Foreign Literature and Science, 389 



tional character and public utility, and 1 attend very assidu- 

 ously the discussion of the Chamber in order to inform my- 

 self, by the light which is often there thrown upon objects 

 of the greatest interest. I listened with extreme impatience 

 to the discussion of the law relative to the tariff, because I 

 foresaw that sugar would certainly be the grand war horse, 

 against which, the lances of the strongest combatants* would 

 be broken. All that I could there collect which amounted to 

 demonstration, is that France consumes one hundred mil- 

 lions pounds of sugar; that our colonies produced in 1821, 

 forty-four millions kilogrammes, and that the surplus is 

 drawn from foreign countries. This consumption proves 

 that of the whole of Europe must exceed six hundred mil- 

 lions of pounds of sugar annually, and that in adding to 

 this the value of the rum made from the molasses of this 

 same sugar, it results that the new world, raises for this sin- 

 gle object, an annual impost of six hundred millions of francs 

 upon ancient Europe. Disgusted at not hearing in this sol- 

 emn discussion a single word relative to the richest discov- 

 ery of the age, the fabrication of European sugar, I opened 

 the eighth number of Annalcs Europeenns, and I there found 

 a statement which demonstrates with mathematical evi- 

 dence, 1st. that the sugar of beets, is made with the same 

 facility as bread. 2d. That this sugar may be easily ob- 

 tained, of a quality superior to that of the finest American 

 sugars. 3d. That France may not only fabricate enough 

 for its own consumption, but that it might dispose of per- 

 haps a hundred millions to its neighbours. 4th. That this 

 would be the means of employing very happily more than 

 a million of poor persons, of producing a harvest upon many 

 millions of acres left unemployed, of fattening annually a 

 hundred thousand cattle ; in short, of .'ealizing new treas- 

 ures in favour of France, and of producing a great extension 

 of comforts in every class of the nation. 



I could say much more upon this important subject, as 

 well as upon many others of the same kind, but if you have 

 the goodness to admit this letter into your Journal, I shall 

 make it a duty to add something hereafter. 



24. Statistics of Egypt. — Every traveller in Egypt attri- 

 butes to the Vice Roy, all the qualities of a statesman. 



(*Ia the MS.competents.) 



