their finery to the enterprise of wanderers so humble.

Of course it is, as a rule, desirable that civilization, with all its processes, should replace barbarism. But it may be doubted whether, in many parts of Southern Europe, society has yet arrived at that stage in which it ought to dispense with pedlers. It is, however, a mere question of economy. The rent of shops, and the wages of an establishment, greatly, when trade is dull, augment the price of commodities, because the weight of such charges falls upon a few customers. When the demand is brisk, when money changes hands rapidly, when people throng to shops in crowds, it is possible to be content with a smaller profit, and society becomes a gainer perhaps for the suppression of nomadic traders.

Frenchmen, even in their own country, are accustomed, when in poor circumstances, to subsist on a very homely and economical diet. Bread, a few onions, and a sip of sour wine, they almost regard as luxuries. The same habit and theory of living follow them into other countries, especially when, like our pedlers, their sole object is to save money, to provide for the comforts of their old age, or, if practicable, to enable them to marry in middle life, and undertake the responsibilities of a family. Of one luxury the pedler is careful not to deprive himself-we mean of a little provision of cigars-which he carries about with him, carefully wrapt in a bit of oil-skin, to protect them from the weather; and on the bleak, rocky mountains of Corsica and Sardinia, smoking is indeed a luxury. In civilized countries, in large cities, in capacious, comfortable, well-ventilated apartments, it may be a mere piece of extravagance to expend money on Havanas. It would seem to be otherwise in the cases under consideration. The pedler, on quitting his humble cabaret, or still more comfortless cottage, in the chill damp mornings, his teeth chattering, his whole frame half-shrunk by the night's cold, experiences an agreeable elevation of spirits the moment he takes out his flint and steel, and kindles his cigar. It serves him also as a companion as he puffs away, he fancies himself in friendly society, especially when the smoke wreathes lovingly around him in some sheltered nook or hollow in the way. Ease and opulence know nothing of such pleasures: everything with them is comfort and regularity; but the wild wayfarer, with all his earthly possessions on his back, who carries at the same time his purse and his life in his hands-who has to face the storms of winter and the heats of summer-who is always lonely, often sad, sometimes oppressed, dejected, and miserable derives gratification from small, and, it may be, equivocal pleasures, if sinoking indeed be one of these.

Sometimes the track of the pedler lies through districts so desolate, that he can find at night no habitation, however humble, in which to take shelter, but must betake himself to some cavern or hollow among the rocks. Here his flint and steel come into requisition. He gathers dry leaves and bits of decayed wood, and kindles himself a fire, close to which he lies down, and enjoy the semblance at least of a summer dwelling; by the light of it also he eats his humble supper-a little bread, hard and dry crust of cheese, or a piece of antiquated sausage, with, it may be, an onion or two, or a clove or garlic. Water from the neighboring well or stream quenches his thirst; and then he betakes himself to sleep on the hard rock, with the

infinite air breathing around him, and the stars raining their influences upon his head from the sky. It may be matter of wonder that the property these men carry about with them-which, though not great, must still be a temptation to dishonestywould not constantly expose them to the assaults of robbers. The explanation perhaps is, that the state of society which requires pedlers nourishes those prejudices and feelings that operate as their protection. There is in Corsica and Sardinia, and indeed in all other countries similarly circumstanced, a sort of superstition attached to the pedler's character, which prevents even verv desperate persons from attempting his life. He makes his appearance among them trustingly and fearlessly-for pedlers never carry arms-and wherever he comes, excites mirth and gayety in young and old. He adorns the persons of their wives and daughters, makes their children look gay, and diffuses an air of cheerfulness and contentment through a whole village. Experience of kindness from others makes him gentle and kind in his turn. He is polished by rubbing against the world, and learns at the same time resolution and modesty. Full of stories and anecdotes of adventures and hair-breadth escapes, he has a perpetual fund of entertainment; and the cottage in which he passes the night is generally crowded with as many neighbors as it will hold, who sit in a circle around him, to listen to his narratives.

Occasionally, though not often, the pedler condescends to become the messenger of love, and bears from hamlet to hamlet tender epistles, which he himself perhaps has indited at the request of lover or mistress. At times he assumes the character of umpire and peacemaker, terminates quarrels, crushes the germs of lawsuits, and, by a timely present of no great value, makes up matches, and diffuses happiness through a whole class.

Once, in Sardinia, at a village high up in the mountains, a pedler, whom we afterwards met in Genoa, arrived about Christmas during very severo weather. A farmer, whose daughter was about to be married, kindly invited him to make some stay at his house. The pedler accepted the invitation, and remained eight or ten days, kept a prisoner, as it were, by the hospitality of his host and a perpetual succession of snow-storms. He was present at the wedding, and at the merry-making given by the family in the evening, where he noticed among the guests a young man of rather handsome appearance, who attracted much attention by the gloomy fierceness of his manner. Towards most persons he preserved a sullen silence; but he relaxed with the pedler, laughed, and talked a great deal; inquired what route he meant to take, and how long it was likely to be before he would be among them again.

In due time the pedler quitted the farmhouse, and proceeded on his way. The country just there was very thinly inhabited, the woods frequent, and of considerable extent, and here and there were caverns of various dimensions. In one of these the pedler one snowy night found himself compelled to take refuge. He had had the precaution to take some food with him; and, the cold being piercing he collected a quantity of wood, kindled a fire, and sat down to enjoy his supper beside it. He had not taken many mouthfuls before he observed a man enter the cavern covered with snow, which he shook from him as he advanced. There was an immediate recognition: it was no other than the farmer's wedding-guest! He accosted the pedler

Pedlers are sometimes generous. Taking up the bag of dollars, and turning to the wife, the Frenchman said, "Allow me, madam, to present this to your youngest child as a birthday present. I am in a condition to afford it. I have made much money in your country, and intend next year to marry, and retire to Provence, my native land."

The present was accepted; but the farmer, not to be outdone in generosity, forced on him next morning a handsome horse of considerably greater value. The same pedler had been engaged in many other little adventures, which he used to relate with that case and naïveté so characteristic of the French. We fell in with him just as he was about returning to Provence, where we daresay he still enjoys the property which he amassed with so much toil, honesty, and perseverance. The English merchants who supply this class of men are less prudent and economical, and commonly spend their whole gains in what is technically called "making an appearance." They, moreover, marry Italian women, settle at Genoa, and soon lose all desire to return to England. Thus deprived of the chief spur to economy, they contract indolent habits, and devote themselves to amusement and pleasure; and, while the men whose knapsacks they supply rise to independence, and often even to opulence, contract debts and embarrassments, and terminate their lives in poverty. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. But it is the rule, we fear, in Northern Italy, where, through a superior agency, a much larger amount of British goods might be annually distributed, especially if our manufacturers could study the taste of the people, and supply them with the colors and patterns most agreeable to them. On the coast of Spain the operations of the French knapsack-men are encountered and checked by smugglers from Gibraltar. Still, in both cases, the goods are chiefly English; so that, as a people, it is immaterial to us through which of these channels they find their way into the Spanish market.

From the Anti-Slavery Standard.

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

THE snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.

From sheds new roofed with Carrara,

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn,
Where a little head-stone stood,
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,

Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?" And I told of the good Allfather

Who cares for us all below.

Again I looked at the snowfall,

And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of that deep-stabbed woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father,
Alone can make it fall!"

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her,
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister
Folded close under deepening snow.

J. R. L.

From the National Fra

DULL DECEMBER.

BY THOMAS 8. DONOHO.

THE wind is sighing,
The snow deep lying,
With crisp ice covered

On the frozen ground.

No sky appearing,
No sunbeam cheering,
But pale clouds rolling,
Rolling round.

The tall trees shiver,
By the creaking river,
Where oft the icicles

Shrilly fall,

From cliffs o'er bending,
From boughs descending,
With snow full laden,
Leafless all.

'Tis gloomier growing;
The wind is blowing
Stronger, louder,

Through the night,

A blank of sadness:
Yet, for gladness,
Seeks my spirit-
Lo! 't is light!

The fire is burning,
The taper turning
The fearful darkness
Back to day.

Books surround me;
Joy hath found me;
Drear December
Steals away.

Washington, December 17, 1849.

From the Independent. THE JEWS OF EUROPE.

BY OUR ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT.

It would be scarcely possible for any man, having a heart capable of human emotion, to ascend the tower of observation with Lucretius, and while the storm is still raging and multiplying its victims, attempt to estimate the havoc which has been made, and to count the numbers of the dying and the dead which strew the storm-lashed and wreck-strewn shore. Neither may we look upon bleeding and agonizing nations in order to count their throes and speculate upon the probabilities of life and death. But we may, with a deep though calm and sad interest, fix attention for awhile upon some who are monuments of sin and of suffering, who have endured and still endure a discipline unexampled in the history of nations, and yet without the ends of the correction being

attained.

A few months since the Jew in Rome rejoiced in his emancipation; now the degrading and infamous Ghetto again incloses him. Yesterday, in Germany, the Jew held his head aloft, and in his pride and ambition was willing to accept political equality and an open path to Jewish ascendency in exchange for a worn-out faith in a Messiah to come. Yes, some who were looking to Christianity—to mere nominal and despised Christianity as a means of escape from political and social inferiority into the region of influence and power, gladly accepted the alternative which revolution and political change offered to them. In these new circumstances they needed not the aid of Christianity in order to their advancement, and as little desired or expected any other Messiah. So of the Jew in Hungary. In the firm establishment of the national independence he saw the means of realizing Jewish hopes and aspirations. How have these hopes been dashed! At this hour the Jews of Hungary, as one man, are stripped and peeled with a remorseless ferocity, at least equal to that to which he was subjected by the robber baron of the middle ages, who wrung by torture from the Jew the last remnant of his wealth. But it is not a mere blind ferocity or the greed of wealth which leads the butcherly Haynau to despoil and trample upon the Jew. The active and powerful Jewish intellect has been the precursor of revolutions. Jewish energy and daring have been conspicuous in the actual struggle. These facts are imperfectly understood even now, although a slight acquaintance with the state of society in Germany and an intelligent observation of the course of events during the last few months supply sufficient evidence of their truth. In a highly interesting paper prepared by Rev. Mr. Smith, of the Free Church of Scotland, who was some time in Germany, the following statement is made:

The Jews have taken a leading hand in all the late revolutionary movements on the continent.

So much is this felt to be the case, that it is com monly asserted, on the part of the conservatives, that the whole originated, and still centres, in them. Of course this is an exaggeration; but the general prevalence and the felt strength of the assertion lie in the acknowledged fact, that if their influence has not been exclusive, it has been very great. A large majority of the democratic societies have Jews for their leaders and chief speakers. If in these unions the ascendency in talent, tact, and, smaller in point of numbers, they have generally what is of equal importance in such times-daring. The two levers of greatest power at present in the political world, are money and the press. In respect to the former, the Jews have had long the supremacy. They rule the exchange in the greater part of Europe. Even governments have been known to tremble in the ante-chamber of a Jew.

But the press of continental Europe is no less in Jewish hands; every department of periodical laborers. In the majority of cases, the newspaper literature, more especially, swarms with Jewish

press is conducted by Jews, as editors, sub-editors, and occasional contributors. The correspondenee is almost entirely managed by them. These men are, without doubt, the leaders of public opinion on the continent, and are covertly, or more openly, as mining at once the national institutions and the it suits the circumstances of the moment, undernational faith.

The absolutist spirit of the London Quarterly Review would naturally excite distrust and watchfulness regarding its statements, but the facts contained in the following extract are beyond question:

Nor should we omit to mention another influen

tial body who have played a distinguished part in all the revolutions of Germany-we mean the Jews. At least one third, if not one half, of the public journals in Germany have for a long time been conducted by Jewish editors. In Austria, have been Jews. Dr. Jellinck, for instance, who the most forward among the extreme democrats was executed with Dr. Bekker on the 23d November of last year, at Vienna, and whose journal had been an organ of the Red party since the month of March last, appears to have been a Jew, born on The the frontiers of Moravia and Hungary. refugees in Paris, both occupying a prominent names of Börne and Heine, both of whom died position in the most advanced section of revolutionary writers, are doubtless familiar to our readers. Both of these daring adventurers were Jews. In Austria, the Jews have of late played so prominent a part in revolutionary politics, that out of ten leading men six or eight will be found to belong to that nation. In Prussia, likewise, the most violent journals are in the hands of the Jews, whose leader in the chamber at Berlin is Jacobi, a member of the extreme left.

Such is the remarkable aspect which the Jew presents when contemplated merely in his position in respect to the nations of Europe. By his intellectual power and superiority he guides opinions; by his boldness and daring courage he gives force to actual insurrection. But while arrested by this spectacle, and led to ponder on a multitude of thoughts, the Christian man, the Gentile graft of the wild olive-tree, would fain look deeper into