ject of very general congratulation, if the Poor-rates are p ceptibly diminished, and if the system of Pauperism is clear going down in twenty or thirty years hence.

We think, upon the whole, that Government have been fo tunate in the selection of the gentleman who is placed at t head of the Committee for the revision of the Poor Laws; rather, we should say, (for he is a gentleman of very indepen ant fortune), who has consented that he should be placed the Mr Sturges Bourne is undoubtedly a man of business, and very good sense: he has made some mistakes; but, upon t whole, sees the subject as a philosopher and a statesman oug to do. Above all, we are pleased with his good nature a good sense in adhering to his undertaking, after the Parliame has flung out two or three of his favourite bills. Many m would have surrendered so unthankful and laborious an unde taking in disgust; but Mr Bourne knows better what appe tains to his honour and character, and, above all, what he ow to his country. It is a great subject; and such as will secure him the gratitude and favour of posterity, if he brings it to successful issue.

We have stated our opinion, that all remedies, without gr dual abolition, are of little importance. With a foundation la for such gradual abolition, every auxiliary improvement of th Poor-Laws (while they do remain) is worthy the attention Parliament and, in suggesting a few alterations as fit to be in mediately adopted, we wish it to be understood, that we ha in view the gradual destruction of the system, as well as its mendment while it continues to operate.

It seems to us, then, that one of the first and greatest improv ments of this unhappy system, would be a complete revision the Law of Settlement. Since Mr East's act for preventing th removal of the poor till they are actually chargeable, any ina may live where he pleases, till he becomes a beggar and as alms of the place where he resides. To gain a settlement, the is nothing more than to gain a right of begging: it is not, as used to be before Mr East's act, a power of residing where, in th judgment of the resident, his industry and exertion will be be rewarded; but a power of taxing the industry and exertions other persons in the place where his settlement falls. This priv lege produces all the evil complained of in the Poor-Laws; an instead therefore of being conferred with the liberality and proft sion which it is at present, it should be made of very difficult a

tainment, and liable to the fewest possible changes. The constant policy of our Courts of Justice has been, to make settlements easily obtained. Since the period we have before alluded to, this has certainly been a very mistaken policy. It would be a far wiser course to abolish all other means of settlement than those of Birth, Parentage, and Marriage-not for the limited reason stated in the Committee, that it would diminish the law expenses, (though that, too, is of importance), but because it would invest fewer residents with the fatal privilege of turning beggars, exempt a greater number of labourers from the moral corruption of the Poor-Laws, and stimulate them to exertion and economy, by the fear of removal if they are extravagant and idle. Of ten men who leave the place of their birth, four, probably, get a settlement by yearly hiring, and four others by renting a small tenement; while two or three may return to the place of their nativity, and settle there. Now, under the present system, here are eight men settled where they have a right to beg without being removed. The probability is that they will all beg; and that their virtue will give way to the incessant temptation of the Poor-Laws: But if these men had felt from the very beginning, that removal from the place where they wished most to live, would be the sure consequence of their idleness and extravagance, the probability is that they would have escaped the contagion of pauperism, and been much more useful members of society than they now are. The best labourers in a village are commonly those who are living where they are not legally settled, and have no right to ask charityfor the plain reason, that they have nothing to depend upon but their own exertions: In short, for them the Poor-Laws hardly exist; and they are such as the great mass of English peaantry would be, if we had escaped the curse of these laws altogether.

It is incorrect to say, that no labourer would settle out of the place of his birth, if the means of acquiring a settlement were so limited. Many men begin the world with strong hope and much confidence in their own fortune, and without any intention of subsisting by charity; but they see others subsisting in greater ease, without their toil-and their spirit gradually sinks to the meanness of mendicity.

An affecting picture is sometimes drawn of a man falling into want in the decline of life, and compelled to remove from the place where he has spent the greatest part of his days. These things are certainly painful enough to him who has the misfortune to witness them. But they must be taken upon a G

VOL. XXXIII. NO. 65.

porphyry-slate, and trap-tuff, are certainly not peculiar to this formation; as in England, Scotland, and Ireland, they are often found interstratified with other formations much older. There is reason to suspect that, in Germany, trap-rocks of very different eras have been referred to the same era, and that much of that which has been supposed the newest flötz-trap in Scotland, and which ought, therefore, to be more modern than the beds of the basin of Paris, is coeval with red sandstone, mountain-limestone, and coal.

ESSAY VI. & VII. On the Properties of Rocks, as connected with their respective Ages. On the History of Strata, as deduced from their Fossil Contents.-The properties of rocks which are here considered, are their ingredients, structure, specific gravity, consolidation, stratification, posture with regard to the horizon, relative posture to one another, dip and direction, altitude, contained metals, and fossils. On each of these heads the author offers some pertinent remarks; but which our limits will not not permit us to particularize. It is of importance, however, to notice, that the supposed relation between the age of a rock and the fossils which it contains, is often fallacious; and that the various facts which have now been collected concerning the interesting phenomena of organic relics, demonstrate the inaccuracy of some of the opinions which have been adopted by geologists of the first reputation.

ESSAY VIII. On Mineral Veins.-According to our author's views, fissures have been produced principally by shrinkage; but others may have been caused, or enlarged, by the contraction of an adjoining mass, by the shock of an earthquake, or by failure of support, the erosion of subterranean waters occasioning subsidence. These fissures, or chasms, when filled with mineral matter, are called veins. Mr Greenough makes some excellent observations on their varieties, anomalies, and probable indications, which cannot fail to interest both the speculative geologist and the practical miner: but, while he rejects both the Huttonian and Wernerian hypotheses, relative to their formation, he sheds little original light on this obscure subject.

On the whole, however, he possesses the rare merit of stating his facts and opinions in a clear and manly, yet modest and respectful manner, untrammelled by preconceived systems, and unseduced by the fascination of great names. Truth, and truth alone, appears to have been the object of his extensive travels, of years of unwearied study, and of the devotion of an ample fortune to the prosecution of his favourite investigations. Nor will such praiseworthy efforts be without their reward, since they must evidently tend to assuage the angry contentions of conflicting geologists, and to demonstrate the superior va

lue of patient inquiry and research, over hasty generalizations, or the construction of assailable theories. The brevity of the work, too, is the more meritorious, when we consider not only the rarity of that quality in books of this description, but the vast, and, we believe we might say, unparalleled extent both of reading and research which have gone to its composition. The prodigious number and bulk of the publications on Mineralogy and Geology which have been given to the world within these thirty years, have not only put correct information beyond the reach of ordinary readers-but have made it difficult for geologists themselves, at once to extend their own observations, and to keep clearly in view all that has been done by their associ The work before us not only contains an admirable digest and collation of the most authoritative statements and opinions on a great variety of important questions, but is eminently calculated, by the contradictions which it everywhere exhibits, to abate the confidence of narrow observers and rash theorists; and to inculcate the necessity of that patient industry and modest scepticism, by which alone the pursuits of Geology can ever attain to the dignity of a Science.

ates.

ART. V. 1. Safe Method for rendering Income arising from Personal Property available to the Poor-Laws. Longman & Co.

1819.

2. Summary Review of the Report and Evidence relative to the Poor-Laws. By S. W. NICOL. York.

3. Essay on the Practicability of Modifying the Poor-Laws. Sherwood. 1819.

4. Considerations on the Poor-Laws. By JOHN DAvison, A. M. Oxford.

OUR

UR readers, we fear, will require some apology for being asked to look at any thing upon the Poor-Laws. No subject, we admit, can be more disagreeable, or more trite: But, unfortunately, it is the most important of all the important subjects which the distressed state of the country is now crowding upon our notice.

A pamphlet on the Poor-Laws generally contains some little piece of favourite nonsense, by which we are gravely told this enormous evil may be perfectly cured. The first gentleman recommends little gardens; the second cows; the third a village shop; the fourth a spade; the fifth Dr Bell, and so forth. E

large scale; and the whole good and evil which they produce diligently weighed and considered. The question then will be, whether any thing can be more really humane, than to restrain a system which relaxes the sinews of industry, and places the dependence of laborious men upon any thing but themselves. We must not think only of the wretched sufferer who is removed, and, at the sight of his misfortunes, call out for fresh facilities to beg. We must remember the industry, the vigour, and the care which the dread of removal has excited, and the number of persons who owe their happiness and their wealth to that salutary feeling. The very person who, in the decline of life, is removed from the spot where he has spent so great a part of his time, would perhaps have been a pauper half a century before, if he had been afflicted with the right of asking alms in the place where he lived.

It has been objected, that this plan of abolishing all settlements but those of birth, would send a man, the labour of whose youth had benefited some other parish, to pass the useless part of his life in a place for which he existed only as a burden: Supposing that this were the case, it would be quite sufficient to answer, that any given parish would probably send away as many useless old men as it received; and, after all, little inequalities must be borne for the general good. But, in truth, it is rather ridiculous to talk of a parish not having benefited by the labour of the man who is returned upon their hands in his old age. If such parish resembles most of those in England, the absence of a man for 30 or 40 years has been a great good instead of an evil; they have had many more labourers than they could employ; and the very man whom they are complaining of supporting for his few last years, would, in all probability, have been a beggar 40 years before, if he had remained among them; or, by pushing him out of work, would have made some other man a beggar. Are the benefits derived from prosperous manufactures, limited to the parishes which contain them? The industry of Halifax, Huddersfield, or Leeds, is felt across the kingdom as far as the Eastern Sea. The prices of meat and corn at the markets of York and Malton, are instantly affected by any increase of demand and rise of wages in the manufacturing districts to the west. They have benefited these distant places, and found labour for their superfluous hands by the prosperity of their manufactures. Where then would be the injustice, if the manufacturers, in the time of stagnation and poverty, were returned to their birth settlements? But as the law now stands, population tumors, of the most dangerous nature, may spring up in any parisha manufacturer, con