2

sacred volume his guide, it might in like manner is highly interesting, “What becomes of discharged be argued that the papal bulls have been variously prisoners?" They leave the jail without money, explained, some received and some rejected by a land without character, and are turned loose upon vast variety of persons, and men must be able to the world to seek a subsistence as they can. Their decide on all these varying interpretations of bulls, before accepting them as an infallible guide—in former haunts are the only places open to them, short, it would be argued, fairly argued, by men of and their former associates the only human beings no pretension to anything but the possession of com- who do not turn away from them in terror or conmon sense, that every objection he urged against tempt. What resource have they? Is it possible the volume of the Holy Scripture, was liable to be for them to change their evil habits, and become urged against the volume of the papal bulls. They good members of society? It is not possible. were written in a dead language. They were the Crime is their destiny. Society has punished them subject of various interpretations. They were the source of endless controversies. Their number and for their transgression of its laws; its dignity is names were doubtful. Their title to infallibility vindicated, its outraged virtue appeased ; and havwas questioned. All men disputed as to which was ing deprived them, by the stigma it has attached fallible and which infallible. Some bulls were to their character, of any possible alternative, it directly contradictory of others; some actually and dismisses them to their old course of villany. by name were condemnatory of others; some were Society has canght a wolf; and having punished admitted on all hands to be erroneous and heretical; its depredations by imprisonment, it gravely unand the whole combined constituted a series of vol

- with teeth, appeumes, almost as extended as a library, and there- locks the door, and turns it out—w fore wholly inaccessible to the masses of a Christian tite, and instinct as sharp as ever-into the sheeppopulation. They could never become the guide walk ! of a Christian people, and to this day have never If the liberated prisoner is caught again, he is yet been translated into the language of any Chris- of course punished for his offences as before? Not tian church. While the Holy Scriptures, on the as before. He receives a hearier punishment, other hand, were universally translated, were small because this is the second time ; because he has in size, convenient for reference, and incomparably more easy to be read, studied, and understood, than yielded to an uncontrollable fate ; because he has the endless intricacies and scholastic niceties of the done what he could hardly by possibility avoid Bullarium. I said that men in England would doing. The magistrate examines the record, disargue thus, and would feel that they should lose covers a former conviction, and is indignant at the rather than gain by exchanging their Bible for the depravity which took no warning, but on the conBullarium—the Holy Scriptures for the papal bulls.

trary, after a wholesome chastisement, gave itself (pp. 164—176.)

up anew to crime. The poor wretch is awe-struck How wonderful is the self-deception in which by the dignity of virtue, and is too much abashed to men of great learning and considerable intellectual offer even the poor excuse, But I was hungrypower will indulge themselves, when wedded to a I had not a penny-no one would give me work system!

To ascertain the authenticity, and valid —what could I do?'' ity, and meaning of every bull in the Bullarium, In Manchester, we are told in the Daily News, is maintained by this Roman professor to be a work it is the custom of the criminal class to celebrate the void of all difficulty ; but to do the same with iberation of a comrade by a day of carousal. They respect to the Holy Scriptures, is a matter encom- wait at the door of the prison, carry him off in passed with difficulties. The Bullarium may be triumph, and thus guard against any extraordinary taken as a very convenient and simple rule of faith, circumstance, any exception to the general rule, but the Bible is quite unfit to serve the purpose! which might occur to save him. But of late years,

Among other arguments adduced in favor of the it seems, an opposition has started ; an influence Church of Rome, was one derived from the success of an opposite kind is lying in wait, and now and of its missionary labors; and the conversation on then a brand is plucked from the burning. This this point so completely shows the character of the opposing force, it may be thought, is the respectmissionary labors of that corrupt church, and what able class of Manchester, who have thus arrayed value is to be attached to their accounts of the themselves against the criminal class. Alas! no. success of their missions, that we should have been The good angel is a solitary individual—a humble glad to present it to our readers. But our limits for- workman in a foundry, who obeys the Divine imbid us to do so. It will be found in pp. 190—196. pulse without knowing why ; and, without a theory

We strongly recommend Mr. Seymour's volume or a plan, neutralizes alike the destinies of the to public attention, as containing one of the best law, and the allurements of the law-breakers. and most authentic accounts of the present teaching This individual is Thomas Wright, an old man of the Church of Rome that is easily to be met of threescore-and-ten, and the father of nineteen with, together with remarks upon some of its lead- children. The following account is given by the ing errors, showing considerable acuteness, and an paper we have mentioned of the way in which his intimate acquaintance with the subject.

attention was first attracted to the prison-world :

" There was a man of a sailor-like appearance WHAT BECOMES OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS ?

who had got work at the foundry as a laborer ; he

was a steady and industrious workman, and had No one believes that imprisonment in the usual obtained the favorable notice of Mr. Wright. One way produces reform; and the question, therefore, day the employer came and asked if he (Wright)

-а

6

was aware that they had a returned transport in suades the former employer to give the erring the place ? He had learned that the sailor was another trial. Sometimes he becomes guarantee such. Mr. Wright desired to be allowed to speak for their honesty and good conduct-for a poor with the man, and ascertain the fact. Permission man, in considerable sums, -£20 to £60. la was given ; and during the day he took a casual only one instance has a bond so given been foropportunity, not to excite the suspicions of the feited, and that was a very peculiar case. The other workmen, of saying to the man, “My friend, large majority keep their places with credit to where did you work last?' 'I've been abroad,' themselves and to their noble benefactor. Most was the reply. The man was not a liar. After of them-for Mr. Wright never loses sight of a some conversation, he confessed, with tears in his man he has once befriended, through his own negeyes, that he had been a convict. He said he was lect-attend church or Sunday-school, adhere to desirous of not falling into ill courses, and kept their temperance pledges, and live lionest and his secret, to avoid being refused work if he told reputable lives. And all this is the work of one the truth. Wright was convinced that in the unaided, poor, uninfluential old man ! What, future he would act honestly, and, repairing to their indeed, might he not do were he gifted with the common employer, begged, as a personal favor, fortune and the social position of a Howard ?” that the man might not be discharged. He even There are probably very few Mr. Wrights in offered to become bound for his good conduct. Manchester or anywhere else ; but there are hunThis was ten years ago ; and the prejudice against dreds of individuals in every large town in the persons who had ever broken the law was more empire who would cheerfully subscribe a small intense than it is now." There were objections ; sum each to aid in the institution of a society for and other partners had to be consulted in so delicate doing on a large scale what Mr. Wright does with a matter. Great numbers of men were employed the limited means and power of an individual. in the foundry; and should the matter come to This, we presume to think, would be the noblest their knowledge, it would have the appearance to of all charities. It would not, like some other them of encouraging crime. This was on the day public charities--including the work-house-rob of paying wages for the week. Before night, men of their social rights, and withdraw them from however, Wright had the satisfaction to obtain a their social duties. It would restore to them the promise that, upon his responsibility, the convict one by leading them back to the other ; it would should be kept. The following day Wright went turn felons into citizens; and, in fine, it would to look after his protégé-he was gone. On in- save the country the expense of one or more new quiring, he found he had been paid off and dis- convictions and new imprisonments for every man charged the previous night. It was a mistake. rescued. Do not let us be told of impossibility, The first orders for his dismissal had not been or even difficulty, in the face of the fact, that in countermanded, and gone he was. Mr. Wright ten years three hundred felons have been saved at once sent off a messenger to the man's lodging from a continuance in a life of villany by a poor to bring him back to the foundry. He returned workman in a foundry ! only to say the man had left his lodgings at five o'clock in the morning, with a bundle containing

From the Spectator. all his property under his arm." In short, not- GERMAN TRAVELLERS ON NORTH AMERICA. * withstanding every effort of this henevolent person

When so much is done by English travellers of to find him, the poor convict was never more all grades of opinion to diffuse a knowledge of heard of.

American peculiarities—when, thanks to the gosThis incident made Mr. Wright think as well as feel. The case was only a solitary one. He

siping book, and the files of very national journals, had been attracted to the man by the mere circum- characteristics of the genus Yankee that we can

that so often cross the Atlantic, we have such stance of their passing a portion of the day at the define it almost more accurately than the genus same work ; but were there not hundreds of other Cockney, we should hardly go to Leipzig or Drescases, of equal exigence, which had as strong a den in search of new information on the matter. claim upon his sympathy? He went to the New It was not, therefore, to find new objects that we Bailey, and conversed with the prisoners, passing referred to the volumes of Herren Naumann and with them his only day of rest—Sunday. The Ziegler, but to learn the effect which such objects jealousy with which the authorities at first viewed might have when impinging upon the German his proceedings was gradually changed into appro- mind.

When you cannot vary your actual landbation ; and at length, when a prisoner was about to be discharged, he was asked if he could find the scape, you may at any rate vary your point of view.

The first of the two books is a voucher for the man a situation.

He did so. “ This was the commencement of his ministry of love. In ten versions have so greatly stirred the bile of Brother

reports of those English travellers whose animadyears from that time he had succeeded in rescuing upwards of three hundred persons from the career

* Nordamerika, sein Volksthum und seine Institutionen.

Von Jakob Naumann. (North America, its National of crime. Many of these cases are very peculiar; Peculiarities and its Institutions.) Leipzig. very few, indeed, have relapsed into crime. He Skizzen einer Reise durch Nordamerika und Westinhas constantly five or six on his list, for whom he dien. Von Alexander Ziegler. (Sketches of a Journey

through North America and the West Indies. By A. is looking out for work. Very frequently he per-Ziegler.) Dresden and Leipzig.

a

Jonathan. The very peculiarities which offend | ant, in my opinion, can select no place of settlement Herr Naumann are those which have been found more favorable than Wisconsin. most offensive to the British visitor. With a true Still more is he in favor of an immigration of Trollopian sensitiveness, he shrinks from the to- German women to this infant State. bacco-chewing, the hat-wearing, and the feet-upon

In the newly-settled countries, the want of marthe-table-placing, which he has found so prevalent riageable women is first discernible, since in them, in the United States. Accustomed probably to including Wisconsin, males only settle first, and some easy German church, which jogs on with endeavor to gain a subsistence. Most of the menscarcely any faith at all, he sees little to admire and there are several of tolerable education in Milin the religious toleration of America, where people waukee-have a business which supports them, and are at least in earnest about their creed, and where possess all that they desire, except a wife. of fanaticism exists in the multitude, though not in great want; and I do not doubt that an emigration

young, and especially educated women, there is a the governınent; and in this respect he doubtless of female candidates for matrimony, under careful feels more strongly than an Englishman, who per- superintendence, would have a successful result, fectly understands the sentiment, though he may and produce beneficial effects in Wisconsin. Í wonder at its exaggeration. The violence of assume that Germany is sufficiently provided with popular outbreaks, the too frequent impotence of such women; as I do not doubt, ihough I would

add the proviso that they must be young. The laws, the recklessness of speculation, all come in

census of 1840 gave in the territory of Wisconsin for their share of censure; and he has a due Euro- (not then a State) a male population of 18,600, and pean horror of negro slavery. Here he is greatly a female population of 11,900. The German girls, solaced by the fact, (stated by a work published at on account of their industry, their modesty, and their Philadelphia in 1836,) that notwithstanding the domestic character, are highly prized throughout German settlers in the United States amount to America ; and if they can heighten their own inmany millions, some of whom have acquired large lish language, they may easily make the most bril

trinsic attractions by some proficiency in the Engfortunes, not one was ever known to speculate in

liant conquests. The respect, or rather reverence, slaves.

of the Americans for the fair sex, is renowned all To the Americans this book may prove so far over the world ; and the women will more easily useful, that they will see that the observations than the men find a paradise on the other side of made by the English on their manners and customs the Atlantic. The American ladies have beauty are not solely to be attributed to national animosity. and grace to the highest degree ; and everywhere Here is a German, whose nation has had no quar

receive the greatest attention and gallantry on the rel with our relations, who goes to look at the part of the gentlemen ; indeed, a lady, protected

more by the general respect than by laws and concountry as a place of settlement for his compatriots, stitution, may travel unimpeded from one end of the and returns with precisely the same animadversions Union to the other, without encountering anything which have been made by Englishmen over and unpleasant from the other sex. over again.

Notwithstanding the various habits that appear Herr Ziegler, the author of the second book, uncouth to Europeans, we hope this estimate of seems to have visited America with a more im

American gallantry to the fair sex is not exaggermediate design of finding a locality for poor Ger

ated. man emigrants, and comes back much better pleased with his tour than Herr Naumann. The new

THREE DAYS OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. State of Wisconsin, with its city of Milwaukee, the first settlement, especially fixes his attention as a desirable point for emigration. The rapid En Europe ! en Europe ! Esperez! Plus d'espoir! advance of this State strikes him with amazement.

- Trois jours, leur dii Colomb, et je vous donne un inonde.

“ Back to Europe, again, let our sails be unfurled !” In the second year of the foundation, (says he,) in • Three days,” said Columbus,“ and I give you June, 1836, the city of Milwaukee already numbered a world !" 1,200 inhabitants, who, in September, 1843, had And he pointed his finger, and looked through the increased to 7,000, and now exceed 12,000. No country upon earth can exhibit such astounding re- As if he beheld the bright region at last. sults in the increase of population as America - He sails—and the dawn, the first day, quickly that youthful, fresh America, which ever sends forth

leads : new blossoms. Rochester, in the State of New He sails—and the golden horizon recedes : York, was formerly regarded as the city which ex- He sails—till the sun, downward sinking from hibited the most rapid increase of population ; since, having been founded in 1812, it numbered in 1820 Hides the sea and the sky with their limitless -namely, after a lapse of eight years—1,500 in

bluehabitants. Milwaukee, after the lapse of the same On, onward he sails, while in vain o'er the lee period from its foundation, contained above 6,000 Down plunges the lead through the fathomless sea ! inhabitants,-more than four times the population of Rochester. The Germans in this city carry on The pilot, in silence, leans mournfully o'er a considerable business. The trades and professions The rudder, which creaks ’mid the dark billows' are fully employed ; artisans and daily laborers

roar; earning from three fourths of a dollar to a whole He hears the hoarse moan of the waves rushing dollar per day, and work being never deficient. past, German landlords do a thriving trade; and the peas- | And the funeral wail of the wind-stricken mast;

FROM THE FRENCH OF DELAVIGNE.

Vast,

view,

a

tear.

a

The stars of far Europe have fled from the skies, Who with loud mimic thunderbolts slaughter the And the Cross of the South meets his terrified

host eyes;

Of the unarmed people that cover the coast. But at length the slow dawn, softly streaking the He sees the fair palace, the temple on fire, night,

And the peaceful Cazique 'mid their ashes expire ; Illumes the dark dome with its beautiful light. He sees, too-oh, saddest! oh, mournfullest “ Columbus ! 't is day, and the darkness hath past !" sight !

Day! and what dost thou see?"_“I see The crucifix gleam in the thick of the fightnought but the Vast !”

More terrible far than the merciless steel

Is the uplifted cross in the red hand of zeal !
What matter! he's calm!—but ah, stranger, if you
Had your hand on his heart with such glory in He sees the earth open and reel to and fro,
view;

And the wretches who breathe in the caverns Had you felt the wild throb of despair and delight

below. That depressed and expanded his bosom that night; Poor captives! whose arms, in a languid despair, The quick alternations as morning came near,

Fall fatigued on the gold of the rocks that they The chill and the fever, the rapture and fear, You would feel that such moments exhausted the Pale spectres ! whose agonized cries, uncontrolled, rage

Seek the light of that sun that they're ne'er to And the multiplied malice and pains of an age

behold. You would say these three days half a lifetime have They struggle, they pant ’mid the pestilent dews,

slain, And his fame is too dear at the price of such pain. Till a long, lingering death, in the cavern’s dim

And by labor escape the sharp whip that pursues, Oh! who can describe what the crushed heart must Consigns them at length to eternity's night!

light, bear The delirium of hope and the lonely despair

Columbus, oppressed by this vision of pain, Of a Great Man unknown, whom his age doth Scares it off from his feverish pallet and brain ; despise

It dwindleth, it melteth, it fades from his eye, As a fool, "mid the vain vulgar crowd of the wise! As a light passing cloud in the depths of the sky. Such wert thou, Galileo ! Far better to die

All is changed !-he beholds in the wilds of the Than thus by a horrible effort to lie!

north, When you gave, by an agony deep and intense,

Full of strength, full of hope, a new empire spring That lie to your labors, your reason, your sense,

forthTo the Sun—to the Earth—to that Earth, we Its people oppressed, as the war-cry goes round, repeat,

Seize the peaceable ploughshare that surrows their That you trembled to feel moving under your feet !

ground, The second day's past—and Columbus ?-he sleeps, As it turned into cities their forests of shade.

Or that creature of iron which lately they swayed While Mutiny round him its dark vigil keeps : “ Shall he perish ???—“ Death! death!" is the

They have conquered !—they show him with grate mutinous cry,

ful acclaim “ He must triumph to-morrow, or perjured must Their Hero, their Washington-type of that namedie !!!

O The ingrates! Shall his tomb on to-morrow be Need we doubt of thy virtue, or mocking adore.

Cincinnatus and Cato! no more

sage made

He has caused our weak hearts that strange granOf that sea which his daring a highway hath made?

deur to feel, Shall that sea on to-morrow, with pitiless waves,

And conceive what corruption till now could conFling his corse on that shore which his longing eye

ceal. craves ?

In the council, a Sage by the Hero is seen, The corse of an unknown adventurer then

And not less revered 'neath a different mien. One day later-Columbus, the greatest of men !

He rules, he discovers, and daringly brings He dreams, how a veil drooping over the main

Down the lightning from Heaven and the sceptre Is rent, at the distant horizon, in twain,

from kings. And how, from beneath, on his rapturous sight Burst at length the New World from the dark- At length, o'er Columbus, slow consciousness

breaksness of night! Oh, how fresh! oh, how fair the new virgin earth

“ Land! land !" cry the sailors, “land ! land!"

he awakesseems! With gold the fruits glisten, and sparkle the He runs-yes! behold it !—it blesseth his sight

The land! O sweet spectacle! transport! de

light! Green gleams on the mountains, and gladdens the

o generous sobs which he cannot restrain! isles, And the seas and the rivers are dimpled with What will Ferdinand say ? and the Future? and smiles.

Spain?

He will lay this fair land at the foot of the throne Joy! joy!” cries Columbus, “this region is

His king will repay all the ills he has knownmine!"Ah! not even its name, hapless dreamer, is thine! In exchange for a world what are honors and

gains ? Soon changes that dream from a vision so fair,

Or a crown? but how is he rewarded ?-with For he sees that the merciless Spaniards are there,

Dublin Univ. Mag.

streams

a

From Chambers' Journal. Professor Pictet, of Geneva, who paid much NATURE'S ICE-CAVES.

attention to this natural phenomenon, and has

published a scientific communication upon the subSome curious and but little-known facts upon ject, in a tour in the same regions, visited another natural ice-houses having turned up in the course natural ice-cave, of almost equal celebrity, called of our reading, we are tempted at this time, when St. George's. This cave is let out to a peasant, the production of cold is becoming almost as by the commune to which it belongs, for a small necessary as that of heat for domestic comfort, to annual rental, for the sake of the beautiful ice set them in some sort of order. When it is borne which it produces. In ordinary years, the cave in mind that the natural refrigeratories of which supplies only the families in the immediate vicinwe are about to speak abound in the production of ity ; but when a mild winter is succeeded by a clear, massive, and valuable ice, and yet that they broiling summer, even Geneva itself, although often exist in places where the mean or average several leagues distant, receives its store from this temperature is far above the freezing-point, we are source. At such seasons, every second day a justified in claiming a peculiar interest for our heavily-laden wagon proceeds from the ice-cave article. Many of these natural storehouses of to the hospital at Geneva, which purchases the cold are highly estimated in the districts where whole quantity, and retails it at a profit to the they occur, and furnish in various instances enor- confectioners of the town-a trade by which its mous supplies of ice at a period when every other revenues are considerably augmented. This cavsource is either unavailable or exhausted. ern is entered by two well-like pits, down which

Several natural ice-houses exist in the chain of the visitor must descend by a ladder. The bottom the Jura Mountains. Some of these have been is a solid bed of ice, and its form is that of a lofty long known to a few scientific travellers, and have hemispherical vault about twenty-seven feet in formed the “ Jions" of the unimportant districts in height, which is covered by a stratum of calcareous which they are situated. Perhaps one of the best rock only eighteen inches thick. The length is known is called La Beaume, and has been described seventy-five feet, its width forty feet. A regular in most interesting terms by several men of science set of ice-masons are engaged in excavating the who have visited it. M. Prévost, who made a sparkling solid. It is cut with appropriate tools scientific tour in the region, has related the fol- into long wedges, and then divided by transverse lowing particulars concerning it : Situated in the cuts about a foot distant from each other, by which above-named locality, it is a grotto or cavern hol- means blocks of ice a cubic foot in dimensions are lowed out in a naturally low hill, the average tem- detached. After a certain quantity has been perature of its position being considerably above quarried out, it is carried in hods to a magazine 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the freezing-point. From near the place, where the wagons are loaded. the peculiarity of its aperture and general form, Some idea may be formed of the severity of the no snow can enter, and therefore the internal cold cold inside, when it is mentioned, that, although of this place cannot be due to any external cause. the thermometer in the shade was at 63 degrees The cavern is upwards of 300 feet in length, and Fahrenheit outside, it was at 34 degrees Fahrenat its widest is about 100 feet, and is naturally heit, or only two degrees from the freezing mark divided into three compartments. The traveller inside ! That even a more severe cold than this visited it in the middle of August, on a broiling, exists during the most broiling summer day, is scorching day, and, on entering it, experienced the evident from a fact mentioned by the workmen, most severe and penetrating cold. “ The first that if two blocks are left in contact for a little object,” he says,

that struck my eyes was a mass while, they become so firmly frozen together, as of ice fed by the water which distilled constantly, to require to be re-cut to separate them. Now it drop hy drop, from a sort of spring in the roof." is an extraordinary fact, that the temperature of a The whole cavern was covered with a sort of glit- spring which bubbled from the rock at a liule distering pavement, clear as crystal, of ice a foot tance did not indicate in the remotest manner the thick. In it were numerous holes containing existence of such a degree of cold in its source, water of intense coldness, by sounding which, the as it was as high as 51 degrees. Hence it was thickness of the pavement was easily ascertained. evident that the cause of the frigorific effects was This, it will be observed, is the scene in summer. purely local, and confined to the cave and its imThe winter comes, and all is changed: the crys- mediate vicinity. talline pavement mells, and runs away into water ; In this cave, as in the last, the ice disappears the solid masses of ice are no longer visible ; and in winter; and, singular to say, the holter the the cavern is actually warmer than the external summer, in both cases, the more abundant the proair ; and during all this period a thick mist issues ductiveness of the caves in this substance! Had constantly from its mouth, and fills its interior. the cave been the work of some ingenious artist, Surely here is a paradox, which, at a less enlight- one would scarcely have felt surprise at the exactened and more illiberal period, would have been ness of its adaptation for the production of ice ;

one of the improbable series called and it must be considered, with the rest of the travellers' tales. The fact, however, can be well cases to be quoted, as a rare illustration of an authenticated, and will receive abundant corrobora- apparently fortuitous arrangement of inanimate tion in the many similar examples we shall ad- nature, fulfilling in the most complete manner all duce.

the functions of a special contrivance. But, as

scouted as