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‘ 
_ POLITICAL OCCURRENCES, Se. © 
m —— ee - 
UR dowmestie’ oceurrences: ‘do: not. 
“supply us’ either with a Topic of 
the, Month, ‘or ‘an_ article of political 
animadyersion,, ‘There’ are . rumours. 
that, the, Parliament will be. dissolved 
in Oc J ae there, has; been. some- 
anxiety about the, health, of Mr. Can- 
nmugyrrwho, like;.another .and»greater 
person, has ‘grown},into much: popu- 
lavity,.not only from the merit, which 
we by no'means- deny, of ‘certain mea- 
sures'‘and plans of public ‘advantage, 
but from a fearful sort of question or 
reflection—who is to succeed ? By the 
way, we may observe, that .Mr. Can~ 
ning, and some of his colleagues, have, 
we should think, at this time, almost as 
much reason to wish for a parliamen- 
tary reform, on. popular principles, as, 
the people themselves ; since it is evi- 
dent that, in more directions. than one, 
they see the desirableness of ‘doing 
more good than any such House, of 
Commons, as it is practicable to obtain. 
under the present system of detached. 
and monopolizing interests, will permit 
them to do. 
. We. trust that there is. no truth in 
the report. that certain Stock-jobbing 
Capitalists, &c. are endeavouring to 
iS company, and accumulate a 
for working the mines. of Spain ; 
thereby to enable Ferdinand, the faith- 
less and infatuated, to support the In- 
ition, and protract thehorrors.andina 
y, of that superstitious and. monarchie 
anarchy, whichis so rapidly obliterating 
Spain from the map. of civilized na- 
tions, If there, be in England such a 
knot of ‘speculators, we shall be cha- 
vitablé enough to’ pray that disappoint+ 
ment, bankruptcy and beggary may be 
their reward, 
Some elaborate and curious state- 
its haye been printed of the amount 
of the precious metals, exported from 
this country between the Ist of Jan. 
1824, and the Ist of April 1825; like- 
wise of the quantity exported during 
the months of last April, May,-and 
June. The total of these exports, as 
en at the custom-house, has beea— 
Ingold ..,... £8,550,000 
‘In silver... 3,223,379 
£11,773,379 
nearly 12,000,000 sterling, as it: ap- 
_. Monrury Mag. No. 414. 
pears,’ within. the space) of eighteen. 
months,’ To this’ may ‘be’ added. the, 
estimated amount of exported specie 
which has not been entered at the cus- 
tom-house ;. if this be taken, at. about 
£5,;200,000, the whole will amount. to 
nearly 17,000,000. sterling, or not much. 
short. of a million a month.) 00 ear 
From a return. of :the:slave popula-, 
tion of ‘the British Colonies, it appears. 
that the slaves on our’ West-India pos- 
sessions, including Demarara, amounted 
by the last statements to 552,400; and 
the slave inhabitants of the Cape of 
Good Hope and the: Mauritius, to 
120,694—total, 673,094. Such is, or 
was not long ago, the .extent of the: 
responsibility incurred. by. England, on. 
the score of negro bondage, .In the. 
details of this report, however, there/are, 
one or two points worth considering... 
Our West-India Islands, -with~ the. 
single exception of Trinidad, present 
an excess of females over males; not 
great, indeed, but as compared with 
every free population that. we .have 
heard. of, sufficiently sensible and, strik~ 
ing. In Barbadoes, for instance, where 
the number: of slaves is: but 78,816, the 
females: are '42}657,. yielding a). surplus 
over the males: of about’ 6,500, or 
nearly one-twelfth of the whole. « Ja- 
maica exhibits a much nearer approach 
to equality. ‘In a gross population of 
336,000, the excess of females is not 
more than 3,000, or zhsth of the 
whole. Im Trinidad, the males exceed 
the females by 3,400, in a population 
of. 23,000; but the abolition of the 
slave trade began:to. operate:in Trinidad 
more recently than in the old: colonies 
of Great Britain.’ The excess:of males 
in the Mauritius, by the last returns 
(so long ago as 1816), was frightful— 
55,000 to: 29,000 females!; the: over- 
plus of: men. was an infallible conse- 
quence of an obstinate and heartless 
prosecution of the slave trade, for the 
end of extracting the utmost possible 
amount of work from the labourer, of 
feeding no superfluous mouths, and of 
repairing the waste of human life; not 
by the encouragement of marriage and 
its consdlatory influences, but by a repe- 
tition of the same atrocities, through 
which the victims successively destroy- 
ed had been originally dragged to. the 
sacrifice, > MPR 
The 
