It was quite clear that at this critical period the pairs of rooks nearest to the perching family, their own being still in the nest, watched, one or both of them, their neighbours' perchers while both father

and mother were obliged to be absent foraging: just as a cottager gets her neighbour to mind her children while she goes to the baker's.

The

On the first day's perching, as night approached, there were evident discussions as to the prudence of letting the perchers stay out, instead of returning to the nest. neighbours, especially those whose young were still confined to the nest, appeared to join in this discussion; and one sage old rook was quite clamorous at sunset, when she found that her younger neighbour was determined that her offspring should stay out. It really was as if the remonstrant were saying-How can you? You'll see, they'll fall off in the night in their sleep;' while the juvenile mother seemed to reply

-Mind your own business; my nestlings are strong on their pins, and they shall stay out.' And they did stay out, and we watched them perching for three successive days, and so left them when we unwill ingly returned to town on Saturday the 26th.

Of all the cruelly stupid sport with the gun, next to swallow-shooting, rook-shooting is the most abominable. The unmistakeable anguish of the parents, as they sit on some neighbouring tree, seeing the objects of all their cares and labours butchered before their eyes, would, one should think, awaken some touch of pity, if any existed, in the composition of the brutal unfeathered bipeds who join in the massacre. And when they have got the sable innocents, they don't know what to do with them, but put them into a pie. We could show the way to make a young rook very good eat

ing; but we won't. Never do we see or hear this slaughter going on without hoping that some of the blundering boobies will pepper each other in regular Pickwickian fashion, as we are happy to state they generally do.

Oh! but it is absolutely necessary; they would otherwise increase beyond endurance.' Nonsense: look at the rookeries wherein a gun is never permitted to be fired. If a rookery be overstocked, the superfluous numbers are soon driven to depart, and found a colony elsewhere.

When all goes right, and the undisturbed perchers, who have hitherto depended mainly on their legs, are sufficiently strong in the wings, their flying education commences; and to those who love to see the workings of nature, there are few natural sights more interesting than the evolutions of the parents when teaching the young rooks to fly. It is a bright calm spring morning, with not a cloud between the tree-tops and the clear blue sky. There is a greater stir than usual in the rookery. The old birds keep sailing round and round, encouraging the young by precept and example to do likewise. At last an adventurous percher takes heart, springs from the bough, and after a short round, perches again on its nest-tree. Another, and another, and another follows its example, while the old birds continue wheeling about and calling on their offspring to come and feel how pleasant it is to sail in the pure air. And so the lessons go on from day to day, till, one fine morning, the great mass of the young ones follow their parents, at first to the neighbouring grounds, and by degrees further a-field. We have observed that the parents, at first, lead them if possible to localities where there is a gentle declivity that may give them vantage-ground when they take wing, for a young rook raises itself with difficulty from a level surface. Soon, however, all difficulties are mastered, and they are to be seen among the bright green leaves of early summer, realizing their dreams of grubs in a winged state, and actively thinning the ranks of the May and June

AN Italian with a grievance broods

moodily over it with his hand on the hilt of his knife; a Greek smiles on his enemy and strikes him secretly; a Frenchman gaily hums a tune and drowns his sorrows in eau sucrée. An Englishman writes to The Times: grimly does the trueborn Briton cling to this glorious privilege-firm is his faith in his universal panacea. If he be beyond the reach of the penny post, he nurses his wrath till his return enables him to send it all hot to Printing-house-square. I remem

ber on one occasion, near Avignon, a son of Cockayne, with touching belief in the universal efficacy of newspapers, requested me to translate into French an indignant epistle he had addressed to the editor of the Moniteur on the subject of some supposed attempt at extortion on the part of his enemy, the landlord of our hotel. But in truth the great redresser of grievances is but a reflex of public opinion, not a leader of it; and the secret of its success lies in its publication of complaints which affect a class, not a mere individual, of the community. When old Mr. Brown is garrotted in Islington, on his way home from the Freemasons' dinner, The Times inserts his dramatic account of the robbery, and informs the public that Brown has bought a revolver, and intends to use it; all Brown's friends buy revolvers, too, and their hearts palpitate beneath their white waistcoats as they hurry home.

The

grievance affects all elderly gentlemen who are too short of wind to wrestle confidently with a couple of ticket-of-leave men.

There are, however, anomalies in our social system, affecting somemillions of our fellow subjects, upon which the newspapers are silent. Of this kind are the disadvantages and complaints of our colonies: a daily dissertation on some colonial grievance, however great or however true, would probably, if persevered in for a week, bring down the circulation of a paper. Occasionally, when a political cry is wanted at home, or a 'ministerial crisis' occurs

at the antipodes, an editor rakes a thousand and one letters from a pigeon-hole labelled Australia, in which they have been collecting for a month, and the gentleman who does the colonies writes a thunderer from these materials, denouncing the Home Government. Men lounging over the paper at their club, say that such-and-such a paper seems 'devilish well informed on colonial matters,' and turn with a yawn to the City article, or the state of the odds about the Derby.

The fact is, the subject does not interest them. Why should it? 'Despatches were received yesterday at the Colonial Office from the Governor of New Zealand.' Ofcourse the Colonial Office, which is paid for the purpose, knows all about it; so the newspapers do not write what their readers do not care to read, and the Government does not attend to colonial grievances while there is no pressure from without.

But in sober earnest, is it not a mistake that we English commit, to care more, as we undoubtedly do, for an ascent of Mont Blanc, or a quarrel about some isolated scrap of the Rubric, than for the fate of the millions whom our high civilization has sent to find their bread elsewhere ?

Offshoots from our stem have founded on the shores of the lakes of the West, and in the islands of the Southern Seas, commonwealths, on the model of our own. These have doubled and trebled their population within the memory of men now living. They are governed by our laws, trained to the greatness they are now rapidly attaining by our own time-honoured institutions; and it is a fact worthy of note, that even the native-born inhabitants of these distant lands still talk of our island as home.'

Throughout our colonial possessions there is now no vexed question which produces any real ill-feeling or excitement against the mother country: no question on which the whole energetic heart of the masses in any of our great dependencies is intently fixed. There is peace,

1857.]

thank God, between us and our children. But it is against all logic, and contradicted by every lesson taught by the past, to suppose that matters will remain in statu quo. Our colonies are growing up; the very condition of their vigorous and self-reliant growth is progress. The question of their future must sooner or later arise, and be answered. It is a subject well deserving the close and anxious attention of every man in England; and it is simply because it is not sufficiently understood, that we consent to continue the old routine, instead of applying our selves vigorously to probe the matter to the bottom, and apply the right remedy.

The same apathy existed before the American Revolution, and the people of England were awaken from their indolence by the breaking out of a war which was not quelled till our arms had been disgraced, and much blood and treasure had been uselessly squandered. Two centuries of distrust between us and a nation who were once proud of the British flag has been the result. Such a tragedy is little likely to recur. The day of coercion is past we shall never again attempt to impose a tax on an unwilling people, or have to endure deserved hatred transmitted from generation to generation; never again shall we see a colony so mismanaged and its expressed wishes so outraged, as were our American dependencies from the Revocation of the Charter of Massachusetts to the Declaration of Independence. That order of things has happily passed away; civilization and progress alike forbid its recurrence. But yet, if we examine closely into the history of that time, we shall find that it was less cruelty than contempt which drove the Americans to extremity.

Many of our countrymen believe that the American Revolution took its origin from the successful effort made by the colonists to resist a tax which they had no voice in imposing. The imposition of that tax, however, was but the last act of the Comedy of Errors played by the Parliament of the day. In the early times of the settlement of America, Government looked with

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contemptuous indifference on the emigrants who, having left England to avoid cruel persecution, were from the first not too warmly disposed towards the parent State. As years rolled on, their industry and energy made of the New World a possession for which it was well worth the while of Government to be anxious, but they interfered only to frame laws repugnant to the wishes of the settlers. These laws

were neglected-inadequate force was called in to compel obedience— successful resistance bred contempt. The people became yearly stronger, the Crown more powerless, and the colonies seized the excuse of the obnoxious Stamp Act to become openly what they had long been at heartindependent and republican.

A similar course of alternate tyranny and weakness was pursued with regard to our Canadian fellowsubjects. When, in 1763, at the treaty of peace with France, Canada was ceded to the English Crown, such of its French inhabitants as chose to remain in the country were invited to do so. By a proclamation issued some months after, English and Irish people were invited to emigrate, and were promised the enjoyment of English laws and institutions. The French were secured in the possession of their property and the exercise of their religion. Plots of land were presented to many officers and soldiers who had served loyally in the American war.

The intention of Great Britain evidently was to form a military colony which might guard this new possession for the English Crown, in the same way as the Boers were originally intended as a frontier guard for the Cape Colony. The United Empire, or, as they are called in Canada for brevity, the U. E.' Loyalists, settled on their grants on the faith of the promises made to them. But in 1775 the English courts were annulled, and, to the indignation of the Loyalists, they found the old French laws and usages substituted in their stead. A few years later, Upper and Lower Canada were so divided as to cut off the Upper Canadians or English from all means of access to Europe, except at the option of the Americans of the United States, so lately their ene

mies, or the Lower Canadians, by whom they considered themselves outwitted, and by whom they certainly were outnumbered and outvoted in the Assembly. For more than forty years it is indisputable that the loyal English colonist was sacrificed to please the French, who had not and could not be expected to have any feeling of attachment to our rule. During that time the urbulence of the French increased, and at length broke forth into active but unsuccessful rebellion. The union of Upper and Lower Canada followed, responsible government' was introduced, and the present non-interference system adopted. Since that time many of the old scars have been healed, many of the evils wrought by direct interference repaired; like a patient irusted by a doctor to nature, many of the old disorders have been removed. The loyalty of both sections of the province is now not only unquestionable but enthusiastic. Yet though we now do no harm, we do little good; our relations with our buoyant, hearty, affectionate colony are chilling. We treat them rather as Lord Privilege did Peter Simple in the novel. Peter came home from sea prepared to kiss his grandfather, and that nobleman gave him one finger to shake, and made him a bow instead. We live under a new order of things. Self-government, which has been conceded to the colonies, was the inauguration of a new and better policy. We cannot any longer blame the Colonial Office for what it does, but only for what it leaves undone. We have left off active interference, and run perhaps into the opposite extreme. Indifference may be as injurious as tyranny, though of course it cannot be so energetically and promptly resented. The true path leads between the two extremes. We have up to a certain time refused concession till angrily demanded; now we say, 'Do what you please; we do not care, and will not interfere.' Is not indifference almost as bad as unkindness? What is the good of retaining the affectionate name of the mother country, if it be not to give a kind word of sympathy and approval in due season?

Four colonies on the north of the

St. Lawrence are still our own. They are inhabited by a race whose loyalty is as much more active than our own, as feeling is stronger than habit. In the nature of things they will not remain as they are for ever. Face boldly the question of their ultimate fate, which must sooner or later arise. Determine whether it is desirable that they should always remain part of our body-politic. If it be so, what terms can we offer them in order to secure their acquiescence in that arrangement? If it be not, consider whether we are educating them, so to speak, for a mutually pleasant and advantageous separation.

Is it right that a great nation should consider her colonies as mere dependencies, an appanage of her regal character, a means to justify the boast that on her dominions the sun never sets, as part and parcel of her state-to be at all risks and at any expense retained; or are they to be considered as offshoots from the parent stem-children to be carefully guarded, helped, and restrained in their nonage, but as they approach maturity to be gradually freed from restraint, taught to see in the mother country their most natural protector, the best customer for their goods, the people most kindly interested in their welfare?

Surely the last is the more reasonable of the two alternatives, and in some degree we have adopted it. We have freed our colonies from the restraints of their youth; but in the kindly intercourse, the seasonable encouragement, more than all, the acts of kindness graciously received, which would bind them to us as with bars of steel, we fail utterly.

In the last war, while we raked together the offscouring of the German population among the unwilling United States, while we embodied Piedmontese and Italian refugees, we refused the eagerly proffered services of our Canadian brothers, in whose veins flow AngloSaxon blood, and who inherit to the full extent the bone and sinew, the nerve and the courage, of their English sires. They are too proud to complain; but when next we need such assistance, will they offer it as readily?

Such familiarities reverse the old