The morn shall be our bridal day, This nicht's our bridal een; Ye'll nae mai let the tears down fa' For Jock o' Hazelgreen." Here is a romantic tale so far transcending all bounds of probability, that, though endurable under the antique form of a ballad, it would be accounted a mere folly, if presented as the groundwork of a modern novel. Yet, strange to say, it is not yet twenty years since a pair now living in a western Scottish county, became acquainted, and were married, under circumstances The lady belonged to a favery nearly the same. with which we are in any respect connected, we should THE LONDON PRESS. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. THE most interesting point in the details of a news- editorial or "leading article" writing; third, the ori- mily of some substance in a village within thirty miles mory of this odd vision was still fresh in her mind, when a worthy tradesman belonging to a distant town, happening to spend a night in the adjacent inn, the landlady of which was his relation, reminded that individual that she had long ago promised to recominend him to a partner for life, and expressed a more than half serious wish that she would now set about the task. ،، Well," said the hostess, what would you think of accompanying me to call for the —————s ?” mentioning the name of the old lady and her daughter: "I cannot help thinking," she continued, "that Miss would be a most suitable match." They accordingly proceeded to the residence of the two ladies, the younger of whom no sooner saw the gentleman enter, than she rose in confusion, and retired to another room, where, with a mixture of surprise, alarm, and pleasure, she informed her servant that the stranger who had just been admitted was the very man whom she had seen in her dream. On recovering her presence of mind, she returned to the apartment where her mother was conversing with the stranger, whose appearance and conversation very soon began to make an impression upon her. After spending a very agreeable hour, the two visitors returned to the inn, and, as might have been expected, the first question which the landlady put to her guest was with a regard to his estimation of the young lady. He emphatically declared that he thought it quite unnecessary to go farther in the meantime, as Miss seemed to be all that he could desire, as a mistress for his home and heart. On the other hand, the young lady contrived that evening to obtain a sight of his horse in its stable, and was only the more confirmed in her favourable feelings respecting its rider, when she found it to correspond exactly with the animal she had seen in her dream. About three weeks thereafter, Mr J- paid another visit to the village, and once more called on the family, who, it is almost unnecessary to say, gave him a cordial welcome. Three months after, the parties were married. became sole proprietor aud editor, and continued to be so until his death in 1821. Previous to this, Mr Perry had edited the Gazetteer, a paper belonging to the principal booksellers in London; and it was while so engaged that his well-known debut as Parliamentary reporter took place. Some accident happened to throw him out at the a newspaper, and one upon which its character and lic interest which falls under his notice; and he con- | quantity of notes which may be taken during threequarters of an hour, will extend, when written out, from one column to two of the smallest print in one of the largest sized newspapers; and as it sometimes during a debate, it is possible that one reporter may write as much in the course of one night as would form a pamphlet of three or four sheets octavo. The reporter, when relieved, first arranges his notes in a small room in the lobby of the house appropriated for the purpose, and then hurries off to the office to which The principal editor's regular duty commences with he belongs, where he extends them. The manner in which this is done is thus amusingly described by the publication of the evening papers, the leading arthe author of "Babylon the Great:""In the apartticles of which he examines, for the purpose of noticing, ment and it is sometimes neither a very large nor a if necessary, either in the way of opposition or corrovery wholesome one-it may happen that there are ten boration. The foreign papers are his next subject of individuals all writing at the same instant, and so consideration and comment; and as these continue to mingling their voices in jokes, tales, inquiries after arrive at all hours of the night, he is obliged to remain quotations, and so breaking the eloquence with pauses at his post, ready to discuss, or point out to the pub- German sausages, and all other materials for supportfor tankards of ale, basins of tea, mutton chops and lic, whatever of importance they contain-the sub-ing and strengthening the carnal man, that it would editor assisting him in translating such extracts as he may select. When Parliament is sitting, his chief attention is of course directed to the discussions, the reports of which he peruses as they come in, and comments on at more or less length as he sees occasion; and the wonderful aptitude and readiness of talent required for this task may be easily judged of by the fact of a long and able article frequently appearing in the morning's publication, on some difficult and intricate point of foreign or domestic policy perhaps, elicited by the remarks of some member, whose speech, delivered at two or three o'clock in the morning, is given at full length in the neighbouring columns. It is no unusual thing, indeed, to find the debates of a whole evening acutely analysed in this impromptuous manner. puzzle all the conjurors in the world, except those conjurors at the waving of whose wands the printed eloquence makes its appearance, to find out how any work of any kind could be done amid a confusion of sound and of circumstances so perfectly Babylonian. But notwithstanding all the wit, all the ribaldry, and all the replenishing which the exhaustion of such steam-engine-like labour requires, each of them contrives, at the end of every minute or two, to toss from him a slip of paper, so carefully written that it requires no future correction, and so close to the subject, that he of whose speech it forms a part has no disposition to quarrel with it." Very few of these reporters (not half a dozen out of the seventy or eighty employed by the various papers, as we have seen stated) take their notes in short-hand. The impossi bility, indeed, of inserting in a newspaper each individual word uttered by a speaker, renders this method almost impracticable. Besides, were a speech written out and printed with all the redundancies and repetitions in which most speakers abound, the production would appear rather ludicrous than instruc tive in the eyes of the public, and of course be any thing but satisfactory to the orator himself. Canning is said to have been the favourite of his time among the reporters; for although he spoke with great finency, the lucidus ordo of his arguments, his correct style, his nicely balanced sentences, and clear and silvery voice, rendered it easy to follow him. Sir James Mackintosh and Mr Brougham, on the other hand, were their great bugbears, the former from the rapidity of his utterance, and the latter from his quaint phraseology, and the interminable and parenthetical involution of his sentences, generally placing the verb at so great a distance from the noun with which it agrees, that the connection in the notes of the reporter was irremediably broken. Besides the Parliamentary reporting, there is likewise that of the his recollection, or even the use of an amanuensis to law courts, which is generally done by the same indiabridge his labour, he has been known to write six-viduals, although one or two of the first-rate papers teen columns of print, after having sat in a crowded have gentlemen engaged for the specific purpose. gallery for as many hours, without an interval of rest. But of all the departments of a morning paper, the reporting of the Parliamentary debates is the most extraordinary. The first attempt at giving on the succeeding day a report of the debates of the preceding evening, was made by William Woodfall (younger brother of Henry Sampson Woodfall, of Junius notoriety), who, about the year 1780, was engaged by the proprietors of the Morning Chronicle, then newly started, to conduct as well as print that paper. Previous to that time, weeks generally elapsed before any report of the Parliamentary debates appeared in print, and then very crude and imperfect. Mr Woodfall took the arduous task solely on his own shoulders, and, what was still more astonishing, he reported solely from memory. Without taking a note to assist Yet, wonderful as all must allow the freaks of Truth occasionally to be, human reason informs us, in terms which there is no gainsaying, that not one of them transcends the course of nature. That course is one of considerable range; and though the most of occurrences are about a medium, yet some must and do touch upon extremes. Infinite numbers of the former pass without remark, as we will walk over a rough ish road, and take care to avoid stumbling, though we cannot in the end recollect the peculiar adjustment of a single footstep. But when any strange coincidence | So great was his fame, that on one occasion, when sent takes place, it startles our attention, and fixes itself in our memory; and though such events may in reality be not more frequent than the doctrine of chances allows for, we are deceived into a different notion, by failing to observe others which took place in the intervals. If it were possible to keep a faithful register of all the transactions, situations, and events over to Dublin to report some important debates, he All these reporters are men of talent, informa. tion, and superior education, most of them gentlemen in conduct as well as by birth. Many of the most eminent men in the country, indeed, commenced their career in this occupation. That reporters are necessarily men of no ordinary education, intelligence, and capacity, will be evident to every one who looks to their reports of speeches, in which quotations from the classic authors, "ends of verse and sayings of philosophers," of all ages and in all languages, are frequently introduced. There is another class of newspaper reporters, but of a very different description from those just mentioned. These are the reporters of police cases, of accidents, inquests, and all the other miscellaneous news with which it is hoped to entertain the public. From these men being paid so much per line for their articles from a penny to three-halfpence-they have been designated "penny-a-line men.' Some of them are permanently attached to a newspaper establishment; the rest are mere skirmishers upon the public common, and are (as a writer on the subject has well said) to the newspapers what the Cossacks are to a regular army. It is these personages who are generally the inditers of the "mysterious occurrences," "most distressing affairs," "desperate accidents," &c. which appear in the London journals, and whose productions may be recognised by the inflated style in which they are usually written. The peculiar mode in which these persons obtain the means of subsistence is curious enough, and is thus described by a writer in the Westminster Review:-" When the facts upon which the article is to be manufactured have been collected or invented, the reporter, by means of thin paper (something between silver and bank paper, and called flimsy) and prepared sheets of silk covered over with a thick coating of printers' ink, and dried, makes seven or eight copies for the several morning and evening papers. This is attended with very little trouble. The black and white sheets are placed alternately; the reporter writes on the upper paper with a piece of steel or glass not too finely pointed, so that the paper may not be cut; and with a moderate degree of pressure, the ink is transferred from the black to the white sheets, and he thus obtains seven or eight perfect copies. To each of these copies he affixes his name, and then sends them round to the newspaper offices to take the chance of their insertion. If the subject of the report is thought interesting, he is well paid; for a report of half a column in each of the morning papers will produce him in the whole more than L.3, 3s. From the competition, however, among these gentlemen, and the prudence of some editors as to the use of reports so furnished, it is seldom, indeed, that they are so fortunate. A curious story is told of two worthy competitors of the profession :-A poor penny-a-line man, who had been more than a fortnight without a real accident, conceived the design of a clever and romantic murder. In a few minutes the murder (on paper) was committed, the manifold copies were made, and the reporter's son was desired to take them round to the newspapers. The boy, however, on his way met with another penny-a-line man, who read the account; and contriving to delay the lad with some excuse, wrote out another account of the same murder, and sent it rapidly round for insertion. In two instances his account arrived first, and was therefore used; for it is a kind of rule to take the first copy, if fairly done. On the following Saturday, when the real inventor of the murder went for payment, it was refused, on the ground that the mur. der was not of his reporting. The poor fellow insisted, observing that the wording, indeed, was not exactly the same, but that the murder must have been his own, because no other reporter had been aware of the transaction. The two reporters were then brought face to face. The plagiarist contended for the correctness of his statement, and the inventor declared that the other report must have been pirated from his copy. The plagiarist still contended for the correctness of his statement, and the quarrel was becoming fierce, when at length the original murder-maker exclaimed in violent rage, "You rascally swindler, how can you say that you knew of the murder, when no murder has taken place, and it was entirely of my own invention!" It is proper to observe, however, that all the more respectable newspapers are at present extremely careful in receiving the reports of these gleaners of news. It only remains for us to notice two other remarkable features in the getting up of the London daily newspapers. This is the employment of expresses in getting early intelligence of any remarkable or important public occurrence which has taken place either at home or on the Continent. It is no uncommon thing for the London papers to contain the speech of the King of France twenty-four hours after it has been delivered. During the invasion of Spain by the French, an evening daily newspaper regularly employed couriers from Paris, who usually arrived within the twenty-four hours; and it is said, that, during the late contest in Portugal, some of the newspapers employed fast-sailing vessels for the sole purpose of bringing speedy intelligence of the progress of events. During war abroad, agents are generally employed at all the ports on the coast at which news from the seat of strife are likely to arrive; and a remarkable instance is recorded of the rapidity with which information by this means is sometimes obtained. During the civil war in South America, a vessel arrived off Liverpool with accounts of a decisive battle being fought between the Royalists and Patriots. As soon as the vessel was signalised, a boat was sent off by the agent, and the papers were landed and sent by express to London, where they arrived at half-past one o'clock on the following day. When the person to whom they had been forwarded in the city had made his own use of the contents in the money market, they were given by way of favour to the correspondent of an evening paper, and at half-past three o'clock the owner of them had a copy of the paper in the city, containing a translation from the papers which he had supplied. In less than a quarter of an hour, the person who had brought them from Liverpool to London was sent back to Liverpool with a copy of the London paper, and on the following day at twelve o'clock the agent in Liverpool had received it. As the wind had in the meantime been unfavourable for the vessel which had arrived with the news from South America to enter the port, and no communication had taken place with the shore, the first knowledge which the inhabitants of Liverpool had of the battle was derived from the London paper, which was laid upon the table of the reading-room one hour before the vessel entered the port! Scarcely less incredible is the expedition with which expresses, bearing reports of important proceedings in any part of the kingdom, are conveyed to London. One of the latest and previously unparalleled instances of this exertion was on the occasion of Earl Grey's dinner at Edinburgh, in September 1834, when an account of the proceedings up to between eleven and twelve o'clock on the Monday night, appeared in the London Times of the Wednesday morning following. Four or five reporters were in attendance, who, after taking down notes for a certain length of time, got into a post-chaise, and, with lights and a desk inside, extended their notes at leisure, and reached London in thirty hours. We see it since stated that even greater expedition was used by the reporters of the same paper upon the occasion of Lord Durham's dinner at Glasgow, on 29th October last. CAPTAIN JACKSON. AMONG the deaths in our obituary for this month, I observe with concern, "At his cottage on the Bath road, Captain Jackson." The name and attribution are common enough; but a feeling like reproach persuades me that this could have been no other in fact than my dear old friend, who some five-and-twenty years ago rented a tenement, which he was pleased to dignify with the appellation here used, about a mile from Westburn Green. Alack, how good men, and the good turns they do us, slide out of memory, and are recalled but by the surprise of some such sad memento as that which now lies before us! He whom I mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a wife and two grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with the port and notions of gentlewomen upon that slender professional allowance. Comely girls they were too. And was I in danger of forgetting this man?-his cheerful suppers-the noble tone of hospitality, when first you set your foot in the cottage-the anxious ministerings about you, where little or nothing was to be ministered; the power of self-enchantment, by which, in his magnificent wishes to entertain you, he multiplied his means to bounties. You saw with your bodily eyes indeed what seemed a bare scrag-cold sav ings from the foregone meal-remnant hardly sufficient to send a mendicant from the door contented. But in the copious will the revelling imagination of your host-the "mind, the mind, Master Shallow," whole beeves were spread before you-hecatombs no end appeared to the profusion. It was the widow's cruse the loaves and fishes; carving could not lessen nor helping diminish it-the stamina were left the elemental bone still flourished, divested of its accidents. "Let us live while we can," methinks I hear the open-handed creature exclaim; "while we have, let us not want," "here is plenty left;""want for nothing" with many more such hospitable sayings, the spurs of appetite, and old concomitants of smoking boards, and feast-oppressed chargers. Then sliding a slender ratio of Single Gloucester upon his wife's plate, or the daughter's, he would convey the rema. nent rind into his own, with a merry quirk of "the nearer the bone," &c. and declaring that he univer. sally preferred the outside. For we had our table distinctions, you are to know, and some of us in a manner sate above the salt. None but his guest or guests dreamed of tasting flesh luxuries at night. But of one thing or another there was always enough. and leavings: only he would sometimes finish the remainder crust, to show that he wished no savings. All the Sleep, sleep, with all thy broken keys, if one of the bunch be extant; thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs; dear, cracked spinnet of dearer Lonisa! Without mention of mine, be dumb, thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble! A veil be spread over the dear delighted face of the well-deluded father, who now haply listening to cherubic notes, scarce feels sin. cerer pleasure than when she awakened thy timeshaken chords responsive to the twitterings of that slender image of a voice. We were not without our literary talk either. It did not extend far, but as far as it went, it was good. It was bottomed well; had good grounds to go upon. In the cottage was a room, which tradition authenticated to have been the same in which Glover, in his occasional retirements, had penned the greater part of his Leonidas. This circumstance was nightly quoted, though none of the present inmates, that I could discover, appeared ever to have met with the poem in question. But that was no matter. Glover had written there, and the anecdote was pressed into the account of the family importance. It diffused a learned air through the apartment, the little side casement of which (the poet's study window), opening upon a superb view as far as to the pretty spire of Harrow, over domains and patrimonial acres, not a rood nor square yard whereof our host could call his own, yet gave occasion to an immoderate expansion of-vanity shall I call it ?-in his bosom, as he showed them in a glowing summer evening. It was all his, he took it all in, and communicated rich portions of it to his guests. It was a part of his largess, his hospitality; it was going over his grounds; he was lord for the time of showing them, and you the implicit lookers-up to his magnificence. He was a juggler, who threw mists before your eyes-you had no time to detect his fallacies. He would say, "hand me the silver sugar-tongs;" and before you could discover it was a single spoon, and that plated, he would disturb and captivate your ima gination by a misnomer of "the urn" for a tea-kettle, or by calling a homely bench a sofa. Rich men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you from it; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply as suming that every thing was handsome about him, you were positively at a demur what you did, or did not see, at the cottage. With nothing to live on, he seemed to live on every thing. He had a stock of wealth in his mind, not that which is properly termed content, for in truth he was not to be contained at all. but overflowed all bounds by the force of a magnifi. cent self-delusion. Enthusiasm is catching; and even his wife, a sober native of North Britain, who generally saw things more as they were, was not proof against the continual collision of his credulity. Her daughters were rational and discreet young women; in the main, perhaps, not insensible to their true circumstances. I have seen them assume a thoughtful air at times. But such was the preponderating opulence of his fancy, that I am persuaded not for any half-hour together did they ever look their own prospects fairly in the face. There was no resisting the vortex of his temperament. His riotous imagination conjured up handsome settlements before their eyes, which kept them up in the eye of the world too, and seem at last to have realised themselves; for they both have married since, I am told, more than respectably. It is long since, and my memory waxes dim on some subjects, or I should wish to convey some notion of the manner in which the pleasant creature described the circumstances of his own wedding-day. I faintly remember something of a chaise and four, in which he made his entry into Glasgow on that morning to fetch the bride home, or carry her thither, I forget which. It so completely made out the stanza of the old ballad When we came in by Glasgow town, I suppose it was the only occasion upon which his world's notions on that subject. In homely cart, or own actual splendour at all corresponded with the travelling caravan, by whatever humble vehicle they chanced to be transported in less prosperous days, the ride through Glasgow came back upon his fancy, not reverting to that one day's state. as a humiliating contrast, but as a fair occasion for It seemed an "equipage etern" from which no power of fate or fortune, once mounted, had power thereafter to dislodge him. Wine we had none; nor, except on very rare occasions, spirits; but the sensation of wine was there. Some thin kind of ale I remember, "British beverage," he would say; "Push about, my boys;' "Drink to your sweethearts, girls." At every meagre draught a toast must ensue, or a song. forms of good liquor were there, with none of the effects wanting. Shut your eyes, and you would swear a capacious bowl of punch was foaming in the centre, with beams of generous Port or Madeira radiating to it from each of the table corners. You got flustered, without knowing whence; tipsy upon words; and reeled under the potency of his unperforming Baccha-contempt. But for a man to put the cheat upon himnalian encouragements. We had our songs, Why, Soldiers, Why," and the "British Grenadiers," in which last we were all obliged to bear chorus. Both the daughters sang. Their proficiency was a nightly theme-the masters he had given them-the "no-expense" which he spared to accomplish them in a science "so necessary to young women. But then they could not sing "without the instrument." Sacred, and by me, never-to-be violated, Secrets of Poverty! Should I disclose your honest aims at grandeur, your makeshift efforts of magnificence? There is some merit in putting a handsome face upon indigent circumstances. To bully and swagger away the sense of them before strangers, may not be always discommendable. Tibbs and Bobadil, even when detected, have more of our admiration than self; to play the Bobadil at home; and, steeped in poverty up to the lips, to faney himself all the while chin-deep in riches, is a strain of constitutional philosophy, and a mastery over fortune, which was reserved for my old friend Captain Jackson. [The above sketch is from the third and last volume of the Essays of Elia, the real author of which was Mr CHARLES LAMB, formerly of the India House, and who died on the 27th of December 1834, in the sixty-first year of his age. Early in the present century, Mr Lamb published a tragedy entitled as the sense of feeling, become the channels through which instruction is conveyed." 66 John Woodville, written in the manner of the elder only in appropriate mechanical employments, as spindramatists, and a farce called Mr H, the humourning, knitting, making ropes or fringes, and working of which turned on the horror which the hero felt arithmetic, geography, and the sciences. For this knotted cord, or string alphabet, already alluded to: in pasteboard, but also in music, reading, writing, The apparatus of instruction consists, first, of the respecting the ugliness of his name (Hogsflesh), and purpose he invented particular means of instruction, and second, of an arithmetic board. This is a board his anxiety to disguise it under the initial. He was resembling those with which he had become acquainted with pins of wood stuck in it, rows of holes being made also the author of various essays, particularly a series by his intercourse with the two blind Germans. For for admitting them. Each pin is shaped with five an. on the tragedies of Shakspeare and the characters of instruction in reading, he procured raised letters of gles, or forms a pentagon. At one end of the pin his dramatic contemporaries, which are much ad- metal, from which, also, impressions might be taken there is a small projection to stick into the board; on paper, the impressions being so deeply sunk in the at the other end there is a similar projection, which, mired for the acute and delicate sense they display of paper as to leave their marks in strong relief, and by its relative situation to the angles, is indicative of the beauties of those extraordinary writers. His which marks were felt by the fingers of the pupils. the figure it represents. There are ten kinds of pins Essays under the signature of Elia, which appeared For writing, he used particular writing-cases, in to represent the ten numerals, from 1 to 0. A pin originally about twelve years ago in the London Ma- which a frame, with wires to separate the lines, could being placed in the board, with a corner projection be fastened upon the paper. For ciphering, there to the left-hand upper corner of the hole, it represents gazine, are the best of his compositions. In these, were moveable figures of metal and ciphering boards, 1; proceeding to the right-hand upper corner, it is 3; according to a contemporary print, "the genius of in which the figures could be fixed. For teaching the next corner in succession is 5; the next 7, and the this delightful writer breaks out in its full splendour, | geography, maps were prepared, upon which mounlast 9. In like manner the side projection, by being and his wit, his humour, his pathos, his eloquence, his tains, rivers, cities, and the borders of counties, were turned to the sides of the hole progressively, give 2, poetry, his beautiful moral nature-all the high qua- Philanthropic Society paid the expenses of the insti- is 16 by 12 inches, and contains above 400 holes, kept embroidered in various ways. In the beginning, the 4, 6, 8, 0. The size of the board used at the asylum lities of his head and heart-are seen in their richest tution, which was afterwards taken under the protec- about a quarter of an inch separate." The third dedisplay." One of the conductors of the present sheet, tion of the state. partment of the apparatus is that for instructing in when last summer in London, did justice to a long-chegeography. For this purpose there is a terrestrial rished and deeply-rooted admiration of this writer, by globe of a particular description. "This globe, which is made of oak, is about nine and a half feet in cirmaking a kind of pilgrimage to his house at Edmoncumference, and weighs 147 lbs. The weight of the ton, where a letter from a mutual friend introduced brass meridian is 57 lbs., and of the wooden horizon him to the presence of one whom he would willingly and supports, 48 lbs., making in all 24 cwts. Nothave gone ten times farther to see. All stranger as withstanding its great weight, the whole is so nicely he was, he had the gratification of experiencing a constructed as to render it easy, comparatively speak. share-and he thought it a large one-of that kind-home and abroad. ing, to give the poles any elevation which may be required with regard to the horizon. The water is made ness which Mr Lamb had in store for all his fellowsmooth, and the land is distinguished from it by being creatures; and, after an hour's conversation, parted slightly elevated, and its surface rendered rough by with the object of his journey near the famed "Bell," coating of fine sand, painted in oil of various colours, carrying with him a profound sense of the excellence in order to distinguish to the eye the political divisions. These divisions are also surrounded by a slight proof one of the finest model beings whom it ever was his minence, for the purpose of enabling those for whom fortune to meet.] the globe is more particularly intended to grope their way. Rivers are denoted by smooth and slightly raised sinuous lines, traversing the rough land in their proper directions; mountains by a series of elevations indicating the position of the range; and towns by small brass knob. The equator is divided into 360°. The point where the first meridian crosses it is marked by a round knob. A different mark is placed at every 10°, and the intermediate degrees are also distinguished in an appropriate manner. An hour-circle is fixed at the north pole; and an analemma, of an ingenious equally on each side of the equator. In short, this construction, showing the sun's declination, stretches globe has all the usual appendages of such pieces of apparatus, only so modified as to enable the blind to solve geographical problems, and feel their way upon it, with as much precision as those who have eyes and can see their way upon globes of the usual construction." INSTITUTIONS FOR THE BLIND. The example thus set by France was followed by Great Britain. In 1790, an institution for the blind was established at Liverpool; a second was com. menced at Edinburgh in 1792-3; one at London in 1800; and soon after, various other cities were benefited by similar establishments. That at Edinburgh has been under an excellent course of management, by a society, and has formed the model upon which various similar institutions have been formed both at The society has under its care about ninety blind persons (who, with the families dependent on them, amount to nearly two hundred in all); these are educated in reciting the Scriptures, in spelling, grammar, arithmetic, writing, reading, geography, astronomy, mathematics, and taught va rious branches of trade; they are clothed, and paid weekly wages; whereby they become independent, and are enabled to live in comfortable circumstances. The productions of their labour, consisting of baskets, mats, mattresses, and other articles, are sold at the INSTITUTIONS for educating and otherwise improving asylum; but this leaves a deficiency of funds, which the condition of the blind, were first known in France. has to be supplied by subscriptions and donations: it The earliest idea of such an establishment was conis only by these contributions from charitable and humane individuals that this most excellent establishceived by Valentin Haüy, brother of Haüy the celement can be expected to continue its useful career. brated French mineralogist; it was suggested to him The institution consists of not only an establishment by his acquaintance with a blind German lady, the for males, but one for females; and is, therefore, of Baroness Von Paradis, of Vienna, who visited Paris in From this institution teachers for the blind have been more extensive utility than is generally supposed. the year 1780, and performed on the organ with genesent to the asylum at Glasgow and other establishral applause. Haüy repeatedly visited this ingenious ments; and there are at present some promising lady, and was much surprised to find in her apart- young men ready to embark in similar works of be ments several contrivances for the instruction of the nevolence when called upon, both as manual and blind; for instance, embroidered maps and a pocket inental teachers. The annual public examinations of the pupils have generally elicited unqualified approprinting apparatus, by means of which she corresbation of the course of tuition pursued; and the ac- To several of the boys who were admitted into this ponded with Von Kempelen, in Vienna, the ingenious counts of these exhibitions, in the newspapers of the institution, their training has been of most important inventor of the chess-player and speaking automaton, day, have, it seems, been the means of establishing benefit. After going through the usual course of edu and with a learned blind gentleman, named Weissen- institutions for the blind in different parts of Europe, cation in writing, reading, English grammar, arithburg, at Manheim. The philanthropic Haüy comAmerica, and India. The education of the juve-metic, and geography (generally attained in three or nile blind, and the consequent improvement of their four years), and being of sufficient strength, they were pared the high cultivation of these two Germans with intellectual and moral character, have been very put to regular trades, and are already earning five and the degraded state of the blind in France, where at much facilitated by the construction and application six shillings per week. This is noticed to exhibit the the annual fair of St Ovide, an innkeeper had col- of alphabets of raised letters on the French plan. Mr great advantage of admitting the young to such instilected ten poor blind persons, attired in a ridiculous Gall, a printer in Edinburgh, has constructed an tutions early; they thereby acquire a proficiency in manner, and decorated with asses' ears, peacocks' alphabet of this kind; and also, after considerable their trade, that those who are farther advanced in labour, has published the Gospel of St John. At years never attain to. tails, and spectacles without glasses, to perform a bur-Philadelphia, the Gospel of St Mark has been publesque concert. lished, while others are still making trial of variHauy now turned his attention to the condition of ous forms to bring this kind of literature to greater the unfortunate blind, with a view to its improvement. perfection. In the 117th number of the Journal, we presented a description of a string alphabet for He examined the character of an hospital for the rethe blind, invented by Messrs Milne and M'Beath, ception of the blind in Paris, but found little in it to two blind young men, resident at Edinburgh. We admire. This establishment, called the "Hospital have now before us a recently published" StateRoyale des Quinze-Vingts," or the Hospital of the Fifment of the Education, Employment, and Internal teen Score, was instituted in 1260, by one of the kings Arrangements, adopted at the Asylum for the Blind at Glasgow," which offers a pleasing view of the of France after his crusade to Egypt, during which benefits which may be derived from such valuable so many soldiers became blind by the ophthalmia pre-institutions. The Glasgow asylum was begun as late vailing in that country. From the early period of as 1828, by an endowment of L.5000 by a benevolent 1280 till 1780, this institution had continued to afford Edinburgh, and gives a useful education to a class of individual. It is for both young and old, like that at a refuge to never less than three hundred families of beings who would otherwise be left without methodic indigent blind persons from all parts of France. At instruction. "An important part of the education the revolution, some of its endowments were seized, acquired at the Glasgow asylum (says the writer of and the institution threatened with ruin, but it was the statement) is communicated by oral instruction. afterwards re-established and still exists, on a someAfter the pupils have acquired a knowledge of the alphabet, they are taught spelling; and as they have it not in their power to refer to books at their pleasure, great care and attention is necessary that they may spell correctly. Having acquired a tolerably correct knowledge of orthography, they proceed to the study of etymology; at this stage of their education, the derivation of words, and their relation to each other, are particularly explained. Thus they not only acquire a correct notion of the meaning of the words, but their minds are excited to greater diligence in the prosecution of their farther studies. Instruction in history and other branches of general knowledge are communicated sometimes in the form of lecture, at other times by way of dialogue, and frequently by catechetical examinations. By this system of tuition, the memory and the understanding, as well what improved plan. Besides supporting the in- We have just learned that this institution is now nearly extinet; we have not heard the cause of its decline. The working department of the establishment is thus noticed:"The male adults are employed in the weaving of sacking-cloth; making of baskets of va rious kinds; spinning of twine; making and repair. ing of mattresses, door-mats, hearth-rugs, door and table rugs, with fringed rugs for parlour doors. The wages are regulated in this department by the amount of work performed. They are allowed the same rate that other workmen have for the same kinds of work. It being ascertained that a man can make five or six shillings per week, he receives that as his weekly wages. At the end of every four weeks, a statement of his earnings is made up from the work-book, and whatever he has earned over that sum is paid him: and as a reward to industry, he receives one shilling per week of premium; but if the weekly amount be not kept up, or the work be bad, there is no premium. Ever since this regulation has been adopted, a marked improvement has taken place, both in the quantity and quality of the work produced. At the monthly settlement, the over-earnings which some of them had to receive have amounted to six, ten, and even twelve shillings. It is the practice also in this institution, that as soon as a person has acquired a proficiency in one trade, he is instructed in another; so that if one should make small remuneration, he can It is therefore not unbetake himself to the other. common that the same person is at different times employed in two or three departments. The over-earnings, with the premiums paid last year, 1834, amount to L.35, 17s. The delight exhibited by the blind workmen and families, when they return with the fruits of their labour, may be easily conceived. A spirit of industry is not only excited and kept up (very different indeed from their former habits), but an opportunity afforded of enjoying all those blessings resulting from the endearing relations of home, which they never could enjoy, were they (as is the case in some institutions) maintained within the establishment." Upwards of seventy-five blind persons have been admitted into the asylum since it was opened in January 1828. The institution depends for its support upon contri butions and legacies of the pious and benevolent. We would fain hope that the present limited notice will attract the attention of philanthropic individuals | in towns not having establishments for the blind, and be the humble means of suggesting their institution on a plan similar to that pursued at Edinburgh and Glasgow. or subsequently, but, different as they often are in thought and expression, fall harmoniously into the current of holograph, as if composed, as they doubt. less were, expressly for each particular occasion, when it arose, and without creating the most transient hesitation or uneasiness t› their author. Some of his best ballads appear to have been struck off in this manner, and without a single correction having been required upon them from beginning to end. The ease thus manifested is not confined to those portions of any composition which might be supposed the most simple: the matchless description of the battle of Flodden in MANUSCRIPTS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Marmion seems to have flowed as readily, and with THE original manuscripts of the most of the pub- as little necessity of revision, from the imagination lished writings of Sir Walter Scott are still in exist- of the poet, as the nimblest stanzas in those faence, though unfortunately not in one place, or as miliar epistles by which the cantoes are prefaced. Where alterations are made, it is almost needless to the property of one person. The interest which he remark, they are generally from something prosaic excited by the publication of his first poem, the Lay and crambo-like to something more poetical, or at of the Last Minstrel, caused Mr Constable, the pub- least more elegant; and yet this is a feature of some lisher, to request Mr Ballantyne, the printer, to pre-importance to the critic, whom an inspection of these serve what is called the press-copy of those which manuscripts would satisfy that it was not from any want of respect for the rules of composition, or defifollowed. They thus became the property of Mr Con- ciency in poetic fire, that Scott occasionally sent forth stable, who bound them up, prefixed explanatory notices a tame couplet. The art evinced, indeed, by his to them, and kept them with great care till his death, corrections, is very great, and to trace it in a few insince which time they have become the property of stances might be a very proper duty in the biographer of this illustrious author. It only remains to be menothers. A few of the novels, some of them imperfect, tioned, that the manuscript of the poems bears the were brought to the hammer in London about a year marks of having been sent in many cases by post, and or rather more before the death of their distinguished in considerable portions at a time, and in some inauthor, and brought the aggregate sum of L.317-the stances, as appears by the post-marks, from diverse highest priced being Rob Roy at L.50, and the lowest distant parts of the country in succession-as if comIvanhoe (imperfect) at L. 12. A considerable number rious friends. Thus, the beginning of Marmion, inposed during a journey or visits to the houses of vaof them have since then become the property of Sir cluding the beautiful description of a Scottish pastoral Walter's last Edinburgh publisher, Mr Robert Ca- winter, addressed from Ashiesteel to Mr Stewart dell, who has been able to increase their number by Rose, and which appears to bear the impress of a prethe addition of a few of which he individually acted sent scene, proves to have been sent from London under the then Marquis of Abercorn's frank; so that as publisher, and which were presented to him by we may fairly suppose it to have been written in a the author. The whole thus possessed by Mr Ca. place where the objects before the poet's eye must dell have been bound in a very elegant manner, and have been the very opposite of those presented to his deposited in a cabinet within his publishing warefancy. house in St Andrew Square. Of Sir Walter's poetical works, Mr Cadell possesses eight volumes-1 Marmion, 2 Lady of the Lake, 3 Don Roderick, and the Field of Waterloo, 4 Rokeby, 5 Lord of the Isles, 6 Introduction to Popular Poetry (an essay prefixed to his Lyrical Ballads), Halidon Hill, and the Doom of Devorgoil, 7 Auchindrane, 8 the Mother and the Son (a juvenile dramatic sketch published in the Keepsake, under the title of the House of Aspen). Of the Waverley Novels, Mr Cadell possesses twelve-1 Old Mortality, 2 the Abbot, 3 the Pirate, 4 Quentin Durward, 5 St Ronan's Well, 6 Redgauntlet, 7 Tales of the Crusaders, 8 Woodstock, 9 Chronicles of the Canongate, 10 Anne of Geierstein, 11 Count Robert of Paris, 12 Castle Dangerous; the last being in the hand. writing of an amanuensis, with only a few corrections by the author. There are also two fragmentary volumes, one of which contains about a volume of Ivan. hoe, with a less portion of that identical manuscript of Waverley which lay so long lost to the author, in the antique cabinet in which he had thrust it aside when living at Ashiesteel; while the other consists of a portion of the Tales of a Grandfather. Another portion of the collection consists of five volumes of original letters, written by Sir Walter Scott between 1796 and 1832, but chiefly from 1821 downwards, the earliest being addressed to the late Mr R. Miller, bookseller, in reference to the advertisement of his first poetical publication, and the last from Naples, in the April before his death, respecting some of his very latest compositions. In addition to these twenty-seven volumes, the same cabinet contains an interleaved set of the whole series of the Waverley Novels, in thirty-two volumes, containing the new prefaces and annotations by the author; being the press copy of the recent popular edition of those extraordinary fictions. In opening the volumes which contain the poems and novels, the first features of peculiarity which strike the eye are the singular neatness and uniformity of the handwriting, and the still more singular rareness of blottings and interlineations. It was never the practice of Sir Walter Scott to transcribe for revision even his most elaborate compositions, and there is accordingly every reason to believe that these are the first and last copies of the respective works to which they refer. Considered as such, they are remarkable monuments of the felicitous facility of his pen. Though he seems to have made a practice of leaving a blank page for every written one, and, in the case of poetry, two marginal meadows besides, not very unlike the appearance of his early quarto poems, the spare paper is not employed six times in a volume for a revised stanza; while interlineations and lesser alterations do not average above one in the page. In the manuscript of Ivanhoe, whole pages occur, very closely written, and containing between fifty and sixty lines each, being as much as fill five printed pages, without a single correction, or even the appearance of a slip of the pen. It is further remarkable that the songs are introduced in almost every instance into both his poetical and prose manuscripts, without the appearance of having been written apart, either previously WHO SHOULD GO TO CANADA? [The following excellent hints on the subject of emigration to America, have been written and sent to us by Mr R., the gentleman whose letters from the place of his location in Upper Canada appeared in the 131st number of the Journal. Mr R. is at present in the woods, there to carry on with unabated zeal and good huon a visit to Edinburgh, and intends shortly to return to his farm mour the cultivation of his grounds and the rearing of his cattle, as well as to renew his vigorous attacks on the forest. After listening to the peevish complaints of "ne'er-do-weel" would-be setthey may live, as they have done at home, without working, or tlers-fellows who expect to find Canada a paradise, a place where stripping their coat to their labour-it is quite refreshing to hear such a man as our friend R., a gentleman by birth, habits, and education, describing the toils and the pleasures of a backwoodsman, one whose life, though at first burdened with labour, is ever sweetened by the delightful reflection of an ongoing increase of rural wealth, and the possession of that most excellent of all earthly things-independence.] new, them will receive five shillings a-day, and in many cases their board besides. Agricultural labourers and house-servants, of undoubted honesty and sobriety, procure immediate service. Men are paid from L.2 to L.3 per month, and women L.1, exclusive of board and lodging; and every man able to handle a spade or an axe will be employed at the public canals, docks, harbours, and roads, at the current wages of the time. From April to November, no man desirous of employment need be two days without obtaining it a matter of the very first importance, as it is always during such a period that the emigrant arrives, and is in most want. To the whole of the above various classes the transi tion is from poverty to affluence; the certainty of acquiring what may be called the latter, is to them as great as obtaining here their daily bread. Let the poor man remember that a boy of seven years old is worth his meat; and if he be a weaver, or spinner, or howsoever unused to outdoor work, he need not fear to starve. Passing from the labouring class and operatives to the small tradesmen of capital of from two to five hundred pounds, the prospects of benefit are neither so immediate nor so easily defined. Not that all capital of whatsoever amount is less remunerative there than here, or that personal exertion is less likely to be productive quite the reverse: the profit may be reckoned as two to one in favour of Upper Canada but the business they must enter will not only be new, more general in its nature, and partaking of the peculiar wants of the people, but also requires much knowledge and consideration in its application. To them more exclusively is time money, and an error at starting is attended with serious loss. The larger capitalist or the labourer is alike exempt in a great degree from such risk. But the tradesman with limited means has to live in the meantime on his capital, which being small, necessarily requires the more activity, intelligence, acuteness, and judgment to apply it, that the outlay or adventure may be profitable. Then comes the question, whether the information this class will obtain from those who were at first similarly circumstanced, will be unbiassed, and comprehensive enough on which to act. Suppose it be determined to set up a store in some new district (a favourite and favourable speculation), the emigrant must acquire a knowledge of the very great variety of necessaries in demand, as well as ascertain to what that demand will amount, either immediately or more remotely. If he take up a tavern, the same rule approspective, must be estimated. plies; and in every case, competition, present and But to this class-even arguing upon the one grand and general truth that neither labour nor money are ever long in a new country of producing their returnthe question is only one of time. Eventually, industry is sure of its reward, however manifested. The person may make a bad cast-a false hit; and after breaking his horse's knees, and nearly his own neck, in following up the scent, find, after all, like our modern Nimrods, that he has been chasing a hare instead of a fox. But in no country in the world do I know where he would so soon recover from the bad effects of his fall as in Upper Canada, or America getwo and three times, and rising heavy winners at the nerally. There are many instances of men failing last. To this class I would say, that though the hopes held out are indefinite, they have great assurance in the indisputable fact, that the population of Upper Canada, receiving high remunerating prices, are consumers correspondent thereto; and that, in a country which receives into its bosom from thirty to seventy thousand souls annually, the wants of the community, though chiefly those of necessity, must be ever vary. ing, and always increasing. Or the various classes of persons to whom Upper Ca- Assuming the rate of premium on the exchange to remain as at present, with but partial vacillations, the benefit from the mere transference of money into currency is one-sixth. The ordinary and common interest of the country is six per cent.; there are no taxes; every thing nearly of merchandise is admitted into the colony at a duty ad valorem of 24 per cent., whether of luxury and the produce of our own conn. try, or of purely foreign origin, such as wines, teas, &c. Meat and vegetables may be safely set down at half the price of this country, while fuel of course in most places is to be got for little more than the labour of cutting and drawing. By the heads of this class, there are many fears, vague and undefined, entertained of annoyance from forests; indeed, to all who have heard or thought of want of servants, starvation, wild beasts, and endless Canada at all, the same general doubt and dread appear to have established themselves. "But, bless me have you to bake your own bread and cook your own here. For capital, as for labour, the colony is equally good at the least; and there is no security in the world equal to a rising colony, with institutions and constitution like that of Upper Canada, with plenty in the land, and utter absence of taxation, either direct or indirect, save for the necessary machinery of government. That this fact is becoming now widely known, may be inferred from the number of highly respectable and monied individuals who have found their way to Upper Canada; in my own neighbourhood alone, in the short space of eighteen months, no fewer than sixteen heads of families, and nearly twenty bachelors, of my own status in society, having settled on land. It is true, for much prospective blessing a price by this class must be paid-it is that of the sacrifice for a time of a certain routine of society, and some temporary deprivations; but these deprivations are more ideal than real. A large number of emigrants of refined habits look upon such deprivations as no loss; for while all the elements of which society, not in fashionable, but in true phrase, is composed, are retained, the surface fermentation finds in Canada a rapid drain, there being neither leisure nor inclination with which to nurture false prejudices or retain false systems. A SCENE IN INDIA. I remember (says Captain Hall), when at Madras, being frequently made sensible how exceedingly small the interest of some of the most extraordinary of the native customs appeared, in comparison to that of the commonplace usages in the Bungaloes of my own countrymen. A game at brag; a very moderate flirtation; even a sober cup of tea with an old friend; an evening drive along the Mount road, or a glance at the stars from Mr Goldingham's observatory, generally proved an overmatch for the most curious ceremonies of the Hindoo population. With the whole Black Town at command as a field of local inquiry, I never entered it but twice. The first time I was obliged to sound a hasty retreat, in consequence of the crowd, heat, and the most villanous compound of smells that ever offended nostril. On the second occasion, I merely passed through it hastily, and not at all in quest of adventures, but in order to take tiffin or luncheon with a friend, who resided to the north ward of the town. dinner? and what do you do for meat? and have you beds, actual four posted beds ? and what do you do for society, and books, and newspapers ?" with a host of questions which are hardly even applicable to Australia at the present time, much less to Canada. Now, half of these unnecessary fears arise from want of reflection; and the remainder, comprising the "wild beasts and the endless forests," is so full of exaggeration as to be nearly as bad. It is quite true that both may be found in perfection; but I presume no one with a dread so unfeigned would go in search of them, and there is certainly no necessity that he should. From so many as sixty thousand emigrants, surely servants may be found, able, honest, and willing to do what is wanted. They may not be perfection, because, perhaps, three-fourths have never been in a gentleman's house. What then? If the raw material be good, is the hardship so great to work it? "But then they are helps, are they not ?" is the next question. I wonder how a Highlander, or a Lowlander, or a child of the Green Isle, would look if he were called a help. I think something like "What's your wull ?" would be the answer. Farmers' sons, starting with from five hundred to a thousand pounds, having the full consciousness of the value of money, caution, and matured discretion, combined with the industrious, sober, and frugal habits of their class, cannot fail of being in a few years in a comfortable and secure independence. I would very much desire to be able to give figures for this account; but as my residence has been too short to enable me to do so from experience, I must content myself with giving my convictions instead. They are these: That to the farmer and landlord cultivating his own land with the judg. ment he would use in Scotland, the return is as great as to both farmer and landlord here, while neither taxation nor the price of the land bear a tenth part so heavy on the returns. Butter and cheese fetch as high prices as in this country; tallow and hides nearly double; in fact, wherever capital is made subservient to improvement, it must yield its current and natural interest. Thus, tallow, for instance, cannot be plentiful in the country without fat cattle, and these again cannot be reared and fed to pay the farmer without employing his judgment and capital in improving the breed, and his superior acquaintance with the various foods in perfecting it. There is a man living about five miles from me, who seven years ago had only a cow, a gun, and half a dollar remaining to him after After riding for some distance, I half repented of paying the price of his land-all wood! He sold last my purpose, for it was raging hot, and the first airs year L.50 worth of butter, had thirty acres under of the young sea-breeze had scarcely begun to fan the crop, and reared the whole of his cattle in the sum-surface of the water along a narrow strip of the sea mer in the woods, and, therefore, for literally nothing. parallel to the beach. Only those native boats, called Now, this man is but a type of many, nay, of every pattymars, and one or two other small coasters, whose sober, honest, and industrious man; and what one shallow draught of water enabled them to approach can do under every disadvantage, surely those may the shore, could avail themselves of these fitful swirls, perform with the reverse. The elderly man, and he which swept from time to time towards the land, and who has been accustomed to the management of large then died away again, for a full hour before the refarms, with peculiar market-going habits, who must gular sea-breeze blew in from the offing. have his crack with his friends, and his cheerers however, not a leaf of any tree was put in motion, to fill up the measure of his comforts, being essenti- and not a bird could be seen; all nature, indeed, ally a man of habits as of prejudices, will do no good seemed to have fallen asleep-not a sound was to be in Canada. His tide of life has begun to ebb, and heard except the ceaseless dash of the restless surf. neither energy nor resolution remain to him to stem its force, or endure with patience the shocks it carries with it. There are not a few emigrants of this description, both old and young, who go to Canada and are surprised to find the country not that beautiful scene which, in the wildness of their imagination, they expected to see it. They have an indistinct notion that they can get farms to purchase for a few shillings per acre, .as good as those they have seen in East Lothian; and as they always somehow associate the idea of farming with riding on horseback into town on market-days, and on such occasions drinking a sufficiency of whisky punch with their neighbours, as well as with having little or nothing to do but to give orders to ploughmen and servants, they find thenselves quite taken aback when they behold the dark forest spread around them-a perfect ocean of trees, with only here and there a break and clearing, in which possibly no human being is to be seen but the busy settler felling his timber, or rudely cultivating his ungainly but luxuriant grounds. Let such selfdeluded men by no means go to Canada. As yet, I rode slowly along, well-nigh suffocated for want of air, scarcely shaded from the direct rays of the sun by my old friends the cocoa-nuts, and tormented by the dazzling reflection from the coral sand, almost as white as snow, which seemed to burn the horse's feet. So entire was the solitude, that I had not the least expectation of meeting a single soul, native or European; and I might reasonably enough have recorded the fact, that at such a season not only every kind of work was discontinued in India, but even their religious ceremonies were intermitted. Just as I had made this reflection in the generalising spirit which is so very tempting, my ear caught the sight of a set of tom-toms, or native drums, sounding at a distance in the wood; and after advancing a few hundred yards farther, I came to an opening facing the sea, in which were assembled at least a thousand natives. In the centre of the area stood a pole or mast, some thirty or forty feet high, bearing across its top a long yard of beam, slung nearly in the middle, and stretching both ways to the distance of forty or fifty feet. One end of the yard was held down by Though there are many others to whom farther several men, so low as nearly to touch the ground, classification might be used, I will conclude with those while the other rose proportionably high into the air. of young and unmarried men of "good family and Near the upper extremity of this yard, underneath a pretensions," as they are styled, and who are doing canopy gaudily ornamented with flowers and loose nothing. The question of emigration to them in festoons of drapery, I was astonished to observe a humany cases is not so much of necessity as of principle; man being suspended, as it seemed, by two slender that is, assuming (which I do not) that the former chords. He was not hanging perpendicularly, like a does not exist, because they have the means to vege- criminal, by the neck, but floated, as it were, horitate, and are above positive want. To such who ex-zontally in the air, as a bird flies, with his arms and cuse themselves and their idleness by the fact of inability to procure suitable employments, and who feel their position in society to be as the drones in a beehive, with Canada before them their argument falls to the ground. But prior to undertaking the step, I would first recommend to them a reperusal of that delightful little work called "Sandford and Merton," and to pay particular attention to the dialogue therein regarding the definition of a "gentleman," which, should Mr Barlow appear to them to be in the right, and it accord generally with their own feelings, they may rest assured the change will be beneficial. Such a gentleman, desirous to make use of his "talents" in proportion as he has been gifted, will find a far better field for the employment of his few thousands, and of his mind, than the state of society will allow of legs moving freely about. Round his waist was slung a bag or basket filled with fruit and flowers, which he scattered from time to time amongst the delighted crowd beneath, who rent the forest with shouts of admiration. natives, who appeared to be enchanted with the cere mony, begged me to come on. The man, who was sailing about in the air at the time of my arrival, having been lowered down and un. hooked, another fanatic was summoned. He was not dragged along reluctantly and with fear, but advanced briskly and cheerfully from the pagoda, in front of which he had prostrated himself flat on his face. A native priest then came forward, and with the tip of his finger marked out the spot where the hooks were to be inserted. Another officiating priest now began to thump the victim's back with his hand, and to pinch it violently, while a third dexterously inserted the hooks under the skin and cellular membrane, just below the shoulder-blade. As soon as this was effected, the devotee leaped gaily on his feet, and, as he rose, a basin of water, which had previously been dedicated to Shiva, was dashed in his face. He was then marched in procession from the pagoda towards a little platform on one side of the area in which the mast and yard were placed. Numerous drums and shrillsounding pipes, mixed with the sound of many voices, gave token of his approach. On mounting the platform, he tore away a number of chaplets and coronals of flowers by which he had been ornamented, scattering the fragments amongst the eager crowd. His dress, if such it can be called, besides the usual langooti or slight band round the waist, consisted of nothing but a very short jacket, covering the shoulders and half of the arm, and a pair of drawers, reaching nearly to the knee, both being made of an open network, the meshes of which were an inch wide. As the natives, so far from objecting to my being present, encouraged me to come forward, I mounted the scaffold, and stood close by to make sure there was no deception practised. The hooks, which were formed of highly polished steel, might be about the size of a small shark-hook, but without any barb; the thickness being rather less than a man's little fin ger. The points of the hooks being extremely sharp, they were inserted without lacerating the parts, and so adroitly, that not a drop of blood flowed from the orifices; in fact, the native, who appeared to suffer no pain, conversed easily with those about him. I may add, as the contrary has often been reported, that there was not, on this occasion at least, the slight. est appearance of intoxication. To each hook was attached a strong cotton line, which, after certain ceremonies, was tied to the extremity of the yard. arm, drawn to the scaffold by ropes. As soon as the lines had been made fast, the opposite end of the yard was again gradually pulled down by men on the other side of the ring, and thus the victim was raised fifty or sixty feet over the heads of the admiring multitude, who all shouted as he ascended. To show his perfect self-possession, he took from the pouch tied round his waist, handfuls of flowers, and occasionally a single lime, which, with a merry countenance and a cheerful voice, he jerked amidst the crowd. Nothing could exceed the eagerness of the natives to catch these holy relics; and in order to give all of them an equal chance, the men stationed at the lower end of the yard walked with it round the ring, so as to bring the swinger successively over the dif ferent parts of the circle. To enable them to make this circuit, the centre of the yard was made to traverse on a double pivot, which allowed it not only to be lowered down at the ends, but to be carried round horizontally. In this way the suspended fanatic, who really appeared to enjoy it as a sport, was wheeled round three times, each circuit occupying about two minutes, after which he was lowered down to the platform, and the lines being cast off, he walked back to the pagoda, accompanied, as before, by the tom-toms and squeaking pipes. The hooks were then removed from his back, and he joined the crowd who accompanied the next man from the pagoda to the platform exactly as if he had not himself been exposed only the minute before to a trial which, let people say what they like of it, must have been very severe. I remained near the spot for about an hour, during which four other men were hooked up in the same manner, and swung round, not one of them exhibit. ing the slightest symptom of uneasiness. During the whole time, I detected nothing even like impatience, except once, when one of the men in the air appeared to fancy that the persons who were walking along with the lower end of the yard moved too slowly. He called out to them to quicken their pace, but with nothing angry in his tone, or any tremor in his voice, indicating suffering. About four years after this time, I had another op. portunity of witnessing, near Calcutta, a number of these swingings, and a great variety of other tortures, to which these victims exposed themselves, either in honour of their gods, or in pursuance of some idle The effect of such exhibitions as that just descibed, On approaching nearer to the ring, I discovered, at Madras, when witnessed for the first time by a with no small astonishment and horror, that the native stranger from Europe, is that of unmixed wonder, who was swinging about the air, though apparently and of curiosity highly gratified; but when he sees enjoying his elevation, was actually hung upon hooks the same things repeated on an extensive scale, topassing through his flesh! There was nothing, how-gether with many hundreds of other examples of voever, in his appearance or manner indicating pain, luntary bodily exposure to sword, scourge, and even to though he must have been in no small suffering, I fire, the degree of melancholy which it inspires in the should suppose; for no rope or strap passed round traveller is very great. If it were possible to suppose him to take off the weight, and the only means of that many thousands of persons of all ages could be suspension consisted in two bright hooks, inserted in subjected, by the agency of tyrannical force, to these his back. At first I felt unwilling to advance, but the severe sufferings, such a scene would be inconceivably |