But it is a common and constant occurrence, that respecting persons not the least implicated, who are known to possess property, and to be of a timid disposition, pretences are made by the police to threaten and alarm them. If it be not affirmed that they belong to the Pih-leen-keaou (a proscribed sect,) it is said, that they are of the remnant of the rebels, and they are forthwith clandestinely seized, fettered, and most liberally ill-used and insulted. The simple country people become frightened and give up their property to obtain liberation, and think themselves very happy in having escaped so.

I have heard that in several provinces, Chih-le, Shan-tung, and Ho-nan, these practices have been followed ever since the rebellion; and wealth has been acquired in this way by many of the police officers. How can it be that the local magistrates do not know it? or is it that they purposely connive at these tyrannical proceedings?

I lay this statement with much respect before your majesty, and pray that measures may be taken to prevent these evils. Whether my obscure notions be right or not, I submit with reverence.

It appears that the death-warrants to be signed by his majesty, at the autumnal execution, amount this year to nine hundred and thirty-five. In this number is included the lowest class of capital crimes. The share which Canton has in these, this year, is one hundred and thirty-three; but to the whole number executed in Canton during the year, the word thousands, it is said, must be applied; some say three thousand!

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

PERSONSrecommend certain practices without considering the time, place, and manner-Thus the limbs of apple trees are recommended to be brushed all over, in the midst of summer; but I do not conceive the writer could be the owner of apple trees, or it certainly would have occurred to him that it would be difficult to brush the branches of trees when the fruit was upon them. Instead of brushing the trees in summer, I beg leave to recommend, that as soon as the leaves have fallen, every tree should be carefully and freely pruned, this will open a passage to the sun and air, and will contribute to health in the future season. I have heard several

foreigners declare the reason of the lateness and inferiority of the English fruit was occasioned by a want of freely pruning and clearing out the trees. In addition to this I should recommend brushing off the moss and cutting out the cankered parts at any season that is prudent and convenient, and I further recommend the tree to be anointed some feet from the ground with a composition of sulphur and goose oil, and unless the orchard is ploughed, which is very much the case in Shropshire and Herefordshire, the soil should be opened at the roots; those who are too sceptical to perform this operation on the whole of their orchard may try one quarter and observe the difference.

On the 517th page of your Magazine for

January, 1820, a correspondent of your's, signed C. L. enquires the best method to preserve exotic seeds, in order that their vegetation may be certain. I beg to inform him through the medium of your valuable miscellany, I had five years ago, a collection of seeds sent me from Serampoore in the East Indies, which have been since that period kept in small bottles in a dry situation without corks; last spring some of them were sown and produced strong healthy plants under the following system, but if taken from the bottles and

sown in the ordinary way, I have found them either to fail altogether or to produce germination so weak that the greatest care can never bring them to any perfection.

I have long observed that oxygen is necessary to animal and vegetable life, and that soil which has imbibed the greatest proportion of that air or gas yields the strongest germination, and with the least care produces the best and most healthy plants: under that impression, I prepare the soil by adding to it a compost made from decayed vegetables, night soil and fresh earth, well mixed together and turned several times; but should the weather be dry,

I have

I have generally found the compost better by adding water to keep it moist. On the evening before I intend to sow the seeds, I have immersed them in a weak solution of oxygenated muriatic acid, and suffered them to remain until they began to swell. By pursuing this treatment even with our English annual seeds, I am gratified with an earlier germination and with generally stronger and more healthy plants. É. R. S. Coventry, Feb. 16th, 1820.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR,

I BEG to remonstrate through the medium of your widely circulated miscellany, against one of those petty grievances of life, which, by their incessant recurrence, produce, perhaps, more misery than evils of higher import. I allude to the nocturnal vociferations of a class of men whose proper duty is

to WATCH over our midnight slumbers,

but whose office we might rather conjecture to be, to prevent us from sleeping at all. In the deep midnight, when even in this turbulent city every sound is hushed, we might not unreasonably promise ourselves a few minutes repose from the toils of the day. Unfortunately that very silence contributes to destroy our hopes. The watchman approaches your window, and with the advantage of the general stillness, and, perhaps, of the surrounding buildings which reverberate the sound like a bell, utters a shrill discordant howl which one would think might rouse the dead. From that moment to the dawn of day nothing is to be expected but a reiteration of these senseless clamours so ingeniously tuned, that before one has lost its effect another succeeds. It is not unusual for one of these wretches to repeat his horrible cries in every variety of yell, twenty times in the compass of forty yards, and this at regular intervals of half a quarter of an hour.-Sir, I protest against this heinous outrage upon domestic comfort. Against the thief or the burglar, I can arm my hand and bar my door; but from this licensed destroyer of my peace, I have no refuge. He assaults me in my chamber in my sleep, and under the pretence of protecting my property, robs me of my slumbers and my health,

For the remedy, I propose that a remonstrance, signed by respectable householders, be presented to the proper parochial officers, setting forth the griev

ance, and requesting that instructions be given to every watchman under their authority, and particularly to recruits, whom I have observed to be officiously obstreperous, to publish the hour of the night, in such an under tone of voice, as may be distinctly heard by those who are awake, without disturbing the sleepers. In short, to speak, and not to bawla pitch, which in the night time would be sufficiently loud. I am certain that this alteration would be an inestimable blessing to the sick, and to those whose sleep is not profound. Such a remonstrance as I have pointed out, would most likely be attended to; but should that not be the case, I have serious thoughts of inquiring how far the present laws will protect me from this violation of my natural and necessary repose.

PHILO-MORPHEUS.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

WITH

WITHOUT wishing to interfere with the articles in the Monthly Magazine, on the philosophy of contemporary criticism, permit me to make the following remarks. The Edinburgh Review, except in some small matters in it comparison between the poets, Pope, &c. and those of the modern craft, and its vacillations respecting reform, is consistent, if in some respects their consistency might not be termed obstinacy, for the Malthusian professor is praised in the last number with as much freshness as if the chant continued of which he gave out the verse, that all the misery of society arose from an overbreeding people, and not from that government which expended in the last twenty-eight years, more of the people's substance than the remaining value of the nation's property.

The Quarterly Review is, on the contrary, in nothing consistent. In the same number there will be a liberal article in happy contrast with some hideous ribaldry, exhibiting a contradiction not less than Astley's grimacer who amused the lovers of mixed emotions, by crying with one side of his face and laughing with the other.-Nay, there is usually inserted a pestiferous paragraph, or inuendo in a liberal article, for where the undebauched loyalty of Church and State cannot supply a pure quarterly exhibition, some stray out-of-place liberal is seduced to recruit the ranks of the enemy, and the traitor bears the Editor's mark, it is Cain's, though not set on him for the same reason,only hunc tu Romane caveto. Now for the contradictions.

In

In speaking of India, it is stated în the Quarterly Review, "it is adherents that we stand in need of, and how are they to be obtained? Not by colonization; colonization is forbidden by the company, and it is forbidden also by the higher authority of nature. Of all whom we send out to India, not one in ten returns, and the mixed breed is bad: wherever colours are crossed in the human species, a sort of mulish obliquity of disposition is produced, which seems to show that the order of nature has been violated, it is only by christianizing the natives that we can strengthen and secure ourselves."-This is a rich paragraph. If christianizing the natives be our only security, our tenure of Hindostan is miserable. Then it may be also inquired by what orthodox comment is the order of nature violated by a yellow man marrying a white woman, or vice versa. Are not all men of Adam and Eve? This opinion savours of the two penny trash, which has scattered sedition and blasphemy so wide, as to have encouraged the insurrection in Spain, and the murder of the Duke of Berri. I may be told these statements in the Quarterly Review are absurd and heterodox, but not contradictions. True. Well, gentle reader, re-read the above extract, and then the following: "Their population was not inconsiderable, increasing rapidly, and by the prevalence of Indian blood, (which here more than in any other part of Portuguese America, compose the basis of the stock) admirably adapted to the climate, and uniting the intelligence of the European fathers with the hot and enterprising blood of their maternal tribes." Oct. 1817, p. 116.-To this contradiction on the subject of colours, races, obliquity, &c. I subjoin another, "There is, however, both in the physical and intellectual features of the Americans, a trace of savage character not produced by crossing the breed, but by the circumstances of society and external nature." No. 4, p. 311. As the two preceding quotations contradict each other, the last contradicts them.-The charity of ancient rhetoricians has no name for this figure,

*The Rev. James Bryce, in a sermon preached in Calcutta, March, 1818, said, "Zeal the most active and disinterested, and diligence the most assiduous, have not been spared by the Christian missionary, in his pious attempts to convert the natives of India. But, alas! it may be doubted, if at this day he boasts a single proselyte to his creed over whom he is warranted to rejoice, &c,"

nor do I know any thing it resembles in art, except Mr. Seppings' lately invented diagonal trussed frame in naval architecture.

Gentle reader, again read the first extract, and mark all that is said against colonization, as being forbid by nature. The language of the last No. (43), repeatedly declares the necessity of colonization (pages 91-204,) and instead of being frightened by breeding mules and savage characters, we hear that the Hottentots are the most amiable of mankind.† "Both before and after meals they sing a grace in the sweetest voice imaginable." No doubt, and according to the true diatonic scale. The inhabitants too of Caffraria, are described as rivalling the Hottentots in all the gentler virtues; but it is ad mitted, "an unfortunate but well meant interference on the part of the Cape government, seems have been the occasion of the recent irruption of the Caffres into the colony," p. 231. In short, colonization, which was forbid by nature in Asia is essential in Africa, and perhaps as the greatest virtues were produced from Indian blood and European fathers in Portuguese America, we shall be told, according to the canon contradictory, the British must not cross the breed with Caffres and Hottentots, but, addressing by the legitimates in Portugal, breed in and in.

I did intend to have added many more specimens of the contradictions of the Quarterly Review: let this suffice at present, it will show the value of this work: as an authority I will not say that it equals Mrs. Malaprop in the liberality of its language to its opponents in argument; but its contradictions exceed Mr. Sterling's account of his walks in his shrubbery :-" Ay, here's none of your straight lines here, but all taste, zig-zag, crinkum-crankum,in-and-out,right-and

left, to-and-again, twisting-and-turning like a worm."

SEMPER IDEM.

It is not easy fully to understand the drift of the writers in this Review, respecting a subject that should not be exposed directly or indirectly to the scoffs of the thoughtless. What effect the accounts quoted from the missionary accounts may have on the public I do not know, but surely the detail of John Saccheous, the Esquimaux, who, it is stated, "held in his hand an Icelandic catechism till his strength and sight failed him," might have been omitted. This poor Esquimaux understood himself better than they, who on seeing the elephant at Exeter Change, said, ⚫ Elephant more sense me.' No. 4, p. 218.

Το

After twenty years consideration we abolished the Slave Trade, and most of the civilized nations in the world have followed the example, except Spain and Portugal, which, resisting every moral, religious, and humane appeal, still continue this execrable traffic.

However, we purchased from those relentless governments, at an expence of nearly a million of pounds, treaties to restrict their merciless subjects from that Slave Trade north of the Equator. We have also expended, in the last ten years, on ill executed schemes, for civilizing and instructing the captured Negroes, another million of pounds; and we have lavished, on visionary and useless expeditions to explore the interior of Africa, in the last five years, at least half a million of pounds more, without the slightest calamitous disasters attended their progress, and prospect of success; complete has been their termination; but the plan was so injudiciously concerted, that its fate was evident from the commencement, except to those who were partakers of the expenditure; in addition to all this, we lavish on illjudged, unhealthy, and unprofitable settlements on the western coast of Africa, above two hundred thousand pounds a-year, independent of the expence contributed by the visionary plans for creating settlements at the Cape of Good Hope; but we are instructed from high authority, that these expenditures must be estimated "benevolent prospects of speculative humanity." Now we shall only presume to hint how profitably some of these immense sums might be employed on projects of real humanity at home, without discussing the inability of this nation to continue such an unprofitable and profligate waste of her treasure; but we fervently hope, that no further expenditure of this sort will be suffered, particularly as we know from the best authenticated documents, and the most uncontradicted statements, that the number of slaves carried from the coast of Africa is more extensive than ever-that the miseries these unfortunate beings endure are greatly increased that the cultivation of the African soil is very little extended -that the civilization of the inhabitants is not in the least improved-and that the profits attending the Slave Trade are so largely augmented that there is no chance of a diminution of the calamity, nor a hope of extending the benevolent intentions of Great Britain to Africa, until Portugal shall be obliged

whole civilized world constituting every totally to abandon the Trade, by the species of traffic in slaves, piracy; and that every person taken in the Trade, or convicted in aiding and abetting the traffic in any way, shall be visited with all the pains and penalties attached to pirates.

Having now considered that nothing has been done for Africa after thirty promises made to enlighten and to reyears benevolent profession, after all the lieve her condition, which is more calamitous than that of the veriest beast of

burden in the field, and after so many millions of money have been ignorantly, corruptly, and wantonly expended, we shall turn our attention to the publications mentioned at the head of this ar

ticle, and examine if the unhappy Negroe has any more chance of relief from his relations and countrymen, having become independent and important from their natural good sense and exertions, than she has experienced from England, the avowed defender of her natural rights, and the professed redresser of

her violated liberties.

Ordonnance du Roi.

Henry par la grace de Dieu et la Loi constitutionnelle de L'Etat Roi d' Hayti, &c. &c. &c. à tous presents et à venir salut.

This proclamation, for the establishment of schools, for the education of

the people of Hayti, commences with a declaration of the advantages of education to the following effect :

"Persuaded that the greatest benefit we can procure for our subjects is an education suitable to their respective conditions, that this education, when founded on the two real persevering principles of the liberty and independence of the Haytian people, religion and morality, is not only one of the most fruitful sources of public prosperity, but that it contributes to the good order of society, preserves obedience to the laws, and the ac complishment of all other duties; wishing, therefore, as much as it is in our power, to organize this important branch of the administration of the state, and by a suitable establishment, and adequate regulations to direct our efforts to the attainment of that desirable object;

"We have constituted a royal chamber of public instruction, and placed at its head our minister of finance and interior, that schools may be established extensively, and acade. mies and colleges wherever necessary.

"All masters and professors must pass an examination to prove their capacity to hold the appointments they may be nominated to, they must have a fixed school-room, for giving instruction gratuitously. Government

must