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EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR
THE PEOPLE,''CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 256. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1848.

PLAIN TRUTHS FOR ENGLAND. THERE used to be a conviction profoundly rooted in the English mind, that one Englishman was sufficient to beat three Frenchmen. It has been outgrown by the common sense of the people; but there is still a pretty general impression that we tower high above the continent in morals, and that our whole social state is superior. I rather like the idea of a people having a good conceit of themselves; but it should not be carried to a degree precluding their further improvement, or indulged in at the expense of an unjust opinion of other nations. When an unprejudiced Englishman becomes personally acquainted with the foreign states nearest to us, he can scarcely fail to have his opinion of them exalted. He begins to see that, if they have not all our virtues, they have some of their own perhaps equally good, and that in some points they excel us.

PRICE 11d.

of the same class so neat and decent here; they would spend half their income in drams, and themselves and their children would be dirty and half naked.

Switzerland might be described as almost wholly a country of poor people; at least, of people in very moderate, if not pinched circumstances. The farms are mostly small, and hard is the labour by which a livelihood is made. Resident gentry are not to be seen, nor any other wealthy class to furnish profitable employment. The whole case is simply, poor human nature set to scratch a subsistence out of the soil with its ten fingers. Accordingly, the peasantry present few appearances of comfort: they have no luxuries and no leisure. But, while truly poor, the Swiss are a decent-living people. They appear in sound clothing, themselves and their children. Their houses are neat, even pretty. On Sundays, they come forth en masse to church, all making a goodly appearance in each other's eyes. That beautiful and affecting sight, humble poverty priding itself on keeping up a comely show before the eyes of God and man, is the rule there, as it is the exception here. They may have little, but they always have something between them and stark-staring misery. One can look on such poverty, and love and honour it.

Perhaps the most striking thing to a liberal-minded Englishman of the present day on his first entrance into Belgium and Germany, is that there is not in those countries any appearance of that vast class of irredeemably outcast people who now occupy so large a space in every British city. Long accustomed as he has been to hear of such dismal hordes at home, and to see Seeing such things on the continent, the Englishthem wandering in irrepressible mendicancy into the man to whom they are new finds many of his old-estabbetter quarters of all the large towns, where their lished ideas revolutionised. He begins to ask himself appearance serves as the skeleton at the Egyptian seriously, if his country can justly be said to be superior feast, he experiences a sense of blessed relief when, to all others, when the base of the social pyramid is after looking a little about him, he becomes assured there in comparatively so unsatisfactory a state. What that civilisation and all the symptoms of wealth can signifies it, he asks, that the English labouring classes exist without necessarily being attended by the rags have so much more wealth weekly distributed among and practical savagery which seem to be, as it were, them, if it results in their presenting generally a less their negative pole in this country. These lands have appearance of decent life? What signifies it that Engno Ireland to pour in ready-made wretchedness. They land can boast of her millions of active and ingenious have nothing analogous to the wynds of Glasgow, the sons-active and ingenious beyond all the people that cellars of Liverpool, and the sinks of filth which fester have ever been on earth-and whose many mechanical in Bethnal-Green. They may, indeed, have their forlorn works reach a grandeur of result such as has never forpoor: no doubt some considerable proportion of each merly been known, if it be found that a simple people, population is poor. But the remarkable fact is, that with comparatively narrow resources, fulfil more perthey have no such vast hopeless hordes of miserables fectly the conception we have of a moral community? as we have. There is not with them, as with us, a con- Even respecting some of the noted failings of neighbour stant residuum of the people, large in number, wholly nations, we may find that we have not been percipient sunk in vice and misery, and a threatening focus of of the whole truth. For example, while justly loathing moral and physical disease to all around them. In the indifference of the French to the matrimonial tie, city as in country, the humblest of the community have we may have overlooked the fact that, after all this a neat, cleanly, and substantial appearance; rags and drawback, there is a far less proportion of crime to squalor are rare. You may see indubitable tokens population in France than in England. With all their that certain persons are in slender circumstances-for warlike spirit and their unsettledness, they are substaninstance, a number of women at market, each with only tially a more innocent people than the English. We a little fruit to sell, and that of exceedingly small value; regard the Spanish people with little respect, thinking yet these persons will be tolerably well clad. One can of them perhaps as little above the semi-barbarism of see that, however poor, they are frugal, considerate the middle ages; yet the Spanish peasantry are allowed people, living within their means, and observing the by those who know them to be a people living in a decencies of life. We should not expect to see persons state of virtuous simplicity which would shame the

working-classes of boastful England. The great consideration, however, is, that the continent, with perhaps the single exception of Paris, nowhere presents those unsightly masses of a practically barbarous population, which nestle in immediate juxtaposition with the affluent upper and middle classes of Britain, and from whose depths of degradation we occasionally hear such startling reports of filth, disease, and unheard-of criminality, notwithstanding all that poor-rates, charitable missions, and private beneficence can do and sacrifice in their behalf.

And why is all this? Simply, he in time perceives, because the foreign labouring populations, along with their slender gains, maintain frugal, temperate, and considerate habits. Our Englishman remembers with surprise, at the end of his tour, that though he has seen ten times more abundant appearances of enjoyment among the people than he ever did in the same time in England, he never once saw a drunk person. He knoweth well that universal England rageth drunk,' which makes a mighty difference, for drink is notoriously irreconcilable with decency and rectitude.

It is no doubt true that many other circumstances press with more or less force on the labouring classes, and that these ought as far as possible to be altered; and it is not less true that a large portion of these classes are entirely free from the vice here alluded to, while many may be described as provident and careful men. There is another exception having a regard to time, in as far as crises of distress in the commercial affairs of the country bear now and then very hardly on the welfare of the masses. What is meant, however, is that, when all these exceptive considerations are allowed for, it remains still as a distressing charge against the labouring people of Britain, that they misspend a large proportion of their gains in what induces idleness and degradation. On such a subject it is of course impossible to get any evidence that does not apply more or less partially. Yet when we find everybody that has to do with working-people in any capacity (always excepting those who write the newspapers addressed to them) having his particular tale to tell of the reckless and dissipated habits of individuals in the class, it is impossible to doubt that these habits are of extensive prevalence. The chaplain of Preston jail speaks in one of his Reports of the extent to which 'the insane fondness for drink prevails among the whole working part of the people.' 'An opportunity,' he says, 'presented itself, which enabled me to estimate, or rather to ascertain, the weekly expenditure in liquor of all the men-hard-working labourers and skilled artisans-employed by one master.' [He gives tables of particulars, and goes on.] 'We see there that, taking any 100 or 150 well-employed workmen, each of them, on the average, devotes to the pleasures of drink more than 25 per cent. of his earnings; that many married men thus squander 40 or 50 per cent.; and that some are so infatuated as to throw away weekly, in drink, 35s. out of 40s. wages.' The same gentleman has ascertained that 15,000 persons were brought up before the magistrates in Lancashire in 1846, charged with drunkenness. An examination of the records, which he has kept for many years, shows that the offences for which distress is pleaded are exceeded by fivefold those in which drunkenness is admitted. Another jail chaplain avers, without fear of being charged with exaggeration, that about four-fifths of the inmates of our prisons owe their first fall from virtue, as well as their present disgrace, to this brutalising vice.'* The ordinary tale

*Thirteenth Report of the Inspectors of Prisons; IV. Northern District, pp. 5, 20.

of the masters of great works, and it must be to some extent true, is, that the men of large wages are usually the most dissipated, and bring up their families in the least creditable manner. The usual report of the gentleartisans and the agricultural labourers, whose wages men who conduct savings' banks is, that the poorer also are on a low scale, are the chief depositors; the well-paid workmen of towns are little seen at those establishments. Gentlemen have set themselves to gather the statistics of dissipation, and we hear of Glasgow with its three thousand taverns consuming a million's worth of liquor annually; Greenock its L.120,000; nay, even a small country town of two thousand inhabitants, and no sort of manufactures to bring in wealth, will be found to devote L.5000 annually to liquor, though it must be a mystery where all the money comes from. Then the estimate for the whole empire is well known to be sixty-five millions, or considerably more than the annual revenue. Why is there no Crabbe among the living poets to give rhetorical force to these facts, to paint the English working-men of these latter wages, worse off as a class than their own narrowtimes of inordinate wealth, and consequently elevated circumstanced ancestors; to show them actually less miserable in many cases with small than with large returns, with short than with full time, because then possessed of less means of ruining their health and corrupting that morality in which resides happiness; to paint the swelter and reek of low public-houses, where men fall back to something worse than the savage; to show women, and even children drawn into the magic circle of debauchery, so as to leave nothing pure or healthy in the poor man's home? Oh kind Heaven, to think of so many who might be better if they chose, thus left year after year to be their own destroyers!

The poverty of the labouring classes in this country is a fact. Another fact is the comparative comfort of the middle classes. It is a ready way of rationalising the two facts, that the latter have their comfort at the expense of the former. When we look into actual life, what do we see? The middle classes full of care about their little means, eager to satisfy engagements in the first place, scrupulous about undertaking matrimonial obligations, or taking any ease or indulging in any luxury, till their prospects for the future are tolerably secure. All this time the working man feels himself entitled to have any gratification he can obtain with without an income, he claims the privilege of marrying, his wages, whatever may come of the future: with or leaving all consequences of his slighted duties to the humanity of society.* So far from thriving at the expense of the poor, it rather appears that the middle classes only thrive by their frugal and industrious conduct, in spite of the burdens which the poor are continually throwing upon them.

It is surely most piteous that, in a country where labour is better remunerated than anywhere on earth, the gains of the labouring classes should have so little effect in promoting their actual benefit. The great bulk of all the fruits of industry in this country goes to the labouring classes; and at the end of the year the account they have to give of it is-nil. All has been eaten and drunk, and yet with a less effect in making life comely, decent, or comfortable-not to speak of surrounding it with exalting and refining influences-than is found to accrue from the labours of infinitely less favoured nations. The real wealth acquired or set by in Britain is little compared with what might be. The very heart and pith of the country may be said to be in a great measure destroyed as soon as it has been formed. Under a changed system, the labouring classes might be the possessors of large wealth, to the enor mous increase of the productive powers of the country.

* As an instance illustrative of this kind of recklessness, one of the unemployed' labourers maintained last winter in Edinburgh by public charity at a half-fictitious labour paid with 9d. a day, married on the strength of that aliment!

rooms.

The entrance to the little garden led over a few planks thrown across the streamlet. This garden surrounded the cot, while before it was a primitive well of pure and crystal water; sun-flowers, hollyhocks, wall

This is an idea not familiar to them, and to which they are apt to turn a deaf ear; but the only thing wanting for it is will. Poorer people than they generally are, save and thus protect themselves from many evils. Why should this not be a more general virtue? Money is the universal leverage of the social world-flowers, and daisies in abundance, bloomed around; but the principal part of the ground was occupied by herb and lavender beds. The pride of the demesne, however, consisted in a cherry-tree, whose trunk grew against the side of the wooden tenement, and whose branches spread protectingly far over and above the thatched roof. Well and appropriately might it be called CherryTree Hut,' for in spring-time it was a gorgeous sight to look on those luxuriant white blossoms, no less than when the marvellous-sized cherries were ripe: it was the king of cherry-trees-no wonder that old Adam Page loved it so fondly. The cot, the well, the garden, the beautiful tree, all were his own; and here he had lived a life-time with his only child, a daughter, now rather beyond middle age. As a herbalist of sagacity and experience, he realised sufficient means for all their humble wants, Tabby Page adding not a little to their store by her skill in concocting lavender and other disIndeed her delicious scents were celetilled waters.

With to have none is simply to be powerless there. this in store, it is unspeakable what might be effected by the labouring classes for their own benefit. They might provide themselves with handsome dwellings, in lieu of the unhealthy hovels which too many now inhabit; they might insure themselves and their dependants against all the contingencies to which assurance is now applied by the middle classes, and against pauperism besides. There is nothing to prevent vast numbers of them from taking a share of the business of the country as masters, in some modification of the system of copartnery, if they would only condescend to take the common-sense means of attaining such ends which they see adopted by the middle classes—namely, sobriety, frugality, and integrity. England, in short, might become the paradise of the inasses, if the masses so willed. But the masses in England are unfortunately an ignorant body, the dupes of their own self-conceited and self-indulgent habits. Their technical ingenuity and industry have been suffered to go beyond their general intelligence, their In these circumstances morals, and their discretion.

they have become the sport of crazy theorists and designing adventurers, and seem as if, so far from improving their own circumstances by just means, they would gladly see all besides reduced to their own miserable level. The only conceivable outlet from such a barbarous dilemma, is the diffusion of a real civilisation among the humbler orders. They require true and honest instruction, that they may be enabled to ascertain their own just interests, and learn how to guide their affairs to good and worthy issues. The question for the rest of the community is not now, Shall we extend education to the masses? but, Shall we permit the masses to live uneducated? For verily it is a threatening problem, this perpetual misuse of all the gifts of Providence by the labouring poor, attended by a standing conviction of self-love, that the consequent sufferings are the guilt of another portion of the community. Did England know her true interests, she would not wait for the machinery required to convey knowledge and reason to these benighted intellects, till the settlement of certain points of arrangement which have been matter of dispute for ages, and will be so for ages to come, but determine to take the salvation of her institutions into her own hands. From all appearances, it cannot be done

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too soon.

CHERRY-TREE HUT.

FROM one of the breezy heath-covered commons of merry England,' a long and winding lane led to a quiet scattered village, and also to a ruinous ivy-covered church. This lane was very narrow, and steep at the extremities, running down into a deep valley, through which bounded a sparkling streamlet; it was, moreover, shaded by trees, so that when the summer sun burnt up the grass on the common to a dark thirsty-looking brown, here refreshment and shelter from the glare were sure to be found. Here many song-birds congregated, and towards the end of May, the concert of nightingales, when the stars were glittering overhead, was perfectly ravishing; to say nothing of early primroses, violets, and wild roses, loading the air with delicious fragrance. It had been called Love Lane' from time immemorial, and memories of happy days and youthful companionship lingered around the spot. In the heart of the green valley, and in the middle of the lane, stood a low wooden cottage, containing three

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brated throughout the country, and sought for by many a dainty belle, who, leaving her luxurious carriage, tripped down the declivity to visit the pleasant home of Adam and Tabby Page.

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This home was a picture of simplicity and contentment; everything was clean, orderly, and well arranged: it carried you back in imagination to a hundred years ago, so quaint and old-world were all its domestic details. Adam himself belonged not to this age, but to the far past; and he heartily detested all innovation and change, inventions and improveNewspapers travelled not down ments, and considered most of them as a mere tempting of Providence. Love Lane; letters were as rare as angels' visits are said to be; and Adam abominated the sight of those 'new-fangled Queen's heads,' and would by no means patronise the penny-post. The police he looked upon with suspicious eyes, regarding them as intruders, and of foreign origin; he mourned for the watchmen of the olden times, and their nocturnal warnings, with tidings of a rainy night,' or 'a starlight morning;' he yearned after the four-horse coach and guard's horn; he mourned for old trees cut down, old houses levelled, old things done away with, and new ones established. His inveterate prejudice and obstinacy amused some persons, whilst others felt pained to see an aged man so positive and presumptuous, thinking and talking as if nothing could move him or his, as if earthly vicissitude had no power over his individual lot. Thus when he heard of this or that undergoing alteration, he would exclaim, "Thank God, this cot is my own; here the hand of the spoiler cannot come whilst I live; that is impossible!' Not impossible, dear father,' ventured to suggest the gentle Tabby, but very improbable certainly. Impossible, I say, girl' (she was still a girl with him); impossible!' vehemently urged old Adain, striking his oak staff on the ground; for if it was burnt down, are we not insured? and could we not build it up again, stock and plank the same? No-no! change comes not here! No Naboth shall purchase my vineyard at any price.'

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A favourite haunt of Adam was the churchyard, with its numerous monuments, surrounding the mouldering and deserted house of prayer, at the head of the valley. Many unknown and nameless mounds were there, and many records of the departed; but towering above all other memorials was a marble obelisk, on whose sides were traced, not Egyptian hieroglyphics, but heraldic devices, equally difficult for the uninitiated to decipher;

and there, amid the quaint English lettering of past centuries, might be distinguished the time-honoured name of Elvin,' knight and baron, dame and ladye. It is very certain that Adam Page had never heard of Old Mortality,' so that he could not be suspected of imitation; while the simple and original feeling which prompted him to use his best endeavours to preserve this identical monument from decay, was coupled with stronger associations than respect for antiquity or remembrances of youth. Tabby's mother had been the favourite handmaiden of the last lady of Elvin, and she had died after two years of perfect wedded happiness, leaving this only child; so that, as Adam often said, he had been both father and mother to poor Tabby. Cherry-Tree Hut, with its productive garden, was the dower bestowed on the youthful bride by her grateful mistress, in consideration of long and faithful family service.

All were scattered and gone now-scarcely one of the ruined and degenerate race left; what they had been was here alone recorded: to Adam Page they had represented indeed the best nobility of earth. Still he pointed out the spot where the fine mansion with its moated slopes had stood; rows of stuccoed houses occupied its site now-and supreme was the contempt with which he looked upon them all. Here he pointed to the vestige of a pathway under a low arched passage, which had led through a portion of the forest-like grounds; but where were all those grand ancestral trees nowwhere the pleasant woodlands-the rookery and preserves? All gone, disappeared, built over; a thousand houses and gardens, where the gray mansion, in terraced solitude, had stood for ages. Ah! no wonder that Adam Page sought the churchyard with its mementos of departed greatness: often might he be seen carefully cleansing the sides of the marble obelisk, obliterating all damp and mould, and gazing lovingly on his handiwork. If you addressed him then, he would perhaps tell you how a lady of Elvin, whose name he read aloud, used to come every night, at the hour of twelve, to pray beside her young warrior husband who slept here-how she had mourned for him two years thus-how Tabby's great-great-grandfather used to watch his lady from a respectful distance-and how, on a wintry night, when she had knelt longer than usual, he became alarmed, and ventured to advance; but the lady moved not, spoke not-she was dead! her broken heart had ceased to beat, and she was laid by her husband's side: few people knew these circumstances, for the affair was little spoken of. Elvin Hall was a hermit's home, and the pastor of the church belonged to the noble stock; now the tower was a ruin, the vaults rose in heaps, and a new edifice, in the worst style of modern architecture, stood not far off. Never could Adam Page be persuaded to enter that. He had never crossed the threshold of a house of prayer since Elvin Church had fallen into disuse: he still continued to worship at the solitary shrine, amid the forgotten dead of past generations.

It is ten years since I paid my last visit to CherryTree Hut; it was on an evening towards the end of June, and the sun was sinking behind the distant hills: Adam Page was seated in the front of his dwelling, beside the bright well-side, and overshadowed by the patriarchal cherry-tree; he leant his chin on a stout oak staff, and complacently gazed around; satisfaction and contentment were visibly portrayed on the old man's fine open countenance; a little pride was exhibited there also, tinged with a good share of determination, or, as some persons might term it, obstinacy. Tabby was nimbly trotting here and there, in the cheerful fulfilment of her numerous avocations; but she was ever ready for a friendly gossip, and ever ready with a kind and cordial greeting. Now I had come to bid them farewell for an indefinite period, uncertain when, if ever, I might look on fair Elvin Valley again.

If I am spared to revisit my native land, I will assuredly seek out this dear spot,' I said; and if you

are living, Adam, and it is unchanged, I shall indeed be grateful and rejoiced.'

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If we are living, madam,' quoth Adam Page, this spot will be unchanged; be sure of that: change comes not here.'

This is the old song to the same tune,' thought I; and involuntarily, for I know not what possessed me to say so much, I answered, 'You speak too positively, my good friend; nothing is impossible, and you may be living when we meet again, but not here.' He laughed in derision, shook his head, and said, pointing to the beautiful tree, the 'Pride of the Valley,' as it was called, 'I shall die beneath its shadow; Tabby will die beneath its shadow. But he added not, If it is God's will.' The old man forgot to say that, but Tabby did not; and so we parted. I felt oppressed, and glad to leave the shaded lane for the open common, now bathed in silver light; it lay so hushed and peaceful in holy splendour, that as I gazed on the waving trees I was leaving, and on the familiar landmarks around, I too fervently hoped that change might not be permitted to visit these wellloved scenes of my childhood and youth.

A few months ago, after an absence of ten years, circumstances enabled me to visit these dear old haunts again, and of course the railway, as the only means of transit with ease and expedition, was resorted to. I was indeed scarcely aware that we had diverged on a newly-formed branch-rail conducting to the heart of the country where lay our destination; but in the midst of the whirl and crash, surely, I thought, those distant hills, and in particular that strangely conicalshaped one, are familiar. Then came houses clustering together, and the well-known ugly steeple of Elvin Church. Ah! we were in the beautiful valley, and we must pass our favourite lane, and good Adam Page's rural dwelling. Look out for the cherry-tree,' I exclaimed; perhaps we may even see old Adam himself by the well-side; for it is his evening hour for lounging there.' The words were scarcely uttered, when the rushing motion seemed accelerated; and at the same moment that the 'infernal machine,' as Adam Page used to call the then new invention, gave a wild and prolonged yell, I became aware that we were actually cutting through the identical spot where the Pride of the Valley' had stood the noble old cherry-tree. Where was it? Where was the hut, the well, the scented garden? All vanished like the phantasmagoria of a dream.

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Had Adam and Tabby Page vanished from the face of the earth also?-for they had ever appeared to form part and parcel of the spot. We looked at each other in blank amazement, we stretched our necks out of the windows; but by this time we were just clearing the valley, and about being swallowed up in a long dreary tunnel. We gasped for breath, closed our eyes, and murmuring, Are we sleeping or waking, or has the fairy wand of enchantment been here?' Alas! we did not sufficiently consider that ten years' absence can effect more startling changes, both on animate and inanimate objects, than an enchanter's wand; and we soon found that the branch-rail of B, on which we had so unsuspiciously been travelling, was indeed the real and powerful sorcerer, by whose irresistible means every trace of the humble but happy home in Elvin Valley had vanished away for ever-its very memory faded from amidst the crowded and changeful occupants of the numerous modern houses in the vicinity.

However, there were still some yearning hearts left, clinging to and mourning over bygones; and it was not long ere I heard a lady, resident in the neighbourhood, lamenting the loss of the walk, the lane, the fine old cherry-tree, the hut, the garden, and all. Poor old Adam Page, she told me, had to be turned out by force at last, for they fairly pulled his house down about his

ears.

On inquiry, I found that he had sought a shelter with his daughter Tabby, at a retired farmhouse s few miles distant; and there eventually I saw the old man again, after an interval of so many years. He

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late all-engrossing changes, have led to the abandonment of further trials. Still, the subject is worthy of attention, and we trust that its entire character will ultimately be ascertained.

looked shy, and somewhat downcast, on first recognising me, and then suddenly said, 'Thee seest the foolish old Adam the short-sighted, presumptuous old Adam Page properly schooled, madam! Ay, but the rod has been a heavy one!' Tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks as he pursued painful reminiscences; however, when the first agitation subsided, aided by the endeavours of the pious, ever-cheerful Tabby, other topics were introduced, other interests discussed; and ere my visit came to a conclusion, I looked on the venerable locks of snow before me, and on the extreme age of that bowed head, with a sense of deep humility. The lesson thus forcibly impressed had shed so salutary and puri-moir published as far back as 1803, in one of the scien fying an influence on the old man's mind, that when I witnessed his present submission and resignation, under a conviction of error, I could not help inwardly desiring that all presumptuous and dogmatical persons might profit thereby: only, if the lesson were taught in early youth, it might prove pleasanter for themselves, and less irksome to others but still, according to the common adage, it is better late than never.'

THE HASHISH.

The Cannabis Indica, or hashish, has long been known in the Levant, as producing what is there called a fantasia. Our English travellers in Egypt, especially Lane, have devoted some attention to it, but rather as a matter of curiosity, than with a view either of trying it themselves, or learning what was the experience of others. The French savans who accompanied Napoleon paid more attention to the matter. M. Virey, in a metific periodicals, gave a medical view of it, and attempted to prove that it was the Nepenthes of Homer. Sylvestre de Lacy has taken a vast deal of pains to learn the ancient history that is to be gleaned relative to it, and has demonstrated that the word assassin is derived from the word haschichin, which was given to the Ishmaelites who committed murder under its influence. He produces several Arabic texts, which bear out his interpretation, and then quotes the authority of Marco Polo, who tells us that the Old Man of the Mountains, so mysteriously known by our forefathers, educated young men, the most robust of his tribe, to execute his barbarous decrees. To those who delivered themselves up entirely to his will he promised future rewards of eternal happiness, of which he gave them a foretaste by placing them in delicious gardens, adorned with all that Asiatic luxury could imagine of rich and brilliant, and where every sensual gratification was at command. The young men, after having swallowed a certain beverage, were placed in temples within the gardens; and there, while under the influence of intoxication, indulged to the utmost in their degrading passions, till such was their rapture, that at a word they would throw themselves from the summit of a tower, rush through flames, or strike a poniard in the heart of their

dearest friend.

Of those who have experienced the effects of the hashish in France, some have described their sensations in print. Amongst these is Theodore Gautier, one of the most distinguished writers of the day. He has, in the newspaper edited by Emile de Gerardin, 'La Presse,' given the following testimony of its singular in

AMONGST Several subjects of scientific inquiry in France, placed for the meantime in abeyance by the revolution of February, one of the most remarkable was the peculiar influence of certain drugs upon the human mind, and the alterations which they produce upon the perceptive powers, the imagination, and the reason. The attention of the French public was brought to this consideration by Dr Moreau, physician to the hospital of the Bicêtre, in Paris, who, in the year 1841, published a short memoir upon the treatment of Hallucinations by the Thorn-apple, or Datura stramonium.' Whilst discussing the nature of eccentricities, of fantasias, and illusions, he was led to describe the singular power of a drug, the produce of the Indian hemp, called Hashish, of awakening in the mind a train of phenomena of the most extraordinary character, entrancing the senses in delicious reveries, and modifying the organic sensibility. So invitingly did he paint the nature of the new impressions which arose from its use, that in a short time all the physicians and medical students were indulging influence: The Orientalists,' says he, have, in consedoses of this new addition to the charms of life. From them it rapidly spread to the poets, the idealists, and all the lovers of novelty. Each had a different tale to recount. Some saw phantasmagoric figures dancing more exquisitely than Taglioni; others heard sounds of music vibrating on their ears more impressive than Jenny Lind can produce; some the simple vibrations of a few chords of the harp plunged into the sweetest melancholy; others felt a happiness such as language failed to describe-an exaltation of feeling, which raised them to joys far beyond what this sublunary world can offer. The opium-eater, and the devotee to the winebottle, declared that their favourite means of enjoy ment possessed little power in comparison to the hashish.

In the year 1845, Dr Moreau gave to the world a work entitled 'Du Hashish et de l'Aliénation Mentale Etudes Psychologiques,' in which we are furnished with the results of his experience upon himself, upon his friends, and upon patients suffering under mental alienation. Since that period the drug has been subjected to various analyses, and the plant has been reared in France and in Algiers with a view of ascertaining its botanical character; but the ill effects that have followed upon its long-continued use, the uncertainty of the result that succeeds its employment, and the usual fate that attends upon the production of a novelty that every one at first talks about, together with the

quence of the interdiction of wine, sought that species of excitement which the western nations derive from alcoholic drinks. The love of the ideal is so dear to man, that he attempts, as far as he can, to relax the ties which bind the body to the soul; and as the means of being in an ecstatic state are not in the power of all, one person drinks for gaiety, another smokes for forgetfulness, a third devours momentary madness-one under the form of wine, the others under that of tobacco and hashish.' He then proceeds to say, that a few minutes overwhelming sensation took possession of him. It apafter swallowing some of the preparation, a sudden peared to him that his body was dissolved, that he had become transparent. He clearly saw in his chest the hashish which he had swallowed, under the form of an emerald, from which a thousand little sparks issued. His eyelashes were lengthened out indefinitely, and rolled like threads of gold around ivory balls, which turned with an inconceivable rapidity. Around him were sparklings of precious stones of all colours, changes eternally produced, like the play of the kaleidoscope. He every now and then saw his friends who were round him disfigured-half-men half-plants, some with the wings of the ostrich, which they were constantly shaking. So strange were these, that he burst into fits of laughter; and to join in the apparent ridiculousness of the affair, he began throwing the cushions in the air, catching and turning them with the rapidity of an Indian juggler. One gentleman spoke to him in Italian, which the hashish transposed into Spanish. After a few minutes he recovered his habitual calmness, without any bad effect, without headache, and only astonished at what

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