fast as the little wheel in the water. Here is the whole secret of propulsion in the Great Britain.

The iron shaft which communicates motion to the propeller is not the least curious part of the machinery; on account of the distance of the steam power from the stern, it is 130 feet long. Each end is of solid ironthat at the smaller wheel next the engines being 28 feet in length, with a diameter of 16 inches; that to which the propeller is fastened being of the same diameter, but only 25 feet long. The intermediate part of the shaft is hollow, 2 feet 8 inches in diameter, and 68 feet long; and this makes up the entire longitude of 130 feet. Although so much of the shaft is hollow, it weighs 38 tons.

The immense velocity with which the shaft is made to turn in order to propel the vessel, would heat it to a dangerous degree, were not means of continual cooling employed. This is effected by numerous holes in the side of the hull, through which water is constantly poured upon and within the hollow part of the shaft. It has been calculated by actual experiment that, on an average, for every three times the engine revolves in a minute, the ship will be driven through the water 2 miles in an hour. Thus 12 revolutions per minute propels her 8 miles an hour. The rate at which the vessel is intended to work her way across the Atlantic is 12 miles per hour, which will require her engines to make 18 revolutions every minute.

Having inspected as much of the machinery as we were able to see, we were preparing to ascend, when the sound of blacksmiths' hammers induced us to look through the iron grating on which we stood. A lower abyss was revealed to us by the lurid glare of a forge fire. It was the blacksmith's shop. An iron ship is of course obliged to carry blacksmiths instead of carpenters. Not having either curiosity or courage to descend, we regained the upper deck.

The leading peculiarity of the Great Britain is her great size. On this subject much has been said both pro and con. Looking at her in a nautical and scientific point of view, it is an important advantage, for reasons which are not very generally understood. It has been ascertained from past experience, that the tonnage or power of carrying cargo increases in a triple ratio with increase of size; whilst the requisite power and fuel augments only in a twofold ratio to the increase of dimension.* On this account, we find that though the ship contains nearly 800 tons' weight of machinery, with stowage for 1200 tons of coal, and 200 tons of water (in the boilers), yet she is capable of carrying 1000 tons besides of cargo, independent of passengers. On the other hand, looking at the Great Britain in a commercial point of view, much doubt exists as to whether a sufficient number of passengers, and a sufficient quantity of goods, can be collected to make her rapid voyages to New York profitable. It is well known that the British Queen failed from want of patronage in these respects. Whether the Great Britain will prove a profitable vessel to her owners, time can only determine. We sincerely hope she may.

As regards safety, every precaution has been employed in constructing the Great Britain. She is built in distinct compartments, each water-tight, and independent of the other. All steamers, whether on the score of humanity or for the preservation of property, ought to be so built; for if a vessel be divided into five or six compartments, and any one of them should from accident fill, her buoyancy would only be slightly affected. If two compartments fill, and these two were not at the extremes, the other compartments would still keep her afloat. If two consecutive compartments, either forward or aft, fill, it is certain that, were she to go down head or stern foremost, she would be some time about it; long enough, probably, to allow of all the boats being got in readiness. The Great Britain is provided, in case of such an emergency, with

* Vide Athenæum, No. 901.

four large life-boats of iron, and two boats of wood, which are suspended from davits over the side of the ship, whilst one large life-boat is kept on the deck. The whole are capable of carrying 400 persons: though by far the most effectual precaution is the system of independent compartments. As a proof of its efficacy, we may instance the case of the Nemesis, which struck some time ago on the English Stones in the Bristol Channel, going nine or ten knots an hour: she slid off, after making such a slit as filled the forward compartment. She steamed several hours with the compartment full, until she obtained additional pumps in Mount's Bay, with which the space was pumped out, and the leak stopped. At Portsmouth she was examined, and drawings of the damage were made by an employé of the Great Western Company: she was repaired in a few hours, at an expense of about L.30, and then started for China. An instance of the time a complete wreck takes to go down, so as to enable the crew to escape, was afforded by the Brigand, a large iron steamer, which had been trading between Liverpool and Bristol. She struck on sunken rocks off the Scilly Islands, filled a forward compartment, and had some part of her paddle-wheel forced so far into the engine-room as to damage the plates and fill that part also. She remained afloat, in consequence of the remaining compartments, long enough to enable the crew to save themselves and their kits comfortably, and then went down in deep water.

The Great Britain was begun in 1839, and was so far finished as to be launched on the 19th of July 1843. After this, an unforeseen circumstance occurred-she was imprisoned in the Bristol docks during several months; for, when her engines were shipped, she sunk so low as to bring her greatest breadth in contact with the too narrow sides of the lock. This caused great inconvenience to her owners, and some merriment to the public. The truth is, her dimensions were well adapted for a free passage through the locks when light, but it was deemed advisable to put the engines on board before she left the works, which rendered it imperative that a certain degree of temporary accommodation, in widening the top of the locks, should be afforded. The directors of the Dock Company having at length afforded all the requisite facilities, she was on the 12th December liberated and taken down the Avon and the Bristol Channel on her first trial trip. This proved satisfactory in every respect, and the Great Britain, in the beginning of the present year, steamed round to London, beating the fastest steamer that could be found to race with her. Since then, she has gone round to Liverpool, awaiting sailing orders for America.

We left her, much gratified by our visit; and having been put on shore, ended the day very agreeably with a dinner of white-bait, which is somehow generally associated with a visit to Blackwall.

CATTLE SHOWS.

We should imagine that the descendants of Jack Sprat, who, it may be remembered by the students of our carly ballad literature, could eat no fat,' must have vanished from the land; or else that his progeny must have wonmother, who, according to the bard, could eat no lean.' derfully increased, and that they all take after their We have been led into this speculative reflection by a knowledge of the fact, that sixty thousand people went to Baker Street bazaar to see the cattle show-to feast their eyes on panting porkers, asthmatic sheep, and apoplectic oxen. We should doubt whether the meat is better because the animals are stuffed out to a size hitherto unparalleled, except on the external paintings of penny shows, where the living monsters are represented about twice the height and breadth of the caravan where the public are invited to visit them. The present, however, is the age of enlargement. Shopkeepers make arrangements for the enlargement of their premises; the legislature decrees the enlargement of prisoners for debt; newspaper proprietors enlarge their sheets; and, in order to keep pace with the enlarged views which are prevalent in the

EDINBURGH

JOURNAL

No. 84. NEW SERIES.

JACOBINISM IN THE NURSERY. Ir is fortunate for the adult, that children are dispersed in little parcels of four and a half individuals throughout private families; for, were it otherwise, they would certainly be found less manageable as a class than they are. Combined in masses-formed into unions-covenanted by charters-they might become seriously troublesome to papas and schoolmasters; and a servile might be found as nothing in comparison with an infantile war. I do not wish to see them become a rising generation in this sense; but I fully admit that we full-grown people give them all imaginable occasion for springing up in rebellion against us. The young are everywhere over the world an ill-used set of persons.

It is rather surprising, in an age when so many claims for class emancipation have been considered, that there should never have been the least attention bestowed upon the oppressed denizens of our firesides. Children are everywhere committed to an irresponsible power. Irresponsible power is acknowledged to be liable to great abuse. Yet we never think of children being in danger of suffering from this cause. There is here a selfish feeling which seems to preside in monarchists and republicans alike: all are decided for maintaining absolutism over the young. Let nations make themselves free from intruding conquerors, or sections of a people successfully assert their title to equal rights; but the young of every state, of every class, of every descent, must remain the thralls and serfs of their elders. There has never been any Tell, or Luther, or Wallace among the juveniles. And nobody dreams that there is the least occasion for such assertors of infantine liberty. Even philanthropists are silent upon this point. Nevertheless, I dare to believe that there is a vast tyranny in this department of our social economy, and that it calls for, and is capable of, remedy.

│It is remarkable as, generally speaking, a well-meaning tyranny. Big man wishes well to little man. Big man is anxious to make little man as good-that is, as like himself as possible. Big man would take a great deal of trouble, and even endure a considerable sacrifice of his own feelings, for the sake of little man. Witness the sufferings which big man often undergoes in thrashing little man. Witness the distress of mind which it often costs big man to deny indulgences to little man. The misfortune is, that big man is only a kind of child | himself—an unenlightened impulsive being, who either does not know what he ought to do, or, if otherwise, cannot do it; so that little man has no chance of being rightly dealt with by him. It is much worse when big man comes to have a notion of duty towards little man; for then he only pursues his wrong courses with more doggedness or fury. The lashes inflicted, and the restraints imposed by conscience, are the most cruel of

PRICE 14d.

all. Heaven pity little man when he falls into the hands of a papa with a conscience!

I entirely deny every pretended right of the adult to exercise any control over the young, beyond what is rigidly definable as moral influence. No control of a different kind from this is needed in the case; and no such control can be used without injury to both parties. Such control is therefore to be condemned. We have here a question taking its place beside that respecting the abolition of capital punishments, and others in which the precepts of pure Christianity, harmonising with the dictates of the highest philosophy, are proposed to be for the first time followed. The stripes, snubbings, scoldings, privations, prisonings, disgracings, with which children are visited by their protectors, form, as it were, a dispensation of the inferior feelings, which must pass away, along with all other systems having the same bad foundation. Reason and affection are the true bases of the relation of parent and child, as they are the bases of all good social relations; and I venture to propound that there is no more necessity for ever departing, with respect to the young, from the rules of courtesy and good-breeding, than there is in our intercourse with equals in the common world.

Adults who for the first time undertake the charge of a child, usually commence with a bustling, anxious feeling of responsibility, and a sad want of faith in human nature. The sense of a tremendous coming struggle with something singularly perverse and difficult, is upon them, and they rush into a fight with one who is without the power either to aggress or to defend. There is something almost ludicrous in this disproportion between the subject of treatment and the treatment itself. It is like attacking a fly in a full suit of armour. The young human being is, in reality, a simple, innocent, tractable sort of creature. He is absolutely the same as his ruler, only without the wickedness and depraved reason which often belong to that person. Why all this terror about these poor harmless little men, as worthy Mr Burchell called them? The common feeling seems to behe is a determined liar; let us flog it out of him: whereas it is only the natural and justifiable dread of these floggings which prompts the lie. He is sure to misjudge everything, and fall into irremediable error, if left to exercise his own reason: therefore let us force him to all the conclusions at which we have ourselves arrived: the consequence of which is, that his reason, not being exercised, becomes liable to errors which it would otherwise be in no danger of. He is wild and reckless, caring little for his parents and best benefactors: therefore let us assert due authority over, and exact due honour from him; the means taken for this purpose being exactly those which unavoidably alienate regard, and either excite rebellion or produce the worse evil of an utterly broken spirit. He has no liking for his tasks, or for

ing it, signs of past grandeur and present decay presented themselves. The avenue leading to the house had evidently been thickly planted; but now only a few stumps remained to mark where noble and spreading elms once had been. Having arrived at the house, my cousin reined up at the steps of the hall, upon which she, in a low cautious voice, desired me to alight. Having assisted her out of her saddle, I was about to utter some exclamation of surprise at the extreme dilapidation of the place, when she whispered me to be silent, adding, that I must not stir until she had returned from within, to announce whether my visit would be accepted or not.

During her absence, I had full leisure to look around and note the desolate condition of Coote-down. The lawn-thickly overspread with rank grass could scarcely be distinguished from the fish-pond, which was completely covered with water-weeds. The shrubbery was choked and tangled, whilst a very wide rent in the wall laid open to view an enclosure which had been once a garden, but was now a wilderness. For a time the sorrowful effect which all this decay produced on my mind was increased by the extreme solitude which reigned around. This, however, was presently relieved by a cackling sign of life which issued from a brood-hen as it flew from the sill of a side-parlour window. On casting my eyes further into the landscape, I also perceived a very fat cow lazily browsing on the rich pasture of a paddock.

On turning round to view the house, new tokens of desolation were visible. Its shattered casements and worm-eaten doors, with tufts of weed growing at each corner, showed that for many years the front of the mansion had not been inhabited or its doors opened. One evidence of fallen grandeur was highly characteristic-over the porch the family arms had been carved in stone, but was now scarcely distinguishable from dilapidation: a sparrow had established a comfortable nest in the mouth of the helmet, and a griffin rampant' had fallen from his place beside the shield, and tamely lay overgrown with weeds.

These observations were interrupted by the light step of my cousin, who came to inform me that the lady of the house, after much persuasion, had consented to receive me. Conducting me to the back of the mansion, my fair guide took me through a dark passage into a sort of kitchen. A high and ample settle' stood, as is usual in farm-houses, before the hearth. In one corner of this seat reclined a figure bent with age, her face concealed by a thick veil. In the other corner was an old cheerful-looking woman busily knitting, and mumbling rather than singing a quaint old ballad

It

Though I addressed several questions to my singular relation, she made no attempt to answer them. seemed that what she had uttered was all she was capable of: and this, I learnt afterwards, was partly true. Circumstances of her early life had given her a taste for family history, particularly that of her own, and her faculties, though otherwise impaired, still retained everything relating to what concerned her ancestry. remarked that it had saddened me. It would sadden On our way back from this singular scene, my cousin you more,' she continued, were you to know the history of the domestic wreck we have just left behind.' "That is precisely what I intended to inquire of you.'

'It is a deeply affecting story; but'-and here the young lady blushed and hesitated:-'I think it would not be right in me to reveal it. I believe I am the only person existing who knows the truth; and the means by which I obtained my knowledge would be deemed scarcely correct, though not perhaps exactly dishonourable.'

6

This avowal sharpened my curiosity, and I intreated her to say at least how she became possessed of the story.

In one of my rambles over the old house, I espied in a "To that there can be no objection,' was the reply. small escritoire a packet of letters bound up in tape, which was sealed at the ends. The tape had, however, been eaten by moths, and the letters liberated from it. Female curiosity prompted me to read them, and they gave me a full exposition of our great-aunt's early history.'

During the rest of my stay in that part of the country, I never failed to urge my cousin to narrate the events which had brought Coote-down to its present melancholy plight. But it was not till I called to take leave of her, perhaps for ever, that she complied. On that occasion, she placed in my hands a neatlywritten manuscript in her own handwriting, which she said contained all the particulars I required. Circumstances have since occurred that render it not indelicate in me to publish the narrative, which I do with but little alteration.

In the middle of the last century the proprietor of Coote-down was Charles James Hardman, to whom the estate lineally descended from a long line of ancestors. He was from his youth a person of an easy disposition, who minded very little, so that he could follow his ordinary amusements, and could see everybody around him contented; though his habits were too indolent to improve the condition of his dependents by any efforts of his own. At the age of twenty-five, he married the heiress of a baronet belonging to the northern side of the county. She was a beauty and a belle-a lady full of determination and spirit; consequently the very opposite to himself. She was, moreover, two years his senior. As was predicted by those who knew the couple intimately, the match was not productive of happiness, and they had been married scarcely a year and a half, when they separated. It appeared that this unpleasant step was solely the fault of the wife; and her father was so incensed at her rash conduct, that he altered his will, and left the whole of his property to Hardman. Meanwhile, it was given out that the lady had brought her lord a son, and it was hoped that this event would prove a means of reconciling the differences which existed between them. Despite all intreaties, however, Mrs Hardman refused to return to her husband's roof.