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Leader (1850-1860), 1st June 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 226

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    • POSTSCRIPT., Saturday, June 1.
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      Untitled Article

      Sir John had full confidence in hi « management of the crew once the vessel was fairly clear of Jjochryan . — Shipping Gazette . , . , The King of Naples has , we are informed , authorized the burning of sulphur in Sicily throughout the entire year . Pyrites from Cornwall and Ireland is , however , increasing in consumption , and will continue to do so unless the price of brimstone be brought more withm the reach of our manufacturers . In the fens around Scalding great breadths of land have lately been employed in growing chicory , for which there is a very great demand . So profitable has the speculation been found , that this year more than double the quantity of land has been sown , as it pays much better than wheat , and the soil is well adapted for its production .

      . , , ,..,... „__ .. „ .. During the past week whole waggon loads of very fine cauliflowers have passed through Lincoln to the railway station , for the purpose of being conveyed to the large towns in the manufacturing districts , where there is a great demand . Whole acres of land around Spalding have been employed in raising them , and still more next year will be planted . —Lincoln Advertiser . The Rev . Henry James , vicar of Willingdon , was killed on Saturday , by falling from the cliffs at Beachy Head , while in the act of descending a dangerous part of the rocks .

      A sailor was found drowned at the Hythe on Thursday week ; an inquest was held on the body and a verdict to that effect returned : when the body was stripped for burial , however , the supposed sailor was found to be a female , a poor girl who had been engaged In seaman ' s garb , only a week before , at Harwich . Three gentlemen belonging to Manchester , Mr . A . J . Coates , Mr . G . North , and Mr . Porter , who were on a visit to Mr . John Morris , of Silverdale , together with servants , whose names are not given , were drowned near Hest ' s Bank Hotel , Morecombe Bay , on Friday week . They had attempted to walk some distance along the shore , in order to get a boat to take them across the bay , and were surrounded by the tide before they could reach the boat .

      According to the Limerick Chronicle , mortality and emigration have so thinned the ranks of the Roman Catholic priests in that diocese , that Bishop Ryan has not a clergyman to fill a vacant curacy at BrufF . A destructive fire took place at the Great Western Cotton Works , at Bristol , on Thursday morning , by which 2000 persons will be thrown out of employment . The damage exceeds £ 5000 . A fire broke out in the shop of a Mr . Kelvin , in the

      town of Clonmel , on Saturday morning , and , before assistance could be afforded to the inmates , Mrs . Kelvin , her three children , two servant women , and a young woman who attended the shop , were suffocated by smoke . Mr . Augustus Iiolman , and his son , Joseph Holman , cloth-manufacturers , Leeds , were apprehended last week on a charge of having forged and uttered two acceptances , one for £ 390 , and the other for £ 330 13 s . 6 d . The elder prisoner is an extensive manufacturer , employing from 100 to 200 hands , and was much respected .

      On Thursday judgment was pronounced on Mr . Kenealy , the barrister , for excessive punishment of his child . The Court did not " impute anything wrong to the defendant , who had punished the child for his good ; but they were bound to pass such a punishment as would be an example to others not to exceed the bounds of moderation . " The sentence was one month ' s

      imprisonment . The Chief Baron of the Exchequer , in the case of a woman who , being separated from her husband and allowed a maintenance by him , had managed to save £ 105 . 12 s ., and who had given this to her brother , has ruled that , where a wife saves out of her maintenance , the money becomes the property of the husband , and she has no right whatever to give it away or apply it in any manner without the consent of the husband .

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      Mr . Albert Smith has turned his travels in the East to profitable account , by getting up a very amusing entertainment , which he calls " The Overland Mail . " His object in this is to pourtray by means of personal descriptions , aided by scenic illustration , the various interesting features which attract the attention of the traveller on the route from Suez to Boulogne . Mr . Smith relates a succession of anecdotes , interspersed with characteristic songs , and illustrates them by a series of views , which pass before the spectators in the form of a moving panorama .

      Untitled Article

      HEALTH OF LONDON DURING THE WEEK . ( From the Registrar General ' s Returns . ) In the week fueling last Saturday , the deaths registered in the metropolitan districts were 860 , a number which , it is satisfactory to find , is still below the average corrected for increase of population , though it almost exactly coincides with the average if taken without such correction . During the corresponding weeks of ten previous years , 1840 <) , the deaths rose by nearly constant progression from 703 in the first year , to 070 in 1848 ; the avenge , with an addition for present population , is 911 , compared with which , the number returned last weeks shows a decrease of 78 . The deaths of two women

      nre recorded as the direct result of intemperance ; and , besides these , a blacksmith hanged himself , in a state of unsound mind , caused by intemperance ; and a olerk , fined twenty-four years , drowned himself " in temporary insanity brought on by excessive drinking . " The births registered last week were 1 . 312 . The mean daily reading of the barometer in the week was 29 . 480 in . The mean temperature was 55 deg . 5 tnin ., and was rnther higher than the average of tho snme week in seven years . On Tucsduy tho mean temperature . was G deg . above the avernge of the same day ; on Wednesday , Friday , and Saturday , it was more than 1 deg . below it .

      Untitled Article

      The second reading of the Australian Colonies Government Bill was moved in the House of Lords last evening by Earl Grey , who explained the object of the present bill to be the provision of a free , regular , and constitutional government for the British dependencies in Australasia . Earl Grey went on to detail the prospective clauses of the measure designed to unite the several colonies at some future time into a federal state . This union will , however , be entirely voluntary on the part of the colonists . Free constitutions being once accorded to the colonists , he considered that no change should take place without their own consent . le of the

      Earl Fitzwilliam approved of the princip measure as calculated to provide free institutions for future millions of our fellow-subjects , but objected to its form as imperfect , observing that it was not constitutions but constituent assemblies which would be furnished to the colonies . Lord Monteagle also criticised many of the details of the measure , which he hoped would be amended in committee . Earl Granville supported the bill- He thought that the question of the electoral franchise ought to be left to the local Legislatures , who would be best able to settle the question satisfactorily . Lord Wodehouse was at a loss to know how the

      federal system was to be constructed , and if constructed , how it could work . Lord Stanley , although in favour of a single chamber at the outset of new legislative institutions for the colonies , thought the time had arrived when , from the increase of the population in New South Wales , it might be advisable to adopt the double chamber principle , but he was of opinion that Parliament should reserve to itself the right of imparting the power which two assemblies would give . After a few words from Earl Ghey in reply , the bill was read a second time , and ordered to be committed on the 10 th of June .

      The House of Commons occupied the whole of last evening in the discussion of the Slavery Question . Sir F . Buxton moved a resolution , that it is unjust and impolitic to expose the free grown sugar of the British colonies and possessions abroad to unrestricted competition with the sugar of foreign slave-trading countries . The question , he observed , was one of great importance to the West India colonies , but of still greater importance to the interests of humanity ; and he viewed the question as one of humanity and of high moral principle rather than of trade or as affecting the prosperity of our colonies . He traced

      the history of the alteration in the sugar duties from 1841 , when those on slave grown sugar had been reduced to a scale which it was then supposed would have enabled our colonial sugar to compete wi th its rival in the British market , to 1846 , when the measure was introduced against which he complained . Though the effects of that measure had been mitigated by the alteration in 1848 , whereby the colonists were granted a comparative respite , there was nothing in the condition of our West India colonies which warranted the supposition that when the differential duties were brought to a level the distress in the West Indies would not be as great as before . Those colonies were able to compete with America , the French colonies , and Surinam , but

      not with such countries as Cuba and Brazil , which could recruit their labouring population by the importation of fresh slaves , whom they could work like horses night and day . It was not the interest of the colonies , however , but that of humanity , which prompted his motion . If there was one principle which this country had maintained more than another , at home and abroad , it was this—that , having once abolished slavery in our own colonies , it endeavoured to do all that was incumbent upon a great and Christian nation to put it down in other countries ; and he hoped the time would never arrive when that great principle was abandoned . He then recapitulated and obviated some of the objections to his motion . Cotton , it was said , was likewise

      raised by slave labour ; but our manufacturers arc dependent upon that raw material . If slave-grown sugar were excluded here , it was argued that the same quantity would be sent to other countries . But , in fact , tho Cubn sugar-growers looked upon this country as their chief market , llcmintling the House of the misery and destruction of life attending the slave trade , he urged that , if the slave-grown sugar of Cuba and Brazil were admitted to free competition with our own sugar we must make up our minds that we were promoting a system which produced as much misery and degradation as could exist in any human condition , and which was the worst enemy of civilization and of the diffusion of the Gospel in Africa . Mr . W . Evans seconded the motion .

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      Mr . Httme admitted that it was most unjust to subject our colonies to an unrestricted competiti on with foreign slave-importing countries , but he considered that if we gave our colonists a free supply of labour , they would be able to compete with Cuba , Brazil , and every other country . The moment that free-labour produce could be made cheaper than slave-labour produce the latter would cease , and to that end the efforts of the House should be directed . By carrying negroes from Africa to the West Indies . . »• * * . . w « .

      where they might be employed as apprentices , and subsequently as free-labourers , this object might be effected . He concluded by moving as an amendment , the addition of the following words : — *« That at the same time the British Government interposes difficulties that prevent the colonies from procuring a sufficient supply of free labourers from Africa and other places , that might enable , those colonies to compete in the production of sugar with the foreign slave-holding and slave-trading countries . " Mr . Mangles opposed Sir E . Buxton ' s motion .

      Colonel Thompson never thought of going on Freetrade principles when a question of morality was involved . He was governor of Sierra Leone in the years 1808 , 1809 , and 1810 , and he could say from his experience and observation that the apprenticeship system was a complete delusion . Mr . G . Berkeley denied that the condition of the West Indies was bettered by the act of 1848 . He described the deplorable state of British Guiana , giving an instance of one estate , which a few years ago produced £ 10 , 000 per annum , and which was sold a few months ago for £ 2000 .

      Mr . Wilson insisted that all the predictions made in 1846 of the evil results that would follow the policy then adopted had been utterly falsified , and he referred to a variety of returns and calculations to prove that in Ceylon , the Mauritius , and the West Indies , the cultivation of sugar had greatly increased , and that the produce of all , for the present year , would be greater still . The production in all the British possessions had increased twenty per cent , since 1846 , outstripping the increase in Cuba or Brazil .

      He could not question the late distress in the sugargrowing colonies , but he emphatically denied that that had been caused by the withdrawal of protection . It had been caused by the vicious systems that had grown up in the sugar estates . l ) uring the last three years , our consumption of free-labour British sugar had increased , whereas our consumption of slave-labour sugar had decreased ; thus showing that , despite of declining protective duties , our colonial sugars obtained the advantage of our greatlyincreased consumption .

      Mr . Stanley , in a maiden speech , of very great promise , contended , from the experience they had had in some of the colonies , that Mr . Hume ' s proposition would not be attended with success in countries where the people could live without working at all , and who , therefore , would not work , even if industriously inclined , without being well paid . Free labour they might give in abundance to the colonies , but cheap labour never . He assured the House that from Canada to Jamaica , from the St . Lawrence to Essrquibo , there was but one growing feeling pervading all classes— -a feeling that there was a waning attachment on the part of the mother country towards her colonies .

      Mr . Hutt opposed the motion . Sir J . Pakington supported the motion , yet he did not think it went far enough , inasmuch as it did not declare how far free-labour sugar was to be ptotected . SJr Charles Wood hoped the House would take into its consideration the interests of the consumer , and refrain from checking the active spirit of enterprise which was springing up in the West Indies , by inducing them to look for aid to protective duties , instead of relying upon their own exertions . Mr . Gladstone declared that the crisis of distress in

      the West Indies had grown more acute from year to year , and had been rendered more dangerous by every successive measure of legislation , beginning with the act for emancipating the slave population . To tho artificially-produced scarcity of labour , the act of 1 S 4 G , reducing the protective duties , added a fresh element of distress to tho half-ruined coloniftR . There were no signs of rallying from that stroke ; and , although he did not look to protective duties to secure permanent prosperity for the West Indies , he wished to have the removal of protection arrested for a while , and time allowed to the colonial landlords and the British capitalists to combine , in preparation for the novel state of things .

      Lord Palmerston opposed the motion , confident that protection never had benefited the West Indies , nor could do so ; and looked for a better result from the improvements in cultivation under the stimulus of unrestricted commerce . The competition which the West Indies complained of arose not merely from Cuba , but from the East , from Mauritius , and other countries employing free labour . Sir E . Buxton briefly replied , and the House divided . For the motion , 23 i ; against , 275 : majority , 41 . The House adjourned at two o'clock .

      Postscript., Saturday, June 1.

      POSTSCRIPT ., Saturday , June 1 .

      Untitled Article

      TO CO KRESrON DENTS . Several Communications are necessarily omitted this week , partly from want of space , and in some cases owing to their arriving too late .

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      226 &t ) * iieaire t * [ Saturday , . __ . i - ¦ —~—— - ^^^ —^^—^^^——

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 1, 1850, page 226, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1841/page/8/