ters; and four years later, the young Canova-for such was the lad's name-was on his way to Rome with letters of recommendation to some of the most illustrious families in that capital. Guided by that inspiration which belongs to genius, he carried his first letter to the Signor Volpato, from whom he desired to receive instruction; the same Volpato who gave to Italy some of its finest sculptures. The first friendship which Antonio formed was with a youth of his own age-Raphael Morghen. After some time, he gave up painting, and devoted himself to sculpture. Here his genius led him to the very summit of glory. In 1782, Zuliano, the Venetian ambassador, after a banquet given by him to the most celebrated artists then assembled in Rome, invited the guests to accompany him to an adjoining saloon. He said he wished to show them a group newly finished by an artist whose name he had not yet announced to them. The subject was Theseus conquering the Minotaur. 'Gentlemen,' exclaimed Zuliano with an air of satisfaction, this work is executed by a countryman of mine. Signor Antonio Canova,' he added, seeking in the crowd for a youth who seemed modestly to shrink from notice, come forward to receive the congratulations which you merit.' Canova became the most distinguished sculptor of his day, but was always the first to relate his early history to those who went to visit him in his studio; and, above all, he ever spoke with the deepest gratitude of the Signor Volpato. We wish it to be well understood in England, that the constitution of our society in India presents an insuperable obstacle to the existence of anything resembling an unscrupulous press. An unscrupulous press cannot exist anywhere without an unscrupulous public. Now there is no public-if we may be permitted to use the word at all in so narrow an acceptation-there is no public in the world of so select a character as the newspaper-reading public of India. It consists of a few classes of educated English gentlemen-military officers, the civil servants of the government, and gentlemen engaged in commercial pursuits. The Indian press has no "lower orders" for whom to pander. We have no pot-house politicians-no literary dustmen-no erudite cads-no high life below stairs-no select circles of slander-loving profligates and thieves. There is no great demand in this part of the world for intellectual, whatever there may be for gastronomical, high-seasoned dishes. The most that Indian readers look for is the Duke of Norfolk's panacea-" a pinch of curry-powder." They are not very fond of strong meat and strong drink; and no journalist having any regard for his purse, would cater for his subscribers after any other than a most orderly, a most becoming fashion, having the utmost regard for the delicacies, the proprieties of civilised life. A few failures in this respect have ere now struck a blow at the prosperity of an Indian journal, from the effects of which it has never recovered.' There can hardly be a doubt, we think, that the freedom of the press in India has established its respec May not this early passage in Canova's history en-tability; but the grand objection made in England, is courage us to cultivate every talent which may have been committed to us with an earnest and courageous spirit, feeling assured that whatever outward obstacles may obstruct our path, a firm persevering resolution, and patient unwearied labour, will ever in the end conquer fortune, and establish for us a solid reputation? the danger of political consequences. Our government, we are told, is a government of opinion: let us keep the natives, therefore, as much as possible in the dark; let them never suspect that there are any divisionsthat there is a single discontented voice heard, or permitted to be heard, in the camp of their governors! This caution is very amusing to persons acquainted with the state of the native press in India. The Hindoo journals THE ANGLO-INDIAN PRESS. are full of satire, both personal and political; and what THE first Anglo-Indian journal was published sixty- they want in order to insure the tranquillity of the seven years ago, in 1780. It was called 'Hicky's Gazette,' country, is not concealment, but information. "Already,' and is said by the Calcutta Review to have been full says an anonymous writer in 1840, the progress of of infamous scandal-in some places so disguised, as to India in European knowledge has placed her in a posibe almost unintelligible to the reader of the present tion not immediately perilous, it is true, to her governday, but in others set forth broadly and unmistakeably, ment, but interesting from its parallels in history. and with a relish not to be concealed.' The individuals Native satirists now lash every day the follies and vices most foully attacked were frequently young ladies, their of their rulers, and song-writers (so often the advanced anonymous enemies, it is to be presumed, being rejected guard of freedom!) give words to the inarticulate mursuitors; but the highest dignitaries of the government murs of disaffection. The Hindoo mother lulls her were no more spared than the weaker sex; and at baby with a ballad, in which she tells him that howlength we read without any surprise the following ever wise and industrious he may be, he can never announcement: Mr Hicky thinks it a duty incumbent hope for a hundredth part of the return obtained by on him to inform his friends in particular, and the Europeans; and on the occasion of the ignorant and public in general, that an attempt was made to assassi-insulting claim put forward by government to the pronate him last Thursday morning between the hours of one and two o'clock by two armed Europeans, aided and assisted by a Moorman. Mr Hicky is obliged to postpone the particulars at present for want of room, but they shall be inserted the first opportunity.' Only fifty years after this, when the journals had become numerous, Lord William Bentinck alludes to the press in his public despatches as forming a salutary check upon the public officers of government; and at a time when the native community had been roused into exasperation by the abolition of the sati, and both the civil and military services by a series of reforms and retrenchments, this dangerous engine-which had been the object of suspicion and alarm to former governorsgeneral-was left in practical freedom. In 1835, Sir Charles Metcalfe confirmed this freedom by law; upon an assumption, as the recent historian, Mr Thornton, tells us, that nothing was more likely to conduce to the spread of the enlightened knowledge and civilisation, the arts and sciences of Europe, over India, than a licentious and unbridled press.' With reference to this implied charge, the Review we have already quoted makes the following remark: prietorship of the lands, a bolder strain arose, of which Take up your tulwars in your hand, and loudly sound the gong, The Anglo-Indian press of the present day is respectable not only in character, but numerical force. The editor of the Telegraph and Courier (Bombay) has been kind enough to send us some statistics, by which we find that there are twenty-seven Indian papers, five Singapore and Straits papers, and three China papers. Of these six are daily, three tri-weekly, twelve bi-weekly, nine weekly, and five uncertain. It will be seen from the statement we publish,' says the Telegraph and Courier, that Calcutta possesses three daily and four weekly papers, two of the hebdomadals, however the "Christian Advocate" and Hindoo Intelligencer"— being organs of particular sections of the community. Madras has one daily, two bi-weeklies, and three tri-weeklies-the last named mode of publication being peculiar to the south-eastern presidency. In Bombay there are two dailies, a biweekly, and a weekly. The papers in the north of India are all issued twice a-week-a convenient arrangement as regards postage, which presses with peculiar weight on the daily journals. In Ceylon, our cotemporaries-with the exception of the "Morning Star," of which we have no information-likewise come under the denomination of bi-weekly. The "Friend of China," and "Straits Times," are the only bi-weeklies further east-the rest of the papers being hebdomadals.' The amount of subscription is from ten rupees to sixty-four rupees annually. The aggregate subscription for twentyfour of the Indian papers is L.78, 10s., the remaining three not being stated; and of five of the Chinese, Singapore, and Straits papers, seventy dollars, the remaining three not being stated. The Hindoo Intelligencer,' a Calcutta weekly journal, is edited by a native. The 'Kurrachee Advertiser' is lithographed. With regard to the circulation of these papers, we are in possession of no precise information. In India there are no stamps, the number of which admits of a tolerable guess in England; and the publishers, as may be supposed, are not very communicative on the subject. old chased repeater, that hung above the head of a dying parent when bestowing his trembling blessing on the poor outcast who parted with it for bread; the widow's wedding-ring is there, the last and dearest of all her possessions; the trinket, the pledge of love of one now dead, the only relic of the heart's fondest memories; silver that used to hang over the quiet mantel-shelf; the flute, the graced the holiday feast; the gilt-framed miniature that favourite of a dead son, surrendered by a starving mother to procure food for her remaining offspring; the locket that held a father's hair; or, gloomier still, the dress, the very covering of the poor is there, waving like the flag of wretchedness and misery. It is a strange sad sight to those who feel aright. There are more touching memorials to be seen at a pawnbroker's window than in all the monuments in Westminster Abbey.-Newspaper paragraph. LABOUR. The more we accomplish, the more we have to accomplish. All things are full of labour, and therefore the more we acquire, the more we care, and the more we toil, to secure our acquisitions. Good men can never retire from their works of benevolence. Their fortune is never made. I never heard of an apostle, prophet, or public benefactor retiring from their respective fields of labour. Moses, and Paul, and Peter died with their harness on. So did Luther, and Calvin, and Wesley, and a thousand others as deserv We are inured to ing, though not so well known to fame. labour. It was first a duty; it is now a pleasure. Still and body. The mainspring of a watch needs repose, and there is such a thing as over-working man and beast, mind is the better for it. The muscles of an elephant, and the wings of a swift bird, are at length fatigued. Heaven gives rest to the earth because it needs it; and winter is more pregnant with blessings to the soil than summer with its flowers and fruits.—A. Campbell. IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING WELL. Several of these journals publish a summary, which they transmit to England by each overland mail. The summary is a number containing a selection of articles published during the intervals of the mails, with such other matter as is expected to be found peculiarly interesting at home. It is, in fact, a fortnightly or monthly paper, as it may be, printed in India, and intended for circulation in Europe. This circulation, however, is much injured by the full reports of Indian intelligence It seems paradoxical to observe that the art of listening that are now given by some of the daily London news- well forms a part of the duty of conversation. To give up papers before the arrival of the ordinary mail, and by the whole of your attention to the person who addresses the comprehensive précis of the Indian News' and himself to you is sometimes a heavy task; but it is one 'Indian Mail.' These two journals, which are as large which we must pay for the privileges of social life, and an as most of the Sunday papers, exhibit in rather a reearly practice will render it almost an involuntary act of markable light the activity and promptitude of the this little sacrifice a merit and a charm of which the lowest good-breeding; whilst consideration for others will give metropolitan press. When the mail is delivered in proof of Christian feeling can never be devoid. To listen London-sometimes as late as three o'clock in the after-well is to make an unconscious advancement in the power noon-their editors and printers fasten upon the Indian of conversing. In listening, we perceive in what the inand Chinese papers, and more especially the sum- terest, in what the failure of others consists. We become, maries; and by dint of working hard all night, are able too, aware of our own deficiencies, without having them to publish a condensation of their contents, with leading taught through the medium of humiliation. We find ourarticles, and such home intelligence as is interesting to selves often more ignorant than we could have supposed readers connected with India, in time for circulation it possible. We learn, by a very moderate attention to throughout the kingdom by the eight o'clock mail of the the sort of topics which please, to form a style of our own. The art of conversation' is an unpleasant phrase. following morning. This is of course a great accommodation to the public; but the hurry and excitement of The power of conversing well is least agreeable when it assumes the character of an art. In listening, a well-bred the system has had an unfavourable effect upon litera- gentlewoman will gently sympathise with the speaker; ture. Formerly, there were several Indian magazines or, if needs must be, differ as gently. Much characof high character published in London, but we are not ter is shown in the art of listening. Some people appear aware that there is now a single individual of the class. to be in a violent hurry whilst another speaks; they hasten The Asiatic Journal,' a most valuable and interesting on the person who addresses them, as one would urge on work, was abandoned some years ago, confessedly on a horse, with 'Yes, yes. Very good. Ah!' Others sit on account of the injury its circulation sustained from the the full stare, eyes fixed as those of an owl, upon the first in the field of these stamped newspapers. speaker. From others, a loud and long laugh is, at intervals, produced, and all the company turns round to see what was the cause of the merriment. But all these vices of manner may be avoided by a gentle attention, and a certain calm dignity of manner, based upon a reflective mind and humble spirit.-Hints to Young Ladies on their Entrance into Society. THE PAWNBROKER'S WINDOW. There is more philosophy of life to be learned at a pawnbroker's window than in all the libraries in the world. The maxims and dogmas which wise men have chronicled disturb the mind for a moment, as the breeze ruffles the surface of the deep, still stream, and passes away; but there is something in the melancholy grouping of a pawnbroker's window which, like a record of ruin, sinks into the heart. The household goods, the cherished relics, the sacred possessions affection bestowed, or eyes now closed in death had once looked upon as their own, are here as it were profaned: the associations of dear old times are here violated; the family hearth is here outraged; the ties of love, kindred, rank, all that the heart clings to, are broken here. It is a sad picture; for, in spite of all the glittering show, its associations are sombre. There hangs the watch, the DEPORTMENT. Be reserved, but not sour; grave, but not formal; bold, but not rash; humble, but not servile; patient, but not insensible; constant, but not obstinate; cheerful, but not light; rather be sweet-tempered than familiar; familiar, rather than intimate; and intimate with very few, and with those few upon good grounds.-William Penn. Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. Ork, 147 Strand, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. EDINBURGH JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR No. 211. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1848. THE NAVIE. NAVIGATOR, or rather its abridged form of navie, is a term of recent currency in our language, and well known to apply to one engaged in railway operations -ploughing the solid land in deeper and more lasting furrows than his neighbour Jack of the ocean does his mobile element. The term, as is well known, originated in the excavating of canals for inland navigation. Canals having had their day, the labourers so employed have been fortunate in finding more extensive and profitable scope for their industry in the making of railways. The essential basis of the class is English, much the larger proportion of the navigator body being draughted from Lincolnshire, the rural parts of Lancashire, and adjoining districts. Digging trenches in the fenny parts of Lincolnshire has always been a staple employment to this class of labourers; and this it probably was which originally adapted them for canal workings. The navie of this generic type possesses in a rude state those qualities and habits which give respectability to the English character. To a great degree of Danish or Saxon descent, and uncorrupted by social vices, the pure navie-taking him zoologically-is a fine animal. His large bones, great muscular energy, and love of good living, indicate his Teutonic origin, not less than his tractability, inclination for work, and downright honesty and spirit of independence. The navie of the right sort is no sham: he will give work for the money. Only treat him well, and keep him from drink, and his behaviour is unexceptionable. No human being will go through such a quantity of bodily labour with more cheerfulness. PRICE 1d. cessive; and the spectacle makes one melancholy. 'Can it be possible,' you say to yourself, that they don't know of the wheelbarrow?' This little vehicle, homely as it appears, is entitled to be associated with the most stupendous undertakings. Pushed along on a plankanother English invention-by a stout navie, it forms one of our most valuable machines. The great or wholesale carrying engine, however, of the navie, is the wagon on temporary rails. Of this expert mechanism the continentalists likewise knew nothing till they saw it introduced by English contractors; and after all, the car, dragged with difficulty by ropes, is still chiefly employed by them—a dozen men or women not doing the work of one horse! The English navie, paradoxical as it may seem, is an important agent in the spread of civilisation: he carries the arts abroad, and practically expounds their operation. Now that he has shown the French the use of the pickaxe, the short shovel, the wheelbarrow and plank, and the wagon and temporary rail, we may reasonably expect that the knowledge of these improved instruments of labour will be extended over Europe. How curious! An illiterate peasant from the fens of Lincolnshire tells the learned of France and Germany things which alter the face and condition of kingdoms, and which they never heard of before! Philosophers who can discover planets, not having the ingenuity to invent a wheelbarrow! Countries affecting to stand at the head of science, yoking women in rope-harness to draw mud, and making them draw it too, in the most unscientific manner! One thing is remarkable in the English navie-he has pitched his standard of living at a high point. He The English navie has carried a knowledge of his refuses to live on wishy-washy broth, or porridge, or craft into countries where the arts of digging and hand-potatoes; he must have bread, beef, bacon, beer, and ling the spade were in their infancy. It may seem ridiculous to talk of there being an art' in shovelling earth into a barrow; but it is an art, and a very important one. It is quite English. The very spade is English, and so are the pickaxe and wheelbarrow. All over continental Europe, the instrument of digging is a clumsy species of adze, and that for lifting is a long pole with a small shovel at the end of it. The short shovel with a cross handle is English; the French and Germans know nothing of it, except as a new importation. With the short English spade or shovel, a navie will with ease lift, in a given space of time, six times the quantity of earth that a Frenchman will do with his long-poled instrument. He excels in the art of carrying as well as lifting. On several railway workings which we have seen on the continent, apparently under the charge of native contractors, the earth is filled into small cars or wagons, which are drawn by men or women with ropes across the soft and uneven surface of the ground. The toil and tediousness of this process are ex-workmen. coffee, all of the best kind. Uninstructed, like the English peasantry generally, he is apt to transgress the laws which govern the stomach, and suffers accordingly. In some places, whole bands of strong-bodied navies have become subject to a species of scurvy from living too long on one species of diet. The prevalent want of vegetables during the past year has perhaps contributed to aggravate this evil; and something is also due to the distance at which navies frequently are from markets. In many cases, the labour of railway digging is carried on several miles from any town or village, and it is therefore necessary for the contractors or their agents to establish temporary stores at which food can be purchased. These stores, usually called tommy-shops, have been the object of much unreasonable clamour. It is perhaps true that some storekeepers have done injustice as respects the prices and qualities of articles; but instances are more common of contractors losing money by their endeavours to supply the wants of their We have been assured that contractors would rather have nothing to do with this kind of traffic; but necessity compels them to become shopkeepers. If they did not establish stores, the men would not engage with them: the navie will not go into a desert to be starved. Another thing has excited not a little useless indignation. The contractors or their agents are accused of paying the navies by orders on the tommy-shops for goods, instead of giving them a weekly money wage. This is no doubt an improper method of paying workmen: but who is to blame? The men, by their improvidence, are constantly in want; they absolutely depend for existence on the goods given to them on account; and it is notorious that if money, instead of money's worth, were paid daily, the money would be dissipated in drink, and there would be a continual saturnalia. The very reason why settlement is postponed till the end of a fortnight or month, instead of taking place every Saturday, is, that the great drinkings may be fewer, and that the work may not unnecessarily be interrupted. On a railway now in progress in Scotland, | a large proportion of the navigator's earnings, we are told, is spent on whisky, which the English navies speak of as 'white beer,' and consume raw in tumblers. Riots and fights have consequently been of lamentable frequency; nevertheless, considering the vast numbers of men employed at a distance from seats of authority, it is matter for surprise that so little crime has been committed. The fact is explained only by the English navie not being radically defective in good principle: he is not revengeful, mean, or avaricious. What a national disgrace that so fine a type of man elementarily should have been reared in a state of intellectual darkness scarcely differing from that of the tribes of Central Africa! landers are more inclined to occasional than regular labour, and therefore they require a kind of drilling before they are fit to work in gangs. Navies, it will have been observed, work to each other's hands: the wheelbarrows are run along a succession of planks in so many lifts. One set of navies take each his barrow a certain length, and having set it down to be lifted by a second set, they bring back the empty barrows which are ready for them. Thus there is a row of goers with full, and a row of comers with empty barrows. Now, this method of operation, dictated by long experience, is irreconcilable with the Highlandman's ordinary conceptions. He does not like to be kept going backwards and forwards all day long with one wheelbarrow before and another behind him. It is keeping up the thing too hotly. It affords no time for snuffing. Gossip is out of the question. On this account, railway labour is apt to prove distasteful, and would be gladly exchanged for something more leisurely. But the Highlander finds other reasons for dislike of his new profession. If he be ignorant of English, or possess only a limited knowledge of it, there is the greatest possible difficulty in making him understand that wages must be paid according to capability. Fresh from Skye, he can see no philosophy in paying him less than a true navie who is master of his craft. Accordingly, believing himself to be cheated, he goes off in a pet. The best thing that could be done for the Highlands would be to teach the people English; for until this is done, they must inevitably remain strangers to the thoughts and habits of modern society. When at length fairly initiated into, and accustomed to, railway labour, the Highlanders make a respectable class of navies. With more self-respect than the Irish, they are invariably better dressed, and however poor, they are never seen in rags. On their arrival in the low country, their garments almost uniformly consist of a small blue bonnet, a blue cloth jacket and trousers, woollen stockings, and stout shoes. Frugal in their habits, and quiet in their demeanour, they study to save a portion of their earnings with which to return home when they have accumulated enough. They are certainly, if less efficient workmen, better behaved, and more honest in their dealings than the bulk of the other navies. Of late years, in consequence of the rapid extension of railway labour, vast numbers of Scotch and Irish, as well as of the ordinary English labouring class, have been drawn into the ranks of the navies. To all these the original navie has been a kind of model, both as to the art of his labour and his external habits and appearance. As might be expected in a community formed of such various materials, jealousies and animosities are common. The old wars between English and Scotch still linger among navies: the Irish are exposed to ill-usage from both. Let us first speak of the Lowland Scotch. These have been drawn miscellaneously from handloom weaving and other crafts, also from among ordinary out-door labourers and ploughmen; the temp-own country, and have come to England for the sake tation of high wages having induced many to desert their homes to try the line-some in order to save a little money, and others for the sake of gross indulgences. Both classes have attained their object: the well-behaved have bettered their circumstances; the bad gone greater lengths in bad habits, and become worse. It must be admitted, however, that the better class considerably preponderates. We now come to the Irish, who here, as elsewhere, show peculiar qualities. The greater number of course have been small farmers or rural labourers in their of employment. The ordinary notion of the Irish being disposed to idleness may be true, for anything we know, in the land of their birth; but from all we have heard or seen, they are anything but lazy when mixed with English and Scotch, and have a fair prospect of remuneration. It may therefore be said that the Irish make good navies, when properly brought in to the work, and strengthened by feeding. A person who employs a large number of Irish navies thus writes to us of them :- The famine and disease recently in Ireland threw a great many of her people over on our works, and most of these came the very pictures of want and The Lowland Scot, being three-fourths an Englishman, and already accustomed to regular labour, easily falls into the ranks of navieism; but the Highlander usually, from his long-ingrained habits of idleness, his love of talking and snuffing, and his ignorance of Eng-wretchedness-a bundle of bones wrapped scantily in lish, is at first more difficult to manage. Nothing stimulates him to face railway work but positive starvation, and sometimes not even that will drag him from his hovel. We have seen it stated that Highlanders have deserted their employment on Scotch lines in order to return home and live on charity. Whether this be true to any extent, it is certain that the High rags. A very general want of economy prevails amongst the Irish; they seem to act literally on the motto, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," for they have no thought of the future. Their common diet is tea, coffee, loaf bread, butter, cheese, ham, and butcher-meat, which usually absorb the chief part of their earnings, so that very little is left, after paying their lodgings, for There cer labours, and likewise to bury the dead. clothing or a day's sickness. One good trait I have generally found amongst those on the work-a fellow-countryman is seldom refused a meal or a night's lodging, till he find means of providing such for himself. Arriving of course entirely destitute of funds, when the newcomer does go to work, he requires immediate means of subsistence; this is furnished him in the form of a note of credit from his employer to a storekeeper for his time at work converted into wages. By rigid economy, the amount of earnings might suffice to free a work-relief-fund, and gone to relieve cases of maiming or man in a couple of months or so from credit notes with a store, but this is very seldom either attempted or accomplished. If he manage to clear off old scores, and have a few shillings over to expend in ardent spirits at the monthly pay, he thinks he does well; and if advised, and referred to examples of workmen on the same work, with the same pay, who contrive to save from a fourth to a half of their earnings, he tells you the thing is impossible with him, and considers he does well if he keep clear of debt. But many of them do not even act with this degree of consideration: paying their way for a time, they contrive to run some way into debt, and at the monthly pay get up the residue of their wages, and slope -that is, abscond to some other distant work, probably to repeat the same dishonesty. There are honourable exceptions, however, with the Irish, just as there are dishonourable ones with the Scotch, the former occurring more frequently with those who come from the north of Ireland, and have been pledged by Father Mathew to teetotalism. These incline to indulge in a costlier diet, but keep a less comfortable dwelling than the economic Scotch; yet, like the latter, they usually contrive to save a portion of their earnings, to transmit to their relatives, or take home with them.' While sensible of the great national advantages of the labours of the navies, we cannot shut our eyes to the evils which have accompanied them in their movements. Strangers in the scene of their labours, without domestic ties, almost without a domestic existence, rendered rude by the very nature of their work, they do not in general exhibit the virtues which we expect in a settled rural population. Too often the settled people amongst whom they come are contaminated by the reckless debauchery of the navies. Much of the evil might have been avoided if railway operations had been conducted with greater deliberation, so as to admit of moral institutions attending those flying bodies of labourers. Unfortunately, in the eagerness of capital for a 'return,' all has been sacrificed to rapidity in the execution of the work. It is to be hoped that in the general slowing of railway works, time will be obtained to make some arrangements for moralising this huge mass of unregulated human nature. AND THE PEASANT. The same writer goes on to make some general remarks: Exposed,' he says, 'as the navies must be, HEART AND IMAGINATION; OR, THE POET from the nature of their employment, to accidents and disease, and taking into account their usually improvident character, a question presents itself-How are they cared for in injuries or sickness? On the work with which I am conversant, it is compulsory for each man to leave sixpence at the monthly pay for a medical fund, which entitles the subscriber, in the case of accident or disease, to receive medicine and medical attendance. A mere trifle from all thus insures to each, when incapacitated for labour, the skill, medicine, and attention requisite for his treatment till restored to health; and the sensible benefit of this self-supporting medical institution amongst them is well attested by the fact, that the men themselves have requested its adoption where it did not exist, and solicited its reorganisation where it had been discontinued. 'In ordinary cases of injury or ailment, the relatives and companions of the sufferer are usually kind and attentive; but if affected with fever, or other contagious ailment, the case immediately alters. The sympathies of their nature are forthwith sealed up by the terror of contagion, and the invalid is commonly either thrust out of doors or deserted. Many deaths for a time occurred amongst them from fever thus neglected. In order to obviate this grave and growing evil, a temporary hospital was erected by the contractors at their own expense, into which were received all cases of fever occurring amongst the men, where they were properly treated and cared for till restored to health. This has been a great boon not only to the men themselves, but to the whole neighbourhood, by lessening the sources of contagion, and diminishing the virulence of the disease. The ill-ventilated apartments of lodging-houses speedily concentrate the poison, and multiply the means of its dissemination. 'Besides a medical fund for the care of the ailing and injured, and as a succedaneum for personal economy, so wofully deficient in most of the men, a sick fund has also been attempted, and attended with partial success. The purpose of the latter-obtained also by monthly contributions of sixpence or more-is to furnish support to invalids till they are able to resume their A YOUNG man was rambling along the skirts of the forest which separates St Marie aux Mines from Ribauvillé, and notwithstanding the approach of night, and the fog which was rapidly thickening around him, he strolled leisurely along without a thought of the lateness of the hour. His green jacket, doeskin gaiters, and the gun which rested on his shoulder, would have pointed him out as a sportsman, had not the book which peeped from his game-pouch betrayed rather the literary dreamer, to whom the pleasures of the field were only a fair pretext for the indulgence of a solitary ramble. Even at this moment, the meditative nonchalance with which he pursued his way, bespoke Arnold de Munster to be less eager in his quest of game, than intent in pursuing the phantasies of his own imagination. During the last few minutes his thoughts had wandered back to Paris, and to the home and friends whom he had left behind. He pictured to himself with regret the study, so tastefully decorated with statues and engravings, the German melodies which his sister used to sing to him, and the chosen society wont to assemble beneath their hospitable roof. Why had he given up all these enjoyments, and exiled himself in a country-house in the distant province of Alsace? Was it needful thus to retrieve his fortune? Or would it not be far better to make any pecuniary sacrifice, rather than dwell among the coarse and vulgar beings by whom he was here surrounded? While thus lost in perplexing thought, Arnold had walked on without considering whither the path he was pursuing might lead him. At length his reverie was dispelled by the unpleasant consciousness that the fog had melted into rain, and was penetrating his shooting-jacket. He now thought of hastening homeward, but on looking around him, perceived that he had lost his way amidst the windings of the forest, and sought in vain to discover which was the direction he ought to take. Meanwhile the daylight was fading away, the rain became heavier, and he wandered on in uncertainty through unknown paths. |