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ble liberty in all matters of religious faith.
He has, to recur to the vulgate once more,
“ seen the elephant,” anil of course ought to
know. To crown our privileges in the lec
ture line, \vc are in continual expectation of
having Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler’s “read
ings” from the “ bard of Avon.”
The last Quarterly Report of the President
of the Croton Aqueduct Board, among other
items of interest, mentions that the extent of
piping of all sizes, thus far laid down in the
city, is somewhat more than one hundred and
eighty miles. The revenue of the Depart
ment continues to increase, and the receipts,
trom its organizatiqn in October, 1842, to the
present time, amount to more than two hun
dred and thirty-four thousand dollars.
While upon municipal matters, let me
mention the expected extension of the Russ
Pavement on Broadway, and other streets of
the city. The uniform surface which this
valuable pavement presents, is said to de
crease the power required for the draft of ve
hicles at least one-half. Our good people
find that the present Alms-House system im
poses upon them so onerous a tax, that they
are cogitating a remedy, in the shape of an
old-fashioned work-house, where the beggars
-hall be required to labor for their support,
as well as their less favored fellow-citizens.
Not an unreasonable idea, by any means.
The Hon. Horace Greeley has sent his
-hare of the public books, bestowed by Con
gress upon its members, to our worthy May
or, to be so disposed of, that they may prove
of public utility, instead, as in most cases, of
mere private interest. Ow conscientious
delegate will not make much from his mis
sion, if he thus refuses all the spoils of mile
age, books, “farms,” etc. Perhaps he will
not even bring away with him from the
Capitol a sufficient supply of stationery, pa
pers, ink, pen-knives, and writing-desks, to
last his friends or himself until the next ses
sion of Congress! With such honest tactics,
I fear that old hat will never again be new.
While 1 you happy folks in Georgia are
now, doubtlessly, lounging in the warm shade
of vine-clad piazzas, and dreaming of the
luscious fruit which the flower-laden peach
is promising to you, we of Gotham are shiv
ering in the protracted frosts of winter, get
ting hoists on slippery walks, and looking
anxiously forward into the remote future of
••next spring.” We are a great people here,
no doubt, but it must he confessed that we
have a most infamous climate. FLIT.
Ml JWB ‘■, PH ■■"* ?*!. ■TIH.I'TT
(Sltntpses of Jfctu Books.
ENGLAND AS IT WAS AND IS.
[From Macauley’s new History of England-—Har
per & Brothers, New-York.
In one respect it must be admitted that the
progress of civilization has diminished the
physical comforts of a portion of the poorest
class. It has already been mentioned that,
before the Revolution, many thousands of
square miles, now enclosed and cultivated,
were marsh, forest and heath. Os this wild
land much was by law common, and much
of what was not common by law was
worth so little that the proprietors suffered it
to be common in fact, in sucha tract, squat
ters and trespassers were tolerated to an ex
tent unknown. The peasant who dwelt
there could, at little or no charge, procure
occasionally some palatable addition to his
hard fare, and provide himself with fuel for
the winter. He kept a flock of geese on what
is now an orchard rich with apple blossoms.
He snared wild fowl on the fen which has
long since been drained and divided into corn
fields and turnips. He cut turf among the
furze bushes on the moor which is now a
meadow bright with clover and renowned for
butter and cheese. The progress of agricul
ture and the increase of population neccessa
rily deprive him of these privileges. But
against this advantage a long list of disad
vantages is to be set off. Os the blessings
which civilization and philosophy bring with
them, a large proportion is common to all
ranks, and would, if withdrawn, be missed
painfully by the laborer as by the ’peer. —
Ihe market-place which the rustic can now
reach with his cart in an hour, was, a hon
ored and sixty years ago. a day’s journey
trom h:m. The street which now affords to
§®©7GO §IE m 1L 3 1 .IS IB AIE ¥ SA& £Tf TFH ♦
the artisan, during the whole night, a secure,
a convenient, and a brilliantly lighted walk
was, a hundred and sixty years ago, so dark
after sunset, that he would not have been able
to see his hand; so ill paved that he would
have run constant risk of breaking his neck,
and so ill watched that he would have been
in imminent danger of being knocked down
and plundered of his small earnings. Every
bricklayer who falls from a scaffold, every
sweeper of a crossing who is run over by a
carriage, now may have his wounds dressed
and his limbs set with a skill such as, a hun
dred and sixty years ago, all the wealth of a
great lord like Ormond, or of a merchant prince
like Clayton, could not have purchased.—
Some frightfui diseases have been extirpated
by science, and some have been banished by
police. The term of human life has been
lengthened over the whole kingdom, and es
pecially in the towns. The year 1685 \vas
not accounted sickly; yet in the year 1685
more than one in tw r enty-three of the inhab
itants of the capital died. At present only
one inhabitant of the capital in forty dies an
nually. The difference in salubrity between
the London of the nineteenth century and the
London of the seventeenth century is very
far greater than the difference between Lon
don in an ordinary season and London in the
cholera.
Still more important is the benefit which all
orders of society, and especially the lower
orders, have derived from the mollifying in
fluence of civilization on the national charac
ter. The ground work of that character has
indeed been the same through many genera
tions, in the sense in which the ground work
of the character of an individual may be said
to be the same when he isa rude and thought
less schoolboy and w’hen he is a refined and
accomplished man. It is pleasing to reflect
that the public mind of England has softened
while it lias ripened, and that we have, in
the course of ages, become, not only a wfiser,
but also a kinder people. There is scarcely
a page of the history or lighter literature of
the seventeenth century which does not con
tain some proof that our ancestors were less
humane then their posterity. The discipline
of workshops, of schools, of private families,
though not more efficient;thanat present, was
infinitely harsher. Masters, well born and
bred, were in the habit of beating their serv
ants. Pedagogues knew no way of impart
ing knowledge but by beating their pupils.—
Husbands, of decent station, were not asham
ed to beat theii wives. The implacability of
hostile faction was such as we can scarcely
conceive. Whigs were disposed to iriurmer
because Stafford was suffered to die without
seeing his bowels burned before his face.—
As little mercy w r as shown by the populace
to sufferers of humbler rank. If an offender
was put into the pillory, it was w’ell if he es
caped with life from the shower of brick-bats
and paving-stones. If he was tied to the
cart’s tail, the crowd pressed round him, im
ploring the hangman to give it the fellow
well, and make him howl. Gentlemen ar
ranged parties*of pleasure to Bridewell on
court days, for the purpose, of seeing the
wretched women who beat hemp there whip
pid A man pressed to death for refusing to
plead, a woman burned for coining, excited
less sympathy than is now felt for a gallant
horse, or an over driven ox. Fights, com
pared with which a boxing match is a refined
and humane spectacle, were among the favor
ite diversions of a large part of the town.—
Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack
each other to pieces with deadly weapons, and
shouted with delight when one of the com
batants lost a finger or an eye. The prisons
were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime
and of every disease. At the assizes, the
lean and yellow culprits brought with them
from their cells to the dock an atmosphere of
stench and pestilence which sometimes aveng
ed them signally on bench, bar, and jury.—
But on all this misery society looked with
profound indifference. Nowhere could be
found that sensitive and restless compassion
which has, in our time, extended a powerful
protection to the factory child, to the Hindoo
widow, to the negro-slave which pries into
ihe stores and water casks of every emigrant
ship, which winces at every lash laid on the
back of a drunken soldier, which will not
suffer the thief in the hulks to be ill fed or
over worked, and which has repeatedly en
deavored to save the life even of the murder
er. It is true that compassion, like all other
feelings, ought to be under the government of
reason, and has, for want of such government
produced some ridiculous rt nd some deplora
ble effects. But the more we study the annals
of the past, the more shall we rejoice that we
live in a merciful age, in ail age which cruel
ty is abhorred, and in which pain, even when
deserved, is inflicted reluctuantly and from a
sense of duty. Every class, doubtless, has
gained largely by this great moral change ;
but the class which has gained the most is
the poorest, the dependent, and the most de
fenceless.
The general effect of the evidence which
has been submitted to the reader seems hard
ly to admit of doubt: yet in spite of evidence
image to themselves the England
of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country
than the England in which we live. Jt may
at first sight seem strange that society, while
constantly moving forward with eager speed,
would be constantly looking backwards with
tender regret. But these two propensities,
inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be
resolved into the same principle. Both spring
from our impatience of the state in which we
actually are. That impatience, while it stim
ulates us to surpass proceeding generations,
disposes us to overrate their happiness. It
is, in some smise, unreasonable and ungrate
ful in us to be constantly discontented with
a condition which is constantly improving.
But, in truth, there is constant improvement
precisely because there is constant discontent.
If we were perfectly satisfied with the pre
sent, we should cease to contrive, to labor,
and to save with a view to the future. And
it is natural that, being dissatisfied with the
present, we should form a too favorable esti
mate of the past.
in truth, we are under a deception similar
to that which misleads the traveler in the
Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is
dry and bare ; but far in advance and far in
the rear is the semblance of refreshing wa
ters. The pilgrims hasten forward, and find
nothing but sand, where an hour before, they
had seen a lake; they turn their eyes, and
see a lake where, an hour before, they were
toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems
to haunt nations through every stage of the
long progress from poverty and barbarism to
the highest degrees of opulence and civiliza
tion. But if we resolutely chase the mirage
backward, we shall find it recede before us
into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is
now the fashion to place the Golden Age of
England in times when noblemen were desti
tute of comforts the want of which would be
intolerable to a modern footman, when far
mers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves
the very sight of which would raise a
riot in a modern workhouse; when men died
faster in the purest country air than they now
die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns,
and when men died faster in the lanes of our
towns than they now die on the coast of Gui
ana. We too, shall in our turn he outstrip
ped, and in our turn be envied. It may well
he, in the twentieth century, that ihe peasant
of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably
paid with fifteen shillings a week ; that the
carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shil
lings a day; that laboring men may be as
little used to dine without meat as they now
are to eat rye bread ; that sanitary police and
medical discoveries may have added several
more years to the average length of human
life ; that numerous comforts and luxuries
which are now unknown, or confined to a
few, may be within the reach of every dili
gent and thrifty working man. And yet it
may then be the mode, to assert that the in
crease of wealth and the progress of science
have benefitted the few at the expense of the
many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Vic
toria as the time when England, was truly
merry England; when all classes were bound
together by brotherly sympathy; when the
rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and
when the poor did not envy the splendor of
the rich.
£l)c .family Circle.
OUR NURSERY.
B Y M R S . J . K . FOSTER.
I wish you could visit our snug little room
In which there is nothing of sadness or gloom ;
For “ dear little baby” ’tis furnished with care,
And all that she owns or delights in is there ;
Its paper’s the prettiest ever was seen,
A brown little stripe, with roses between,—
And our child’s dimpled finger your notice will call,
To the neatly framed pictures that hand on the Avail.
Come! peep in the closet, —where, each in its fold.
The whole of her bright Avinte*-war<lrobe behold !
Here are thick shoes and leggins, Jack Frost to defy,
A hood for Avct weather, a plumed hat for dry,
A neckerchief embroidered, —and braided with care,
A trig little coat for our darling to wear :
Bring it out! see her eyes dance with joy at the
sight!
And now ’tis half on, she is wild with delight.
Like a bird to the sunshine and air she would tly.
Iler plump hand she kisses and waves a ‘good-bye.’
On the mantle are vases, with flowers so gay,
And lamp-lighters stand in the trimmest array ;
lleneath, like a band-box sprung up to some height,
Is a stove that economists term an air-tight ;
If the air be kept out, our conclusion has been.
That the wood, like ourselves, must be oft taken in.
We’ve a cradle that many have used in its day,
Though the time-honored custom is passing away,
Where mamma in her babyhood rested and slept,
The toys of her dear little daughters are kept.
Here’s a doll made of rags Avith a cheek like a rose.
Pray do not examine the shape of her ro-e!
Our surgeons, this feature to form, have essavo.l
And their patients resemble this itoor lion.
But if • Biddy’ wereßoselow, SSniSfeW *
wtlconu'd llllll kissed,very dav in the ye!!! T
wSn'r * ■ ,UC> ’ with hc lcl “•*>'* proSia
So fresh-looking always, so cleanly and fair •
VV hen ‘ baby’ at e\ e to her chamber is home’ -
Or laughing and crowing, she wakens at morn _
Or Avhcii sleeping, protected by love from alUiam
btill ‘ Lucy is clasped to her soft little ami.
Here s a curly-haiied poodle with hind feet alone
I o look up the others, one eye too has gone ‘ ’
Nor is he the first punpy on tAvo legs we’ve known
Here lire books,-* Mother Goose 5 and poor lhtV
Jack Horner, c
Since 1 was a child he has been in the corner
Ilis pic must be eaten ere this, without doubt.
1 erhaps like the Starling, he cannot ‘ get out *’
Here’s the bath that is daily prepared for um
daug liter,
And sparkling and cold is the freshly-drawn wutei •
( hie Avhite dimpled foot seeks the brim half alVuid r
The other must follow its playmate to aid ‘ ’
She shrinks at the plunge t hen with laughter so wild
She frolics and ] lays a\ i: h the glee of a child •
Os dew-drops the casements have oft-times a’sha-e
And mirror and stove must baptismal robes wear ’
No Canary more joys hi* so! t plumage to lave,”
And to flutter and float in the cool mimic waA'e.
A year and a month ha\e scarce jjassed since the
night
When our dear one first opened her eyes to the light
Then a wee helpless thing.—now she” loves to repeat
The words to the car of a parent so SAveet;
And her dear little feet patter o’er and o’er
The length and the breadth of the carpeted fleor;
And her welcome refreshes ay hen weary Ave come.
For her voice and her laugh are the music of home
It was not thus ever in this little room,
For once there was nothing but sorroAv and gloom :
The Angel of Death, avlao can enter e’en here,
Had stricken a child no less gentle and dear!
The eye that at morning beamed loving and bright.
Was evermore closed ere the coming of night. °
In this cradle she lay,—yes! in dreamless sleep
there.—
An image of all that was lovely and fair!
Through the casement came rushing the cold wintry
air
On the form that in life had been shielded Avith care!
Old winter no longer could harm with his breath,
Our darling benumbed by the linger of Death.
Our little ewe-lamb had been stolen away.
That had drank of our cup, in our bosom that lay ;
Yet, Merciful Father! we did not repine,
Thou had-fc taken our ajl, but the blessing was
Thine ;
Although there remained, when thy gift did depart,
Desolation of home, desolation of heart.
The sunshine avus clouded in this little room,
Thenceforth we resigned it to darkness and gloom :
None looked from tho casement, none stepped o’er
the floor,
Untrodden the threshold—unopened the door!
With eye turned away, we ascended the stair;
Yet through seeming unconsciousness, thought Avas
still there,
And tears rose unbidden, as memory dreAv
The bright little lace that had often peeped through.
A year passed away: —God remembered us then,—
A babe to my bosom av as pressed once again
Oh, joyous the Avelcomc ! oh. light was the ill!
The void in our hearts thou Avert destined t© fill.
Though none save thy parents, my darling might
see
The manifold beauties foreshadowed in thee.
Then wide was thrown open this bright little room,
Audbanished Avereloneliness, silence and gloom;
Our child in my arms, 1 had courage once more
The portal to enter, the threshold pass o’er.
The sunshine Avas dancing in glee on the Avail,
And the sunlight of happiness streamed over all.
Two children our merciful Father hath given ;
A loved one on earth, and a loved one in Heaven.
IP* ■am ihe Home Journal ]
LITTLE ■
Sacred places for pure thoughts and holy
meditations, are the little graves in the church
yard. They are depositories of the mothers
sweetest joys—half unfolded buds of inno.
eence, humanity nipped by the first frost of
time, ere vet a cankervvorm of pollution had
nestled among its embryo petals. Callous,
indeed, must he the heart of him who can
stand by a little graveside, and not have Hie
holiest emotions of his soul awakened to
thoughts of that purity and joy which belong
alone to God and heaven ; for the mute preach
er at his feet tells him of a life begun and a
life ended without a stain ; and surely if tht>
be vouchsafed to mortality, how much purer
and holier must be the spiritual land, enlight
ened by the Sun of Infinite Goodness, whence
emanated the soul of that brief young so
journer among us ! How swells the heart o>
the parent with mournful joy, while stan
ding by the cold earth-beil of lost little ones •
Mournful, because a sweet treasure is taken
away—joyful, because that precious J e " e
glitters in the Redeemer.
Ekvy.—When a statue had been erected h-
Theogenes, a celebrated victor in one (p
public games of Greece, by his fellow citizen’
of Thasos, we are told that it excited so
strongly the envious hatred of one oi h| s r
vals, that he went to it every night, and
deavored to throw it down by repeated bl°^'■ -j
till at last, unfortunately successful, “ e w ‘
able to move it from its pedestal, aud w .
crushed to death beneath it oil its fall. 1 ‘ j,
if we consider the self-consuming miser}
envy, is truely what happens to every en
ous man. He may perhaps throw down -
rival’s glory, but he is crushed in his w i
soul beneath the glory which he overturn-