in favour of cesspools, as follows:

a

I continue my irrigation. On the sewaged Italian Rye-grass (14 acres) I have kept two hundred sheep and lambs from April, seven horses for seven weeks, and yet a nice little haystack. I only regret that I have not town sewer to supply my suction-pipe, for I cannot get manure enough in the ordinary way without investing a large additional capital in live stock, which I cannot afford, having to limit my general tenant or farm capital to £16 per acre. It ought to be £25 per acre, and then I should make a larger per-centage of profit. My live stock capital is usually £6 per acre. Could I afford it, I would make it £12 or more per

acre, and then I should consume all my straw (treading none under foot), and keep all my cattle and pigs on sparred floors. I have not near manure enough, for it is quite clear that in the case of root crops especially (as I have proved by comparative trial), we could double our acreable produce by means of extra

manure and deeper cultivation, without increasing the

fixed charges of rent, tithes, rates, taxes, &c.

Besides, when we have provided, by very deep cultivation and a greatly increased quantity of manure, a surplus supply of food for our mangold crop, the corn crops following will be ample, and very different

from what we find them at present. Our German

friend will fail to bring back Englishmen to the old cesspool system, and if he will but inspect the sewage farms at Hornchurch and Barking, he will no longer

thus cheaply conveying it to the soil. My nasal midnight remembrances of the (good?) old cesspool times cause me to wonder at your correspondent's letter. The Besides, manure is useless without water. manurial power of Britain is about that of two sheep per acre, and this is mixed with a rainfall of 26 inches, or 2600 tons of water per acre per annum. Mr Hope not only uses all the town sewage, but uses it again and again during dry weather, in the shape of filtered water. While, by steam-power, we can raise 1000 tons of sewage 300 feet high for 13s. to 145., it will never pay to use horse-power and manual labour in the conveyance of town sewage.

the

When Mr Mechi says that it will never pay to use horse power and manual labour in conveyance of town sewage, he is saying only what has been said in our pages many years ago, and, of course, we cannot dissent from the opinion. There is just one remark that we would make upon the correspondent's letter, and it is this, that if Mr Mechi thinks he could make more money by doubling his capital on live stock, he ought to do it. He certainly makes the proviso that he would do so if he could afford it; but surely Mr Mechi could easily be accommodated if he wanted money for live stock on conditions so favourable as he represents them.

AT

T the Meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, Mr Seton, advocate, read papers with reference to illegitimacy in Scotland.

1. On "Certain Cases of Questioned Legitimacy under the Operation of the Scottish Registration Act." This paper had reference to the subject of adulterine bastardy. It touched upon the conflict between the legal presumption in favour of a child born in wedlock, being the lawful issue of the spouses, and the mother's conviction of its illegitimacy; and shewed the course followed in the registration of such cases. 2. "The Illegitimacy of Banffshire." This paper gave elaborate details regarding the illegitimacy of births

during the four years ending 1861, and embraced a supplementary appendix relative to the four years ending 1869, the records of which are the latest available. It shewed, inter alia, that, with a few rare exceptions, the county of Banff has always exhibited the largest per-centage of illegitimacy-viz., about 16 per cent.-the ratio for Scotland being between 9 and 10 per cent. Very con siderable difference exists in the different parishes, the maximum rate being upwards of 25 per cent. ; and the minimum as low as 6 or 7 per cent. As a rule, the seaboard parishes gave a lower per-centage of illegitimacy than inland ones. Neither the excess of females over males, nor the comparative

number of houses and windowed rooms (as ascertained at the census) affords any satisactory solution of these differences; but with regard to the county generally, the comparative paucity of marriages may have something to do with the large amount of illegitimacy. The paper, which was accompanied by several tabular appendices, also contained some curious particulars relative to the occupations of the mothers of illegimate children, the number of cases in which the paternity was acknowledged at registration or found by decree of court; and the number of children legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents. 3. "The Expediency of Recording Still-Births." This paper mentioned that, while these births were recorded in France and some other Continental countries, they were not registered either in England or Scotland, and shewed that the statistics of the subject are very imperfect. The still-births in Glasgow during three years subsequent to 1849 were estimated by the late Dr Strang to have amounted to 1 in 12, or upwards of 8 per cent. In France, their per-centage amounts to between 4 and 4% per cent., and in Paris to about 7% per cent. The ordinary proportion among legitimate children is from I in 18 to 1 in 20 of all births, and among illegitimate children three times greater. More males are still-born than females-viz., 140 to 100. It also referred to the difficulty of defining the terms "stillbirth" and "viability," to the supposed prejudice against the registration of still-births, and the desirability of their being recorded on the ground of public policy and in the interests of medical science. The paper concluded with a recommendation that the

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experiment should be tried in Scotland, and gave some practical suggestions as to the mode in which it ought to be carried out.

Remarks were made by Sir John Bowring, Rev. Mr Caine, Mr Arthur Trevelyan, Mr Macknight, and Dr Hancock.

Mr VALENTINE, Aberdeen, doubted if illegitimacy in the north had increased, and thought that its prominence was due to the attention which statisticians had given to the evil. The old registers of the kirk-sessions (he believed) would shew that illegitimacy, instead of increasing, had decreased.

As

Mr J. JACK differed from the last speaker. He had looked over many of the kirk-session records for the last century and a-half, and he thought that the number of illegitimate cases had increased three or four times. one of Mr Seton's papers had reference to Banffshire, how came it that that county stood so prominent in the matter? He believed it was due to the greater or less preponderance of the moral faculties over the animal nature, and this was chiefly influenced by the education and upbringing of the young, and to the influences with which they were brought in contact afterwards. Attention ought to be directed to the Dick Bequest, which, instead of being devoted to. the "godly upbringing" of the young, was : restricted to the secular education of the children.

Mr SETON, in his reply, said he believed. that Scotland was decidedly worse than any other portion of the kingdom in point of illegitimacy. The old registers, however, did not embrace everything; and if anything did escape, it was the illegitimate births; and on the whole, he did not think there had been a great increase of illegitimacy in Scotland.

matters not what, so it be English ground and secured to us"--the new colony, commanded by Mr Ruskin, is to set to work at its culture, carefully ascertaining what flowers, fruits, and herbs it will naturally bear, and then labouring to bring it to absolute perfection. The labourers are to be paid "sufficient and unchanging wages." The children are to be educated compulsorily in agricultural schools inland, and naval schools by the sea." The boys are to learn, as a first condition, either to ride or to sail; the girls to spin, weave, sew, and to cook all ordinary food exquisitely." How gladly would most of us accept an invitation to dinner in that incomparable colony! And boys and girls alike are to be "disciplined daily in the strictest practice of vocal music." For, in reality, they are to be taught "gentleness to all brute creatures; finished courtesy to each other; to speak truth with rigid care; and to obey order with the precision of slaves." Boys and girls alike are to learn Latin; they are to be taught the natural history of the place they live in ; and "the history of five cities-Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, and London." Other cities, we suppose, are not worth knowing any thing about. Paris has a history, not perhaps wholly uninstructive, and so has Vienna, and Jerusalem might teach something, and even Constantinople. But Mr Ruskin cares for none of these things. Of course, to name such a place as New York would, to such a sage, seem an impertinence.

We are not told anything about the manner in which the Arcadia is to be colonized: how the colonists are to be chosen, or how governed, whether by patriarchial rule or republican self

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rule; or how much money it will cost to try the experiment, even on the smallest scale; or where the funds are to come from-or anything, indeed, about how the work is to be done, or begun, or attempted. Mr Ruskin himself acknowledges candidly that he does not know to what extent he may be able to carry his plan into execution; but he manfully declares that "to some visible extent, with my own single hand, I can and will if I live." We cannot, then, criticise the method of putting the scheme into execution, or even the possibility of accomplishing it. We know nothing, and are allowed to know nothing of that. We must only accept Mr Ruskin's word that it can be done, and will be done. Suppose a piece of thoroughly cultivated land somewhere in England, worked and occupied by persons, who all, men and women alike, spoke Latin, and were taught to sing, and knew the history of Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence, and London, would the great problem of social happiness and perfection be any the nearer to solution? Would the colony convert the world outside; or the world outside pervert the colony; or the world keep on its old way, and Arcadia disappear? In Brook Farm they taught not only Latin, but Greek. The girls learnt how to milk a cow, and make a shirt, and read the "Antigone;" and the poet or scholar who strove to learn hay-making or hedge-clipping in the morning, expounded “ Euripides” and “ Plato” in the evening. The men and women who laboured and learned there, are nearly all alive and well to this day, and many of them have not yet passed their prime—and Brook Farm is a tradition, and the people who live on its very scene have well-nigh forgotten all about it.