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sacred volume his guide, it might in like manner is highly interesting, "What becomes of discharged be argued that the papal bulls have been variously prisoners?" They leave the jail without money, explained, some received and some rejected by a and without character, and are turned loose upon vast variety of persons, and men must be able to the world to seek a subsistence as they can. Their decide on all these varying interpretations of bulls, before accepting them as an infallible guide-in former haunts are the only places open to them, short, it would be argued, fairly argued, by men of and their former associates the only human beings no pretension to anything but the possession of com- who do not turn away from them in terror or conmon sense, that every objection he urged against tempt. What resource have they? Is it possible the volume of the Holy Scripture, was liable to be for them to change their evil habits, and become urged against the volume of the papal bulls. They good members of society? It is not possible. were written in a dead language. They were the Crime is their destiny. Society has punished them subject of various interpretations. They were the source of endless controversies. Their number and for their transgression of its laws; its dignity is names were doubtful. Their title to infallibility vindicated, its outraged virtue appeased; and havwas questioned. All men disputed as to which was ing deprived them, by the stigma it has attached fallible and which infallible. Some bulls were to their character, of any possible alternative, it directly contradictory of others; some actually and dismisses them to their old course of villany. by name were condemnatory of others; some were Society has caught a wolf; and having punished admitted on all hands to be erroneous and heretical; its depredations by imprisonment, it gravely un

and the whole combined constituted a series of vol

walk!

umes, almost as extended as a library, and there-locks the door, and turns it out-with teeth, appefore wholly inaccessible to the masses of a Christian tite, and instinct as sharp as ever-into the sheeppopulation. They could never become the guide of a Christian people, and to this day have never yet been translated into the language of any Christian church. While the Holy Scriptures, on the other hand, were universally translated, were small in size, convenient for reference, and incomparably more easy to be read, studied, and understood, than the endless intricacies and scholastic niceties of the Bullarium. I said that men in England would argue thus, and would feel that they should lose rather than gain by exchanging their Bible for the Bullarium-the Holy Scriptures for the papal bulls. (pp. 164-176.)

If the liberated prisoner is caught again, he is of course punished for his offences as before? Not as before. He receives a heavier punishment, because this is the second time; because he has yielded to an uncontrollable fate; because he has done what he could hardly by possibility avoid doing. The magistrate examines the record, discovers a former conviction, and is indignant at the depravity which took no warning, but on the contrary, after a wholesome chastisement, gave itself up anew to crime. The poor wretch is awe-struck How wonderful is the self-deception in which by the dignity of virtue, and is too much abashed to men of great learning and considerable intellectual offer even the poor excuse, “ But I was hungry— power will indulge themselves, when wedded to a I had not a penny-no one would give me work system! To ascertain the authenticity, and valid--what could I do?”

ity, and meaning of every bull in the Bullarium, In Manchester, we are told in the Daily News, is maintained by this Roman professor to be a work it is the custom of the criminal class to celebrate the void of all difficulty; but to do the same with liberation of a comrade by a day of carousal. They respect to the Holy Scriptures, is a matter encom- wait at the door of the prison, carry him off in passed with difficulties. The Bullarium may be triumph, and thus guard against any extraordinary taken as a very convenient and simple rule of faith, circumstance, any exception to the general rule, but the Bible is quite unfit to serve the purpose! which might occur to save him. But of late years, it seems, an opposition has started; an influence of an opposite kind is lying in wait, and now and then a brand is plucked from the burning. This opposing force, it may be thought, is the respectable class of Manchester, who have thus arrayed themselves against the criminal class. Alas! no. The good angel is a solitary individual—a humble workman in a foundry, who obeys the Divine impulse without knowing why; and, without a theory or a plan, neutralizes alike the destinies of the law, and the allurements of the law-breakers.

Among other arguments adduced in favor of the Church of Rome, was one derived from the success of its missionary labors; and the conversation on this point so completely shows the character of the missionary labors of that corrupt church, and what value is to be attached to their accounts of the success of their missions, that we should have been glad to present it to our readers. But our limits forbid us to do so. It will be found in pp. 190-196. We strongly recommend Mr. Seymour's volume to public attention, as containing one of the best and most authentic accounts of the present teaching of the Church of Rome that is easily to be met with, together with remarks upon some of its leading errors, showing considerable acuteness, and an intimate acquaintance with the subject.

WHAT BECOMES OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS?

No one believes that imprisonment in the usual way produces reform; and the question, therefore,

This individual is Thomas Wright, an old man of threescore-and-ten, and the father of nineteen children. The following account is given by the paper we have mentioned of the way in which his attention was first attracted to the prison-world:"There was a man of a sailor-like appearance who had got work at the foundry as a laborer; he was a steady and industrious workman, and had obtained the favorable notice of Mr. Wright. One day the employer came and asked if he (Wright)

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was aware that they had a returned transport in suades the former employer to give the erring the place? He had learned that the sailor was another trial. Sometimes he becomes guarantee such. Mr. Wright desired to be allowed to speak for their honesty and good conduct-for a poor with the man, and ascertain the fact. Permission man, in considerable sums-. -£20 to £60. Ia was given; and during the day he took a casual only one instance has a bond so given been foropportunity, not to excite the suspicions of the feited, and that was a very peculiar case. The other workmen, of saying to the man, My friend, large majority keep their places with credit to where did you work last?' 'I've been abroad,' themselves and to their noble benefactor. Most was the reply. The man was not a liar. After of them-for Mr. Wright never loses sight of a some conversation, he confessed, with tears in his man he has once befriended, through his own negeyes, that he had been a convict. He said he was lect-attend church or Sunday-school, adhere to desirous of not falling into ill courses, and kept their temperance pledges, and live honest and his secret, to avoid being refused work if he told reputable lives. And all this is the work of one the truth. Wright was convinced that in the unaided, poor, uninfluential old man! What, future he would act honestly, and, repairing to their indeed, might he not do were he gifted with the common employer, begged, as a personal favor, fortune and the social position of a Howard?" that the man might not be discharged. He even There are probably very few Mr. Wrights in offered to become bound for his good conduct. Manchester or anywhere else; but there are hunThis was ten years ago; and the prejudice against dreds of individuals in every large town in the persons who had ever broken the law was more empire who would cheerfully subscribe a small intense than it is now. There were objections; sum each to aid in the institution of a society for and other partners had to be consulted in so delicate doing on a large scale what Mr. Wright does with a matter. Great numbers of men were employed the limited means and power of an individual. in the foundry; and should the matter come to This, we presume to think, would be the noblest their knowledge, it would have the appearance to of all charities. It would not, like some other them of encouraging crime. This was on the day public charities-including the work-house-rob of paying wages for the week. Before night, men of their social rights, and withdraw them from however, Wright had the satisfaction to obtain a their social duties. It would restore to them the promise that, upon his responsibility, the convict one by leading them back to the other; it would should be kept. The following day Wright went turn felons into citizens; and, in fine, it would to look after his protégé-he was gone. On in-save the country the expense of one or more new quiring, he found he had been paid off and dis- convictions and new imprisonments for every man charged the previous night. It was a mistake. rescued. Do not let us be told of impossibility, The first orders for his dismissal had not been or even difficulty, in the face of the fact, that in countermanded, and gone he was. Mr. Wright ten years three hundred felons have been saved from a continuance in a life of villany by a poor workman in a foundry!

at once sent off a messenger to the man's lodging to bring him back to the foundry. He returned only to say the man had left his lodgings at five o'clock in the morning, with a bundle containing all his property under his arm." In short, notwithstanding every effort of this henevolent person to find him, the poor convict was never more

heard of.

cases,

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WHEN SO much is done by English travellers of all grades of opinion to diffuse a knowledge of American peculiarities-when, thanks to the gosThis incident made Mr. Wright think as well siping book, and the files of very national journals, as feel. The case was only a solitary one. He that so often cross the Atlantic, we have such had been attracted to the man by the mere circum- characteristics of the genus Yankee that we can stance of their passing a portion of the day at the define it almost more accurately than the genus same work; but were there not hundreds of other Cockney, we should hardly go to Leipzig or Dresof equal exigence, which had as strong a den in search of new information on the matter. claim upon his sympathy? He went to the New It was not, therefore, to find new objects that we Bailey, and conversed with the prisoners, passing referred to the volumes of Herren Naumann and with them his only day of rest-Sunday. The Ziegler, but to learn the effect which such objects jealousy with which the authorities at first viewed might have when impinging upon the German his proceedings was gradually changed into appro- mind. When you cannot vary your actual landbation ; and at length, when a prisoner was about to be discharged, he was asked if he could find the man a situation. He did so. "This was the commencement of his ministry of love. In ten years from that time he had succeeded in rescuing upwards of three hundred persons from the career of crime. Many of these cases are very peculiar; very few, indeed, have relapsed into crime. He has constantly five or six on his list, for whom he is looking out for work. Very frequently he per

scape, you may at any rate vary your point of view.

The first of the two books is a voucher for the reports of those English travellers whose animadversions have so greatly stirred the bile of Brother

*Nordamerika, sein Volksthum und seine Institutionen. Von Jakob Naumann. (North America, its National Peculiarities and its Institutions.) Leipzig.

Skizzen einer Reise durch Nordamerika und Westinthrough North America and the West Indies. By A. dien. Von Alexander Ziegler. (Sketches of a Journey Ziegler.) Dresden and Leipzig.

Jonathan. The very peculiarities which offend | ant, in my opinion, can select no place of settlement Herr Naumann are those which have been found more favorable than Wisconsin.

Still more is he in favor of an immigration of German women to this infant State.

In the newly-settled countries, the want of marriageable women is first discernible, since in them, including Wisconsin, males only settle first, and endeavor to gain a subsistence. Most of the menand there are several of tolerable education in Milwaukee-have a business which supports them, and possess all that they desire, except a wife. Of young, and especially educated women, there is a great want; and I do not doubt that an emigration of female candidates for matrimony, under careful

most offensive to the British visitor. With a true Trollopian sensitiveness, he shrinks from the tobacco-chewing, the hat-wearing, and the feet-uponthe-table-placing, which he has found so prevalent in the United States. Accustomed probably to some easy German church, which jogs on with scarcely any faith at all, he sees little to admire in the religious toleration of America, where people are at least in earnest about their creed, and where fanaticism exists in the multitude, though not in the government; and in this respect he doubtless feels more strongly than an Englishman, who per-superintendence, would have a successful result, fectly understands the sentiment, though he may wonder at its exaggeration. The violence of popular outbreaks, the too frequent impotence of laws, the recklessness of speculation, all come in for their share of censure; and he has a due European horror of negro slavery. Here he is greatly solaced by the fact, (stated by a work published at Philadelphia in 1836,) that notwithstanding the German settlers in the United States amount to many millions, some of whom have acquired large fortunes, not one was ever known to speculate in slaves.

To the Americans this book may prove so far useful, that they will see that the observations made by the English on their manners and customs are not solely to be attributed to national animosity. Here is a German, whose nation has had no quarrel with our relations, who goes to look at the country as a place of settlement for his compatriots, and returns with precisely the same animadversions which have been made by Englishmen over and over again.

Herr Ziegler, the author of the second book,

seems to have visited America with a more immediate design of finding a locality for poor German emigrants, and comes back much better pleased with his tour than Herr Naumann. The new State of Wisconsin, with its city of Milwaukee, the first settlement, especially fixes his attention as a desirable point for emigration. The rapid advance of this State strikes him with amazement.

No

and produce beneficial effects in Wisconsin. Í assume that Germany is sufficiently provided with such women; as I do not doubt, though I would add the proviso that they must be young. The census of 1840 gave in the territory of Wisconsin (not then a State) a male population of 18,600, and a female population of 11,900. The German girls, on account of their industry, their modesty, and their domestic character, are highly prized throughout America; and if they can heighten their own inlish language, they may easily make the most briltrinsic attractions by some proficiency in the Engliant conquests. The respect, or rather reverence, of the Americans for the fair sex, is renowned all over the world; and the women will more easily than the men find a paradise on the other side of the Atlantic. The American ladies have beauty and grace to the highest degree; and everywhere receive the greatest attention and gallantry on the part of the gentlemen; indeed, a lady, protected more by the general respect than by laws and constitution, may travel unimpeded from one end of the Union to the other, without encountering anything unpleasant from the other sex.

Notwithstanding the various habits that appear

uncouth to Europeans, we hope this estimate of American gallantry to the fair sex is not exagger

ated.

THREE DAYS OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

FROM THE FRENCH OF DELAVIGNE.

En Europe! en Europe! Esperez! Plus d'espoir! -Trois jours, leur dit Colomb, et je vous donne un monde. "BACK to Europe, again, let our sails be unfurled!" "Three days," said Columbus," and I give you

a world!"

And he pointed his finger, and looked through the
Vast,

In the second year of the foundation, (says he,) in June, 1836, the city of Milwaukee already numbered 1,200 inhabitants, who, in September, 1843, had increased to 7,000, and now exceed 12,000. country upon earth can exhibit such astounding re- As if he beheld the bright region at last. sults in the increase of population as America-He sails-and the dawn, the first day, quickly that youthful, fresh America, which ever sends forth

leads:

view,

Hides the sea and the sky with their limitless

blue

new blossoms. Rochester, in the State of New He sails-and the golden horizon recedes : York, was formerly regarded as the city which ex- He sails-till the sun, downward sinking from hibited the most rapid increase of population; since, having been founded in 1812, it numbered in 1820 -namely, after a lapse of eight years-1,500 inhabitants. Milwaukee, after the lapse of the same period from its foundation, contained above 6,000 inhabitants, more than four times the population of Rochester. The Germans in this city carry on a considerable business. The trades and professions The rudder, which creaks 'mid the dark billows' are fully employed; artisans and daily laborers

On, onward he sails, while in vain o'er the lee
Down plunges the lead through the fathomless sea!
The pilot, in silence, leans mournfully o'er

roar;

earning from three fourths of a dollar to a whole He hears the hoarse moan of the waves rushing dollar per day, and work being never deficient.

past,

German landlords do a thriving trade; and the peas- And the funeral wail of the wind-stricken mast;

The stars of far Europe have fled from the skies, And the Cross of the South meets his terrified eyes;

But at length the slow dawn, softly streaking the night,

Illumes the dark dome with its beautiful light. "Columbus! 't is day, and the darkness hath past!" "Day! and what dost thou see?"-"I see nought but the Vast!"

What matter! he 's calm!-but ah, stranger, if you Had your hand on his heart with such glory in

view;

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The delirium of hope and the lonely despair-
Of a Great Man unknown, whom his age doth
despise

As a fool, ''mid the vain vulgar crowd of the wise!
Such wert thou, Galileo! Far better to die
Than thus by a horrible effort to lie!

When you gave, by an agony deep and intense,
That lie to your labors, your reason, your sense,
To the Sun-to the Earth-to that Earth, we
repeat,

That you trembled to feel moving under your feet!
The second day's past-and Columbus?-he sleeps,
While Mutiny round him its dark vigil keeps :
"Shall he perish?"-" Death! death!" is the

mutinous cry,

"He must triumph to-morrow, or perjured must

die!"

The ingrates! Shall his tomb on to-morrow be

made

Of that sea which his daring a highway hath made?
Shall that sea on to-morrow, with pitiless waves,
Fling his corse on that shore which his longing eye
craves?

The corse of an unknown adventurer then-
One day later-Columbus, the greatest of men!

He dreams, how a veil drooping over the main
Is rent, at the distant horizon, in twain,
And how, from beneath, on his rapturous sight
Burst at length THE NEW WORLD from the dark-
ness of night!

Oh, how fresh! oh, how fair the new virgin earth seems!

With gold the fruits glisten, and sparkle the

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Who with loud mimic thunderbolts slaughter the

host

Of the unarmed people that cover the coast.
He sees the fair palace, the temple on fire,
And the peaceful Cazique 'mid their ashes expire;
He sees, too-oh, saddest! oh, mournfullest
sight!-

The crucifix gleam in the thick of the fight-
More terrible far than the merciless steel
Is the uplifted cross in the red hand of zeal !
He sees the earth open and reel to and fro,
And the wretches who breathe in the caverns
below.

Poor captives! whose arms, in a languid despair,
Fall fatigued on the gold of the rocks that they

tear.

Pale spectres! whose agonized cries, uncontrolled, Seek the light of that sun that they're ne'er to behold.

They struggle, they pant 'mid the pestilent dews,
Till a long, lingering death, in the cavern's dim
And by labor escape the sharp whip that pursues,
Consigns them at length to eternity's night!
light,

Scares it off from his feverish pallet and brain;
Columbus, oppressed by this vision of pain,
It dwindleth, it melteth, it fades from his eye,
As a light passing cloud in the depths of the sky.
All is changed!-he beholds in the wilds of the
north,

Full of strength, full of hope, a new empire spring forth

Its people oppressed, as the war-cry goes round, Seize the peaceable ploughshare that furrows their ground,

ful acclaim

As it turned into cities their forests of shade.
Or that creature of iron which lately they swayed
They have conquered!—they show him with grate-
Their Hero, their Washington-type of that name—
Need we doubt of thy virtue, or mocking adore.
sage Cincinnatus and Cato! no more
He has caused our weak hearts that strange gran-

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deur to feel,

And conceive what corruption till now could conceal.

In the council, a Sage by the Hero is seen,
And not less revered 'neath a different mien.
He rules, he discovers, and daringly brings
Down the lightning from Heaven and the sceptre
from kings.

At length, o'er Columbus, slow consciousness breaks

"Land! land!" cry the sailors, "land! land!"— he awakes

He runs-yes! behold it!—it blesseth his sightThe land! O sweet spectacle! transport! delight!

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His king will repay all the ills he has known—
He will lay this fair land at the foot of the throne-
In exchange for a world what are honors and
gains?

Or a crown? but how is he rewarded?—with
chains!
Dublin Univ. Mag.

From Chambers' Journal.

NATURE'S ICE-CAVES.

SOME Curious and but little-known facts upon natural ice-houses having turned up in the course of our reading, we are tempted at this time, when the production of cold is becoming almost as necessary as that of heat for domestic comfort, to set them in some sort of order. When it is borne in mind that the natural refrigeratories of which we are about to speak abound in the production of clear, massive, and valuable ice, and yet that they often exist in places where the mean or average temperature is far above the freezing-point, we are justified in claiming a peculiar interest for our article. Many of these natural storehouses of cold are highly estimated in the districts where they occur, and furnish in various instances enormous supplies of ice at a period when every other source is either unavailable or exhausted.

Professor Pictet, of Geneva, who paid much attention to this natural phenomenon, and has published a scientific communication upon the subject, in a tour in the same regions, visited another natural ice-cave, of almost equal celebrity, called St. George's. This cave is let out to a peasant, by the commune to which it belongs, for a small annual rental, for the sake of the beautiful ice which it produces. In ordinary years, the cave supplies only the families in the immediate vicinity; but when a mild winter is succeeded by a broiling summer, even Geneva itself, although several leagues distant, receives its store from this source. At such seasons, every second day a heavily-laden wagon proceeds from the ice-cave to the hospital at Geneva, which purchases the whole quantity, and retails it at a profit to the confectioners of the town-a trade by which its revenues are considerably augmented. This cavern is entered by two well-like pits, down which Several natural ice-houses exist in the chain of the visitor must descend by a ladder. The bottom the Jura Mountains. Some of these have been is a solid bed of ice, and its form is that of a lofty long known to a few scientific travellers, and have hemispherical vault about twenty-seven feet in formed the "lions" of the unimportant districts in height, which is covered by a stratum of calcareous which they are situated. Perhaps one of the best rock only eighteen inches thick. The length is known is called La Beaume, and has been described seventy-five feet, its width forty feet. A regular in most interesting terms by several men of science set of ice-masons are engaged in excavating the who have visited it. M. Prévost, who made a sparkling solid. It is cut with appropriate tools scientific tour in the region, has related the fol- into long wedges, and then divided by transverse lowing particulars concerning it: Situated in the cuts about a foot distant from each other, by which above-named locality, it is a grotto or cavern hol- means blocks of ice a cubic foot in dimensions are lowed out in a naturally low hill, the average tem- detached. After a certain quantity has been perature of its position being considerably above quarried out, it is carried in hods to a magazine 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the freezing-point. From near the place, where the wagons are loaded. the peculiarity of its aperture and general form, Some idea may be formed of the severity of the no snow can enter, and therefore the internal cold cold inside, when it is mentioned, that, although of this place cannot be due to any external cause. the thermometer in the shade was at 63 degrees The cavern is upwards of 300 feet in length, and Fahrenheit outside, it was at 34 degrees Fahrenat its widest is about 100 feet, and is naturally heit, or only two degrees from the freezing mark divided into three compartments. The traveller inside! That even a more severe cold than this visited it in the middle of August, on a broiling, exists during the most broiling summer day, is scorching day, and, on entering it, experienced the evident from a fact mentioned by the workmen, most severe and penetrating cold. "The first that if two blocks are left in contact for a little object," he says, "that struck my eyes was a mass while, they become so firmly frozen together, as of ice fed by the water which distilled constantly, to require to be re-cut to separate them. Now it drop by drop, from a sort of spring in the roof." is an extraordinary fact, that the temperature of a The whole cavern was covered with a sort of glit-spring which bubbled from the rock at a little distering pavement, clear as crystal, of ice a foot tance did not indicate in the remotest manner the thick. In it were numerous holes containing water of intense coldness, by sounding which, the thickness of the pavement was easily ascertained. This, it will be observed, is the scene in summer. The winter comes, and all is changed the crys-mediate vicinity. talline pavement melts, and runs away into water; In this cave, as in the last, the ice disappears the solid masses of ice are no longer visible; and in winter; and, singular to say, the hotter the the cavern is actually warmer than the external air; and during all this period a thick mist issues constantly from its mouth, and fills its interior. Surely here is a paradox, which, at a less enlightened and more illiberal period, would have been scouted as one of the improbable series called travellers' tales. The fact, however, can be well authenticated, and will receive abundant corroboration in the many similar examples we shall adduce.

existence of such a degree of cold in its source, as it was as high as 51 degrees. Hence it was evident that the cause of the frigorific effects was purely local, and confined to the cave and its im

summer, in both cases, the more abundant the productiveness of the caves in this substance! Had the cave been the work of some ingenious artist, one would scarcely have felt surprise at the exactness of its adaptation for the production of ice; and it must be considered, with the rest of the cases to be quoted, as a rare illustration of an apparently fortuitous arrangement of inanimate nature, fulfilling in the most complete manner all the functions of a special contrivance. But, as

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