The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-24 00:00:00

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MORNING SUN.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS•

FROM THE MORWINO PAPERS OR SATURDAY.
TIMES.—We transcribe, in another column, from a.
Morning Contemporary, what it justly calls "the afflict-
ing. intelligence ' respecting the Niger Expedition, and
which is considered to be the official anti-slavery account
of the matter. The result of that enterprise has been
sadly correspondent with what all reasonable men must
have augured, and what we ourselves have alway pre-
dicted. Three vessels have gone about 320 miles up the
Niger and Chadda, and have come down again. A mo-
del farm some 300 miles from the coast has been bought,
I stocked, and abandoned ; treaties have been made with
the two negro Princes of Eboe and Iddala for the aboli-
tion of the slave trade and of human sacrifices, And then
they have been left to their own practices ; and this
at an expense of health and life which is not indeed dis-
tinctly stated, but may well be divined from the account
given by our Contemporary, to whose statements we will
add an extract from a letter written onboard the Ethiope
on the 21st of October:—
"We entered the Nun on-the 10th" inst., and proceeded
up the river the next morning, and fell in with the Albert
on the evening of the 13th inst. at Stirling Island, about
24 miles below Eboe. We found her in a worse state
than the Wilberforce ; ull hands down with fever but Drs.
William, Stanger, a scientific gentleman, a marine, the
boatswain's mate, and a servant. Captain Trotter' very
weak, Captain Bird Allen (who is since dead) very low ;
no engineers; Dr. Stanger was endeavouring to work the
engine the best way he could. We sent our head engi-
neer on board, and the Albert followed the Ethiope to
the coast. Capt. Becroft then went on board the Albert,
and took her to Fernando Po. The people at the model
farm, including its manager, Mr. Carr, were all sick, and
have been brought down by the Albert."
So it would appear that, had it not been for the gene-
rous assistance afforded them voluntarily by the vessel
of a private merchant—an assistance which the planners
of the expedition had not provided, and on which they
had no right to calculate— it is but too likely that we
never should have seen again either the Albert or any
part of its enterprising crew. Such would have been—
rather such has been—the end of this unhappy affair,
projected and announced with so much Exeter-hall en-
thusiasm, among speeches from Prince Albert, Sir
ellobert Peel, Lord Howick, and Sir Fowell Buxton ;
letters of sympathy from Illustrious and Right Re-
verend personages ; promises of civilisation, and
trade, and agriculture, and alliances with native
chiefs, and missionary success, and pride, and in-'
dignation. It has ended in nothing strange or unex-
pected—nothing but what might have been and was
foretold, if its projectors would have listened to reason
—nothing but the sacrifice of the lives of our country-
men. We are far from wishing to cast any slur on the
generous feelings of those distinguished personages who
gave the support of their names to this enterprise. They
had other things to think of than to examine its imprac-
ticable details. It had a generous object, and came to
them supported by respectable names ; and so they lent
it the weight of their characters ; yet still it does sug-
gest feelings not favourable to the slap-dash, rhetorical,
showy meetings to which the people crowd to be amused,
and to clap their hands, and to hear fine sentences, and
to give their guineas for objects which neither they
nor any of the fluent gentlemen who entertain them
know anything about. Good enough amusements to
them, but death to others, on whom it falls to carry out,
at their own risk, and at the expense of their own
proper lives, what these Societies talk of so glibly, and
listen to so complacently. We confess it is with little
patience that we hear smooth gentlemen, borne luxuri-
ously along on the easy gale of popular enthusiasm,
taking full advantake of the opportunity given them to
display in full dress their costly sensibilities, but mean-
while quite forgetting to enquire what is the real worth of
the scheme they advocate—what the dangers to which
they are are urging other less ornamental, but perhaps not
less valuable, members of society than themselves—what
prospect ofadvantage,what are the warnings of experience,
what the opinion of those practical men whose opi-
nion is really worth having. But this is the order of the
day, and must be borne, it seems, in spite of its quackery.
Everybody must have a finger in ' everything ; and
everything must appeal to and be managed by every-
body ; an the consequence is, that instead of sober
forethought and knowledge, and calm chastised deter-
mination, our undertakings have to be recommended by
eloquent appeals and piercing statements, and fluency
and clap-traps for the ladies. Instead of a scheme quietly
calculated by one or two or three sober and earnest men,
prepared themselves to take part in the dangers they re -
commend, and unfettered by any necessity of approving:
it to the imaginations of an audience, we have such wild,
ill-considered, showy projects as everybody can embrace
at a glance, with nothing but novelty and a popular ob-
ject to recommend them. Is it wonderful that those who
heedlessly employ their talents in supporting such
schemes should find now and then, what we hope they
will now realize, that they were taking shares in a most
heavy responsibility, affecting the lives of their fellow-
creatures, while they thought of nothing more, than
making an impression on the fair auditory whirl sur-
rounded them ?
HERALD.—The Niger Expedition is at an end. Sir
Powell Buxton has had his say; his philanthropic scheme
has been fairly tried ; Government has " led and felt
the way," as Lord Brougham recommended, into the in-
terior of Africa by its great natural highway ; 100,000/.
more have been expended by the British nation on what
is termed African civilisation ; and the establishment of
factories and the acquisition of land have been attempted;
the result is sad and mournful disapointment. On the
20th of August last the three fine steamers, the Soudan,
the Wilberforce, and the Albert, built for the pur-
pose, commenced the ascent of the Quorra ; ere six
days had elapsed they received warning of the fate
which impended over them ; death was already
hovering about his victims. Before a month had
closed, one vessel—the Soudan—was converted intot
an hospital for the sick, and compelled to descend from
the regions of disease to the open sea. Two more days
had not gone by until one—the Wilberforce—of the re-
maining ascending steamers had likewise to turn its
head down the stream with a dying cargo ; thirteen
days longer did the Albert persevere, but in vain • the
" belt of malaria,"—the boulevart of death is perhaps
the more appropriate description—Lord Brougham's in-
geniotts'suggestion—was not to be passed through; and
after forty-six days of dreadful suffering from the
commencement of the ascent, the Albert was 8.44
compelled to return, and the expedition was baffled
by disease and death. The three steamers, with the
surviving commanders, officers, and men—how small
a minority of those who left England we do not stop
to detail—are now gasping and inhaling the purer at-
mosphere of the Ascension Island and Clarence Cove.
They will doubtless, in due course, record the melan-
choly detail of this last sacrifice to the schemes of
dreamers,—to the worst, because the most injudicious,
friends of Africa. The Albert, under Captain Trotter's
gallant command, ascended between 50 and 60 miles
beyond the confluence of the Chadda, and the Niger, and
about 320 miles from the sea. The ascent to that point;
the selection of a spot for a model farm, never to be cut.
tivated, a little above the confluence ' • the purchase of
treaties with the rulers of Eboe and Iddah for the suppres-
sion of the slave trade, which legitimate commerce had
previously driven from the Bight of Biafra and the months
of the Quorra; and the abolition of human sacrifices—.
treaties which will be implemented, so far as the inter-
nal traffic is concerned, only by the pressure of personal
influence ;—and a better acquaintance with the course
of the Quorra and the countries through it flows
—such are the costly achievements of t
time had assigned
expe-
dition, to which continental extravat:
the subjection of the African continent to British domi-
nion. Entirely failed the expedition has not, because its
precise objects it would be difficult to state—it was, per-
haps, to be regarded as a pioneering attempt—though in
that respect the equally disastrous enterprise of Laird
and Oldfield had rendered it unnecessary. The know-
ledge gained will, doubtless. be a contribution, however
small and infinitesimal, to the information of Europe.
But that the expedition is a disappointment in the most
mournful and desolating shape, cannot be denied by its
promoters, and their dupe, Lord John Russell. Malaria
and death have practically refuted the scheme 'of the
African Colonisation Society. If the civilisation of
Africa depend on European expeditions up the Quorra,
that great continent is destined to remain in darkness, in
desolation, and paganism.

ABSTRACTION of DEAD BODIES.

On Friday a meeting of the Directors and Guardian*
of the poor of the parish of St. Marylebone was held at
the workhouse. in the New-road. Mr. Rathbone in the
Chair.

The report of the Committee appointed to investigate
as to the disposal of certain bodies of paupers who
had died in the workhouse, and had been sent out
to various Anatomical Schools for the purpose of
dissection, under the orders of Dr. Somerville, the In-
spector, was brought up and unanimously confirmed,
After seine unimportant business was disposed of,
Mr. TitomE said that, pursuant to the direction of
the Board, he attended at the office of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, Whitehall, for the purpose a giving
evidence before the Commissioners appointed by the
Secretary of State for the Home DePaYftment to inves-
tigate the charges brought by Mr. -Poster against dm
Administrator under the Anatow,y Act. The inves-
tigation was strictly private., and witness was ext.
mined separately. liis evidotace went simply to speak to
the identity of the Report of the Committee of that Board,
and to prove that it contained a correct copy of the cer-
tificates and registry of the ground where the bodies
had boon buried at Globe-fields. He was questioned very
strongly as to the opinions of an individual member of
the Board, whether his hostility arose from the pro/i-
-sionA of the Act as a principle, or merely in consequence
of any irregularities that had taken place in the admini-
stration thereof.

Mr. LANGUAM moved that the Secretary make a return
of the expenses of the funerals of twenty-eight bodies
left unpaid, according to the provisions of the Anatomy
Act, in order that the same might be forwarded to the
Inspector-General.—This was also seconded and carried,
and a notice of motion having been given for investigat-
ing the conduct of the officers of the workhoW,e with re-
ference to the subject, the Board broke up.

We understand that measures - - .
are now in pro-
gross to raise subscriptions for r:resenting a suitable tes-
timonial of esteem and gratitude to George Stephenson,
Esq., who has been desitsiated " the Father of the Rail-
way System," Tht T;ublic, perhaps, have hitherto, more
than the proprietors, reaped the benefits that have re-
sulted from tile general establishment of railways, and
It.
we make ho question that they would cheerfully acknowr.
ledge, m some measure repay, their obligation :to cilue
who has been so active in the cause. Without entering
into. any discussion as to their original prOiletOr, is be•
yond dispute, that no other man, living or dead, i, so
much of the merit due of having practiceily promoted
railways, as to George Stephenson.—Raitway Times.
DIED.—On th 20th instant, at
Li
Dale Park,
1 near Arundel, Sussex. John Smith, Es-.,
in the 75th
1 year of his age.