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parture from the recognised character of the plant is held to be justification for the invention of a name and a learned descrip-. tion. This downward and analytic progress is the natural course of science in its infancy, and most of our sciences are in their infancy. The synthesis of science, the philosophy of the future, is as yet far off; our present business can scarcely extend beyond investigating and cataloguing facts. Dr. Collingwood has not toiled in vain. He has added many facts to the common store; and among the most curious of these is his discovery of a new genus of crab, which Mr. Spence Bate has named Sphærapoia, the particular species described being called, in compliment to its discoverer, S. Collingwoodii. This little creature, which he familiarly calls the pill-making crab, is very curious in its habits. Dr. Collingwood observed that after the tide had gone down, the soft sand of the beach was perforated by a large number of small holes, these being joined together by little radiating paths, between which the sand itself was in minute balls or pellets proportionate to the size of the holes. We shall allow him to describe in his own language the capture of two of these small engineers :

to me the domestic economy of these birds. In or variety that the most infinitesimal dethe open places, and under the shelter of the bushes, the mother gannets were sitting upon their nests and eggs. The nests were mere hollows in the coral sand, strewed with a few bits of grass, with some admixture of feathers, and perhaps a piece of seaweed, forming, at best, a very rude cradle, in which were deposited two eggs. These eggs were about the size of goose eggs, white, with a suspicion of a blue tinge, not smooth and glossy like hens' eggs, but more or less scratched, as though the scratches were made when the external coat was soft, and had afterwards dried, preserving the marks. One nest alone contained four eggs. The poor bird sitting upon the nest would show symptoms of uneasiness as we approached, pecking the ground or coarse grass fiercely with its long, straight beak, but did not offer to quit the nest until we were within two or three yards of it, or even less. Then placing the end of its bill upon the ground, with a gulping effort it vomited up its meal, depositing it beside the nest, and, floundering forward, took wing and rose into the air. This was the proceeding at nearly every one of the hundreds of nests which we disturbed; it was evident that the birds had just gorged themselves with food, and then sat down upon their eggs (unless, indeed, their mates had brought them food, a circumstance which I did not see myself), and that they were unable to raise themselves off the ground until they had got rid of the superfluous weight in their stomachs. On examining the vomited food, I found it to consist invariably of flying-fish, generally of a large size, and usually but slightly digested. There were sometimes six or seven of these fish, in other instances only three or four, and in two or three cases a squid or two intermixed with them. But what numbers of flying-fish must exist in the neighborhood to afford such a daily supply to so large a number of birds! and yet we did not see a trace of flying-fishes about the island, and might otherwise have supposed there were none. Meanwhile the gannets formed a thick cloud overhead, the noise of whose screams and the rustling of whose wings formed a wild accompaniment of sound. They flew so close overhead that we could have knocked them down with a stick in any numbers, and I was obliged to wave my gun about as I walked along, in order to keep them from carrying away my hat. By degrees the birds rose higher, and those we had disturbed returned to their nests as soon as we had passed a few yards beyond."

"On the first approach, a peculiar twinkle on the sand was visible, which required a quick eye to recognise as a simultaneous and rapid retreat of all the little crabs into their holes, not a single one remaining visible. Kneeling down and remaining motionless for a few minutes, I noticed a slight evanescent appearance, like a flash or bursting bubble, which the eye could scarcely follow. This was produced by one or more of the little crabs coming to the surface, and instantly darting down again, alarmed at my proximity. It was only by patiently waiting, like a statue, that I could get them to come out and set to work. They were of various sizes, the most common being that of a largish pea. Coming cautiously to the mouth of the hole, the crab waited to reconnoitre, and if satisfied that no enemy was near, it would venture about its own length distant from the mouth of its hole; then rapidly taking up particles of sand in its claws or chele, it deposited them in a groove beneath the thorax. As it did so a little ball of sand was rapidly projected as though from its But the pleasure of watching the habits mouth, which it seized with one claw and deof a well-known animal under new circum- posited on one side, proceeding in this manner stances is nothing to the delight of discover-until the smooth beach was covered with these ing a new creature. This is a piece of good fortune which not every naturalist enjoys in his life; and the chances against his doing so are, of course, yearly increasing. Especially in botanical investigations we find learned men so anxious to claim the honour of having discovered a new species

little pellets, or pills, corresponding in size to its own dimensions and powers. It was evidently its mode of extracting particles of food from the sand. I made many attempts to catch one before I could succeed, so swift were they in their movements. Preparing my right hand, and advancing it cautiously, I darted it out as rapily as I could to secure the crab; but it was

becoming heterodox (we do not, of course, refer to religious matters only) that our only notion of safety is to keep shouting lustily that we are quite orthodox. In our easy English fashion we have a liking for well

too quick, and had regained its hole. At length,,| desire evinced, by the orthodox of mankind, after repeated attempts, I caught two specimens, to put these opinions under the ban of repwhich immediately curled themselves up and robation. We are so much in danger of feigned death. I put one of them on the sand to see what it would do. At first it did not attempt to move; but after a short time, by a twisting and wriggling movement, it rapidly sunk into the sand and disappeared." These quotations may give some indica- established opinions which do not interfere tion of the materials of which Dr. Colling-with our money-making and our good digeswood's book is composed. As we have tion, and we look upon a man who endeavalready hinted, the style of the writing ours to upset these pleasant convictions as might have been somewhat more graphic an enemy to our personal peace. Why should he do this? we ask. Why should he and powerful; and many colourless and uninteresting pages might have been left disturb the kindly processes of living by the out. In these days, however, the book-introduction of these foreign influences? maker afflicts us so sorely with meretricious We look upon him not as a friend, or teacher, compilations of statements which may have or regenerator, but as a provocative, illconditioned person. We Ninevites not been correct at the beginning of the century, but which are now known to be false, that only disbelieve in the individual Jonah, but we ought to welcome the appearance of in the office of Jonah. We are getting on a work which is the result of patient, hon- very well; we want no acceleration of speed, no guidance as to our route. When Jonah est, personal study. comes among us, we first vilify him, and then we try to starve him into silence.

From The London Review. THE PERILS OF HONEST THINKING.

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Now, there are few Jonahs; but there are a great many men among us who have much to say that we ought to know, and who are afraid to say it. It is beside the question THERE is no virtue more highly valued to reply that the ideal teacher should deliver by society than moderation. Society, in- his message irrespective of consequences. deed, only manages to exist by a series of The men of whom we speak are no greater expedient compromises, and quite naturally fools than their neighbours; and they know and properly questions the authority of any that every duty is bounded by conditions of man who endeavours to prove it wholly expediency. There are at present in our wrong. There is less evil wrought by this midst certain men who have influence, conattitude of caution-or even suspicion - siderable influence, the results of which we than one might imagine. When a man has could ill afford to lose, and who are perany real gospel to proclaim, it will survive fectly well aware that to utter their most this test; if his new theory, or hypothesis, advanced opinions, to express their proor doctrine be valueless, it will succumb. foundest convictions, would be the signal for This is the general rule, to which there are the instant losing of what influence they many exceptions. That no truth can be possess. There is scarcely any topic of hustifled is a general and comfortable propo- man interest on which a man who has anysition which no one can safely either affirm thing to say beyond accepted commonplaces or deny, for it does not admit of verifica- dare fully reveal his own mind. In private tion; but that truth may be temporarily these subjects may be discussed openly and stifled is a matter of history. Mr. Mill, if without reserve; in public society imposes, we mistake not, has pointed out that the under threat of perpetual banishment, a suppression of truth, though it cannot injure conventional restraint. Our excessive Engthe truth, nor remove the chances of its be- lish prudery, for example, forbids the dising discovered and preached at some future cussion of certain social questions of the time, may in the mean time seriously injure very highest importance a prudery of the world. While, therefore, society is which our descendants will reap the dire rightly unwilling to leave, at the sudden di- results. There are other social questions rection of one man, the comfortable and which, instead of being frankly debated by medium groove along which it has been run-competent men, in authoritative journals, ning for centuries, it ought not to signify its are left to the clap-trap treatment of lady refusal in unnecessarily strong terms. It is novelists. It is not very desirable that theprobably on account of the many unsettling ories which are likely to influence the eduopinions which we at present hear advanced cation and actions of the next generation on every hand that there is a corresponding should be painted in seductive colours, or

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abused in a rough-and-ready manner, by quently new theories propounded by men persons who have neither the intellect, the whose tongues are unbridled because they education, nor the common sense to know have nothing in the shape of reputation or the ultimate purport of their writing, even influence to lose. Violent regenerators had they any care for such a contingency. who have wonderful social and religious In religious matters we are no better off. panaceas are generally begotten of ignoThe moment a man is suspected of hetero- rance and imprudence, and it not unfredoxy we refuse to hear him with calmness. quently happens that they are taken by orInstead, we welcome the vituperative at- dinary people as the type of the man who tacks of incompetent judges, who strive to has really something valuable to say. Need rebut arguments they do not understand by we wonder that those who have their proinconsiderate abuse. Is our religious faith foundest and sincerest religious sentiments so insecure that we can only hide behind shocked and wounded by the mad escapades hedges and fling stones at our opponents? of such men should acquire a prejudice The attitude of orthodoxy in our day is not against all innovators? The very extravaa very noble one, simply because the de- gance of their proposals, while it destroys fence of orthodoxy has been intrusted to the possibility of their achieving any result those who can use the strongest language. by their doctrines, destroys the chances of Nor is it at all in the interests of truth that acceptation of what is really true in these its opponents should be met in this fashion. doctrines. Against such wild prophets no The odium incurred by any man who strives prejudice can be too strong; but that prejuto establish independent inquiry is sufficient dice should de discriminating, "Contentto deter the most courageous person from ment," says Mr. Alexander Smith, like venturing upon so thankless a task. He the speedwell, blows along the common may study this or that subject in private; beaten way." Contentment is very good; but the results of his inquiry are kept to but it is not everything. Men must from himself, or make their way only by the al-time to time leave the beaten way, make new most unconscious influence he may exert paths for themselves, and thus obey that law upon his companions. One has not lived of progression which is part of their nature. long in London who does not know of many a little coterie of disciples, which has its peculiar tenets and its particular teacher. These people know that to publish any epitome of their belief would only awake rancour. Honest and frank discussion would be advantageous, not only to them, but also to those with whose belief they may happen to differ; but that form of discussion which consists in crying out for a general excommunication of the offenders is an ordeal which no one wishes voluntarily to undergo. Probably these varieties of more or less heretical faith flourish better in this fashion. They go on steadily adding to the number of their adherents, who are the more bound to each other on account of this bond of semi-secrecy and self-devotion. They are the religious Pariahs of England. They are not actively persecuted, but the threat of social persecution always hangs over them. And since the beginning of the world persecution has been the atmosphere in which heresy has best thrived.

But while we deprecate the unjustifiable treatment too often meted out to men whose sole object, instead of being personal advancement or notoriety, is the bettering of society, we would not, on the other hand, advocate the toleration of indifference. As we have already hinted, it is probably owing to the social terrorism hanging over the heads of competent men that we find so fre

We only wish to make such tentative experiments under experienced leadership. We do not desire to follow a will-o'-the-wisp. It is a pity, therefore, that almost the only men who dare to propose advancement to us are those whom we can least trust. And until we distinguish these from our real teachers, or experimenters, and accord to the latter impartial hearing and proper attention, we are not likely to have our religious or social status much elevated.

From The London Review. "LOWDOWNERS."

WE should be sorry to naturalize the word which we have placed at the head of this paper, but it is difficult to find a more expressive or a more appropriate term for the subject to which we are about to refer. In an American magazine (Putnam's), we find an account of a people exhibiting a state of society to which it is instructive to call attention. We are, perhaps, prone at times here, when vexed by some administrative blockheadedness, to wish that we enjoyed what is termed the greater freedom and vivacity of Democratic Government. It is well, therefore, to look occasionally into the conditions of life which now and then spring up in America, and which, cer

tainly, in the following instance, does not provoke our national jealousy.

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they got fifty acres each for nothing, the Major thinks that in twenty years the monA contributor to Putnam's Magazine, who eyed and frugal classes would purchase it was appointed "Bureau Major" over a re- back from them, and the last state of the gion in Western South Carolina, in the Lowdowners would be worse than the first. course of his duties was brought in contact All the ladies smoke: young and old with a caste of the population whom he smoke tobacco. Two, a mother and daughcalls low-down people or Lowdowners. His ter, who called on the Major, asked him for first applicant for relief was a woman who his pipe during the course of conversation. complained that her husband had cut away The brothers of the girl and her father had from her, although he had "contracted to been Lowdowners, and were either killed in keep her for ninety-nine years." When the war or executed as deserters. They asked why she was not regularly married, were as good for nothing as the women. the lady answered that the defaulter The Major is surprised that suicide is not couldn't marry her because he had a wife." more common amongst Lowdowners, but The Major was compelled to say that the gives the proper reason when he states that case was one in which he had no jurisdic- they possess so degraded an ideal of existtion. We are told that the story is typical ence that they are exposed to "no harrowof the moral depravity of the Lowdowners. ing disappointment over its failures." They "The war has left so many wives without are not troubled with either religion or su husbands and so many girls without the chance of marriage. Thirteen thousand men of South Carolina dead in battle or of wounds! .. The state is swarming with widows and girls who emigrate after the garrisons, and lead a life like that of the Wrens of the Curragh.' The soldiers find it difficult to marry, but easy enough to establish other relations with this redundant female populace. Nor do the women shrink from the protection even of the niggers. When their husbands and relatives were out of the way, they accepted them almost cheerfully. Infanticide is unknown, because shame is unknown." Drunkenness is not so common, in consequence of the high price of whisky. "If our vagrant friend," writes the Major, "cannot become the humble retainer of a distillery, taking pay in kind for his services, and consuming himself off the face of the earth with rotgut, he generally limits his enjoyments to hog, hominy, and laziness." The women, it must be said for them, are temperate; the Major says he never saw one of them intoxicated. Nothing can equal the improvidence of the "Lowdowners." What they get by begging they spend at once in tobacco, clothing, and provisions, lying down in a slough of idleness until hunger compels them to some exertion or more begging.

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perstition. They are too gross even to believe in ghosts. The fighting is worse than even in the worst parts of London. The women claw and tear each other on the slightest provocation. A story is told of one "Johnny O'Neil," who stole a negro girl from his neighbours, which would lose its force completely on being translated from the language of the Major. Mr. O'Neil is graphically touched off as one of the reddest of Irishmen, with shining corkscrew ringlets of red hair, sharp features, and snapping green eyes; lean, leathery, crouching, and springy, he so danced about my office in the excitement of telling his story that it seemed as if he might at any moment run up the wall like a lizard or spider." Mr. O'Neil and his neighbours whacked and beat each other in a promiscuous and liberal manner constantly. The national style in which Mr. O'Neil accounted for a brutal attack on an old woman is worth quoting. "Oh, ye can't do anything with those onraisonable crattures," responded Mr. O'Neil. "Sich tempers as they've got! Wouldn't so much as take your letther out of me hands. And now the old woman is going to prosecute me because, she says, I thrampled on her. I can prove on me Bible oath, that all I did was to fall over her as I was athryin' to hand her the letther." It is not It appears numbers of them were de- an uncommon thing for the natives to fire pendents on the wealthy planters, and on off a gun into the dark in the chance of the abolition of the planters they consider killing a man or so, if they hear the least that they have a claim to be fed by the stir. After what the Major describes as a United States. The Major on "draw-day" great_nocturnal fight between the Toneys was besieged with petitioners for alms, who and Fosters, when the Toneys had driven came to take them as if they were bank the Fosters out of their domicile, Mrs. Fosdividends. They all want the land. They ter "hung about the battle-field for an want the forfeited estates given up to them, hour, cursing by herself and meditating proalthough they have no definite ideas what- jects of vengeance. The male Tony, a salever of proceeding to cultivate farms. If low youth of eighteen, hearing some noise

in the neighbouring darkness, got down an ments as were understood amongst them. old musket, and blazed away at a venture, The only good they did was to drive off the sending the bullet through a post not a yard Indians. Where they did for a while atfrom his aunt." When the sister of the tempt to cultivate the land, they exhausted, sportsman was remonstrated with for her but did not improve it. "Outstripped and brother's want of consideration, she naively surrounded at last by the current of civiliremarked, “Wal, folks needn't be hangin' zation, they changed from hunters and backround folks' houses after dark; what else woodsmen to cultivators, but still preserved could they look for but to git shot at?" A a tendency to wandering. The Simminses boy named Langston, only fourteen years have moved from one district to another at old, had applied simultaneously with a least once in every generation. The only negro for the loan of a fishing-net. The exception to this rule is where hordes of boy was refused, and he went home, got a such families have been shut up in some musket, and then lay in wait by the river great stretch of pine barrens, or mountain until the negro came to the bank, when the sterilities, or sea-beaches, into which the lad shot him stone dead. So constant are wealthy landholder has not cared to intrude. outrages amongst the Lowdowners that and from which there was no escape except whenever an affray ends in slaughter, on one by a long migration." They occasionally or both sides, "the respectable portion of attached themselves to great planters, and the community, if it is interested at all, became their bullies and creatures, ready thanks God and takes courage." The Ma- for any crime to which their masters would jor is of opinion that blacks are often potted devote them. Their lives were passed much by the white Lowdowners, simply in what after the manner of our gipsies. They he calls the "exercise of the ordinary pug- sorned, stole, and never by any possibility nacity" of the latter; in point of fact, they worked when they could help it. "Simwent nigger-shooting in order to keep their mins lived off the neighbouring plantations hands in for the more exciting amusement as much as did their proprietor. He was of murdering each other. They could one of the incidental expenses of slavery." not shoot slaves in the good old times with- During the war the Lowdowners tried, out coming in conflict with the slaveowner whenever they did enlist, to slink to the and getting the worst of it." Now, however, they can practice at the manumitted slaves without being interfered with by those who were concerned in the slaves as chattels.

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rear, and procure what they expressively termed bomb-proof places. By this means they contrived to come in for plunder. When Bill and his tribe were discharged or had deserted, they generally returned to their old haunts, where they found their families starving or receiving rations from the Government. It occurred, however, that the Lowdowners did not get as many bomb-proof appointments as they anticipated, and a fair proportion of them were killed or maimed in the war.

The most curious chapter in the strange narrative of the Bureau Major is that in which he traces the development of a Lowdowner, taking a single family to exemplify the process. Bill Simmins is descended from a race of serfs, “indigent, ignorant, stupid, and vicious farm-labourers." He was transported from England for poaching. Such are the Lowdowners. The Major, In due time he goes through the stages of towards the close of his sketches, designates refugee, bushwhacker, and squatter, and them also as "Crackers." He conjectures thinking it time to settle in the world, Bill as to the future that the Lowdowner may be married a London courtesan, who, like him- pushed into the wilds and fastnesses, there self, had been transported and ran wild, and to die like any other savage. It would not gave birth to a tribe which then had no be to the disadvantage of a civilized comspecific name, but which now obtains recog-munity to get him out of the way. We nition under the titles of Crackers, Sand- have our Lowdowners at home, who are our hillers, Meanwhites, and Lowdown people. In the Colonial period the Simminses fought the Indians; in the Revolution". they were Tories, not because they loved the King, or knew anything about him, but because the landed gentry whom they wished to plunder were Whigs." When forced into the militia, they ran away at the first sight of the bayonet. They never could be got to remain long in one spot, even when they had contracted such matrimonial engage

standing shame and disgrace, but we are able to keep them somewhat in check. When the man becomes all wild beast, for our safety we hang him; and we shall have to continue to deal thus stringently with vicious natures if we desire to keep society together. They have, doubtless, tried that system in America also, but find it less troublesome to permit brutal men and women to wander over the vast country, where there is room for them to be lost, or to es

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