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805. Distinctions.-All our 'distinctions are accidental; beauty and 'deformity, though personal qualities, are neither entitled to praise or censure; yet it so happens that they colour our opinion of those qualities to which mankind have attached responsibility.-Zimmerman.

806. Cobbett's advice to a Youth.-He recommends the young man to acquire as early as possible a knowledge of grammar; it demands' he says, 'much reflection and inuch patience; but when once the task is performed it is performed for life, and in every day of that life will be found to be, in a greater or less degree, a source of pleasure or profit, or both together. And what is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion, it exposes the student to no cold, no hunger, no suffering, of any sort. The study need subtract from the hours of no business, nor from the hours of necessary exercise; usually spent in the tea and coffee-shops, and in the mere gossip which accompanies them: the wasted hours of only one year, employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no room to study in, no expenses, and no troubling circumstances of any sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier, on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board lying on my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter time it was rarely that I could get an evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; 'I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I had to read and to write, amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all controul. Think not lightly of the farthing that I had to give, now and then, for ink, pen, and paper! That farthing was alas! a great sum to me! I was as tall as I am now! I had great health and great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at the market was two pence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion, I, after all absolutely necessary expenses, and on Friday, made a shift to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purpose of a red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so hungry then as hardly able to endure life, I found that I had lost my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child!"

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The Casket.

807. Precocity.-The following beautiful illustration of the folly of forcing the intellects of the young, occurs in one of the numbers of the Monthly Repository.

"Some of our brightest men have been dull boys. If we wish things to thrive, we must treat them according to their nature. Do you wish a flower to thrive, you place it in the sunshine, and refresh it occasionally with water. But suppose some person with ignorant impatience were to place it before a scorching fire, and pour hot water upon it? Destruction to the flower would be the consequence.

And it is so. How many are the instances in which children are set down as stupid and brainless, because their faculties are not developed early enough for the foolish impatience of parents or teachers. It is our opinion, and we have before expressed as much in our pages, that it is every way better for a child, both mentally and physically, that his intellectual faculties should be slowly and tardily manifested, than that they should be early and rapidly developed. Parents! beware how you urge your children to early application, or think them less hopeful than those of the same age, who manifest an earlier mental development. Remember, that when a horticulturist, in order to raise vegetables early, or ripen fruit quickly, forces them by artificial means, he knows well that he will lose some of his plants, and destroy some of his fruit altogether; of course calculating that he will be amply compensated for this loss, by the higher price the individuals he succeeds in bringing to this early maturity will bring in the market. Would any be willing to apply the same doctrine to the early development of the minds of their offspring? Oh no! There is not a parent who would run the risk, did he think for a moment of such a possibility. It may be relied on, that nature cannot be forced out of her course, in any one case, without the risk, if not certainty, of harm resulting from it; and the mind cannot be early set to work, without deviating from the prescribed ways of nature."

808. Evils of the Corn Laws.-Were food as cheap in England as it is in other manufacturing countries, it would be practicable to secure to the operative classes, in England, a higher rate of real wages within the limit of the superiority, which more efficacious labour, cheaper fuel and carriage, and better machinery, all contribute to confer upon England, in producing goods for the foreign market. But while the value of food in England is artificially raised above its value in those other manufacturing countries, which are our competitors in the foreign market, such an improvement in the rate of real wages is morally impossible. Until an alteration in the Corn Laws shall have secured us against foreign competition, all projects for raising wages will be found erroneous in principle, and ruinous in practice.-Colonel Torrens.

LONDON; Printed and Published by J. H. STARIE, 59, Museum Street, and to be had of all Booksellers.

Materials for Chinking,

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

"WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, WE OWE NONE TO THEIR ERRORS."-Bishop Burnet.

No. XXXII.

Published Weekly.

[Price One Penny.

809. Difference of care bestowed by Man upon his own health, and upon that of his horse.-Suppose a horse to be doing very little work; and every ostler will at once feel the necessity of giving the animal less care. Suppose a horse is not used at all for some days, and every ostler knows that mischief will be almost certain to result if the animal be not exercised. Suppose a horse to be hard worked, and every ostler knows how very impolitic it is to load its stomach while it is on the road, or to feed it while it is suffering from fatigue. When a horse comes in from a journey, every ostler knows the first thing to be done, for the sake of its health as well as its comfort, is to clean it-to free its skin from the impurities contracted by it, from the dust or dirt of the road sticking to its coat, and mixing with the perspiration. Every ostler knows the necessity of cleaning the skin of a horse, by brushing, &c., at least once every day; and he knows that if this be not done, the animal will not bear its artificial stable life, and will soon get out of health and out of condition. If the kind of food does not seem to agree with the animal, he varies it, giving it more or less, according to circumstances, of oats, or beans, or hay. If circumstances enable him to do so, he will seldom allow a horse to do more than rinse its mouth with water either while eating, or soon before, or soon after its corn; but prefers letting it drink its fill about an hour or so before its evening meal, and in the morning, or during the day, while it is expected to have to work, or has to do so, he avoids loading its stomach with liquid, and barely permits it to allay its thirst-letting it, as I have said, drink its fill in the evening.

Now, all this is sound physiological treatment—a treatment drawn from a watchful observation of the effects of a regulated diet and regimen on the health and capabilities of the animal. How much of this care and attention is bestowed on the health of the much more important animal man? Why, his diet is allowed to depend on his tastes

his cravings; its quantity to vary, not with his amount of exertion, but with its palatability, its kind to be diversified, and each meal to consist of as many different dishes as his purse is long; the times for eating to depend on fashion, or business, or anything rather than his physical wants; his drink to be taken according to his inclinations, or according to the society he mixes with, rather than according to his necessities— its quantity to be varied rather according to its palatability, than according to his system's demand for it.

A man seldom takes less food when he undergoes less exercise; although he would feel the necessity of prescribing such to his horse, and although such is in fact necessary to the maintenance of his healthiness. A man comes in tired and hungry, and forthwith sits down to his dinner, although the fatigue almost necessarily involves a temporary want of power in his digestive organs; and, even if they do not sensibly manifest their disinclination to the task, by a fit of indigestion, the food necessarily doing him less good, affording less nourishment to his system, than it would were he to wait till the sense of fatigue is gone off. A man is exposed to cold and wet, and in many cases will sit in his wet clothes for hours; although were his horse similarly circumstanced, he would probably dsmiss his groom forthwith, did he find the animal had not been rubbed dry immediately on getting into the stable. Men, in ninety-nine cases in the hundred, are totally neglectful of the condition of their skin, unless when it covers the hands, face, and neck, whilst they are attentive almost to a fault, to that of their horses. The horse is brushed, rubbed, and carefully wiped, at least once every day; while his master's surface undergoes no such health-maintaining and comfortproducing process. The greatest care is taken that the horse have the

amount of exercise which is essential to his healthiness, while the horse's master is probably quite heedless of this matter in his own person, and unless compelled to exercise his limbs by the calls of business, or tempted to do so by the incentive of pleasure, probably remains within doors from week's end to week's end. Let a horse manifest ever so slight symptoms of disorder, and means-perhaps not always judicious ones--are taken for their removal; yet if the horse's owner is indisposed, he will probably procrastinate and put off attention to his ailments, try if they will not go off of themselves, until that which at the first was probably of trifling moment, and might have been quickly and easily got rid of, becomes in many cases serious and obstinate disorder.

Magazine of Health-Correspondence.

810. Honesty.-There is no man, but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest: there may be sometimes temptations to be otherwise, but all cards cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to lay hold of the horns of this altar, which, in all assays, can in himself protect him.-Feltham.

811. Evils of the Union of Church and State.-The alliance between Church and State is, in a political point of view, extremely suspicious, and much better fitted to the genius of an arbitrary than a free Government. To the former it may yield a powerful support, to the latter it must ever prove dangerous. The spiritual submission it exacts is unfavourable to mental vigour, and prepares the way for a servile acquiescence in the encroachments of civil authority. This is so correspondent with facts, that the epithet 'High Church,' when applied to politics, is familarly used to convey the notion of arbitrary maxims of Government. Robert Hall.

812. Consequences of a forced Rise of Wages.-In England, the operatives execute in a given time, say a week or a month, a much greater quantity of work than the operatives of the continent; and in England, coal and iron, canals, railroads, coasts, harbours, and geographical position, give to the manufacturer a most decided superiority in supplying the foreign market with manufactured goods. Yet, notwithstanding all these peculiar advantages which he possesses, the English manufacturer is so nearly undersold by the foreigner, that any material advance in the real wages of the operative classes, would disable him from encountering the competition to which he is exposed; and, if rendered compulsory, either by an act of the Legislature, or by combination among the working people, would destroy manufacturing profits, and transfer the seats of manufacturing industry to other countries.

Colonel Torrens.

813. Men easily believe what their passions suggest to them, and the weakest reasons which persuade them, are to them demonstrations. After they have thus deceived themselves, the decisive way wherewith they discourse of what they believe, serves to deceive others, or at least they fancy they have persuaded them with reasons the weakness whereof would be palpable, if they were free from passion.

Le Clerc's Parrhasiana.

813. Justice. To do justice and to give birth to the persuasion that justice is done, are two very different things, which, if possible, ought to be united; the latter object cannot always be successfully accomplished, but the attempt should never be neglected.

814. Advice.

Lord Langdale, Master of the Rolls.

Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend,
Under thine own life's key; be checked for silence

But never taxed for speech.-Shakspeare.

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