classes, if we would give them better habits, as well | the producers, the many, sunk, or kept in abject as make them better workmen, we ought to endea- poverty, while the few are luxuriously accommovour to make them acquainted with the principles dated, presents a very different state of things,that must determine their condition in life. The and the shrewd artisans laugh, bitterly laugh, in poor ought to be taught that they are in a great the faces of those who gravely tell them they measure the architects of their own fortune'; that ought to rejoice over their condition; for that the what others can do for them is trifling indeed com- great Earl of Northumberland, three hundred pared with what they can do for themselves; that years ago, ate off pewter or wooden trenchers, they are infinitely more interested in the preser- whereas they have all more or less of crockeryvation of the public tranquillity than any other ware and some glass vessels-while the real quesclass of society; that mechanical inventions and tion with them is, how any kind or quality of vesdiscoveries are always supremely advantageous to sel of theirs is to be filled; and not that their barthem; and that their real interests can only be barous ancestors had fresh meat only in summer, effectually promoted by their displaying greater and were condemned to salted wild hog's flesh all prudence and forethought."-" Ought to be su- winter. How would the families of Almondbury premely advantageous," M'Culloch should have have rejoiced over those coarse commons! The said—and will yet be so, we fervently trust; though, nobility were rather scanty of linen, and had no in the meantime, the inmates of the wretched glass to their windows, and the Scotch soldiers at abodes described by Dr. Kay, instead of laying to Bannockburn were nearly naked. The change now heart the, to them, somewhat abstract truth, that may be a happy one for the nobility and the mili. "they are infinitely more interested in the pre-tary, but the labourers at Manchester, in their servation of the public tranquillity than any other class of society," are more likely, in their desperate circumstances, to join the Highland reaver's prayer, "Lord turn the world upside down, that honest folk may make bread out of it!"

BOOKS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF
USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

It was fondly expected that the labours of this Society were to regenerate the operative classes, enlighten their dark minds, teach them their duty, and purify and strengthen their moral natures. Disappointment has hitherto attended the Society's efforts, and latterly grumbling. Under the sanction of the Society there came out lately a well-writ ten small volume, entitled the WORKMAN'S COMPANION-Rights of Industry, which has strongly moved the spleen of the better-informed of the artisans, from the ingenious, but, as they think, specious, attempt made to persuade them that their condition, from improvements in machinery, and the extension of commerce, is so much better than they feel it to be,-that they are far happier men than their barbarous ancestors of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They readily acknowledge that the country has improved immensely-that vast accumulations of capital have been made ; but they add, that they, the producers, have no portion, or avery small one in these good things. The author of the Rights of Industry, they say, in his elaborate comparison of the state of this island five hundred years ago and now, forgets entirely to enter the hovels of the woollen manufacturers, the cellars of the hand-loom weavers of Manchester; and completely overlooks that in those barbarous times the condition of one class, in domestic accommodation, was nearly that of every class. When the nobility lay on flock beds, the labourer had no great cause to complain of his bag of rushes. When Lochiel's pillow was not even a snow-ball, the clansman would have been a whining poltroon who had grumbled at a couch in the heather; but

quantity of linen, and completeness of glazing and accoutrements, are still in much the old state. These unhappy ancestors of ours had no turnip or cabbage to eat to their meat, but the complaint of their modern descendants is, that they have no meat to eat to their cabbage. They were liable to periodical visitations of the plague, occasioned, we are told by filth and want; but to what are Typhus and Cholera now attributed? The former plague lurking among the manufacturing poor, at all times, peculiar to them, or nearly so-the latter in all probability about to establish itself among them. We shall quote a few pertinent remarks on the Working Man's Companion; though from a hardship unknown to the 14th century, and to the 15th, and 16th, and 17th centuries, we are not at liberty to tell their origin:

"If the poor of the reigns of the Edwardses slept on straw, the rich did little better. There was, in fact, not so great the 15th century, spoke highly of the actual comforts of the a disparity then as now. Fortescue, however, a writer of labourers; comforts which even now, would well deserve the name. Colquhoun, in 1812, stated that the sum of L.430,000,000 sterling was annually produced by the each man, woman, or child; while in fact each individual working classes of this country, or L.54 per annum for of these producers did not receive, on average, so much as L.11 annually, or one-fifth of his share. Was this equitable? The author also declared that "capital was always ready to be exchanged for labour." On the contrary, Mr. PMQueen has stated not long ago, that a large number persons were confined in-Bedford jail, who were known as men of general good character, but who were actually forced and driven to crime by the pressure of want. Such statements, then, were either errors of ignorance, or cruel mockeries of the poor. Again, to quote once more the could not become Capitalists.'+ often-cited phrase Labourers now Become Capitalists. Neither would a reduction of taxation, a revision of the Corn Laws, and the consequent fall of prices, really serve the working classes-for at each such reduction—or what was the same thing-at

of

each reduction of comforts which the labourers had consented to, the master had pounced upon them to claim a reduction in wages; and such was the over-supply of labour that they always succeeded. But there was nothing of this in the Society's books. The working men of the 15th century might be badly off, but they were not Sold by Auction, as at present; they did not wheel sand 22 miles a-day for fourteen-pence. They were not forbidden to marry, nor driven to emigration."

The country might be full of glory, and its prosperity might be ever so well displayed by the Society, but this display was of little use to the starving population. The way really to serve such persons, was to show them how to obtain and secure a competence.

The following eloquent description of the state of the

labouring classes in England, at the time the Society commenced its labours, will show how much need there was for their instruction, and the Utility of that which has been

offered them :

any thing of the kind more magnificent; the extreme height of the houses, which are for the most part built of stone, and well sashed; the breadth and length of the street, and (it being dry weather) a cleanness made by the high winds

*

*

* Being a stranger, I was invited to sup in a tavern. The cook was too filthy an object to be described; only another English gentleman whispered me, and said, he believed if the fellow were to be thrown against the wall he would stick.— Twisting round and round his hand a greasy towel, he stood waiting to know what we would have for supper, and mentioned several things himself; among the rest, a duke, a fool, a meer fool." Burt's modern editor notices "that had it been dinner, he might also have recommended a bubbly-jock, a pully, a bawd.(hare) and rabbits, un"Consider the condition, mental and physical, of a la- der names which might have led a gay young bouring weaver in 1826. Remember that he knew of scho-militaire completely astray; with a tappet-hen of lastic education little more than reading and writing; perhaps he was able to add a few figures together, and that formed the sum total of his arithmetic. This man, reduced to distress, seeks for the means of relief; he contemplates the various circumstances around him, and endeavours to learn what of those circumstances have an influence on his well-being, what of those circumstances he can control, so that his well-being may be secured. Rude, ignorant, seeing only a few, a very few, of the many intricate workings of society, he mistakes (Is it wonderful?) the real cause of his misery. Driven to desperation, he clamours against the existence of machinery, he accuses the government of creating his distress. In the midst of his doubts and his misery, he hears that a society of really benevolent men have combined together, for the purpose not of conveying to him immediate relief, but of enlightening his mind, of giving him forethought and useful knowledge knowledge by which he will eventually be enabled to set a guardupon his well-being, and ward off the attacks of poverty, and its long train of miseries. He, with his friends, subscribes a sixpence, and buys the Society's first Treatise. He finds it headed-Hydrostatics!" EDINBURGH A CENTURY AGO-GOLDSMITH THE POET.

ale (or claret ?) to wash all down." In fact, Burt
and his friends after faring in substantials as
well as they could do to-day in Gibb's or Steventon's
at five times the cost, "drank good French claret,
and were very merry till the clock struck ten, the
hour when every body is at liberty by beat of the
city drum to throw their filth out at the windows.
* * "Being in my retreat," he says,
"to pass
through a long narrow wynde or alley, to go to
my new lodgings, a guide was assigned me, who
went before me to prevent my disgrace, crying
out all the way with a loud voice, hud your
haunde." The throwing up a sash, or otherwise
opening a window made me tremble.
Eight, ten, and even twelve stories have each a
particular family, and perhaps a separate proprie
tor; and there, any thing so expensive as a con-
veyance from the uppermost floor could never be
agreed on."

*
*

*

To the disgrace of the successive civic rulers of Edinburgh, this fine street remains, in point of the THE LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND TO means of domestic cleanliness, much where Captain A FRIEND IN LONDON have lately acquired consid- Burt left it in 1726. Even then it seems the New erable celebrity, from the frequent reference made Town had been contemplated; but was discounto them by Sir Walter Scott, in elucidating the tenanced for jobbing reasons.-Captain Burt manners and customs of the Highlanders. Their commemorates thefingenuity of our cannie ancestors author was a Captain Burt, an officer of engineers, in guarding against cabbaging. The cloth was who, exactly a century back, was sent to Scotland weighed out to the tailor, and the clothes when by Government for surveys, and public business. brought home weighed again with all the odd bits The letters are highly amusing and interesting, and clippings.-His account of the ladies is more particularly those from Inverness, where the Cap-gratifying, "The plaid is the undress of the ladies; tain long had his head quarters. Like Pennant, he was struck with the height of the Edinburgh houses. "At a distance" says Pennant, "they strike with wonder; their own loftiness, improved by their almost aerial situation, gives them a look of magnificence not to be found in any other part of Great Britain." Captain Burt, though not addicted to flatter; and in truth a very "pock-pudding" stuffed full of cockney notions, and English prejudice, and measuring, and comparing every object he beheld by the standard of England, says "When I first came into the High Street of the City, I thought I had never seen

and to a genteel woman, who adjusts it with a good air, is a becoming veil. But as I am pretty sure you never saw one of them in England, I shall employ a few words to describe it to you. It is made of silk or fine worsted, chequered with various lively colours, two breadths wide, and three yards in length; it is brought over the head, and may hide or discover the face according to the wo man's fancy or occasion. It reaches to the waist behind :-one corner falls as low as the ancle on one side, and the other part in folds hangs down from the opposite arm. I have been told that the ladies in Edinburgh distinguish their political

concludes our assembly.

the Roman matrons in honour of Ceres; and the Scotch

that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times handsomer

principles, whether Whig or Tory, by the manner I told a Scotch gentleman that of wearing their plaids: that is, one of them re- such profound silence resembled the ancient procession of verses the old fashion, but which it is I do not re-gentleman told me (and faith I believe he was right) that member [the Whigs no doubt.] I assure you we have here (Inverness) among the better sort, a full proportion of pretty women, as indeed there is all over Scotland. The men have more regard to the comeliness of their posterity, than in those countries where a large fortune serves to soften the hardest features, and even to make the crooked straight: and indeed their definition of a fine woman seems chiefly directed to that purpose; for after speaking of her face they say "She's a fine, healthy, straight, strong, strapping lassie." I was once commending to a lady of fortune in London, the upright, firm, yet easy manner of the ladies walking in Edinburgh; and when I had done, she fluttered her fan; and with a kind of disdain mixed with jealousy to hear them commended, she said, "Mr. Burt, I do not at all wonder at thatthey are used to walk."

Among other changes Mr. Burt, could he look up, would now, we fear, find the motives to matrimony considerably changed in Scotland. About twenty years after this, Goldsmith the poet was studying medicine in Edinburgh; and we have his lively account of the Scotch, and of the ladies of our city; in which, according to him, balls were conducted in the very same way they are now in the United States, if we may believe Mrs. Trol. lope, the last Tory traveller in America. Goldsmith's letter is otherwise very characteristic. One sees in it the germ of some of his best occasional papers in after periods :

I was a very great pedant for my pains. Now I am come to the ladies; and to show that I love Scotland, and every thing that belongs to so charming a country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to break my head that denies it, and finer than the Irish. To be sure, now, I see your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality; but tell them flatly, I don't value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, a potato; for I say it, and will mainsion) of which I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. tain it; and as a convincing proof (I'm in a very great pasBut to be less serious, where will you find a language so pretty, become a pretty mouth, as the broad Scotch ?—and the women here speak it in its highest purity. For instance, were one of your young ladies to pronounce" Whaur will Í gong" with a becoming wideness of mouth, I'll lay my life they will wound every hearer. We have no such character here as a coquet; but alas! how many envious prudes! Some days ago, I walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover,) when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) passed by in her chariot; her battered husband, or, more properly, the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form. "For my part," says the first, "I think,

Has

what I always thought, that the Duchess has too much red in her complexion." "Madam, I am of your opinion,” says the second; " and I think her face has a palish cast, too much on the delicate order.” "And let me tell you," adds the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to the size of an issue, "that the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth ;"-at this every lady drew up her mouth, as if she was going to pronounce the letter P. But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule women with whom I have scarce any correspondence! There are, 'tis certain, "The Scotchman," he says, (not, dear reader, the newshandsome women here; and 'tis as certain there are handpaper now so named) is one of the proudest things alive some men to keep them company. An ugly and a poor man the poor have pride ever ready to relieve them if mankind is society for himself; and such society the world lets me should happen to despise them they are masters of their enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you circum. own admiration, and that they can plentifully bestow on stances, and nature a person, to look charming in the eyes themselves. From their pride and poverty, as I take it, of the fair world. Nor do I envy, my dear Bob, such blesresults one advantage this country enjoys, namely the gen- sings, while I may sit down and laugh at the world, and tlemen are much better bred than amongst us. No such at myself, the most ridiculous object in it—but I begin to character here as our fox-hunters; and they have expressed grow splenetic; and perhaps the fit may continue till I regreat surprise when I informed them that some men in Ire-ceive an answer to this. I know you can't send news from land of a thousand pounds a-year spend their whole lives in running after a hare, drinking to be drunk, and getting every girl that will let them with child; and truly, if such a being, equipped in his hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they would behold him with the same astonishment that a countryman would King George on horseback. The men have generally high cheek bones, and are lean and swarthy, fond of action, and dancing in particular. Though now I have mentioned dancing, let me say something of their balls, which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit, dismally, in a group by themselves; on the other end stand their pensive partners, that are to be; but no more intercourse between the sexes than there is between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed may ogle and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady-directress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a gentleman and lady to walk a minuet, which they perform with a formality that approaches despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances, each gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid ladydirectress; so they dance much, and say nothing, and thus" poor Goldy" wrote there was a Mr. Maclellan a claimant for the tite

• This must have been the rooms in THE OLD Assembly Close!

While Oliver

B. Mahon, but, such as it is, send it all; everything you
write will be agreeable and entertaining to me.
George Conway put up a sign yet; or John Finecly left off
drinking drams; or Tom Allan got a new wig? But I
leave to your own choice what to write.
Goldsmish lives, know you have a friend!
P.S. Give my sincerest regards (not compliments, do
you mind) to your agreeable family; and give my service
to my mother, if you see her; for, as you express it in Ire-
land, I have a sneaking kindness for her still.
Direct to me-Student in Physic, in Edinburgh.

TWO WENT UP INTO THE TEMPLE.

Two went up to pray. Oh, rather say,
One went to brag, the other to pray;
One stands up close, and treads on high,
Where the other dares not send his eye;
One nearer to God's altar trode,
The other to the altar's God.

This lord, the glover, is Mrs. Trollope or Captain Basil Hall all over; save that they are serious, and Goldsmith in jest. The Duchess was his fair countrywoman Elizabeth, the elder of the beautiful Miss Gunnings, who afterwards married the Duke of Argyle; and who, in Charlotte Bury-and the present Duke of Argyle. At the time when 1773 was Dr. Johnson's " Duchess of Two-tails"-the mother of the Lady

of Lord Kirkcudbright, who may have sold gloves.-Louis Phillipe taught Mathematics. His son twenty years afterwards established his claim, and enjoyed the title,

THE SPINNING-WHEEL. BURNS has dedicated one of his sweetest songs "to Bessie and her spinning wheel;" the author of Anster Fair, one of his liveliest poems to the same romantic implement. A philosophic poet, Wordsworth, has taken the same view of the value of the wheel to the cottage maid or matron, that the lady whom we quoted last week, did of hemming pocket-handkerchiefs, which, of course, includes netting purses, working collars, and twist-half-crowns in a purse, including pieces of country money, ing tape into garnishing for petticoats. Not to mention the cheerful looks of the blithe lass driving at her small wheel, there was something stately and imposing in the matron pacing with solemn, measured steps before that more respectable machine, whose very size gave her labour an air of dignity. We give Wordsworth's sonnet, as less generally accessible than the songs of our countrymen.

Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend,
Now that the cottage spinning-wheel is mute,
And care a comforter, that best could suit
Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend;
And love, a charmer's voice, that used to lend,
More efficaciously than ought that flows
From harp or lute, kind influence to compose
The throbbing pulse,-else troubled without end;
Even joy could tell, joy craving truce and rest
From her own overflow, what power sedate
On those revolving motions did await
Assiduously, to sooth her aching breast;
And to a point of just relief-abate
The mantling triumphs of a day too blest.

It will be worth while to inquire whether the catastrophe of poisoning or drowning for love be on the increase among young women, since the wheel became obsolete. We turn now to a sketch by a master-hand-the modern Servant-Lass,

THE MAID-SERVANT.

The maid-servant, in her apparel, is either slovenly or fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and neck-handkerchief pinned corner-wise behind. If you want a pin, she just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and holydays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings for white, puts on a gown of a better texture and fine pattern, sets her cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neckhandkerchief for a high body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is something very warm and latent in the handkerchief,-something easy, vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her chucked out of doors into a cart with as little remorse as a couple of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the handkerchief, and is to the other what the young lady is to the servant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in the Guardian;' the other of Fanny in Joseph Andrews.' But to return:The general furniture of her ordinary room, the kitchen, is not so much her own as her master's and mistress's, and need not be described; but in a drawer of the dresser of the table, in company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissars, a thread-case, a piece of wax candle much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of Pamela,' and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as George Barnewell,' or Mrs. Behn's Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking

glass also in the window. The rest of her furniture is in
the garret, where you may find a good looking-glass on
the table, and in the window a Bible, a comb, and a piece
of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the
mighty mystery-the box,-containing among other things
her clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen
for the penny; sundry tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet;
the Whole Nature of Dreams laid Open ;' together with
the Fortune-Teller,' and the Account of the Ghost of
Mrs. Veal; the Story of the beautiful Zoa, who was
cast away on a desert island, showing how,' &c.; some
with the good Countess of Coventry on one of them riding
naked on the horse; a silver penny wrapped up in cotton
by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before she came to
town, and the giver of which has either forgotten her or
been forgotten by her, she is not sure which; two little
enamel boxes, with looking-glass in the lids, one of them
a fairing, the other a trifle from Glasgow;' and lastly,
various letters, square and ragged, and directed in all sorts
of spelling, chiefly with little letters for capitals. One of
them, written by a girl who went to a day-school with
her, is directed miss.' In her manners, the maid-servant
sometimes imitates her young mistress; she puts her hair
in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally contrives to
be out of spirits. But her own character and condition
overcome all sophistications of this sort; her shape, forti-
fied by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way;
and exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the
same cause her temper is good; though she gets into little
heats when a stranger is over saucy, or when she is told
not to go so heavily down stairs, or when some unthink-
ing person goes up her wet stairs with dirty shoes, or when
she is called away often from dinner; neither does she
much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a
morning; and sometimes she catches herself saying, 'drat
that butcher,' but immediately adds,God forgive me.'
Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing,
and giggling, and grumbling, and being flattered. If she
takes any pleasure unconnected with her office before the
afternoon, it is when she runs up the area-steps, or to the
door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a troop of
soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head
out of a chamber window at the same time with a servant
at the next house, when a dialogue infallibly ensues, sti-
mulated by the imaginary obstacles between. If the maid-
servant is wise, the best part of her work is done by din-
ner-time, and nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest
to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she
calls it a bit o' dinner.' There is the same sort of elo-
quence in her other phrase, a cup o' tea;' but the old
ones, and the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea
in great houses, she goes with the other servants to hot
cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts like, and tells Mr. John
to have done then; or if there is a ball given that night,
they throw open all the doors, and make use of the music
up stairs to dance by. In smaller houses, she receives the
visit of her country cousin; and sits down alone, or with
a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks of her young master,
or mistress, Mr. Ivins (Evans); or else she calls to mind
her own friends in the country, where she thinks the cows
and all that' beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile,
if she is lazy, she snuffs the candle with her scissars; or if
she has eaten more heartily than usual, she sighs double
the usual number of times, and thinks that tender hearts
were born to be unhappy. Such being the maid-servant's
life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad, to be any thing but
a creature of sheer enjoyment. The maid-servant, the
sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy a
holyday beyond all the rest of the world; and all for the
same reason-because their inexperience, peculiarity of
life, and habit of being with persons, or circumstances, or
thoughts above them, give them all, in their way, a cast of
the romantic. The most active of money-getters is a veget-
able compared with them. The maid-servant, when she first
goes to the play-house, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is
all pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the

street. He seized the thief; and, being the stronger, held him fast, though not without receiving many violent blows; and at length gave him into the charge of a police officer who came up. The transaction was perfectly clear, and passed in the presence of many witnesses; and the delinquent, if prosecuted, would have been transported. His

play, or the music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of apples and gingerbread nuts, which she and her party commence almost as soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy, because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general; and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in the love scenes. Her favourite play is Alex-wife went to the gentleman, and begged for mercy on her ander the Great, or the Rival Queens.' Another great delight is in going a-shopping. She loves to look at the patterns in the windows, and the fine things labelled with those corpulent numerals of only 7s.'- only 6s. 6d.' She has also, unless born and bred in London, been to see My Lord Mayor, the fine people coming out of court, and thebeasties' in the Tower; and at all events she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which she comes away equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most. One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous, well-dressed people, as if she were the mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, where the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person, all in white, calls her ma'am ;' and says to John by her side, in spite of his laced hat, 'Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady.' Ah! may her cousin turn out as true as he says he is; or may she get home soon enough, and smiling enough, to be as happy again next time."

CAUSES OF THE BAD EFFECTS OF THE EAST WINDS. THERE never were so many persons in this locality affected with colds, hoarseness, rheumatism, &c. &c., from the east winds, in the month of August, as last week. We find the following theory of these troublesome effects of this detested wind, in our Commonplace Book, but cannot at present refer to the author :-The ill effects of the east wind on health have always been noticed. It is well known that air, as it grows warmer, becomes capable of holding in solution (or drinking up) a greater quantity of moisture; a current of cold air rushing into a place which is warmer, will therefore dry up a great deal of wet. For this reason damp clothes in winter, placed in the open window of a warm room, dry uncommonly fast. Now it is well known that nothing is more pernicious to the health than a sudden drying up of the perspiration. Whether this be owing merely to the cold caused on the skin by the evaporation of so much moisture, or to the derangement of some other link in the animal economy, need not be asked; it is sufficient that the fact is so. For this reason, exposure to any current of air which is acquiring heat, and is therefore becoming drier, is uncommonly prejudicial. Every one has observed how disagreeable are currents of air in warm rooms: in fact, the warmer the room, and the nearer we are to the fire place, so much the more annoying is a draught from any of its crannies. Such a current, increasing in heat as it passes from the cold of the external air to the warmth of a room, will absorb double its former moisture, and of course will dry the perspiration on the body faster than it can be supplied, causing, by that means, rheumatism in all its forms, toothach, headach, &c. Now it is evident that the same reason which causes a draught from the open air into a room to be disagreeable, will cause any wind blowing from a cold region into one that is warmer, to have exactly the same effects. The east wind is in this predicament; it blows from a colder continent, which retains the cold of winter longer than the marine tract on which we are situated, the temperature of which is more equal, and at such times warmer. Damp or misty winds are also proverbially hurtful, and the injurious effects seem to arise from the moisture continually deposited by them on the body, which is evaporated by the natural heat, and causes in that process an unusual and hurtful degree of cold, or diminution of the animal temperature.

knees; the thief himself, who was not an uneducated man, wrote the most moving letters ;-and who will wonder that he at length found pity? On the appointed day the prosecutor staid away, and the criminal was accordingly acquitted. The gentleman paid dearly enough for his illtimed compassion. A fortnight after this transaction, he was prosecuted by the very man that picked his pocket, for an assault, which was proved by the testimony of several witnesses. The defendant replied that it was certainly true that he had seized the man, but that he had done so only because he had caught him in the act of picking his pocket. But as the criminal had already been acquitted of this, and no man can be tried twice for the same offence, no notice was taken of the justification. In short, it cost the too generous sufferer about a hundred pounds, which he had to pay partly to the man who robbed him, and partly to the Court.' The whole company thought this sort of justice monstrous; but an old Englishman defended it with great warmth and pertinacity. I think,' exclaimed he earnestly, that the incident just related, exactly goes to illustrate the wisdom of our laws in the most striking manner. All laws and judicial authorities are instituted for the sole purpose of preventing crime. This is also the sole end of punishment. The receiver of stolen goods is, therefore, in the eye of the law, nearly as guilty as the thief; and he who knowingly tries to rescue a criminal from the grasp of the law, is almost as pernicious to the community as the criminal himself. That man who, perhaps, began his career in crime with the stealing of this pocket-handkerchief, and therefore ought to have been withdrawn from society for penitence and amendment, now, emboldened by success, is probably planning a larger theft, perhaps a murder. Who ought to bear the blame? This very gentleman,— who has been deservedly punished for his illegal pity. He who thrusts his hand uncalled for and inconsiderately between the wheels of a useful machine, must not wonder if he break his fingers.'

SAGE CHEESE. This is made by steeping one night, in a proper quantity of milk, two parts of sage, one part of marigold leaves, and a little parsley, after they have been bruised. On the following morning the greened milk is strained off, and mixed with about one-third of the whole quantity intended to be run or coagulated. The green and white milks are run separately, the two curds being kept apart until they be ready for vatting; these may be mixed either evenly and intimately, or irregularly and fancifully, according to the pleasure of the manufacturer.

STILTON CHEESE. This delicious cheese may be made by the following simple process :-To the new milk of the cheese-making morning add the cream from that of the preceding evening, together with the rennet, watching the full separation of the curd, which must be removed from the whey without breaking, and placed into a sieve, until of such consistence as to bear being lifted up and placed in a hoop that will receive it without much pressure. The cheese, as it dries, will shrink up, and must, therefore, be placed from time to time in a tighter hoop, and turned daily, until it acquires the proper degree of consistence. for use or keeping.

DEBT. If you boast of a contempt for the world, avoid getting into debt. It is giving unto gnats the fangs of vipers.

SYMPATHY IN WATCHES.-It has been found that in a watchmaker's shop the time-pieces or clocks, connected with the same wall or shelf, have such a sympathetic effect in keeping time, that they stop those which beat in irregular time; and if any are at rest, set a-going those which beat accurately.