UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. grind meal." The occupation of grinding the corn is generally performed by women, though it is not unfrequently committed to men, as will be seen by our print, which is copied from a drawing made on the spot, and published as one of a series of engravings by an ingenious native artist at Madras. It is the custom in the East for families to grind the | be called tender and delicate; take the mill-stones and corn and prepare the flour which they use at home. The accompanying plate represents a Hindoo family engaged in this employment. The woman on the outside is cleansing the corn by pouring it on the floor against the wind, which carries away the dust and light particles that have become mixed with it. The corn thus cleaned is poured, a few handfulls at a time, into the hollow at the top of the hand-mill, which consist of two stones, about two feet and a half in diameter, and six inches thick. A stout wooden pivot connects the upper with the lower stone. The corn that is poured in at the top falls in between the two stones, and the turning round of the upper stone reduces it to flour, in which state it works out at the rim, and falls on a cloth spread to receive it. The flour is winnowed and sifted on the floor. The sort of corn-mill here represented is common in all parts of the East, and has been in use from the earliest ages. We find frequent mention of it in Scripture. The family mill was so essential to the preparation of the daily food, that it was forbidden by the law of Moses to take in pledge "the upper or the nether mill-stone;" and the reason stated for this prohibition is, that he who should do so, "taketh a man's life to pledge." When Abimelech, after the defeat of the Shechemites, attacked the town of Thebez, and was about to set fire to the tower in which the inhabitants had taken refuge, a brave woman destroyed the oppressor by throwing on his head from the wall a stone of the household mill. The fall and degradation of Babylon is thus foretold in the beautiful imagery of the inspired prophet Isaiah : "Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon-sit on the ground. There is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more VOL. I. There is a remarkable passage in St. Matthew, where our Saviour is pressing upon his disciples the necessity of being always in a state of preparation, as well for the signal calamities of this life-such as the destruction which was to fall on Jerusalem-as for the sudden coming of the Day of Judgment. He warns them to reflect on the certainty that what is announced by God would come to pass; and not to look for warnings which should give them time for individual preparation, for the world will be found engaged in its ordinary pursuits when such mighty events occur-" For, as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and knew not till the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left;-two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left." It is very remarkable that mills of a similar construction are mentioned by Pennant as in use in the highlands of Scotland and in the Hebrides, and are called Querns. The description of their form, and the manner of using them, differ in no material point from what we have shown to be customary in the East. The introduction of a more expeditious and effectual machine, seems to have been opposed by the 9 prejudices of the people for a long time, and Pennant | were naturally spread, calculated to alarm and di saw the hand-mill in use in the Isle of Rum in 1769. "The Quern or Bra," he says, " is made in some of the neighbouring counties on the mainland, and costs about fourteen shillings. This method of grinding is very tedious, for it employs two pair of hands four hours to grind only a single bushel of corn. Instead of a hair-sieve to sift the meal, the inhabitants have here an ingenious substitute-a sheep-skin stretched round a hoop and bored with small holes made with a hot iron." During the work the women used to sing songs, sometimes of love, sometimes of praise of their ancient heroes, whose deeds they rehearsed to slow and melancholy tunes. But Pennant observes that "singing at the Quern was almost out of date since the introduction of water-mills. The laird can oblige his tenants, as in England, to make use of this more expeditious kind of grinding, and empowers his miller to search out and break any Querns he can find, as machines that defraud him of the toll.' ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF WHAT a wide field of wonder and reflection does the present advanced state of the press open to an observing mind! In all its departments wonderful, in none is it more astonishing than in the circulation of its Newspapers. Vehicles they are of all that can interest man as a moral and social being. In the lawful use of their mighty power, capable of being ranked among the great benefactors of mankind-the friends of religion, liberty and order-the patrons of every improvement which can add to the substantial benefits, the comforts, the ornaments of civilized life, sources of daily information and innocent amusement, to every rank of society. In the wanton, profligate, and corrupt abuse of the same power, instruments of tyranny, oppression, moral, political, and religious degradation, confusion, and every evil work. Such being their power for good and for ill, their history, their origin, their past and present circumstances, can never be devoid of interest. We lay before our readers some acknowledged facts connected with these points. For an Englishman not intimately acquainted with the former history of his country, but who was now approaching "the age of man," it would be very natural to suppose, that, although he has observed newspapers to have increased prodigiously in size and numbers within the last fifty years, yet that their progress was like that of our roads. He might reasonably suppose, that though fewer, less frequent, and smaller, in every point unlike those of the present day, still that they were in existence from time immemorial. The invention of printing, indeed, might have made the multiplication of copies infinitely more easy, still there is nothing of itself absurd, in supposing that newspapers, like our historical records, might have circulated in England from the time of Alfred, and before.* spirit the people of this island. To prevent these mischiefs, through a season of intense anxiety, the Government had recourse to the expedient of publishing real information. And (as Chalmers expresses it in his Life of Ruddiman) it may gratify our pride to be told that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of our Elizabeth, and the prudence of her minister, Burleigh, for the first Newspaper. The earliest gazette of this kind was entitled The English Mercurie, which, by authority, was "imprinted at London, by Christopher Barker, her Highnesse's Printer, 1588." " In the first of these newspapers, preserved in the British Museum, under the date of July 26, 1588, is the following notice : Yesterday the Scots ambassador, being introduced by Sir Francis Walsingham, had a private audience of her Majesty, to whom he delivered a letter from the king his master, [James VI of Scotland, her successor on the throne of England] containing the most cordial assurances of his resolution to adhère to her Majesty's interests, and to those of the Protestant religion." And it may not be here improper to take notice of a wise and spirited saying of this young prince, [he was twenty-two] to the queen's minister at his court, viz. 'That all the favour he did expect from the Spaniards, was the courtesy of Polypheme to Ulysses, to be the last devoured." I defy (observes Chalmers) the gazetteer of the present day to give a more decorous account of the introduction of a foreign minister. Burleigh's newspapers were all Extraordinary Gazettes, published from time to time, as that profound statesman wished to inform or terrify the people. The Mercuries were probably first printed in April, 1588, when the Armada approached the shores of England. After the Spanish ships had been dispersed, these Extraordinary Gazettes seldom appeared. On Nov. 24, 1588, the Mercurie informed the people that "the solemn thanksgiving for the successes against the Spanish Armada was this day strictly observed." It has been confidently but ignorantly asserted, that newspapers were invented by the French, in the time of Richelieu, who gave Théophrast Redaunot a patent for the Paris Gazette. But this was first published in 1631. The dates demonstrate that the pleasures and benefits of a newspaper were enjoyed in England more than forty years before the French possessed any thing of the kind. A newspaper had now gratified the curiosity of the people, and the people would no longer be gratified without a newspaper, though the English Mercurie ceased when the occasion which gave it birth had passed away. They were at first occasional, and afterwards weekly. The title of the first was The News of the Present Week. During the civil wars the country was inundated with those occasional "News." Still they were more of the character of pamphlets than newspapers. In 1665, the London Gazette was published, under the title of the Oxford Gazette, it having been printed at that University during a session of Parliament held there on account of the plague then raging in London. This was reprinted in London, in two small folio pages, "for the use of some merchants and gentlemen who desire the same." From 1661 to 1688 no less than seventy papers were published under different titles. From an advertisement in the Athenian Gazette, 1690, it appears that the coffee-houses in London, were then supplied with nine newspapers. In 1696, there seems not to have been any daily paper, though it has been said that the London Courant was published daily. As early as the reign of Queen Anne, London enjoyed the luxury of a newspaper every day, though, even in 1709, the Daily Courant was the only paper published every day, Sundays of course excepted. The rest were published three times a week, or less frequently. In 1724 the number was three daily, six weekly, seven three times a week, three Halfpenny Posts, published three times a week; and the London Gazette twice a week. In 1815, the number of newspapers in Great Britain had risen to 252. Of these 55 were published in London, 15 daily, and 40 periodically; 122 in the country parts of England, 26 in Scotland, and 49 in Ireland. The total number of these papers printed during three months, ending April 1, 1815, was 5,890,621, making the annual average 22,762,764. In the year 1829, the number of the newspapers published in the Metropolis alone amounted to about 18,000,000; in 1830 to nearly 20,000,000; and in 1831, it was upwards of 22,000,000. REMEMBRANCE. The remembrance of youth is a sigh.-ALI Man hath a weary pilgrimage With heaviness he casts his eye To school the little exile goes, From hard control and tyrant rules, Youth comes; the toils and cares of life Where shall the tired and harass'd heart Then is not youth, as fancy tells, So reaches he the latter stage SOUTHEY. THE WRYNECK. THE Wryneck derives its name from its peculiar habit of lengthening the neck, which at the same time it writhes from side to side with serpent-like bendings, now pressing down the feathers so as to resemble the head of a snake, and again half-closing the eyes, swelling out the throat, and erecting its crest, when it presents an appearance at once singular and ludi crous. Among our most interesting and attractive birds, this little harbinger of spring delights us, not by the splendour of its hues, but by the chasteness of its colouring, and the delicate and singular way of its markings, which, from their intricacy and irregularity almost defy the imitations of the pencil. Among our migratory or wandering birds the Wryneck is one of the earliest visitors; arriving at the beginning of April, generally a few days before the cuckoo, (whose mate, from this circumstance, it has been called) when his shrill unchanging note, pee pee pee, rapidly reiterated, may be heard in our woods and gardens. The places where this bird is found, appear to be very limited; the midland counties being those to which it usually resorts in England. M. Temminck informs us that it is seldom found beyond Sweden, and is rare in Holland, occupying in preference the central portions of Europe. We are able to add to this information, by stating that it is abundant in the Himalaya mountains in India, whence we have frequently received it as a common specimen of the birds of that range of hills, with others bearing equally a British character. In manners, the Wryneck is shy and lonesome; and were it not for its loud and well-known call, we should not often be aware of its presence; its quiet habits leading it to close retirement, and its sober colour, which agrees with the brown bark of the trees, tending also to its concealment. In confinement, however, or when wounded, this little bird manifests much boldness; hissing like a snake, erecting its crest, and defending itself with great spirit. It breeds with us soon after its arrival, the female selecting the hole of a tree, in which she lays her eggs, to the number of eight or nine, of an ivory white. The young take after the plumage of the parent birds, which shows scarcely any difference between the two sexes. The food of the Wryneck, like that of the weakerbilled Woodpeckers, consists of caterpillars and other insects, especially ants and their larvæ, to which it is very partial. In the manner of taking its food this little bird makes but little use of the bill itself; its long hollow tongue, capable of being thrust out to a considerable distance, and made sticky by a proper gland, being the chief instrument. This it inserts between the crevices of the bark, or among the loose sandy earth of the ant-hill, thrusting it out and withdrawing it so rapidly, with the insect sticking to it, as almost to deceive the eye. Leaving England in the early part of the autumn, the Wryneck passes over to the southern districts of Europe, and probably extends its journey to Asia, where it finds a kindly climate, and food still abundant The prevailing colour of this elegant little bird consists of different shades of brown, inclining to gray on the head, the rump, and the tail, but of a bright chesnut on the larger wing-coverts and the first feathers; the whole beautifully varied with delicately shaped markings of a deep brown, which give it a mottled appearance. Breast wood-brown, penciled with slender cross tracings; belly dirty white, speckThe annexed plate represents the male and female of their natural size; the latter in the act of leaving the hole in the tree, in which we may suppose her to have formed a nest. led with small dark triangular spots; bill yellowish- | of the bill is very short and pithy :-" Whereas brown; eye-rings chesnut; feet and legs flesh-co- appeals of murder, treason, felony, or other offences, loured. The Wryneck. The above account of this curious little creature is extracted from the first part of a work on the birds of Europe, lately published by Mr. John Gould, from drawings made on stone, by himself and Mrs. Gould; the figures of the birds are also reduced from their original designs. This work is decidedly the most splendid illustration of Ornithology, or the Science of Birds, that has yet made its appearance, and is peculiarly deserving of praise for the correctness of the colouring, and the natural positions in which the objects it represents are drawn. WAGER OF BATTEL. and the manner of proceeding therein, have been found oppressive; and the Trial by Battel in any suit, is a mode of trial unfit to be used; and it is expedient that the same should be wholly abolished." Pending this trial Mr. Kendall wrote a little work, the result of much research, on the subject. This mode of trial was brought into England, among other Norman customs, by William the Conqueror. It was, like the rest, a presumptuous appeal to Providence, under an expectation that heaven would unquestionably give the victory to the innocent or injured party. The last trial by battel that was waged in the Court of Common Pleas, in Westminster, was in the 13th year of Queen Elizabeth, A.D. 1571, and was held in Tothill-Fields, Westminster. This trial by wager of battel was fought by not the parties themselves, in case of appeals of murder; but by champions chosen by them, in a writ of right. Nearly the same ceremonies were observed in each case. We must confine ourselves to the case of an appeal. The person accused (of murder, for example) pleads 'Not guilty,' and throws down his glove, and declares he will defend the same by his body. The accuser (called the appellant, as the other was the appellee) takes up the glove, and replies, that he is ready to make good the appeal, body for body. Thereupon the accused, taking the book in his right hand, and in his left the right hand of his antagonist, swears thus: "Hear this, O man, whom I hold by the hand, who callest thyself John by the name of baptism, that I, who call myself Thomas by the name of baptism, did not feloniously murder thy father, William by name, nor am any way guilty of the said felony. So help me God and the Saints: and this I will defend against thee by my body, as this Court shall award." The appellant, observing the same form in act and deed, makes a similar oath, that his antagonist did murder his father, &c. Lamunte Ause JUDGE BLACKSTONE, after enumerating the other species of trial by ordeal, says: "The next which remains in force, though very rarely in use, owes its introduction among us to the princes of the Norman line; and that is the trial by battel, duel, or single combat." It will be in the recollection of most of our readers, that in the year 1818 a very lively interest was excited through the whole of England, in consequence of an appeal being made to the Court of King's Bench to award this trial. - Mary Ashford was found drowned in a pit in a field, and Thornton was committed to take his trial for the murder. The Grand Jury found a true bill; but after a long and patient trial, the Petty Jury returned a verdict of 'Not guilty.' The country were very much divided on the subject; much contradictory evidence was given on the trial, especially as to time and distance. It is said that Mr. Justice Holroyd, who tried the case, was satisfied with the verdict. The poor murdered girl's relation preferred an appeal which involved a solemn tender of trial by a battle. It would be useless to dwell on the arguments used by the counsel on either side; the court decided in favour of the prisoner's claim to trial by wager of battle, and the challenge was formally given, by throwing down a glove upon the floor of the court; but the combat did not take place, and the prisoner escaped. In consequence of the revival of this barbarous practice on this occasion, a bill was brought into the House of Lords by Lord Tenterden, and was passed into a law, by which all proceedings of this kind were abolished altogether. The preamble Baltex blooubeme bemarile lare. Fac-simile of an Engraving of the time of Henry III. representing a Trial by Wager of Battle, with the names of the combatants, and a view of the gallows on which the vanquished party is hanging. A piece of ground is then set out, of sixty feet square, enclosed with lists, and on one side, a Court erected for the judges, and also a bar for the serjeants-at-law. When the court sits, which ought to be at sun-rising, proclamation is made for the parties, who are introduced by two knights, and are dressed in a coat of armour, with red sandals, barelegged from the knee downwards, bareheaded, and with bare arms to the elbows. The weapons allowed them are only batons, or staves of an ell long, and a four-cornered leathern target. Next, an oath against sorcery and enchantment, is to be taken by both parties, in some such form as this :-"Hear this, ye justices, that I have this day neither eat, drank, nor have upon me neither bone, stone, ne grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abased, or the law of the devil exalted. So help me God." The battle is thus begun, and the combatants are bound to fight till the stars appear in the evening. If the accused be so far vanquished that he cannot or will not fight any longer, he shall be adjudged to be hanged immediately; and then, as well as if he be killed fighting, Providence is deemed to have determined in favour of the truth, and his blood shall be attainted. But if he kills the appellant, or can maintain the fight till the stars appear in the evening, he shall be acquitted. If the appellant becomes recreant, that is, yields, and pronounces the horrible word craven, he shall lose his station and rights as a free and lawful man, and become infamous, and never admitted on a jury, or as a witness in a cause. Women, priests, infants, all above the age of sixty, the blind, the lame, peers of the realm; and by special charter, because fighting seems to be foreign to their education and employment, all citizens of London, were exempt from the trial by wager of battle. By an act of Parliament we have seen that this superstitious, iniquitous, and impious procedure, has been wholly abolished in England. Would that the no less iniquitous and impious mode of deciding quarrels by duel, which the president Montesquieu has with much ingenuity deduced from this ordeal, were banished from our country, and from the whole civilized world for ever! The time will probably come when duelling will be regarded as an act only of refined barbarism-as decidedly contrary to the law of God, to the law of man, to our reason and our best feelings, as murder itself. ON AN HOUR-GLASS. MARK! the golden grains that pass THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. J. M. т. Our extensive cultivation of the potato, furnishes us annually with several specimens of that fine animal, the Death's-head Moth (acherontia atropos): and in some years I have had as many as eight brought me in the larva, or chrysalis state. Their changes are very uncertain. I have had the larva change to a chrysalis in July, and produce the moth in October; but generally the chrysalis remains unchanged till the ensuing summer. The larvæ, or caterpillars, "strange ungainly beasts," as some of our peasantry call them, excite constant attention when seen, by their extraordinary size and uncommon mien, with horns and tail, being not unusually five inches in length, and as thick as a finger. This creature was formerly considered as one of our rarest insects, and it was doubtful whether it were truly a native; but for the last twenty years, from the profuse cultivation of the potato, it has become not very uncommon. Many insects are now certainly found in England, which former collectors, indefatigable as they were, did not know that we possessed; while others again have been lost to us moderns. Some probably might be introduced with the numerous foreign plants recently imported, or this particular food may have tended to favour the increase of those already existing; but how such a creature as this could have been brought with any plant, is quite beyond comprehension. We may import continental varieties of potatoes, but the Death's-head Moth we have never observed to have any connexion with the potato itself, or inclination for it. As certain soils will produce plants by exposure to the sun's rays, or by aid of peculiar manners, when no pre-existent root or germ could reasonably be supposed to exist; so will peculiar and long intervening seasons give birth to insects from causes not to be divined. We may, however, conclude, that we are indebted to some unusual circumstance for the introduction of this sphynx,and that its favourite food, the potato-plant, nourished it to the increase of its species. Superstition has been particularly active in suggesting causes of alarm from the insect world; and, where man should have seen only beauty and wisdom, he has often found terror and dismay. The yellow and brown tailed moths, the death-watch, our snails, and many others, have all been the subjects of his fears; but the dread excited in England by the appearance, noises, or increase of insects, are petty apprehensions when compared with the horror that the presence of this acherontia occasions to some of the more fanciful and superstitious natives of northern Europe, who are full of the wildest notions. A letter is now before me from a correspondent, in German Poland, where this insect is a common creature, and so abounded in 1824, that my informer collected fifty of them in the potato-fields of his village, where they call them the "Death's-head Phantom," the Wandering Death-bird," &c. The markings on its back represent to these fertile imaginations the head of a perfect skeleton, with the limb-bones crossed beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish--the moaning of a child-the signal of grief; it is regarded not as the creation of a benevolent Being, but the device of evil spirits-spirits, enemies to man-conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is thought to represent the fiery element whence it is supposed to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, hunger, death, to man and beast. We pity, rather than ridicule, these fears; their consequences being painful anxiety of mind and suffering of body. However, it seems these vain imaginations are flitting away before the light of reason and experience In Ger |