1825-the rate for the latter year being, for black-faced ewes, from 123 to 18. But the present crisis came, -the manufacturers of England were obliged to retrench at meals in the article of mutton,-the demand on the part of the butchers consequently ceased; and now those sheep which were purchased at so extravagant a rate, are necessarily sold, upon an average, at a loss of 2s. a-head upon the inlay price, without at all estimating the expense of keep. We know one extensive moorland farmer, who calculates upon losing two hundred pounds in the present year from this cause alone, besides a vast loss which he must also sustain in consequence of the reduced price of wool. This cessation of demand in England was unfortunately not fully ascertained until several droves of lambing ewes had been despatched to that quarter; and the embarrassment of those who are placed in this predicament is the more afflicting, as their knowledge has been acquired too late to allow of their availing themselves of the House of Muir, and other northern markets.'-Dumfries Courier, March, 1826.

'Detai's upon the Subject of Weavers' Wages, from the last Report of emigration extracted from the Scotsman Newspaper, of 10th November. 1827.

found work again, but at very low wages. They were labouring from twelve to fourteen hours a-day, and gaining from 4s. to 5s. 6d. per week.'

'POOR RATES, 28th March, 1828.-A document of great importance, though of a description by no means cheering, has been presented to the House of Commons, the annual Abstract of the Returns of the Poor Rates levied and expended, with comparisons, showing their increase or diminution. The accounts show the expenditure of the year ending 25th March, 1827, compared with the previous year. The total sum levied in all the counties of England and Wales, in the last year, was £7,489,694; the sum expended for the relief of the poor, £6,179,877. The increase in that year throughout the whole of England and Wales, is nine per cent; nine per cent. in one year on the whole sum expended. It is true that this is in part to be accounted for by the temporary distress of the manufacturing districts. (In Lancaster, the increase was forty-seven, in the West Riding of York, thirty-one per cent ;) but we are sorry to find, that in only three counties of Eng land was there any the most trifling diminution. In Berks two, Hampshire five, Suffolk four per cent. The poor rates in England, therefore, amount to nearly double the whole landed rental of Scotland.' 'Extract from the Lord-Advocate's Speech in the House of Commons, 11th March, 1828, on the additional Circuit Court of Glasgow.

The Lord-Advocate, in rising to move for leave to bring in a bill to "authorize an additional Court of Justiciary to be held at Glasgow, and to facilitate criminal trial in Scotland," said he did not anticipate any oppo

Joseph Foster a weaver, and one of the deputies of an emigration society in Glasgow, states that the labour all paid by the piece; the hours of working are various, sometimes eighteen or nineteen out of twenty-four, and even all night once or twice a-week; and that the wages made by such labour, after deducting the necessary expenses, will not amount to more than from 4s. 6d. to 7s. per week, some kinds of work, paying better than others. When he commenced work-sition to the motion. A great deal had been said of ing as a weaver, from 1800 to 1805, the same amount of labour that now yields 4s. 6d. to 5s would have yielded 20s. There are about 11,000 hand-looms going in Glasgow and its suburbs, some of which are worked by boys and girls, and he estimates the average net earnings of each hand-weaver at 5s 6d. The principle subsistence of the weavers is oatmeal and potatoes, with occasionally some salt herring.

Major Thomas Moodie, who had made careful inquiries into the state of the poor at Manchester, states, that the calico and other light plain work at Bolton and Blackburn, yields the weaver from 4s. to 5s. per week, by fourteen hours of daily labour. In the power-loom work, one man attends two looms, and earns from 7s. 6d. to 14s. per week, according to the fineness of the work. He understood that during the last ten years, weavers' wages had fallen on an average about 15s. per week.

the progress of crime in this country, but he was sorry to say crime in Scotland had kept pace with that increase. A return had been made of the number of criminal commitments in each year, so far back as the year 1805. In that year the number of criminal commitments for all Scotland amounted only to 85. In 1809 it had risen to between 200 and 300; in 181920, it had increased to 400; and by the last return, it

appeared, that, in 1827, 661 persons had been commit

ted for trial. He was inclined to think, that the great increase of crime, particularly in the west of Scotland. was attributable, in no small degree, to the number of Irish who daily and weekly arrived there. He did not mean to say that the Irish themselves were in the habit of committing more crime than their neighbours; but he was of opinion, that their numbers tended to reduce the price of labour, and that an increase of crime was the consequence. Another cause was the great disre gard manifested by parents for the moral education of their children. Formerly the people of Scotland were remarkable for the paternal care which they took of their offspring. That had ceased in many instances to be the case. Not only were parents found who did not pay attention to the welfare of their children, but who were actually parties to their criminal pursuits, and participated in the fruits of their unlawful proceedings. When crime was thus on the increase, it was necessary to take measures for its speedy punishment. The great city of Glasgow, which contained 150,000 inhabitants, and to which his proposed measure was meant chiefly to apply, stood greatly in need of some additional jurisdiction. This would appear evident, when it was conMr W. H. Hyett, Secretary to the Charity Com-sidered that the court which met there for the trial of mittee in London, gives a detailed statement, to show, that in the Hundred of Blackburn, comprising a population of 150,000 persons, 90,000 were out of employment in 1826! In April last, when he gave his evidence before the Committee, these persons had generally

Mr Thomas Hunton, manufacturer, Carlisle, states, that there are in Carlisle and its neighbourhood about 5500 families, or from 18,000 to 20,000 persons dependent on weaving. They are all hand-weavers, and are now in a very depressed state, in consequence of the increase of power-loom and factory weaving* in Manchester and elsewhere. Taking fifteen of his men, he finds that five of them, who are employed on the best work, had earned 5s. 6d. per week for the preceding month deducting the necessary expenses of loom-rent, candles, tackling, &c.; the next five, who are upon work of the second quality, earned 3s. 11d.; and the third five earned 3s. 7 1-2per week. They work from fourteen to sixteen hours a-day, and live chiefly on potatoes, butter-milk, and herrings.

capital offences, had also to act in the districts of Renfrew, Lanark, and Dunbarton. In 1812, the whole number of criminals tried in Glasgow was only 31; in 1820, it was 83; in 1823, it was 85; and in 1827, 211.

The learned lord concluded by moving for leave to bring in a bill to authorize an additional circuit court of justiciary to be held at Glasgow. and to facilitate criminal trial in Scotland.'

END.

CONTENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

ON NATURAL LAWS,

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN, AND ITS RELATIONS TO EXTERNAL OBJECTS,

SECT. I. Man considered as a Physical Being,

.

II. Man considered as an Organized Being,

III. Man considered as an Animal-Moral- and Intellectual Being,.

IV. The Faculties of Man compared with each other; or the supremacy of the Moral Senments and Intellect,

V. The Faculties of Man compared with External Objects,

6778

VI. On the sources of Human Happiness, and the conditions requisite for maintaining it, VII. Application of the Natural Laws to the practical arrangements of Life,

CHAPTER III.

TO WHAT EXTENT ARE THE MISERIES OF MANKIND REFERABLE TO INFRINGEMENTS OF THE LAWS OF NATURE,

SECT. I. Calamities arising from infringements of the Physical Laws,

II. On the Evils that befall Mankind from the infringement of the Organic Laws,
III. Calamities arising from infringement of the Moral Law,

IV. Moral advantages of Punishment,

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

PERHAPS it will be thought that pieces written so much in the manner of set compositions as the following, should not have been denominated Letters; it may, therefore, be proper to say, that they are so called because they were actually addressed to a friend. They were written, however, with the intention to print them, if, when they were finished, the writer could persuade himself that they deserved it; and the character of authors is too well known for any one to be surprised that he could persuade himself of this.

When he began these letters, his intention was to confine himself within such limits, that essays on twelve or fifteen subjects might have been comprised in a volume. But he soon found that an interesting subject could not be so fully unfolded as he wished, in such a narrow space. It appeared to him that many things which would be excluded, as much belonged to the purpose of the essay as those which would be intro. duced.

effort under the same conditions under which the other asserts their inefficacy; and that, therefore, there is no real contrariety between the principles of the two essays. From the evidence of history and familiar experience we know that under certain conditions, and within certain limits, (very contracted ones indeed,) an enlightened and resolute human spirit has great power, this greatness being relative, of course, to the measures of things within a small sphere; while it is equally obvious that this enlightened and resolute spirit, disregarding these conditions, and attempting to extend its agency over a much wider sphere, shall find its power baffled and annihilated, till it draws back again within the contracted boundary. Now the great power of the human mind within the narrow limit may be distinctly illustrated at one time, and its impotence beyond that limit, at another; but the assemblage of sentiments and exemplifications most adapted to illustrate, and without any very material exaggeration, that power alone, will form apparently so strong a contrast with It will not seem a very natural manner of commencthe assemblage of thoughts and facts proper for illus ing a course of letters to a friend to enter formally on trating that imbecility alone, that on a superficial view a subject, in the first sentence. In excuse for this abthe two representations may appear contradictory. And ruptness it may be mentioned, that an introductory letthe author appeals to the experience of such thinking ter went before that which appears first in the series; but as it was written in the presumption that a consid-writing, whether they have not sometimes, on compamen as are accustomed to commit their thoughts to erable variety of subjects would be treated in the compass of a moderate number of letters, it is omitted, as being less adapted to precede what is executed in a manner so different from the design.

ring the pages in which they had endeavoured to place one truth in the strongest light, with those in which they have endeavoured a strong but yet not extravagant exhibition of another, felt a momentary difficulty to reconcile them, even while satisfied of the substantial justness of both. The whole doctrine on any extensive moral subject necessarily includes two views which may be considered as its extremes; and if these are strongly stated quite apart from their relations to each other, both the representations may be perfectly true, and yet may require, in order to the readers perceiving their consistency, a recollection of many intermediate ideas.

When writing which has occupied a considerable length, and has been interrupted by considerable intervals, of time, which is also on very different subjects, and was, perhaps, meditated under the influence of different circumstances, is at last all read over in one short space, this immediate succession and close comparison make the writer sensible of some things of which he was not aware in the slow separate stages of his progress. On thus bringing the following essays under one review, the writer perceives some reason to In the fourth essay, it was not intended to take a apprehend that the spirit of the third may appear so comprehensive or systematic view of the causes condifferent from that of the second as to give an impres-tributing to prevent the candid attention and the cordial sion of something like inconsistency. The second may seem to represent that a man may effect almost every thing; the third, that he can effect scarcely any thing. The writer, however, persuades himself that the one does not assert the efficacy of human resolution and

admission due to evangelical religion, but simply to se lect a very few which had particularly attracted the author's observation. One or two more would have been specified and slightly illustrated, if that the essay had not been already too long.