THE PENNY MAGAZINE

OF THE

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

[October 27, 1832

36.]

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.

THE BOA CONSTRICTOR.

[The Boa Constrictor about to strike a Rabbit.]

One of the most interesting objects in the fine collection of animals at the Surrey Zoological Gardens, is the Boa Constrictor. Curled up in a large box, through the upper grating of which it may be conveniently examined, this enormous reptile lies for weeks in a quiet and almost torpid state. The capacity which this class of animals possess of requiring food only at very long intervals, accounts for the inactive condition in which they principally live; but when the feeling of hunger becomes strong they rouse themselves from their long repose, and the voracity of their appetite is then as remarkable as their previous indifference. In a state of confinement the boa takes food at intervals of a month or six weeks; but he then swallows an entire rabbit or fowl, which is put in his cage. The artist who made the drawing for the above wood-cut, saw the boa at the Surrey Zoological Gardens precisely in the attitude which he has represented. The time having arrived when he was expected to require food, a live rabbit was put into his box. The poor little quadruped remained uninjured for several days, till he became familiar with his terrible enemy. On a sudden, while the artist was observing the ill-sorted pair, the reptile suddenly rose up, and, opening his fearful jaws, made a stroke at the rabbit, who was climbing up the end of the box; but, as if his appetite was not sufficiently eager, he suddenly drew back, when within an inch of his prey, and sunk into his wonted lethargy. The rabbit, unconscious of the danger, which was passed for a short season, began to play about the scaly folds of his companion; but the keeper said that his respite would be brief, and that he would be swallowed the next day without any qualms.

All the tribe of serpents are sustained by animal food. The smaller species devour insects, lizards, frogs, and snails; but the larger species, and especially the boa, not unfrequently attack very large quadrupeds. In seizing upon so small a victim as a rabbit, the boa constrictor would swallow it without much difficulty; because the peculiar construction of the mouth and throat of this species enables them to expand so as to receive within them animals of much larger bulk than the ordinary diameter of their own bodies. But in those cases where the serpent attacks a large quadruped, such as an antelope, he entwines himself round his prey, and by his great muscular power crushes the principal bones, so that the dimensions of the victim are considerably reduced, and after a series of efforts which sometimes approach to strangulation, the monster makes an end of his meal. There are stories of the boa constrictor destroying even the buffalo and the tiger, by crushing them in this manner by the astonishing force of its muscles. We shall confine ourselves at present to a well-authenticated account of the voracious appetite of a serpent of this species, which was brought from Batavia, in the year 1817, on board a vessel which conveyed Lord Amherst and his suite to England.

This serpent was of large dimensions, though not of the very largest. A living goat was placed in his cage. He viewed his prey for a few seconds, felt it with his tongue, and then, withdrawing his head, darted at the throat. But the goat, displaying a courage worthy of a better fate, received the monster on his horns. The serpent retreated, to return to the combat with more deadly certainty. He seized the goat by the leg, pulled it violently down, and twisted himself with astonishing rapidity round the body, throwing his principal weight upon the neck. The goat was so overpowered that he could not even struggle for escape. For some minutes after his victim was dead the serpent did not change his posture. At length he gradually slackened his grasp, and having entirely disengaged himself, he prepared to swallow the lifeless body. Feeling it about with his mouth, he began to draw the head into his throat; but the horns, which were four inches in length, rendered the gorging of the head a difficult task. In about two hours the whole body had disappeared. During the continuance of this extraordinary exertion the appearance of the serpent was hideous; he seemed to be suffering strangulation; his cheeks looked as if they were bursting; and the horns appeared ready to protrude through the monster’s scales. After he had accomplished his task, the boa measured double his ordinary diameter. He did not move from his posture for several days, and no irritation could rouse him from his torpor.

THE LABOURERS OF EUROPE.—No. 3.

In the province of Naples, or “Campania the blest,” as it is called, from the great fertility of its soil and its genial climate, the farms are generally small. The corn returns eight or ten for one, and the land is not left fallow occasionally for a year, but ploughed and sown with something else. Frequently after harvest it is immediately sown with the scarlet trefoil, which, when in flower, looks like a crimson carpet spread over the verdant field. Rows of elms and mulberry trees, festooned with branches of the vine, divide the various possessions; while the fig, the lemon, and the orange, grow in the gardens freely and to their full size. The high ridges of the mountains afford rich pastures, safe from the heat and drought of the plains; the sides are covered with forests of chesnut trees, which afford an important article of food to the poor; while the lower declivities are occupied by olive plantations yielding a valuable and easy harvest. In this favoured region the inhabitants, indolent as they are, can easily procure their daily subsistence. Their cabins exhibit in many instances the appearance of slovenliness, but seldom that of indigence. The farmer’s rent is paid sometimes in money, sometimes in kind, such as grain, oil, &c. The leases are generally renewed from generation to generation. The farmer is a peasant, with no capital; he works his farm chiefly with the assistance of his family. These people have some domestic comforts, good beds, coarse, but good linen, a table, a few chairs, and a large chest for their clothes. They eat with their fingers out of one dish, and all the family drink out of the same glass. They are hospitable, however, in their way, but they are coarse and uninformed, having not, like the Tuscan peasants, an opportunity of intercourse with the educated classes. Few know how to read or write, or cast accounts; they sometimes hardly know the name of their landlord. The women dress very showily on holidays, and they generally have gold ear-rings, necklace and cross. Daily labourers are paid about two carlins, or eight pence, a day, and somewhat more at harvest time. But they are engaged only a small part of the year, and they employ the rest of their time in cutting wood in the forests, in charcoal making, and other occasional jobs. They offer themselves as guides to travellers, assuming the absurd appellation of Cicerone; and sometimes, for lack of other employment, they join the banditti in some expedition just to try their fortune, after which they return quietly to their native village and resume their rural occupations. Pot-houses or wine-shops are very numerous, and to these the idlers resort on holidays, after mass, to play and drink. This was once a source of frequent quarrels, ending often in bloodshed and murder. But by the present laws (for the Neapolitan criminal justice has somewhat improved) the vintner is made answerable for any mischief that happens in his house, and there is no longer any asylum for criminals, in consequence of which blows are seldom given. The farmers, however, do not much frequent the wine-shops; they prefer selling their own wine, and remaining at home on Sundays to see their children dance the tarantella. Of this dance they are never tired.

The vintage is the season of universal rejoicing. The vines are planted thick, and allowed to grow luxuriantly, and to spread in high festoons from tree to tree, forming shady alleys into which the rays of the sun can hardly penetrate. At vintage time a man first cuts the middle branches between one tree and another, so as to make a lane for the cart to go through. The cart is drawn by a fine well-fed ox, and on it is a large tub; the men carry long narrow ladders, by which they ascend the trees, and having filled the baskets with grapes, they throw them down to the women below, who empty the contents into the tub. Jokes and joyous songs relieve the vintagers’ labours, while the farmer looks on in silence, watching the progress and calculating the produce of the ricolt. When the tub is full, the ox drags the cart reeling with grapes to the vats, the fruit is thrown in, and then being pressed under the feet of a man, the liquor descends into a lower vat, where it undergoes fermentation. These vats are square, built of brick or masonry, and uncovered. When the weather is dry the must is left to ferment five days,—if it should rain, one or two days more. The husks or dregs are then put into a press with water, and a sort of small wine is made, which is the common drink of the labourers. Another sort of wine is made by drawing some of the must or new wine out of the vat after four-and-twenty hours, and pouring it into canvass bags, which are suspended over another vat, into which the liquor distils. The wine thus made is called lambiccato; it is sweet and pale, does not keep, and, though not wholesome, it is agreeable to the taste of the people. They repeat the process several times in order to clear it and prevent any further fermentation. They use this wine to mix with the old wine, which has turned sour or musty. Some wines are also made by boiling a certain quantity of the must, and then mixing it with the rest: these wines keep longer. The vine bears fruit two years after it has been planted, and then continues to produce for sixty years or more.

In the other parts of the kingdom of Naples the condition of the rural population varies according to the climate, localities, and nature of the soil. In the mountains of Abruzzo the inhabitants are chiefly shepherds, who migrate every year with their flocks to the plains of Puglia. Their families accompany them, and assist them in making various kinds of cheese from sheep, cow, and buffalo milk, for which they are renowned. These mountaineers are an honest, frugal, industrious race: the men dress in sheepskins, and numbers of them are to be seen at Christmas time about the streets of Naples, playing their bagpipes in honour of the festivity.

The inhabitants of the large province of Calabria are another peculiar race. Brave, hardy, and proud, they work but little and live frugally. Although provisions are cheap, wages are too low to allow the labourers to buy animal food, cheese, or butter: a Calabrian peasant will make his dinner of a handful of lupines, a few chestnuts, and two ounces of bread. When he can afford to drink the common wine, he pays for it from one penny to two-pence a quart. The inhabitants near the coast live somewhat better. The Calabrian, however, disdains to beg; he will sooner rob on the high road.

The Sicilian peasantry, especially in the interior of the island, are still worse than the Calabrian. The towns and villages swarm with beggars, and the misery and consequent corruption of the poorer classes are almost incredible. While the coasts of the island abound with populous and luxurious towns, one half of whose inhabitants, however, are in a state of beggary or nearly so, the fertile valleys of the interior are left in great measure unproductive, the few farmers thinking only of getting what is absolutely necessary for their subsistence, and not of multiplying the produce of their lands, for which they have no market. The total want of roads or means of communication, the absence of capital, the indolence of the great proprietors, the injudicious trammels on exportation, and several other causes, contribute to the total prostration of Sicilian agriculture.

The land-tax in the kingdom of Naples is extremely heavy, amounting to about one-third of the estimated rent of the estates, whether cultivated or not.

COMETS.—No. 2.

Well then—we give up the question as to the danger of our earth jostling this comet of Biela, at least for the next century; but every one will admit that comets have a great influence on the temperature, and often cause dreadful epidemics. Thus say those who love to prophesy of evil; but we hope the present change of weather (October 5,) when the comet is many thousand miles nearer than he was during the warm weather of a few weeks back, will make people doubt a little before they attribute warm summers and autumns and good vintages, or bad summers and bad vintages (for comets are messengers both of good and evil,) to these much-abused and ill-understood wanderers.

We proceed to give a few more remarks, the substance of which may be found in Littrow:—

It is said that comets raise the temperature at the earth’s surface. In reply to this assertion, we give a list of those years from 1632 to 1785, which were remarkable for the unusual temperature either of their winter or their summer, and were likewise distinguished by the appearance of comets.

Comet years. | Temperature. | Comet years. | Temperature.
| 1632† | Hot summer. |  | 1718 | Severe winter.
| 1665 | Severe winter. |  | 1723† | Hot summer.
| 1680 | Ditto. |  | 1729 | Severe winter.
| 1682† | Warm winter. |  | 1737 | Hot summer.
| 1683 | Cold summer. |  | 1744 | Severe winter.
| 1683 | Severe winter. |  | 1748† | Hot summer.
| 1684 | Cold summer. |  | 1764† | Warm winter.
| 1689 | Warm winter. |  | 1766 | Severe winter.
| 1695 | Cold summer. |  | 1769† | Warm winter.
| 1699 | Severe winter. |  | 1771 | Severe winter.
| 1701† | Hot summer. |  | 1774† | Hot summer.
| 1702 | Ditto. |  | 1781† | Ditto.
| 1702 | Warm winter. |  | 1783† | Warm winter.
| 1706 | Severe winter. |  | 1784 | Severe winter.
| 1718† | Hot summer. |  | 1785 | Ditto.

Here in one hundred and fifty-three years we have fifteen marked (†), in which the comet may be supposed to have produced a greater degree of warmth; while it happens that there are just as many in which it may be said to have increased the cold. What, then, is the conclusion? Why, that the comet brings neither heat nor cold, at least none that we can discover. But there is another way of showing that comets do not bring warmth, and that if they cause any change at all in the temperature (which we do not affirm) we have as much right to say they bring cold.

From the register of the temperature kept at the Vienna Observatory, from the year 1800 to 1828 inclusive, it appears that in seven years, the average temperature of which exceeded the general average temperature at Vienna, there were ten comets; in five years, which fell below the average temperature, there were eight comets; and in six years, some of which were a little above and others a little below the average temperature, there were twelve comets. Or this result may be expressed in the following way:—

|  | Comets.
For every | 10 hot years | 14
„ | 10 cold ditto | 16
„ | 10, neither hot nor cold, ditto | 20

But, after all, it may be said that though comets produce no change in the temperature that we can estimate, they may cause diseases and other calamities by acting in some way to us invisible and unknown. Forster, in his ‘Illustrations of the atmospherical origin of Epidemic Diseases,’ asserts that since the Christian era the most unhealthy years, and those most fruitful in all kinds of human calamities, have been marked by the appearance of great comets, and that on the contrary no great comet has ever appeared in a healthy year.

If any of our readers feel disposed to believe so bold an assertion, we beg they will read Littrow’s chapter on this subject, or get some good friend to read it to them, and we venture to say they will be for ever cured of all propensity to believe in the marvellous, unless the proofs are rather stronger than those which Forster produces. Littrow denies altogether the accuracy of Forster’s tables of the concurrence of diseases, &c. and comets; but, independent of this, why should a comet cause a particular disease in one part of the globe and not in another? or why, when the comet of 1668 appeared, should there be “a great mortality among the cats” in Westphalia only? and how did it happen that the Dutch and Flemish cats escaped? But to set the matter at rest, Littrow takes Forster’s table of diseases just as it is given, and compares it with Olber’s ‘Catalogue of all the known tracks of Comets,’ and to this he adds the catalogue of comets which Riccioli has collected out of the older writers. This comparison gives the following among many other results:—“A. D. 717. There was a three years’ plague in the East, and 300,000 men died at Constantinople alone.” But unfortunately there was no comet in this year, nor in any years nearer to this date than 684 and 729. As there was no comet in 717, we ought, according to Mr. Forster’s reasoning, not to believe that 300,000 men died at Constantinople; which, for our part, we are as little inclined to give credit to as to many other marvellous facts of the same kind which the chronicles register.

To take an example in favour of Mr. Forster;—“A.D. 1200. Plague in Egypt, in which about 10,000,000 of men died.” The Arabic writer, Ali ben Rodoan, mentions a comet in this year, the body of which was said to be three times as large as Venus; we can believe all this but not “the 10,000,000 men.”

We will add another instance, not in favour of Mr. Forster.

“1624. Destructive epidemic for five years through nearly all Europe. In London 35,000 men died; in Venice 90,000, and Italy lost the fourth part of its inhabitants,” &c. This may be true, but we believe not that Italy lost the fourth part of its population; nor, if this calamitous event did take place, do we believe there were then or are now any means of ascertaining the loss with such accuracy. But how stand the comets for this year? Alas! for theories without facts. Between 1618 and 1652 no comets are recorded.

We have spoken of the false fears which the presence of comets sometimes engender, in a tone which some persons may call by the name of levity. We have done so, because we believe that such fears, tending to make people unhappy, are best got rid of by a little good-natured ridicule. One of the best foundations of happiness is a confidence that the laws by which the universe is governed, however mysterious and inexplicable, are intended to sustain and preserve that wondrous mechanism which we so imperfectly understand, but which we know must proceed from the most perfect goodness as well as wisdom and power.

The errors which we have noticed regarding comets have in some cases been the errors of men whose judgments have been led astray by false assumptions. But there have not been wanting self-constituted interpreters of the designs of Providence, who have misled the ignorant by pronouncing comets to be the forerunners, sometimes of pestilence, at others of war, and at others of political or local occurrences, such as the Fire of London. Such predictions, like those connected with eclipses of the sun and moon, cannot be too strongly stigmatized, as proceeding either from the most presumptuous ignorance, or the most wicked imposture. It is quite enough for men to aim at an approximation to a knowledge of the system of the world, without taking upon themselves to assign supposed causes for the existence of this or that phenomenon—and those causes often the most frivolous and absurd. True knowledge leads not to presumption but to humility: and it would be well for those who take upon themselves to expound, with reference to passing events, the eternal ways of Providence, as if they were gods, knowing good and evil, to take example from the modesty of such immortal philosophers as Newton and Bacon; and, whilst confessing that the little that is known to men only serves to show the more clearly how much is unknown, to humble themselves before that great First Cause who made “the sun to rule the day, the moon and the stars to govern the night,—for his mercy endureth for ever!”

THE TEMPLES OF PÆSTUM.

[The Temple of Neptune.]

These sublime relics of antiquity stand on the edge of a vast and desolate plain, that extends from the neighbourhood of the city of Salerno to the mountains of the Cilento, or nearly to the confines of Calabria. The approach to them across this wild is exceedingly impressive. For miles and miles scarcely a human habitation is seen, or any living creature, save herds of savage-looking buffaloes, that range the lords of the waste. And when you are within the lines of the ancient walls of the town—of the once opulent and magnificent Pæstum—only a miserable little taverna, or house of entertainment, a barn, and a mean modern edifice belonging to the nominal bishop of the place, and nearly always uninhabited, meet your eye. But there the three ancient edifices rise before you in the most imposing and sublime manner—they can hardly be called ruins, they have still such a character of firmness and entireness. Their columns seem to be rooted in the earth, or to have grown from it! The first impression produced on the traveller, when he arrives at the spot, has often been described. Even the critical and sceptical Forsyth exclaims, “On entering the walls of Pæstum I felt all the religion of the place—I trod as on sacred ground—I stood amazed at the long obscurity of its mighty ruins!”

These edifices have been called, rather by caprice or conjecture than from any good grounds for such names, the Temple of Ceres, the Temple of Neptune, and the Basilica. That of Ceres, which is the smallest of the three, first presents itself to the traveller from Naples. It has six columns in front, and thirteen in length; the columns are thick in proportion to their elevation, and much closer to each other than they are generally found to be in Greek Temples, “which,” says Mr. Forsyth, “crowds them advantageously on the eye, enlarges our idea of the space, and gives a grand, an heroic air to a monument of very moderate dimension.”

The second, or the Temple of Neptune, is not the largest, but by far the most massy and imposing of the three: it has six columns in front and fourteen in length, the angular column to the west, with its capital, has been struck and partially shivered by lightning. It once threatened to fall and ruin the symmetry of one of the most perfect monuments now in existence, but it has been secured by iron cramps. An inner peristyle of much smaller columns rises in the cella, in two stories, with only an architrave, which has neither frieze nor cornice between the columns, which thus almost seem standing the one on the capital of the other—a defect in architecture, which is, however, justified by Vitruvius and the example of the Parthenon. The light pillars of this interior peristyle, of which some have fallen, rise a few feet above the exterior cornice and the massy columns of the temple. Whether you gaze at this wonderful edifice from without or from within, as you stand on the floor of the cella, which is much encumbered with heaps of fallen stones and rubbish, the effect is awfully grand. The utter solitude, and the silence, never broken save by the flight and screams of the crows and birds of prey which your approach may scare from the cornices and architraves, where they roost in great numbers, adds to the solemn impression produced by those firmset and eternal looking columns.

The third structure, generally called a basilica, but sometimes an atrium, a curia, a market-place, or an exchange, is the most extensive, and, in point of architecture, the most curious, It has nine columns in front, and eighteen in length, and a row of pillars in the middle, parallel to the sides, which divide the temple, or whatever it may have been, into two equal parts. The diameter of these columns is somewhat larger than that of the columns of the first temple, but much smaller than the diameter of those of the second temple.

All the three structures are in the peculiar style called the Doric. They are all raised upon substructions forming three gradations or high steps—the columns without bases repose on the uppermost of these steps: the columns are not quite five diameters in height, they taper off about one-fourth as they ascend, they are fluted like all ancient Greek columns, their capitals are flat and prominent, and their intercolumniation, or the space from one to the other, little exceeds one diameter. The material of which they are built is the same throughout each of the temples and common to them all. It is an exceedingly hard, but porous and brittle stone, of a sober brownish-grey colour. It is a curious fact, that not only the ignorant people on the spot, but Neapolitan antiquaries (who, however, rarely travel to see things with their own eyes) wonder whence the ancients brought these masses of curious stone. They found them on the spot. “The stone of these edifices,” says Mr. Forsyth, “was probably formed at Pæstum itself, by the brackish water of the Salso acting on vegetable earth, roots, and plants; for you can distinguish their petrified tubes in every column.” And Mr. Mac Farlane, who passed a considerable time on the spot, adds, “The brackish water of the river Salso that runs by the wall of the town, and in different branches across the plain, has so strong a petrifying virtue that you can almost follow the operation with the eye; the waters of the neighbouring Sele (a considerable river—the ancient Silarus) have in all ages been remarkable for the same quality: in many places where the soil had been removed, we perceived strata of stone similar to the stones which compose the temples, and I could almost venture to say that the substratum of all the plain, from the Sele to Acropoli, is of the like substance. Curious petrifactions of leaves, pieces of wood, insects, and other vegetable and animal matters, are observed in the materials of the columns, walls,” &c.

These temples are the only ancient remains of any importance to be found at Pæstum, except the Cyclopean walls of the city, which are pretty well preserved on three sides, and only entirely obliterated on the side towards the sea. On the eastern side, indeed, they have suffered little, and fragments of towers, which seem to have flanked the walls at regular distances, yet exist. There is a gate in this part called La Porta della Sirena, or the Syren’s Gate (from a small rudely sculptured figure that looks like a dolphin, over the arch) which is very perfect, but mean and small; and here the ancient aqueduct is traced for some distance.

The origin of the city may safely be referred to remote antiquity; but those are probably in the right who would fix the period at which the existing temples were erected as contemporary with, or a little posterior to the building of the Parthenon at Athens. But even this calculation leaves them the venerable age of twenty-two centuries; and so firm and strong are they still, that, except in the case of a tremendous earthquake or some other extraordinary convulsion of nature, two thousand two hundred and many more years may pass over their mighty columns and architraves, and they remain, as they now are, the objects of the world’s admiration.

[Interior of the Temple of Neptune.]

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAMBLING AND TRADING.

It has been remarked that all games or sports are imitations either of war or commerce. The imitations of war are sufficiently obvious; some, such as the combats of the gladiators in ancient Rome, were exhibitions of actual fighting; others, such as the bull-fights of Spain, the elephant and tiger-fights of India, the cock-fights, dog-fights, badger-baits, &c. of England and other countries, are exhibitions of the combats of animals. In these cruel sports, the men or animals are made to fight for the amusement of the lookers-on, who sympathize in the exertions of skill, power, and courage which they behold. More frequently, however, the pleasure is derived from being, not a spectator, but an actor in the contest; as in all field-sports, such as hunting, shooting, and fishing; or in bloodless games, such as cricket, football, prisoners-base, chess, draughts, &c.; in which the gratification arises from a sense of the skill exercised, from the love of emulation, and the feeling of superiority. The games which appear to be imitations of mercantile dealings are, without exception, games of chance or gambling games, such as games with dice and cards, lotteries, raffles, &c. In games of this kind there is usually a stake to be played for, which is like the sum that a trader hopes to gain by an adventure or speculation; and either chance alone, or a mixture of chance and skill, determines the winner. In some games of cards the resemblance is still further increased by the players exchanging some of their cards, as in the well-known game of commerce.

But in noting the resemblance between trade and games of chance, it is also important to note their difference. At games of chance there is a certain stake made up by the contributions of the players; and when the game is over, whatever is gained by one player is lost by another. There can be no gain without a corresponding loss. In trade, however, this is far otherwise. Every voluntary exchange must necessarily be for the benefit of both parties. It would be an absurdity to suppose that both parties to an exchange are not gainers. No man exchanges merely for the sake of changing: for example, no man gives a shilling in order to get a shilling, or gives a copy of a book in order to get an identical copy of the same book. Still less does any one exchange in order to give away something which is more valuable to him than that which he gets in return. No man gives a horse worth £30 for a bushel of corn worth 10s. No man gives a cargo of cotton goods worth £500 for a pipe of wine worth £50.

Some of our readers may perhaps be inclined to exclaim that they need not to be informed of a maxim which is never formally stated, only because it is universally admitted; and may think that in telling them that neither party loses by an exchange, we adhere strictly to our character of not admitting news into our magazine. Nevertheless this axiom, however evident and undeniable, is impliedly rejected by many of those persons who consider free trade as injurious to the wealth of a country. For in whatever manner merchants are permitted to trade it is quite certain that they will never give more than they get—in other words, never voluntarily make a losing bargain. Sometimes indeed it happens that goods are voluntarily sold at a loss, but it is evident that no merchant will long continue to make exchanges by which he is a loser. Those persons, therefore, who maintain that if we trade freely with a foreign country our merchants will lose, unless that country trades freely with us, maintain that one of the parties to a voluntary exchange may be a loser. For as no considerable trade can be carried on by means of the precious metals by a country in which they are not produced, it is obvious that if we import a large quantity of goods from a foreign country, we must either give in exchange goods of less value to us than those which we part with, or that if they will not take our goods and do not want bullion, they must give us their goods for nothing. The latter supposition is, we fear, too favourable to ourselves to be very probable, or, as is commonly said, it is too good to be true; but at any rate it is as likely that foreigners will give us their goods for nothing, as that we will give foreigners our goods for nothing; which would be the case if it were true that a free trade, or any other trade, is a losing trade.

SATURDAY NIGHT’S WAGES.

The system frequently pursued in manufacturing towns in paying the wages of mechanics, is not, perhaps, calculated to give to these all the advantages which they should derive from their hard earnings.

It is the custom in many factories to pay the wages of the week at a neighbouring public-house on the Saturday evening, after the labours of the day are over. This duty, in a large establishment, is a work which necessarily occupies some time; and the most sober and well-disposed, those most anxious to take their earnings home to their families, cannot obtain their money in time for procuring the Sunday’s meal before the usual hour of rest. After a hard day’s labour, spent in domestic cares, and in rendering the dwelling in a fit state for the coming day, the weary housewife would gladly seek repose. Under this arrangement, however, she is obliged to encroach on the period which should be devoted to sleep, in order to make her requisite purchases, or to invade the quiet of the Sabbath morning with the petty cares of life, which, for that one day at least, should be laid aside.

This in itself is a great annoyance to the female part of the community; but it is light as air to them, compared with the more serious evil which the system carries in its train, and which they would gladly exchange for any personal inconvenience they might be called upon to endure.

Workmen of the most abstemious habits consider themselves in a manner constrained to take some refreshment in the house where they have just received money; and though they may spend but a trifle, that trifle would have been better bestowed in assisting to minister to the wants of those nearest and dearest to them. But what a temptation is held out to men of a less temperate character. Here the love of noisy fellowship is nourished, unfitting the mind for the quiet enjoyments of home. Here the habit of intoxication is gradually acquired and confirmed. While wives are anxiously waiting at the door of the house for those supplies which will enable them to furnish necessaries for their families, husbands are too often rioting within, forgetful of those ties which should prevent such a waste of time and money in selfish and degrading enjoyment; and when, at length, the expecting female does obtain the residue of the earnings which should have been appropriated to the support of her family for the ensuing week, she finds the sum fearfully diminished and inadequate for the purpose.

Many a watchful mother has had to mourn over the ruined prospects of a beloved son, whose first deviation from right was the loitering at the public-house on the Saturday night; his former simple habits gradually turned into those of selfishness, and all its lamentable consequences. Many an affectionate wife has had to grieve at this wreck of her early happiness, first invaded by the Saturday night’s temptation; while she is either left to struggle neglected and alone through the miseries of life, or called upon to endure more active ill treatment from her inebriated partner.

It may be said, we are rather exaggerating the picture; that a large proportion of those who gain their livelihood by working as mechanics are respectable, intelligent, and virtuous members of society. Most happily this is true; but we think a still farther number might be ranked in the same class, if the payment of wages were better regulated, while the comfort of the artisans, and that of their families, would at the same time be materially increased.

There can be little doubt that, were proprietors once convinced of the bad effects which arise from this plan, they would adopt one more conducive to the comfort of those by whose labour they are benefited. A walk in a manufacturing town at twelve o’clock on the Saturday night, would sufficiently expose the evils of this manner of payment. The shops are then still open, and harassed females are seen flocking to them; the streets are crowded with people; and many women, with looks of distress, are still lingering at the doors of the pay-houses, in the vain hope of alluring home their truant husbands. The whole continues a scene of noise, bustle, and confusion, long past the hour of midnight, and but ill-befitted to usher in the day of rest. How unlike the holy soothing repose of the cotter’s Saturday eve, so beautifully described by Burns.

If payment of the week’s earnings were made on the respective premises instead of at a drinking-house, and on the Friday instead of the Saturday evening, all these evils might at once be avoided.

The men would have no temptation given them to spend their earnings away from their families—the women would be enabled to make their purchases on the Saturday, at the time most convenient for the purpose, and they would have one chance less for unhappiness.

Two objections are made to this proposed alteration—the one moral, the other practical.

It is said that, with a well furnished pocket, a man not very industrious may be inclined to indulge himself in idleness during the ensuing day; but this would evince so total an absence of foresight and prudence, that the individual capable of such conduct would, we fear, when paid on the Saturday, in like manner take his holiday on the Monday, or just as long as his money might last.

The other objection arises from the mode in which the wages are usually paid at a large establishment. The required amount of money is in the first instance deposited in the hands of the confidential foreman, who does not pay each individual workman, but divides the whole in classes, and to a responsible man in each of these intrusts the sum due to his particular class: should the individuals of which this is composed be very numerous, he in his turn subdivides, till at length the various claimants receive their due. The transaction is not, therefore, simply that of a proprietor paying his men, but it involves itself into a much more complicated form, and the men must necessarily have a common place of rendezvous to adjust their various accounts. That this difficulty may be obviated, and that it is in fact nearly as easy to pay on the premises as to adjourn to another house, we happen to be furnished with a practical proof. The proprietor of a large concern, not residing on the spot where it is carried on, had recently occasion to proceed to that place in order to examine more particularly how the works were conducted. He immediately perceived the bad effects arising from the system of paying the workmen at a drinking-house, and determined at once to abolish the practice. This intention was strongly combated by the superintendent, who assured him that it was an impossibility to pay all the men at the works, for if the few to whom he delivered the money for their respective divisions were to receive it on the premises, they would of their own accord repair to the usual pay-house with those to whom the money was due, in order to make a settlement among themselves.

The gentleman persevered, however, in his intention; and on the day of payment, he himself, without any assistance, paid into the hands of each workman before he left the premises, the wages due to him. He thus proved the practicability of the alteration, and acquired the right of insisting that henceforth the plan should always be pursued. By a little method, and by the aid of a few assistants, this work would of course be comparatively easy to one understanding its practical details; if in the absence of these advantages it was accomplished without any difficulty, in the manner we have described, by one quite new to the business, in an establishment where numerous work-people are employed, it follows that this objection is of no weight.

Struggle between an Eagle and a Salmon.—“That the eagle is extremely destructive to fish, and particularly so to salmon, many circumstances would prove. Eagles are constantly discovered watching the fords in the spawning season, and are seen to seize and carry off the fish. Some years since a herdsman, on a very sultry day in July, while looking for a missing sheep, observed an eagle posted on a bank that overhung a pool. Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent struggle ensued: when the herdsman reached the spot, he found the eagle pulled under water by the strength of the fish, and the calmness of the day, joined to drenched plumage, rendered him unable to extricate himself. With a stone the peasant broke the eagle’s pinion, and actually secured the spoiler and his victim, for he found the salmon dying in his grasp. When shooting on Lord Sligo’s mountains, near the Killeries, I heard many particulars of the eagle’s habits and history from a grey-haired peasant who had passed a long life in these wilds. The scarcity of hares, which here were once abundant, he attributed to the rapacity of those birds; and he affirmed, that when in pursuit of these animals, the eagles evinced a degree of intelligence that appeared extraordinary. They coursed the hares, he said, with great judgment and certain success; one bird was the active follower, while the other remained in reserve, at the distance of forty or fifty yards. If the hare, by a sudden turn, freed himself from his most pressing enemy, the second bird instantly took up the chase, and thus prevented the victim from having a moment’s respite. He had remarked the eagles also while they were engaged in fishing. They chose a small ford upon the rivulet which connects Glencullen with Glandullah, and, posted on either side, waited patiently for the salmon to pass over. Their watch was never fruitless,—and many a salmon, in its transit from the sea to the lake, was transferred from its native element to the wild aërie in the Alpine cliff that beetles over the romantic waters of Glencullen.”

[These anecdotes are extracted from a work just published, containing spirited details of a sportsman’s life in Ireland, and numerous sketches of natural history. It is entitled, ‘Wild Sports of the West.’]

THE WEEK.

October 28.—This is commonly regarded as the birthday of the great Erasmus, and in one place is mentioned as such by himself, although in another he says he was born on the 27th. The year of his birth is still more uncertain; some authorities placing the event in 1465, but the commonly received date, and that inscribed on his monument at Rotterdam, being 1467. It was in this city he first saw the light. His mother’s name was Margaret, the daughter of a physician. He was, as he tells us himself, a natural son. The relations of his father, Gerard, had opposed his marriage with Margaret, and having prevailed upon him sometime after the birth of Erasmus to make a journey to Rome, there persuaded him that she was dead, and by that representation induced him to enter a monastery. He is described to have been a person well instructed in the learning of that age. Erasmus took his father’s name only, according to what was then the fashion among scholars, turning it into Greek, Erasmus, or, as it should rather have been Erasmius, signifying Amiable in that language, as Gerard does in Dutch. To this he prefixed the other Latin name Desiderius, (in French Didier,) which has been regarded as having the same signification. His mother was his first teacher, and at nine years of age he was sent to a grammar school at Deventer. Here he greatly distinguished himself among his schoolfellows. Before he had reached his fourteenth year, however, he had lost both his father and mother; and the guardians in whose charge he had been left forced him by threats to enter a monastery, and then possessed themselves of his property. This base treatment was to Erasmus the source of half a lifetime of difficulties and misfortunes. Hating the profession which he had been compelled to adopt, and keenly feeling the injustice of which he had been the victim, he eagerly sought the means of escape from his present situation. At last he prevailed upon his superiors to allow him to go to study at the College of Montaigu in Paris. In this city he supported himself for some years by his exertions as a teacher,—an occupation which he never liked, but in which it was his fate to be engaged for a considerable part of his life. His lectures, however, gradually spread his reputation; and in 1497 he was induced by some of his pupils from England to visit this country. Here he was warmly welcomed by many of the most distinguished scholars of the time: he formed in particular an intimate acquaintance with the afterwards-celebrated Sir Thomas More; and Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, evinced the strongest disposition to patronise him. He soon after, however, returned to Paris; and then he made a tour through the principal cities of Italy, visiting in succession Bologna, Venice, Padua, and Rome. Wherever he appeared he was received as one of the greatest ornaments of the age. But Erasmus had made up his mind to return to England; and here, accordingly, he once more made his appearance in 1506. The great scholar seems, from the time of his first visit to this country, to have felt a strong attachment to its society and manners, and had his talents been more liberally remunerated would probably have made it his permanent abode. Indeed he speaks in one of his writings of Holland and England as entitled to an equal place in his affection,—the one as the land of his birth, the other as that of his adoption. When he came to England, he threw off, he tells us, his monastic habit, which he had worn till then, finding such a garb was not fashionable in this country. How long Erasmus remained in England at this time it is impossible exactly to ascertain; but after having returned to the continent we find him here again in 1510. The wandering life which the great scholar appears to have led presents us with a curious picture of the manners of the time; and the fate of Erasmus, in his incessant migrations from one part of Europe to another, was only that of many of his brethren. It was a sort of existence, however, it is right to remark, which had its pleasures and advantages as well as its inconveniences; and at an age when the general intercourse of nations was so irregular and imperfect, travelling was almost the only way by which inquisitive minds could learn anything of foreign countries. At the same time the main object for which such peregrinations were undertaken seems to have generally been to seek for patronage. In England, Erasmus had nothing to depend upon except the liberality of his wealthy friends and admirers. Of these the most powerful, and also the most munificent, was Archbishop Warham, who, in 1511, gave him the living of Aldington in Kent, and also procured him the appointment of teacher of Greek at Cambridge. Notwithstanding these benefactions, however, we find him still engaged in a continual warfare with poverty. He seems, indeed, to have depended for his subsistence almost entirely upon the occasional bounty of his friends; and it is painful to peruse his frequent and earnest solicitations for assistance from one or other of them. Sometimes he petitions even for a few crowns, or notices his receipt of that small sum. Perhaps there is a good deal of truth in Dr. Jortin’s conjecture, that he was but an indifferent manager, and had his own imprudence to thank for much of what he suffered. One circumstance, amusingly illustrative both of his propensity to move about from one place to another and of his inability to take care of himself or of his property, is his continual supplication to one friend or another to give him a horse. No sooner does he get one than he loses it, and some other charitable acquaintance is called upon to take pity upon him and supply him with another. Erasmus seems to have resided with More during part of the time he was in England, but not, as has been sometimes affirmed, in the house which More built for himself at Chelsea, which was only erected in 1521, whereas Erasmus certainly left this country, to which he never returned, in 1518. After that he resided principally at Basil, where, in the society of many friends whom he loved, and whose pursuits were similar to his own, he employed himself with an industry that has never been surpassed, in the preparation of a succession of works, which on the whole may be considered as having placed him, both as a scholar and as a man of genius, above all his contemporaries. In his latter years the court of Rome more than once expressed an anxiety to bestow upon him a Cardinal’s hat, and arrangements would even have been made to secure him the income necessary for the maintenance of that dignity; but the old man, satisfied with his fame as a scholar, and with the competence which the success of his writings had at last procured him, declined the proffered honour. He died at Basil on the 12th of July, 1536, and was interred with great pomp in that city. His native town of Rotterdam, however, although it neither received his remains, nor had been much honoured by his presence while he lived, was so proud of having given birth to so illustrious a writer, that his statue in bronze was placed by the authorities in a conspicuous situation in one of their public places, where it still remains. It is renown enough for Rotterdam, many have thought, to have produced Erasmus. Perhaps no other modern has written the Latin language with the grace and elegance of this accomplished scholar, or shown so familiar a mastery over all its resources. But his works are distinguished by many other admirable qualities besides the beauties of their style; by the most playful and engaging wit, the most natural touches of humour, great powers of graphic description, and, above all, a pervading spirit of good sense and philosophic moderation, which doubles the charm of every other excellence. Those of Erasmus’s writings which are best known, are his Eulogy on Folly, a production of light satire; his Adages, and especially his celebrated Colloquies, of the second edition of which, published at Paris in 1527, it is a remarkable but well authenticated fact, that there were sold no fewer than 24,000 copies.

[Portrait of Erasmus reading.]

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Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the original text:

p. 291: Added comma after phrase “in a state of beggary or nearly so.”

p. 293: Replaced comma with period after phrase “from the love of emulation, and the feeling of superiority.”

p. 295: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “over the romantic waters of Glencullen.”

p. 295: Added closing square bracket after phrase “Wild Sports of the West.”