that on the Thursday morning, he was
working in one of the fields, when he heard
a scream ; he immediately went towards his
house, thinking that soma of his children had
set their clothes on fire. As he approached,
he saw his mother-in-law run out of her house, holding
her hands to her throat. In going to his own door he
met her, and immediately sent a boy for assistance.
The statement of one of the children is very different
to this.
An inquest was opened before Mr. Hutchinson,
Coroner for Scarsdale, on Thursday afternoon, at the
Cock and Magpie, but immediately adjourned to Friday
next. The circumstances to which we allude have made
very great sensation throughout the district.