erected into an independent state, each would re- twelvemonth back the careful observer has noted quire to be at the expense of maintaining a navy, the constant though irregular advance of the pestiand a diplomatic and consular staff. The navy lence to our shores, yet each announcement of the and diplomatic and consular staffs which suffice for fact has been met by incredulity or neglect, and the use of the mother country, are also sufficient much time has been lost, which if properly emfor the colonies; and thus a great expense is ployed, might have materially mitigated the virusaved. Lastly, the native of every British colony lence of the disease, should it again invade, as is a naturalized citizen of every other, and of the there is now every reason to anticipate, our mother country. The whole extensive career of islands. British civil and military service is as open to him, if he possess the requisite talents and ambition, as to any native of these islands. The science and the skill of medical men have hitherto been completely baffled by this mysterious malady. We know absolutely nothing of its Such are the real bonds that unite Great Britain origin-nothing of its elements-nothing of the and her colonies; and the only source whence sep-mode in which it attacks the human frame, or the aration threatens us must be sought in such unnat- organs on which it first fixes itself. Physicians are ural legislation as the navigation laws, which undecided whether it seizes on the brain or the sacrifice the interests both of the colonies and stomach-the nervous system or the blood. Their mother country to a few wealthy capitalists. practice is as various as their theories. Some striking instances of cure are recorded in various medical books on the subject; but, in general, when the disease is developed in a malignant form, all aid is useless. A man full of vigor and health in the morning is not unfrequently a corpse before sunset. No remedies can keep pace with the progress of the pestilence, or arrest its fatal influence on the vital functions. From the Britannia, 8 July. THIS mysterious pestilence has again broken out with fearful violence in the north of Europe. As eccentric in its movements now as when it first appeared on the continent fifteen or sixteen years back, it has remained torpid for some months in Russia, only to arise with renewed strength, as the Why it should move, as it does in certain lines advancing spring imparted its vivifying influence-why it should ravage some districts and spare to the elements of nature, and released the frozen others—for it has been known to keep to one side rivers. It seems to have been literally warmed of a street, and to one row of tents in a camp-into life, as it was at the beginning of June that it why it should capriciously appear at distant inagain broke out with frightful violence in Moscow, tervals, are questions which science is confessedly and set forth on its devastating course in a south- unable to answer. The orbits of the most eccenwesterly direction. tric comets have been calculated with precision; but problems which concern us more nearly, the orbits of those various shapes of pestilence which make their appearance only to decimate or more than decimate the countries they visit, plunging numberless families in profound affliction, have as yet defied all efforts at calculation, and have mocked the skill which attempts to investigate their origin and to resolve their action into any determinate rules. Out of 222 cases which had appeared in Moscow during two days, the 11th and 12th of June, 122 baffled the skill of the faculty, and proved immediately fatal. From Moscow, as in 1831, the scourge advanced to St. Petersburg, and broke out with great virulence on the 24th of June. An official journal states that six cholera hospitals were opened in that city, and that others were being prepared-an announcement in itself sufficient to show the serious sense of danger entertained by the government, and the deadly ravages of the disease. Its appearance was officially notified in twenty of the southern governments of Russia. The march of this invisible and destructive foe of the human race appears, as on the former occasion, to be to the south and west. The Prussian State Gazette announces that at Bucharest, on the 27th of June, it was raging so virulently that the courts of justice were closed for an indefinite period. But, if sagacity is so far at fault, enough scope is afforded for its exercise in prescribing measures of precaution, and this seems the proper field for its diligence and care. We know enough of the disease to feel assured that its enmity is mainly directed against those vices and evils which are in themselves pernicious to the progress of society, and which it is most desirable should be rooted out from individual and national life. Thus it has been ascertained, by observation, that it is most fatal in those districts which are the most foul and filthy from impure air and neglected drainage, and among those persons most remarkable for intemperance. It is peculiarly characteristic of this disease, that in proportion to its malignity and sudden seizure on the powers of life, it gives frequent The knowledge of these facts is of the highest warnings and long notice of its approach. But, importance in considering what measures of preunhappily, these providential intimations of its vention it is advisable to take. It is likely that coming-for so assuredly we may consider them-very soon we shall be called on to furnish cholera are apt to be disregarded for the very reason which hospitals and establish boards of health. Surely, should make them so valuable-the length of time in the mean time, it would be extremely imprudent they allow for preparation. For more than a to neglect those simple safeguards which lie within We have no proof of the existence of the Asiatic cholera earlier than the year 1817. There had been vague recollections of an epidemic which burst out in the midst of an assemblage of pilgrims in Central India about the year 1772, destroying thousands, and scattering the rest; but it may have been the plague. the disease which traversed England fifteen years Our first exact knowledge of the cholera was in ago. our power. It is incumbent on all persons who | eral distribution. We extract from it some paraare in any way, in a condition to promote the graphs descriptive of the former course of the cleanliness and comfort of those crowded districts, pestilence :which are a source of double danger to the country from their physical and moral wretchedness, to exert themselves at once. The question is one of life and death. We are perfectly well aware that individuals acting separately can do little; but when associated they can do much; and it is to association that we would urgently direct our readers' attention. The danger is sufficiently near to excite apprehension, though not to paralyze effort. If public meetings were called, we feel assured means would not be wanting to carry out well-considered plans of sanitary and social improvement. We do not now speak of those extensive measures which must be the work of considerable time, and which demand the interference and authority of the legislature. What we propose is the formation of local committees, to make known in every district the most approved measures of precaution, and to urge as far as In 1819 it divided into two branches; one passing possible the adoption of those simple rules of to the eastward through the Burmese empire, and cleanliness, order, and temperance, which every The other moving westward in 1821, passing along reaching China and the Indian Archipelago in 1820. family, however humble, has it in its power the shores of the Persian Gulf, and in the following to observe, and which will certainly be a more year appearing in the interior of Persia, and in effectual barrier to the approach of pestilence Arabia and Syria. In 1823 it first appeared in the than all those custom-house rules and laws of quarantine on which dependence was principally, though always in vain, placed in former times. The clergy have much in their power, and it is for them, we humbly submit, to take the initiative in the movement we recommend. The excellent pastoral letter of the Bishop of London, issued some months since, is peculiarly applicable to the present moment. We do not pretend to positively announce that the cholera will soon be amongst us; but we do say that, from the virulence with which it is now raging in Russia, and from the direction it is taking, we have every reason to anticipate that it will soon reach this country. Should it break out in our denselypopulated cities-much more densely populated, it must be remembered, than in 1832-there is at least a probability that it may prove vastly more fatal than during that period. Even should we escape its ravages, the precautions taken must be attended with the most salutary effects in promoting the public health. Very probably they may wholly prevent the peril; and, as during the recent political storm, we may have to congratulate ourselves six or twelve months hence that the danger never appeared imminent, nor the preparations against it necessary, precisely because they were so perfect as effectually to avert the visitation they were designed to repel or ameliorate! We take this opportunity of directing attention to a sermon preached by Dr. Croly, on the issue of the Bishop of London's pastoral letter. It has been published in a cheap form for gen Slowness, regularity of movement, and eccentricity of direction, formed the characteristics of its progress. It commenced in May, 1817, in the Delta of the Ganges, slowly spreading during the remainder of the year through Lower Bengal. In of the Peninsula at the rate of a degree a month. 1818 it moved northward, and travelled the whole Yet it had not the surge-like sweep of the plague, but moved in lines, often parallel for a great distance, and capriciously sparing intermediate districts. Russian empire, in the provinces bordering on the Caspian. It then suddenly stopped, and while all the northern population of the empire were in terror, and Europe was in alarm, it seemed to have ceased; and remained nearly dormant for five years. But, in 1828, it burst out again, and moved through Orenburg with sudden force through the western and northern provinces in 1829 and 1830; reaching Moscow in September, 1831. Early in the following year it had traversed the five hundred miles between Moscow and the capital, where it broke out with fearful mortality. From this point it spread westward with an accelerated velocity, and reached the Polish capital in March, Dantzig in May, Berlin in August, and Hamburg in October. In the same year and month it was first felt in this country in Sunderland; and soon after reached London and Paris. Still moving westward, it now United States, and gone so far as Mexico. On the crossed the Atlantic, and in 1833 had seized on the shores of the Pacific it expired. Having thus, in the eastern and western traverse, made the circuit of the globe. Its destruction of life must have been immense. Its havoc extended through half a generation. Where it was neither resisted by medical science, nor mitigated by sanitary precautions, it was even more suddenly fatal than the plague. It killed at the instant. If, even in the civilization of England, it destroyed twenty thousand lives; and destroyed the same number in Paris alone; what must have been its massacre in the obscure and helpless barbarism of the east and south-in the tainted hovels, the mephitic swamps, and the marshy shores of vast regions, without government, precaution, or provision, without medical science or religious charity, or even rational alarm? The deaths must have been incalculable. From the London Times of July 12. THE Social condition of the people of the United States, arising from causes which are irrespective of their political institutions, is such as to relieve that country from the pressure which has been found in the Old World to be the chief incentive to democratic reforms, and the most serious aggravation of democratic revolution. Abundant labor, highly remunerated, abundant opportunities for the exercise of human industry and for the gratification of the human affections, avert the worst evils of domestic misery and social discontent. The cry of the triumphant democracy of France and Germany has been, that the government of their choice must at once provide for all its wants and relieve all its distresses. In the United States every man knows that his condition in life depends solely on the use he may make of the opportunities which God has given him, and he expects from the government no more than the government can really bestow. Hence the democratic institutions of the United States have flourished for seventy years without any signs of that frightful agitation which is at this time devouring several of the great communities of Europe; and, it must be added, that the good sense and practical experience of the people have restrained them from rash or absurd innovations in the form of the constitution their forefathers adopted. So far the contrast is altogether in favor of the United States and the American people; but if we examine their political condition exclusively, and the tendency of the political changes and events which have occurred amongst them within the last few years, we shall find that, even in the most favorable conditions in which it ever was placed, the course of democratic government has gone more and more astray from the pacific objects of civilized society. The two successive presidencies of Mr. Tyler and Mr. Polk have exhibited to the world a strange succession of acts dictated by popular ambition and violent injustice; and the period which has intervened between the annexation of Texas and the treaty of peace just ratified with Mexico, has witnessed a remarkable change in the character of the American commonwealth. The steps of this declining path were traced beforehand by the greatest of American writers, and by the dispassionate, but not unfriendly, observers of this country. Each of them have successively been taken; and, though the United States have asserted their military power and increased their vast territory, they have entered upon the dangerous path of foreign conquest, purchased by large amounts of debt, and leading to military influence in the highest offices of the state, as well as to military passions amongst the people. These elements will naturally be developed by the periodical excitement attending the quadrennial election; and under the names of the respective candidates, a severe contest will take place upon all the most important questions which divide the nation. North and South, the extension of sla very to new territories, or the restriction of slavery within narrower limits, protection and free tradeand beyond all others, though less openly avowed, the question of a pacific or a warlike policy abroad will be debated in this election, and we ourselves, in common with all the world, are deeply interested in the result. Far from giving any echo or retort to the malignant and foolish inventions which are disseminated by one party in the United States with reference to this country, we are convinced that the maintenance of the most amicable relations with our transatlantic descendants is the greatest of all the foreign interests of both nations-an interest so great that as long as the affairs of the American Union are conducted by wise and temperate statesmen we entertain no fears whatever of any untoward rupture, and we look with pride and confidence to the ties which unite us to so great a people of freemen. But it cannot be denied-for experience has demonstrated the fact that on some of the most important questions of the time, the policy of England renders her obnoxious to the hostility of several of the most violent parties in the United States. The slave-owner execrates our free labor and the negro peasantry of islands not far distant from his own plantations; the ardent democrat thunders against England and aristocracy; the soldier of the west turns his eyes from the southern republic, where he has trampled under foot a Spanish race more unresisting than the Indrans, to that northern province where the standard of the British crown still waves upon the inland seas, and commands the stream of the St. Lawrence; and these hostile tendencies are worked upon by the fierce passions of the Irish emigration, which carries across the Atlantic all the furious enmity to Eng. land which has unhappily become the chief characteristic of Irish democrats in all longitudes. Of these causes of mischief, the last, especially, work ing on those which precede it, is by no means un deserving of notice. The most violent portion of the democratic party in the United States is essen. tially Irish-in character, in temper, and in designs. The press of the United States is conducted to an extraordinary extent by Irishmen or by English renegadoes, who affect to prove their inordinate devotion to the land of their adoption by outraging the land of their birth. A sort of open conspiracy is thus carried on upon the other side of the Atlantic, against the union of the British empire, against the policy of the English people, and, in reality, against the peace of the world. In the minds of the abettors of these designs, war with England, in Canada, and rebellion in Ireland, are inseparably connected together; and thus two factions and two passions of foreign and domestic growth are in a manner combined against our national interests. To such politicians the sentiments of Mr. John Mitchell are perfectly congenial; and the doctrines which are treason on this side of the water, are dressed up in the exciting language of patriotic vanity on the other. The complete freedom with which opinions are expressed in the United States, of course enables more means, and the peculiarities of their instituany minority to make a noise out of all proportion tions allow of freedom for enterprise, and of a to its actual power, and the Irish faction in America rapid development of population and wealth, which is not formidable by its own intelligence or wealth; are impracticable in Great Britain, or in any of but to a certain extent it may conspire with other the old countries of Europe. America receives, parties opposed to British interests, and thus a by hundreds of thousands, the overflowing popuforei n party is armed by universal suffrage with a lation of Europe into her bosom; and must in propower which is made the instrument of foreign portion increase faster than any of the states of feuds. Yet even to this low level some candidate Europe. No navigation laws of ours can in any for the highest office of government may consent important degree retard the rapid development of to stoop for the suffrages of the people. As to that formidable rival; and whatever retards that, the actual contest, there is on both sides a split of will in a great degree (intimately connected as the considerable importance. The locofocos and the two countries are by commerce) retard the devel"barnburners" respectively present General Cass opment of the resources to the maritime power of and Mr. Van Buren as the democratic candidate; England. Experience has shown that as the whilst the whigs are divided between General United States grow in greatness, we grow too, Taylor and their old and illustrious candidate, though not quite so rapidly. It is for our interest, Henry Clay. The triumph of General Cass would therefore-unable as we are, and shall be, ulti indicate a continuation of the aggressive policy of mately to prevent her surpassing England-to the two last presidents, and might excite in our share her greatness by the most friendly acts-to minds great distrust of the future relations of the do nothing to retard-and everything in our power United States with this country. Mr. Van Buren, to promote it. Instead, therefore, of following the who has already filled the office of president, narrow policy of Mr. Herries and the shipowners, would be far less objectionable, though his chance to close our East India and colonial trade to the of success is probably a small one. Mr. Clay is Americans, the future welfare of the nation remerely put forward by the constancy of his old quires that we should remove all restrictions on friends; and upon the whole, unless some unknown that and every other trade in which the Americans candidate should be started upon us before the are concerned, sure that whatever promotes their election, we are inclined to look upon General trade will promote our own; and that whatever Taylor as the fittest and best man to be President unites the two nations in friendly bonds will tend of the United States, and the one most likely to develop the resources, and preserve, for an to be raised to that exalted post by the voice of the immeasurable period, the grandeur of our own people. country. From the London Economist. ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. MINES OF NATURAL MANURE.-The "Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette" announces AT the time of the Commonwealth, the Dutch the important fact, that beds of fossil phosphateswere the objects of our jealousy and maritime an- the most fertilizing of manures-have been discovered in Surrey, along the lower edge of the imosity; now the Americans have taken their chalk formation. Liebig had already predicted place. We never hear a word now about Dutch their existence in the following words: "In the reships, but much about American ships. We ad- mains of an extinct animal world, England is to find mit the danger of their rivalry. By their superior the means of increasing her wealth in agricultural skill and better management, with no other advan- produce, as she has already found the great support tages, they have ousted us nearly from the South of her manufacturing industry in fossil fuel." The Sea whale fishery. They have set us the ex-fulfilment of this prophecy is due to the exertions and researches of Mr. J. M. Paine of Farnham. ample-taught us how to improve; but our shipmasters and merchants, wedded to their own customs, and impeded certainly by duties on timber and other articles, which did operate to prevent them sailing as cheap as the Americans, have been slow to learn, and the Americans have distanced them. That may be assumed as an example of a rivalry that must in the end be perhaps overpowering. It is perfectly clear, that, were there no increase of population and wealth, there could be no increase of trade, and no increase of shipping. It is equally clear, therefore, that, of two maritime countries, ceteris paribus, that one will multiply its mercantile shipping and seamen the fastest which most rapidly increases in population and wealth. Even including all the colonies of Great Britain, the ratio of increase in the United States is much greater than the ratio in our country. They have That gentleman having noticed that a certain portion of his estate, remarkable for the green tint of the soil, was exceedingly prolific, sent some of the earth to a chemist for analyzation without any conclusive result, but afterwards forwarded to Professor Way a box of marl dug out of a pit sunk in the same sort of soil. This proved, on analysis, to possess great fertilizing power, which was very materially increased when washed and selected. Out of the richest vein of one of the pits (says Mr. Paine) we dug a mass weighing thirty-two lbs. This was thoroughly washed, and from it we obtained 14 lbs., or about 44 per cent., of clean hard fossil-like lumps of every size. The fossils contain sensible quantities of fluorine, but its proportion was not ascertained. Mr. Paine has no doubt that similar strata of rich manure exist in equal, if not greater abundance in other parts of England. The vast importance of his discovery to agriculture need not be pointed out. From the Edinburgh Review. |begins the sensitive, ugly boy is an idle, shambling student at Dublin University. The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. A 66 La A piece of worldly luck which has befallen his family, has proved to him a bitter affliction. He has a sister who has married above her station. His father has encumbered his means to provide for that sister a dower that may satisfy his pride. And our over-sensitive youth must go as a sizar to the university at which his elder brother had won some distinction, nay, had obtained a scholarship, as a pensioner. A youth of vigorous judgment and resolute purpose-one exulting in what Erasmus calls basileâ, athleticâ, pancraticâ, valetudine— a healthiness of mind as of body, royal, athletic, and pancratical-would have only the more stead fortune turn aside. This pride of his, so easily offended, is terribly in his way here. He is more sensitive of a condition he feels beneath him, (though it would have been difficult to say why, since his father's means warranted no higher station, and his uncle had been a sizar before him,) than eager to establish intellectual claims to respect. And to say truth, difficult would it have been for this lad, so imperfectly educated, to have forced his way into distinction purely academic. "The popular picture of him in these Dublin Uni ONCE upon a time, in the pretty little village of Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath, barony of Kilkenny West, a young woman, afterwards known as Elizabeth Delap, put into the hand of a little boy" impenetrably stupid" his first book. bor dire it was and weary woe" to that little boy; but not seemingly an event of much importance to the literary world. The sign-posts to Knowledge are not, however, like those set up before the gates at Versailles, inscribed with laconic magniloquence, ily excited himself to rise superior to a meanness "To Spain," "To Flanders." We creep into of circumstance, which by no means forbade inthe high road, little knowing whither it will lead dustry its rewards, and genius its career. But our us-and we have a natural curiosity to learn by youth-though not the dunce he had seemed to what humble lanes and crossings our fellow-travel- his early teachers-is far from that being "teres, lers first emerged into the great thoroughfare. et rotundus," from whose surface the shafts of The next glimpse of the small alumnus is caught through the cabin-smoke of the village school, kept by Thomas Byrne, a retired quarter-master of an Irish regiment. It is a glimpse, and no more, still of a little boy, with a manner for the most part uncommonly serious and reserved-though when gay none more cheerful-listening to his preceptor's stories, whether taken from the brisk adventures of a soldier's life, or the more bewitching stories of fairy legend; now and then making rhymes; now and then reading such polite aids to reflection as "Moll Flanders" or "Jack the Bach-versity days, is little more than of a slow, hesitatelor." From this raw and dawning twilight we perceive our little pilgrim emerge into somewhat clearer atmosphere-presenting to us a heavy, sickly face, deeply marked with the small-pox, and placed upon the thick shoulders of "a stupid blockhead," at the "superior" academy of Mr. Griffin, of Elphin, in Roscommon. In due time, however, this unpromising specimen of Humanity, put out to Knowledge, begins to evince tokens, erratic and uncouth, of the culture it has reluctant-pendence in the way of a scholarship. But now his ly received. Our little boy is now a lad-still at father dies-and our lazy, lounging student lives school-though no longer at Mr. Griffin's-at as he can, by small gifts from his uncle, or petty school at Edgeworthstown. He presumes to have loans from college friends-learning from the likings and dislikings as to the different authors last that worst and surest lesson in the Art of enforced on him. His schoolfellows remember Sinking—the practical bathos of human life—viz., that he was pleased much with Horace, more with to borrow without shame. Yet here a certain Ovid, and that he hated Cicero, or at least did not energy, fitful and irregular, but energy still, breaks highly esteem him. His character already as-out-an energy that rivets our eyes to this comsumes somewhat of definite shape. From out the fortless picture-that interests us in this unequal crowd of boys, with their general attributes of battle between Poverty and Man. He does not, coarse, but healthful boyhood, stands distinct a it is true, set himself resolutely to work to redeem peculiar idiosyncrasy. Our pock-marked, pale- lost time, and wrest subsistence, by patient labor, faced, clumsy stripling is noticed as "sensitive," from the resources the university offers to its stuover sensitive. He is quick to take offence, quick- dents. But he shuts himself up-he composes er still to forgive. He is at first shy and back- street ballads, he runs forth to sell them at the ward; but by degrees he is bold enough to be Rein Deer Repository in Montrath Court, for five mischievous-and makes a figure at Fives." shillings apiece. And now comes his reward-he He is no longer considered quite a blockhead-steals out of the college to hear them sung! nay, though indolent, he is thought not destitute With pathetic eloquence exclaims the last biogof talents; but the master thinks more highly of rapher, whom this stupid child and idle student him than the boys. But school closes-college has contrived to find, Happy night-worth all ing, somewhat hollow voice, heard seldom and always to great disadvantage in the class-rooms; and of a low-sized, thick, robust, ungainly figure lounging about the college courts, on the wait for misery and ill-luck." Hitherto his father has scraped means to supply the niggard wants of a sizar, not without reasonable hope that the son will exert himself, as his brother the pensioner had done before him, and obtain something like inde 66 |