The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-25 00:00:00

COURSE OF EXCH.
Amsterdam CF. 12 9
Ditto, at sight
Rotterdam ...2 U. 12 :9k
Antwerp
Hamburgh M.B. 13 15
Altona
Paris, 3 days' sight
Dittio, 3 months 26 5
Marseilles
Bourdeaux 26 10
Frankfort on Maine 152

iNGE.—(THIS DAY.)
[Gibraltar ....... 46

Leghorn . 30 60
Genoa . 26 10
Milan

Venice
Naples ' 40
Palermo, per .z 120
Lisbon
Oporto 528
Rio Janeiro 2:31
Bahia
Buenos Ayres
New York, 21 days sight 468
Philadelphia
PRICES OF BULLION, PER. in.
Foreign Gold, bars £3 17 9
Portugal Gold C0m...3 17 5
New Doubloons 0 0 0
New Dollars... 0 4 94
Silver in Bars... 0 4 114

PetersburO, 3 Us. ... 37

Berlin -

Vienna, effee. It. 3M. 10 2:;
Trieste, ditto ... 10 3
Madrid ...
Cadiz

Moan ....36
Barcelona

Seville ...36

FRAUDS ON THE COFFEE TRADE.
A highly respectable and influential meeting of
parties engaged in the coffee trade was held yester-
day, at the London Commercial Sale Rooms, for the
purpose of taking into consideration the best mea-
sures to be adopted for effectually checking the whole-
sale losses incurred upon coffee delivered from the
various docks short of the original weights, and also
to discuss the causes .of the same.
Mr. EDWARDS took the chair, and, in opening the
business of the meeting, took occasion briefly to re-
mark, the difference between the original and re-
weights at the docks had become so great as to show
that it was high time , something should be done for
the protection of the importer. He was satisfied that
semething unfair was going on, from the carelessness
of the servants in the various docks, and it would be
for the meeting to consider what would be the best
steps to be taken with the view of obtaining redress.
Mr. RICHARDS observed, that this was not the first
time such malpractices were complained of. Two
years ago great pains were taken to obtain satisfaction,
and the agitation at that time produced some effect,
but since then the losses had again arisen, and were
now almost equal to tho'se at the period complained of.
Their property was not adequately protected by the
Dock Companies, in justification of which assertion,
he could refer to facts. Looking over the clearances
of coffee by his firm, only since the new duties had,
come into operation, he found they had sustained losses
to the extent of 1,6311b5.; that, moreover, there was
mtich inequality in the amount of such losses, while,
in one or two instances the weights had increased,
especially of six tierces in the West India Docks.
The managers of the docks ascribe this deficiency to
natural causes ; but, if such were the case, the loss
would be regular, whereas some of the bags were
equal. to the landing weight, others had increased, and
many were short lib. to 21b. How could this be the
'result of natural causes ? On the 9th of September
last he cleared one cask of coffee from the West India
Docks, and when it came home it was 11b. short of
weight. Subsequently he took out two more casks
of the same parcel, and found that one had lost 91b.;
and the only answer received from the docks, after a
delay of one month, was, that it must be attributed to
natural causes. , He trusted that the trade would take
steps to get satisfactory explanations, and have their
property protected; and concluded by putting the
first resolution, 'to the effect, " That the great losses
sustained upon coffee in the docks demanded redress."
Mr. Quicx seconded the resolution, and proceeded
to the detail of various losses incurred by his house
since the reduced duties came into operation.
Mr. SATOW thought that as the present meeting was
convened for the discussion of a trading fraud, it
might be well timed to call attention to the deficiency
arising upon other goods.
The CHAIRMAN observed that if too much were
undertaken, the .meeting might fail in its present ob-
ject. When the coffee trade had its losses redressed,
many other articles might be taken up on the same
principle. • •
Mr. SATOW recommended that a Society should be
formed, to include the merchants of every trade, -so
that their remonstrance might come with more force
before the Dock Companies. There were grounds of
complaint in reference to goods exported, and the tares
allowed were also not fair, and such as they used to be.
Mr. RowE concurred in the remarks of the last
gentleman. Other goods increased in the gross weight
as well as in the tares. There was a great anomaly, in
the various docki, and only one conclusion could be
drawn, and that was, that some malpractices were
carried on by the Companies' servants. Why, there-
fore, should not .a remonstrance be drawn up to in-
clude all goods, at, in the event of the coffee trade suc-
ceeding, the other merchants would have to go over
the same ground again. An endeavour should be made
to get the whole evil remedied at once.
Mr. WYLES objected to a coalition. They should
urge the
e c. it
offele
vaqs absolutely necessary that the in-
quiryuestion first, and take the others
a
should be made, as the deficiency must arise
from an imperfect method of:-weighing, for he had
observed upon personal attendance that the Crown
officers weighed goods without any one being by to
check them, and might therefore return wrong
weights more or less.
Mr. DELAFOSSE stated that coffee used, 20 years
ago, to weigh over the landing quantity, even after
being in dock seven or eight years, but that now,
upon a lot of 100 bags,' he had discovered a deficiency
-of 2201b5.
Mr. SCHNELLE said that if the coffee interest alone
remonstrated the Dock Companies would wonder why
they had ;iio complaint from any other branch of trade.
As a general merchant he might observe that losses
upon goods exported could not be recovered, for it
had been found ,that merchandise shipped to the Con-
tinent, even though but from 12 to 24 hours in Iran-
situ, was not,. upon arrival at its destination, of the
weight specified in the invoices. Parties in olland
had made frequent complaints upon this subject, and
though he did not mean to deny that frauds might be
committed in the warehouses abroad, yet it had been
made a point to weigh the goods immediately upon
their being landed at Rotterdam, and yet they were
found to .be- short. Complaints were made that the
English were losing their foreign trade, but such facts
would partly account fort the decline. Co-operation
and assistance were necessary in such cases, especially
as the coffee trade had been disappointed once in their
application.
The CHAIRMAN remarked that the present. meeting
was called to consider the coffee question only.
Mr. RICIIARDS begged again to call attention to
the fact that formerly coffee almost invariably in-
creased largely. Upon basks cleared in 1832 he had
increaseoafnBdolfbnssol.tbtsco 121bs. each.
Mr. till 1833, there had been an
to Vbs. ; and upon others landed
iain an
rresBa3le
Mr. HARnisori considered it animportant circum-
stance in their favour, as showing that coffee should
increase when left in the warehouses, that the Excise
formerly allowed two per cent. on the value, but
which it 'took away on the ground that the article
increased.in quantity.
The resolution as to the existence of frauds, &c.,
above given, was then put and carried.
Mr. HUBBERFIELD (of the firm of Peek Brothers)
moved that a Committee be appointed to remonstrate
with the Dock Companies on the subject, and to ob-
tain redress.
Mr. QUICK seconded the motion, which was agreed
to, and the following seven gentlemen were se-
lected :—Mr. Edwards, Mr. Richards, Mr. Hubber-
field, Mr. John; Wyles, Mr." Lewis,Mr. Richard
Hillhouse, and Mr. Quick.
After some remarks from Mr. Sydney and others,
thanks were voted, to the Chairman, and the meeting
adjourned.

EBENEZER ELLIOTT AND THE CHARTISTS.—The
following is a letter from Ebenezer Elliott to the
Chartists of Dunfermline Sirs,---Your letter of the,
24th of August last reached me this dayln-my fort-
nightly parcel from Sheffield. You ask me if ces-
sation from labour would be useful as a means of
procuring the Charter ?' Can any man, in his senses,
seriously put such a question to any man out of.
Bedlam ? Univerial cessation from labour is re-
volution; but it is necessarily involuntary—hence
its unresistible force. You could not command
it if you were mad enough to try ; and vo-
luntary cessation from labour being necessarily
partial, would leave you further from your object
than you are, if it is an honest one; for the less you
labour the less you will' have ; and the less you have,
the less able you will be to contend with your cunning
and merciless foes, The idea of obtaining the Charter
by refusing to labour, is about as wise as the plan of
T. C. Salt,
of Birmingham, to procure it by abstain-
ing from the use of tea and coffee, for which there are
no substitutes in bread-taxed England ; or as that of
the O'Connorites, to destroy class-legislation by sup-
porting the food-tax, its main bulwark ! If your op-
pressors care one straw for any number of such strate-
gists, they are as senseless as yourselves ; for your
strike has taught them, if they knew not before, that
it is easier to cut down square miles of you, than
to mow an equal breadth of oats. The bread-taxers,
I suspect, originated your strike ; and from the way
in which you use the name of Sturge, I suspect you
too, of treachery to the people. Surely, in bread-
, taxed Britain, the manufactories are likely to
stop quite soon enough of themselves ! When they
so stop, the conservators of wrong will have to
deal, not with a mob refusing inadequate wages,
but with a mob necessarily rioting every where at
the same moment because wages cannot be obtained
at all. Then Ivill come the beginning, of which
not one in three of you or them will see the end ; and
if such a result would please you, you are as base and
blind as they; for though a people universally unem-
ployed is necessarily a nation revolutionised, it by no
means follows that the Charter would be obtained
through revolution.
'the first French revolution ter-
minated in total non-representation,; and the second,
in a constituency of two hundred thousand, out of a
population of thirty-two millions.—l am, Sirs, your
oppressed fellow-countryman, EBENEZER ELLIOTT.--
Hargit-hill, Sept. 11,1842."