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SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

of the public houses. By all who frequent them it is not less than a day in the week, if not more. But above all, only think how the coffers of the revenue would be filled if the earnings of the people were expended on other articles of commerce than intoxicating drinks. If men earn a pound or two pounds in the week, they will expend them. If they do so on food and clothing for themselves and their families, they will pay a higher revenue than if they lavish them on strong drinks. To do right is always to do wisely and well. It is with the government of the country as with an individual. A drinker has the elements of ruin in his habits, and a Legislature that is sustained by the evil habits of the community is essentially unstable and insecure. It would be the highest interest of the Government to close the public houses.

Then, let me ask you to think of the poor publicans themselves. What a history is that of themselves and their families! A friend of temperance, who was well acquainted with a town in Ulster, wrote a history of its publicans for some quarter of a century or more. He told what had befallen every public house and its inhabitants, and such a detail has seldom been submitted to human eyes. It was a record of sins and sorrows so appalling as to fill the reader with alarm. There had been no escape from utter ruin. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, had all gone down, in one awful shipwreck of character, into an abyss of destruction. Their history has unfurled a black flag over their dwelling place, and it is inscribed-"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."

Even the poor drunkard himself, let me add, entreats you to remove the temptation of the public house out of his way. It is a notable fact, that when, in a few places, a trial has been made to ascertain how far the inhabitants would join in a petition to Parlia ment to pass what is called a Permissive Bill, giving power to a borough, or town, or parish, to decide by a majority of two-thirds of the ratepayers whether the sale of intoxicating drinks would be permitted in itsuch a petition has uniformly been signed by the drunkards of the place. Poor creatures! they say they cannot resist the temptation of the public house, and they ask you to withdraw it from them. Will you not help this poor, fallen brother! He knows his own sad propensity; he has experienced its bitterness; he desires to be delivered from it; and his only hope is to have the tempter removed out of his path. Then hear and help him, and never cease till, by securing such a Permissive Bill, the people shall, by their own voice, gain the blessed issue-the suppression of the liquor traffic.

In conclusion, there is one thing that ought not to be forgotten in the dealing of the Government with the liquor traffic. There has been an indulgence of it amounting to partiality and encouragement. The law has granted liberties and facilities to it that have not been extended to other departments of trade. The public house is permitted to be open and to carry on its destructive business at times when other forms of labour are forbidden. During many hours of the Lord's day intoxicating drinks may be bought and sold, when dealers in food and clothing must suspend their daily work. Much is said against partial legislation and class privileges, but the keeper of the public house has been treated as if he were an exception in whose behalf the laws of the Sabbath may be suspended or violated. This is an outrage which no free and independent people should allow. Our legislators have no authority over the Lord's day. They can neither lengthen nor shorter its hours. It is God's gift to man, especially to the poor, and none have a right to interfere with it. The duty of a Government is to see that it is enjoyed by all without hindrance, and to protect them in its observance. If it is right to forbid the ordinary course of trade on the sacred day, it is doubly so to lay an arrest on that of the publican. Hitherto the exception in his favour

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has been most disastrous to the interests of the community. The tradesman has seen the public house open for his reception on the only day of his rest from toil, and he has gone into it, and there wasted his hardearned wages. The best gift of God to man has thus been perverted into a curse by the sinfulness of those for whose good it was designed. The Lord's day has been converted into Satan's revelry. Its return has been a terror to many a broken-hearted wife and illused children. Its leisure has given opportunity to the unnatural husband and father to indulge in strong drink until he has wasted what by right belonged to his family, and he is sent back to them to wreak his passions on his defenceless wife and children. Surely this is a state of things that ought to exist no longer. Let Sunday traffic in the liquor trade be suppressed everywhere as it is in Scotland. The same good results will follow here that have been found there. The benefits of one day's suppression will become an argument for that of another and another, until all the days in the week are included in the prohibition, and the community will have reason to rejoice in the entire suppression of the demoralising traffic.

Nor is this the only form of partial legislation on behalf of the dealer in strong drinks. Other traders are held responsible for what they sell to the community, and the effects that may follow. The merchant disposes of seed to the husbandman, that disappoints his expectation, and he appeals to the law of his country for satisfaction and restitution. Another has sold for food what has proved to be a poison, and he is summoned to account for the wrong. Every trader is held responsible to give for the money he receives, the money's worth. But from all such liability the publican is exempted. He receives his unfortunate customer with the blandest smiles; he indulges him in his calls until his money and reason are both gone; and then he flings him out of his house as an unclean thing; and although he has been rendered incapable of finding his way to his home, and falls senseless on his path, and perishes in his drunkenness, there is no redress. The publican who tempted him to his ruin is held to be blameless. If an accident occurs to the traveller by the railway, the company are made responsible for the loss to himself or his family, but the seller of intoxicating drinks is not so called to account. When is justice to be done to the poor inebriate? Surely it is the duty of a paternal government to protect him. Every publican should be held accountable for the effects of the drink he sells. In this respect he should be treated as other dealers are treated. And if he were, no other law would be needed to put an end to his traffic. It could not exist as an honorable and fair trade. It could not meet its liabilities for the injuries it is constantly inflicting. The publican would be as often before the magistrate as behind his counter. Only let justice be done, and by reason of its own weakness and wickedness we shall soon see our heart's desire THE SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR

TRAFFIC.

(The right to re-publish this Paper is reserved.)

MILTON'S SAMSON AGONISTES. "Chorus: Desire of wine, and all delicious drinks, Which many a famous warrior overturns, Thou couldest repress-nor did the dancing ruby, Sparkling, outpour'd, the flavour, or the smell, Or taste that cheers the hearts of gods and men, Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream.

"Samson: Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure, With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod,

I drank, from this clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refresh'd-nor envied them the grape,
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
"Chorus: O madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook."

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BELFAST WASTE AND BELFAST WANT.

Belfast Waste and Belfast Want.

BY HENRY M'CORMAC, M.D.

THE perception of moral and physical purity is of very slow and precarious growth. It is a thing of which, with due persistent culture, the soul of man is very capable. But without this we shall with difficulty witness it. It is not innate, but happily it may be acquired. When we look at the wild animals, we see them without a speck on their fur or hair. If we follow them to their holes or dens, we find these, even in the caves of the carnivora, mainly without taint or smell. It is the case with the very insects. Consider the ant and the honey-bee. It is more especially the case with the birds. When we look at them in all the glory of their speckless plumage, then turn to some poor, degraded, and neglected man or child, the contrast is often very painful.

It is Nature's peremptory command that there shall be no violation of the rule of purity. In this place I refer to bodily purity. For when purity is habitually violated, evil, in the form of deranged function, is sure to ensue. What, indeed, is plague, or cholera, or fever, but deranged function, in the first instance thus ensuing, and thus ever aggravated, slaying not only individuals, but thousands and tens of thousands. Nature never intended this. She intends that man should live and act in health and strength, in the full possession of every aptitude. Yes. "To human life there has been assigned a normal range of healthy action, and when it prematurely fails, when children perish in the cradle or adults in the glow of manhood, the exception in every case is to be investigated and explained.'

The condition of the drainage in Belfast is a very great evil. The description which Dr. Simon gives of the state of the sewerage in London, at page 22 of the work I have cited, applies, indeed, almost word for word to Belfast. The entire excrementation of our town is sooner or later mingled with the stream of the river, there to be rolled backward and forward among the population. At low water broad banks of spongy refuse for many hours dry their contaminated mud in the sun, exhaling fetor and poison. At high water this is retained or driven back within all low, level sewers and house-drains, soaking far and wide into the soil, leaving putrescent deposits for miles. Sewers, which should be benefactions and appliances for health, are thus rendered sources of evil, furnish chambers for an immense fecal evaporation. At every breeze which strikes against their open mouths, at every tide which encroaches on their inward space, their gases are breathed into the upper air-into houses, footpaths, and carriage-ways.

The Belfast thoroughfares are very imperfectly cleansed, and even when swept, the offensive accumulation is suffered to remain in festering heaps whole hours, if not days. The streets, indeed, should be paved instead of the wretched system of MacAdam, provided with stone or metal tramways. This would allow the town to be thoroughly swept, daily, by means of the horse-broom. As respects this late implement, the broom, or rather long row of brooms, are set diagonally, and thus allow the instrument to operate very cheaply and efficiently. As it now is, however, clouds of dust beset the town in Summer, seas of mud cover it in the Winter, in the one case soiling everything, in the other chilling and dirtying everything.

In our narrow streets, owing to the almost total want of house accommodation, not merely the sweepings, but the excretions of each household, are thrown into the thoroughfare. The two rivers that flow through the town, instead of being allowed to convey the clear pure element, are converted into mere runnels of filth

*Simon's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City o London. Page 11.

and refuse. At the dock each ship is suffered to become a source of impurity. Fetid waste floats up and down for hours, or left stranded by seceding tides, taints the atmosphere around. Nor is this all, the living excretions of so many thousand human beings are drifted onwards, and settling along the banks on both shores, together with the weeds and minute animalcula floated in from the sea, form an offensive deposit, in some places perhaps three feet thick, extending for miles, on the one side towards Holywood, on the other in the direction of Whitehouse. Yet the time was, in the memory of persons now living, when people could, and did, ride or drive along a firm, white strand for miles in either direction after the receding of the tide. The stench from this deposit of mud and town filth, beneath the Summer's sun, after the daily retiring of the waters, is most offensive. Coupled with the horrible odour at the quays, it meets the nostrils of those who come in fresh from sea or drive along the shore, in the most annoying manner.

How offensive all this is to every sense, the moral sense and the physical sense alike, needs not here to be insisted upon. It is hateful to each individual resident, paves the way for the general lowering of vital tone, and the invasion of epidemic diseases at any time. It is a perfect disgrace to the town. It is a loss in every sense. The waste, discarded matters now thrown on the Belfast sea-strands, to the prejudice of every one, represents, at ten pounds sterling per head say ten thousand lowing kine, at five pounds a-head twenty thousand fat sheep at ten shillings each, a couple of hundred thousand pair of blankets at a hundred pounds each, a thousand well-built houses for the working-classes; and this, recollect, not for once only, but for every year lost, cast away, for ever. represents, if so applied, education and clothing, and sustenance for the outcast children that prowl about our streets, to become, perchance, thieves, robbers, and murderers hereafter. Any one may become a thief, a robber, or a murderer if only adequately neglected, and the sources of moral culture left adequately perverted. In place of hanging, scourging, and transporting these unfortunates, it is we ourselves, or some of us, who, perhaps, deserve these inflictions for so neglecting the infant man about us, and suffering him to grow up a thief, a drunkard, a beggar, or an outcast in after life.

It

So

The waste excretion is now estimated to be worth, if only collected and applied for agricultural purposes, one pound sterling per person. This, for Belfast, would yield one hundred thousand pounds per annum. that it is just as if two thousand five hundred ounces of gold, or the equivalent, or let us say but half of this amount, were yearly cast into the sea, and what might be rendered a source of real comfort and well-being to many, is turned into misery and annoyance more or less for everyone, and certain ill-health and a most disgusting and abominable nuisance to very many.

Of course I shall be asked how is all this to be remedied. I am not without an answer. The houses of the well-to-do middle-classes must be a little modified, and the ill-constructed and most wretched houses of the poor reconstructed with a view to the alteration I have in view. The house-refuse, the excretions of man and brute, must be carefully collected, without offence to the senses, and rescued from the character of filth, which is merely a material that might be balm and health and comfort in the wrong place, and distributed for agricultural purposes, requiting our fields and pastures for what they render our town in food for man.

There are two ways of doing this. One is by having short drain-pipe, porcelain lined sewers, leading into brick-lined reservoirs, with arched roofs, in suitable localities. In these the house-soil might be deodorised, and disinfected. There are abundant chemical means, which I should be only too happy to point out at any time, but on which I need not further dilate here, for disinfecting and deodorising the waste and converting it

RAGNAR LODBROOK.

into a manure surpassing guano in value, no more offensive to sight or smell than so much sawdust or sand. A small donkey-engine, which might be portable, would serve to pump up the sewerage-matters into the agriculturalists' turnbril-carts, at whatever stipulated charge, for conveyance into the country, and further utilisation in garden and farm.

This, then, is one way. The other way is to receive all the house-sewerage in porcelain-lined vessels placed in suitably ventilated chambers, attached to every house. A little fluid permanganate of soda or the employment of Moule's earth-closet, would render the contents of the porcelain-lined vessels perfectly innocuous and inoffensive. These vessels should be emptied at short periods, and replaced or exchanged for others. They should not only prove the recipients of feculent matters, but of every other description of house-waste, such as soap-suds, chamberley, washings of all sorts, water that had been employed for cooking -in short, refuse of every kind. The matters in these vessels should be carried by the proper person, in covered carts, to suitable depositaries, and these, as in the other case, disposed of, at remunerative prices to the practical agriculturalist, who, so soon as he was made aware of their precious efficacy, would only be too happy to avail himself of them.

Of course the proceeds of the sewerage-sales would be the property of the town of Belfast. And I need not enter into any specification of the various uses to which so welcome a fund might be turned. If so applied, it would relieve us of the burthen of the municipal taxes, now so shamefully heavy on the ratepayers. Better still, if so applied, it would form a fund for the feeding, clothing, and training of all the poor, orphaned and mendicant infants and children of the town and neighbourhood. The dreary flats, now strewn with filth on either side the Lough, would be reclaimed and converted into smiling meadows, or left as town-parks for recreation and solace to ourselves indeed, and the latest generations.

3, Wellington Place, Belfast, 18th April, 1863.

Ragnar Lodbrook.

[RAGNAR LODBROOK, a Danish hero, wishing in his old age to do some deed of note, set sail for the Saxon coast, contrary to the advice of his Queen. He is said to have been defeated by Ella, King of Northumbria, and thrown into a dungeon. He died laughing and singing a war song.]

Rest I here, said Ragnar Lodbrook,
Rest I, in inglorious ease,
While my brave sons waken terror
By their prowess on the seas.
Norland with their fame is ringing,
Bards their daring deeds are singing;
Ragnar's strength may have departed,
But he leaves sons lion-hearted.
Worthy they to bear his shield-
Worthy they his sword to wield.
Never yet did age make calmly

Flow the blood thro' warriors' veins,
Tho' my hair be white as snowdrifts,
I've the red heart of the Danes.
Ere my spirit upward darting,
Sees Nathalla's gates wide parting,
Praise to Ragnar, mighty praise,
Shall our Skalds sing in their lays.
We'll have ships to watch our daring;
Let them fell the largest trees;
Build us vessels such as never

Sailed upon the Northern seas.
Fair dry winds our white sails swelling,
Sent by gods, in Asgard dwelling,
We shall go like eagles flying,
To success or glorious dying--
When the shores from ice are clear,
To the Saxon coast we'll steer.

Then uprose the Queen Aslanga,

Like a fair Aurora she,
With a bright, but dream-like beauty,
Low she spake on bended knee:
"King, your throne and council sharing,
Have I e'er with words despairing,
Waea to war your ships departed,
Proved myself a Queen faint-hearted?
Now, Oh! hear me, Ragnar, rest,
Do not sail towards the West.
"Well you know that mystic knowledge
Was my own from early youth;
To my brain in light'ning flashes
Comes the love of future truth.
When on high the moon is sailing,
Then the gods, in visions veiling,
Show me deeds that yet will be
Done on land and done on sea;
And last night in dreams I saw
Sights that froze my blood with awe.
"Vision had I of an ocean

Cold as ice, but gloomy black;
And, O King! your ship lay on it

Shorn of sails, a gloomy wreck.
From the waves, dark serpents, gliding
O'er the deck, and spars were sliding,
And they ceased their dragging never,
Till they whelmed your ship for ever.
Stars in Heaven that writ your name,
Shot down, fading as they came."
"Great your knowledge, bright Aslanga,
White Queen with the golden hair;
Swan of Norland, wondrous power

Has your voice to sing despair.
But I've sworn it three times o'er-
Sworn the Saxon pride to lower;
Odin heard the vow has bound me,
Tho' your serpents coiled around me.
Bright Aslanga dream again-
Dream of victory, not of pain."
O'er her face there came a dark'ning,
Like the shadow of some woe;
Statue-like she stood, no trembling-
From her eye no tears did flow;
But they in the distance gazing
Looked as at a sight amazing.
Visions in their spell had bound her,
Casting death-like silence round her.
Long she stood; then soft and low
Thro' the hall her voice did flow:
"Council of heroic Ragnar,

If he's sworn it, well you know
Easier 'twere to make the rivers

Backward from their sources flow,
Than to change him from his vowing.
But the gods this war allowing,
Tho' in grief, a garment send him
By my hands, which will defend him.
Balder wore it, and we teach
Who wears it death can never reach."
Eyes are flashing, swords are piercing,
Blood is fire in foeman's veins ;
In the fields of fair Northumbria
Meet the Saxons and the Danes.
Ragnar Odin could not slight thee,
Yet right well does Ella fight thee.
Are the Danish ranks then failing?
Is the Saxon might prevailing?
Ragnar Lodbrook, shalt thou lie
Beaten on the field and die?
Thrice the Saxon ranks he pierceth,
Tho' as close as waves they stand,
With the sword that slew the serpent
Of fair Thora* in his hand,

All in vain; his fate has found him,
Closer press the foes around him.
He grows fainter, they grow stronger,
He can stem the tide no longer;
Magic vest they from him take,
Thus the spell of life they break:

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*The Princess Thora, his first wife, had been guarded by a serpent, which he slew

66

BIOGRAPHIES OF SELF-MADE MEN.

Cruel Ella! bloody Ella!

Ragnar, son and sire of Kings, Lies by your word in a dungeon,

Hissing serpents, hideous things,
Round his limbs and heart are twining;
'Horrid scales in dimness shining.
Foes look on to see his anguish ;
Will the hero faint or languish?
No, Odin see that flashing eye,
Ragnar knoweth how to die.
Songs he sings, in voice victorious,
Of the great deeds of his band.
Of the well-fought, bloody battles

They had gained by sea and land,
Then in deadliest torment laughing,
Soon, he cried, "I shall be quaffing
Heavenly mead in Asgard seated;
Gods shall hail me undefeated."
Thus, without a tear or sigh,
Thus did Ragnar Lodbrook die!

R. K.

Biographics of Self-made Men:

HUGH MILLER.

BY WILHELM SCHEFER.

HUGH has given us a very graphic account of his first visit to Edinburgh, to which he was attracted partly by business, and partly by a desire to see what his imagination had painted as "the magic City." In this description of the metropolis occur some of the finest word-pictures of his powerful pen. Thoroughly read in the literature of his native country, and already well acquainted with the mighty names that had thrown a charm over the venerable city, he was carried away by his enthusiasm, and held as it were by a spell. We can well understand how a mind like his would be influenced by associations such as Edinburgh so abundantly furnishes to all who are devoted to the humanities. And so it was, that this son of toil, with his heavy footstep and rustic gait, wandered in a kind of ecstasy through the classic streets of the capital. But a few years afterwards, he was himself the cynosure of all observers; a very king of men, looked up to, proudly, by the people. Hugh had, however, little time to spend in these pleasant reveries. Stern necessity compelled him again to take to the hammer. Hitherto accustomed to the simpler branches of his art, he felt awkward when placed beside the skilled workmen whose chisels had given glory to the architecture of the Modern Athens. He was an apt scholar and soon mastered all the difficulties in his way. Diligent also, he had the satisfaction of finding that his workmanship was soon equal to that of the best. "I was entrusted," he says, "with all the more difficult kinds of work required in the erection, and was at one time engaged for six weeks together, in fashioning long, slim deeply moulded mullions, not one of which broke in my hands, though the stone on which I wrought was brittle and gritty, and but indifferently suited for the nicer purposes of the architect." He had his trials, also, here to bear. His fellow-workmen were jealous of his skill, and spitefully inclined on account of his unwavering steadiness. Sober and thoughtful, he would neither drink with, nor treat them. When they found they were mistaken in their man, all that little minds could do was done to annoy our hero. But, like the oak which gains strength by the storm, he stood firm in the midst of adversity. "It is only a weak man," he tells us, "whom the wind deprives of his cloak; a man of the average strength is more in danger of losing it when assailed by the genial beams of a too kindly sun.' Driven by dissimilarity of tastes from the society of his fellows, he found compensation in his evening rambles in the country. His inquiring spirit soon procured for him abundance of material to work upon. The natural history of the region which he found

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to differ, in some respects, from that in which he had previously laboured, engaged his first attention. He discovered that two degrees of latitude added to his enjoyment more than two degrees of pleasure. The land-shells--the tortoise-shell Helix, the hedge-hog and the ripened acorn-which he had not met with in the north, contributed greatly to his delight. Now, for the first time in his life, amongst the carboniferous strata, his enlarged perceptions revelled amidst their fossil wonders. His comprehensive mind struggling with the mystery then enshrouding those ancient formations, speedily acquired an accurate knowledge of their magnificent flora. Without books on the subject, for none then existed, and without even a vocabulary to aid him in storing up his treasures, he toiled alone, and rested not till "the vegetation of the coal measures,' as he informs us, "began gradually to form in my mind's eye, where all had been blank before." The huge forms so characteristic of the coal strata, gave full scope to his imagination: he absolutely rioted amongst the luxuriant tree-ferns, the gigantic clubmosses and the tall horse-tails, of that prolific age. Like the dreams of his youth these brilliant imaginings passed not away. They became even more real, as the discoveries of late years unfolded their marvellous history. In this manner passed the period of Hugh's sojourn in Edinburgh, working and studying, suffering and enduring like a brave soul as he was. fellow-workmen, finding him incorrigible, left their strange comrade to his odd ways. They could not comprehend him, though he perfectly understood them, and made their whole environments as much a study as the rocks and fossils, of which they knew nothing. Hence it is, that his opinions of the working classes are so truth-telling, and so full of life. We may apply to himself his admirable remark on Benjamin Franklin, for it is only a faithful sketch of his own career. "The great printer," he says, "though recognised by accomplished politicians as a profound statesman, and by men of solid science as the 'most rational of philosophers,' was regarded by his poor brother compositors as merely an odd fellow, who did not conform to their drinking usages, and whom it was, therefore, fair to teaze and annoy as a contemner of the sacrament of the chapel."

His

Hugh was seized with the mason's malady, a disease which sends the majority of the craft to a premature grave. The dust of the stones he had been hewing affected his lungs, and laid him aside from active exertion. Before leaving Edinburgh for the north, he made many ineffectual attempts to see some of the literary lions, who at that time were making the world ring with their deeds. Christopher North, Hogg, Jeffrey, Dugald Stewart, Sir Walter Scott, and all the other members of the famous Blackwood Club, were in the zenith of their glory. Extremely touching is it to know that the great Geologist actually haunted Castle-street where Sir Walter lived, to get a glimpse of the greatest literary wizard the world has ever seen. But Hugh's efforts were fruitless. The only celebrity he had the good fortune to meet was the illustrious M'Crie, whose histories are the enduring monuments of his fame. Ten years later, and when he had returned to that city in which he was to earn his own reputation, many of the greatest of Scotland's sons, whose faces he eagerly longed to witness, had found an honoured grave.

The wanderer returned to his Northern home, in which he was still to remain in his obscurity till Providence called him to enter the high places of the field. In the society of an old playmate, whose college career had been greatly distinguished, and whose mathematical mind had gained for him a name in his University, Hugh devoted his leisure hours to methodical study. By the assistance of this friend, whose orderly habits of mental discipline rendered him peculiarly serviceable, he was enabled to arrange and classify, to some extent,

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THE FOUR STAGES OF THE DRUNKARD'S PROGRESS.

the geological facts which had accumulated in his hands. Curiously enough this student first introduced to his notice the pre-Adamite theory, but Hugh was not at that time geologist enough to pass an opinion upon it. Many years afterwards, and when his scientific standing gave him a right to be heard, he enunciated what even yet appears to be a great truth. "Man," he remarked, "had no responsible predecessor on earth." What his opinion of the antiquity of man would now be, had he been spared to witness the discoveries which later geologists have made, we can scarcely doubtbut, from his known caution, there is little reason to think, that he would have sought an escape from the difficulty by the wild hypothesis which suggests a race of pre-Adamite men, thousands of years before the Edenic dispensation began. That he would have antedated the period of man's existence on this earth, there is every reason to believe; for Hugh s proper place was always in the van of the scientific army; and truth was truth to him, whether it pleased or gave offence. Witha mind as healthy as it was original, he was ever turning his devout eyes from "Nature up to Nature's God." The ultimate cause of all things was continually the subject of his thoughts. He traced the plastic finger of the Creator in all that he studied, and he heard His mighty voice speaking in the hidden depths of his own great soul. With the revealed record in one hand and the symbolic record of the rocks in the other, he drank deeply from the fountain of truth, and, in time, became one of the most profound theologians of his age. Humble and gentle, every holy influence impressed his opening spirit. Hence it is that while speaking of himself we

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67

the words we find in Johnson." "But the poets make frequent use of it." "What poets?" Spencer." "Too old, too old; no authority now," said the minis"But the Whartons also use it." "I don't know the Whartons." "It occurs, also," I iterated, "in one of the most finished sonnets of Henry Kirke White." "What sonnet?" "That to the River Trent :'Once more, O Trent! along thy pebbly marge A pensive invalid reduced and paleFrom the close sick-room newly set at large,

Woos to his woe-worn cheek the pleasant gale.' It is, in short, one of the commonest English words of the poetic vocabulary." As we might well expect this kind of thing did not please the minister, and we do not wonder, therefore, that he hurried the troublesome visitor out of the "manse," and left him to push his lonely way in the world. In our next and concluding chapter we hope to follow Hugh in his ascent from the valley of his humiliation to that hill of fame on which he stood pre-eminent. Pausing for a moment to give expression to our admiration of the man, we shall pursue his history to its tragic close, and shall record, with what pathos we may command, the feelings of that solemn hour when, beside his open grave, and surrounded by mourring thousands, we shed tears of sincere sorrow, and grieved for the loss of one who was the hope of science, the idol of his friends, and the pride of his native country.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE

observe no indulgence in pride or vain glory. He Four Stages of the Drunkard's Progress;

quietly tells us, “I simply observed and recorded, because I found it pleasant to observe and record." This was the secret of his success. Once more at home we obtain another glimpse of the man. For a short period he was condemned to inaction by the extreme depression of trade. His patience was severely tried, and his ingenuity overtasked, in the weary hours of this painful leisure. A new idea seized his active brain, too long strained in the attempts to carve out work for itself. It appears his chisel was peculiarly handy in the nicer kinds of carving used in ornamenting and in inscribing memorial stones. The idea had for its object the turning of this talent to account. Setting out for Inverness, he determined to insert an advertisement in a local paper setting forth this useful gift; and as it was advisable to show the learned in such matters, that his literary acquirements were equal to the task, he resolved to have placed alongside of his advertisement one of his poems, which he carried in his pocket. It would have been interesting to posterity had he preserved a copy of this advertisement and the snatch of verse intended for its illustration. In connexion with this visit to Inverness occurs one of those rare literary morceaux which render the early career of such men as Johnson, Goldsmith, Burns, and Miller, so touching. Samuel Johnson, dancing attendance on Lord Chesterfield; Goldsmith, writing ballads and stealing through the streets to hear them sung; Burns, in trepidation at the fate of his first performance; and the humble Cromarty mason waiting in the parlour of a stupid country clergyman till the pompous autocrat of the parish should condescend to give him audience, are scenes over which the scholar loves to linger. Hugh's graphic pencil does ample justice to the pictnre. Vastly amusing was it to witness the quiet sarcasm of the clever artisan and the self-inflation of the silly pedant. After reading his pretty poem on the Ness, the minister opened his mouth and thus addressed the poet, whose risible faculties had been rigidly reined during the introductory part of the interview. "Pretty well, I dare say," he said, "but I do not now ready poetry. You, however, use a word which is not English-Thy winding marge along.' "Marge! what is marge?" "You will find it in Johnson," I said. "Ah, but we must not use all

OR,

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DESCENDING SCALE.

A SATIRIST, in his pencil sketches of the drunkard's progress, has depicted, with wonderful fidelity, the downward course of the "man of Doom;" but we question whether even the sharp-eyed Cruikshanks had in view the terrible physiology of that gloomy history which his genius has pourtrayed. He has given outward expression to an inward reality as startling as it is true. Let us try to prove it.

Stage first.-Langours and depression: confusion of ideas heart and brain first wild in their action-then weak and slow: the skin, first moist and warm-then dry and cold: the mind, first, like a flash, clear and vivid, then torpid and lethargic: in fine, the body at first all excitement-then sunk in a deep and unrefreshing sleep.

Second Stage.-Mental powers destroyed for the time. Cerebrum soon enfeebled and powerless. Reason and control (seated in the cerebrum) disappear, and the instincts and passions take their place. Only the Sensorium (the seat of the passions) is alive, and by its exclusive action, reduces the man to a level with the beasts.

Third Stage.-Now the Sensorium is itself attacked. The poison has paralyzed its delicate structure, and the loss of sensation and consciousness follows that of intelligence. Now giddiness: then strange sounds are heard, odd sights seen: then the vacant eye, the pale face, the trembling muscles, the shaking limbs, and the grovelling of the drunkard in the dust. Does he rise again? Generally, but not always. Why? Because, in many deplorable cases, the spinal cord is touched by the poison, and the moment its structure is thus influenced all muscular movements cease and suffocation follows. The Cerebrum and Sensorium sleep the sleep of nature; but the Spinal Cord never slumbers. Send it asleep, through drink, and it sleeps for ever.

The Fourth Stage is death. A little more alcohol, andit and venous blood will find their way where arterial blood should be. Then a few faint throbs, and life is extinct. The first stage affects the heart and excites ; the second reaches the cerebrum, and destroys reason;

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