THE SUPERCILIOUS OWL. CONDITION OF THE POOR IN DIFFERENT I. CHINA, NEW SOUTH WALES, CANADA. I PROPOSE to take a review of the state of the poor in different parts of the world: to show how much misery is endured by them in some countries, and how much comfort enjoyed by them in other countries: and then to inquire into the cause of this difference. It is unnecessary to say, that this must be a very important inquiry: for, if we can discover, by a comparison of the state of things in foreign countries, why the bulk of the people are so much better off in some places than in others, it may help us to improve the condition of our labourers at home. I will begin by describing the state of things in a country, where the labouring classes are in a state of the most deplorable, wretchedness; as much so, perhaps, as in any part of the world. This country is China; and my description shall be taken from a work of great celebrity, entitled, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. by Dr. Adam Smith. "China," says the author of this work, "has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times. It had, perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of riches, which the nature of its laws and institutions permits it to acquire. The accounts of all travellers, inconsistent in many respects, agree in the low wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourer finds in bringing up a family, in China. the twilight, the formation of their eye allowing what will purchase a small quantity of rice in the If, by digging the ground a whole day, he can get them distinct vision only at that time. The eye of the owl is extremely large, and is contained within evening, he is content. The condition of artificers is, if possible, still worse. Instead of waiting indoa bony case, in form something like the frame of a lently in their work-houses for the calls of their watchmaker's eye-glass: its large size, and peculiar customers, as in Europe, they are continually runinternal arrangement, allowing free entrance to everyning about the streets with the tools of their respecray of light, and consequently the power of seeing tive trades, offering their service, and as it were at times when other birds, on account of the dark-begging employment. The poverty of the lower THE SUPERCILIOUS OWL. ness, are unable to avail themselves of the same sense. The extremely downy nature of its feathers, and the peculiarly light construction of its bones, allow it to drop upon its prey with so little noise or agitation of the air, as to render success in taking it by surprise nearly certain. The principal food of these birds consists of mice, and other small animals, which roam abroad in the evening in search of food, and they are consequently very useful in the neighbourhood of granaries. ENGLAND. From the insular situation of this country, it has been exempted from the horrors of actual warfare. . With the exception of a few invasions of the Scottish monarchs, into the northern counties, which were transient in their operations, and partial in their effects, England has never been the seat of foreign war since the Conquest; and the southern counties, by far the most important in riches and population, have never seen the fires of an enemy's camp, for 800 years. Securely cradled in the waves, her industry has never felt the devastating influence of foreign conquest; her arms have often carried war into foreign States, but never suffered from its havoc in their own. Periods of foreign hostility have been known to her, only from the increased excitation of national feeling, or the quickened encouragement of domestic industry. The effects of this happy exemption from the peril of foreign invasion have been incalculable.-ALISON's History of the French Revolution. ranks of people in China, far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land: but live canals. The subsistence which they find there, is so constantly in little fishing-boats upon the rivers and garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. scanty, that they are eager to fish up the nastiest Any carrion, the carcass of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them, as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries." This, it must be admitted, is a very striking and a very melancholy picture of the state of the people in a rich, fertile, well-cultivated, industrious and populous country. Let us now seek for an example of an opposite kind; let us try to find a country where the condition of the labourer is as good, as that of the Chinese labourer is miserable. It happens, somewhat curiously, that such an example is to be found, in the same remote quarter of the world, towards the eastern extremity of Asia; and in a climate not unlike that of China. We mean in This country, which forms a New South Wales. part of the island of New Holland, or, as it is sometimes called, Australia, is the largest island known, and is a British Colony, which was originally established for the purpose of receiving convicts, sentenced to transportation; but has so wonderfully increased in wealth and prosperity, as to be now, perhaps, the most thriving country in the world. As the rate of wages is perhaps lower in China than in any other country, so it appears to be higher in New South Wales, than in any other spot upon the surface of the earth. Twenty-five or thirty pounds a year, besides board and lodging, seem to be the wages which are usually paid to common labourers: artisans of very ordinary qualifications are reported to find no difficulty in obtaining fifty pounds a year, besides board and lodging. Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Bricklayers, Sawyers, and the like, can earn ten shillings per day all the year round. Engineers and Millwrights, earn twenty shillings a day. And not only is the price of labour much higher than in our own country, but most articles of provision which the labourer has to purchase, are cheaper; so that his real income exceeds that of our labourers in a still greater degree than would appear from a comparison of the rate of wages. Beef and mutton are sold at two-pence per pound by the joint, or one penny per pound by the quarter or carcase. Tea sells at 1s. 6d. per pound, and sugar at three-pence. In consequence of the high price of labour, an industrious and frugal workman soon renders himself independent, and is enabled to commence business on his own account. There are many cases, in which persons who went out from this country to New South Wales as Convicts, and have been subsequently pardoned, in consideration of their good behaviour, or having served out the term of their transportation, have afterwards acquired very considerable property. It is even said, that most of the distilleries, breweries, mills, and manufactories of various sorts in that country, belong to this class of persons. Thus we have, in China and New South Wales, the two extremes of poverty and comfort. In one, the condition of the people is as far below that of the people of England, as in the other it is superior to it. Now why this difference? Why are the people of China in so miserable a state of destitution? Why are the people of New South Wales in so much affluence? That is the question we have to consider. And by the help of a little reflection, this question may be answered without much difficulty. In New South Wales, land of good quality is so abundant, in comparison with the number of inhabitants, that it may be purchased at a very low price. A good farm may be had for a hundred pounds, which in England would sell for five thousand pounds or more. Thus every man, who has saved a little money, may, if he pleases, become a landed proprietor; and as most men prefer the condition of a landed proprietor to that of a labourer, it follows, that few, if any, will continue to work for a master any longer than they find it necessary, in order to enable them to make the requisite savings to set up for themselves. Consequently labourers are scarce, and difficult to be procured, even at the high rate of wages above named. The scarcity of hands naturally raises the price of labour, just as the scarcity of corn, or any other commodity, raises the price of that commodity. It is from the very same cause, that the price of labour is high in Canada, and in the United States of America. In these countries, as well as in New South Wales, land is plentiful and cheap. Like New South Wales, they are new settled countries, and the people have not yet multiplied so much as to occupy all the fertile soil. The Americans have a boundless extent of territory in the inland country, which has never yet felt a ploughshare. On the coast nearest to Europe, the land is pretty much occupied, as in this country; but if a labourer has saved a little money, he has only to travel westward into the interior, and look out a spot to his mind, which he can purchase at about nine shillings an acre. Consequently, labourers are scarce, and wages high, in every part of the United States and Canada, but not quite so high as in New South Wales. If the extent of our island were suddenly increased by a tract of some hundred square miles of good land rising out of the sea adjoining to our coast, the price of labour all over England would immediately rise, and the condition of our labourers be proportionally improved; because the cultivation of this new territory would create an additional demand for labour, and every increase of demand causes a rise of price. Or if any considerable number of labourers were to go out to Canada, the United States, or New South Wales, those remaining at home would be enabled to get better wages, from the same cause. All these are newly-settled countries, and not yet fully peopled. China is a very old-settled country; and, as Dr. Smith tells us, had perhaps acquired its full complement of riches, and was entirely filled with inhabitants, more than five hundred years ago. It is not therefore surprising that wages should be low, and the difficulty of bringing up a family great. The supply of labourers exceeds the demand. Thus the principal circumstance which determines the condition of the labourer in any country, for better or worse, is the plenty or scarcity of new land. Wherever good land is so abundant as to be had for a very low price, wages are necessarily high, and labourers scarce. Wherever the whole surface of the country has been long occupied and cultivated, labourers are abundant, and wages low. In proportion as the people continue to multiply, if there is no fresh land to be tilled, and therefore no additional supply of food to be had, it is plain, that each must put up with a smaller share, and the faster they multiply, the more will that share diminish. This appears to be nearly the state of things in Europe at the present day. Population is every where increasing, while very little land remains to be cultivated of a quality to repay the expense of bringing it into a productive state: and it is to be feared that the state of the people here may approach toward that of the people of China, before described, unless means are taken to guard against such a calamity. Let us, then, consider what these means are. How are we to prevent the number of mouths increasing, out of proportion to the food which is to fill them? This question may be answered by asking another question. How does a prudent parent endeavour to provide for an increasing family? Does he not endeavour to find situations elsewhere for those that cannot obtain employment at home? What is the course taken by those industrious and sagacious little animals, the bees, when their numbers increase so much that the hive is no longer able to contain them? Do they not send out the younger members to form a new settlement; and by that means establish two happy and flourishing communities, instead of crowding and stifling one another altogether in a habitation too small to contain them? Let us then imitate the example of the bees, by assisting such of our labourers as wish to emigrate, with the means of defraying the necessary expense of their removal. In this way we shall not only benefit the emigrants, who will be enabled, with frugality and industry, to raise themselves to the condition of independent landed proprietors, but likewise the whole body of our labourers at home; by removing that excess of their numbers, which at present lowers their condition, and destroys their independence. B. ANCIENT WIT. TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK. THE following curious specimens of humour are found in the writings of Hierocles, a philosopher of Alexandria, who flourished in the fifth century. The author is drawing the character of a scholastic, or Pedant, whose mind is wholly engrossed with the school learning, a species of knowledge neither sound nor useful. He thus becomes what we call absent, and unfit for the common affairs of life. 1. A pedant, on his first attempt to swim, being nearly drowned, vowed he would never touch water again till he had learned the art of swimming. 2. A pedant, desirous of selling his house, took a stone from the wall, and carried it about with him as a specimen of the premises. 3. A pedant, wishing to know whether he looked handsome while asleep, placed himself before a looking-glass with his eyes shut. 4. A pedant, happening to meet a physician, tried to conceal himself behind a wall. The doctor asked him the reason for this strange behaviour; "Why," he replied, "it is so long since I have been ill, that I was ashamed to meet you. 5. One pedant, meeting another, said to him, "I heard that you were dead." His friend replied, "But you see I am alive." So you say," he rejoined, "but the man who told me the news was more worthy of credit than yourself." 6. A pedant, hearing that a crow would live two hundred years, to determine the fact by experiment, bought and kept one. 7. A pedant, on a voyage, being in danger of shipwreck, and seeing the other passengers catch hold of various articles on deck to keep them afloat, seized upon one of the anchors. 8. Three persons, namely, a pedant, a bald man, and a barber, travelling together, agreed that, during the night, each should watch in his turn four hours, while the other two slept. The lot for the first watch fell to the barber. As soon as he saw his companions asleep, gently raising up the pedant, he shaved his head, and presently afterwards awakened him. The pedant, roused from his slumber, yawned, scratched his head, and finding it smooth, exclaimed, "what a stupid creature is this barber, he has waked the bald man instead of me." THE intemperate use of spirituous liquors has been found by experience, for many years past, more destructive to the labouring class of people, in cities and manufacturing towns, than all the injuries accruing from unhealthy seasons, impure air, infection, and close confinement to work within doors, or much fatigue without. It is likewise ascertained, that the same bad habit not only produces tedious and peculiar maladies, but is often the means of rendering inveterate, or even fatal, many diseases of the throat and lungs; also fevers, and inflammations of the bowels, liver, kidneys, &c., which would have otherwise readily yielded to proper medical treatment. On comparing my own observations with the bills of mortality, I am convinced that considerably more than one-eighth of all the deaths which take place in the metropolis, in persons above twenty years old, happen prematurely, through excess in drinking spirits. These pernicious liquors are generally supposed to have an immediate and specific effect upon the liver, which has been found, after death, in drinkers of spirits, hardened, and altered in its texture, size, and colour. It appears, however, that the stomach and bowels suffer first from the use of spirits, and that their baneful influence is afterwards extended gradually to every part of the body.-DR. WILLAN. THE mite has eyes, and turns aside if it meet with such objects as may be hurtful to it; place it in any thing that is black, for the help of your observation, and if, whilst it is walking, you lay but the least bit of straw in its way, you will see it alter its course immediately; and can you think that the crystalline humour, the retina, and the optic nerve, all which convey sight to this little animal, are the product of chance?-LA BRUYERE. SUNDAY SCHOOLS. A CHILD unable to read, is naturally devoted to idleness or perversion of mind. A man unaule to read, is unfit for the chief part of those employments that require intelligence of any kind. Both are exposed to a painful con sciousness of degradation in the presence of those who can read; are almost totally shut out from advancement in knowledge; are necessarily deprived of the pleasures of books, at once the most innocent, the most easily indulged, and the most permanent and exalting of all pleasures: and are, by a still more calamitous consequence, prevented from knowing the laws and precepts of eternal life for themselves. They must take Christianity as hearsay. The Bible may be in their hands, but to them it is a sealed book for ever. In sickness and sorrow, in distance and solitude, they must be dependent on the time and teaching of others, for the great consolation of the trials of life. They must be indebted to man for the wisdom of God. They must rely on accident for the knowledge of the truths, that can alone sustain us in contentment and holiness on earth, and fill our minds on the death-bed, with the sure pledges and glorious convictions of immortality. Every child unable to read its Bible, is a reproach and crime to a Christian people. The uses of a Sunday School are important even in point of public order: it accustoms the infant's mind to regularity, to attention, to obedience, and to respect for superiors. It withdraws the child from the temptations to Sabbathbreaking, an offence which grows with the growth, and which is known to be one of the most fruitful sources of public crime. It often stimulates the parents to knowledge and industry, for the sake of the child. And it tends powerfully to give both child and parents a sense of the value of good opinion, of the pleasures of personal acquirements, and the superiority of a life of personal order and good conduct, to the recklessness, contempt and misery, of which the life of ignorance presents such perpetual and melancholy examples.-CROLY. WHILE the world is impelled with such violence in opposite directions; while a spirit of giddiness and revolt is shed upon the nations, and the seeds of mutation are so thickly sown, the improvement of the mass of the people will be our grand security; in the neglect of which, the politethe higher orders, weak and unprotected, will be exposed ness, the refinement, and the knowledge accumulated in to imminent danger, and perish like a garland in the grasp of popular fury.-ROBERT HALL. WHAT IS PRAYER? PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, His watchword at the gates of death; And say," Behold, he prays!" Oh Thou, by whom we come to God, THE MAHOGANY TREE. THE annexed engraving represents the foliage and seed-vessel of the tree, which produces that beautiful and well-known wood, mahogany. The tree itself is one of the most elegant, if not the largest, of the country in which it is found, and frequently grows in the crevices of rocks, and other places of the same description. The appearance of so large a vegetable Before this time it had been used partially in the West Indies for ship-building, but this new discovery of its beauty soon brought it into general use in the making of furniture. The chief supply, at the time we are speaking of, came from the Island of Jamaica, and the wood it exported was of the finest description; but since then, the constant demand has nearly exhausted the island, and it is now, as we have already said, chiefly brought from the Spanish Main and several of the larger West India Islands. There is a species of Mahogany which grows in the East Indies, the Swietenia febrifuga, which grows to a much larger size than the American tree, it is also much heavier, but the colour of the wood is of a dirty dark red. Ir is a doubt whether mankind are most indebted to those, who, like Bacon and Butler, dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those, who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility. For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison, as in the folio of a schoolman, and those who release her from her cobwebbed shelf, and teach her to live with men, have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering her. LEAF AND BERRY OF THE MAHOGANY TREE. production in such a situation is extremely curious and picturesque, and is to be accounted for from the construction of the seed, which is like that of the thistle, winged, or capable of being borne along by the action of the air, and in that manner deposited in holes and fissures in the rocks, where it speedily vegetates and springs up. As long as the plant remains young, the place in which it is found is sufficiently large for its growth, but as it increases in size, the roots gradually but irresistibly force asunder the walls of their rocky prisons, and throw off large portions of stone, thus by degrees penetrating into the very heart of the rock. It is not always, however, found in these situations, the largest timber being produced in some of the flat and marshy spots on the coasts of America; of this description is that known by the name of Honduras Mahogany, which is much looser in texture and of less value than that from the mountainous districts of Cuba and Hayti. This last kind is known in commerce as Spanish Mahogany, and is chiefly purchased for the purpose of being cut into veneers. The introduction of this wood into England took place about the end of the seventeenth century, in the following manner. A London physician of the name of Gibbon, had a brother the captain of a West India ship. On his return to England, he had several logs of mahogany on board his vessel for the purpose of ballast, and as his brother was at the time employed in a building project, he made him a present of the wood, supposing it might be useful; his carpenter, however, cast it on one side, observing that it was of too hard a nature to be worked. Some time after, Mrs. Gibbons being in want of a box to hold candles, the cabinetmaker was directed to make it of this same wood; he, in his turn, made the same objection as the carpenter, and declared that it spoilt his tools. Being urged, however, to make another trial, he at length 1457 An extensive and destructive earthquake happened in Syria, which overthrew several cities, and killed above 20,000 persons in a few minutes. WEDNESDAY, 14th. FRIDAY, 16th. The Book of Psalms printed by Faust and Schoeffer. This is one of the first printed books on record. 1802 A most destructive fire took place at Liverpool, in which goods to the value of a million of money were destroyed. THURSDAY, 15th. ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.-This festival was instituted about the year 778, in honour of the miraculous ascent of the body of the Virgin Mary, and is still observed both in the Greek and Latin Churches with much splendour, especially in Sicily. 1769 Napoleon Buonaparte born at Ajaccio, in Corsica. 1784 M. Lunardi's first ascent in London in a balloon. 1825 Captain Franklin succeeded in tracing the course of the Mackenzie River, in North America, till he reached the sea. SATURDAY, 17th. 1657 Died the English Admiral, Blake. He was the rival and constant opponent of Van Tromp and De Ruyter, and by his splendid successes, established the superiority of the British navy over that of her formidable enemy the Dutch. Died, at Birmingham, his native town, Matthew Bolton, by whom the well-known manufactory of Soho, near Birmingham, was erected. He was in the eighty-first year of his age, and was attended to the grave by six hundred of his own workmen. 1809 SUNDAY, 18th. ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 1502 The Island of St. Helena discovered. This small rocky spot, in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, has been rendered famous by being the place chosen by the Allied Sovereigns for the exile of Buonaparte. It came into the possession of the English in 1674, and is invaluable as a place for the East India fleet The ceremony of marriage, between Henry IV. of France to supply themselves with fresh water. and Margaret of Valois, was performed outside the door of the Church of Notre Dame; the King was not allowed to enter the church, being a Hugonot. 1572 1746 Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino were decapitated on Tower Hill, for the part they had taken in the Scotch Rebellion. LONDON. 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