RUSSIAN AGGRESSION AND EXTENSION.

The Journal de Statistique Universelle publishes the following table of the successive encroachments of Russia from the 14th century up to the year 1832:

That is to say, that during the last two centuries Russia has doubled her territory, and during the last hundred years has tripled her population; her conquests during sixty years are equal to all she possessed in Europe previous to that period; her conquests from Sweden are greater than what remain of that kingdom; she has taken from the Tartars an extent equal to that of Turkey in Europe with Greece, Italy, and Spain; her conquests from Turkey in Europe are more in extent than the kingdom of Prussia without the Rhenish provinces; she has taken from Turkey in Asia an extent of territory equal to all the small States of Germany; from Persia, equal to the whole of England, (United Kingdom;) and from Poland, equal to the whole Austrian Empire. A division of the population gives-

The population of ancient Poland counts for two-fifths of the total population over an eighth part of the territory, and the Muscovite population for onethird of the total number over a tenth of the territory; in other words, the Polish element is in a great majority, as compared to all the others.

A NEW EMIGRATION.

We find in Le Nord an account of a most remarkable migration now going on from the Russian to the Turkish possessions. It shows that the nomadic instincts of the old Scythian race are not yet lost. The whole Tartar population of the Crimea-men, women, and children, 300,000 strong—are leaving that fertile peninsula for the rigors and hardships of a life in Asia Minor. The Russian Government offers no opposition. Its experience in the Crimean war was sufficient to show that the Tartars never would make good Russian subjects, and in times of danger would always be a cause of weakness rather than of strength. Whole villages rallied to the enemy, serving as entertainers, spies, guides, and at Eupatoria as light troops. These little treasons were pardoned by the treaty of Paris, but the fact was not forgotten by the Russian or by the Tartar. A project was started to remove them to a central portion of the empire, but Alexander has too strong a sense of justice to exile a whole race to what to them would prove a sort of Siberia or Botany Bay. The war, however, roused the

national spirit of the Tartars, and the hope which was raised by it of reunion to a race kindred to them in blood, language, and religion, they have at length determined to realize at any cost. The example of the Tcherkesses in the Caucasus, and the artificial excitement raised by Turkish emissaries, decided them to make a general movement this spring, and they have put no seed in the ground. The Russian Government consoles itself with the idea that the extraordinary fertility of the soil of the Crimea will attract German emigrants, who are far more valuable to the State, and under whose industry the peninsula may regain its fame of the granary of the East.

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

COMMERCE OF NEW YORK.

The Annual Report of the New York Chamber of Commerce has been published in an octavo volume of 364 pages. The volume contains the proceedings and special reports of the year 1859; a list of members, January, 1860, with the by-laws in force; also the laws of the State, passed 1860, in reference to commercial matters; and elaborate reports on the following subjects for the year 1859-Asia, (commerce with ;) Assay-office, New York; Banks; Battery Extension; Boot and Shoe Market; California trade; Canals of New York; China trade; Clearing-house of New York; Coal trade; Coffee trade; Coinage; Collisions at Sea; Coolie traffic; Cotton; Cuba trade; Currant trade; Decimal Weights and Measures; Domestic Manufactures of New York; Drug trade; Dry Goods trade; Dye Woods; Encroachments on the Harbor; Fire in Cotton Ships; Frauds in Cotton; Freights; Fruit; Hemp Market; Hudson River; Indigo; Insurance, Marine and Fire; Key West Wrecks; Leather trade; Lumber trade; Magnetic Telegraph; Naval Stores; Newark Bay; Population and Debt of New York City and State; Quarantine; Reciprocity Treaty; Rice; Salt Production; Savings Banks; Sandy Hook; Staves; Sugar; Taxation in New York; Tea trade; Tobacco trade; Turpentine; Weights and Measures; Wine and Liquor trade, &c.

One of the most valuable contributions to the Chamber of Commerce report, is the annual summary of marine losses, showing the number of ships, steamers, barks, brigs, and schooners lost each month of the year, with the amount of loss on each. The official documents are also of value, and find a prominent place, viz. Treaty with China; progress of debt, taxation, and real and personal property each year since 1805.

The executive committee acknowledge interesting and acceptable details contained in the official and other reports of the following gentlemen-information highly necessary to illustrate the important subjects under consideration :Hon. HOWELL CоBB, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States; Hon. WM. B. REED, of Philadelphia; Professor JoHN H. ALEXANDER, of Baltimore, Md.; Professor ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE, Superintendent United States Coast Survey; JAMES ROSS SNOWDEN, Esq., Director of the United States Mint; D. H. CRAIG, Esq., of New York; D. T. VALENTINE, Esq., Clerk of the Common Council, New York; J. H. UPTON, Esq., Special Agent of New York Board of Underwriters.

PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS.

There are at this moment many cautious persons in those lines of business which are conducted on the cash system, who are seeking safe investments for capital, but rendered distrustful by the financial difficulties through which the country has recently passed. Let such persons keep two principles steadily in view, and they need not withhold their capital from its natural union with labor, from any sense of insecurity. Let that capital be so invested as to give occu pation to labor directly employed in producing something as generally useful to mankind as possible. Because men will always continue to want those objects, and be willing to pay liberally for the use of that capital, which renders their production most abundant. A telegraph company, for example, which, by an application of science, transmits the most important intelligence to distant points at a trifling cost, will, if well conducted between cities of sufficient importance, be sure to be a profitable investment.

But here a second principle comes in. Every man should, as a general rule, invest his money in some way connected as directly as possible with his own pursuits in life, or so that he be intimately acquainted with all concerning it. If farmers employ their accumulating wealth in such railroads as will convey their produce to market, they will form no slight judgment of how the operations are conducted, and the officers' conduct, and gain not only the dividends of their stock, but reap a rich reward in the increased value of their lands, and convenient access to a market. It is because railroad projects have been so often started and managed by speculators, instead of the persons whose knowledge and other interests were connected with the state of the district, that unprofit able lines have sometimes been undertaken, or at least extravagant hopes raised, frauds carried on, and failures followed. It is a law of no mean importance in political economy, that the same investments of capital that will be profitable for one, may occasion loss to another.

Upon the same principle, the merchant might well employ some of his surplus capital in shares of a manufacturing company, with the demand for whose productions his business may have made him familiar. In like manner let all who labor for a support, lay by and invest their savings in those forms of capital with whose value and operation they are intimately acquainted. Thus, if clerks would invest their surplus earnings, as opportunity offered, in such mercantile houses as they knew to be sound, instead of speculating on the rise and fall of some fancy stocks, they would soon become partners in the wealthiest firms of the city. Or, if the seamstress would, instead of railing against sewing machines, labor and economize, until she were able to pay the first instalment for the purchase of one, she would soon double and treble her earnings, and be able to lay by an ample provision for future contingencies.

The best truth of these views is that the great source of the recent mercantile pressure has been the adoption of an exactly opposite policy in both the respects to which we have alluded-i. e., the large sums vested by all classes in useless or in speculative objects. Extravagances of decoration and living have characterized the wealthy, while those of dress and luxuries have swallowed up all the savings of such as are dependent on their own earnings alone. Instead of having money to lend, they have had it to borrow; instead of augmenting their

means through invested capital, producing a return, they have been perhaps paying interest for money squandered in consuming the productions of others.

A still more fruitful source of distress has been the neglect of the second great principle. Men have invested their capital too far away from their own eyes and supervision, in pursuits unconnected with their own line of business, and about which they knew nothing, except that some cunning speculator assured them that large dividends were paid, concealing the fact, of course, that they were paid out of the capital stock, and not out of the earnings of the investment. All the bubble speculations, from those in morus multicaulus, or in Eastern lands, to those of New York city property, have deceived the unwary, chiefly through investments of capital made by those who know nothing of the subject.

NEBRASKA CITY AND THE WEST.

A correspondent of one of our cotemporaries of New York, writing from Nebraska City under date of August 11, 1860, gives the following graphic account of the prairie regions of the West, and of the progress of Nebraska City in population and wealth :

At this point the river washes the bank of a bold eminence, on which is beautifully located Nebraska City. Back of it, in gentle undulations, for many miles, rolls a prairie, for beauty of scenery and richness of soil not to be surpassed in the West. This city has now a population of about 2,000, although the gold-fever has carried away many of its inhabitants. A number of fine brick buildings are among its dwellings. Previous to April last, it could boast two of the finest hotels west of St. Louis. The fire of a few months since has made sad havoc, having destroyed one of the hotels and a block of fine brick stores. The effects of the financial revulsion are still upon them; but little building has been done during the last year.

The time seems approaching when nations shall be born in a day. Only six years ago, when I first visited Nebraska, I slept in the first frame house, then just built, in this city. The deeply trodden trail near the river showed the highway of the Otoe and Pawnee. At that time the Otoes were performing their yearly visit to some southern tribe. On such occasions the Indian village is deserted, and the whole tribe, including ponies and dogs, go to share the neighboring hospitalities. Here an aged chief, who had often led the warriors in the chase for the buffalo, and the hunt for the scalp of the red brother, with the same stoical composure, and who showed on his breast and forehead the scars of Indian warfare, was taken ill, and although there was there no knight of the lancet and saddle-bag, no mercury to hasten his departure, suddenly died, and was buried with all the "pride and circumstance" due to the head of the nation. The rude grave was prepared. The chief, wrapped in his blanket, was placed in a sitting posture in his resting-place; the weapons of the chase, arms of strife, ornaments of his person, and the rude dishes which were supposed to be necessary in the spirit land, were laid by his side. Rude sticks, placed like the roof of a house, were covered with a little earth. Each maiden cut a lock from her dark flowing tresses, and threw it upon the grave; while a company of young warriors, who had followed in procession, having previously obtained small sticks of wood, at one end adorned with shavings, and the other split through the center, made an incision in the fleshy part of the left arm large enough to hold the split stick, and then, with all their trained indifference to pain, assumed the proud distinction of mourners, went to the foot of the grave, and with cheerful countenances drew the sticks of wood from the wounds, dripping with warm blood, and threw them upon the ground. It was a solemn burial service. Then planting at the head a pole with a white cloth fastened,

to mark that royal flesh was mouldering into dust beneath, the tribe in single file marched away to the south.

The curious travelers soon carried away as mementoes the hair of the maidens and the sticks of self-inflicted torture; the rough winds buried the flag bereath the rank prairie grass. A city has risen upon the burial-place of the Otoes, and now no monument marks the spot where the aged warrior sleeps.

Gen. Downs erected the first building here. He deserves well of his country. A true patriot and brave soldier, he periled his life in the everglades of Florida and on the plains of Mexico.

There are now one Methodist church, and a second in course of construction, and a large and neatly-arranged Presbyterian church. The present pastor has ministered to this people some four or five years, and is an able preacher, and a faithful shepherd over the flock committed to his care.

Here the natural scenery is grand. Stretching away to the east, the eye crosses the great river-bottoms for over ten miles, and rests upon the bluffs which bound them, having the appearance of high mountains, while to the north, south, and west stretch away the nodding corn-fields, and the graceful groundswells of the prairie. Ride in either direction from the city, and you get many miles away before you lose sight of its church-spire and buildings. Although the country has the appearance of hills, yet on the summit of each roll you can overlook the whole country, in front and rear. To illustrate: A tall cottonwood tree stands in a ravine, yet, when the country was new, the lost traveler for twelve miles would correct his journey by its green foliage.

The whole country has the appearance of a mighty ocean, recovering from the shock of the tempest, and while rocking itself into the quietude of rest, instantly becomes solidified, and the changing swells of the ocean become the fixed billows of the prairie.

PHILOSOPHY OF EXPENDITURE.

Dr. JOHNSON says, " he who drinks beer, thinks beer ;" and a recent writer in an English periodical, the Saturday Review, declares that those who occupy themselves with "endless care for small savings, get to think candle ends," as their reward. There never was a happier expression. It is almost equal to Dr. JOHNSON, and would be quite so, were it not for the probability that the first epigram suggested the other; the beer hinted the tallow. In the same essay the Review points out in the most amusing manner the folly of preaching Poor Richard to the world in the present age. We subjoin a paragraph from the essay :

Economy is a good thing; but among the classes who, whether they are economical or not, are sure never to go to bed hungry, there is nothing in the triumphs of economy or in the accumulation of money to compensate for the deterioration of mind and feeling, which is almost sure to accompany the pursuit of so trumpery an end as screwing fourpence a week out of the butter bill. As intellectual education is more widely spread, this is more keenly felt, and persons become more unwilling "to lose life for the sake of the causes of living." It seems better to lay out money on learning and on mental cultivation, than to tie it up in a stocking. And the state of society at present helps this feeling. The old saying that a fortune is more easily saved than got is no longer true. Its truth belongs to a time when each class was shut up in its own limits, when locomotion was difficult and the chances of success in remote adventure were extremely small. Now a fortune is more easily got than saved.

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The world is open to the enterprising, and, if they please, they may pick up gold abroad instead of painfully hoarding up copper at home. The habits and natures of families are naturally accommodated to this altered state of things. A prudent father does better by spending his income on his children, so as to give them a fair start, than by neglecting their present advancement, in order to prepare for their future needs. His object is not to teach them to save money, but to get it, and spend it rightly; and it is impossible to teach this, unless a certain