"CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c.

NUMBER 441.

CORRESPONDENTS. CONTRARY to all precedent, the conductors of this work have, from its commencement, declined to receive communications of any kind from unknown correspondents, being certain that, were the case otherwise, there could not fail to arise, out of so vast a circle of readers, such a multitude of weekly letters, and so great an amount of mediocre and inferior compositions, as would have engrossed our whole time, without any advantage worth speaking of to the work or to the public. We have from the first endeavoured to make the public aware, that the Journal, being a work designed for all who would read, and having in view certain definite results, is necessarily composed by individuals who act in concert, knowing to direct their efforts towards those results; and that, accordingly, nothing can be more unsuitable to it than the occasional productions of young and unskilled writers, who only aim at the glory of seeing themselves in print. It has also been shown that, while we were anxious to discharge every fair and reasonable duty of courtesy, we should have been unfit for any other employment, if we were to read and reply to every letter of remark, inquiry, and discussion, which our readers might be prompted, whether in the spirit of levity, or for serious and respectable objects, to send to us. Notwithstanding these announcements, a great quantity of communications of all kinds have been made to us by unknown persons, so great indeed as to prove in a very striking manner how hopelessly enormous must have been the weekly load which would have reached us, if any thing of the kind had been invited, or even tacitly permitted. Many of these communications have been from evidently estimable persons, containing either compositions of some merit, or remarks deserving attention; but the great majority have been of the kind which we from the first dreaded-verses by children in years or intellect, crude and trite essays, tales of ultra sentimentalism deficient in both character and incident, and letters which it would have only been a waste of time to read, if it were not that, in the very qualities which make them to us undesirable, they served in some measure to illustrate human character.

Chancing one day lately to have our attention directed to a vast pile of this forbidden correspondence -if it can be called correspondence which has never had but one party-it occurred to us that, after all, it might not be amiss to publish a selection of the offered compositions, and to take the desired notice of some of the letters of criticism and inquiry, so as at once to gratify the writers and to make the public acquainted with the state of the case. We propose to do this in the greatest possible good humour, and with the very reverse of a design in the least to offend particular parties. Let each correspondent only keep his own secret, and he is safe.

A great number of letters relate to circumstances of an unimportant nature connected with the work itself. A gentleman from the remotest corner of England or Ireland will think it worth while to let us know that the first sentence of a particular article, lately published, contained, to the best of his judgment, a grammatical error; while one word substituted for another in an immediately following passage from an English poet, seemed to him to deprive the said passage of much of its point. The payment of some fifteen or eighteenpence was not, in the days of dear postage, thought too much for the writer to give, to enable such a letter to reach us. There is indeed no circumstance too minute to be thought worthy of correspondence. One "constant reader" will suggest that the references in the index for our volumes

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1840.

should be to pages instead of numbers, though the former has been in reality the case since the second volume-a circumstance which a constant reader ought surely to have known. Another will ask in what number a particular article, of which he has a faint recollection, appeared. Some suggest alterations in the size of the sheet. Since Mr Rowland Hill has come into action, this branch of our correspondence has much increased. People will now write from all parts of the United Kingdom to inquire where and how they may get this and that-particulars which they ought to learn from the next bookseller. If a difficulty occurs about keeping a few of the sheets sewed together, the perplexed purchaser immediately devotes a queen's head, as he most irreverently calls it, to the purpose of asking the editors what he is to do, when, in truth, to parody Sterne's remark on Smelfungus, he ought to ask his wife or eldest daughter. Let not our readers at large suppose this to be a hypothetical case. An extract from a late letter, received from a very distant part of the kingdom, will show its reality. The writer, after some remarks of a complimentary nature, comes at length, as he says, "to the point," which point is this. "My neighbours, mostly artisans, and too poor to buy, requested me to let them have a reading of my copy. I felt pleasure in complying with their wishes; but mark the consequences. After a month's numbers had gone the rounds, owing to the way they were stitched, they were returned torn from where the stitch caught, half an inch; and, when again lent, the paper, thus torn, soon lengthened an inch to the right of the original rent. What could I do? I intended to keep them, to have them bound up in years; but, owing to this, I had to give up my intention, and now they remain almost useless. [Our correspondent then describes an effort he made to sew them up as books are bound, which he had ultimately to give up in despair -so that] I had to relinquish the buying of them, much to my regret. Many have complained to me that they were in a like situation. I am certain, if you could contrive some way to avoid this, many persons would take them that do not. When they get into this state, they are tossed about as almost useless; and the money is then considered to have been almost thrown away." We must own that, without this acknowledgment, we could not have believed that any reader would have given up a work which he professed to like, and the price of which is a mere trifle, because a great quantity of reading and thumbing wore it considerably. To think of the small price of this sheet being considered as thrown away, because, after some twenty people have read it, it has become a little ragged and unfit for binding-as if all this vast amount of reading (as much as one person reading a book of twenty large sheets) were nothing! Surely we have here a remarkable illustration of the insatiableness of the human heart. Something of the same kind may have been remarked in many quarters with regard to the cheap postage. People are relieved all at once from the long-felt burden of paying sevenpence at an average for every letter they receive, and, instantly after, instead of any joyful feeling thereanent, we hear only mutterings at trifling inconveniences, and ridicule at the peculiar appearance of the stamps and envelopes.

The inquiries for information and advice are so numerous and so various, that the most encyclopædic and most sage of minds would fail to answer them all satisfactorily. "A subscriber from the commencement" writes from the neighbourhood of London-"I shall feel obliged if you will inform me what is a good thing for the voice, for I am in the habit of singing, and

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

after I have done so but for a short time, I become quite hoarse. I cannot take eggs," &c. A gentleman states that he is emboldened by our philanthropy to ask "what is the best and most expeditious mode of drying the inside of, and making fit for habitation, a newly built house." He is in great haste, too, for an answer, for he enters the premises at Ladyday, and his wife is somewhat poorly. Here are two things we never once thought of in our lives, yet about which we are expected to be as conversant as if we were operasingers on the one hand, or builders on the other. We were some years ago requested to state by what steps a person might attain the situation of a serjeant of police, and more recently to describe the state of the law respecting the hiring of servants in Ireland. The respectable individuals who made these inquiries must allow us to express our surprise at being supposed to have such information at our fingers' ends. We can only account for such applications, upon the supposition that the great number of facts of one kind and another stated in every Journal, has at length led to a general belief that there is nothing beyond our ken. This would certainly be a very flattering supposition, but, we fear, it would not be much more sound than the notions which the people of most states are said to entertain respecting the wisdom of their rulers. It has been said that the world is in reality ruled by a very little wisdom; and so we suspect the Journal is conducted by virtue of a remarkably small stock of knowledge. We must not forget that our friends "the boys" sometimes make bold to approach the editorial throne. We had some years ago a most formidable communication from the secretary of a juvenile bathing club, calling our attention to the expediency of forming swimming or bathing clubs all over the kingdom, and holding occasional competitions at certain stations, in the manner of the Yacht Club regattas. We had also the honour to be addressed by "a young though constant reader," for the purpose of ascertaining if a round substance of a bluish colour, which people sometimes meet in the sea when swimming, has the power, as is usually said, of making those whom it touches feel as if they had been burnt. In all of these cases, the subject of inquiry is comparatively trifling. In many others, it is no unfair calculation that to fully ascertain the point inquired about, would occupy us a week, and require, besides, some travelling. For example, we have been asked to state where the title-deeds of a piece of property in Lancashire, forfeited in the affair of 1745, might be found. In some instances, advice is asked about the most delicate domestic affairs. Persons residing in distant provinces will explain to us their whole circumstances, and ask how we should advise them to proceed our advice, if we give it, being understood to actuate them towards decisions involving the whole future weal or woe of a family. A young person of fortune, whose home was in a remote part of the United Kingdom, and who lived disagreeably with his relations, once actually came to Edinburgh, to seek counsel from two humble individuals who have their own troubles to contend with, and are only conscious of forming a channel through which the maxims of general and traditionary wisdom may be communicated a little more largely than heretofore to society. Individuals who think of settling temporarily on the Continent for the sake of economy or the education of their children, will write to us from the most distant parts of England, minutely describing the state of their family and pecuniary circumstances, and requesting us to point out the places most suited to their purpose. In more than one such letter, the writer discusses the attractions of various places, in a manner

which shows, what he would perhaps scarcely believe, that he knows ten times more of the matter than we do, having probably done that which we never did, namely, turned his attention to the subject, and been for some time in the habit of conversing on it with all who really had any information to give. We are often, as might more reasonably be expected, asked to point out the most eligible colonies, with a view to emigration. Here also we have sometimes very minute specifications of circumstances, joined to a request that we should take all these into consideration, and advise accordingly. The request is certainly an honour, and we trust it can never be supposed that we do not sympathise heartily and earnestly in the anxieties of these parties, albeit we never saw, and probably never shall see them. We are also sensible of there being a great and deplorable cause for such applications, in the faithlessness of many of the books on the colonies. Unable to depend on what they find in print, the intending emigrants eagerly seek for the testimony of some tangible person; and to us they come, as almost the only individuals with whom they think they can have any confidential communication. It is generally with sad hearts that we receive and read these letters, for we are at once anxious to do friendly service, and yet sensible that in such cases we cannot and ought not to interfere. In some instances, even while we sympathise with the writer, the letter will irresistibly raise a smile, from the very simplicity which it evinces. Amongst a bundle of epistles of this kind, we find one of pretty old date, which we should be glad if we could present in full to our readers, without any risk of giving good will. It is from a middle-aged married man, pain to the writer, towards whom we feel nothing but exercising the profession of a teacher in one of the southern counties of England. He commences, as almost all such correspondents do, with a panegyric upon our humble labours, and a hope that his addressing us will not be deemed intrusive. He then proceeds, in about three long and closely filled pages, to give a history of his life, and an account of his existing circumstances, which he was somewhat dissatisfied with. He wishes to change, either to some other school, or to some other kind of business. Having hitherto made little or nothing, "I should," says he, "give a decided preference to such occupation as would afford the safest and surest mode of realising a competence." After another long and closely filled page respecting qualifications, he re-commences under a new date. He has in the mean time turned his thoughts to emigration. He then details a totally different set of qualifications, having a regard to the condition and prospects of a settler in one of the colonies. He recollects that he has always had a liking for gardening. He "

can handle a spade, and is not averse to manual labour." He wishes to know what part of the globe would be most suitable. He looks ultimately to the purchase of land. He would wish to fix himself where the soil is most valuable for agricultural purposes, and where the climate is most salubrious, and not differing very much in temperature from the one to which he has been accustomed. These points being settled, he would wish to secure the best advice as to all the minutice of procedure, whether to apply to any of the emigration companies, what articles to take with him, the most prudent precautions to be taken by one possessing a small capital, and so forth. Might he not unite his former to his new profession in his new country? He then enters into a long exposition of what he thinks he could do in a literary capacity in a remote settlement. Finally, after six dense pages. he expresses his fear that he may not have made his case yet plain enough for our forming a judgment upon it, but entreats that nevertheless we shall speak to it as To have been able to say ten decided words in answer to this gentleman's inquiries, we should have required to visit him, and spend at least a month in the study of his character and circumstances, and, after all, it would have been the most painful responsibility we could have incurred if we had taken it upon us to advise him in what part of the world to bestow himself!

well as we can.

before them, with words which they honour by calling wise, and sentiments which they deem generous and philanthropic; and finding it to be, as it were, their only friend, they turn to its editors for a helping hand in their darksome struggle. Many affecting tales thus reach us, of the force of which we, certainly, may well be sensible; but how is a stranger to interfere in matters so delicate, and so full of responsibility? Principles we may expound, and a general spirit of benevolence we may seek to encourage and extend; but we, of course, neither can nor ought to take it upon us to direct the fate of individuals. Let one remark of experience here attend the sympathy which we would express for this class of our correspondents. It is alone the energies native to each man, and not any external aid or advice, which can steadily or certainly enable him to become the master instead of the slave of circum. stances.

ECONOMY.

FIFTH ARTICLE. CAUSES OF DIFFERENCES IN THE AMOUNT OF WAGES.

We

ON a former occasion, namely, in No. 377, we considered this important subject at some length, chiefly with reference to capital, as the general fund out of which the whole amount of wages must come. propose on the present occasion to turn our attention to the circumstances which rule the distribution of the fund, and regulate the proportional amount of return which a man obtains for his labour, whether wages. Wages is the word used for expressing the it be employed in the production of a commodity in demand in the market, or assume any other form in which it will be remunerated-such as menial service. When a cooper makes a cask, and charges a certain sum for it, the whole of that sum is not wages: part of it is the repayment of what he has expended for wood and in the use of tools, with the usual profits; the remainder only is wages. The price, however, of a basket made of osiers plucked on the wayside, without expense to the maker, is wages. The chief distinctions which have been taken on the subject of wages, are on the question of extent. Simple, however, as may at first sight appear the distinction into high and low wages, it is one the elements of which political economists have been completely baffled in the attempt to lay down, and it is pretty clear that any rules on the subject can only be of an approximating character. Some have employed the simple element of money, calling wages high when much is given, and low when little is given. However clearly this criterion may distinguish the extent of two sets of wages both paid at the same time, or within an immaterial period of each other, it will be difficult to make it a means of comparing the relative state of the working classes at two distinct periods; for the precious metals themselves, though not subject to the same sudden fluctuations as other commodities, may become changed in value to a material extent, after the lapse of a long interval. Thus, "The differences," says Mr Senior, "which have taken place in the amount of money wages at different times, inform us of scarcely any thing but the abundance or scarcity of the precious metals at those times." Nor is mere money a proper criterion in comparing wages in one place with those in another at one point of time, for there are many adventitious circumstances which will make the same sum "go much farther," as it is called, in one locality than another, even though both be within the same kingdom. Three shillings a day in Dublin will make a man as well off in every point of view as four shillings will make him in London.

their position, or, in other words, of the amount of wages. This would be an unfair criterion, however, in individual instances, for the circumstances which elevate or reduce the labourer's wages sometimes affect the returns of the capitalist to a still greater extent. When wages are at a miserably low ebb, the manufacturer's profits are sometimes proportionally lower; sometimes they are extinct altogether; and he keeps up his trade merely because he has embarked capital in it, which, if he stopped, would be entirely, instead of only being partially, lost. In these circumstances, the labourer, though he may receive the whole of the be very poorly paid. returns procured for the produce of his labour, may

Another criterion attempted has been, the proportion which the labourer receives of the produce of his Letters from men who have entered learned pro- labour, as compared with the quantity that goes to fessions, and are not prospering in them, are not the capitalist. Perhaps, by taking the whole amount uncommon. While perhaps holding a high head in of the produce of labour in any one country, and findsome provincial or metropolitan situation, they pouring what proportion of it is divided among the whole into the ears of a pair of distant strangers the bitterest labouring population, an estimate might be made of complaints of the ambition or misjudgment of parents, which has condemned them to a position in which they are virtually idle, and have no hope of ever realising a subsistence. We hear of the law's delay in a different sense from that generally thought of. These individuals seek our aid and counsel, with a view to changes which could not be breathed of in their own neighbourhood without injury to their present prospects, such as these are. The woes attending the more ambitious walks of life are thus brought before our eyes in a way quite peculiar, and which conveys the most painful impression of such courses in a country like this, where all the beaten paths are overcrowded. Another class of applicants are youths just about to enter the world, whose minds have been stimulated by the cultivation now so common, but who feel trammelled and bound down by harsh, degrading, and unworthy circumstances, which they know not how either to submit to or to overcome. Placed perhaps in obscure and remote situations, they have scarcely one congenial spirit near, to whom they can communicate their feelings, or from whom they can seek advice. But this little sheet weekly comes

Of the economists who have adopted some one article as a measure of wages, those who have taken grain have certainly been nearer the truth than those who have taken money. Wages, they say, are high when the labourer gets much food, or what will buy much, and low when he gets little. It is obvious that, if not the whole, by far the greater part of the wages of labour will be included under this measurement. If one hundred shillings in one year will pro

indeed, the wages are, and the greater therefore the quantity of artificial wants, the less accurately does the quantity of food they will procure measure their

amount.

Another method which has been suggested for measuring the extent of wages, is by the amount of commodities of all kinds which they will procure for the labourer. In using this test, however, for the purposes of ascertaining the respective position of the working classes at different periods, we must compare their comforts and luxuries with those possessed by other members of society. The same amount of these that a well employed labourer of the present day poscommodities at two different epochs of history, mark very different relative ranks. It is often remarked,

sesses more comforts and luxuries than ever fell to the lot of one of our Saxon kings: yet, if it be the case that other classes of society have had their comforts and luxuries increased in a still greater ratio, it cannot be said that the relative position of the labourer is elevated. During the last half century, a wonderful diminution has taken place in the price of manufactured goods-a diminution by which the labourer's position has been materially improved. Yet, unless it has been improved by this means to the same extent to which that of the other classes of the community have been benefited, it cannot be said to have been elevated-in other words, wages cannot be called higher. Fifty years ago it may have taken ten days wages to procure for the labourer's wife the printed calico gown which may now be had for one day's what they were fifty years ago, there is no doubt labour; yet were wages reduced by even one-third of that they would be virtually lowered. Thus difficult is it to find any means by which the amount of wages can be accurately measured: but there is no doubt that all the methods proposed have their respective uses, in providing us with the means of at least approaching the solution of that very important problem -perhaps the most important in the science of political economy-whether the labouring portion of the community is well or ill remunerated.

In a commercial and manufacturing country, such as ours, where almost all the labour is sold, and there are very few who apply the produce of their exertions entirely to their own domestic uses, the means by which labour is set agoing is capital-a subject which has been considered in another chapter. The extent to which this impulse is in existence, will materially affect the extent to which labour can be made use of. If we presume that it is unlimited-that is to say, that wherever there is an opening for its application, it is forthcoming, then the relative amount which the different kinds of labourers will receive in wages, will depend on two circumstances the extent to which the species of labour they are able and willing to exe cute is in demand, and the number of individuals who are prepared to supply that demand. When the demand is great, and the number prepared to supply it small, wages are high; and when these circumstances are reversed, they are low. It is a common fallacy to overlook these regulating circumstances, and to consider the amount of wages as regulated by the price of the necessaries of life-to say that wages will be high when food is dear, and that they will be low when food is cheap. Wages can only be regulated by the price of the necessaries of life in one particular case, which is, fortunately, of very rare and limited occur rence; it is that where the labourer, instead of disposing of his labour as a trader, is merely kept in existence by his employer like a domestic animal, for the sake of the work that may be obtained from him. Matters can only be in this state when labourers are so numerous in comparison with the demand for labour, that, from their underbidding each other, the employer could hire them at less than what would support life, were it not that then they could not labour. In this case, and this alone, the wages given will depend on the price of necessaries, for of these the labourer must have a certain quantity, otherwise the employer loses his labour. When provisions are lowered in price, the employer can lower his wages, because the competition being for bare subsistence, he knows that if those who have hitherto worked for him decline to do so, others will be glad to take their place. In the case, however, where wages, depending on the number of individuals capable of meeting the demand, are beyond what is barely enough for subsistence, both parties are in a state of competition; and if the labourers be underbidding each other, the employers

are overbidding. It were an idle use of words to tell an artificer, whose labour is in demand, that he must work for less, because bread is cheap. If wages, indeed, were thus measured by the means of subsistence, there are circumstances necessary for the continuance of the species, which would of themselves make marked distinctions in the rate of wages. They would have to be increased or decreased, according to the largeness or smallness of a family; whereas, in practice, the question whether a labourer is a bachelor in lodgings, or the parent of twelve children, is one which the employer has no occasion to ask.

combination among the individuals who practise it may assume either of two forms. They may limit their number, and thus compel the sum to be spent in such a manner that each of them shall obtain more wages, and that the amount of labour executed shall be less than would have been the case had there been free competition; or, secondly, if their numbers amount to or exceed that which free competition would produce, they may insist on working only to a limited extent, and thus obtaining more wages for their work than they would have procured in a free market. In either case, the wrong done is this, that the As there are great varieties in the amount of wages labourer obtains money for work which he has not for different kinds of labour, so are there of the inten- done. In the one case, he is paid as if he had persity of the labour given in return. The smaller the formed a more difficult kind of labour than he has number who are capable of performing the sort of done; in the other, he is paid for little labour as if he labour wanted, in comparison with the demand, the had given much. The question is-who are injured? greater, as has been before remarked, is the amount of It is not the capitalist, for what he has to look to is wages given. Incidental circumstances apart, then, merely the profit of so much outlay; and if the public the reason why the number is smaller will be because have a certain sum to give him for what he produces, the labour is more difficult. Adventitious circum- it is of no consequence to him whether it be given for stances, the most material of which is education, will much or for little of the commedity. By bringing the have, in many cases, the effect of giving the few their capitalists of other nations to compete with him, to be superiority over the many; but in more instances than sure it may affect him; but this is a separate question, are generally imagined, native energy and intenseness in which, as shown in another paper, the workman is of exertion accomplish the distinction. The unskilled more concerned than his master. The person, then, labourer, working on small wages, looks frequently to on whom the overcharge of the labourer falls, is the the wealth of the busy member of a higher profession, consumer; and it is of importance that we should as one incidentally favoured through unequal fortune, know on which class of consumers it falls most heavily. without reflecting that the labour by which it is The answer is easily given-it is on the poorest class. bought is fully as much greater than his own, as the The poor spend nearly their whole income on the lot of the possessor is more felicitous. The qualities by produce of labour; the rich only spend part of theirs; which great things are accomplished, are firm endu- and if they procured but half the quantity of commorance, the exertion of much thought and calculation, dities they do, they would not be great losers, while and the resignation of immediate gratifications for the poor are materially benefited or injured by a future advantages. These qualities are comparatively slight increase or decrease. Horses, dogs, works of rare, and it is because they are so that they generally art, and an array of servants-articles in which the bring in the end great worldly advantages to those who wages of ordinary labour are but a partial ingredient exercise them. The labourer, who sluggishly gives-form the principal subjects of the rich man's expenforth his daily amount of physical strength to satisfy diture. As to his bread and linen, it would not the cravings of nature, is apt to view the results with materially affect him if they cost double what they envy, and but seldom reflects that the reason why he do; while an increase of five per cent. on these articles himself does not attain them is, because he is either would be materially felt by the poor man. Before the unable or unwilling to support the continuous and late improvements in the cotton manufacture, calicoes calculated exertion and the sacrifice of ease by which were a coveted and admired dress among the higher they are purchased. classes, because they cost six times their present price. If we could imagine combination existing to such an extent as to restore them to their old cost, the rich would resume them with the same pride as before; but how great would be the loss to the family of the poor man? Let it not be lost sight of, that every combination to raise wages, creates a distinct and palpable loss, nearly the whole of which falls on the working classes.

The amount of wages that can be procured by a man in any particular line, constitutes almost the only means we possess of estimating the extent of the labour he incurs, because the greater the extent of the labour (in other words, the difficulty of performing the work required) the fewer are the persons who will be capable and willing to undertake it, and these fewer, before they consent to relinquish the comparative ease enjoyed by the followers of less difficult pursuits, must be bribed by a higher rate of remuneration. Incidental circumstances, however, tend so far to disturb this measure, that in particular cases it is frequently not to be trusted to. Ambition will prompt many a man to undertake very intense labour for a small remuneration-hence, where the labour is equal, the less honourable the trade the better it is paid, unless it be so far degrading that none but vicious characters will engage in it. We can often then pronounce one trade to be more laborious than another, independently of the wages in each; if it so happened, for instance, that a skilful watch-maker received no more than a hand-loom weaver, we should undoubtedly say either that the former was under, or the latter overpaid, owing to the operation of some circumstance tending to disturb the course of the labour market. It so happens that an incidental circumstance at the present moment depresses the wages of the hand-loom weaver, to an extent which has created a vast amount of misery. The circumstance in question is the introduction of the power-loom. The effect of this has doubtless been very great; but in looking to the misery of that unfortunate class, too much perhaps has been attributed to the introduction of machinery. Hand-loom weaving happens to be a very easy tradeperhaps the easiest in which any considerable number of men has in later times been employed and the indolent and unenterprising are loath to abandon it. During the rapid progress of the cotton manufacture, there was a demand for this description of work, which raised the remuneration for it above its natural scale, when compared with other kinds of labour; and a class of men were thus brought into existence, who, accustorned to gain their bread by a small amount of exertion, were peculiarly unfitted to be turned adrift to choose a new profession. Circumstances thus tended in the first instance to elevate this pursuit above, and afterwards to depress it below, its natural level. Still greater revulsions have occasionally taken place on a smaller scale. On some occasions, during the progress of the war, gun-lock makers have been known to be paid a guinea a-day. Such high remuneration prompted many to follow the trade, who, on the return of peace, found that it sunk below the average of other handicraft occupations.

The proper price of labour may be disturbed by a monopoly, whether occasioned by the operation of law, or by voluntary combination. In the former case, the responsibility generally lies, not with the individual labourer, but with the legislator; in the latter, it is solely at the door of the labourer, who thus sacrifices others to the desire of obtaining money without working for it. Presuming a certain sum of money to be the amount which the community is able and disposed to expend on some branch of labour, a

AILEEN A-ROON,*

A LEGEND OF IRELAND.

THERE was preparation for a great festival in the halls of Kavanagh. On the morrow, the young heiress of that ancient house, a princely one in the elder days of Ireland's history, and still distinguished and wealthy, was to be wedded to a neighbouring chieftain and re

lative, her equal in rank and fortune. Great was the joy of the father and kin of the maiden on this occasion. But what were the feelings of the principal party concerned? On the evening preceding the day appointed for her nuptials, Aileen Kavanagh sat in her chamber, weeping bitterly. She had given her consent to sent had been wrung from her by ways and means of the ceremony which was to take place, but that conthat the youth to whom she had long since given up which she was now suspicious. She had been told the whole treasure of her affections, was false to her, and had wedded another. Carol O'Daly, brother of Donogh More, the chief of one of the most ancient families of Connaught, had been the lover of Aileen. He was one who had no equal among the youths of Connaught, as regarded either personal qualities or mental accomplishments, to which latter possession, indeed, comparatively few even of the noble and wealthy could lay any strong claim, in the days to which our story refers. Carol O'Daly had never met his superior in feats of arms, yet his own tastes were peaceful, and he cultivated all the elegant arts of the time with such assiduity, that, had experience not taught them to speak prudently when they mentioned the name of Carol, the rude chieftains of Connaught would have called his likings feminine and his skill on the harp, and no professional minstrel of unbecoming. As it was, O'Daly became renowned for When Aileen Kavanagh was just blooming into wothe country would have dared to compete with him. manhood, Carol was a friend of her father, and a visiter at his castle. he shone in her eyes, when contrasted with the less It may be imagined how brightly polished chieftains around. She was herself passionately fond of music, and he taught her so to touch the harp, that she became, to use his own words, "the only rival of whom he was afraid." The pair loved each other, and at this moment every thing smiled Donogh More O'Daly, and, though no actual contests on their love. But the Kavanaghs quarrelled with followed between them, an enduring coldness took place of their past friendship. Carol was frowned

* Aileen a-Roon, "Aileen (or Ellen) the secret treasure of my

heart."

away from the castle of Kavanagh, though he left it not till he had won a pledge of faith from Aileen, and had in turn vowed to her enduring constancy.

To clear his brother from unjust charges which had caused the English viceroy to outlaw the whole name and clan, and to while away the interval till better days might come, Carol O'Daly left his native district to visit the court of the viceroy. It was at this time that the father of Aileen pressed her to give her hand to a relative, whom he wished to make the supporter of his house and family. The maiden confessed, and pled in excuse, her affection for Carol O'Daly, and her engagement with him. After a short interval, finding her inclinations not to be otherwise overcome, her father informed her that her lover was false, and produced witnesses, who so far gained on the credulity of Aileen, as to cause her hastily to assent to the union proposed by her father. But all her lover's truth and nobleness of nature rushed afterwards upon her recollection, and she became miserable at the thought of what she had done. As the time fixed for the nuptials approached, that misery increased to excess. On the day, however, which preceded the fatal one, an event occurred which admitted a ray of hope into her mind. An old attendant, who had been the confidant of her former engagement, brought her a letter from Carol O'Daly. He had heard of her intended nuptials, and of the calumnies invented against him; and he besought her to grant him an interview, and allow him to clear himself in her eyes before it was too late. The night preceding the nuptial morn was the earliest on which he could arrive, and even then it would be only by the utmost speed of his good horse that he could accomplish the journey.

Hour after hour passed away on that night, and Aileen, who had entreated to be left alone, sat in her chamber weeping, for Carol did not arrive. Her old attendant, who filled to her the place of a mother, and who was the only person beside her, in vain strove to cheer her sinking heart. The night was a dark and stormy one of winter, but in spite of its inclemency, Aileen was ever and anon at the window looking out. From this vain task, she turned always to her harp, a memorial of her lover, which was at the present moment unusually dear to her. Midnight came and went by. The heart of the maiden grew heavier and heavier, and her lamenting found voice in song. AILEEN'S SONG.

The night is dark, the wind is high,
And fiercely drives the sleet:

It seems as all had vow'd that I
And Carol should not meet.
Yet well I know his dauntless heart,
And well I know his faith;
But one thing will his purpose thwart-
And that one thing is Death.

They said that he was false to me,
That he had bow'd to gold,

And, where his heart could never be,

His hand had basely sold:

I did a while believe their guile,

But soon I felt and knew,

That Carol's love as heaven above,
As truth itself was true.

More wild and lend the storm has grown,
And darker is the night:
Unmindful of a maiden's moan,

The moon withholds her light.
Oh! what if Carol lose the way,
Or perish in the flood!
The thought forbids my heart to play,
And curdles all my blood!
Look out, ye pitying stars above,
Look out, thou gentle moon!
Give light and guidance to my love,
And bring him to me soon.

Of all my earthly hopes and fears
This night it bears the sum:
But wherefore blind myself with tears?
Oh, surely he will come!

The hours of night ran on, and still no signal of the lover's arrival was heard under the window of the unhappy Aileen. Again and again did she send her aged nurse to the private postern by which they expected to receive Carol, and of which the attendant had taken care to secure the key. But the wished-for visiter was not to be seen. Anxiety about her own fate was now mingled, in the mind of Aileen, with fears for the safety of her lover on a night so dark and stormy. She prayed for the appearance of the moon, with a fervour only to be conceived in such a case as hers. At length, she was conscious of a light breaking slowly into her apartment. She started up, and rushed to the casement, only to sink back in deeper distress than ever, for it was the light of dawn.

But for the prayers and entreaties of her attendant, the despairing Aileen would have left the castle, and sought, in the tender mercies of the storm, that refuge and relief which seemed denied to her from all other sources. The anxious and attached nurse, however, her, but would yet find means to save her from the poured out assurances that Carol would never desert fate she dreaded; and the heart of the maiden derived some little encouragement from these assertions. The day was spent by Aileen in mingled agonies of fear and hope. She kept her chamber under plea of preparation for the ceremony, but all the preparation The evening came, with a speed which seemed to her requisite was made, not by her, but by her attendants. unnaturally great; and the castle was filled with the kin of the Kavanaghs, prepared to hold joyous festival. Aileen, though sick to death at heart, was compelled to grace with her presence the reception of the visiters, to whom, notwithstanding the languor of her move

ments, she seemed the fairest of human beings. Happily, the youth to whom she was immediately to be wedded was not of ungentle nature, and seconded her wish, which she was at length compelled to express, for leave to compose herself by a short retirement. She had passed to a corner of the hall for this purpose, when, rising gently amid the other music, the sounds of a single harp arrested her ear. The air it played was new to her, but of surpassing sweetness, and thrilled her very heart. She looked to the spot where the harper sat, and saw a figure, with snowy hair, and bent seemingly with the load of many years. She drew nigh, as if attracted involuntarily, to the secluded place which the harper occupied, and heard him pour forth the following words, in unison with his music, and in tones so low that the crowd heeded them not. But the ears of Aileen caught the sounds as fully as if they had been uttered by a thousand voices.

THE HARPER'S SONG. Here is thy home to be,

Aileen a-Roon?

Or wilt thou go with me,
Aileen a-Roon?

Far on the mountain side,
Wilt thou become my bride?
Or wilt thou here abide,
Aileen a-Roon?

Think of the happy hours,

Aileen a-Roon,

Wait us among the flowers,
Aileen a-Roon:

None whom you here may see,
Ever can love like me-
None else would die for thee,
Aileen a-Roon!

Think of my breaking heart,
Aileen a-Roon!

Oh are we thus to part,
Aileen a-Roon?

Here then amid my foes,
Come I my life to close-
Welcome the grave's repose,
Aileen a-Roon!
Blow never fell on me,
Aileen a-Roon,

But was repaid with three,
Aileen a-Roon:

Yet on thy kin my arm
Ne'er shall alight in harm-
Fatal but strong thy charm,
Aileen a-Roon!

Oh think how fond our love,
Aileen a-Roon!

All other loves above,
Aileen a-Roon!

Ne'er did the tribes of air
Number a truer pair-
Oh must I now despair,
Aileen a-Roon!

while musing sadly upon Aileen and journeying to her rescue, is known in Ireland by the name of Aileen a-Roon; and the words which he sung are also extant, though we shall not say that those given here contain any thing more than a partial glimpse of some of the ideas expressed in the original. The incidents now related are familiar to this hour to the common people in Ireland, and the expression "Cead mille failte," first used by Carol O'Daly, has become a byword among them. Scotland has sometimes put in a claim for Carol O'Daly's beautiful composition, which also bears the name of Robin Adair, but there can be no doubt entertained that its origin is Irish. Handel is said to have declared that he would rather be the author of Aileen a-Roon than of all the great works he had executed.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

INTERESTING ANECDOTE OF EMANCIPATED NEGROES.

A FRIEND, residing in Scotland, has communicated to us the following most interesting anecdote, of the truth of which our readers may rest fully assured :"Alexander Finlay, a native of Edinburgh, was, at an early period of life, sent out to Jamaica, and took his post as a book-keeper on a plantation, where he rose to be an overseer, and is now an attorney, having the charge of several estates. If I may judge from the good feeling and good sense which appear in his conversation, he must have been a favourite with the negroes, and acquired a thorough knowledge of their character and habits.

The average produce of one estate, put under his charge (I believe, though I am not quite sure, the very estate on which he had been educated), was, during the last twenty years of slavery, sixty-seven hogsheads of sugar, and the expense of management some hundreds of pounds per annum. As soon as the term of apprenticeship commenced, he, then the attorney for owners at home on whose confidence he could rely, paid off all the European officers, and gave the charge of the negroes and the labour to negroes whom he thought qualified for the duty, not by their education, for they could neither read nor write,* but by their character and habits. The produce rose to ninety-seven hogsheads, and is now one hundred and fice, and the expenses of management do not exceed L.50 per annum, chiefly gratuities to the black men, who do the duty of book-keepers and overseers.

This is the account given to me by Mr Finlay. He is a plain man, without any affectation. I have confidence in all he says; and it is confirmed by the overflowing gratitude of his owners, ladies, who are surprised to find themselves so rich.

The greatest of his difficulties, when he set about the work, was the violence of opinion against him amongst the white public."

THE POLITICAL PREPOSSESSIONS OF ROBERT BURNS.

The agitated maiden knew that Carol was before her, and hope and terror contended so strongly in her breast, that she would have fallen to the ground, had not her nurse, who, having introduced the harper, had been watching the scene, passed quickly to her side and supported her. Aileen took advantage of the permission to retire formerly given her by her father, and moved with her attendant from the apart-ings of Burns, is that they were of the liberal stamp. ment, only whispering tremulously in passing her lover, "Thine-thine only!" By this time, however, her stay had been noticed, and some of the visiters were attracted towards the strange harper. Carol broke out into a verse which seemed as a common harper's welcome to a bride, but which bore a different meaning to the ears of the retiring maiden her

self:

Cead mille failte, Aileen a-Roon, Cead mille failte, Aileen a-Roon.

When the harper had thus sung a "hundred thousand welcomes to Aileen, the treasure of his heart," he was silent, and the attention of the company was soon diverted from him. Seeing this, he rose slowly, and, with the step of apparent age, left the hall. In a few instants, knowing the castle well, he had made his way to the apartments of Aileen, and had folded her in his arms. "Aileen, beloved!" he cried; come !"

"I am

"Oh save me-save me!" was her reply. "I will; I can!" he returned. "Horses wait us but a short way hence; and there, too, is Donogh More, and my brave brothers, with many a good arm besides, to guard and rescue thee! They would have stormed the castle, Aileen, before the betrothed of Carol O'Daly should have been lost; but I would not shed blood akin to thine! Come, thou shalt be saved without blood! Come, my beloved!"

The general impression respecting the political feelThey certainly were so, and to an ultra extent, in his latter days; but this is far from being true of the earlier period of his life. In the year 1825, two gentlemen having had a dispute and a bet on this subject, one of them wrote to Sir Walter Scott, to request that he would, if possible, decide the question for them, when the author of Waverley replied in the following terms :-" There is not the smallest question that Burns, when he first came to Edinburgh, was a keen Pittite, and a Jacobite to boot. The latter feeling, he somewhere says, was a matter of sentiment rather than reason, but he was quite serious in his approbation of Pitt's administration. The whole ballad beginning

When Guildford good our pilot stood,'

is an eulogy on the prime minister, and a very warm one, and he is mentioned as a subject of panegyric in his Ode to the King on the Birth day. After Burns went to Dumfriesshire, and the French Revolution broke out, he adopted other views in politics of a more popular nature, and of course the minister sunk in his estimation; but down to that period he was an admirer of Mr Pitt. (Signed) WALTER SCOTT. Edinburgh, 21st February, 1825."+

Lockhart, and printed in his Life by that gentleman, Sir Walter, also, in a note communicated to Mr alludes to some passing stupid verses in the papers, attacking and defending his [Burns's] satire on a one of them," adds Sir Walter, " occurred these lines certain preacher, whom he termed an unco calf.' In in vituperation of the adversary—

6

A whig, I guess. But Rab's a tory, And gies us mony a funny story.'

This was in 1787."

In those rude feudal days, when matches were seldom made upon the fair principle of mutual liking, an escape such as that proposed to Aileen by her lover was not so apt to shock the better feelings of a well-disposed maiden as it might now be. Aileen fled with Carol O'Daly, and fled safely. The Kavanaghs soon discovered their loss, and, suspecting the truth, pursued the fugitives, but in vain. A deadly The Jacobite feeling was certainly the predominant These dicta of Sir Walter Scott appear quite true. feud was like to have followed, but Donogh More O'Daly, who was restored to peace with the ruling but such other political bias as he acknowledged at one in the poet's earlier years, and down to about 1790; powers chiefly through the impression made by his that time, appears to have been in favour of the brother at the viceroy's court, gratefully defended the fugitives, in such a way as to show the father of Aileen ministry of Mr Pitt. He seems to have been prethe prudence of coming to terms. A joyous event possessed in favour of this statesman from the first, this was to the bride of Carol O'Daly, and not unim-in consequence of his admiration of the gigantic genius portant to the welfare long afterwards of their chilof Chatham. "Will's a true gude fellow's gett dren and children's children.

[child]," he says, in his Dream for the king's birthday. Again, in his Earnest Cry and Prayer respecting the troubles of the distillers, he says, "Tell yon gude blude o' auld Boconnock's," meaning Mr Pitt, whose illustrious sire was second son to Robert Pitt of Boconnock, in the county of Cornwall. In another place the poet says, quite seriously, "A garter gie to Willie Pitt." The three last verses of the ballad on the American war form the most decisive proof of the poet's predilection for the "heaven-born minister." They are a stormy burst of triumph on his overcoming the Coalition.

"The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads,
On Chatham's boy did ca', man;
And Scotland drew her pipe, and blew,
Up, Willie, waur them a', man,'

&c.

At the same time, it must be kept in view that the regard which the poet entertained for the minister was but in small measure extended to the existing occupant of the throne.

At the general election of 1790, the contest between Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall and Captain Miller, for the Dumfries burghs, was celebrated by Burns in three ballads, in which he evidently leans to the former candidate, who was the tory. In one of these, he makes a bitter allusion to the conduct of the whig party on the regency question. After this period, Burns began to be affected by the principles which led to the French Revolution, when, of course, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, the government of the day sunk in his estimation.

BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE

GLOBE.

THE ship Tuscan, of 300 tons burden, T. R. Stavers commander, sailed from London in October 1833, on a whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean, having on board Mr F. D. Bennett, whose object was to investigate the anatomy and habits of southern whales, and the mode of conducting the Sperm Whale Fishery (a subject then untouched by the literature of any country), and to make as many observations on the state of the Polynesian, or other lands he might visit, and to collect as many facts and examples in natural history, as opportunities might offer. The ship had a prosperous voyage round Cape Horn and into the Pacific Ocean, where she made an extensive excursion

by the Society and Sandwich Isles, to a point near Nootka Sound; thence southward to the Society Isles again, and from that point straight westward to the Indian archipelago, and so homewards, returning to Britain in November 1836, without having lost one man by disease or accident. Of this voyage we are now presented by Mr Bennett with a very agreeable narrative, to which are added distinct sections on the southern whales and whale fishery, and on the general natural history of the countries visited. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that, in the present state of the North Sea whale fishery, a satisfactory account of the southern whales, and of the best modes of taking them, is of great importance in a commercial point of view, to say nothing of its completing a department of natural history over which, till now, much obscurity has rested.

The

The cachalot, or sperm whale, peculiar to the southern seas, is about sixty feet long, and is chiefly distinguished in external figure from the Greenland whale by the great bulk of its head, upon the fore part of which, external to the skull, is a huge mass of fat, sometimes producing several tons of oil. animal is gregarious, and usually occurs in small parties, which the sailors call schools, or pods; but sometion," is assembled, and the sea for miles around appears times a number, "exceeding all reasonable concepgambolling on the surface of the ocean, is one of the "a succession of spouts." "A large party of cachalots, most curious and imposing spectacles a whaling voyage affords; the huge size and uncouth agility of the monsters exhibiting a strange combination of the grand and ridiculous. On such occasions it is not unusual to observe a whale of the largest size leap from the water with the activity of a salmon, display the entire of its gigantic frame, suspended at the height of several feet in the air, and again plunge into the sea with a helpless and tremendous fall, which causes the surrounding waters to shoot up in broad and lofty columns capped with foam; whilst others of the school leap,

or

*Two vols. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley. 1840.