Star.
London, England, 1831-04-18 00:00:00

THE CIVIL LIST.

At a period when the fornication of the civil list of a new
reign, is under the consideration of Parliament, and engages
the attention of the public, it may not be uninteresting to
our readers to know what were the sentiments of a popular
writer, in the year 1774, upon the subject of court expen-
diture. Dr. Burgh, in the 2d vol. of his political disquisi-
tions, says—
., To trust our all, without account, to a set of frail men, and then
to put those men in such circumstances as are likely to betray us—
what
end can be imagined more contrary to wisdom. Several millions
a year laid out in supporting the power of the Court. And this not I
' sufficient ; of such a glowing nature is corruption,
Nothing of this boundless, unaccountable waste could have place in
a republic. Ido not mention this as any rale:ion on our kings. It I
is but a small part of this immense sum that Is consumed by them in
Irropria persona, or that is laid out on their families. But in a
Republic, Judge Blackstone would not have wrote as follows :—' It is
impossible to support that dignity which • King of Great Britain
should maintain, with an income In any degree less than what is now
established by Parliament.' According to the learned judge, whatever
is, is right. But surely, with all due submission, the dignity of a
British monarch does not consist in his spending arge sums of his
poor people's money ; but rather in his sparing their purses, and set-
ting
them an example of frugality. With the learned judge's good
leave. it is the dignity (if dignity it must be called) of the ministry
and their new, much more than the King's, that devours the civil list.
So that the plain English of what the learned judge has written. will
be what folloys.—' it is impossible to support that influence which a
British minister should maintain, with an income in any degree less
than several millions per annum,'.—than which I cannot conceive a
more ruinous political doctrine.

Reverting. to this topic in a subsequent passage, the Dr.
says—
" If die nobility were to serve their country la the great offices of
state, grafts, the heroism would be nothing more than is shewn by
private trustees, arbitrators, church-wardens, overseers of the poor, and
other Parish.offieers. Are thou poor low bred creatures, whom our
polite courtiers call the scum of the earth, more disinterested than
the nobility of ;he land ? If the nobility and gentry decline serving
their.country in the great offices of state, without sordid hire, let the
honest bourgeoisie be employed. Why should not our kings, when a
court place falls vacant, publish, that they want a secretary of state,
or a Lord Chamberlain, or a Lord Steward; places which any man of
common sense or honesty can fill; the business being all mete
routine? And why should they not order all persons desirous of
the vacant employments to send in their proposals. sealed, (u
when there is a fleet to victual, or a public work to be done,)
and aceept him who oars to serve his country on the most reasonable
terms ? Let the person chosen bring in his bill of expenses. There is
no reason why the public should nut repay what is fairly laid oat tor
the public benefit. If it should be thought proper to give a statesman
who has shown himself able and honest, 500 guineas fot a ring, as was
given the great Admiral Drake for services of greater danger and more
importance than those of our state secretaries, I have no objection. But
that half our nobility should be on the parish, I mean on the public, I
own I see no manner of reason ; nor that a set of places, which might
be filled at the expense of a few hundreds a year, must cost the nation
many hundred thousands, while we are sinking in a bottomless sea or
debt.

"Ask the courtiers what produces the present clamours, and all
clatnours against government, which is always immaculate? They
will answer the desire of places and preferments ; which may be I
partly true. But why then do they not reduce the incomes of the places ,
u low as is Holland ? Why des, they not abolish all that are useless ?
They do the very contras y. They are continually increasing the num.
bee, if not the value of them. They are continually heaping on fuel,
and then they swear and blaspheme, because the fire continues to rage.
Instead of the challenge whose ox, or whose ass has the King (or the
Minister) taken • we may ask the crew, when farthing candle, or
whose small bee; have they not taxed ? A poor bard-working man,
1 who has a wife and six children to maintain, can neither enjoy the glo-
rious light of Heaven, nor the glimmering of a tallow taper, without
paying the window•tax, and the, candle•tax. He rises earlyond sits
up late • be fills up the whole day with severe labour, he goes to his
dock-bed with half a bellyfull 41. bread sad cheese, that his wife and
little atarvellogs may hate the more. In the meanwhile the exactoreof
these taxes are revelling at Mrs. Cornelly's maaqiserade, at the expense
of more money for one evening's amusement than the wretched hard-
working man, who I. obliged to find the mossy for them to squander,
can earn by belt -a-year's severe labour."

CHOLER .4 MORBUS.
A Report has been presented to the Council of Health, at
Paris, by M. Moreau de Jones, upon the irruption of the
pestilential cholera ruorbue, into Russia, in the mime,
and autumn of 1830. It appears front this production, that
the author had been specially commissiened by the council to
watch the progress of this dreadful niniaily since its appear-
ance
in India in 1819. and that the present is the tenth
report which he has produced in the discharge of thatduty.
He adverts to the information contained in Ids Ninth Repo; t,
with regard to the ravages co fitted by the cholera in the
Government of Orenburg, in .Vte vicinity of the Caspian
Sea, in the year 1821:00.and says, that the conjecture he
had expressed of its heti!). g been introduced by one of the
caravans from Bokara, seems to be confirmed by the qua
rautine regulations to which tin Russian Government 1. t
since since subjected the ineecouree with that city. Bo-
kara is the Brand commercial entrep.it of central Asia, and
the caravans employed in the trade het -veen it and Orenburg,
have, since the year 1813, freqiunitly carried off from 3,001)
to 4,000 men, with • many camels loaded with the mer-
chandize of Thibet, Cebu!, and Indostan. Though the
cholera of Orenhurg seems thus to be traced to India as its
source, there is reason te suppose, that the cholera which
ravaged the southern provinces of Russia in the course of
last year. did not arrive by the route of Orenburg. The
great fair of Nijni-Noweered, which brings together up-
wards of 100,000 do:!ers in the commodities of Asia, hay -
ing been held in 1830, without the manifestation of any
contagious disorder, it is concluded that the severity of the
winter in 1829-30, together with the rigid measures of pre-
caution enforced by goverantent, lied extinguished the
germs of the dieease in Orenburg.
The pestilential malady of 1830 is traced to Indic
theme!, another channel. It menifetod itself at Basso-all
in 1821, in consequence of the inte.couree between that
place and Bombay, and thence ascending along the FA'
I hrates, spread into Syria on the one hand, and into Persia
on the other. In Syria it disappeared during the succeeding
winter, but again burst forth, in the spring of 1822, with
redoubled virulence, and continued its ravages during that
and the year 1823, when it suddenly became extinct befor
it had reached the Egyptian frontier. In Persia, the coats •
glen, in the course of two years, extend,d itself as fur as
the shores of the Caspian ; and in September, 1823, it
broke out at Astracan, and in the Rusiian flotilla on the
Volga. Its farther propagation, however, in that direction
was, upon this oczasion, checked by a premature frost, and
the measures adopted to prevent its re-appearance in the en-
suing season proved effectual. In the apprehension of a
contrary result, the Ituesian Goeernment applied to the Pa-
risian Council of Health for advice, whe sent to St. Petersburg
M. Moreau de Joues's Report of 1823, with a request.
that the medical observations made on the symptoms and
treatment of the disorder at Astracan should be communi-
cated to the counci.. To this request no reply was made—
" a circuinstence," s les the reporter, " which need not ex-
cite any surplise. wh...n it is recollected with how much indif-
ference these matters are treated in countries not so remote."
When the cholera first made its appearance in Persia, the
sovereign of that country, shut up in Teheran, suspended all
communication s ith the infected districts, and thus kept
that capital free front the contagion for a series of years.
His vigilance, however, relaxed in 1829, and in the motel'
of October, the cholera manifested itself in the royal resi-
dence. The approach of winter inteerupted its progress ;
but in the month of June, 1830, it agai 'broke out in
the Persian provinces of Chirvan and Meteanderan, and
proceeding along the sout hem shore of theiCespian, re;acheil
Recht, Zinzi.i, and Tauris. The deaths by i• in Tauris alone
amounted to 5000. Crossing' the Hossein frontier, it pene-
trated into New Georgia, and tile provinces of Ch,ki and
Ganja ; and by the 2d of eugu .t, the cases of infecti in in
that quarter amounted to 4,557, of which 1665 proved fatal.
On the Bth of the same month, it made its ap, earance at
Tiflis, and, according to a letter from the French Consul,
from the fatal effects of the disease, and the fright of those
wishing to escape them, a population of thirty thoneand
persons was, in the course of a few weeks, reduced to eig:it
thousand.

On the 31st of July, the first symp:oms of the contagion
were discovored at Astracan ; and in ten days from that
dat?. of 1229 patients, 433 died. On the 17th of August.
the date of the latest account referred to in the Report, the
deaths were mare than 100 per day. In the province
of which Astracan is the capital, there perished, in
a s:agle fortnight 21;268 inhabitants. From Astracan, the
contagion, ascending along the banks of the Volga, soon
reached Douskaia, the nearest point of communication be-
tween that river and the Don, which falls into the sea of
Azof. Taking the latter direction, it, by the beginning of
October, bad advanced as far as Sebastopolis, at the southern
extremity of the Crimea ; and, soon after, notwithstanding
the utmost vigilance on the part of the constituted authori-
ties, a few cases of the malady are understood to have oc-
curred at Odessa. The contagion, in its westerly progress,
reached Moscow by the 28th of September, having, within
two months from its appearance at Astracan, traversed a
space of 350 leagues in length, and in little more than the
same period, spread over a surface of forty-six thou-
sand five hundred square leagues, a space surpassing in ex-
tent France, Germany and the Netherlands. The statements
respecting the effects of the disorder at Moscow, are al-
ready known to our Readers. They suggest the observa-
tion, that the danger of being attacked by the pestilential
cholera is less in the high latitudes of Europe than in the
warm countries of Asia; but that, in the cases of the indi-
viduals Bei* by it, its tropical virulence undergoes no di-
minution. In both regions, the proportion of deaths is
from one-third to one-half of the total number of patients.
In this respect, the cholera seems to be subject to the same
law as the European yellow fever, compared with that of
tropical America. The Reporter then proceeds to state his
expectation, that the cold of winter in the districts of Russia
lying between the 45th and 57th degrees of latitude will
be found to have destioyed the germs of the disease ; but
on the contrary supposition, or on that of the disorder
being reproduced in the ensuing season by accompanying
the movements of the Russian troops from the southward,
he urges the Board of Health to impress upon the French
government the propriety of calling the attention of its mi-
nisters and consuls in the northern and eastern countries to
this subject, and of being on the alert, on the earliest indi-
cation of danger, to take effectual means to prevent the im-
portation of the contagion by land, or from the ports of the
Baltic, or those of the Black Sea.

Lord Althorp, Mr. Hume, the Chancellor, &c. &c. stool
pledged, in by-gone tunes, to correct the vicious system of
arrest in ine.iie process, Visions of improvement pass away
like tlre ms, and the sheriff's officers and the bail courts, with
all their degradation, extortion, and chicanery continue to
disgrace the name of iaw. If office spoils men for duty, Mr.
Hume is not so spoiled, and now be might calculate on a
ministerial majority. There ought to be no arrest under
1001 oa simple contract debts, nor under 501. on bills or
bond : one_ bai:, certified by parish authorities, should be ac-
cepted without justification, end be liable for only fire per
cent.:costs : the person should not be liable in execution uw
lees there are not effects; plaintiffs, too, should be obliged
to insert iu the athdavit that application for payment bad
been made, at leist three days
,before . affidavit, and [wi-
ther the money nor witficieni se. urity tendered. Reason and
justice, and humanity, demand such a law, and 'ortliwith.