seasons. 5th. Imprudent and Hasty Marriages.-This, it is believed, is a fertile source of trial and poverty. of men. They vary with constitution, when labour is plentiful, which may go with character, and with national and to meet the privations of unfavourable local habits. Some of them lie so deeply entrenched in the weakness and depravity of human nature, as to be altogether unassailable by mere political regulation. They can be reached in no other way, than by awakening the dormant and secret energies of moral feeling. But, with a view to bring the subject committed to our charge more definitely before the Society, we have thought it right distinctly to enumerate the more prominent of those causes of poverty which prevail in this city; subjoining such remarks as may appear needful. 1st. Ignorance, arising either from inherent dulness, or from want of opportunities for improvement.-This operates as a restraint upon the physical powers, preventing that exercise and cultivation of the bodily faculties by which skill is obtained, and the means of support increased. The influence of this cause, it is believed, is particularly great among the foreign poor that annually accumulate in this city. 5th. Lotteries.-The depraving nature and tendency of these allurements to hazard money, is generally admitted by those who have been most attentive to their effects. The time spent in inquiries relative to lotteries, in frequent attendance on lottery-offices, the fever. ish anxiety which prevails relative to the success of tickets, the association to which it leads, all contribute to divert the labourer from his employment, to weaken the tone of his morals, to consume his earnings, and consequently to increase his poverty. But objectionable and injurious to society as we believe lotteries to be, we regard as more destructive to morals, and ruinous to all character and comfort, the numerous self-erected lottery insurances, at which the young and old are invited to spend their money, in such small pittances as the poorest labourer is frequently able to command, under the delusive expectation of gain, the chance of which is as low, perhaps, as it is pos 2d. Idleness.-A tendency to this evil may be more or less inherent. It is greatly increased by other causes, and when it becomes habitual, it is the o-sible to conceive. The poor are thus casion of much suffering in families, and augments, to a great amount, the burden of the industrious portions of society. 3d. Intemperance in Drinking.-This most prolific source of mischief and misery, drags in its train almost every species of suffering which afflicts the poor. This evil, in relation to poverty and vice, may be emphatically styled, the Cause of Causes. The box of Pandora is realized in each of the kegs of ardent spirits that stand upon the counters of the sixteen hundred licensed grocers of this city. At a moderate computation, the money spent in the purchase of spirituous liquors would be more than sufficient to keep the whole city constantly supplied with bread. Viewing the enormous devastations of this evil upon, the minds and morals of the people, we cannot but regard it as the crying and increasing sin of the nation, and as loudly demanding the solemn deliberation of our legislative assemblies. 4th. Want of Economy.-Prodigality is comparative. Among the poor it prevails to a great extent, in an inattention to those small but frequent savings cheated out of their money and their time, and too often left a prey to the feelings of desperation; or they are impelled by those feelings to seek a refuge in the temporary, but fatal oblivion of intoxication. 7th. Pawnbrokers. The establishment of these offices is considered as very unfavourable to the independence and welfare of the middling and inferior classes. The artifices which are often practised to deceive the expectations of those who are induced, through actual distress, or by positive allurement, to trust their goods at these places; not to mention the facilities which they afford to the commission of theft, and the encouragement they give to a dependence on stratagem and cunning, rather than on the profits of honest industry, fairly entitle them, in the opinion of the committee, to a place among the causes of poverty.* the individuals who sustain the characters of *It cannot be considered as a reflection on Pawnbrokers, to notice, that the very nature of their employment has, in some views, a demoralizing tendency. Persons, who commit their nightly depredations, frequently 8th. Houses of ill fame. The dire- many of them of decent families, who ful effects of those sinks of iniquity are here subjected to the most cruel upon the habits and morals of a nume- tyranny of their inhuman masters rous class of young men, especially upon the females, who, hardened in of sailors and apprentices, are visible crime, are nightly sent from those dens throughout the city. Open abandon | of corruption to roam through the city, ment of character, vulgarity, profanity," seeking whom they may devour," we &c. are among the inevitable conse- have not the inclination, nor is it our quences, as it respects our own sex, of duty to describe. Among "the causes those places of infamous resort. Their of poverty," those houses, where all the effects upon the several thousands of base-born passions are engendered females within this city, who are in- where the vilest profligacy receives a gulphed in those abodes of all that is forced culture-must hold an eminent vile, and all that is shocking to virtuous rank. thought, upon the miserable victims, [To be continued.] A traffic thus carried on cannot but, in process of time, turn to the advantage of the pawnbroker. Goods that have been stolen are rarely redeemed; and when they are sold, all the surplus money is real profit. A pawnbroker is therefore peculiarly interested in the issues of these bargains; and should bis attachment to moral principle be rather languid, a temptation is thrown in his way, to connive at deeds which he may comprehend tolerably well, without bearing an active part in the transaction, or becoming an accomplice in guilt. It is obvious, therefore, that in proportion as this mutual, but silent understanding becomes general, the pawnbroker is sanctioned by law to encourage the thief, who, in return, rewards him with a portion of his spoils.-EDITOR. MORAL BAROMETER OF PARIS. Account of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, in the city of Paris, during the year 1817. Sent to the French Board of Longitude, by the Prefecture of the Department. at Home. Total of Births Boys.... 7,395 Girls.... 7,028 14,423 S Boys.... 148 4,429 Girls.... 2,213 289 141 4,618 Girls.... 2,258 Boys.... 12,119 MARRIAGES. Of these Deaths, 740 were from the Small-Pox. Bachelors and Maids.. Bachelors and Widows..... We translate this list of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, from the " Annales de Chimie et de Physique," for Nov. 1818, (where it is given without a single observation either of astonishment or of apology,) for the purpose of drawing the attention of English readers to such singular facts as it presents. Out of 23,759 births in the compass of one year, there are 9,047 natural children! There are persons, we are aware, who, if such an awful fact were mentioned to them, would reply, "True, "but then you know, though the persons are not actually married, they "live together as man and wife, and "take care of their children, of course." This, however, is evidently not the case; 66 SINGULAR EXPERIMENT ON GAL- WHEN Sciences of any description are for we farther learn from this report, that, out of the 9,047 natural children, no fewer than 6937, nearly seven-ninths of the number, are ABANDONED by their criminal and unnatural parents. That such a horrible state of things should prevail in the French metropolis, and that the French Board of Longitude should present it to the public in a dry detail, without a single reflection, exhibits a more striking proof of the immorality of France, and of that bluntness of moral perception and humane feeling which immorality infallibly produces, than any thing else which we have yet heard or read. Happy Britain! where the mere announcement of such particulars excites astonishment and pity! which are now filled with names of illustrious characters, that posterity, as well as ourselves, must venerate, would have presented nothing more than a dreary blank. The man who discovers a new power or principle in nature, whether simple in itself, or resulting from a combination of causes, is entitled to the thanks of his country, even though his efforts to turn it to any useful purpose should finally prove unsuccessful. Sciences, like men, require much time to ripen them to perfection. In both cases their growth is progressive; and he who will not cherish an infant, never deserves to behold a man. We have been led into these reflections by the term which stands at the head of this article; and the account of some experiments which have lately been made, will, we hope, sanction the observations which we have introduced. The term Galvanism is derived from Galvani, a professor of anatomy at Bologna, who, not many years since, discovered a certain influence, by which animal bodies were strangely affected by applications of metallic substances to particular parts of the nervous system. Among the numerous experiments which have lately been made, very few have been more singular in their effects, than those which were produced on the 4th of November last, in Glasgow, by Dr. Ure, on the body of a man named Clydesdale, who had been executed for murder. These effects were produced by a Voltaic battery of 270 pair of fourinch plates, of which the results were terrible. In the first experiment, on moving the rod from the thigh to the heel, the leg was thrown forward with so much violence, as nearly to overturn one of the assistants. In the second experiment, the rod was applied to the phrenic nerve in the neck, when laborious breathing commenced; the chest heaved and fell; the belly was protrud The word itself, like most arbitrary in their degrees of influence in the order terms, is in the abstract nearly destitute in which they are here placed. 1. Zine; of meaning; and all the ideas with which 2. Tin; 3. Lead: in conjunction with, it is now associated, have been derived 1. Gold; 2. Silver; 3. Molybdena; 4. from those particular effects which this Steel; 5. Copper: but as the science is influence has produced by repeated still in a state of infancy, on the degrees experiments. By Galvani, and others, of influence, philosophers are not yet this strange influence was denominated agreed; and nothing but time and exanimal electricity; but time and obser- periment can fully ascertain the fact. vation have long since shewn, that these terms could not properly express the ideas which were occasionally excited by the various phænomena of this mysterious property in nature. By some, who have made this subject their particular study, the electric fluid, without any distinguishing epithet, has been considered as its primary cause; but the doubtful circumstances under which the Galvanic phenomena sometimes appear, have rendered this assumption rather questionable. Of this uncertainty another department of science has taken the advantage; and several contend, that what has been ascribed to Galvanism, is nothing more than the effect of chemical oxidation. From these conflicting opinions, one point, however, seems to be obvious; namely, that ex-ed and collapsed with the relaxing and periment has not hitherto been able to trace this principle, with precision, to a specific source in the classifications of science. We must therefore be content to wait, until time, and a combination of incidents, shall discover those boundaries, beyond which it ceases to operate, to learn its cause with indubitable assurance. The experiments which have hitherto been made by philosophers upon animal bodies, may be reduced nearly to a single point; the statement of which will suffice to give the reader a general idea of the subject. Lay bare any principal nerve, which leads immediately to some great limb or muscle. When this is done, let that part of the nerve which is exposed, and which is farthest from the limb or muscle, be brought into contact with a piece of zinc. While in this state, let the zinc be touched by a piece of silver, while another part of the silver touches the naked nerve, if not dry; or the muscle to which it leads, whether dry or not. In this state, violent contractions will be produced in the limb or muscle, but not in any muscle on the other side of the zinc. Almost any two metals, which are susceptible of different degrees of oxidation, will produce a movement; but the most powerful are the following, descending No. I.-VOL. I. retiring diaphragm; and it was thought To what extent these experiments may hereafter be carried, and to what beneficial purposes they may be applied, it is impossible to say. The principle which has been discovered, is confessedly powerful; but the laws by which it is guided are yet, in a great measu E unknown. From the various observations which have been made on the experiments thus far tried, it appears to be a principle which is closely connected with animal life. It seems to be capable of reaching all the vital functions; and we may possibly learn hereafter, from the increasing light which it is constantly imparting, something of animation which has hitherto eluded our researches. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PREPARING 66 MANURE. FEW maxims are more evident than this, that truth cannot be impaired by age;" though it must be confessed, there is a strange propensity in human nature, to be more captivated with the recommendations of novelty, than to be instructed by the result of repeated experiments. This is an error which many will be ready to acknowledge, but which few only will be forward to rectify. In a letter of Mr. Dinsdale to the editor of the "Annals of Philosophy," he complains much of the improper manner in which a majority of our farmers manage their manure. Their general method is, either to suffer the dung to lie scattered over the yard, while the more valuable particles are continually exhaling; or, if they collect it together, they form a promiscuous heap in some corner, where they let it remain uncovered, and carelessly permit the liquid and most important parts to be drained away; while they suffer annoyances from the exhalations, which, though they would prove beneficial to the soil, are insalubrious to themselves, their families, and their cattle. At other times, they carry the dung, in a raw and unfermented state, into their fields, and deposit it in small heaps, exposed to the action of the sun and wind, until all its goodness is nearly exhausted. The remedy which he proposes is, that they pay strict attention to the fermentative state of their dunghills, to stir and turn them frequently, and to keep them covered with sods or sward, that the juices may not suffer exhaustion by the air. Dung managed in this manner, Mr. Dinsdale asserts, will prove more beneficial to vegetation, than all the boasted powers of common salt, though dignified with the name of muriate of soda. In most other respects, besides those which relate to manure, it would be folly to hold up the Chinese as examples; but in these their farmers are worthy of imitation. They keep their dung in vats, or in deep trenches, which are securely lined, and always preserve it in a liquid state; constantly recruiting the mass with urine, when it can be procured; but when this fails, they substitute water. They also steep their seed-corn in liquid manure, a short time before they deposit it in the earth; sometimes adding a given quantity of nitrate of potash. This they have found, by long experience, tends considerably to promote the fecundity of their grain. THE ARCHBISHOP OF JERUSALEM. THE Syrian archbishop, Gregorio Pietro Giarve, has lately paid a visit to this country, and he now resides in Frithstreet, Soho, where his singular appearance excites the notice of numerous spectators. His person is highly venerable, and his costume tends to render him dignified. He appears in the blue dress of the Apostle James. His beard is long, and white; he has a blue turban; and a splendid robe covers his inner garments. His business to this country is to make himself acquainted with the machinery of the Printing Press, as he intends establishing one at Mount Lebanon, for printing a correct edition of the sacred Scriptures in the Syriac language. Although Mount Lebanon is under a Christian prince, nearly all Syria is governed and inhabited by Turks. Many of these have embraced Christianity; and he gives it as his opinion, that multitudes more would follow their example, if Bibles were to be procured in their language. But this has hitherto been rendered impracticable. Bibles printed in the East, and sent to the Syrian Turks, are said to have been found incorrect. None but a Syrian can correct a Syriac press. A single error in the placing of a point inverts the order of the sentence, and frequently makes it become ridiculous. The Archbishop undertakes to become the corrector of the edition which he is meditating, and having heard much of the liberality of the English Christians, he is come hither to solicit that assistance, which we hope he will not ask in vain. As the account which is here given of the professed occasion of this patriarchal |