recommend their correspondent as himself well qualified to lead the way
in this most righteous enterprise, and the result was, the appearance
in the October number of the article "Maga in America," which has been
highly relished on both sides of the Atlantic. Of this article a proof
was despatched to Mr Jay, a solicitor of eminence in New York, who,
with the utmost promptitude, registered the copyright in his own name,
and, presenting himself to Messrs Scott, the reprinters, inquired if
they were about to publish the Magazine, as usual, that month, as he
thought it right to inform them that, by so doing, they would be placed
in a delicate position. On hearing an explanation, Messrs Scott were
considerably taken aback, and, although unwilling to acknowledge that
the game was up, they seemed to have a painful consciousness that such
was the case. The negotiation terminated in the meantime, in their
agreeing, after various letters, and not a little conversation, to
pay a sum as copyright, before they issued the October number, and a
like amount for each succeeding number, until a further arrangement
were made. It would have been very easy for the proprietors to have
brought the reprinters under heavy responsibilities, by giving them
no hint of their movements, and allowing the October number to be
published as usual, when Messrs Scott would have become liable to a
severe penalty for every copy sold. This was not done, as no blame is
attached personally to Messrs Scott, who have merely acted under a bad
system, in which any one publisher might think himself free to seize
all advantage which was open to all.
This movement has been most cordially welcomed by the American press,
and it will be a source of great pleasure and pride to the Messrs
Blackwood, if the step they have taken should in any degree, however
humble, assist in establishing, an international copyright, which
alone can effectually check a system of reprinting which is ruinous
to American authors, and only very moderately profitable to American
publishers, who are compelled, by the fear of rival reprints, to sell
at a price which leaves a narrow margin of profit, even with no expense
but paper and print. They are also in their turn afflicted with a host
of smaller weekly pirates, who select the best, or at least the most
attractive articles from all the periodicals, and serve them up in a
cheap form, not without seasoning sometimes of a very questionable
character both in taste and in morals.
The more operose contemporaries of Maga will learn with some
surprise--whether pleasant or painful, it would be presumptuous to
say--that the buoyancy of her contents seems to be used to float off
a few hundred copies of their ponderous productions, which might
otherwise be stranded without help or hope. It appears that subscribers
are obtained to no less than four quarterly publications, by the
inducement that, on such condition, they will receive _Blackwood_ at
two-thirds of the price.
_Edinburgh, January 1, 1848._
_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Wealth of Nations_, vol. ii. b. iv. c. ii. p. 195.
[2] Table showing the British and Foreign tonnage with Sweden, Norway,
Denmark and Prussia since the Reciprocity treaties with these powers in
1821.
| | SWEDEN. | NORWAY. | DENMARK. | PRUSSIA.
| |British|Foreign|British| Foreign|British|Foreign|British|Foreign
| |Tonnage|Tonnage|Tonnage| Tonnage|Tonnage|Tonnage|Tonnage|Tonnage
| +-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+------+--------+-------
|1821| 23,005| 8,508| 13,855| 61,342| 5,312| 3,969| 79,590| 37,720
|1822| 20,799| 13,692| 13,377| 87,974| 7,096| 3,910| 102,847| 58,270
|1823| 20,986| 22,529| 13,122| 117,015| 4,413| 4,795| 81,202| 56,013
|1824| 17,074| 40,092| 11,419| 135,272| 6,738|23,689| 94,664|151,621
|1825| 15,906| 53,141| 14,825| 157,910| 15,158|50,943| 189,214|182,752
|1826| 11,829| 16,939| 15,603| 90,726| 22,000|56,544| 119,060|120,589
| | | | | | | | |
|1837| 7,608| 42,602| 1,035| 88,004| 5,357|55,961| 67,566|145,742
|1838| 10,425| 38,991| 1,364| 110,817| 3,466|57,554| 86,734|175,643
|1839| 8,359| 49,270| 2,582| 109,228| 5,535|106,960|111,470|229,208
|1840| 11,933| 53,337| 3,166| 114,241| 6,327|103,067|112,709|237,984
|1841| 13,170| 46,795| 977| 113,025| 3,368| 83,009| 88,198|210,254
|1842| 15,296| 37,218| 1,385| 98,979| 5,499| 59,837| 87,202|145,499
--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables_, vols. i. to xii., p. 50 each vol.
[3] Dumas, viii. 112; Mackenzie's _St Domingo_, i. 312.
[4] "Of the progressive decline in the powers of production of the West
India possessions generally, some idea may be formed from what has been
observed in Jamaica; for though that island labours under some peculiar
disadvantages, that fact merely increases the force of the argument
which is derived from its past experience:--
Average of the five years ending 1807
--last of the slave trade, £3,852,624
Average of the five years ending 1815
--date of the Registry Act, 3,588,903
Average of the five years ending 1823
--date of Canning's Resolution, 3,192,637
Average of the five years ending 1833
--last five of slavery, 2,791,478
Average of the five years ending 1843
--first five of freedom, 1,213,284
"The House of Assembly, from whose memorial to the government (June
1847) we borrow these facts, makes the following remarks on this
instructive table:--
"'Up to 1807 the exports of Jamaica progressively rose as cultivation
was extended. From that date they have been gradually sinking; but we
more especially entreat attention to the evidence here adduced of the
effects of emancipation, which, in ten years, reduced the annual value
of the three principal staples from £2,791,478 to £1,213,284, being in
the proportion of seven to sixteen, or equal, at five per cent., to
an investment of about thirty-two millions of property annihilated.
We believe the history of the world would be in vain searched for any
parallel case of oppression perpetrated by a civilised government upon
any section of its own subjects.'"
[5] EXPORTS TO BRITISH WEST INDIA COLONIES:--
1827, £3,583,222
1828, 3,289,704
1829, 3,612,085
1840, 3,574,970
1841, 2,504,004
1842, 2,591,425
--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables_, xii, 114.
[6] Buxton _on the Slave Trade_, 172.
[7] For a few days during the panic consequent on the Mutiny at the
Nore, the 3 per cents were at 45, but they soon rose and ranged from 55
to 58. The interest of money never exceeded 5 _per cent._, and indeed
it could not, as the usury laws were then in operation. The issue of
one pound notes in sufficient numbers by the Bank of England, after
February 1797, soon relieved the distress, extinguished the panic, and
brought us triumphantly through the war. The following are the rates of
interest and amount of bullion in the Bank of England for thirty years
past, which shows how little low interest has to do with the plentiful
stores of the precious metals:--
Bullion. Rate of Discount.
1815.--28th February £2,037,000 Five per cent.
1816.--29th February 4,641,000 Five per cent.
1820.--29th February 4,911,000 Five per cent.
1826.--28th February 2,460,000 Five per cent.
1832.--29th February 5,293,000 Four per cent.
1837.--28th February 4,077,000 Five per cent.
1839.-- October 2,522,000 Six per cent.
1840.--25th February 4,311,000 Five per cent.
1847.--13th November 9,258,520 Eight per cent. _min._
The rate of eight per cent. has not been charged by the Bank of England
before for upwards of a century and a quarter.
[8] Report of the Glasgow Poor Inspector, 28th November, 1847.
[9] Mr Newdegate's Speech in Parliament, December 2, 1847.
[10]
TO OCTOBER 10
IN EACH YEAR. 1845. 1846. 1847.
Machinery, £644,839 £897,442 £942,533
Iron and steel, 2,854,048 3,374,335 4,096,367
----------- ----------- -----------
£3,498,887 £4,271,777 £5,038,900
[11] AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE IMPORTED FROM JANUARY 5 TO OCTOBER 10.
| 1845. | 1846. | 1847. |
|----------+----------+----------|
|Live animals, | 19,593 | 85,542 | 172,355 |
|Provisions, beef, pork, &c. cwts.,| 109,550 | 206,455 | 403,877 |
|Butter, cwts., | 189,056 | 177,165 | 243,140 |
|Cheese, do., | 183,891 | 216,191 | 243,601 |
|Grain in quarters, |1,336,739 |2,635,218 |7,905,419 |
|Grain in flour and meal, cwts., | 394,908 |2,631,341 |7,900,880 |
The grain imported in nine months measured in quarters
will stand thus:--
In quarters, 7,905,419
In flour and meal, cwts., 2,650,263
----------
In nine months, quarters, 10,555,682
The greatest import in any one year before was in 1841, when it was
4,772,641 quarters.
[12] The sum invested in railways from 1841 to 1845, was £154,716,937;
of which £114,513,035 was subscribed capital, and £46,203,902
authorised to be borrowed. See _Parl. Returns_, Nos. 159, 1844; and
637, 1845. Since that time it has at least risen to £200,000,000, of
which _half_ may be considered productive.
[13] See _Parl. Debates_, xxviii. 66, 67.
[14]
Viz. England, £85,000,000
Scotland, about 5,000,000
Ireland, 16,000,000
-----------
£105,000,000
[15] _Lords' Report on Real Property_, pp. 8, 9. In our last Number we
stated the amount of heritable property at £63,000,000, from a desire
to be within rather than beyond the truth. But the latter figure was
taken from the Poors' Rate return, which, as the Lords' Report justly
states, is always below the truth; and their own report of £85,000,000
is taken from the rating for the property tax, founded on the returns
by the occupants.--See _Lords' Report on Real Property_, p. ix.
[16] RATE OF DISCOUNT OF FIRST-CLASS BILLS AT THE UNDERMENTIONED
PERIODS.
|Jan.|Feb.|Mar.|Apr.|May.|Jun.|Jul.|Aug.|Sep.|Oct.|Nov.|Dec.
----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
1824| 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3½
1825| 3½ | 3 | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4½ | 4½
1826| 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4½ | 4½ | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4
1827| 4 | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3¼ | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3
1828| 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3½
1829| 4 | 3½ | 3½ | 4 | 3½ | 3½ | 3½ | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3
1830| 3 | 3 | 2¾ | 2¾ | 2½ | 2½ | 2½ | 2½ | 2½ | 2¾ | 3 | 4
1831| 3¼ | 3 | 3½ | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3½ | 3½ | 4 | 4 | 4
1832| 4 | 3½ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2¾ | 2¾ | 2¾
1833| 2¾ | 2½ | 2¼ | 2¼ | 2½ | 2½ | 2½ | 2½ | 3 | 3 | 3½ | 3½
1834| 3½ | 3 | 2¾ | 3 | 3¼ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 4 | 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¾
1835| 3¾ | 3¼ | 3½ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 4 | 4 | 3½ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¾
1836| 3¾ | 3¾ | 3½ | 3¼ | 3¼ | 4 | 4 | 4½ | 5 | 5 | 5½ | 5½
1837| 5½ | 5½ | 5½ | 5½ | 4½ | 4½ | 4½ | 4 | 3½ | 3½ | 3¼ | 3½
1838| 3½ | 3 | 3 | 2¾ | 2½ | 2¾ | 3 | 2¾ | 3 | 3 | 3¼ | 3½
1839| 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 4 | 5 | 5½ | 6 | 6½ | 6½ | 6½ | 6½
1840| 6 | 4¾ | 4¾ | 4¾ | 4¼ | 4¾ | 4½ | 4½ | 4¾ | 5 | 6 | 5¾
1841| 5½ | 5 | 5 | 4½ | 4½ | 5 | 4½ | 4½ | 4¾ | 5 | 5½ | 5
1842| 4¾ | 4½ | 3¾ | 3¾ | 3¼ | 3½ | 3¼ | 3 | 2½ | 2¾ | 2½ | 2½
1843| 2½ | 2¼ | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2¼ | 2¼ | 2 | 2 | 2¼ | 2 | 2½
1844| 2¼ | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1¾ | 2 | 2 | 1¾ | 2 | -- | -- | --
[17] The following is the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
on the sums authorised by government to be expended, and actually
expended, in each of the undermentioned years:--
Authorised
Year. Expenditure.
1840 £4,000,000
1841 3,500,000
1842 6,000,000
1843 4,500,000
1844 18,000,000
1845 59,000,000
1846 124,500,000
1847 38,300,000
These are the sums authorised to be expended by the acts passed in
each of these years. The following table shows, as nearly as can be
estimated, the sums actually expended:--
Actual
Year. Expenditure.
1841 £1,470,000
1842 2,980,000
1843 4,435,000
1844 6,105,000
1845, first six months 3,510,000
1845, second six months 10,625,000
1846, first six months 9,815,000
1846, second six months 26,670,000
1847, first six mouths 25,770,000
Supposing the actual expenditure, under existing railway acts, to have
proceeded at the same ratio for the next three years the following
would have been the results:--
Estimated
Year. Expenditure.
1847 £64,000,000
1848 70,000,000
1849 47,000,000
1850 10,000,000
[18] That this statement is not exaggerated will appear evident from
the following returns:--
Corn, flour, meal, live animals, &c., 1845. 1847.
imported to October 10, £4,410,091 £31,241,766
This of itself, coupled with the simultaneous contraction of the
currency and fall of the exports, will explain the whole catastrophe.
[19] The following table of the prodigious advance in the importation
of two articles alone, tea and sugar, will show how rapidly they have
increased in the three last years, at the very time that our exports
were diminishing:--
1845. 1846. 1847.
Sugar, cwt. 4,413,969 4,469,772 6,510,693
Tea, lb. 36,825,461 41,432,794 44,912,880
1846 to 1845. 1847 to 1845.
Sugar, cwt. 55.803 incr. 2,096,724 incr. £4,193,448
Tea, lb. 4,607,278 incr. 8,087,419 incr. 803,741
----------
£4,997,189
[20] --Mr Newdegate's Speech, _Morning Post_, December 2, 1847.
[21] Parliamentary Paper, 30th July, 1843.
[22] Viz. in round numbers:--
England, £14,000,000
Country Banks, 8,000,000
Ireland, 6,400,000
Scotland, 3,300,000
-------------
£31,700,000
[23] _Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands-Jours tenus à Clermont, en
1665-66_: publiés par B. Gonod, Bibliothécaire de la Ville de Clermont.
Paris 1844.
[24] These letters were addressed to a young Norman Lady, Mademoiselle
Anne de Lavigne, who wrote sonnets in the Scudéry style, and with whom
Fléchier kept up a gallant and high-flown correspondence in mingled
prose and verse. As far as can be ascertained the _liaison_ was an
innocent one; it is quite certain that it caused no scandal at the
time. Most of the letters bear date three or four years subsequently to
the _Grands-Jours_.
[25] _Voyage en Auvergne_, and _Resumé de l'Histoire d'Auvergne_.
[26] From the end of the fifteenth century there were no serfs in
Auvergne, as is shown by the municipal law of 1510; "_Toutes personnes
estans et demeurans au dict pays sont francs et de franche condition._"
All persons being and dwelling in the said country are free and of
free condition. Nevertheless, there were still "_héritaiges tenus à
condition de mainmorte_."--(_Coutume, titre_ xxvii. _art._ 1.) But
on the confines of Auvergne, in the Pays de Combrailles, there were
persons "_de serve condition, de mainmorte et de suyte_;" _ibid. art._
2, which means that the servitude of those persons was attached to
their flesh and bone; that it followed them every where, even when they
abandoned their inheritance and fled the country. One is glad to hear
Fléchier and Talon stigmatising, in the names of religion and humanity,
those iniquitous rights, which subsisted more than a century after
them. _Personal_ servitude was abolished only by an edict of August
1779; for which Louis XVI. and his minister Necker are to be thanked.
It took ten more years and the revolution of 1789 to do away with
_real_ servitude, which was general in France.--_Mémoires_, p. 112.
[27] This included Upper and Lower Auvergne, the Bourbonnais, the
Nivernais, the Forez, the Beaujolais, the Lyonnais, the Pays de
Combrailles, Berry and the Upper and Lower Marche.--Vide _Mémoires_,
Introduction, xvi.
[28]
In plain good French,
Each gentleman
From morn till night
Doth swell his rents,
And multiply his gain.
Observes no faith,
Takes field and hay,
The farmer's grass and grain;
Then plays the steward
With his pease and pork,
And cudgels all at leisure;
And like a king, with crown on head,
Proclaims it his good pleasure.
[29] An anecdote told of Louis XIII. and Mademoiselle d'Hutefort.
[30] A species of thread lace, in which there was formerly a great
trade in Upper Auvergne. It is now scarcely used except by peasant
women, and its manufacture is almost abandoned.
[31] Ranke, _Fürsten und Völker_, vol. i. p. 170.
[32] Uchali was a famous renegade, a Calabrian by birth, who, from
being a slave of the Grand Seignior's, became King of Argel.--See
Brantôme, _Hommes Illustres_, vol. i. p. 286.
[33] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. iii. p. 224.
[34] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, p. 300.
[35] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 178.
[36] Brantôme, HOMMES ILLUSTRES.
[37] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 182.
[38] Ranke, FÜRSTEN UND VÖLKER VON SUD EUROPA, vol. i. p. 178.
[39] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, pp. 304-308.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42] _Antonio Perez et Philipe II._, par Mons. Mignet, 1 vol. 3d ed.
[43] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p.
247-257.
[44] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p. 265.
[45] "Look there, look at the big gentleman on the little horse."
[46] "Gone, gone."
[47] One of the superficial peculiarities of American magazines is that
the names of _all_ the contributors are generally paraded conspicuously
on the cover, very few seeking even the disguise of a pseudonym. The
number of "most remarkable" men and women who thus display themselves
in print is surprising.
[48] This periodical is particularly unfortunate in its predictions.
Last year one of them was absolutely falsified _before_ its appearance.
The _Democratic_ introduced a biographical sketch of an eminent
politician, with the announcement that "before another number was
issued, the people of his State would have re-elected him to the
highest office in their gift." Accident delayed the publication of this
prophecy for a short time, and it appeared the very day after Mr ----
had been _defeated_ by a large majority. Thereupon some editors on the
other side stated that the _Democratic Review_ was to be discontinued,
"as we learn from its own columns," which may have been a good joke
or not, according to tastes. Certainly the editor of the _Democratic_
did _his_ best to make it so, by publishing a serious and angry
contradiction of the report.
[49] We have heard this _argument_ again and again in America,
generally in reference to the seediest of verses; and there could not
be a greater proof of the vagueness and erroneousness of American
public opinion as to the nature and object of criticism, and the
qualifications for exercising it.
[50] As a general rule, that is: we in America have lately met with
some striking exceptions.
[51] Even then, the price is what in Great Britain would be considered
small. The _American Review_ pays two dollars (8s. 8d.) a page, and
some of the other periodicals from a dollar to a dollar and a half.
[52] It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the absurdity of this
fallacy. Every man who reads any thing better than newspapers, finds
frequent use for his classics in the way of explaining quotations,
allusions &c., while nothing can be imagined more utterly useless
in every-day life than Conic Sections and Differential Calculus, to
any man not professionally scientific. But because arithmetic is
the introductory branch of mathematics, and also the foundation of
book-keeping, it is thought that working a boy at mathematics will make
him a good man of business.
[53] On one occasion, when a converted priest was lecturing against
Romanism, the _Courier_ and _Enquirer_ recommended the intervention
of that notorious popular potentate _Judge Lynch, who intervened
accordingly_.
[54] These attempts at undue influence and direct intimidation are not
confined to the natives; foreigners are very quick at catching them.
This very winter an Italian musician endeavoured to expel one of the
editors of the _Courier and Enquirer_ from his concert-room, because
that paper had not seen fit to praise him so much as others did, or as
he himself wished and expected.
[55] "The Mary Ann Greens."
[56] It may be worth while to insert here a copy of the American
advertisement of the April Number, in which a denunciation of American
piracy, which had been inserted in an article on the "Model Republic,"
is actually put forward as a _puff_ of the reprint.
Blackwood's Magazine
FOR APRIL, will be published TO-MORROW MORNING.
CONTENTS.
I. Cromwell.
II. Lays and Legends of the Thames--Part III.
III. Letters on the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions,
No. 2--Vampyrism. No. 3--Spirits, Goblins, Ghosts.
IV. A New Sentimental Journey.
V. The Fighting Eighty-Eighth.
VI. Lord Sidmouth's Life and Time.
VII. How they manage Matters in the Model Republic.
VIII. Horæ Catalinæ--No. 2.
IX. Lessons from the Famine.
Extract from the article on the "Model Republic":--
"When these malignant pages arrive in New York, every inhabitant of
that good city will abuse us heartily, except our publisher. But great
will be the joy of that furacious individual, as he speculates in
secret on the increased demand of his agonized public. Immediately he
will put forth an advertisement, notifying the men of 'Gotham' that he
has on board a fresh sample of British Insolence, and hinting that,
although he knows they care nothing about such things, the forthcoming
piracy of Maga will be on the most extensive scale."
Price of BLACKWOOD, 3 dol. a-year. Single numbers 25 cents.
L. SCOTT & CO. Publishers,
112 Fulton Street.
Transcribers Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Small capitals have been capitalised.
On page 22, --Mr Newdegate's Speech, has been given the
value "Footnote 19:", omitted from the text.
On page 107 the transcriber could not construe the word (Nug ee?).
A search for Mr Brummell's tailor or another name for
an outfitter proved fruitless.
Due to a lack of space in 'THIRTY YEARS OF LIBERAL LEGISLATION', the
last column of a table has been placed below the body of the table.
Similarly a table in footnote 2 has been condensed at the cost of
some aesthetics.