human nature. It is by analytical examination ( wanted, it is a very obvious idea to import laborers; that we have learned whatever we know of the and if negroes are best suited to the climate, to laws of external nature; and if he had not disdained import negroes. This is a mode of adjusting the to apply the same mode of investigation to the balance between work and laborers, quite in aclaws of the formation of character, he would have cordance with received principles; it is neither escaped the vulgar error of imputing every differ- before nor behind the existing moralities of the ence which he finds among human beings to an world; and since it would accomplish the object original difference of nature. As well might it be of making the negroes work more, your contributor said, that of two trees, sprung from the same stock, at least, it might have been supposed, would have one cannot be taller than another but from greater approved of it. On the contrary, this prospect is vigor in the original seedling. Is nothing to be to him the most dismal of all; for either "the attributed to soil, nothing to climate, nothing to new Africans, after laboring a little," will "take difference of exposure-has no storm swept over to pumpkins like the others," or if so many of the one and not the other, no lightning scathed them come that they will be obliged to work for it, no beast browsed on it, no insects preyed on it, their living, there will be "a black Ireland." no passing stranger stript off its leaves or its bark? The labor market admits of three possible conIf the trees grew near together, may not the one ditions, and not, as this would imply, of only two. which, by whatever accident, grew up first, have Either, first, the laborers can live almost without retarded the other's development by its shade? working, which is said to be the case in Demerara; Human beings are subject to an infinitely greater or, secondly, which is the common case, they can variety of accidents and external influences than live by working, but must work in order to live; trees, and have infinitely more operation in im- or, thirdly, they cannot by working get a sufficient pairing the growth of one another; since those living, which is the case in Ireland. Your conwho begin by being strongest, have almost always tributor sees only the extreme cases, but no poshitherto used their strength to keep the others sibility of the medium. If Africans are imported, weak. What the original differences are among he thinks there must either be so few of them, that human beings, I know no more than your con- they will not need to work, or so many, that altributor, and no less; it is one of the questions though they work, they will not be able to live. not yet satisfactorily answered in the natural his- Let me say a few words on the general quarrel tory of the species. This, however, is well known of your contributor with the present age. Every -that spontaneous improvement, beyond a very low age has its faults, and is indebted to those who grade-improvement by internal development, point them out. Our own age needs this service without aid from other individuals or peoples- as much as others; but it is not to be concluded that is one of the rarest phenomena in history; and it has degenerated from former ages, because its whenever known to have occurred, was the result faults are different. We must beware, too, of of an extraordinary combination of advantages; in mistaking its virtues for faults, merely because, as addition doubtless to many accidents of which all is inevitable, its faults mingle with its virtues and trace is now lost. No argument against the ca- color them. Your contributor thinks that the age pacity of negroes for improvement, could be drawn has too much humanity, is too anxious to abolish from their not being one of these rare exceptions. pain. I affirm, on the contrary, that it has too It is curious, withal, that the earliest known civil- little humanity-is most culpably indifferent to the ization was, we have the strongest reason to be- subject; and I point to any day's police reports as lieve, a negro civilization. The original Egyptians the proof. I am not now accusing the brutal porare inferred, from the evidence of their sculptures, tion of the population, but the humane portion; if to have been a negro race it was from negroes, they were humane enough, they would have contherefore, that the Greeks learnt their first lessons trived long ago to prevent these daily atrocities. in civilization; and to the records and traditions It is not by excess of a good quality that the age of these negroes did the Greek philosophers to the is in fault, but by deficiency-deficiency even of very end of their career resort (I do not say with philanthropy, and still more of other qualities much fruit) as a treasury of mysterious wisdom. wherewith to balance and direct what philanthropy But I again renounce all advantage from facts: it has. An "Universal Abolition of Pain Associwere the whites born ever so superior in intelli- ation" may serve to point a sarcasm, but can any gence to the blacks, and competent by nature to worthier object of endeavor be pointed out than instruct and advise them, it would not be the less that of diminishing pain? Is the labor which ends monstrous to assert that they had therefore a right in growing spices noble, and not that which lessens either to subdue them by force, or circumvent them the mass of suffering? We are told with a triumby superior skill; to throw upon them the toils phant air, as if it were a thing to be glad of, that and hardships of life, reserving for themselves," the Destinies" proceed in a terrible manner;" under the misapplied name of work, its agreeable and this manner will not cease "for soft sawder excitements.

66

a

a

comparable to the old pestilence-our hospitals to And a ragged web like a tattered pall
the old lazar-houses-our workhouses to the hang-

Runs from its side to the sombre wall,

And over the window panes. ing of vagrants—our prisons to those visited by Howard? It is precisely because we have suc- The pendulum swings, the wheels go round, ceeded in abolishing so much pain, because pain Making a dull, monotonous sound, and its infliction are no longer familiar as our daily

As the vanishing moments fleet ; bread, that we are so much more shocked by what

A“ tick," like the falling of grains of sand, remains of it than our ancestors were, or than in

As Time was pouring from out his hand

The dust of years at his feet !
your contributor's opinion we ought to be.

Years have vanished—forgotten years,
But (however it be with pain in general) the

With all their sorrows and sins and tears,
abolition of the infliction of pain by the mere will And left their marks in the hall;
of a human being, the abolition, in short, of des- The old have died, the young grown old-
potism, seems to be, in a peculiar degree, the oc- Generations have gone to mould,
cupation of this age; and it would be difficult to And the clock survives them all.
show that any age had undertaken a worthier.

Beautiful girls have watched the hours, Though we cannot extirpate all pain, we can, if Knitting at stands, or working flowers we are sufficiently determined upon it, abolish all In frames of 'broidery finem tyranny; one of the greatest victories yet gained And mornings, the young folks playing late over that enemy is slave-emancipation, and all

Wished the moments fettered to "eight, Europe is struggling, with various success, towards

For the school began at“ nine !" further conquests over it. Ii, in the pursuit of Mothers, with sons in distant lands, this, we lose sight of any object equally important;

Sorrowing, chid its tardy hands,

And dreamed of the meeting dearif we forget that freedom is not the only thing

And wives whose husbands returned at night necessary for human beings, let us be thankful

Marked the time in the fading light,
to any one who points out what is wanting ; but And listened for footsteps near!
Jet us not consent to turn back.

Blushing brides at their toilets gay,
That this country should turn back, in the

In snowy robes on the happy day,
matter of negro slavery, I have not the smallest Have waited the hour to wed :
apprehension. There is, however, another place And sick folks, tossing on beds of pain,
where that tyranny still flourishes, but now for Gazed at the clock again and again,
the first time finds itself seriously in danger. Al And watched beside the dead !
this crisis of American slavery, when the decisive

But years have vanished, and others fill
conflict between right and iniquity seems about to Their place, and the old clock standeth still
commence, your contributor steps in, and flings. Ticking as in its pride :-
this missile, loaded with the weight of his repu-

Summer and winter, day and night,
tation, into the abolitionist camp. The words of

A sexton chiming the hours' flight,
English writers of celebrity are words of power

Tolling the knell of Time !

January 7, 1849.
on the other side of the ocean ; and the owners
of human flesh, who probably thought they had

From the Churchman.
not an honest man on their side between the
Atlantic and the Vistula, will welcome such an

TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER ON HER BAPTISM. auxiliary. Circulated as his dissertation will The seal is on thy forehead, love; probably be, by those whose interests profit by it,

The cross upon thy brow;
from one end of the American Union to the other,

And holy prayer to God above
I hardly know of an act by which one person

Is breathing o'er thee now;

An offering to that God in heaven,
could have done so much mischief as this may

Our precious first-born we have given
possibly do; and I hold that by thus acting, he
has made himself an instrument of what an able

We cannot draw the future's veil

And look, dear one, for thee, writer in the Inquirer justly calls “a true work

Into the shadowy gloom beyond, of the devil.”

Upon life's billowy sea.

We know not if thy coming years
From the N. Y. Tribune.

Be bright with smiles or dim with tears.
THE OLD CLOCK IN THE HALL.

But we have given thee to God,

Be His the guiding arm,

To keep thee 'mid life's tempest waves,
It stands in a corner of the room

And shield from every harm.
Behind the door, in the shade and gloom

Be His the spirit to control ;
In a heavy and antique case,

His smile the sunlight of thy soul.
Rich mahogany, maple and oak,

And we may watch thy infant steps,
Battered and seratched and dim with smoke, And gently guide them here;
And the hands are bent on the face !

With the bright hope to cheer our hearts

'Mid every troubling fear,
The knob and hinges are red with rust,

That He to whom our child is given
The top o'th' mouldings covered with dust, Will lead her safely home to heaven.
The panels are yellow with stains,

C. E. T.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

From the Examiner, of 5 Jan.
EUROPE AT THE CLOSE OF 1849.

is as full of rebellion as Paris. Bohemia insists on a separate constitution. Croatia is even more THERE is no denying two very simple facts- menacing than Bohemia. The Austrian military that the people were masters of Europe in 1848, chiefs, therefore, laugh with some reason at the preand that the soldiers were masters of it in 1849. tension of the civilians to govern by a constitution. The people, or their leaders, certainly did not The land far and wide is too hot for a constitution. show themselves to be overstocked with wisdom One might as well propose a floral exhibition for the task of administration. No wonder-a in the crater of Vesuvius, as to work a constipeople is not made for administering. Those tution in Lombardy, or Hungary, or even Bohemasses, however, even in reform and revolution, mia. Russian and French reäction were needed have had their purpose and their use, in the estab-merely to be directed against resistance in one or lishment of new principles for the regulation of two towns. But all the Austrian empire has government. Having established these, they dis- been a battle-field of reform, of carnage, and broappear from the stage, hooted off of it perhaps, or tality. The Russians were called on to effect driven from it by bayonets. And yet the most what the Austrians could not; and what the Auspart of what they have proclaimed, and of the trians accomplished after all was by gold, and not laws they have promulgated, remain. by fair fighting. All this is so well known throughout the south-east of Europe, that the existing condition of things there has not one of the characteristics of either subjugation or fear. The present moment is but a truce with the struggles, though not with the barbarities, of war.

Discomfiture could not be more signal, nor the contempt which followed it more great, than that which overwhelmed the people of Paris, of Vienna, of Berlin. Yet we find what these discomfited people declared to be law, remains law. Representative government, universal suffrage, the necessity of popular assent to elections, jury law, a free press, more or less prevail; not one of which the overthrown governments would have dreamed of granting And now the kings of Europe are perplexed in the endeavor to solve the difficult problem consequent on all this to reign by the power of an army, yet according to the forms of representative government.

In cabinets and throughout countries, at present, the great struggle is between civil and military institutions and authority. And this it is which serves the popular cause. For the middle classes, though ever so much in terror of revolution, are still in such equal dread of military domination, that they, along with the civil functionary class, and even the proprietors of land, are bent and determined not to fall under the absolute regime of the soldiers. This it is which constitutes the true element of contention in Paris between Thiers and the president, in Berlin between Brandenberg and the constitutionalists, in Vienna between Schwartzenberg and the emperor's military

coterie.

If we draw a line diagonally across Europe, from the Western Alps to the mouth of the Vistula, we shall probably be of opinion that the events of 1849 have been pretty definitive, and not unsatisfactory in their results for the countries west of that line. Freedom, peace, constitutional development, struggles after commercial, social, and ministerial changes, have been carried on not by arms but by argument. These are hopeful for life and progress in the west, whilst every day the dislike for war and riot, for oppression and licentiousness, grows stronger. We observe here, in a word, a marked prevalence of the tastes, the desires, and the principles of the middle, industrious, enlightened, and civilian class, over the extravagances and tendencies of the two extremes of those below and above them.

But to return to the enslaved and struggling portion of Europe, we doubt even if 1850 will make any settlement of destinies. Russia overbears them most with its baleful power, which its vicinity gives it power to exercise, and to apply unceasingly, whilst the powers of the west can only interfere casually and at intervals, as chance Throughout North Germany we have little permits. In opposing Russia, we are now playdoubt that the civilian element will finally prevailing an unequal game. Austria now is Russian; in France, likewise, unless any spark should fall and what France may be, the court scandal-monupon the old tinder temperament of the people, and gers only know. awaken by-gone pursuits and hopes. For, if people are to be governed by soldiers, it must at least be by soldiers of fame, of greatness, of genius. If one's destiny is to be governed by poor and mediocre people, better have relays of lawyers and trusty politicians, than regiments of sub-lieuten

ants.

The difficulties of Austria are of course far greater than those of any government. It is difficult to say which of its provinces, or what section even of its metropolis, is the most disaffected. Hungary and Lombardy each require a huge army, even to raise taxes and execute the laws. Vienna

For corrupt and bankrupt Austria, Western Europe might have substituted Young Hungary. Whether such an opportunity may ever again occur, whether the Sclavonic race, from the Vistula to the Danube, retain the force to assert their independence, and to bridle the power of the Tartar, remains to be seen. But as for Austria, she lies bound in tyranny, in meanness, and in crime. Nothing can be hoped from her, or her dynasty, but obstruction, falsehood, and treachery. has lost Germany by the imbecility of Metternich, and betrayed Eastern Europe to Russia by the still greater imbecility and guilt of his successors.

She

From the Examiner, 5 Jan. reduction upon the whole of about 64 per cent. ; THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

while upon

the number of sales there is an increase

of 50 per cent. ; in our local yards we observed a Who, of the old play-going world, does not falling off of about 30 per cent., until the last two remember, and laugh at the remembrance, of Lis- months, during which time more contracts have ton's Apollo Belvi, in Killing no Murder, attired | been made, and more keels laid, than we were preas a mourner, with most preposterous hat-band, pared to expect. So soon as it was decided that scarf, and weepers, announcing his own decease, the old navigation laws were doomed, an increased and explaining that the lamented defunct was car- of resolution,” which had been “sicklied o'er with

disposition to act evinced itself—the native hue ried off by sudden death, to which he had all his life the pale cast of thought,” revived, and, under the been very subject? The Protectionists, with true assurance that the position of the British shipListonian face, are playing Apollo Belvi through-owner could not be further compromised, our buyout the country, and with every appearance of un- ers and builders resolved to be up and doing.” impaired vitality proclaim that they are dead and At present there are eight vessels in course of gone. But the farce is a very old one, has been building in Liverpool; the aggregate tonnage, repeated to weariness, and we cannot call to mind 2,800 tons; and as our port is essentially more inthe time when agriculture was not perishing, so this is not under the average number in process of

terested in ship-repairing than in ship-building, subject has it ever been to the chronic complaint construction at one time here. of Liston's character, sudden death. For so it is that agricultural man never is, but always to be

So we are to believe that while there is any ruined. He has been poisoned as often as Dickens' uncertainty whether people are to be ruined or Mantalini, and is no whit the worse, or nearer not, they remain inert ; but when all doubt about his end after all. What is it that makes rural, the matter is at an end, and the ruin settled and calamity of so long a life? How is it that it is sealed, then they begin to bestir themselves, and ever sinking, and never gets to the bottom? When to act precisely as if they had improved prospects

before them! But we have never observed this are we to come to the promised wilderness? When is the plough to be deposited in the British Museum course of conduct in the instance of any interest as a curiosity belonging to a past and destroyed really sinking or superseded. For example, when world? How much longer are sowing and reaping

railroads came into use, innkeepers did not give to go on, just as if farmers thought of selling and orders for new post-chaises, and coach-masters did living by something different from a loss? But not build new four-horse stage-coaches. It canthis question does not apply to the farmers only, not be because they are utterly and irretrievably but to all the spoiled children of Protection, who undone that the ship-owners are now “up and have promised to perish of the removal of their doing,” as alleged by Messrs. Tonge and Curry. swaddling clothes. The past year was to have been They are not building ships for fire-wood, or to the last year of British shipping. The wooden walls sell them at a loss, unless, indeed, they act upon were to have followed the wooden heads of Old the principle of the linen-draper, who protested England to destruction ; but, lo! at the beginning that he sold every yard of his muslin at a loss, of the first year of the repeal of the navigation but brought himself home on the quantity. laws, and the consequent ruin as predicted of British shipping, we find that the building-yards

From the Spectator, 5 Jan. of the Thames and east coast are so full of work

GREAT BRITAIN. that they cannot meet the demand for new ships,

DISTINGUISHED from the staler and minor suband that at Sunderland there are orders for fifty new vessels of large tonnage. The circular of jects of political activity, this week, is the newlyMessrs. Tonge and Curry, ship-brokers at Liver-organized coalition of independent politicians

to obtain the reform of colonial government. pool, makes the following statement as to the business at that port, which is significant indeed, ing as it does a Lyttelton, a Baring, and a Staf

The movement is undoubtedly

peculiar—combinaddressed as it is to the interest whose doom was fixed for this year :

ford, a Molesworth, a Milner Gibson, and a Cob

den, a Napier, a Walpole, and an Adderley—men The year just closed has been one of unusual of all leading parties ; but while it is too formidaanxiety to all persons connected with the building ble to be slighted, the presence of political friends or owning of British shipping, caused by that perplexes opponents on every side. The party change in the navigation laws, which enacts, that on and after this day all foreign shipping be ad- really in alarm is simply the official party, and mitted to the same privileges as British, with the that as such; for we hear no note of hostility from exception of the coasting trade. See Victoria 12 any other quarter. But the utmost art is used by and 13, cap. 29. The prospect of this sweeping the scouts and pickets of the official party to premeasure was accompanied with doubts and anxieties pare some diversion to the anticipated attack next that have had the effect of checking the operations session. A Mussulman fatalism is employed to of the most enterprising, and, as might be expected, represent the present state of colonial affairs as of reducing prices considerably; under thiş pres- inevitable and inherent in colonial nature. 5. The sure of doubt, many vessels have been forced upon the market and sold, in some instances almost with history of every colony that we possess is but one

In comparing the average prices for continuous series of difficulties, from its conquest the year 1849 with the previous year, we find a or its settlement to the present hour. The annex

Each pro-
Which-

ation movement in Canada is but the last moveSpeed the intercourse of soul with soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole. ment in a varied game begun at the capitulation Alas! we have little else to waft. of Quebec, and carried on by successive generations of statesmen and agitators.' While the Dreamers have made others dream; and the enterprise of amending the chaotic condition of rich gambler has ruined the poorer gambler at his affairs is represented as hopeless, the most is made first and last stake. History, in recording the of the heterogeneous elements of the coalition, as crimes of princes, may record perhaps some more one that will not work. But, indeed, of all im- atrocious than those who now rule exhibit; but practicable ideas, that is the most so which sup-no future Tacitus or Suetonius will have patience poses that the actual course of things can continue to describe their obliquity, false promises, defecwithout ending in a break-up; and the fatalist tion from duty, and from even kingly pride. Even whom we quote manifestly looks forward to one that specious glitter, even that reptile's scale at no distant day. The too clever writer makes appears not in the tortuous track they are purTwo of these creatures are, at this an over-candid admission-"While the lions and suing. the lambs of our legislature are thus lying down instant, raising up a threatening crest against each together in paradisaical harmony as to the govern-other-the patron of Haynau and the persecutor A million of men will be marment of our colonies, the greater part of the British of Waldeck. world expresses its colonial sympathies by abusing shalled in arms to fight their battles. the Colonial Office, Downing Street, and Lord tests he fights for Germany; each lies. Grey." He admits the "deep impression" per-ever is the winner, Germany will gain nothing. vading "all classes of politicians, that the ground Two swords will hew her through the centre; has shifted under us, and that the mother-country two eagles (vultures rather) will divide and devour must adapt her policy to the new state of things; her. the new state being, in fact, a spontaneous development of the colonies themselves." Very true; this is the whole case. The colonies have been misgoverned by generations of statesmen, and our actual ministers have fairly lost hold of all government of the colonies; the whole political world condemns the colonial office and Lord Grey; the colonies have taken the matter into their own hands; and, fearing that the imperial government may be completely deposed, some of the more farseeing and earnest of our public men have united to prevent that disastrous and disgraceful revolution. Virtually the Times confesses that there is no case on the other side-nothing to be said against the occasion or objects of the society for the reform of colonial government.

66

Of what use is any form of government which fails to protect the lives and properties of the people? And what form of government in Europe That government which Austria, has done this? France, and Spain have united to reëstablish, not only failed to protect the lives and properties of the people, but paralyzed their energies and stifled their consciences. Spain and Austria make no pretences to honor or honesty in this aggression; but the President of the French Republic uses these words at the banquet in the Hôtel de Ville : It has often been said that honor finds an echo in France.

Never were words truer. There is mostly an echo where there is a hollow and a vacuity. Honor had an echo, and a very loud one too.

was violated. I forget how many dozens of them Talleyrand said he remembered to have taken. The best Christians in France, catholic and philosoph

ical, romantic and poetical, swore they would lend

A report has obtained some currency, that min-every time an oath was taken and every time an oath isters are about to propose an extension of the franchise," based on a householder "rating." Without calling this extension "a tub to the whale," or a measure planned "for rejection," the very friends of ministers who spread the report to their credit, let out that the motive is to divert attention from more troublous pursuits-perhaps the financial reform movement, or this formidable colonial movement. A less credible her, and restoring the Inquisition.

rumor is, that some tory party means to proposeuniversal suffrage! Vogue la galère. Ministers and ex-ministers emulating the competition of rival playhouse managers!

From the Examiner. WHAT WE HAVE AND WHAT WE OWE.

assistance to all nations that invoked them in the

name of liberty; and, within a few months, they bombarded Rome, scattering the patriots who defended her, recalling the Pope who abandoned

The Americans have declared their sentiments

freely, loudly, widely, consistently, against the violence and perfidy of Russia and Austria. They must do greatly more; they must offer an asylum to whoever, rising up against oppression and indignity, shall, in the absence of law and equity, have slain those who caused it. For it is impossible Ar the close of this half-century the march of that such iniquities, as certain men in high places intellect is indeed a funeral march. What has have perpetrated, should be unavenged. Conspirbeen obtained by genius or by science for the ben-acies will never more exist; two persons (but efit of mankind? Greater and more glorious dis- preferably one) will undertake the glorious task, coveries have been made within our memory than which not only antiquity applauded, but which ever were made before. We may, with the rapidity of lightning,

**

Age.

Meaning that we shall not deliver up assassins!-L.