Chapter XVII.

Lord L’Estrange did not proceed at once to Riccabocca’s house. He was

under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield

easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and

impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind

so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When he

once more, recalling his duty to the Italian, retraced his road to

Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted

spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement. “Vain

task,” he murmured, “to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now betrothed

to another; and she, with all her virtues is not the one to—” He stopped

short in generous self-rebuke. “Too late to think of that! Now, all that

should remain to me is to insure the happiness of the life to which I have

pledged my own. But—” He sighed as he so murmured. On reaching the

vicinity of Riccabocca’s house, he put up his horse at a little inn, and

proceeded on foot across the heath-land toward the dull square building,

which Leonard’s description had sufficed to indicate as the exile’s new

home. It was long before any one answered his summons at the gate. Not

till he had thrice rung did he hear a heavy step on the gravel walk

within; then the wicket within the gate was partially drawn aside, a dark

eye gleamed out, and a voice in imperfect English asked who was there.

“Lord L’Estrange; and if I am right as to the person I seek, that name

will at once admit me.”

The door flew open as did that of the mystic cavern at the sound of “Open

Sesame;” and Giacomo, almost weeping with joyous emotion, exclaimed in

Italian, “The good Lord! Holy San Giacomo! thou hast heard me at last! We

are safe now.” And dropping the blunderbuss with which he had taken the

precaution to arm himself, he lifted Harley’s hand to his lips, in the

affectionate greeting familiar to his countrymen.

“And the Padrone?” asked Harley, as he entered the jealous precincts.

“Oh, he is just gone out: but he will not be long. You will wait for him?”

“Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of the garden?”

“Bless her, it is our Signorina. I will run and tell her that you are

come.”

“That I am come; but she can not know me even by name.”

“Ah, Excellency, can you think so? Many and many a time has she talked to

me of you, and I have heard her pray to the holy Madonna to bless you, and

in a voice so sweet—”

“Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house, and we will wait

without for the Padrone. Nay, I need the air, my friend.” Harley, as he

said this, broke from Giacomo, and approached Violante.

The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts of the dull

garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when he had gone forth to answer

the bell; and she, unconscious of the fears of which she was the object,

had felt something of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate, and

the sight of a stranger in close and friendly conference with the unsocial

Giacomo.

As Harley now neared her with that singular grace of movement which

belonged to him, a thrill shot through her heart—she knew not why. She did

not recognize his likeness to the sketch taken by her father, from his

recollections of Harley’s early youth. She did not guess who he was; and

yet she felt herself color, and, naturally fearless though she was, turned

away with a vague alarm.

“Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina,” said Harley, in Italian; “but I

am so old a friend of your father’s that I can not feel as a stranger to

yourself.”

Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes, so intelligent and so

innocent—eyes full of surprise, but not displeased surprise. And Harley

himself stood amazed, and almost abashed, by the rich and marvelous beauty

that beamed upon him. “My father’s friend,” she said hesitatingly, “and I

never to have seen you!”

“Ah, Signorina,” said Harley (and something of his native humor, half

arch, half sad, played round his lip), “you are mistaken there; you have

seen me before, and you received me much more kindly then—”

“Signor!” said Violante, more and more surprised, and with a yet richer

color on her cheeks.

Harley, who had now recovered from the first effect of her beauty, and who

regarded her as men of his years and character are apt to regard ladies in

their teens, as more child than woman, suffered himself to be amused by

her perplexity; for it was in his nature, that the graver and more

mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give play and whim to his

spirits.

“Indeed, Signorina,” said he demurely, “you insisted then on placing one

of those fair hands in mine; the other (forgive me the fidelity of my

recollections) was affectionately thrown around my neck.”

“Signor!” again exclaimed Violante; but this time there was anger in her

voice as well as surprise, and nothing could be more charming than her

look of pride and resentment.

Harley smiled again, but with so much kindly sweetness, that the anger

vanished at once, or rather Violante felt angry with herself that she was

no longer angry with him. But she had looked so beautiful in her anger,

that Harley wished, perhaps, to see her angry again. So, composing his

lips from their propitiatory smile he resumed, gravely—

(To Be Continued.)

A BRACE OF BLUNDERS BY A ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

I arrived at Bayonne from Paris, by the Malle-Poste, one glorious morning.

How well I remember it! The courier, who used to play an important part in

the economy of the old French Malle-Poste, was the most irritable man I

ever saw. He quarreled with every one and every thing on the road. I fancy

that he was liable to some slight penalty in case of reaching Bayonne

later than a given hour; but had the penalty been breaking on the wheel,

he could not have been more anxious to drive at full speed. Here let me

note, by the way, that the pace of a French courier, in the good old

times, was the most tremendous pace at which I have ever traveled behind

horses. It surpassed the helter-skelter of an Irish mail. The whole

economy of the Malle-Poste was curious. No postillion ever drove more than

one stage: mortal arms could not have continued flogging any farther. The

number of the horses was indefinite—now there were four; presently, five,

or six, or seven; four again, or eight; all harnessed with broken bits of

rope and wonders of fragmentary tackle. The coach-box, on which the

postillion used to sit, was the minutest iron perch to which the body of a

man could hook itself. The coach itself was britzka-shaped, with room for

two. It was in this conveyance that I traveled over the frightful hills

between Bordeaux and Bayonne. When we neared any descent a mile or two

long, the postillion regularly tied the reins loosely to some part of the

frail box, seized the whip, and flogged, and shouted, until down we went

with a great rush, dashing and rocking from side to side while my irate

friend, the courier, plied a sort of iron drag or rudder, with the

enthusiastic gestures of a madman. Watching my time, when, after one of

these frantic bouts, my friend sank back exhausted, and quite hoarse with

all his roaring, I quietly offered him a bunch of grapes, which I had

bought at Tours. Their grateful coolness made the man my friend eternally,

but had I offered him a captain’s biscuit at that moment I could not have

answered for the consequences. So much depends on judgment in the timing

of a gift!

On arriving at Bayonne, the first notable thing I saw was a gendarme, who

asked me for my passport. I had none. He looked grave, but I, young in

travel, pushed him aside cavalierly, and bade my servant, who had arrived

the day before, see to my luggage. The cocked hat followed me into the

inn, but bidding it be off, I walked into a private sitting-room, in which

a bed was a prominent article of furniture. I ordered for my breakfast

some broiled ham and eggs, and was informed that I could not have ham,

though in Bayonne. I should be served with chocolate and sugar-sticks,

pump-water, and milk-bread. While breakfast was preparing, the cocked hat

arrested me, and marched me off to the police-office.

“Your passport?” said the Inspector.

“My breakfast,” said I.

“You are under arrest,” said the Inspector.

Then I referred to the consul, with whom I had a sort of second-hand

acquaintance, and who offered to provide me with a passport; but his offer

was declined. I was conducted to the prefêt. The prefêt transferred me to

the Procureur du Roi, whom I unhappily disturbed when he was sitting down

to breakfast. I apologized for my unavoidable intrusion.

“Pray don’t mention it,” said he; “I take cold fish for breakfast, and

iced coffee;” so he sat down and listened to my tale, and said that I must

be detained.

“Impossible!” I cried. “I have sent on my money and baggage to Madrid.”

“Many political agitators have slipped through Bayonne,” replied the

procureur. “Write to Lord Hervey. When a passport comes for you from Paris

you can pass the frontier; not before.”

Of course he said he was “desolated,” as he bowed me out. I was at liberty

to reside at the hôtel, under the lackeyship of two gendarmes, who waited

on me night and day. A crowd had gathered to witness my return from the

house of the procureur, and ladies thronged the balconies. Rumor had, in

fact, created me Conde de Montemolin!

Henceforth, until my passport came, I was peeped at through all manner of

doors by all manner of men, and encountered accidentally in passages by

all manner of women; one band hindered me from sleeping in my bed, another

played to me at dinner, and both expected payment for their services,

until the passport came, and brought me so much degradation as enabled me

to step, uncared for, into the common diligence, and travel on.

It has occurred to many other people to be mistaken in some such way, and

more than once it has occurred to people to make, on their own account, a

certain blunder, which Goldsmith has immortalized. This blunder, I, when I

ought to have known better, was incautious enough one day to commit....

In the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, I was engaged in a

tour through the by-ways of Germany, on horseback. During this tour I

found myself, one summer morning, drawing near to the small town of

Maikommen, in the Palatinate. Though the dawn had been cloudless, the noon

threatened a storm, and already the big drops struck on the ground.

Respect for my baggage, which consisted of two shirts, three books, and a

pair of stockings, made me look for shelter.

The heavy drops fell faster as I cantered on at a brisk pace, and just at

the entrance of the little town rode through a pair of broad gates into

what I took for the inn-yard. Having stabled my horse in a remarkably

clean stall, I ran into the house, and got under cover, just as the first

peal of thunder rattled among the distant hills, and the rain had begun

plashing down in earnest. A pretty child sucked its thumbs in the passage.

“Quick, little puss,” said I, shaking the raindrops from my hat, “tell

somebody to come to me!” “Mamma,” the child cried, running in, “here is a

strange gentleman.”

A pleasant-looking woman, with a homely German face, came out of an

adjoining room with the child clinging to her dress, and asked me what I

wanted?

“Some dinner,” I answered “and a bottle of your best wine.”

“Go and tell father to come,” said the woman, looking at me curiously. A

tall, good-humored man, of about fifty, made his appearance, and I

repeated my desire in a tone somewhat more authoritative. He laughed, and

the wife laughed, and the child shrieked with laughter. But I had met with

many curiosities among the German innkeepers in remote country places,

and, being willing to let these people, see that, though an Englishman, I

was also good-humored, I joined their laugh, and then asked, with a grave

face, when the table-d’hôte would be served?

“We keep no table-d’hôte,” replied the husband.

“Well,” I said, “but notwithstanding, you will let me have some dinner, I

suppose? I have come a long way, and it is far to the next town. Besides,

it rains!”

“Certainly, it rains!” replied the man, with a phlegmatic look over the

puddles in the court-yard.

At this moment a clattering of plates, a steam of soup, and a sweet odor

of fresh cucumber, attracted my attention. I said immediately that I was

quite willing to dine at their table. By this time the child had got over

its fear, and was at play with my riding-whip; a few caressing words of

mine toward the little one, had reassured its mother. She spoke for a

moment in _patois_ with her husband; and then bade the servant lay another

knife and fork.

I rather liked my landlord’s eccentricity; so, tapping him upon the

shoulder in a friendly way, I desired that he would let me have a bottle

of his very best wine; and by way of propitiating him still more, I

feigned to have heard a good deal of his cellar, and requested to see it.

“O, very well,” he said; “follow me if you please.’”

He took me down into a cellar capitally stocked, and there we tasted a

good many wines. My landlord seemed to be in the best temper.

“And what,” I asked, “is the price of that white wine in the thin

long-necked bottles?”

I despair of getting its colossal name down upon paper, or I would try it;

he gave it a great many syllables, and said it was the choicest and most

expensive wine he had.

“Then,” said I, “that is what we will drink to-day. I will take a bottle

to myself, and you another; you shall drink it with me.”

“You are very kind,” he said; “but let me recommend some other bin; this

wine you will find is—is very heady.”

I thought that, like a thrifty host, he had some qualm about my means of

paying for it; so I seized, manfully, a bottle in each hand, and crying

“Come along!” accompanied the host into the dining-room.

The wine deserved its praise; opening our hearts, it soon made us famous

friends. I had been pleased with the scenery about this quiet nook, and,

being master of my time, and very comfortable, I made up my mind and said,

“I tell you what, my friend. I shall send for my things from Heidelberg,

and stay here for a week or two.”

The laughter again pealed out; but my host, who probably had seen quite

enough of a guest who insisted upon drinking his best wine, put on a grave

face. It looked like an innkeeper’s face, when he is buckling himself up

to strike a bargain. To save him trouble, I at once said that I would pay

three florins a day for myself, and one for the accommodation of my horse.

“He thinks we keep an inn!” the little child screamed through her

laughter. I instantly collapsed.

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS IN ENGLAND.

One Saturday morning toward the close of November or beginning of

December, I have forgotten the precise date, a letter was put into my hand

at the office. It was from my quondam friend and employer the cutler

editor, as whose agent I occasionally acted, and who charged me with a

commission to procure him certain “sorts” from the foundry and transmit

them by coach, in time for his next impression. Not choosing to disappoint

my wife and lose my dinner, I deferred the visit to the foundry until

after work in the evening; when, upon arriving at Chiswell-street, I found

the men in the act of leaving, but was informed I could have the materials

I wanted as early as I chose on Monday. On Monday morning, accordingly,

having risen rather earlier than usual and breakfasted by candle-light, I

set forth to execute my commission before proceeding to work. Crossing

Blackfriars-bridge, and barely noticing that there was an unusual

concourse of foot-passengers of the laboring and lower sorts, I turned up

Ludgate-hill, where I found the crowd still greater, less equivocally

disrespectable, and all hurrying forward at a rapid walking-pace. Intent

upon the object I had in view, I pushed forward as rapidly as the rest,

and turning sharp round into the Old Bailey, came suddenly upon a

spectacle which, of all others, was the farthest from my thoughts. It was

the morning of an execution. A thick damp haze filled the air, not

amounting to an actual fog, but sufficiently dense to confine the limits

of vision to a few hundred yards. The beams of the level sun threw an

almost supernatural light of a dim but fiery hue into the mist which they

yet had not force enough to penetrate; and there, darkly looming with grim

and shadow-like outline against a background of lurid vapor, rose the

gallows upon which a wretched fellow-creature was about to be

death-strangled and dangled in expiation of the crime of murder. In a

moment the commission I had in hand vanished from my thoughts, and,

impelled by a fearful and morbid curiosity, I suffered myself to be borne

by the pressure behind, every moment aggravated by the arrival of

trampling multitudes to the spot, toward the object of the general gaze.

One minute afterward, I saw that the attempt to retrace my steps would be

not only vain but dangerous; and, compelled to make the best of what I

could not now avoid, I was pressed onward as far as the outlet of

Fleet-lane, when, contriving by main force to get my back against the end

of a stout tressle upon which seven or eight fellows were mounted, I

managed to maintain my position until the horrible ceremony was concluded.

It wanted yet full twenty minutes to eight o’clock, when I stood

fast-wedged within a few fathoms’ length of the scaffold. As far as the

eye could pierce through the misty glare, was one unbroken sea of human

heads and faces; the outer masses reeling, staggering and driving in

fitful currents against the firm, compact and solid centre, fixed and

immovable as though charmed to stone by the horrible fascination of the

gibbet. Far beyond and above all the tower of St. Sepulchre’s, magnified

by the morning haze, showed like a tall, transparent cloud, from which was

soon to burst the thunder-peal of doom upon the miserable man who had shed

his brother’s blood. The subdued murmur of the immense mob rose and

swelled like the hollow roar of a distant but angry sea. Here and there a

tall and burly ruffian, pre-eminent above the crowd, signaled his fellow

in the distance, or bellowed a ghastly witticism upon the coming horror

across the heads of the throng. Women—if women they are to be called, who,

like vultures to the carcass, flock to the spectacle of dying agonies—of

all ages but of one indescribably vicious and repulsive class, had pushed,

and struggled, and fought their way to an eligible point of view, where

they awaited with masculine impatience the close of the fearful drama of

which they formed so revolting a part. Children of tender age, who must

have taken up their position ere the day had dawned, and before the

arrival of the masses, made an unsightly addition to the scene. A boy of

nine, borne aloft on the shoulders of a man of sixty, who stood by my

side, expressed his uncontrollable delight at the tragedy he was about to

witness. At every window in the houses opposite, the debtors’ door, and

indeed wherever a view of the gallows could be obtained, parties of

pleasure were assembled for the recreation of the morning. The roofs, the

parapets, the protruding eaves of the shops, all were populous with life;

the very lamp-posts and projecting sign-boards were clung and clustered

over with eager beings impatient to assist in the funeral obsequies of the

victim of the law. And now a violent surging and commotion in the centre

of the living mass gives token of a fierce quarrel which has ripened to a

fight. Shrieks, yells, and cheers of encouragement issue from a hundred

throats, while a crew of tall and powerful blackguards elbow and trample

their way to the scene of action, and the glazed hats of the police are

seen converging unerringly to the disturbed spot. Then there is the

flourishing of gilded staves, the sound of sturdy blows followed by a roar

of execration, and a gory-visaged culprit is dragged forth, defrauded of

his expected banquet, and consigned to a cell in the nearest station. The

tumult has hardly subsided when another claims attention. A brace of

pickpockets, taking advantage of the fight, are caught in the too

confident exercise of their profession; and these, much easier captives

than the fighting Irishman, are led off in their turn to the same vile

durance.

By this time, weary and actually sore with the repeated violent collisions

I had undergone in sustaining my post, I was glad to make a bargain with

the man perched above me, who, for a bribe of a few pence, allowed me to

effect a footing in his front. I had scarcely accomplished this when the

church-clock in the distance rung out the quarters. The crowd, listening

for this, had been comparatively silent for the last few minutes, and the

note of the bell was acknowledged by a kind of shuddering deprecation for

silence, by the instant uncovering of innumerable heads, and the

involuntary direction of every eye toward the debtors’ door. As the fatal

hour at length pealed forth the door was slowly opened, and there came out

upon the scaffold, not the mournful death-procession which all were

awaiting with such intense interest, but its grim herald and precursor,

the crime-honored aristarch of kill-craft, the great stage-manager of the

law’s last scene, whose performances are so much relished by the mob—the

hangman, bearing the odious strand of new rope coiled upon his arm. He was

received with a low but universal hum of recognition from the vast

multitude now breathless with the exciting anticipation of what was so

soon to follow. With an apparent perfect unconsciousness of the presence

of a single spectator, he proceeded to mount to the cross-piece of the

gibbet, to which, with an air of professional dexterity, he deliberately

attached the loathsome cord, occasionally pausing and measuring with his

eye the distance to the level of the platform. During this operation he

was favored with a running fire of comments and counsels, garnished with

infernal jokes and sallies of insane humor, from the mob who stood

nearest. Having made the necessary preparations he withdrew for a few

minutes, amidst the mock cheers and congratulations of some kindred

spirits below. The awful pause which ensued was but of brief duration. Too

soon a group of dark figures slowly emerged from the open door-way, among

which I could discern the chaplain reading the burial-service, and then

the quivering criminal, his hands clasped in prayer, yet bound together in

front of his breast: he was supported by two assistants, and was already,

to all appearance, more than half dead with mortal terror. These

demonstrations of insupportable anguish on the part of the principal

performer were received with evident and audible dissatisfaction by a

large portion of the spectators of the drama. Derisive sneers on the want

of “pluck” manifested by the poor, horror-stricken wretch were expressed

in language which can not be repeated; and in many a female but unfeminine

face, hardened by embruting vice and callous to every feeling of humanity,

I read a contemptuous scorn of the timorous sufferer and a proud and

fiend-like consciousness that they themselves would have dared the dark

ordeal with less shrinking. The very boy mounted on the old man’s

shoulders at my side called his “grand-dad” to witness that “the cove as

was to be hanged wasn’t game;” a declaration which was received with a

hoarse chuckle and a corroborative verdict by the standers-by, while the

repulsive ceremony went on with fearful rapidity. In less than a minute

the light of day was shut forever from his eyes, the last prayerful

accents from human lips were dumb to his ears, and the body of the

malefactor, sinking with a sudden fall until half concealed by the level

platform, struggled in the final throes of agony for a few

moments—mercifully abbreviated, as some well-experienced amateurs at my

side plainly pointed out, by the coadjutors of the hangman pulling heavily

at the feet in the inclosure below—and then swung senseless, veering

slowly round upon the now deserted stage.

The very instant the “drop” fell, and while the short gasping cry from a

thousand lips which hailed the close of the tragedy yet rung in the air,

the scene assumed a new character: the elements of business were borne

into the arena of pleasure. Three or four nondescript specimens of the

street-orator, who were standing just beneath me, drew suddenly forth from

the depths of their long-tailed greasy coats of serge each a bundle of

damp paper, which they flourished into flags in a twinkling; and while the

death-struggle was acting before their eyes, eager to turn it to account

and to realize an honest penny, filled the air with their roaring

intonations of “the last dying speech, confession, and behavior” of the

murderer of the season. Their example was imitated by fifty others on

different parts of the ground, and the chorus of their united voices

formed but a beggarly requiem to the departing spirit. The tragedy ended,

the farce, as a matter of course, came next. The body had to remain

suspended for an hour, and during that hour amusement must be provided, at

least for that portion of the spectators who can never have enough unless

they have the whole of an entertainment. To swing a live cat from a side

avenue into the middle of the crowd; to whirl a heavy truncheon from one

broken head on a mission to another; to kick, maul, and worry some

unfortunate stray cur that has unhappily wandered from his master; to get

up a quarrel or a fight, if between women so much the better—such are some

of the time-honored diversions chosen to recreate the hour which a

sagacious legislature presumes to be spent in moral reflections upon the

enormity of crime and the certainty of its bitter punishment, in the

presence of the law-strangled dead.

I had never before seen a public execution in England, but I knew

perfectly well—as who does not know?—the feeling with which such

exhibitions are regarded by the lower orders, and I had often revolved in

my mind the probable cause of that feeling. In now witnessing thus

accidentally the whole ceremony, I thought I perceived one source of it,

and that not a trifling one, in the ceremony itself. It struck me, and I

have no doubt but others have received the same impression, that with all

the actual horrors of the dismal process, in addition to a great deal that

is disgusting, there is a great deal more that is essentially though

horribly ridiculous in our national legal method of public killing. The

idea of tying a man’s hands, of drawing over his face a white night-cap,

through which his features yet remain dimly legible, and then hanging him

up in the air is manifestly a ridiculous idea—and connect it with what

dreadful realities we may, the sense of the comic or absurd will

predominate in the minds of the populace, ever alive to the appreciation

of the preposterous or the discrepant, and never willingly disposed to

serious reflection. The vagabond kennel-raker, the nomadic coster, the

houseless thief, the man of the lowest order of intellect or of morals,

sees the majesty of the law descending to the punch-and-judy level, and

getting rid of its criminals by the same process as the hunch-backed

worthy adopts to get rid of his tormentor—and being accustomed from his

infancy to laugh heartily at the latter exhibition, he is not likely to

retain for any length of time a grave demeanor in presence of the former

one. A flogging in the army is allowed by all unfortunate enough to have

witnessed it to be a far more impressive spectacle than a hanging at the

Old Bailey. Strong men are known to faint at the sight of the one, while

boys and women find amusement in the other. If the object of either

exhibition be to deter the spectators from offending against the laws, why

is the discrepancy between the effects of the two all on the wrong side?

unless it be that the one exhibits the semblance at least of Justice

vindicating her violated authority with a deserved though terrible measure

of severity, while the other comes into view as a mere hasty and bungling

business of killing, the vulgar and beggarly details of which it is

impossible to connect in imagination with her divine attributes.

Some years before, I had witnessed in Paris the execution of two men for

assassination. The crowd on that occasion, in the Place de Grève, was as

great as now in the Old Bailey; but their decorum, I am bound to state,

was infinitely greater. I can only account for this difference in favor of

a population among whom human life is at a far greater discount than it is

with us, from the fact that among the French a public execution is a much

more impressive spectacle than it can be made to be in England. The

guillotine bears a higher character, perhaps, because it wears a more

serious and terrible aspect than the gallows; and the functionary who

controls its avenging blade does not, as with us, bear a name the synonym

of all that is loathsome and repulsive. It is the same class of men and

the same order of minds that flock together to gaze at public executions

wherever they take place; but I question whether, in any other country

than England, a class of traders could be found corresponding with our

hawkers and bawlers of last dying speeches, who congregate with their

lying wares around the foot of the gallows, watchfully waiting for the

commencement of the death-struggle, to them the signal of commerce, and

then at the precise moment of horror, unanimously exploding from their

hoarse throats “a full, true, and particular account, for the small charge

of one half-penny.” The meanest mud-lark in all Gaul, the infamous and

mal-odorous _chiffonier_ of Paris, would recoil with disgust from such a

species of traffic, the prevalence and prosperity of which at such a time

among the lowest orders of London, testify perhaps more than any other

single fact to the degraded state of the popular feeling in reference to

death-punishment by the hands of the hangman.

Second, to the influence of the hangman, and the scene in which he figures

in the production of a degrading and disgraceful estimate of the terrible

solemnities of justice, is that of the press. What the Old Bailey or the

Horsemonger-lane exhibition is to the uneducated spectator, the

broad-sheet is to the uneducated reader; and it requires no great

discrimination to recognize in the publication of every minute particular

of deeds of violence and bloodshed, looking to the avidity with which such

details are seized upon by the public, one of the most fruitful sources of

demoralization and crime. The wretched criminal whose language, looks, and

deportment are chronicled as matters of general importance, becomes first

an object of interest, then an idol to those of his own class. If, as we

know to be the case, men are led by the force of example to the commission

of suicide, why not of any other species of crime? If a fashion may spring

up, and prevail for a time, of leaping headlong from the top of a monument

or the parapet of a bridge through the publicity given to such acts by

means of the press, how shall the exploits of the felon or the assassin

escape imitation when made the subjects of a far more extensive and

pertinacious publicity, and paraded as they are before the world with all

the importance they can be made to assume? There can be no question but

that this practice of pandering to a morbid taste for a detestable species

of excitement results largely in engendering the very crimes which certain

public writers find it so profitable to detail at such length. The

performer on the Old Bailey stage becomes a veritable hero in the eyes of

the mob of readers for whose especial delectation his history is

periodically dished up, and they gloat over the recital of his acts with a

relish and a gusto which no other species of literature can awaken. So

great, indeed, of late years, has grown the appetite for violence and

villainy of all kinds, that our romance-writers have generously stepped

forward to supplement the exertions of the last-dying-speech patterer, as

a pendant to whose flimsy damp sheets they supply a still more “full,

true, and particular account” in the form of three volumes post octavo.

Thus, besides the certainty of being hanged in the presence of ten or

twenty thousand admiring spectators, the daring and darling desperado who

“dies game” stands the enviable chance of becoming a literary property in

the hands of one of those gentlemen, and of running a second course, in

half-calf and lettered, to interest and instruct that very community whom

it was his life-long occupation to rob, to plunder, or to slay.

Pondering such discursive philosophy as this in my mind, I stood still on

my three-penny eminence until the crowd had sufficiently cleared away to

allow me to retrace my steps as far as Ludgate-hill without inconvenience.

Then, having no great relish for the cadaverous jocularity which generally

characterizes the scene of an execution during the removal of the body of

the malefactor, I descended and turned my back upon the ignominious

spectacle, with a feeling of disgust for the multitude of my fellows who

could find recreation in the elements of cruelty and horror, and with

anger and vexation at myself for having added one to their number.

WHAT TO DO IN THE MEAN TIME?

It has been frequently remarked by a philosopher of our acquaintance,

whose only fault is impracticability, that in life there is but one real

difficulty: this is simply—what to do in the mean time? The thesis

requires no demonstration. It comes home to the experience of every man

who hears it uttered. From the chimney-pots to the cellars of society,

great and small, scholars and clowns, all classes of struggling humanity

are painfully alive to its truth.

The men to whom the question is pre-eminently embarrassing are those who

have either pecuniary expectancies, or possess talents of some particular

kind, on whose recognition by others their material prosperity depends. It

may be laid down as a general axiom in such cases, that the worst thing a

man can do is to _wait_, and the best thing he can do is to _work_; that

is to say, that in nine cases out of ten, doing something has a great

advantage over doing nothing. Such an assertion would appear a mere

obvious truism, and one requiring neither proof nor illustration, were it

not grievously palpable to the student of the great book of life—the

unwritten biographical dictionary—of the world—that an opposite system is

too often preferred and adopted by the unfortunate victims of this

“condition-of-every-body question,” so clearly proposed, and in countless

instances so inefficiently and indefinitely answered.

To multiply dismal examples of such sad cases of people ruined, starved,

and in a variety of ways fearfully embarrassed and tormented during the

process of expectation, by the policy of cowardly sloth or feeble

hesitation, might, indeed, “point a moral,” but would scarcely “adorn a

tale.” It is doubtless an advantage to know how to avoid errors, but it is

decidedly a much greater advantage to learn practical truth. We shall

therefore leave the dark side of the argument with full confidence to the

memories, experience, and imaginations of our readers, and dwell rather—as

both a more salutary and interesting consideration—on the brighter side,

in cases of successful repartee to the grand query, which our limited

personal observation has enabled us to collect. Besides, there is nothing

attractive or exciting about intellectual inertia. The contrast between

active resistance and passive endurance is that between a machine at rest

and a machine in motion. Who that has visited the Great Exhibition can

have failed to remark the difference of interest aroused in the two cases?

What else causes the perambulating dealers in artificial spiders suspended

from threads to command so great a patronage from the juvenile population

of Paris and London? What else constitutes the superiority of an

advertising-van over a stationary poster? What sells Alexandre Dumas’s

novels, and makes a balloon ascent such a favorite spectacle? “Work, man!”

said the philosopher: “hast thou not all eternity to rest in?” And to

_work_, according to Mill’s “Political Economy,” is to _move_; therefore

perpetual motion is the great ideal problem of mechanicians.

The first case in our museum is that of a German officer. He was sent to

the coast of Africa on an exploring expedition, through the agency of the

_parti prêtre_, or Jesuit party in France, with whose machinations against

Louis Philippe’s government he had become accidentally acquainted. The

Jesuits, finding him opposed to their plans, determined to remove him from

the scene of action. In consequence of this determination, it so happened

that the captain of the vessel in which he went out, set sail one fine

morning, leaving our friend on shore to the society and care of the native

negro population. His black acquaintances for some time treated him with

marked civility; but as the return of the ship became more and more

problematical, familiarity began to breed its usual progeny, and the

unhappy German found himself in a most painful position. Hitherto he had

not been treated with actual disrespect; but when King Bocca-Bocca one day

cut him in the most unequivocal manner, he found himself so utterly

neglected, that the sensation of being a nobody—a nobody, too, among

niggers!—for the moment completely overcame him. A feeble ray of hope was

excited shortly afterward in his despondent heart by a hint gathered from

the signs made by the negro in whose hut he lived, that a project was

entertained in high quarters of giving him a coat of lamp-black, and

selling him as a slave; but this idea was abandoned by its originators,

possibly for want of opportunity to carry it out. Now our adventurer had

observed that so long as he had a charge of gunpowder left to give away,

the black men had almost worshiped him as an incarnation of the

Mumbo-Jumbo adored by their fathers. Reflecting on this, it occurred to

him that if, by any possibility, he could contrive to manufacture a fresh

supply of the valued commodity, his fortunes would be comparatively

secure.

No sooner had this idea arisen in his brain, than, with prodigious

perseverance, he proceeded to work toward its realization. The worst of it

was, that he knew the native names neither of charcoal, sulphur, nor

nitre. No matter; his stern volition was proof against all difficulties.

Having once conveyed his design to the negroes, he found them eager to

assist him, though, as difficulty after difficulty arose, it required all

the confidence of courage and hopeful energy to control their savage

impatience. The first batch was a failure, and it was only by pretending

that it was yet unfinished he was enabled to try a second, in which he

triumphed over all obstacles. When the negroes had really loaded their

muskets with his powder, and fired them off in celebration of the event,

they indeed revered the stranger as a superior and marvelous being. For

nearly eighteen months the German remained on the coast. It was a port

rarely visited, and the negroes would not allow him to make any attempt to

travel to a more frequented place. Thus he continued to make gunpowder for

his barbarous friends, and to live, according to their notions, “like a

prince;” for to do King Bocca-Bocca justice, when he learned our friend’s

value, he treated him like a man and a brother. What might have been his

fate had he awaited in idle despondency the arrival of a vessel? As it

was, the negroes crowded the beach, and fired off repeated salvos at his

departure. Doubtless his name will descend through many a dusky generation

as the teacher of that art which they still practice, carrying on a

lucrative commerce in gunpowder with the neighboring tribes. A small

square chest of gold-dust, which the escaped victim of Jesuit fraud

brought back to Europe, was no inappropriate proof of the policy of doing

something “in the mean time,” while waiting, however anxiously, to do

something else.

We knew another case in point, also connected with the late king of the

French. M. de G—— was, on the downfall of that monarch, in possession of a

very handsome pension for past services. The revolution came, and his

pension was suspended. His wife was a woman of energy: she saw that the

pension might be recovered by making proper representations in the right

quarters; but she, also, saw that ruinous embarrassment and debt might

accrue in the interim. Her house was handsomely furnished—she had been

brought up in the lap of wealth and luxury. She did not hesitate; she

turned her house into a lodging-house, sank the pride of rank, attended to

all the duties of such a station, and—what was the result? When, at the

end of three years, M. de G—— recovered his pension, he owed nobody a

farthing, and the arrears sufficed to dower one of his daughters about to

marry a gentleman of large fortune, who had become acquainted with her by

lodging in their house. Madame de G——’s fashionable friends thought her

conduct very shocking. But what might have become of the family in three

years of petitioning?

Again: one of our most intimate acquaintance was an English gentleman,

who, having left the army at the instance of a rich father-in-law, had the

misfortune subsequently to offend the irascible old gentleman so utterly,

that the latter suddenly withdrew his allowance of £1000 per annum, and

left our friend to shift for himself. His own means, never very great,

were entirely exhausted. He knew too well the impracticable temper of his

father-in-law to waste time in attempting to soften him. He also knew that

by his wife’s settlement he should be rich at the death of the old man,

who had already passed his seventieth year. He could not borrow money, for

he had been severely wounded in Syria, and the insurance-offices refused

him: but he felt a spring of life and youth within him that mocked their

calculations. He took things cheerfully, and resolved to work for his

living. He answered unnumbered advertisements, and made incessant

applications for all sorts of situations. At length matters came to a

crisis: his money was nearly gone; time pressed; his wife and child must

be supported. A seat—not in parliament, but on the box of an omnibus, was

offered him. He accepted it. The pay was equivalent to three guineas a

week. It was hard work, but he stuck to it manfully. Not unfrequently it

was his lot to drive gentlemen who had dined at his table, and drunk his

wine in former days. He never blushed at their recognition; he thought

working easier than begging. For nearly ten years he endured all the ups

and downs of omnibus life. At last, the tough old father-in-law, who

during the whole interval had never relented, died; and our hero came into

the possession of some £1500 a year, which he enjoys at this present

moment. Suppose he had borrowed and drawn bills instead of working during

those ten years, as many have done who had expectancies before them, where

would he have been on his exit from the Queen’s Bench at the expiration of

the period? In the hands of the Philistines, or of the Jews?

Our next specimen is that of a now successful author, who, owing to the

peculiarity of his style, fell, notwithstanding a rather dashing _début_,

into great difficulty and distress. His family withdrew all support,

because he abandoned the more regular prospects of the legal profession

for the more ambitious but less certain career of literature. He felt that

he had the stuff in him to make a popular writer; but he was also

compelled to admit that popularity was not in his case to be the work of a

day. The _res angustæ domi_ grew closer and closer; and though not

objecting to dispense with the supposed necessity of dining, he felt that

bread and cheese, in the literal acceptation of the term, were really

indispensable to existence. Hence, one day, he invested his solitary

half-crown in the printing of a hundred cards, announcing that at the

“Classical and Commercial Day-school of Mr. ——, &c., Young Gentlemen were

instructed in all the Branches, &c., for the moderate sum of Two Shillings

weekly.” These cards he distributed by the agency of the milkman in the

suburban and somewhat poor neighborhood, in which he occupied a couple of

rooms at the moderate rent of 7_s._ weekly. It was not long before a few

pupils made, one by one, their appearance at the would-be pedagogue’s. As

they were mostly the sons of petty tradesmen round about, he raised no

objection to taking out their schooling in kind, and by this means earned

at least a subsistence till more prosperous times arrived, and publishers

discovered his latent merits. But for this device, he might not improbably

have shared the fate of Chatterton and others, less unscrupulous as to a

resource for the “mean time”—that rock on which so many an embryo genius

founders.

The misfortune of our next case was, not that _he_ abandoned the law, but

that the law abandoned _him_. He was a solicitor in a country town, where

the people were either so little inclined to litigation, or so happy in

not finding cause for it, that he failed from sheer want of clients, and,

as a natural consequence, betook himself to the metropolis—that Mecca

_cum_ Medina of all desperate pilgrims in search of fickle Fortune. There

his only available friend was a pastry-cook in a large way of business. It

so happened that the man of tarts and jellies was precisely at that epoch

in want of a foreman and book-keeper, his last prime-minister having

emigrated to America with a view to a more independent career. Our

ex-lawyer, feeling the consumption of tarts to be more immediately certain

than the demand for writs, proposed, to his friend’s amazement, for the

vacant post; and so well did he fill it, that in a few years he had saved

enough of money to start again in his old profession. The pastry-cook and

his friends became clients, and he is at present a thriving attorney in

Lincoln’s Inn, none the worse a lawyer for a practical knowledge of the

_pâtés_ filled by those oysters whose shells are the proverbial heritage

of his patrons.

A still more singular resource was that of a young gentleman, of no

particular profession, who, having disposed somehow or other in

nonprofitable speculations, of a very moderate inheritance, found himself

what is technically termed “on his beam-ends;” so much so, indeed, that

his condition gradually came to verge on positive destitution; and he sat

disconsolately in a little garret one morning, quite at his wits’ end for

the means of contriving what Goethe facetiously called “the delightful

habit of existing.” Turning over his scanty remains of clothes and other

possessions, in the vain hope of lighting upon something of a marketable

character, he suddenly took up a sheet of card-board which in happier days

he had destined for the sketches at which he was an indifferent adept. He

had evidently formed a plan, however absurd: that was plain from the odd

smile which irradiated his features. He descended the stairs to borrow of

his landlady—what? A shilling?—By no means. A needle and thread, and a

pair of scissors. Then he took out his box of water-colors and set to

work. To design a picture?—Not a bit of it; to make dancing-dolls!—Yes,

the man without a profession had found a trade. By the time it was dusk he

had made several figures with movable legs and arms: one bore a rude

resemblance to Napoleon; another, with scarcely excusable license,

represented the Pope; a third held the very devil up to ridicule; and a

fourth bore a hideous resemblance to the grim King of Terrors himself!

They were but rude productions as works of art; but there was a spirit and

expression about them that toyshops rarely exhibit. The ingenious

manufacturer then sallied forth with his merchandise. Within an hour

afterward he might have been seen driving a bargain with a vagrant dealer

in “odd notions,” as the Yankees would call them. It is unnecessary to

pursue our artist through all his industrial progress. Enough that he is

now one of the most successful theatrical machinists, and in the

possession of a wife, a house, and a comfortable income. He, too, had

prospects, and he still has them—as far off as ever. Fortunately for him,

he “prospected” on his own account, and found a “diggin’.”

“There is always something to be done, if people will only set about

finding it out, and the chances are ever in favor of activity. Whatever

brings a man in contact with his fellows may lead to fortune. Every day

brings new opportunities to the social worker; and no man, if he has once

seriously considered the subject, need ever be at a loss as to what to do

in the mean time. Volition is primitive motion, and where there is a will

there is a way.”

THE LOST AGES.

My friends, have you read Elia? If so, follow me, walking in the shadow of

his mild presence, while I recount to you my vision of the Lost Ages. I am

neither single nor unblessed with offspring, yet, like Charles Lamb, I

have had my “dream children.” Years have flown over me since I stood a

bride at the altar. My eyes are dim and failing, and my hairs are

silver-white. My real children of flesh and blood have become substantial

men and women, carving their own fortunes, and catering for their own

tastes in the matter of wives and husbands, leaving their old mother, as

nature ordereth, to the stillness and repose fitted for her years.

Understand, this is not meant to imply that the fosterer of their

babyhood, the instructor of their childhood, the guide of their youth is

forsaken or neglected by those who have sprang up to maturity beneath her

eye. No; I am blessed in my children. Living apart, I yet see them often;

their joys, their cares are mine. Not a Sabbath dawns but it finds me in

the midst of them; not a holiday or a festival of any kind is noted in the

calendar of their lives, but grand-mamma is the first to be sent for.

Still, of necessity, I pass much of my time alone; and old age is given to

reverie quite as much as youth. I can remember a time—long, long ago—when

in the twilight of a summer evening it was a luxury to sit apart, with

closed eyes; and, heedless of the talk that went on in the social circle

from which I was withdrawn, indulge in all sorts of fanciful visions. Then

my dream-people were all full-grown men and women. I do not recollect that

I ever thought about children until I possessed some of my own. Those

waking visions were very sweet—sweeter than the realities of life that

followed; but they were neither half so curious nor half so wonderful as

the dreams that sometimes haunt me now. The imagination of the old is not

less lively than that of the young: it is only less original. A youthful

fancy will create more new images; the mind of age requires materials to

build with: these supplied, the combinations it is capable of forming are

endless. And so were born my dream-children.

Has it never occurred to you, mothers and fathers, to wonder what has

become of your children’s lost ages? Look at your little boy of five years

old. Is he at all, in any respect, the same breathing creature that you

beheld three years back? I think not. Whither, then, has the sprite

vanished? In some hidden fairy nook, in some mysterious cloud-land he must

exist still. Again, in your slim-formed girl of eight years, you look in

vain for the sturdy elf of five. Gone? No; that can not be—“a thing of

beauty is a joy forever.” Close your eyes: you have her there! A

breeze-like, sportive buoyant thing; a thing of breathing, laughing,

unmistakable life; she is mirrored on your retina as plainly as ever was

dancing sunbeam on a brook. The very trick of her lip—of her eye; the

mischief-smile, the sidelong saucy glance,

“That seems to say,

‘I know you love me, Mr. Grey:’ ”

is it not traced there—all, every line, as clear as when it brightened the

atmosphere about you in the days that are no more? To be sure it is; and

being so, the thing must exist—somewhere.

I never was more fully possessed with this conviction than once during the

winter of last year. It was Christmas-eve. I was sitting alone, in my old

arm-chair, and had been looking forward to the fast-coming festival day

with many mingled thoughts—some tender, but regretful; others hopeful yet

sad; some serious, and even solemn. As I laid my head back and sat thus

with closed eyes, listening to the church-clock as it struck the hour, I

could not but feel that I was passing—very slowly and gently it is

true—toward a time when the closing of the grave would shut out even that

sound so familiar to my ear; and when other and more precious sounds of

life—human voices, dearer than all else, would cease to have any meanings

for me—and even their very echoes be hushed in the silence of the one long

sleep. Following the train of association, it was natural that I should

recur to the hour when that same church’s bells had chimed my

wedding-peal. I seemed to hear their music once again; and other music

sweeter still—the music of young vows that “that kept the word of promise

to the ear, and broke it” _not_ “to the hope.” Next in succession came the

recollection of my children. I seemed to lose sight of their present

identity, and to be carried away in thought to times and scenes far back

in my long-departed youth, when they were growing up around my

knees—beautiful forms of all ages, from the tender nursling of a single

year springing with outstretched arms into my bosom, to the somewhat rough

but ingenuous boy of ten. As my inner eye traced their different outlines,

and followed them in their graceful growth from year to year, my heart was

seized with a sudden and irresistible longing to hold fast those beloved

but passing images of the brain. What joy, I thought, would it be, to

transfix the matchless beauty which had wrought itself thus into the

visions of my old age! to preserve, forever, unchanging, every varied

phase of that material but marvelous structure, which the glorious human

soul had animated and informed through all its progressive stages from the

child to the man.

Scarcely was the thought framed when a dull, heavy weight seemed to press

upon my closed eyelids. I now saw more clearly even than before my

children’s images in the different stages of their being. But I saw these,

and these alone, as they stood rooted to the ground, with a stony

fixedness in their eyes: every other object grew dim before me. The living

faces and full-grown forms which until now had mingled with and played

their part among my younger phantoms altogether disappeared. I had no

longer any eyes, any soul, but for this my new spectre-world. Life, and

the things of life, had lost their interest; and I knew of nothing,

conceived of nothing, but those still, inanimate forms from which the

informing soul had long since passed away.

And now that the longing of my heart was answered, was I satisfied? For a

time I gazed, and drew a deep delight from the gratification of my vain

and impious craving. But at length the still, cold presence of forms no

longer of this earth began to oppress me. I grew cold and numb beneath

their moveless aspect; and constant gazing upon eyes lighted up by no

varying expression, pressed upon my tired senses with a more than

nightmare weight. I felt a sort of dull stagnation through every limb,

which held me bound where I sat, pulseless and moveless as the phantoms on

which I gazed.

As I wrestled with the feeling that oppressed me, striving in vain to

break the bonds of that strange fascination, under the pressure of which I

surely felt that I must perish—a soft voice, proceeding from whence I knew

not, broke upon my ear. “You have your desire,” it said gently; “why,

then, struggle thus? Why writhe under the magic of that joy you have

yourself called up? Are they not here before you, the Lost Ages whose

beauty and whose grace you would perpetuate? What would you more? O

mortal!”

“But these forms have no life,” I gasped; “no pulsating, breathing soul!”

“No,” replied the same still, soft voice; “these forms belong to the

things of the past. In God’s good time they breathed the breath of life;

they had _then_ a being and a purpose on this earth. Their day has

departed—their work is done.”

So saying, the voice grew still: the leaden weight which had pressed upon

my eyelids was lifted off: I awoke.

Filled with reveries of the past—my eyes closed to every thing

without—sleep had indeed overtaken me as I sat listening to the old

church-clock. But my vision was not all a vision: my dream-children came

not without their teaching. If they had been called up in folly, yet in

their going did they leave behind a lesson of wisdom.

The morning dawned—the blessed Christmas-morning! With it came my good and

dutiful, my real life-children. When they were all assembled round me, and

when, subdued and thoughtful beneath the tender and gracious associations

of the day, each in turn ministered, reverently and lovingly, to the old

mother’s need of body and of soul, my heart was melted within me. Blessed,

indeed, was I in a lot full to overflowing of all the good gifts which a

wise and merciful Maker could lavish upon his erring and craving creature.

I stood reproved. I felt humbled to think that I should ever for a moment

have indulged one idle or restless longing for the restoration of that

past which had done its appointed work, and out of which so gracious a

present had arisen. One idea impressed me strongly: I could not but feel

that had the craving of my soul been answered in reality, as my dream had

foreshadowed; and had the wise and beneficent order of nature been

disturbed and distorted from its just relations, how fearful would have

been the result! Here, in my green old age, I stood among a new

generation, honored for what I was, beloved for what I had been. What if,

at some mortal wish in some freak of nature, the form which I now bore

were forever to remain before the eyes of my children! Were such a thing

to befall, how would their souls ever be lifted upward to the

contemplation of that higher state of being into which it is my hope soon

to pass when the hand which guided me hither shall beckon me hence? At the

thought my heart was chastened. Never since that night have I indulged in

any one wish framed in opposition to nature’s laws. _Now_ I find my

dream-children in the present; and to the past I yield willingly all

things which are its own—among the rest, the Lost Ages.

BLIGHTED FLOWERS.

The facts of the following brief narrative, which are very few, and of but

melancholy interest, became known to me in the precise order in which they

are laid before the reader. They were forced upon my observation rather

than sought out by me; and they present, to my mind at least, a touching

picture of the bitter conflict industrious poverty is sometimes called

upon to wage with “the thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to.”

It must be now eight or nine years since, in traversing a certain street,

which runs for nearly half a mile in direct line southward, I first

encountered Ellen ——. She was then a fair young girl of seventeen, rather

above the middle size, and with a queen-like air and gait, which made her

appear taller than she really was. Her countenance, pale but healthy and

of a perfectly regular and classic mould, was charming to look upon from

its undefinable expression of lovableness and sweet temper. Her tiny feet

tripped noiselessly along the pavement, and a glance from her black eye

sometimes met mine like a ray of light, as, punctually at twenty minutes

to nine, we passed each other near —— House, each of us on our way to the

theatre of our daily operations. She was an embroideress, as I soon

discovered from a small stretching-frame, containing some unfinished work,

which she occasionally carried in her hand. She set me a worthy example of

punctuality, and I could any day have told the time to a minute without

looking at my watch, by marking the spot where we passed each other. I

learned to look for her regularly, and before I knew her name, had given

her that of “Minerva,” in acknowledgment of her efficiency as a mentor.

A year after the commencement of our acquaintance, which never ripened

into speech, happening to set out from home one morning a quarter of an

hour before my usual time, I made the pleasing discovery that my juvenile

Minerva had a younger sister, if possible still more beautiful than

herself. The pair were taking an affectionate leave of each other at the

crossing of the New Road, and the silver accents of the younger as kissing

her sister, she laughed out, “Good-by, Ellen,” gave me the first

information of the real name of my pretty mentor. The little Mary—for so

was the younger called, who could not be more than eleven years of age—was

a slender, frolicsome sylph, with a skin of the purest carnation, and a

face like that of Sir Joshua’s seraph in the National Gallery, but with

larger orbs and longer lashes shading them. As she danced and leaped

before me on her way home again, I could not but admire the natural ease

and grace of every motion, nor fail to comprehend and sympathize with the

anxious looks of the sisters’ only parent, their widowed mother, who stood

watching the return of the younger darling at the door of a very humble

two-storied dwelling, in the vicinity of the New River Head.

Nearly two years passed away, during which, with the exception of Sundays

and holidays, every recurring morning brought me the grateful though

momentary vision of one or both of the charming sisters. Then came an

additional pleasure—I met them both together every day. The younger had

commenced practicing the same delicate and ingenious craft of embroidery,

and the two pursued their industry in company under the same employer. It

was amusing to mark the demure assumption of womanhood darkening the brows

of the aerial little sprite, as, with all the new-born consequence of

responsibility, she walked soberly by her sister’s side, frame in hand,

and occasionally revealed to passers-by a brief glimpse of her

many-colored handiwork. They were the very picture of beauty and

happiness, and happy beyond question must their innocent lives have been

for many pleasant months. But soon the shadows of care began to steal over

their hitherto joyous faces, and traces of anxiety, perhaps of tears, to

be too plainly visible on their paling cheeks. All at once I missed them

in my morning’s walk, and for several days—it might be weeks—saw nothing

of them. I was at length startled from my forgetfulness of their very

existence by the sudden apparition of both, one Monday morning, clad in

the deepest mourning. I saw the truth at once: the mother, who, I had

remarked, was prematurely old and feeble, was gone, and the two orphan

children were left to battle it with the world. My conjecture was the

truth, as a neighbor of whom I made some inquiries on the subject was not

slow to inform me. “ Ah, sir,” said the good woman, “poor Mrs. D—— have

had a hard time of it, and she born an’ bred a gentleooman.”

I asked her if the daughters were provided for.

“Indeed, sir,” continued my informant, “I’m afeard not. ’Twas the most

unfortunatest thing in the world, sir, poor Mr. D——’s dying jest as a’

did. You see, sir, he war a soldier, a-fightin’ out in Indy, and his poor

wife lef at home wi’ them two blossoms o’ gals. He warn’t what you call a

common soldier, sir, but some kind o’ officer like; an’ in some great

battle fought seven year agone he done fine service I’ve heerd, and

promotion was sent out to un’, but didn’t get there till the poor man was

dead of his wounds. The news of he’s death cut up his poor wife complete,

and she ban’t been herself since. I’ve know’d she wasn’t long for here

ever since it come. Wust of all, it seems that because the poor man was

dead the very day the promotion reached ’un, a’ didn’t die a captain after

all, and so the poor widder didn’t get no pension. How they’ve managed to

live is more than I can tell. The oldest gal is very clever, they say; but

Lor’ bless ’ee! ’taint much to s’port three as is to be got out o’

broiderin’.”

Thus enlightened on the subject of their private history, it was with very

different feelings I afterward regarded these unfortunate children. Bereft

of both parents, and cast upon a world with the ways of which they were

utterly unacquainted, and in which they might be doomed to the most

painful struggles even to procure a bare subsistence, one treasure was yet

left them—it was the treasure of each other’s love. So far as the depth of

this feeling could be estimated from the looks and actions of both, it was

all in all to each. But the sacred bond that bound them was destined to be

rudely rent asunder. The cold winds of autumn began to visit too roughly

the fair pale face of the younger girl, and the unmistakable indications

of consumption made their appearance: the harassing cough, the hectic

cheek, the deep-settled pain in the side, the failing breath. Against

these dread forerunners it was vain long to contend; and the poor child

had to remain at home in her solitary sick chamber, while the loving

sister toiled—harder than ever to provide, if possible, the means of

comfort and restoration to health. All the world knows the ending of such

a hopeless strife as this. It is sometimes the will of Heaven, that the

path of virtue, like that of glory, leads but to the grave. So it was in

the present instance: the blossom of this fair young life withered away,

and the grass-fringed lips of the child’s early tomb closed over the

lifeless relics ere spring had dawned upon the year.

Sorrow had graven legible traces upon the brow of my hapless mentor when I

saw her again. How different now was the vision that greeted my daily

sight from that of former years! The want that admits not of idle wailing

compelled her still to pursue her daily course of labor, and she pursued

it with the same constancy and punctuality as she had ever done. But the

exquisitely chiseled face, the majestic gait, the elastic step—the beauty

and glory of youth, unshaken because unassaulted by death and sorrow—where

were they? Alas! all the bewitching charms of her former being had gone

down into the grave of her mother and sister; and she, their support and

idol, seemed no more now than she really was—a wayworn, solitary, and

isolated struggler for daily bread.

Were this a fiction that I am writing, it would be an easy matter to deal

out a measure of poetical justice, and to recompense poor Ellen for all

her industry, self-denial, and suffering in the arms of a husband, who

should possess as many and great virtues as herself, and an ample fortune

to boot. I wish with all my heart that it were a fiction, and that

Providence had never furnished me with such a seeming anomaly to add to

the list of my desultory chronicles. But I am telling a true story of a

life. Ellen found no mate. No mate, did I say? Yes, one: the same grim

yoke-fellow, whose delight it is “to gather roses in the spring,” paid

ghastly court to her faded charms, and won her—who shall say an unwilling

bride? I could see his gradual but deadly advances in my daily walks: the

same indications that gave warning of the sister’s fate admonished me that

she also was on her way to the tomb, and that the place that had known her

would soon know her no more. She grew day by day more feeble; and one

morning I found her seated on the step of a door, unable to proceed. After

that she disappeared from my view; and though I never saw her again at the

old spot, I have seldom passed that spot since, though for many years

following the same route, without recognizing again in my mind’s eye the

graceful form and angel aspect of Ellen D——.

“And is this the end of your mournful history?” some querulous reader

demands. Not quite. There is a soul of good in things evil. Compassion

dwells with the depths of misery; and in the valley of the shadow of death

dove-eyed Charity walks with shining wings.... It was nearly two months

after I had lost sight of poor Ellen, that during one of my dinner-hour

perambulations about town, I looked in, almost accidentally, upon my old

friend and chum, Jack W——. Jack keeps a perfumer’s shop not a hundred

miles from Gray’s Inn, where, ensconced up to his eyes in delicate odors,

he passes his leisure hours—the hours when commerce flags, and people have

more pressing affairs to attend to than the delectation of their

nostrils—in the enthusiastic study of art and _virtu_. His shop is hardly

more crammed with bottles and attar, soap, scents, and all the _et

ceteras_ of the toilet, than the rest of his house with prints, pictures,

carvings, and curiosities of every sort. Jack and I went to school

together, and sowed our slender crop of wild-oats together; and, indeed,

in some sort, have been together ever since. We both have our own

collections of rarities; such as they are, and each criticises the other’s

new purchases. On the present occasion, there was a new Van Somebody’s old

painting awaiting my judgment; and no sooner did my shadow darken his

door, than, starting from his lair, and bidding the boy ring the bell,

should he be wanted, he bustled me up-stairs calling by the way to his

housekeeper, Mrs. Jones—Jack is a bachelor—to bring up coffee for two. I

was prepared to pronounce my dictum on his newly-acquired treasure, and

was going to bounce unceremoniously into the old lumber-room over the

lobby to regale my sight with the delightful confusion of his unarranged

accumulations, when he pulled me forcibly back by the coat-tail. “Not

there,” said Jack; “you can’t go there. Go into my snuggery.”

“And why not there?” said I, jealous of some new purchase which I was not

to see.

“Because there’s some body ill there; it is a bed-room now; a poor girl;

she wanted a place to die in, poor thing, and I put her in there.”

“Who is she?—a relative?”

“No; I never saw her till Monday last. Sit down, I’ll tell you how it was.

Set down the coffee, Mrs. Jones, and just look in upon the patient, will

you? Sugar and cream? You know my weakness for the dead-wall in

Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.” (Jack never refuses a beggar backed by that wall,

for the love of Ben Jonson, who, he devoutly believes, had a hand in

building it.) “Well, I met with her there on Monday last. She asked for

nothing, but held out her hand, and as she did so the tears streamed from

her eyes on the pavement. The poor creature, it was plain enough, was then

dying; and I told her so. She said she knew it, but had no place to die in

but the parish workhouse, and hoped that I would not send her there.

What’s the use of talking? I brought her here, and put her to sleep on the

sofa while Jones cleared out the lumber-room and got up a bed. I sent for

Dr. H—— to look at her; he gave her a week or ten days at the farthest: I

don’t think she’ll last so long. The curate of St. —— comes every day to

see her, and I like to talk to her myself sometimes. Well, Mrs. Jones, how

goes she on?”

“She’s asleep,” said the housekeeper. “Would you like to look at her,

gentlemen?”

We entered the room together. It was as if some unaccountable presentiment

had forewarned me: there, upon a snow-white sheet, and pillowed by my

friend’s favorite eider-down squab, lay the wasted form of Ellen D——. She

slept soundly and breathed loudly; and Dr. H——, who entered while we stood

at the bedside, informed us that in all probability she would awake only

to die, or if to sleep again, then to wake no more. The latter was the

true prophecy. She awoke an hour or two after my departure, and passed

away that same night in a quiet slumber without a pang.

I never learned by what chain of circumstances she was driven to seek alms

in the public streets. I might have done so, perhaps, by inquiry, but to

what purpose? She died in peace, with friendly hands and friendly hearts

near her, and Jack buried her in his own grave in Highgate Cemetery, at

his own expense; and declares he is none the worse for it. I am of his

opinion.

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

United States.

The past month has not been marked by any domestic event of interest or

importance. The principal topic of public discussion has been the

character of Kossuth and of the cause he represents. Public opinion is

divided as to the propriety of acceding to his request that this country

should take an active part in the struggles of Europe; and somewhat, also,

as to the rightfulness of his claim to be regarded as still the Governor

of Hungary. But there is no difference of opinion as to the wonderful

ability which his speeches display. Kossuth has continued his progress

Westward, and at the time of closing this Record is at Cincinnati. He

visited Pittsburgh, Harrisburgh, Cleveland and Columbus, on his way, and

was received at each place with marked demonstrations of respect and

confidence. Large sums of money have also been contributed in each, in aid

of his cause. He has publicly declined to receive any more public

entertainments of any sort, on the ground that they involve a wasteful

expenditure of money and lead to no good result

Whatever funds any town, or any individuals may be inclined to devote to

him, he desires should be contributed to the cause and not expended in any

demonstrations of which he may be the object. His speeches have been

devoted to an exposition of his wishes and sentiments, and all bear marks

of that fertility of thought and expression which has excited such general

admiration.

A very warm discussion, meantime, has sprung up among the exiled Hungarian

leaders, of the merits of the cause and of Kossuth. Prince Esterhazy, at

one time a member of the Hungarian ministry, a nobleman possessed of large

domains in Hungary, first published a letter, dated Vienna, November 13,

in which he threw upon the movement of 1848 the reproach of having been

not only injurious to the country, but unjust and revolutionary. He

vindicated the cause of the Austrian government throughout, and reproached

Kossuth and those associated with him in the Hungarian contest with having

sacrificed one of Kossuth’s Ministers, and a refugee with him the

interests of their country to personal purposes and unworthy ends. Count

Casimir Batthyani, also in Turkey, now resident in Paris, soon published a

reply to this letter of the Prince, in which he refuted his positions in

regard to the Austrian government, proving that dynasty to have provoked

the war by a series of unendurable treacheries, and to have sought,

systematically, the destruction of the independence and constitution of

Hungary. He reproached Esterhazy with an interested desertion of his

country’s cause, and with gross inconsistency of personal and public

conduct. He closed his letter with a very bitter denunciation of Kossuth,

charging upon his weakness and vacillation the unfortunate results of the

contest, denying his right to the title of Governor, and censuring his

course of agitation as springing simply from personal vanity, and likely

to lead to no good result. To this letter Count Pulszky, now with Kossuth,

published a brief reply, which was mainly an appeal to the Hungarian

leaders not to destroy their cause by divisions among themselves. He also

alleged that Count Batthyani did not express the same opinion of the

character and conduct of Kossuth during the Hungarian contest, but made

himself, to some extent, responsible for both by being associated in the

government with him and giving his countenance and support to all his

acts. Still more recently two letters have been published from Mr.

Szemere, who was also intimately and responsibly connected with Kossuth

and his government, and who brought forward in the Diet, immediately after

the Declaration of Independence, on behalf of the Ministry of which he was

the President, a programme declaring that the future form of government in

Hungary would be republican. In one of his letters, dated at Paris,

January 4th, he censures Kossuth very severely for his misconduct of the

war, and of his subsequent course. Referring especially to Kossuth’s

abdication of office and to his transfer of power to the hands of Görgey,

he alleges that although it was done in the name of the Ministry, of which

he was a member, he never either subscribed or even saw it. He says that

Kossuth having repeatedly denounced Görgey as a traitor, ought not to have

put supreme power in his hands. He charges him also with having fled to

Turkey and deserted the cause of his country, while there were still left

four fortresses and over a hundred thousand men to fight for her

liberties; and says that the rest of the army surrendered only because

Kossuth had fled. He denies Kossuth’s right to the title and office of

Governor, because he voluntarily resigned that position, and transferred

its powers to another. Much as he might rejoice in the success of

Kossuth’s efforts to excite the sympathy of the world on behalf of

Hungary, Mr. Szemere says that “to recognize him as Governor, or as he

earnestly claims to be acknowledged, the absolute Dictator, would be

equivalent to devoting the cause of Hungary, for a second time, to a

severe downfall. We welcome, him, therefore, in our ranks only as a single

gifted patriot, perhaps even the first among his equals, but as Governor

we can not acknowledge him, we who know his past career, and who value

divine liberty, and our beloved fatherland above every personal

consideration.” But while conceding fully the justice of the censures

bestowed upon Kossuth himself, he claims that the cause of Hungary was at

least as pure and holy as the war of the American Revolution—that they

were the defenders of right and law against the efforts of faithlessness

and anarchy—that they were the heroes, the apostles, the martyrs of

freedom under the persecutions of tyranny.—In another letter, dated at

Paris, December 9, Mr. Szemere addresses Prince Esterhazy directly, and in

a tone of great severity. He denounces him for ignorance of the history of

his country, and for guilty indifference to her rights, and proceeds, in

an argument of great strength, to vindicate the cause in which they were

both engaged, from the calumnies of false friends. He gives a clear and

condensed historical sketch of the contest, and shows that Hungary never

swerved from her rightful allegiance until driven by the faithlessness and

relentless hostility of the Austrian dynasty to take up arms in

self-defense. Being himself a republican, Mr. Szemere thinks that although

it was honorable and loyal, it was not prudent or politic for the nation

to cling so long to legitimacy: still “the heroism of remaining so long in

the path of constitutional legality redounds to its glory; the

short-sightedness of entering so late on the path of revolution is its

shame.” He closes by expressing the trust and firm conviction of every

Hungarian that the harms his country now suffers will be repaired.—Count

Teleki, who represented Hungary at Paris, during the existence of the

provisional government, and who now resides at Zurich, has also published

a letter in reply to that of Prince Esterhazy, in which he vindicates

Count Louis Batthyani from the unjust reproaches of the Prince, and

pursues substantially the same line of argument as that of the letter of

Mr. Szemere.—Mr. Vakovies, who was one of the Cabinet, also publishes a

letter vindicating Kossuth from the accusation of Batthyani.

These conflicting representations from persons who were prominently and

responsibly connected with the Hungarian government, of course create

difficulties in the way of forming clear opinions upon the subject in the

United States. The points of difference, however, relate mainly to persons

and particular events, upon the main question, the rightfulness of the

Hungarian struggle, little room is left for doubt.

The proceedings of Congress have been unimportant. The sum of $15,000 has

been appropriated to the refitting that part of the Congressional library

which was destroyed by fire. The subject of printing the census returns

has engaged a good deal of attention, but no result has yet been attained.

Resolutions were introduced into the Senate some time since by Mr. Cass,

asking the friendly interposition of our government with that of Great

Britain, for the release of the Irish State prisoners. Several Senators

have made speeches upon the subject, nearly all in their favor, but with

more or less qualifications. The Compromise resolutions, originally

offered by Senator Foote, were discussed for several days, without

reaching a vote, and they have since been informally dropped. The

resolutions offered by Senators Clarke, Seward, and Cass, on the subject

of protesting against intervention, came up for consideration on the 2d of

February, when Senator Stockton made an extended speech upon the

subject—favoring the Hungarian cause, but expressing an unwillingness to

join Great Britain in any such policy, and saying Russia has always

evinced friendly dispositions toward the United States. Senator Clarke on

the 9th, made a speech upon the same subject, against any action on the

part of our government. On the 11th, Senator Cass made an elaborate speech

in support of his resolution, in which he vindicated the right, and

asserted the duty of the United States to pronounce its opinion upon the

interference of despotic states against the efforts of nations to free

themselves from oppression. He opposed the idea of armed intervention on

our part, but insisted upon the propriety of our exercising a decided

moral influence. On the 13th Senator Clemens spoke in reply, insisting

that movements in Europe had neither interest nor importance for the

United States, denying the justice of the Hungarian struggle, and

assailing the character of Kossuth.

The correspondence between the governments of England and the United

States in regard to the insult offered to the steamer Prometheus by the

English brig-of-war Express, at Greytown, has been published. The first

letter is from Mr. Webster to Mr. Lawrence, instructing him to inquire

whether the English government sanctioned the act of the officer. The last

is from Earl Granville, dated January 10th, in which he states that an

official statement of the case had been received. The Vice Admiral on the

West Indian Station had already disavowed the act, and denied the right of

any British vessel to enforce the fiscal regulations of Mosquito, and had

forbidden the Commander of the Express from again employing force in any

similar case. Earl Granville states that these representations were fully

ratified by the English government; and that they entirely disavowed the

act of violence, and had no hesitation in offering an ample apology for

that which they consider to have been an infraction of treaty engagements.

Official intelligence has been received of the appointment of John S.

Crompton, Esq., who has been for some years connected with the British

legation at Washington, as Minister Plenipotentiary in place of Sir Henry

Bulwer.—It is understood that Mr. John S. Thrasher, who was convicted of

sundry offenses against the Spanish authority in Cuba, and sentenced to

imprisonment for seven years on the African coast, has been pardoned by

the Queen of Spain, as have also all the Cuban prisoners.

The political parties are beginning to take measures concerning the

approaching Presidential election. The Whigs in the Legislature of Maine

held a meeting on the 27th of January, at which they adopted a series of

resolutions, in favor of a National Convention to be held at Philadelphia

on the 17th of June, and nominating General Scott for President, and

Governor Jones of Tennessee, for Vice-President, subject to the decision

of that Convention. A Democratic State Convention was held at Austin,

Texas, January 8th, at which resolutions were adopted, setting forth the

party creed, and nominating General Houston for the Presidency.—In Alabama

a Democratic State Convention has nominated William R. King for the

Presidency.

The Legislature of Wisconsin met on the 15th of January. Governor

Farwell’s Message states that owing to the want of funds, the

appropriations of last year were not paid within the sum of $38,283. He

recommends the passage of a general banking law, and amendments of the

school law, and opposes granting public lands in aid of works of internal

improvement. He advises that Congress be memorialized upon sundry topics

of general interest, among which are the establishment of an Agricultural

bureau, the improvement of rivers and harbors, and a modification of the

present tariff.—The Legislature of Louisiana met on the 26th ult. The

Governor’s Message is mainly devoted to local topics. He advises the

appropriation of money for a monument to General Jackson.—The Legislature

of Texas has been discussing a proposition to appropriate a million of

dollars, of the five millions to be received from the United States,

together with other funds, to the establishment of a system of Common

Schools. The bill had passed the House.—A bill has been passed ratifying

the classification of the public debt submitted by the Governor and

Comptroller.

A letter from Honorable James Buchanan has been published, addressed to a

Mississippi Democratic Convention, urging the necessity of a strict

limitation of the powers of the Federal Government, and attributing to a

growing spirit of centralization the evils we now experience.—Colonel

Benton has also written a letter to the Democracy of St. Louis County,

urging them to blot from the records of the Legislature, the resolutions

in favor of nullification, adopted some time since.

From CALIFORNIA we have news to Jan. 20th. It is not, however, of much

importance. The country had been visited by a succession of very heavy

rain storms, which had swollen the rivers, and in some cases cut off land

communication between the towns. The location of the seat of government is

still undecided. The Indian difficulties had been quelled for the present

at least, but fears were entertained of new outbreaks. Fresh discoveries

of gold were still made.

One-third of the city of San Juan de Nicaragua, the most valuable portion,

was destroyed by fire on the 4th of February.

Later advices from NEW MEXICO represent the condition of the southern part

of the country as most unhappy, in consequence of the violent and deadly

hostility of the Apache Indians. They have been provoked by the Mexicans,

and wreak their vengeance indiscriminately on the whole country. The

provisions of the U. S. Government for keeping the Indians in check have

been wholly unavailing, mainly from a wrong disposition of the troops.

Steps are now taken to establish posts at various points throughout the

Indian Country, as this has been found the most effectual means for

preventing their depredations.—The silver mine discovered at Taos proves

to be exceedingly rich; and the gold diggings on the Gila are as

productive as ever.

Mexico.

We have intelligence from the City of Mexico to the 28th of December.

Congress was again in session, but had not completed its organization. On

the 20th, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Señor Ramirez, received the

representatives of Foreign Powers, and listened to extended remarks from

them in favor of modifications in the Mexican tariff. The whole subject

will probably soon be brought before Congress. The Indians in the State of

Durango continue their ravages; the inefficiency of the measures taken

against them by the government is loudly condemned. A riot, directed

against the government, occurred on the 18th, in the State of Puebla, but

it was speedily suppressed. In Tehuantepec a more serious movement had

occurred under the lead of Ex-Governor Ortis; it was defeated after a

contest of over four hours. At Cerro Gerdo also, on the 12th, there was a

revolt of most of the forces of the Uragua Colony against their chiefs,

but it was soon put down.—It is stated on authority that seems entitled to

respect, that Santa Anna is planning a new revolutionary movement, and

that he designs to make his descent at Acapulco on the Pacific coast. A

house has been built there for him, and many of the utensils of a camp and

munitions for a campaign are arriving there. It is said that all the

officials of that department are friendly to him, and would readily

co-operate in his designs.—The Mexican government seems to be satisfied

that the revolutionary movement in Northern Mexico has been completely

quelled; but our advices from that quarter scarcely justify that

confidence. At the latest date, Jan. 23d, Caravajal was on the Rio Grande,

with a force of 700 men and several pieces of artillery, and was

constantly receiving reinforcements. Several persons connected with the

movement were in New Orleans engaged in procuring and shipping supplies

for the revolutionists. Gen. Uraga had been relieved from the command at

Matamoras, and succeeded by Gen. Avalos. Upon his departure Col. Harney,

in command of the U. S. troops on the frontier, addressed him in a letter,

thanking him for the facilities he had received from him in the discharge

of his duties, and expressing the warmest admiration of his character and

services. The Mexican force defending Matamoros is stated at about twelve

hundred men.—The official report of the battle of Ceralvo states the

number of killed at six, and of wounded twenty-one,

Great Britain.

The burning of the steamer Amazon, with a dreadful loss of life, is the

event of most interest which has occurred in England during the past

month. She belonged to the West India Company’s line of steam-packets, and

sailed on her first voyage from Southampton on Friday the 2d of January.

At a quarter before one o’clock on Sunday morning, a fire broke out

suddenly, forward on the starboard side, between the steam-chest and the

under part of the galley, and the flames instantly rushed up the gangway

in front of the foremost funnel. The alarm was at once given, the officers

and crew rushed upon deck, and steps were taken to extinguish the fire.

But the ship was built of fir, and was very dry, and the flames seized it

like tinder. The whole vessel was speedily enveloped in fire. The

mail-boat was lowered, but was instantly swamped, and twenty-five people

in her were drowned. The other boats were lowered with a good deal of

difficulty. Only two, however, succeeded in saving life. The life-boat got

loose from the ship with twenty-one persons, and after being at sea thirty

hours, was picked up by an English brig, and landed at Plymouth. Another

boat, with twenty-five persons on board, succeeded in reaching the French

coast. There were 161 persons on board, of whom 115 are supposed to have

perished. Among the latter was the well-known author, Eliot Warburton, who

was on his way to the Isthmus of Darien, whither he had been sent by the

Pacific Junction Company to negotiate a friendly understanding with the

Indians. The Amazon was commanded by Captain William Symons, a gentleman

of known ability, who also perished. Among those saved were two ladies.

The English papers are filled with details and incidents of this sad

catastrophe, which, of course, we have not space to copy. An investigation

into the origin of the fire, and the circumstances of the disaster, has

been made, but no satisfactory result has been reached. The machinery was

new, and its working was attended with very great heat, which facilitated

the progress of the fire after it had broken out. A great deal of

confusion seems to have prevailed on board, but it does not appear that

any thing practicable was left undone. The two ladies saved were a Mrs.

MacLennan, who got into the life-boat in her night dress with her child,

eighteen months old, in her arms, and a Miss Smith, who escaped in the

other boat. The value of the Amazon was £100,000, and she was not insured.

The English press continues to discuss French affairs with great

eagerness. The whole of Louis Napoleon’s proceeding is denounced with

unanimous bitterness, as one of the most high-handed and inexcusable acts

of violence and outrage ever perpetrated; and a general fear is felt that

he can not maintain himself in a state of peace, but will be impelled to

seek a war with England. The condition of the national defenses is,

therefore, the chief topic of discussion, and upon this point all the

leading journals express serious apprehensions.

The difficulty between the master engineers and their men continues

unadjusted. Meetings are held and public statements made by both sides,

and the dissension is much more likely to increase than to diminish. The

employers will not concede the right of their men to fix the terms on

which they shall be hired, and the men will not yield what they consider

their just rights. The latter are taking steps to set up workshops of

their own by co-operation, and they have already made some progress in the

accomplishment of their object.

The Reformers in the principal towns are taking measures to influence the

measure which Lord John Russell intends to introduce into Parliament.

Meetings have been held at various places, and resolutions adopted,

specifying the provisions they desire, and pledging support to the

Cabinet, if its measures shall conform to their principles. The friends of

the voluntary system of education are also active. They proposed to send a

deputation to wait upon the Prime Minister, but he declined to meet them,

on the ground that it was not the intention of the Ministry to introduce

any bill on that subject during the present session of Parliament, and

that a deputation, therefore, could do no good.—New discoveries of gold in

Australia have excited great interest and attention in England. It is said

that deposits have been met with near Port Philip, much richer than any

known hitherto, either there or in California.—Later advices from the Cape

of Good Hope represent colonial affairs in an unpromising light. The

expedition of the British troops against the Caffres in their mountain

fastnesses had proved to be of little use, and to have been attended with

serious losses of British officers and men. The Caffres are excellent

marksmen, and prove to be very formidable enemies. Col. Cathcart, who was

one of Wellington’s aids at Waterloo, has been sent out as Governor of the

Cape.—The British cruisers on the African coast recently sought to make a

treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, with the King of Lagos who

had, previously, forbidden their ascending the river to the town where he

lived. A force of twenty-three boats, however, was fitted out with 260

officers and men, and attempted to ascend the river by force. It was at

once attacked, and it was only with considerable difficulty and loss of

life that the men regained their ships. The king had always received

deputations from the squadron with every demonstration of respect; and

this fact shows the extreme folly and injustice of such an armed

expedition. It has been indirectly sanctioned, however, by the English

government which has ordered a strict blockade of that part of the African

coast.

France.

Political affairs in France continue to present features of extraordinary

interest. The election, of which we gave the general result in our last

Number, seems to have fortified Louis Napoleon, for the present, on his

Presidential throne, and he has gone on without obstacle in the

accomplishment of his plans. The official returns show 7,439,219 votes in

his favor, and 640,737 against him. On New Year’s day the issue of the

election was celebrated with more than royal magnificence. Cannon were

fired at the Invalides at ten in the morning—seventy discharges in all,

ten for each million of votes recorded in his favor; and at noon the

President went to Notre Dame, where _Te Deum_ was performed amid gorgeous

and dazzling pomp. The scene was theatrical and imposing. All Paris was

covered with troops, and the day was one of universal observance. From

Notre Dame Louis Napoleon returned to the Tuileries, where the reception

of the authorities took place, and a banquet was given at which four

hundred persons sat down. The day before he had received the formal

announcement by the Consultative Commission of the result of the election.

M. Baroche, the President of the Commission, in announcing it, said that

“France confided in his courage, his elevated good-sense, and his love: no

government ever rested on a basis more extensive, or had an origin more

legitimate and worthy of the respect of nations.” In reply Louis Napoleon

said that France had comprehended that he departed from legality only to

return to right: that she had absolved him, by justifying an act which had

no other object than to save France, and perhaps Europe, from years of

trouble and anarchy: that he felt all the grandeur of his new mission, and

did not deceive himself as to its difficulties. He hoped to secure the

destinies of France, by founding institutions which respond at the same

time to the democratic instincts of the nation, and to the desire to have

henceforth a strong and respected government. He soon issued a decree

re-establishing the French eagle on the national colors and on the Cross

of the Legion of Honor, saying that the Republic might now adopt without

umbrage the souvenirs of the Empire. On the 28th of December, the

Municipal Council of the Department of the Seine was dissolved and

re-constructed by a decree—thirteen of the old members, most distinguished

by intellect, experience, and character, being superseded because they

would not make themselves subservient to Louis Napoleon’s views.—The

Chamber of Commerce at Havre was ordered to be dissolved, and that portion

of its journal which recorded its protest against the usurpation was

erased.—An ordinance was issued, directing all political inscriptions, and

particularly the words “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” to be erased,

because they are “for the people a perpetual excitement to revolt,” and

for the same reason all the trees of liberty were ordered to be rooted up,

in the departments as well as in Paris.—The military organization of

France was remodeled also by decree, the nine military divisions being

re-arranged into twenty-one principal divisions, with as many principal

commands, all subordinate to the Prince, Commander-in-chief.—By a decree

dated Jan. 9, the President expelled from the territory of France,

Algeria, and the Colonies sixty-six members of the late Legislative

Assembly, without trial, preamble, or cause stated. Should any of them put

foot on French soil again without obtaining express permission, they run

the risk of deportation. Among them is Victor Hugo. By another decree of

the same date, eighteen ex-representatives are condemned to temporary

banishment. Among them are all the generals in prison at Ham, except

Cavaignac, who is allowed to go to Italy. At his own request, he has also

been placed upon the retired list. Thiers, Girardin, and Sue are also

among the proscribed. About twenty-five hundred political prisoners have

been ordered to be deported to Cayenne, a place on the coast of Africa,

where the chances are that not one in ten of them can live five years.

These measures of high-handed severity have created deep feeling and

disapprobation, to which, however, no one dares give expression, either in

print or in public conversation. The press is subjected to a most rigorous

censorship, and spies lurk about every _café_ and public place to report

“disaffected” remarks.—A decree was issued on the 11th of January,

dissolving the National Guard, and organizing a new corps under that name.

The officers are all to be appointed by the President, and privates are to

be admitted only upon examination by Government officers.

On the 14th of January the new Constitution was decreed. In the

proclamation accompanying it, the President says that, not having the

vanity to substitute a personal theory for the experience of centuries, he

sought in the past for examples that might best be followed; and he said

to himself, “Since France makes progress during the last fifty years, in

virtue alone of the administrative, military, judicial, religious, and

financial organization of the Consulate and the Empire, why should not we

also adopt the political institutions of that epoch?” After sketching the

condition of the various interests of France, for the purpose of showing

that it has been created by the administration of the Emperor, Louis

Napoleon says that the principal bases of the Constitution of the year

VIII. have been adopted as the foundation of that which he submits. The

Constitution consists of seven sections. The government is intrusted to

Louis Napoleon, actual President of the Republic, for ten years: he

governs by means of the Ministers, the Council of State, the Senate, and

the Legislative body. He is responsible to the French people, to whom he

has the right always to appeal. He is Chief of the State, commands the

land and sea forces, declares war, concludes treaties, and makes rules and

decrees for the execution of the laws. He alone has the initiative of the

laws, and the right to pardon. He has the right to declare the state of

siege in one or several departments, referring to the Senate with the

least possible delay. The Ministers depend solely on him, and each is

responsible only so far as the acts of the Government regard him. All the

officers of the Government, military and civil, high and low, swear

obedience to the Constitution and fidelity to the President. Should the

President die before the expiration of his office, the Senate convokes the

nation to make a new election—the President having the right, by secret

will, to designate the citizen whom he recommends. Until the election of a

new President, the President of the Senate will govern.—The number of

Senators is fixed at 80 for the first year, and can not exceed 150. The

Senate is composed of Cardinals, Marshals, Admirals, and of the citizens

whom the President may name. The Senators are not removable, and are for

life. Their services are gratuitous, but the President may give them

30,000 francs annually, if he sees fit. The officers of the Senate are to

be elected on nomination of the President of the Republic, and are to hold

for one year. The Senate is to be convoked and prorogued by the President,

and its sittings are to be secret. It is the guardian of the fundamental

pact and of the public liberties: no law can be published without being

submitted to it. It regulates the Constitution of the Colonies, and all

that has not been provided for by the Constitution, and decides upon its

interpretation—but its decisions are invalid without the sanction of the

President. It maintains or annuls all acts complained of as

unconstitutional by the Government or by petition. It can fix the bases of

projects of laws of national interest—in reports to the President; and can

also propose modifications of the Constitution; but all modifications of

the fundamental bases of the Constitution must be submitted to the

people.—In the Legislative body there is to be one representative for

every 35,000 electors—elected by universal suffrage, without _scrutin de

liste_. The deputies receive no salary, and hold office for six years. The

Legislative body discusses and votes the projects of law and the imposts.

Every amendment adopted by the committee charged with the examination of a

project of law, shall be sent without discussion to the Council of State,

and if not adopted by that body, it can not be submitted to Legislative

deliberation. The sittings are to be public, but may be secret on the

demand of five members. Public reports of the proceedings shall be

confined to the journals and votes—and shall be prepared under direction

of the President of the Legislative body. The officers are to be named by

the President of the Republic. Ministers can not be members of the

Legislature. No petition can be addressed to the Legislative body. The

President of the Republic convokes, adjourns, prorogues, and dissolves the

Legislative body: in case of dissolution he shall convoke a new one within

six months.—The number of Councilors of State is from 40 to 50. They are

to be named by the President and are removable by him. He presides over

their meetings. They are to draw up projects of law and regulations of the

public administration, and to resolve difficulties that may arise, under

the direction of the President. Members are to be appointed from its

number by the President to maintain, in the name of the Government, the

discussion of the projects of law before the Senate and the Legislative

corps. The salary of each Councilor is 25,000 francs. The Ministers have

ranks, right of sitting, and a deliberative voice in the Council of

State.—A High Court of Justice judges without appeal all persons sent

before it accused of crimes, attempts or plots against the President of

the Republic, and against the internal and external safety of the State.

It can not be convened except by decree from the President. Its

organization is to be regulated by the Senate.—Existing provisions of law

not opposed to the present Constitution shall remain in force until

legally abrogated. The Executive shall name the Mayor. The Constitution

shall take effect from the day when the great powers named by it shall be

constituted.—Such are the provisions of the new Constitution of France.

The Minister of the Interior has issued a circular calling upon the

Government officers to promote the election of none but discreet and

well-disposed men, not orators or politicians, to the Legislative body,

and saying that if they will send to the Ministry the names of proper

persons, the influence of the Government will be used to aid their

election.—The disarming of the National Guard has been effected without

the slightest difficulty.—On the 23d of January a decree was published

instituting a Ministry of Police and one of State, and appointing M.

Casabianca Minister of State, M. Maupas Minister of General Police, M.

Abbatucci Minister of Justice, M. de Persigny Minister of the Interior, M.

Bineau Minister of Finance; General de Saint-Arnaud, Minister of War;

Ducos, of Marine; Furgot, of Foreign Affairs, and Fortone, of Public

Instruction and Worship.—On the 26th of January a decree was issued

organizing the Council of State, and appointing 34 Councillors, 40 Masters

of Requests, and 31 Auditors. The Council contains the names of most of

the leaders in the Assembly, who took sides with the President in the

debates of that body. On the 27th, the list of Senators was announced. It

contains the names of many who were formerly Peers of France and members

of the Legislative Assembly.—On the 23d a decree was issued declaring that

the members of the Orleans family, their husbands, wives, and descendants

can not possess any real or personal property in France, and ordering the

whole of their present possessions to be sold within one year: and on the

same day another decree declared that all the property possessed by Louis

Philippe, and by him given to his children, on the 7th of August, 1830,

should be confiscated and given to the state; and that of this amount ten

millions should be allowed to the mutual assistance societies, authorized

by law of July 15, 1850; ten millions to be employed in improving the

dwellings of workmen in the large manufacturing towns; ten millions to be

devoted to the establishment of institutions for making loans on mortgage;

five millions to establish a retiring pension fund for the poorest

assistant clergy; and the remainder to be distributed among the Legion of

Honor and other military functionaries.—The promulgation of these decrees

excited great dissatisfaction, and led to the resignation of several

members of the Councils. M. Dupin, President of the late Assembly,

resigned his office as Procureur-general, in an indignant letter to the

President; and Montalembert also resigned his office as member of the

Consultative Commission.—The first great ball at the Tuileries on the 24th

was very numerously and brilliantly attended.—A decree has been issued

abrogating that of 1848 which abolished titles of nobility.—The President

fills column after column daily in the _Moniteur_ with announcements of

promotions in the army.—Measures of the utmost stringency have been

adopted to prevent public discussion in any form. The manufacturers of

printing presses, lithographic presses, copying machines, &c., have been

forbidden to sell them without sending the buyers’ names to the Police

department.—It is rumored that two attempts have been made to assassinate

the President, but they are not sufficiently authentic to be deemed

reliable.

Austria And Hungary.

The Austrian Emperor issued on New Year’s day three decrees, formally

annulling the Constitution of March 4, 1849, and promulgating certain

fundamental principles of the future organic institutions of the Austrian

Empire. The first decree declares that, after thorough examination, the

Constitution has been found neither to agree with the situation of the

empire, nor to be capable of full execution. It is therefore annulled, but

the equality of all subjects before the law, and the abolition of peasant

service and bondage are expressly confirmed. The second decree annuls the

specific political rights conferred upon the various provinces. The third

decree abolishes open courts, and trials by jury, requires all town

elections to be confirmed by the Government, forbids publication of

governmental proceedings, and destroys every vestige of the Parliamentary

system. These measures make the despotism of Austria much more absolute

and severe than it was before 1848.—Proposals are in active preparation

for a new Austrian loan. In consequence of this, Baron Krauss, the

Minister of Finance, resigned, and is succeeded by M. von Baumgartner.—The

members of the London Missionary and Bible Society, who have for many

years resided at Pesth and other Hungarian towns, have been ordered out of

the Austrian states.—In Prussia strenuous efforts are made by the

reactionary party to secure the abolition of the Chambers and the

restoration of absolutism.—It is said that the Austrian Government has

received from Earl Granville, in reply to its demand for the suppression

of revolutionary intrigues carried on in England against the Continental

Governments, assurances that every thing should be done to meet its wishes

so far as they were not incompatible with the laws and customs of

England.—The Austrian Minister of the Interior has directed a committee to

make a draft of new laws for Hungary on the basis of the decrees of the

1st of January.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

The seventh enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States, taken on

the 1st of June, 1850, exhibits results which every citizen of the country

may contemplate with gratification and pride. The Report of the

Superintendent of the Census-office to the Secretary of the Interior, laid

before Congress, in December, 1851, gives a full abstract of the returns,

from which we select the most interesting portions; adding other

statements showing the progress of this country in population and

resources.

Since the census of 1840, there have been added to the territory of the

Republic, by annexation, conquest, and purchase, 824,969 square miles; and

our title to a region covering 341,463 square miles, which before properly

belonged to us, but was claimed and partially occupied by a foreign power,

has been established by negotiation, and has been brought within our

acknowledged boundaries. By these means the area of the United States has

been extended during the past ten years, from 2,055,163 to 3,221,595

square miles, without including the great lakes which lie upon our

northern border, or the bays which indent our Atlantic and Pacific shores;

all which territory has come within the scope of the Seventh Census.

In endeavoring to ascertain the progress of our population since 1840, it

will be proper to deduct from the aggregate number of inhabitants shown by

the present census, the population of Texas in 1840, and the number

embraced within the limits of California and the new territories, at the

time of their acquisition. From the best information which has been

obtained at the Census-office, it is believed that Texas contained, in

1840, 75,000 inhabitants; and that when California, New Mexico, and Oregon

came into our possession, in 1846, they had a total population of 97,000.

It thus appears that we have received by accessions of territory, since

1840, an addition of 172,000 to the number of our people. The increase

which has taken place in those extended regions since they came under the

authority of our Government, should obviously be reckoned as a part of the

development and progress of our population, nor is it necessary to

complicate the comparison by taking into account the probable natural

increase of this acquired population, because we have not the means of

determining its rate of advancement, nor the law which governed its

progress, while yet beyond the influence of our political system.

The total number of inhabitants in the United States, according to the

returns of the census, was on the 1st of June, 1850, 23,258,760. The

absolute increase from the 1st of June, 1840, has been 6,189,307, and the

actual increase per cent. is slightly over 36 per cent. But it has been

shown that the probable amount of population acquired by additions of

territory should be deducted in making a comparison between the results of

the present and the last census. These reductions diminish the total

population of the country, as a basis of comparison, and also the

increase. The relative increase, after this allowance, is found to be

35.17 per cent.

The aggregate number of whites in 1850 was 19,631,799, exhibiting a gain

upon the number of the same class in 1840, of 5,436,004, and a relative

increase of 38.20 per cent. But, excluding the 153,000 free population

supposed to have been acquired by the addition of territory since 1840,

the gain is 5,283,004, and the increase per cent. is 37.14.

The number of slaves, by the present census, is 3,198,324, which shows an

increase of 711,111, equal to 28.58 per cent. If we deduct 19,000 for the

probable slave population of Texas in 1840, the result of the comparison

will be slightly different. The absolute increase will be 692,111, and the

rate per cent. 27.83.

The number of free colored persons in 1850 was 428,637; in 1840, 386,345.

The increase of this class has been 42,292 or 10.95 per cent.

From 1830 to 1840, the increase of the whole population was at the rate of

32.67 per cent. At the same rate of advancement, the absolute gain for the

ten years last past, would have been 5,578,333, or 426,515 less than it

has been, without including the increase consequent upon additions of

territory.

The aggregate increase of population, from all sources, shows a relative

advance greater than that of any other decennial term, except that from

the second to the third census, during which time the country received an

accession of inhabitants by the purchase of Louisiana, considerably

greater than one per cent. of the whole number.

The decennial increase of the most favored portions of Europe is less than

one and a half per cent. per annum, while with the United States it is at

the rate of three and a half per cent. According to our past progress,

viewed in connection with that of European nations, the population of the

United States in forty years will exceed that of England, France, Spain,

Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland combined.

In 1845, Mr. William Darby, the Geographer, who has paid much attention to

the subject of population, and the progress of the country; having found

that the increase of population in the United States for a series of

years, had exceeded three per cent. per annum, adopted that ratio as a

basis for calculation for future increase. He estimated the population of

1850 at 23,138,004, which it will be observed is considerably exceeded by

the actual result. The following are Mr. Darby’s calculations of the

probable population of the Union for each five years up to 1885:

1850 23,138,004 1870 40,617,708

1855 26,823,385 1875 47,087,052

1860 31,095,535 1880 54,686,795

1865 35,035,231 1885 63,291,353

If the ratio of increase be taken at three per cent. per annum, the

population duplicates, in about twenty-four years. Therefore, if no

serious disturbing influence should interfere with the natural order of

things, the aggregate population of the United States at the close of this

century must be over one hundred millions.

The relative progress of the white and colored population in past years,

is shown by the following tabular statement, giving the increase per cent.

of each class of inhabitants in the United States for sixty years.

Classes. 1790 to 1800 to 1810 to 1820 to 1830 to 1840 to

1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850

Whites 35.7 36.2 34.19 33.95 34.7 38.28

Free 88.2 72.2 25.25 36.85 20.9 10.9

col.

Slaves 27.9 33.4 29.1 30.61 23.8 28.58

Total 32.2 37.6 28.58 31.44 23.4 26.22

col.

Total 35.01 36.45 33.12 33.48 32.6 36.25

pop.

The census had been taken previously to 1830 on the 1st of August; the

enumeration began that year on the 1st of June, two months earlier, so

that the interval between the fourth and fifth censuses was two months

less than ten years, which time allowed for would bring the total increase

up to the rate of 34.36 per cent.

The table given below shows the increase for the sixty years, 1790 to

1850, without reference to intervening periods:

Number. 1790. 1850. Absolute Incr. per

Increase. cent.

Whites 3,172,364 19,631,799 16,459,335 527.97

Free col. 59,466 428,637 369,171 617.44

Slaves 697,897 3,198,324 2,500,427 350.13

Total free 757,363 3,626,961 2,869,598 377.00

col. and

slaves

Total pop. 3,929,827 23,258,760 19,328,883 491.52

Sixty years since, the proportion between the whites and blacks, bond and

free, was 4.2 to one. In 1850, it was 5.26 to 1, and the ratio in favor of

the former race is increasing. Had the blacks increased as fast as the

whites during these sixty years, their number, on the first of June, would

have been 4,657,239; so that, in comparison with the whites, they have

lost, in this period, 1,035,340.

This disparity is much more than accounted for by European emigration to

the United States. Dr. Chickering, in an essay upon emigration, published

at Boston in 1848—distinguished for great elaborateness of

research—estimates the gain of the white population, from this source, at

3,922,152. No reliable record was kept of the number of immigrants into

the United States until 1820, when, by the law of March, 1819, the

collectors were required to make quarterly returns of foreign passengers

arriving in their districts. For the first ten years, the returns under

the law afford materials for only an approximation to a true state of the

facts involved in this inquiry.

Dr. Chickering assumes, as a result of his investigations, that of the

6,431,088 inhabitants of the United States in 1820, 1,430,906 were

foreigners, arriving subsequent to 1790, or the descendants of such.

According to Dr. Seybert, an earlier writer upon statistics, the number of

foreign passengers, from 1790 to 1810, was, as nearly as could be

ascertained, 120,000; and from the estimates of Dr. Seybert, and other

evidence, Hon. George Tucker, author of a valuable work on the census of

1840, supposes the number, from 1810 to 1820, to have been 114,000. These

estimates make, for the thirty years preceding 1820, 234,000.

If we reckon the increase of these emigrants at the average rate of the

whole body of white population during these three decades, they and their

descendants in 1820, would amount to about 360,000. From 1820 to 1830

there arrived, according to the returns of the Custom-houses, 135,986

foreign passengers, and from 1830 to 1840, 579,370, making for the twenty

years 715,356. During this period a large number of emigrants from Great

Britain and Ireland, came into the United States through Canada. These

were estimated at 67,903 from 1820 to 1830, and from 1830 to 1840, at

199,130. From 1840 to 1850 the arrivals of foreign passengers amounted to

1,542,850, equal to an annual average of 154,285.

From the above returns and estimates the following statement has been made

up, to show the accessions to our population from immigration, from 1790

to 1850—a period of sixty years:

Number of foreigners arriving from 1790 to 1810: 120,000

Natural increase, reckoned in periods of ten years: 47,560

Number of foreigners arriving from 1810 to 1820: 114,000

Increase of the above to 1820: 19,000

Increase from 1810 to 1820 of those arriving previous to 1810: 58,450

Total number of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in 1820: 359,010

Number of immigrants from 1820 to 1830: 203,979

Increase of the above: 35,728

Increase from 1820 to 1830 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in

the country in 1820: 134,130

Total number of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in the United

States in 1830: 732,847

Number of immigrants arriving from 1830 to 1840: 778,500

Increase of the: 135,150

Increase from 1830 to 1840 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in

the United States in 1830: 254,445

Total number of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in the United

States in 1840: 1,900,942

Number of immigrants arriving from 1840 to 1850(8): 1,542,850

Increase of the above at twelve per cent: 185,142

Increase from 1840 to 1850 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants in

the United States in 1840: 722,000

Total number of immigrants in the United States since 1790, and their

descendants in 1850: 4,350,934

The following, we think, may be considered an approximate estimate of the

population of the United States, in 1850, classed according to their

descent from the European colonists, previous to the American Revolution,

also from immigration since 1790, from the people who inhabited the

territories acquired by the United States (Louisiana, Texas, &c.), and

from Africans:

Descendants of the European colonists, previous to 1776: 14,280,885

Ditto of people of Louisiana, Texas, and other acquired territories:

1,000,000

Immigrants since 1790, and their descendants: 4,350,934

Descendants of Africans: 3,626,961

Total population: 23,258,760

It will be seen from the above, that the total number of immigrants

arriving in the United States from 1790 to 1850, a period of 60 years, is

estimated to have been 2,759,329—or an average of 45,988 annually for the

whole period. It will be observed also that the estimated increase of

these emigrants has been 1,590,405, making the total number added to the

population of the United States since 1790, by foreign immigrants and

their descendants, 4,350,934. Of these immigrants and their descendants,

those from Ireland bear the largest proportion, probably more than one

half of the whole, or say two and a half millions. Next to these the

Germans are the most numerous. From the time that the first German

settlers came to this country, in 1682, under the auspices of William

Penn, there has been a steady influx of immigrants from Germany,

principally to the Middle States; and of late years to the West.

The density of population is a branch of the subject which naturally

attracts the attention of the inquirer. Taking the thirty-one States

together, their area is 1,485,870 square miles, and the average number of

their inhabitants is 15.48 to the square mile. The total area of the

United States is 3,280,000 square miles, and the average density of

population is 7.22 to the square mile.

From the location, climate, and productions, and the habits and pursuits

of their inhabitants, the States of the Union may be properly arranged

into the following groups:

Divisions. Area in Population. Inhab. to

sq. miles. sq. m.

New Engl’d States (6) 63,226 2,727,597 43.07

Middle States, including 151,760 8,653,713 57.02

Maryland, Delaware and

Ohio (6)

Coast Planting States, 286,077 3,537,089 12.36

including South Carolina,

Georgia, Florida,

Alabama, Mississippi and

Louisiana (6)

Central Slave States: 308,210 5,168,000 16.75

Virginia, North Carolina,

Tennessee, Kentucky,

Missouri, Arkansas(6)

Northwestern States: 250,000 2,735,000 10.92

Indiana, Illinois,

Michigan, Wisconsin and

Iowa (5)

Texas 237,321 212,000 .89

California 188,982 165,000 .87

Table of the area, and the number of inhabitants to the square mile, in

each State and Territory in the Union.

Free States. Area in Population Inhab. to

sq. miles in 1850. sq. m.

Maine 30,000 583,188 19.44

New Hampshire 9,280 317,964 34.26

Vermont 10,212 314,120 30.07

Massachusetts 7,800 994,499 126.11

Rhode Island 1,306 147,544 108.05

Connecticut 4,674 370,791 79.83

New York 46,000 3,097,394 67.66

New Jersey 6,320 489,333 60.04

Pennsylvania 46,000 2,311,786 50.25

Ohio 39,964 1,980,408 49.55

Indiana 33,809 988,416 29.23

Illinois 55,405 851,470 15.37

Iowa 50,914 192,214 3.77

Wisconsin 53,924 305,191 5.45

Michigan 56,243 397,654 7.07

California 188,982 165,000 .87

Minnesota Terr. 83,000 6,077 .07

Oregon ditto 341,463 13,293 .04

Mew Mexico ditto 219,774 61,547 .28

Utah ditto 187,923 11,380 .06

Total 1,474,993 13,419,190