THE EXTINGUISHERS.

THE lane through which I was winding my way was by no means agreeable. It was narrow and dirty: the hedgerows were thick and high on each side; and where I could catch a glimpse of the landscape through them, it seemed flat and unpromising. I was just thinking how pleasant a little society would be, when a stranger overtook me. He entered at once into conversation with an insinuating ease, talked not too much, and, when I spoke, listened with a pleasing smile, that had in it nothing of the sneer, the sardonic grin. I was struck at the first glance by the gentlemanly elegance of his appearance. He was like the hero of a novel, tall and finely formed; his face, as every gentleman's ought to be, was pale and sallow; his hair black and curling; his eyes-by Jove, such eyes!-they flashed electric fire. It might be that there was something peculiar in his walk, but if he were lame, he contrived, like Byron, to conceal the defect so well, that I, like Moore with his friend, could not discover on which foot he halted.

We had not proceeded very far, when a large building on my right attracted my attention. "I know nothing of the localities or curiosities of this country," said I; may I ask what that is?"

"That," he replied, " is an extinguisher manufactory."

"Bless my life!" I exclaimed, "what a number of lights must be burnt here!"

"The lights are not so numerous as you imagine," answered he;" and I should rather argue, that where so many extinguishers are used there are few lights." And now I thought his lip curled with something like satire or quiz. I felt a little puzzled, and was silent. After some time he resumed," You seem, permit me to say, quite in the dark about this country; I happen to possess some influence in it, and will gladly show you everything worthy your attention. That town which you see is ***; but we are now at the gate of this extinguisher manufactory: will you take a look at it before entering the town?" Willingly," replied I; "to say the truth, I feel rather curious about it."

66

My courteous companion rang the bell, and, as he seemed perfectly well known to every one in the establishment, we were, in a few minutes, ushered into the principal work-room of the manufactory. I expected to hear the noise of the hammer and the saw; but no, here was only the noise of the tongue, and the rustling of paper; for, be it known, the extinguishers were made of paper. And now I began to see daylight in the business of this manufactory. About a hundred youths, of different ages, were busily employed in fixing on their heads, the caps, or extinguishers, as my genteel friend chose to call them, which the principal of the manufactory, assisted by half-a-dozen workmen, prepared for them. Some large-headed fellows had their extinguishers merely perched on their crowns: others, who seemed to wince under the pressure, although it was only of paper, had theirs perched on one side. Of some, these extraordinary head-pieces descended to the brows; of others, they completely covered the eyes. And I observed, that this seemed "the consummation devoutly to be wished;" for such as had succeeded in covering their orbs of vision were regarded with delight by the men, and with envy by the boys. It was painful to one to see young creatures torment themselves thus. My quick-seeing companion read what was passing in my mind, and said, "You would not feel thus, did you know

how necessary this is for their future happiness. In this country every man wears an extinguisher on his head; and the sooner he learns to fit it firmly on, and not to look beyond its edge, the better for him. It is true, there are some who have ventured to throw off this head-gear, which has been worn among us some hundreds of years." "But what have been the fatal consequences?" interrupted the manufacturer, stepping forward to take part in the conversation; "crime, misery, anarchy!” "Yes, yes," said the stranger a little briskly; "I know all that you would say, respected Sir,"-(then aside, "a prosing old fellow !")—" and no one would regret it more than I, if the extinguishing system were given up." "You would have reason, Sir; compression of the brain-" "Exactly so, my dear Sir: a brain well squeezed is like a squeezed orange; nothing valuable left in it; and there is nothing like a shade over the eyes to keep one in the right path. Good morning, good morning to you. My friend, I believe, is satisfied."

As we

We pursued our way to the town for some time in silence. entered it, my companion said, "You seem thoughtful. I am sorry to see it: I hate thinking: gaiety for me! But revenons à nos moutons. Do you see that splendid pile of buildings-almost a little town? That is another extinguisher manufactory."

"The devil, it is!"

Here he gave me a peculiar flash from his left eye. Why, what a nation yours is!"

"O, Sir, it is a brave nation! As my friend Shakspeare says, we write brave verses, swear brave oaths, and break them bravely. I need not take you through that manufactory. It differs but little from that which you have seen it is only on a larger scale, and here they make extin guishers for men's heads instead of for boys. Some of them are made of parchment,-8 capital thing! some of old fusty paper, such as they say was used in Greece and Rome for similar purposes: however, that I much doubt; some, they positively assert to be of the same manufacture as those which the early Christians wore; in these there is an astonishing variety. Suffice it, that all our extinguishers, of whatever they may be made, answer the desired end of preventing expansion of brain and extension of vision."

By this time we had reached the market-place of the town. Apparently the public mind was much disturbed. A vast number of the honest citizens were assembled together, holding forth with noisy vehemence, nodding their coned heads, and trying to peep from under their paper shades.

"What the deuce is the matter ?" said I.

"It is all their cursed meddling in this extinguisher business," my all-knowing companion replied. "You must be aware that the manu factories I have pointed out to you are for the higher classes of society: it has been the custom to make extinguishers for the lower, of coarser and less expensive materials-tarred brown paper, thick cartridge, or strong foolscap. Now, these answered well enough; for the people passing their lives, as Scott has well said, in slavish labour and coarse de bauchery,' had no time to think about their heads. Latterly, however, the slavish labour, which afforded both the means for ' coarse debauchery' and their daily bread, has been unfortunately much diminished. Nothing sets a man's brain to work like hunger; and these fools, in beating about to discover some relief for their present distress, have imagined, that if they can get rid of their old extinguishers and make new ones for them selves, all will be well."

1

"You mistake," said a countryman at our side: "we think of throwing off our extinguishers entirely."

"Jupiter Ammon !" exclaimed the gentleman, "What a state we shall be in then! The high castes-we-for I am one of the aristocracy -we still wearing our extinguishers as of old, and they, they without them!"

"But," said the peasant, "you have not one on; nor can I see why your class should continue to wear them." The stranger eyed him askance, with a tremendous frown. He boldly continued. "I have found nothing in this book about high castes and low castes, or about wearing extinguishers."

"What book of worse than radicalism is it?" impetuously demanded the conservative.

"The New Testament," answered the other quietly. As if struck by a galvanic battery, the gentlemanly stranger bounded aloft, and was received into the bosom of a black cloud just overhead, with a royal salute of thunder, whilst a vivid flash of lightning displayed to me, as he disappeared, a cloven hoof, and I think I also saw a-graceful tail. The rustic made the place re-echo with a peal of laughter which startled meand I awoke. Frank Mwas hallooing in my ear, the reverend Dr's work on Education lay open beside me, at that interesting chapter, "Train up a child." The reverend Doctor's establishment for young gentlemen was before my eyes, vastly like the extinguisher manufactory of my dream, and the towers of **** college were seen in the distance.

THE SPY SYSTEM.

Ir was intimated in a postscript to the last number of this Magazine, that there had been received by Mr. Tait, too late for publication, an abusive letter from the individual, known as Alexander Richmond, "The Spy." Publication of that letter was demanded, as an act of justice; and was promised in a note appended to the Magazine, which has proved a new stumbling block in the way of A. Richmond; though without fee, or hope of reward, it gave him sound advice, in bidding him drop Cambyses vein," and if he really had the power of establishing his innocence, to do so by a plain statement of authenticated facts. He refers proudly to the intimate knowledge Messrs. Jeffrey and Cockburn have of his character and motives, his pure integrity, and high honour. There is no doubt they know him perfectly well! We only hinted, "Let them say these fine things themselves, Richmond; their testimony will go far in your vindication with a wicked suspicious world; and happy shall we be to publish it." We advised him to place a plain array of figures before the public; to tell us what he demanded from Lord Sidmouth, and what he got; instead of merely mentioning what he was offered and promised, The straight-forward course does not, it seems, suit a genius like his, trained in strategy, and the detection of plots; and our advice only draws fresh indignation upon our devoted heads. Yet "our thirst for evidence shall be gratified;" we rejoice to hear it, and so will hundreds

VOL. III-NO. XVII.

of thousands of our fellow-subjects. The Spy System, probed to the bottom by the appearance of such illustrious persons in a witness-box, as Lord Sidmouth, the array of Scotch Tory Crown Lawyers, Mr. Finlay, &c., &c., summons of havers issued to the Home Office; a ransacking of the archieves of the Glasgow Magistrates during "the Rebellions,' and of the repositories of Mr. Finlay! this is beyond our hopes, although the Castlereagh Government had not shrouded themselves in a Bill of Indemnity. We must therefore rest contented with a few more excerpts from RICHMOND'S NARRATIVE. But first we give his letter:

TO MR. WILLIAM TAIT.

"Parthis mendacior".

HOR. 2d Epis. 1st, 112.

FINDING myself the object of a most calumnious and malignant attack, in an article headed "The Spy System, or Thirteen Years Since,” published in your Magazine for May, and again in a letter from yourself to Mr. Kirkman Finlay, in your Magazine for this month, [July,] I deem it essential to take the earliest opportunity to meet it by a flat and unqualified contradiction.

Were I not otherwise an advocate for the liberty of the press, my own engagements would dispose me to criticise with moderation the excesses into which literary men are too apt to fall: but when that sacred palladium becomes a vile instrument of falsehood and slander, it has reached a point where forbearance itself becomes a sin. In your character of Reviewer, you have assumed on this occasion a licence which the liberty of the press does not confer. You are at once Judge, Jury, and Executioner; and, in your anxiety to officiate in the only capacity for which your talents seem to have qualified you, you hasten to condemn without evidence. To a libeller so base, so malevolent as yourself, I stoop not to vindicate my conduct from the foul charges which you have brought against it, that can be best settled in a Court of Justice. In Eng land this has already been done with effect; but, in the meantime, that my character may not farther suffer from the virulence of the poison which you have dashed against it, and that the public mind may be disabused of the vile influences which you have shed over it, I cannot consent that so foul a calumny should remain unnoticed.

After the publication of my narrative in 1824, the truth of which I challenge you or any one to confute, it might have been supposed that prudence merely would have induced you to pause before you had ventured to brand me with the base epithets you so plentifully hurl at my devoted head. But your recklessness in attack is fairly matched by your ignorance of the field which you have chosen; and time will show whether you can boast of the success of your achievements. My brief reply to the charges brought against me is, that they are false. I care not for the source from which you draw your information,

*

*Our chief source is RICHMOND'S NARRATIVE, published in 1824, after all his attempts to make Mr. Kirkman Finlay or the government disgorge farther, had proved in vain; after his annuity from the Home Office was stopped, and no hope remained of extorting another farthing, for his approved services. It is not we then, that can claim the merit of exposing the Spy System in the West of Scotland: that good office was mainly performed by the exasperated A. Richmond himself. It was not we that drove this man

and which I have never seen. Be its author whom he may, (and judging from his inferences and conclusions, he seems a tyro, formed according to your own heart,) his statements are a tissue of malignant falsehoods, and offer no other pretext for your adopting them in preference to mine, than that kindred sympathy in sentiment and malevolence, which the "darker spirits" are supposed to inherit in unison with each other. But what can justify you in culling from your favourite vocabulary so many choice flowers of rhetoric, to illustrate your version of my character? In the excess of your malignity, you designate me the "Master Spy"-" the social Burker"-" the wretch"- "the ruffian"-" the rogue"-" the villain"— "the clever knave"-" the base creature"— and, withal, the ." poor weaver," "whose expectations being highly

with contempt and execration from the community, who believed, and do now believe more firmly than ever, that at the instigation of certain known agents of the Government, and for the hope of reward, pay, wages, he came among the reformers to incite them to illegal acts, and then betrayed them. We were not standing by, when Finlay confided to his honour an IMPORTANT STATE SECRET, and added, that "he (Finlay,) had now the authority of Government to offer me a respectable permanent situation, if I could lend my assistance to suppress a conspiracy," which Richmond himself says never existed, but as a paltry and imbecile pretext to delay reform. We were not present certainly, when Richmond the Reformer told William M'Kimmie, his former friend, that the people of England were associating and arming to overturn the Government; and urged the organization of similar associations in the West of Scotland, and the taking of an oath; assuring him that he (Richmond) "knew a quarter from which plenty of money would be got to defray all expenses." It is Richmond himself who writes, (page 66 of his narrative.) "My proceedings, (that is after he had accepted Finlay's job,) my proceedings required to be conducted with the utmost caution. I plied M'Lauchlane, who had already committed himself to me. I gave him small sums of money to relieve his necessities, regulated so as not to excite suspicion." Where did you get them Mr. Richmond ?—It was not we, that wrote the statement of Hugh Dickson, or gave the explanation of the "Treasonable Oath," which you (Richmond) put, it is alleged, into the hands of Macdowal Peat; that oath which, at page 39 of your narrative, you say, "Mr. Finlay expressed great anxiety to obtain a copy of in writting," and which he got, you can best tell how! Explanations of how that oath was manufactured, would be more satisfactory to the public, than being told by you, that "this was the identical document that made such a noise in the House of Commons."

It is to Richmond himself that we owe the information that he came to Edinburgh, and was for months in constant communication with the officials of the Government, the Crown lawyers of Scotland, throughout those shameful State Trials which recoiled with unmitigated disgrace upon their Tory instigators. "When I called upon the Crown lawyers," says Richmond, (the Tory lawyers, the tools of the existing Government, familiarly called upon by the patriotic reforming Richmond, some few months before, an outlawed weaver, in the utmost state of destitution ;)—"when I called upon them next day, they appeared like chagrin and mortification personified." This man also states that these same Crown lawyers (having confidence in him from experience of former services, is the fair inference,) wished to employ him to influence the Crown witness, Campbell, whom, on the trial, it came out that the Depute Advocate, Mr. Home Drummond, had endeavoured to suborn. 66 Repeated references," says Richmond, "were made to me for my opinion and assistance to overcome his (Campbell's) scruples." This at least shews the opinion the Tory lawyers, who were labouring in their vocation, had of the uses to which the patriotic Richmond might be put. could the man, if in his senses, let out damning facts of this nature, and then come forward with the air of outraged innocence, and martyred purity and integrity? The Tory lawyers, labouring in their vocation to make out their cases, (to get the men hanged, and transported, as Richmond states,) next consulted this worthy, "as to what effect he considered offering him (Campbell) a situation under Government would have ?" It would have been long, we'll be bound, before these learned gentlemen had taken such "sweet counsel," with William M'Kimmie, or Hugh Dickson, or any of Richmond's early and honest reforming associates, as they now, in knowledge of his character and services, did with him. We give them full credit for sagacity enough to know their man.

How