Population And Prosperity Of Liberia

- 1 he African Luminary, a paporpublished by the Methodist Mission, ia Li lerifi, Iets us into the nrcana ofthe country. Extracts of napers receivcd last weck arégóiag ihe rounds uf the press, from which it appears that ihe populalion generally stated at five or six thousand, is, in fact, but half that number: and that the apparenf, or rather alle'ged, prosperiiy oí' the seltlemenl may be fully accounted for, n consisiency with all the adverso cvidence witli regard lo its nnttiral aad oihcr defect?, from the single fact thajt the various misiionary socielies expendabout sixty ihousiind dollars a yearin tliut country. We will not now iuquire in!o the uttlity "ofthis expendiiurc, as respes is (he cause of miï-sions, biit t 15 evident lïnt sixty thousand dollars, ín money, expended yearly aniong a population of "2,500 equal (o $24 for every man, woraen and child, must be a great relief in keeping off poveriy, and owght to produce a state of universal pros perity. So ía'r from being ihe effect, hows ever, we find in tho same papers evidence of the continued prevalence of the most distressing poverty and general want. - For aboul fifteen years past, the people of ihis country have been told, as ofien as once in two or thrce years, that ihe colonists hnd at lungth become fu!!y senible of llieir past errors, in turnin somuch'of their altention to petty traffic, and that they were now going to dev te themselves sedulously to agriculture. Wiihin less thnn six monlhs, our papers have teemed wilh statements of this kind, all made on the besf authortty- of coursc! Nowit comes out, that with a favorable season, the colony iias not raised its own provisions, but would certainly undergo the horrors of famine, were it not for (he provipionssent