to have supported a bronze statue of the Trojan Apollo, supposed to have been the work of Phidias, (B.c. 450); it was of colossal height, bore a sceptre in its right hand, a globe in its left, and a crown of glittering rays upon its head. Although originally modelled for Apollo, Constantine called it after his own name. Glycas says that, towards the close of the reign of Nicephorus Botoniates, (A.D. 1080,) the pillar was struck by lightning, and the statue thrown down-and, according to the inscription upon it, which is given by Wheler, it appears to have been repaired by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus (A.D. 1180.) Whatever the pillar once was, it is now an ugly unshapely mass; and however grand the object may have been for which it was raised, it is unregarded by its present possessors, who seemed to consider that the time I was engaged in examining it would have been much better employed in smoking a pipe at the neighbouring câfé, and I was asked more than once if I was going to take it away, as those around me could not understand the motive for what appeared to them so much useless labour. There was, however, one middle-aged Turk who asked me to smoke a pipe with him, and when we had got fairly seated, he patronisingly recommended me not to employ my time on such old ugly pillars as the one beside us, but said, if I wished something good to paint, that there were some very fine new ones, prettily gilded ana painted. on the top of the new palace on the Bosphorus; the tasteful Turk was describing to me, as works of high art, the chimney-tops of the Sultan's kitchen! W. THE MISSISIPPI SCHEME. THE pages of the Saturday Magazine are, for obvious reasons, kept clear of those exciting topics which engage the attention of politicians; still, there have been events in the past history of nations which are now viewed pretty nearly in the same light by all thinking persons, and which are capable of affording instructive lessons. One such event was the mania-the national insanity, we may almost term it-which seized on the French people, at the early part of the last century, in favour of a speculation known as the MISSISIPPI SCHEME, the professed object of which was to insure large fortunes in a very little time; a plan which is nearly always attended with ruinous consequences. The author of this delusive scheme was one John Law, who was born at Edinburgh, in the year 1671, of wealthy parents; and, after receiving a good education, during which he was known to pay much attention to matters connected with political economy, ran into profligacy and dissipation. He was sentenced to death for having killed in a duel a gentleman whose domestic | original capital, was raised by 200,000 shares, of 500 peace he had destroyed, but was respited, and afterwards made his escape from prison, and fled to Holland, where he became secretary to the British resident. He found means to return to his own country about the year 1700, without molestation, and began to promulgate a scheme for relieving Scotland from some financial difficulties, by the issue of paper money on landed security. This plan was rejected by the parliament, and Law returned to the Continent. He then became a gambler, and such was his skill and address that, by the year 1714, he was master of 110,000., and had managed to gain the good opinion of the King of Sardinia, the Duke of Orléans, the Prince, of Conti, the Duke de Vendôme, and other foreigners of distinction. France at this time was in a desperate state: the expensive wars in which Louis the Fourteenth had been engaged, and the extravagant proceedings of the court, had so reduced the national finances, that it was proposed to sponge out the whole of the national debt. The disgraceful expedient was however rejected by the regent Orléans, and a committee was appointed to inquire what course could be adopted. This was just the state of affairs to suit Law, and he was not slow in taking advantage of it. He proposed to liquidate the national debt by issuing notes secured upon landed property and the roval revenues This plan being rejected, Law proceeded to establish a bank of his own, assisted by those who chose to join him; but after two years, the regent seeing that the new plan promised success, took it into his own hands, and formed a royal bank, of which he made Law the director-general. The time was now ripe for the famous Missisippi scheme, a scheme as stupendous as it was extravagant. France possessed the extensive country of Louisiana, in North America, which is watered throughout its whole extent by the river Missisippi; but as commerce, navigation, and manufactures, were at a stand for want of funds, this colony was of very little use. Law proposed to remedy all these evils at once, by vesting the whole of the privileges, effects, and possessions of all the foreign trading companies, the great farms, the mint, the royal revenues, and the property of the bank, in one great company, who, having thus in their hands all the trade, taxes, and royal revenues, might multiply the notes of the bank to any extent they pleased, doubling or even tripling at will the circulating medium of the kingdom, and, by the immensity of their funds, carry the foreign trade and the improvement of the colonies to a height unattainable by other means. The principles of national wealth were but little understood at that time; and, however wild and chimerical such a scheme may now appear, it was received with avidity by persons of all classes in France, as a sovereign panacea for the distresses of the nation. Letters-patent were granted to the company, under the title of the "Company of the West," and they were authorized to raise a capital of 100,000,000 livres. The company first had a grant of the whole province of Louisiana; then the farming of the revenues on tobacco was made over to them, on the payment of a large sum into the national treasury. Afterwards they became in succession the proprietors of the Senegal Company, the East India Company, the China Company, the South Sea Company, and others, and the company changed its name to the "Company of the Indies." In July, 1718, the mint was made over to them, on the payment of 50,000,000 livres within fifteen months; and afterwards the whole receipt of the revenue was placed in their hands, for a further advance. The company had thus actually obtained, in the course of a few months, all that Law had promised; for they concentrated in themselves nearly all the public and joint-stock wealth of France. The reader may naturally inquire what effect this extraordinary movement produced. The 100,000,000 livres, which constituted the livres each; and after some of the extraordinary grants had been made to the company, the expectation of enormous profits was so general, that people were desirous of becoming shareholders on any terms. The competition for shares speedily raised their price from five hundred to a thousand livres, so that those who had purchased the original shares were now enabled to get cent. per cent. profit on them. But when the royal revenues were placed in the hands of the company, the competition for shares amounted almost to frenzy, insomuch that the price speedily rose to 5000 livres per share. All classes, peers, princes, statesmen, magistrates, clergymen, mechanics, all scraped together what ready money they possessed, and the competition for shares was so great, that the price at last rose to 10,000 livres per share. The effect of this state of things may in some degree be imagined. If a purchaser of the original shares, at 500 livres each, sold them a few months afterwards for 10,000, he had a clear profit of 2000 per cent. But this was not all. When the company was about to be formed, shareholders were permitted to pay for their shares in a depreciated paper currency, called billets d'état, which were not then worth above one-third of their nominal value, but the subsequent price of 10,000 livres was payable in metallic currency; so that in less than twelve months, shares were sold at sixty times the sum they originally cost.. The consequences of this rapid transmission of money from hand to hand, were most startling, and ludicrous stories are related of the effects of the sudden fortunes made by humble individuals. Cook-maids and waitingwomen appeared at the opera bedizened in jewels; and a baker's son purchased the whole contents of a jeweller's shop. As to Law himself, he became in many respects the first man in France; he was made comptroller general of the finances, he possessed the confidence of the regent, and was courted by princes, peers, and marshals, who waited at his levees as if he had been a sovereign. He amassed such immense property, that he was enabled to purchase no less than fourteen estates with titles annexed to them. But such an unnatural state of tnings could not last long; no new wealth had been produced by this scheme, which was nothing but a change of money from one hand to another, by artificial means. The first circumstance which indicated the rottenness of the scheme was the continual demand on the bank for gold and silver specie: the original purchasers of the shares converted their newly acquired property into gold, and sent it out of the kingdom, as a security against the approaching storm; it was estimated that not less than 500,000,000 livres in specie were conveyed out of France. alarmed the government, and it was ordered that small payments only should be made in specie, and soon afterwards that no person should keep more than 500 livres in their possession, the bulk of their money being in notes. This But the finishing stroke was brought on by the following circumstance. The bank, acting in concert with this all-engrossing company, had issued paper money with such rapidity, that by the month of May it amounted to 2,600,000,000 livres, while the whole of the metallic specie of the empire amounted to only about half that sum. It was proposed, therefore, either that the value of a paper livre should be diminished one-half, or that the value of a livre in specie should be doubled, in order to equalize the paper currency with the metallic. This proposal Law opposed, but it was carried against him; and the people were thunderstruck at hearing that the value of the notes was reduced one half. The effect of this breach of national faith was instantaneous; the notes became mere waste paper; those who had gold, feeling that the government which had reduced the value of the notes to one half, might proceed still further, refused to exchange their gold for notes on any terms; and the holders of the notes (amounting to 90,000,000l. sterling English) were reduced to beggary. John Law at once fell from the height of power and became an object of execration, and his life was in danger from the rage of the unfortunate note-holders. He escaped from France, and his immense possessions were confiscated to the crown as having been acquired through unfair means. He wandered from country to country, and experienced a truth which more worthy men have often bitterly felt,-that friends in time of prosperity become strangers with cold hands and hearts, when adversity overtakes those whom they formerly flattered. Law was persecuted nowhere out of France, but he was neglected everywhere, and died a poor man, in the year 1729, before he had passed the middle period of life. Thus ended the Missisippi Scheme; and France had for many years to lament the short-sighted policy which had subjected her to such severe distress. HISTORY OF THE SMALL-POX, AND OF THE MEANS FOR ITS PREVENTION. I. 'ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE SMALL-Pox. ALTHOUGH the details of subjects connected with the practice of medicine can seldom be laid with advantage before the general reader, yet all persons aspiring to a liberal education should make themselves acquainted with the historical and literary portions of these, furnishing, as they frequently do, matter of an interesting and instructive character. Of all subjects of this kind the Small-pox is that which should interest an Englishman most, as it is from the exertions of his countrymen that all the attempts at removing or alleviating this scourge of the human race have emanated. This is literally the case, whether we consider the improved modes of treating the disease, introduced by Sydenham and Cullen, the introduction of inoculation into Europe by Lady Montagu, or the discovery of vaccination by Dr. Jenner. The origin of small-pox is involved in much obscurity, and has given rise to many discussions. While some believe it to be identical with the plague of boils and blains inflicted upon the Egyptians, and with many of the diseases described by the Greek and Roman authors, others consider these analogies to be fanciful. According to the reports of Du Halde and others, this disease has been known in China for 1200 years prior to the Christian era, under the name of Tai-tov, or "Venom from the mother's breast." In Hindostan, also, the Brahmins declare that the disease has been recognized from the remotest antiquity, and that the Vedas contains a form for the adoration of a tutelar deity of the smallpox. Wherever the disease may have originated, the first distinct account we possess of its existence is of its breaking out among the Arabians, at the commencement of the seventh century. This epoch (622) was most favourable for its dissemination, being that in which Mahomet led forth his followers, animated with fanatical zeal, to the conquest of various countries. In thirty years he and his successors had conquered Syria, Egypt, and Persia, and diffused the disease over all these countries. So freely did this diffusion of the malady take place over the Mohammedan empire, that the Saracen physicians founded their treatment on the theory that it arose from a natural change in the human constitution. It spread into Europe during the eighth century, after the conquest of Spain and Sicily; and in 731 the Saracens crossed the Pyrenees, and invaded France. They were repulsed before the walls of Tours, by Charles Martel, yet they left the infection of the small How pox and measles behind them. Mead and others nave attributed the introduction of small-pox into Europe to the returned crusaders; but, although these may have brought fresh irruptions of the disease, it was known two centuries prior to that epoch. The examination of some old Irish MSS., in the Bodleian Library, has led Dr. O'Connor to believe that the ravages of small-pox were known in Ireland as early as 679 and 742. ever this may be, Great Britain could not escape for long a contagion which had overspread Europe; but the earliest accounts antiquarians can discover of its existence here refer to the commencement of the tenth century. In the Harleian and Cotton MSS., at the British Museum, are preserved prayers and exorcisms employed against the small-pox, showing the great terror that then prevailed upon the subject. Amulets, consecrated to St. Nicaise, (who had himself suffered from the disease, when Bishop of Rheims,) were worn as protectives by the nuns. Holinshed is the first English historian who expressly mentions the disease: speaking of the year 1366, he says, "Also manie died of the Small Pocks, both men, women, and children." The disease was transported to the continent of America by the followers of Columbus. Considerable difficulty exists in judging of the extent of the ravages of small-pox in former times. The obscurity of early medical records, and their admixture with monkish fables and miracles, prevent our deriving much information from these sources. Again, as Dr. Moore has observed, the term "plague" or "pestilence" was formerly of much more vague and general application than in our own day, and almost every considerable epidemic was so designated: thus, in translating the Arabic writers upon this subject, the word plague was long used to express the term small-pox, and two very different diseases were confounded under the same title. There is little doubt that some of the pestilences of fire, so frequently raging in France, were attacks of smallpox, and there is reason to believe that the disease was frequent in its recurrence, and terrible in its mortality. In more modern times our accounts, of course, are more authentic. Dr. Jurin has calculated that one out of every fourteen born died of small-pox, and that one out of every five or six affected with the disease perished. Dr. Lettsom proved, from the Bills of Mortality, that the average number of deaths from 1667 to 1722 was to the whole number as 72 is to 1000, and from 1731 to 1772 as 89 to 1000. But in its epidemic visitations this disease is more destructive of human life than the plague itself; and if, as Condamine states, it decimates in civilized life, it almost depopulates when carried among comparatively uncivilized races. Thus the capital of Thibet was after an epidemic deserted for three years, and Dr. Robertson and subsequent writers have described whole nations exterminated by this disease in America. In Russia two millions are said to have died of small-pox in one year, and one half of the persons attacked at Constantinople perished. Dr. Lettsom has calculated that not less than 210,000 fell annually victims to it in Europe, and Bernouilli estimates that not less than 15,000,000 of human beings thus perished in a quarter of a century. The disease seems to have been as fatal at the North Pole as under the Line, for in 1707 about 16,000 persons were carried off in Iceland, and in 1733 Greenland was nearly depopulated by it. It may readily be supposed that so severe a disease as small-pox has called forth numerous proposals for its treatment. It is not our purpose to allude to these. We will only observe that most of the plans put into force originated with the Arabic physicians, or were the offspring of the dominant theory of the day, until the seventeenth century, when Sydenham, after describing the disease with an exactitude which has never been surpassed, and distinguishing it from the measles, with cases, and were the means of rendering inoculation extremely popular in this country. On the Continent, the practice of inoculation met with great opposition. In France, after a vigorous resistance on the part of the clergy and of the faculty of medicine, it was partially introduced in 1755, and the families of the Duke of Orleans and several of the nobility were inoculated. An extraordinarily fatal epidemic of smallpox, however, appearing in Paris in 1763, the government, believing the number of inoculations had caused the spreading of the disease, prohibited the practice. In Hanover, Sweden, and Denmark, the populace long resisted its introduction, and it made slow progress in Prussia and Germany. Catherine of Russia, desiring to set her subjects an example, had her own child inoculated, and the practice soon spread in that country; but, owing to a due want of caution in separating the inoculated from the rest of the community, the small-pox was thereby increased, and Sir A. Crichton states, that prior to the introduction of vaccination, one child in seven died from this terrible disease. The flattering hopes entertained at the introduction o inoculation were not destined then to be realized. It is quite true that the inoculated disease was found to be infinitely less fatal than the natural, for while in this latter, one in six died, in the former, one in fifty, and after the improvements introduced by the Suttons, only one in two hundred died. It is also quite true that the natural small-pox very seldom attacks those who have been inoculated. But the fact which was lost sight of is, that the inoculated small-pox is just as contagious as the natural, and can impart to another as virulent a disease; so that, by thus diffusing inoculation, the number of centres or foci of infection were increased, and the disease spread over a wider surface; and, although individuals received security from inoculation, the community at large suffered. Thus, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, one-fourteenth of the mortality arose from the small-pox, while during the last thirty years of that century, when inoculation was in full vogue, that proportion arose to one-tenth. In the epidemic of 1796, 3549 persons lost their lives in London; and just before the introduction of vaccination, the total number of deaths in England from this disease was estimated at 45,000 annually. In Sweden and Spain, into which kingdom inoculation was scarcely admitted, the deaths from small-pox were fewer than in those countries into which it had been more freely introduced. This result could never have been prevented but by the adoption of two systems, both of which were impracticable, viz., universal inoculation, or where this was partial, the entire seclusion of those subjected to the operation. which it had been confounded, laid down principles of treatment, which were founded in common sense and exact observation. We will pass on at once to the introduction of the practice of inoculation. The principle upon which this practice is founded is this, that smallpox rarely occurs twice in the same individual, and if the disease be communicated purposely to persons, by inserting some of the matter of the disease into their skin, they become subjected to a much milder disease, which is nearly equally as efficacious in protecting them from a second attack as when it occurs spontaneously in its severer form. It would seem that for some centuries the custom of what is called "sowing the small-pox has been known in China, and the Brahmins are said long to have been in the habit of following this practice, accompanying the operation with solemn prayers, addressed to the deity of the small-pox. The Circassians and Georgians, again, call it "buying the small-pox," and are accustomed to make a small nominal present of fruit to the person from whom the matter is received. It is, however, from Constantinople that we directly received our information. Notices of the practice of "engrafting the small-pox," as it was then called, as performed in that city, were published in London and Venice, in 1703, by persons who had witnessed its success; but it obtained little or no notice until 1717, when the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who had accompanied her husband, then ambassador to the Ottoman Court, attracted general attention to it in one of her letters. In this she informed the public that a number of old women were in the habit of conducting the operation at Constantinople, with little inconvenience and the happiest results. Her own children were inoculated, as also were, shortly after, those of the Princess of Wales. The practice, now become fashionable, extended among persons of high rank. It was, however, soon discovered that the reports from Constantinople had been exaggerated, and it was found that the inoculated smallpox was occasionally a severe, and sometimes a fatal, disease. Some deaths occurring after inoculation, though in a very much less proportion than after the natural disease, a most determined opposition was organized against the practice. Many medical men opposed it, as an unjustifiable experiment, and several divines as an immoral proceeding, in attempting thus to arrest the decrees of Providence, and consenting to the selfinfliction of a disease, which in its course might carry the individual prematurely before his Maker. The most eminent of the faculty of physic, however, approved of the practice, and several celebrated divines, among whom were Bishop Maddox and Dr. Doddridge, having convinced themselves of the efficiency of inoculation, proclaimed it as a Christian duty to endeavour by its means to diminish the fatality of small-pox. So slow at first, however, was the progress of inoculation, that only 897 persons were inoculated in eight years; and after a somewhat further trial, the practice seemed to be about to be relinquished, when news arrived of the wonderful success which had followed its adoption among the Indians of South America and the inhabitants of South Carolina. These successes determined public opinion much in favour of inoculation, and, in 1746, the small-pox hos-accepted with honour; and lays claim to nothing in return, pital was established for conferring the benefit upon the poorer classes, which had hitherto been confined to the wealthy. The operations in S. Carolina were performed by the planters themselves, and it has been remarked that these were frequently more successful when conducted by non-professional persons. This is supposed to have arisen from the custom which then prevailed among the profession of encumbering the practice with a number of needless precautions and restrictions, and the administering an unnecessary quantity of drugs. This opinion would seem to be confirmed by the success which attended the practice of the Suttons, two empirics, who, by simplifying the treatment adopted, met with few fatal THOUGH Justice has been called an "hobbling old dame, who cannot keep pace with Generosity," yet it is the hobbling old dame who creates confidence, and confidence is the firmest root of love, respect, and gratitude. Generosity may come with holiday gifts, but justice fills our cup with everyday comfort. We cannot live upon gifts; if we do we are degraded. Justice offers nothing but what may be but what we ought not even to wish to withold.- Woman's Rights and Duties. THE rubbing of the eyes doth not fetch out the mote, but makes them more red and angry; no more doth the distraction and fretting of the mind discharge it of any illhumours, but rather makes them more abound to vex us. BISHOP PATRICK. LONDON': JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS, PRICE SIXPENCE. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. |