in which he performed service twice on the Sabbath, was the only sphere of his exertions. Here he passed several years, still endeavouring to render himself useful, for he kept a school during some days of the week, though he received no salary for it. The people pitied their aged pastor, but, like Dutch traders, their pity did not warm the heart, for they allowed him a very small income, that scarcely raised him above poverty. Their manners were simple, and their converse, as well as souls, centred wholly in their commerce; he found a welcome in their dwellings whenever he chose to enter; but he felt that the society of the phlegmatic and mindless men of Chinsura was a sad contrast to the circles of Calcutta. According to his own confession, he was now brought to a knowledge of himself; it was a knowledge darkly and fearfully purchased! Chinsura was but thirty miles distant from Calcutta; it was a mere excursion, often taken for pleasure, on the river Hoogly, by the civil as well as military servants of the Company; the route into the interior also lay that way, yet none came to see him, none sent a friendly greeting, or even a message of sympathy to the heart that was bleeding at the unkindness of the world. O, could he have seen some well-known footstep draw nigh his door, or hear one voice of the many that he once loved to hear. He was changed only in outward circumstances; his intellect was as powerful as ever, and his fine and sorrow-stricken countenance, and his conversation full of various knowledge and learning, were strange to meet with in such a place. But his home, whose latch was seldom lifted, the few volumes of his beloved Oriental lore, now his only companions, his thrifty meal, prepared by his own hand-told more indelibly than Persian, Arabian, or even the son of Sirach, could have told, that the human heart is faithless as the wave, even as the passing blast, and that poverty is cruel as the grave. His great possessions were not utterly passed away; a remnant remained, but it was withheld from him. Part had been laid out in the purchase of houses in Calcutta, in junction with some of his acquaintance, for rents being very high at this period, it was considered a good speculation. He had expended many sums on these dwellings; the speculation did not answer, and they fell, on the failure of his fortunes, into the hands of his associates, who reaped the benefit, while to him it was a total loss. A pittance out of this property, or even of its rents, would have made the exile of Chinsura at ease in his circumstances. Though infirmities were gathering on his frame, he was still able to go forth, at times, into the country around. Dutch republic; the settlement at Chinsura was captured, and Kiernander became a prisoner of war; in which character he received from the English Government the pittance of fifty rupees a-month, as a subsistence. He lost his office, and he lost his liberty, even at eighty-six years of age. At last, the English, pitying his age and misfortunes, allowed him to go to Calcutta; he took leave of Chinsura with a faltering step, and a heart almost broken; he had looked upon it as the last asylum on this side the grave, a rest from all his troubles, where he would wait And now he was calmly till his hour should come. to go again to that city of pride and luxury, and seek friends-friends to a poor man bordering on ninety. If Calcutta had such within its bosom, their names should be written in letters of gold. He arrived in the city, and wandered through the streets, and passed by the doors of the rich, the high, and the unhappy, where he was once so welcome. O! when his own home met his eye, what must have been his feelings, where he had lived with the proud and beautiful Anne, in his chambers of luxury? The dwelling was still there, but no one, in the bowed, the humbled, and suffering man, recognized the once admired and beloved Kiernander. The few who would still have soothed his desertion, had gone down to the grave; Clive At last he found a rehad perished by his own hand. lative of one of his wives, who opened his door to him. In the following spring, when in the eighty-eighth year of his age, rising from his chair too suddenly, he fell, and broke his thigh, and lingered long in agony. If any man had ever cause to pray to be allowed to depart in peace, it was Kiernander. Did no one remember, of the wealthy and the devout, that the noble church in which they weekly worshipped was raised by the man who was lingering, hard by, in torture and desertion. The dwelling in which he was received, had few comforts; for the circumstances of the inmates were narrow, and they had six children: they probably regarded their aged guest as a burden. The Rev. David Brown, the chaplain at Calcutta, and a few others, visited him at times, in order to comfort him with their counsel. But Kiernander had higher comfort: it was not the will of God to give bitterness of heart in the midst of such exquisite misery-his cup was full-and the hand that had so long chastened, now poured into his spirit the richest consolation, the brightest hope. And what counsel could his visitors offer to this man of nearly a century compared to the stores which his strange and chequered life had laid up? Even now, his mind was in all its vigour; it was sad, yet beautiful, to sit at his bed-side, and hear him tell how he had suffered; how he had known all that love, or riches, or learning could give to man-and that now he was going home to his rest. The town of Serampore, where he had once laboured, was but a few miles distant, a beautifully clean and quiet little town; and he loved to go there at times, for he found a few to whom he had been useful in his earlier days, who had He spoke also of Akstad, in Sweden, his dear native not forgotten him; they said that they had once been bles- place! he blessed the hour when he first left it, to labour sed under his ministry, that it had first called them to God. in the cause of heaven. "My heart is full, but my hand is Kiernander was deeply moved at the words that were to him weak," writes the dying man, in one of his last letters to his inexpressibly sweet. It was not the voice of the world; it distant land, "the world is yet the same; there are many could not be false! There were many lovely spots around cold friends; others like broken reeds: but God makes the the banks of the Hoogly, for they were well cultivated, and heaviest burden light and easy: 1 rejoice to see the poor laid out in fields and plantations, among which were the mission prosper; this comforts me amidst all." He then ancient woods, as yet unfelled. At a small distance was goes on, with great clearness, to depict the then state of the French settlement of Chandernagore, to which the vic- India, and predicts, with singular accuracy, the extension tories of Clive had brought decay; all spoke of desolation of the British power through every part of the empire:large and lofty houses nearly deserted, and warehouses" When I first landed, sixty years ago, there was not any half empty. From the forsaken monastery the priests had taken flight; the scenery around was wild and impressive -silent ghauts, deep and lone ravines. The residence of the former governors, a superb house, was a lesson to put no trust in prosperity; fragments of doors and windows. The roof of what was the music-room, and that of the banqueting room beneath, had fallen in; and the sun-light, falling fiercely on the faded colours on the walls, shewed that they were once decorated with taste. The venerable missionary, on whose head so many storms had beat, now turned his thoughts and desires towards that world, where the heartless and the proud can trouble no more. From this last resting-place he was rudely thrust forth. 1795, war was declared by the English against In the more than a little territory, or small tract of land, of about memory, pass away. High talents and endowments are of receive company; but, as if spell-bound, she was unable to little avail in a missionary, without consistency of charac-move or speak. The carriage approached, and as it arrived ter. But we should not forget that he lavished his wealth within a few yards of the window, she saw the figures of in the cause, and impoverished himself to rear a beautiful the postilions and the persons inside take the ghastly aptemple for his fellow Christians: for sixty years he sought pearance of skeletons and other hideous figures. The whole the good of others; and founded the mission and the church then vanished entirely, when she uttered the above-menat Calcutta, where they have since known such power and tioned exclamation. splendour. After expending twelve thousand pounds on this object, he left it for ever, and wandered to Chinsura, with a EUROPEAN SHEEP.-Nearly every country in Europe has its pittance of forty pounds, supplied by those he had so bene- own race of sheep. Those again are subdivided into peculiar fited. He went with tears, but without complaining, to varieties, arising from difference of climate, food, treatment, and intermixture. European sheep vary considerably in size and be a pastor to strangers; It was like the going forth of form; but the most important difference is in the quantity and Lot, when all his possessions had perished; but by Kier-quality of the wool, it being thin in some, dense in others, nander's side was no companion, no comforter. Let it be remembered, how many he called to knowledge and peace -from how many hearts he drew the sorrows, that were darkly poured into his own!-Abridged from Carne's Lives of Missionaries. SPECTRAL ILLUSION. THE following is one of the most remarkable of the ghost stories in Sir David Brewster's late book :-On the 30th of December, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. A. came down stairs into the drawing-room, which she had quitted only a few minutes before, and on entering the room, she saw her husband, as she supposed, standing with his back to the fire. As he had gone out to take a walk about half an hour before, she was surprised to see him there, and asked him why he had returned so soon. The figure looked steadfastly at her, with a serious and thoughtful expression of countenance, but did not speak.-Supposing that his mind was absorbed in thought, she sat down in an arm-chair near the fire, and within two feet at most of the figure, which she still saw standing before her. As its eyes, however, still continued to be fixed upon her, she said, after the lapse of a few minutes, "Why don't you speak, -?" The figure immediately moved off towards the window at the farther end of the room, with its eyes still gazing on her, and it passed so very close to her in doing so, that she was struck by the circumstance of hearing no step nor sound, nor feeling her clothes brushed against, nor even any agitation in the air. Although she was now convinced that the figure was not her husband, yet she never for a moment supposed that it was any thing supernatural, and was soon convinced that it was a spectral illusion. About a month after this occurrence, Mrs. A., who had taken a somewhat fatiguing drive during the day, was preparing to go to bed, about eleven o'clock at night, and, sitting before the dressing-glass, was occupied in arranging her hair. She was in a listless and drowsy state of mind, but fully awake. When her fingers were in active motion among the papillotes, she was suddenly startled by seeing in the mirror, the figure of a near relation, who was then in Scotland, and in perfect health. The apparition appeared over her left shoulder, and its eyes met hers in the glass. It was enveloped in grave-clothes, closely pinned, as is usual with corpses, round the head, and under the chin, and though the eyes were open, the features were solemn and rigid. The dress was evidently a shroud, as Mrs. A. remarked even the punctured pattern usually worked in a peculiar manner round the edges of that garment. Mrs. A. described herself as at the time sensible of a feeling like what we conceive of fascination, compelling her for a time to gaze on this melancholy apparition, which was as distinct and vivid as any reflected reality could be, the light of the candles upon the dressing-table appearing to shine full upon its face. After a few minutes, she turned round to look for the reality of the form over her shoulder; but it was not visible, and it had also disappeared from the glass when she looked again in that direction. On the 26th of the same month, about two P. M., Mrs. A. was sitting in a chair by the window in the same room with her husband. He heard her exclaim, "What have 1 seen?" And on looking on her, he observed a strange expression in her eyes and countenance. A carriage and four had appeared to her to be driving up the entrance-road to the house. it approached, she felt inclined to go up stairs to prepare to As coarse or fine, more or less elastic, &c. &c. Of the German Haste! havoc's torch begins to glow, Make haste, destruction thinks ye slow; Why are ye called "My Lord" and "Squire," And wringing food, and clothes, and fire,' Make haste, slow rogues! prohibit trade, Turn all the good that God hath made And death shall have no funeral PRESENT STATE OF THE SCOTCH TENANTRY. (Continued from No. 11.) riage, or of testaments, has become rare. Exhilarating social From Roxburghshire it is stated, rents are paid with difficulty. No one is saving money, and the style of living has become very economical? "Abatements have not been given generally within the last five years, though one great proprietor, and one or two smaller proprietors have given abatements. In the former case, 20 per cent. was given on arable farms, 25 on stock." In Fife, the tenantry have been much benefited of late years by the great quantities of potatoes they have sold for the London Market. But, "generally speaking, the tenants are in arrear of rent, and these arrears are in many instances considerable." "The present prices of agricultural produce do not permit the farmers to expend money in improvements, and therefore the soil must be deteriorating.' FROM the facts we have previously stated in our two former numbers, the inference is obvious, that the greatest distress must necessarily exist among the tenantry, and among those proprietors who have been accustomed to live to the full extent of their incomes during the war. From all the information we can obtain, after extensive inquiries and personal observation, we are convinced we do not exaggerate when we say that two-thirds of the farming capital of Scotland has been lost within the last fifteen years. So little attention has been paid to statistics in this country, that any estimate of the capital, in any employment, must necessarily be vague; but after examining such data as can be easily procured, we think the farm-duced. ing capital of Scotland, in 1813, may be moderately taken at 60 millions sterling, 40 millions of which we conceive has since been lost. To those who have not paid much attention to such subjects, so great a loss may appear incredible; but when it is considered that upwards of 11 years ago, it is proved by the evidence of the numerous witnesses examined before the committee of the House of Commons, that great part of the agricul tural capital had then been lost, that the soil was rapidly deteriorating from the diminution of the stock of cattle kept on the farms, and that after that period, the value of agricultural produce sunk very considerably, and that there has hardly been a single year in which any profit could have been made, it will appear that the present depression of agriculture has not been exaggerated. The same causes which affect agriculture in England, must affect it in Scotland. Mr. John Ellman, junior, a very intelligent witness, who possessed extensive farms near Lewes, stated, "I am sure, taking the county of Sussex through, one-half of the farming capital is lost, and this is the case in the majority of counties." A writer in the Quarterly Review in 1829, (vol. 37. p. 426,) asserts, "from personal experience, that within 10 years one-fourth of the occupiers of the land in England have been completely ruined, and the remainder have lost a moiety of their property. In Essex, lands which formerly brought three guineas an acre, a very high rent in England, have been offered on a lease of five years without rent, under a restricted system of cultivation, as they have been completely exhausted by letting them for high rents on short leases. From extensive inquiries which we have made in Scotland, we may venture to say, that agriculture has not at any time been in a more depressed state, nor the prospects of landholders and tenants more gloomy. We shall subjoin a few extracts from the communi- In East-Lothian we have the authority of a gentleman whe cations we have received, and we regret our limits do not per-possesses an extensive farm, who has been engaged in agricul mit us to give them at greater length. The first relates to an ture in that county for the last thirty years, and who has paid, extensive district in the north, comprehending a large tract of during that period, the utmost attention to every thing connect farms, occupied in the rearing of sheep and cattle, as well as ed with rural affairs, for saying "that agricultural distress exists some of the best soil in Scotland for the production of wheat. in that county to an extent never before known." In all cases "The state of the tenantry is extremely unprosperous both in corn where the rents of farms let during the war has not been abated and pasture farms. Their credit is much lower than at any 30 per cent, he is of opinion, the rents could only have been former period of my recollection; and gloom, anxiety, and dis-paid from the tenant's capital. I have a list of several farms content, seem to pervade the whole body of the agricultural po- let lately in East Lothian, most of them for rents payable in pulation." "On pasture lands the arrears are of a very great grain, and converting their grain-rents into money, at the extent, indeed, amounting in some instances to more than one average fiar prices, for the last 10 years; the result is as folyear's rent, and in other instances, even where abatements have lows:-A. B. M. let in 1810, and rent converted into grain been allowed, to more than two years' rent. This statement ap- in 1822. Present rent 44 per cent under that of 1810, plies to the higher, as well as to the lower class of tenents." and 21 per cent under that of 1822. J. C. let in 1811, Abatements of rent have been very generally, and indeed it at L.1100; now, at L.750; fall, 32 per cent. S. D. let may be said, universally demanded, but on corn farms, it is but in 1811 at L.6, 11s. per acre; now, at L.4, 11. B, Fall in few instances they have been allowed." "Most of the landon present rent, compared with that of 1814, 33 per cent. lords are in difficulties and embarrassments." In sheep farms, K, fall since 1821, 30 per cent. R, fall in same period, 12 per "abatements have been almost universally granted to the extent cent, though the last tenant laid out L. 1500. immediately be of 25 or 30 per cent. of the rents paid five or six years ago, but the tenants are still unable to pay their rents." Some pasture farms have been let at a reduction of 40 per cent. There is a more than usual number of farms in the market, especially of pasture farms." The ordinary rent of corn land in the district, is 40s. an acre, but the general opinion of intelligent farmers is, that it cannot be cultivated with ordinary profit, if more than 30s. be paid for it. Farms let lately upon a grain rent, have only brought about 30s. "It is only in very few instances extensive improvements are now made by tenants.' It is understood that the landlords in general are in difficulties, and some of them under trust. This remark applies to the higher, as well as lower class of proprietors. "The number of youths, children of tacksmen, attending the superior seminaries of education, has greatly diminished,-some boarding schools hive ceased to exist. The difficulty of obtaining payment of shop accounts and professional charges has greatly increased. The consumption among the tenantry of tea, sugar, and of all articles which may be deemed luxuries, is falling off. There being little property to dispose of, the drawing of contracts of mar " fore his removal. 39 made out by a practical farmer, on whose accuracy we have the War. L.3285 1498 Peace. L.2297 1041 360 160 It thus appears that even when the rent is paid in grain, and the produce has in every respect been the same, at the two periods, the profits of the tenant have diminished no less than 55 per cent, while the rent has only fallen 31 per cent. It is evident that the cultivation of ground cannot long be carried on with such profits, for they do not amount to the ordinary interest of the capital required. No allowance for the expense of living of the tenant and his family, is made in the statement, at either of the periods. But unfavourable as this view is, the real state of matters is much worse. The rents were not stipulated for in grain during the war, but in money, and no material abatements were given till 1820 or 1822, so that during the period which elapsed from 1814, when the value of agricultural produce fell, till 1820, the tenant was paying the high rent, while receiving the diminished price of produce. After rents were generally reduced, another evil of a most serious nature affected this county, as well as Fife and the Carse of Gowrie, though in these districts not to so great an extent. All the wheat crops from 1825 to 1831, both inclusive, were attacked by a fly which occasioned a decrease in the produce to the extent of thirty-three per cent, and the loss from this cause in a farm of the above description, exceeds L.250 per annum. Thus there his not only been a total loss of the capital expended on the Al, amounting to L.3000, but besides an annual loss of L.90. In these circumstances it is not wonderful that the most gloomy despondency has seized the tenantry. Many have lost all hope of living by their profession, several have emigrated to the continent and to America, and many are preparing to follow them. We believe the emigration would be very general, if the tenantry could get quit of their leases, and recover the capital they have expended on the soil. Improvements by the tenantry are in a great measure at an end. The quantity of lime manufactured in the county, is little more than one-third of what it was 12 years ago. A great number of bankruptcies have taken place, some of them of tenants, who were possessed of inany thousand pounds at the end of the war. On one estate purchased 12 or 15 years ago, only one tenant out of 11 who were upon it at the time of the purchase, now remains. All the rest have become bankrupt. The soil is deteriorating from severe cropping, and want of capital, and in many districts of the county, the high farming, for which the county was formerly distinguished, is no longer to be seen. We are well aware that the distress in this part of Scotland, bat more especially in this county, has been attributed, in some measure, to what has been called, the expensive mode of living of the tenantry, and since the high rents formerly given, could not be obtained from the farmers of East Lothian, those from other parts of Scotland have been induced to pay high rents for Lands in this county, on the representation or assumption, that by their more economical style of living, they could afford to pay higher rents. But, I believe, the expectations formed on this ground have been completely disappointed. There is no class of the community, who in proportion to their capital, live at so small an expense as the tenantry; and the farmers of East Lothian, Berwickshire, and Roxburghshire, are not an exception from this remark. When a person acquainted only with the inferior districts of Scotland, first goes into those counties, he is no doubt surprised at the appearance of the houses of the tenaatry, as well as to observe that they do not themselves peronally engage in the labours of the field. But such persons do not consider the very different state of agriculture in these Counties from what they have been accustomed to. We have beture me the rent roll of an estate in the North of L.25,000 -year, and there are upwards of six hundred tenants, thus a raging a rent payable, by each, of only L.40. In East Lothian, the land rental of which, in 1811, was L. 180,000, there are certainly not 400 tenants, and we have heard them esmated at a much smaller number. Then as to capital, it is held that an arable farm cannot be well cultivated unless the tenant Las capital to the amount of L. 10 an acre, and as the farms in East Lothian, as well as in Berwickshire and Roxburghshire, consist of from 300 to 500 acres each, many of the tenants bolding two and three farms, they ought to possess, and indeed at the end of the war did possess, very large capitals. On farms of such extent it would be absurd for the tenant to engage in Labour himself. His time is much more profitably employed in superintending the labour of others. Men with capitals of from L.2,000 to L. 10,000 are entitled to live in a decent style, more especially as all of them have received liberal educations, and many of them have been educated, as well as the greater Bamber of those who practise the learned professions. In the above counties, we could point out many tenants paying L.2000 a-year of rent, and a few who pay as much as L.5000. According to the data on which the property tax was levied, these men's profits ought to amount to L. 1000 or L.2500 a-year. Yet we believe that the tenantry in these counties do not generally expend in living, in addition to the pigs, poultry, &c., produced on their farms, more than a sum equal to half the interest of the capital employed in their cultivation." There is another part of Scotland, into the agricultural state of which it is proper to inquire. We have laid before our readers extracts from communications from the north, east, south, and central parts of the kingdom, let us now turn to the southwest. The following excerpts are from answers to our queries, furnished by a gentleman who has the management of a very extensive district in the stewarty of Kirkcudbright:--" The tenantry both upon tillage and stock farms are struggling with difficulties. Capital is dwindling away, and the tenantry in many instances are not in a situation to do justice to the tillage lands. The rents in 1832 may be considered a third less than 1813. Draining is very much neglected-lime as a manure is used very sparingly; the capital of the tenantry being so much exhausted they have little spare money to expend on manuring with lime, and the land is becoming poorer every repeated rotation. The landed proprietors are in many instances struggling with difficulties.' From all the communications we have received it appears that expensive improvements, or indeed improvements of any kind are not undertaken by the tenantry as formerly. Wedge or tile draining is practised in some districts on wet alluvial soils, but often the tiles are paid for by the landlord. These cost three-fourths of the whole expense. The introduction of bone -manure has also a wonderful effect on light soils, and has enabled farmers, having farms of that quality of soil, to pay higher rents than they could otherwise have done. But it has, on the other hand, diminished the value of fine turnip land, and by means of this manure, turnips can be grown on many soils which formerly would not produce them. SCRAPS. ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. JONATHAN'S DESCRIPTION OF A STEAM-BOAT.-It's got a saw-mill on one side, and a grist-mill on t'other, and a blacksmith's shop in the middle, and down cellar there's a tarnation pot boiling all the time. Ricaut, in his History of the Turks, says, "that they so confound chronology and history, as to assert that Job was a judge in the court of King Solomon, and Alexander the Great one of his generals." INFANT LABOUR.-A certain eccentric Tory member, who, til he obtained a seat in the present Parliament, had never made his appearance in society, dined, last year, in company with Sadler, and several other political personages, at the mansion of Sir Robert Peel. After dinner, as the gentlemen were drinking coffee in the fine picture gallery of the ex-minister, a conversation took place between Sadler and Sir Robert on the subject of the Bill for the Regulation of Infant Labour. Mr. who was standing near, occasionally joining in the discussion, while he contemplated Lawrence's exquisite picture of the infant daughter of his host, (considering, perhaps, that the baronet was lukewarm towards the interesis of the manufacturing classes,) suddenly slapped him on the back, and exclaimed, while he pointed to the portrait of little Miss Peel, "Ah! Sir Robert! that little darling might have been slaving in the factory you know; 'twas a narrow escape." The amazement of his disconcerted auditors may be easily conjectured.Tait's Magazine. BARBARISM OF THE CRIMINAL CODE.-I have much to say upon the subject of the recovery of debts in this country-on imprisonment in general; but more particularly on the penal code of Britain. Draco and Co. must have presided when such sanguinary laws were established. Blood, nothing but blood, or " pounds of flesh," are required by this humane people for every offence. Should Hardy (a servant who had stolen some of Mirabeau's linen) be found guilty, he will suffer death-the punishment awarded to the man who has butchered his own mother. Such laws ought to be revised; they are a disgrace to a civilized nation. I have before me a list of crimes -about forty in number-all punishable with death. The laws of the most despotic countries of Europe are merciful if compared with those which are in force here. Every sensible man to whom I have spoken upon this subject entertains a similar opinion; yet no one comes forward to abrogate the obnoxious laws. My excellent friend Romilly tells me, that he has been carefully studying the criminal codes of every nation in Europe. "Ours," he observes, "is the very worst; and, when the plan I have in view is sufficiently matured, I intend not to rest upon my pillow until these laws, worthy of anthropophagi, are for ever abolished."-Mirabeau's Letters. ROYAL APPRECIATION OF GENIUS.-The Globe says"Sir Walter Scott obtained his baronetcy shortly after the accession of George IV., who paid literature the high compliment of bestowing upon one of its principal living ornaments the first creation of title by the monarch." That is, George IV. paid literature the high compliment of bestowing upon one of its principal ornaments, the title which is the lowest but one in the scale. He might, to be sure, have made him a knight-that would have been lower yet, and lowest; but he was graciously pleased to think the highest genius deserving of a trumpery baronetcy. It is not thus that they honour their tools and panders. The successful direction of force in human butchery, no matter how doubtful or bad the cause, is rewarded with a peerage. The man who has delighted millions existing, and will delight millions yet to be, has the same guerdon as the king's purveyor of gossip, or which any vain booby may purchase for a few bundreds. Jenner, who has prevented more mischief than any king or lord in history ever perpetrated, goes down to a grateful posterity without an addition to his name. It is well that it should be so-royalty has nothing to do with the real services to mankind-let it keep to the rewards of the coarse arts of force, and court parasites, and political prostitutes;-but it is significant to remark how princes do rate the claims of the ornaments or benefactors of the world, when they give them a place in the scale of honours. We have their standard of desert. There is, however, a consistency in it. Kings, who find themselves kings without desert, bestow titles as they bave received the power of conferring them. It were a reflection on their own state to distribute titles according to merit, for men's minds would thus be led up to examine the pretensions of the prime pageant. Policy, therefore, directs that the toys should continue to be given to those who could not obtain distinction of any but an infamous kind without them: they are unworthy of men of letters and science, whose honours are in the reverence of mankind, and celebrity in after ages.-Exa miner. ROOKS AND CHOLERA.-A curious circumstance is men GOLD-In Ireland, county of Wicklow, seven miles west of Arklow, about the year 1770, there was an old schoolmaster, who used frequently to entertain his neighbours with accounts of the richness of their valley in gold; and his practice was to go out in the night to search for the treasure. For this he was generally accounted insane. But in some years after, bits of gold were found in a mountain stream, by various persons; and, in 1796, a piece weighing about half an ounce. The news of this having circulated amongst the peasantry, such an infatua tion took possession of the minds of the people, that every other sort of employment, save that of acquiring wealth by the short process of picking it up out of the streams, was abandoned; and hundreds of human figures were to be seen bending over the waters, and scrutinizing every object there to be seen. In this way, during six weeks, no less than 800 ounces of gold were found, which sold for L.3, 15s. per ounce, or L.3000. Most of the gold was found in grains; many pieces weighed between two and three ounces; there was one of 5 ounces, and one of 22. It contained about 6 per cent of silver. Government soon undertook the works; but the amount of gold found, while superintended by the appointed directors, was only L.3671. It then appeared that there was no regular vein in the mountain, and that these fragments had probably existed in a part of the mountain which time had mouldered away, and which left existence. The works were at a length discontinued.—Lardits more permanent treasure as the only monument of its ancient ner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. of A VULGAR FELLOW WHO HAS ACQUIRED GREAT WEALTH BY THE ACCIDENT OF BIRTH OR SITUATION.-We mean eɑmmercial accidents of situation, as well as others. In Lancashire, as in other manufacturing districts, men of great wealth, by the possession of a place which, by mere accident, is in the way a commercial current or demand. These men are generally arrogant and purse- proud in proportion to their ignorance. At a dinner where one of these worthies, an aspirant to public honMelbourne, was present, some one mentioned the names of Ho ours, and the holder of an office under the appointment of Lord mer and Virgil. "Homer and Virgil ?" said he; "Homer and Virgil! I never heard the name of that firm before. Is their credit good?"-Examiner. &c. He had spent much time in attempting to accomplish his object, and after 30 years' trial, had succeeded. It was intended not to exceed five horses' power, and the price would be depend STEAM ENGINE FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES.-At & meeting of the Manchester Agricultural Society, held lately, the model of a steam engine, recently invented by Mr. Gough, of Manchester, applicable to agricultural purposes, was exhibit ed upon the table. At the close of the proceedings Mr. Gough tioned connected with the appearance of the cholera at explained the nature of it, and the objects for which it was in tended. The engine was not projected to supersede the labour Sligo. "In the demesne of the Marquis of Sligo, near of men, but to assist and relieve them in the drudgery of their Westport House, there is one of the largest rookeries in the occupation. It was capable of raising water, draining land, west of Ireland. On the first or second day of the appear-washing roots and preparing them for cattle, cleaning of vessels, ance of cholera in this place, I was astonished to observe that all the rooks had disappeared; and for three weeks, during which the disease raged violently, those noisy tenants of the trees completely deserted their lofty habitations. In the mean time, the revenue police found immense numbers of them lying dead upon the shore, near Erris, about ten miles distant. Upon the decline of the malady, within the last few days, several of the old birds have again appeared in the neighbourhood of the rookery; but some of them seemed unable, from exhaustion, to reach their nests." A similar departure of the crows and other birds has been observed at the town of Kampen in Holland, and their return when the disease began to abate. If this be not a merely accidental coincidence, it would seem to put the theory of atmospherical influence beyond dispute. CHRONOMETERS.-Lately terminated the ninth annual trial of skill of the numerous artists employed in the construction of chronometers. The prizes were awarded to three makers in London. The actual error on any of their rates during the year did not amount to one second of time, -a degree of accuracy unprecedented in three chronometers in former trials. So perfectly were they adjusted, that either would have enabled a mariner to navigate a vessel round the world with less than one mile of error in longitude at the close of such voyage. In the time of the consulate in France, Napoleon, by a word, described the characters of the three consuls. Do you wish to dine badly, go to Le Brun; do you wish to dine well, go to Cambaceres; do you wish to dine rapidly, come to me. Le Brun was a miser, Cambaceres a glutton; and what Bonaparte was all the world knows.-Le Cercle. ant on the amount of power. ON LYNDHURST." Point d'argent,-point de Suisse."- Unless with cash the Tories deck him; Their only method is to cheque bim. Part III. of the SCHOOLMASTER, containing the four October Num bers, with JOHSTONE'S POLITICAL REGISTER, may now be had of all the Booksellers and Venders of Cheap Periodicals, price Eightpence. CONTENTS OF NO. XIV. Places of Public Worship in Edinburgh,.. BOOKS OF THE MONTH,.................................... SCIENTIFIC NOTICES,...... Evening Wind,....... 209 211 ib 212 214 215 216 ib. ib. ib. 919 THE STORY-TELLER-John Kiernander; or, the Deceitfulness of Riches,... Spectral Illusion,... Caged Rats,... Present State of the Scottish Tenantry, EDINBURGH: Printed by and for JOHN JOUNSTONE, 19, St. James' Cheap Periodicals. |