The tables show that the liability to sickness runs up to a temporary maximum in the young man, and then declines, and does not attain the same percentage until advanced years. This sick maximum of early manhood -the effect of a primitive demand on the bodily vigor-is in the period from 18 to 21, except in the class engaged in outdoor heavy with exposure to the weather such as shep-expenditure of bodily strength may be deherds, drovers, drivers, pedlars, messengers, vised, its production should be hailed as one Custom-house officers in number 58,809; of the greatest of blessings to the sons of toil, 4. Those who have light labor without expo- and not ignorantly contemned by the very sure to the weather-such as clerks, shopmen, class whom in reality it ultimately benefits. barbers, factory operatives, servants-in num- A study of the following digest leads to the ber 286,909. He found that persons engaged conclusion, that the inventor of any engine in heavy labor, with and without exposure to which spares the physical energies diminishes the weather, have respectively 28.04 and 26.54 the amount of human sickness in proportion as per cent. of their number sick in the year; he, by means of his device, economizes the lapersons engaged in light labor 20.80 and 21.58: bor of his fellow-creatures." in round numbers, taking a census of workingmen disabled by illness, for every three whose work is light or moderate, there are four of the class whose lot is heavy labor. The duration of sickness to each person sick is, however, upon an average, only 38 days and 40.73 in the two classes engaged in heavy labor, and 41 days and 44.25 in the two classes engaged in light labor. The mortality is heaviest among the labor, in which it appears to be at 14. The persons classed as engaged in light labor; same percentage is reached, ever afterwards and in-door labor shows itself less favorable to to increase, at the age of 48 in the class who longevity that out-door. But the main differ- have indoor heavy labor, 51 in the case of inence in the distribution of sickness seems to door light labor, 57 with outdoor heavy labor, turn upon the expenditure of physical force. and 65 with outdoor light labor. "This is no new thing," says Mr. Finlaison, These last remarks relate to the proportion "for in all ages the enervation and decrepi- of persons sick, not to the duration of the tude of the bodily frame has been observed to sickness. The duration of sickness does not follow a prodigal waste of the mental or cor-decline in manhood, but increases with the poreal energies; but it has been nowhere pre-age. The severity of the railway employviously established upon recorded experience, ment, according to these tables, tells upor the that the quantum of sickness annually fallen to constitution; the men, it is said, get" weatherthe lot of man is in direct proportion to the beaten." In the police there a marked indemands on his muscular power. So it would crease in the amount of sickness after 40, as seem to be, however. Therefore, whatever if the service broke down the men at an earscientific invention of machinery to save the lier age than other occupations. From The Economist. WANT OF RAGS. The want has led to much discussion about Foreign Secretary immediately caused a circular to be sent to our consular and other agents abroad, requesting them to make THE great national want at present is of inquiries whether any substances of a fibrous rags. Nor is such a want unknown in other and glutinous nature, adapted for making countries. There is an equal want of rags in paper, were produced or could be obtained in the United States. Bounties are offered there the countries in which they resided at a low as here for a supply, or for a discovery of some price. Answers have not yet been obtained, substance that may serve in their stead. So but the movement shows how keenly the want great is now the consumption of paper by the of rags is felt, and how important the Governreading and writing population of the two ment regards the supply. countries, that rags enough to make the required quantity cannot be had. Paper is rising in price, and the price of several provincial newspapers, in order to make them pay, has been raised. In consequence of this rise and the scarcity of the material, a paper manufacturer applied to the Government some In the five years ending 1834 was. 70,988,131 time ago, representing the difficulties of the In the five years ending 1853 was. 151,234,178 trade, to procure information where a supply of rags or substitution for them could be ob80,246,047 tained, and the Treasury thought the matter or 114 per cent., while it is well known that so important that it recommended it to the the whole population in that period did not inconsideration of the Foreign-office. The *Observations on Fibrous Substances, etc. * fibrous materials for making paper, and Mr. Sharp, who has written a pamphlet on the subject, tells us that the average amount of paper made Increase lbs. the intellectual wants they supply, more clothing should have been produced and worn; and luxury in dress, instead of having been too great for the general improvement, has not been great enough. crease more than 16 per cent., and the imports | ing made and worn. The industry of the of fibrous materials and the use of clothing Russians and other producers of the raw ma increased less than 60 per cent. In the first terials has not kept pace with the intellectual quarter of the present year the quantity made improvement of society, and the manufacture was 46,304,217 lbs., against 43,588,903 lbs. in and consumption of clothing, ingenious as our the corresponding quarter of 1853, showing artisans and luxurious as our people are said an excess in the first quarter of the present to be, have not been sufficiently great to year of 2,715,314 lbs. This will be equiva- supply the materials for books and newspapers. lent to 10,800,000 lbs. in the year, or 5,000 For the sake of the paper manufacturers and tons of paper. At the same time the consumption in the United States is also rapidly increasing, and the Americans come to our market for rags, though they keep out our paper by an ad valorem duty of 30 per cent. The quantity of rags imported on the aver- To find society in want of rags is a remarkage of the three years, 1801-3, was 3,111 tons, able phenomenon. Till the paper maker came and on the average of 1851-3, 9,332 tons; but to convert them into one of the most beautiin the latter series there was exported on an ful of manufactures, and the intellectual proaverage 1,587 tons, while there was none ex-gress of society made an enormous daily conported in the former series, leaving for the sumption of that manufacture indispensable latter series a supply of 7,745 tons. In one to welfare, rags were a nuisance; they haryear, 1887, there was 13,079 tons imported- bored pestilence; they were in the way; they an immense quantity of what is commonly were burnt to be got rid of; and thus intelclassed as rubbish to bring into the kingdom, lectual progress gives a pecuniary value to the and an emblem of the immense traffic which rubbish rejected by the lowest classes. It may arise in things that are considered worth- adds, in an unexpected manner, to the wealth less. Paley notices with astonishment the of the world. It makes more and different large trade which grows from the perverted species of industry necessary, and stimulates taste for tobacco, but even the trade in tobacco production. Intellectual progress in England and the revenue it yields, is less striking than and America and in other free countries, rethe import of 13,000 tons of rags, the manu-quires that more hemp and flax should be facture of them into half as much paper, on produced in Russia and in India, and more which some 60,000l of duty may be paid, and clothing made and worn throughout society. which gives employment, in one way and an- It will give an additional value to the fibrous other, to many thousands of persons. productions of the tropics, and stimulate exSuch, however, is the progress of the intel-ertion in the most distant lands. Besides inlectual arts-reading, writing, engraving, print-creasing skill and facilitating production, it ing etc. which tend to increase the consump-indirectly increases wealth, and accelerates tion of paper, that the usual fibrous materials the progress of civilization. The pressing worked up into clothing and cast aside as rags want of rags, and of fibrous substances for when done with, and the large importations making clothing, ships' sails, etc., is of impor-. mentioned, no longer suffice to supply society with paper, and those who cater for it are compelled to hunt through the whole vegetable world to obtain substances as little valuable, or now less valuable, than rags, in order to be manufactured into paper. We must be careful not to attribute the tance of itself; but as a type of the increas ing demand all over the world for the products of industry, which takes away all excuse for idleness, and tolerates no waste, which will contribute to make men increasingly industrious, trading, and peaceful, it is of infi nite importance. want to the war. It is felt now, but last year Some persons, amongst the rest Mr. Sharp, the import of flax and hemp was somewhat whose pamphlet we have referred to, seem more than usual, and last year's refuse and anxious to profit by present circumstances to. last year's rags have not yet come to the pa- bring forward the fibrous productions of India per mill. It is not from the war, therefore, to the exclusion of those of other countries. that the scarcity arises here and in America, Their object is not trade, but to give employthough the war may make those who now ment to our fellow-subjects in our colonies experience the difficulty look forward with and dependencies to the exclusion of Russians increased anxiety to future supplies. It arises and Americans. This, means, in the main, simply from the consumption of paper having we believe, enriching some few hundred or increased much more rapidly than the use of thousand of our countrymen who have estates clothing and the consequent formation of or a pecuniary interest in the East and West rags. Before the war began enough of hemp Indies. At the same time a factitious system and flax and cotton was not produced to sup- of State patronage directed to this end would ply the general wants, nor enough of cloth- obviously injure, in an equal or greater de gree, all the persons engaged in the shipping serve peace, and we, therefore, are not disand in the trade with those countries from posed to revert to the old policy of giving which our too zealous patriots wish to exclude | State bounties and State encouragement to supplies. Though we have been forward the productions of our colonies in preference when war, forced on by the ambition of the to those of other countries. We have repuCzar, was inevitable, to call public attention diated that policy for native productions, such to the fact that we could procure the supplies as wheat; why should we recommend it we have hitherto obtained from Russia from now to favor for the production of hemp, or other countries, we have no intention of join- some similar fibrous substance in our coloing with those who revive on this occasion the nies? As to encouraging the growth of cotproject of making us "independent of foreign- ton in India by the action of the State or the ers." We have no wish to see the sails of our public, in order to diminish our dependence ships made by hemp grown in India in prefer- on America, we think no policy can be more ence to hemp grown in Russia. It is, indeed, erroneous than that which would throw the a great social misfortune, that the Customs slightest obstacle in the way of extending the regulations of Russia and our own long con- mutual dependance of the free people of tinued Corn Laws prevented a much more England and America. For the future of intimate trade connection than has ever yet both nothing could be more disastrous than a existed, and might exist, between Russia and trade hostility, leading to still worse conflicts, England. It might have preserved peace and nourished by the continuance of the classcurbed the destructive ambition of the Czar tariffs of the American manufacturers and much more effectually than fleets and armies. the recriminating State encouragement to Whenever they have done their now neces-colonial products, such as India cotton and sary work, we can only rely on trade enabling hemp, recommended by those who are still nations mutually to serve each other, to pre-enamored of protection. From The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. On the Palolo. Communicated by the Rev. Mr. Gill, Missionary, in a Letter to R. CHAMBERS, Esq. ONE of the natural curiosities of the South Pacific Island is the Palolo. The Palolo is the native name given by the Samoa islanders to a sea worm, which appears regularly every year, near to a few of the boat-openings in the great barrier reef round the islands of Upolo and Savaii, the two largest islands of the Samoa group. There are many singularities connected with the Palolo, calculated to excite attention and to demand investigation. 1. The time of its appearance. 2. The worm is found swimming in a spiral form, as if at random, often singly, but generally collected in shoals. They vary in length, from a few inches to two and three feet. In thickness none exceed the eighth of an inch, and the segments number according to the length of the animal. It has long hairs along each side, so that with the exception of the head, it is not much unlike the Geophilus longicornis, or the Scolopendra electrica of Linn. The head is something like that of an earthworm. In color they vary; brown, blue, and green of all shades. 3. Not the least singular fact connected with their appearance is the difficulty of ascertaining from whence they come. None are found It invariably appears on the morning of the outside the barrier reef, but always inside, in day when the moon enters her last quarter, water three or four fathoms deep. The naeither in the month of October, if the moon tives say, they come from seaward, but can quarters late in that month, or if not, it occurs give no reason for this conjecture. After in November; and this at the same time every many years' close observation, writes the Rev. year. A few of the Palolo may be seen on W. Mills, I am still unable to decide; but the previous morning, but the day of the from the suddenness with which they gather moon's quartering is the grand day. After into clusters, I am inclined to think they rise that forenoon not the least vestige is to be from the bottom. The question then is: Is it seen until that day in the following year. one of the many Polypifera which are emThey appear in great quantities about the ployed in constructing the coral, and which at dawn of day and continue on the surface of that particular time escape from its many rathe sea until the sun is about two hours high mifications? above the horizon; they then break up into small fragments, dissolve into a yellow creamy matter, having to all appearance fulfilled their destiny. The objections to this supposition, are, first, That the Palolo is to be found at a very few places, not more than three or four in all the great extent of reef surrounding this island; whereas if it belonged to coral, it might be ex-bread-fruit tree; but now it is changed. The pected to appear at other places; unless it belongs moss is clean off the trunk, the branches are to some particular kind of coral, only found at all covered with green leaves, and they are those places where the Palolo appears; of the ex-laden with fine fruit. How changed! how istence of which, however, there is no evidence. beautiful! You look underneath, and you Secondly, The animal, when complete, termi- see an 'aloe. When the bread-fruit tree had nates rounded at both ends, having no tentacula with which the coral building Polypifera are possessed to operate round the mouth of their cells. been found to be in a state of decay, the owner planted an aloe-plant near its roots, and in a very short time the influence of the aloe-plant checked the decay, and caused it to revive, to flourish, and to bring forth fruit. The natives calculate with great certainty the day the Palolo appears, and are never "6 Now," said the warrior chief to the mismistaken in their calculations. They go out sionary, "while you have been speaking, I in their canoes, each person having a basket, have been thinking we very much, just now, and with this he skims up the animal as it resemble the decaying, dying, worthless breadswims on the surface. It is cooked, and es- fruit tree; but God has sent you with his teemed a great dainty. Those natives fortu- Word, and he has planted you near to our nate enough to secure it, carry it to their side. Now, do not be soon discouraged,-do friends round the island, who live where it not fear. Very soon we shall revive,- -we does not appear. From the day of its appear-shall flourish and bring forth good fruit." ance the natives begin the six months which I have related this anecdote, to introduce they call Vae Palolo, or winter season. We to your notice the fact that an aloe planted have no instance on any of the other islands near the withering bread-fruit tree causes it to of this animal being found; yet on most of revive. It is a beautiful fact, and, generally the land in the east the winter season is called known, might lead some learned in botany to Palolo er Paroro. inquire into the causes, etc. THE ALOE, AND THE BREAD FRUIT HAND-BELLS AT FUNERALS.-A few years ago I happened to arrive at the small sca-port of Roscoff, near the ancient cathedral town of St. Communicated by the Rev. Mr. GILL. Pol de Leon in Britanny, on the day appointed A MISSIONARY on one of the Samoa islands, for the funeral of one of the members of a family during a time of war, went to visit a part of of very old standing in that neighborhood. My the enemies' tribe in one of their strongholds. attention was attracted by a number of boys runThe tribe, with their chief, listened very at-ning about the streets with small hand-bells, with tentively to the address given by the missionary. At its close the chief arose to reply. Profound silence prevailed; and with great politeness the old warrior addressed the missionary in the following terms: which they kept up a perpetual tinkling. On inquiring of a friend of mine, a native of the place, what this meant, he informed me that it was an old custom in Britanny-but one which in the present day had almost fallen into disuse to send boys round from door to door with bells "We take it very kindly that you have to announce when a death had occurred, and to been at so much trouble to come so far and so give notice of the day and the hour at which the difficult a road to exhort us to-day. Many funeral was to take place, begging at the same thanks to you for your kindness. We have time the prayers of the faithful for the soul of listened with attention to your address; and the deceased. The boys selected for this office all that you have said is true, especially that are taken from the most indigent classes, and, on the day of the funeral, receive cloaks of coarse which you have said respecting our wicked-black cloth as an alms: thus attired, they attend ness. We are indeed very bad,-we feel it to the funeral procession, tinkling their bells as they be so; and you have not said half that might go along. Notes and Queries. be said respecting it." Epitaph on a child in Morwenstow church Pausing a little and looking round on the valley below, he said,--"You have now been living some time in our country, and in your yard: travels, you have often seen a bread-fruit tree withered, dying, all but dead, moss covering its trunk, no leaves on its branches, no fruit. You have thought,-alas! alas! this once fine tree is now only fit to be cut down and cast into the fire. A few months after you have returned that way, you have looked again on that Those whom God love die young! They see no evil days; Baptized, and so made sure From Chambers's Journal. A LAUDATION OF TRASH. impossible to land them on higher ground without using that as a stepping-stone. It is vain to talk of the higher class of periodi Ir is not many years since Chambers's Edin-cals competing with the low; they cannot do so burgh Journal was the only extensive distributer, without changing their character and becoming throughout the country, of wholesome knowledge low themselves. If the demand had been for and as wholesome entertainment. The case is high-class literature at a cheaper rate, it would very different now. Whether that work created a have been met in spite of the paper-duty; but taste, or merely supplied a want, is of little con- the demand was for low-class literature, and that sequence; the great fact is, that the demand did alone; and if the price of all kinds were equalincrease, gradually but steadily, and in that brief ized, the very same relative circulation would be interval has been answered by the appearance of maintained that exists to-day. And why? other journals, variously modified, which, without Because readers whose minds are in the earlier diminishing the popularity of the magna parens, stages of development are, and probably always have more than doubled the circulation of this will be, by far the most numerous class. The kind of literature. The importance of the fact, hostility of the better journals to Trash is unfair taken by itself, no one will question; it stands and ungrateful; for the latter is their grand reincontrovertibly thus-that there are at present cruiting-field. Without this training seminary, at least double the number of persons who seek, it could be only by slow and painful efforts they in the cheap periodicals, interesting information would gain over a single man. They might reand refined amusement than there were a few main as steady as the journal mentoined at the years ago. This increase is not accounted for by any decline in the sale of expensive books: even if such existed, it would be much more than compensated, so far as the number of readers is concerned, by the popular libraries and reprints, whose name is Legion. beginning of this article did for many years; but they could not increase and multiply as they have done, and they would not now spring forward individually as some of us are doing. Trash is not bought because it is cheap. The cheapness merely brings it within the reach of those who will buy it because it is trash, and who would buy nothing of a better kind at any price. Literature, in so far as the demand and supply are concerned, is subject to the ordinary laws of political economy. It finds its own channel, and will not yield to force; but it is unlike material commodities in this, that it has within itself a principle which insensibly elevates the character of the demand. The reader rises above the lower quality unconsciously to himself: he exhausts the nutrition it affords; and, to appease the continuing hunger and thirst of the soul, he at length seeks a new and richer We have heard it said that the progress thus distinctly marked is counterbalanced in another way that the new demand for wholesome literature is not a tithe of the new demand for what is either positively pernicious, or at best vulgar and trashy. Now, as for the positively pernicious, it does not fairly come, we think, into a question of this kind; for its existence is attributable solely to the supineness of Government in not onforcing the laws it has made, or to its stolidity in so constructing the laws as to make the enforcement impossible. But with regard to the immense body of literature distinguished merely by bad taste and low intelligence, we have some-pabulum. thing more to say; for we hold that the demand The real competition is among works of the it meets is as indubitably a step in advance as the demand for wholsesome literature. better class; and this competition, when its object is mere circulation, is not of a wholesome kind. All such works are valuable; and all answer a positive demand, and address themselves to a distinctive class. Some are light and gay, some serious and earnest; some impart information, as if they wished it to penetrate to the mind; others give it through the menstruum of a joke, as good-natured doctors exhibit medicine to children, wrapped in sweetmeats; some minister specially to tastes of one kind, some to tastes of another kind; but all supply a demand, and all represent, respectively, the individual status of particular portions of the community. Competition among such works should not neg lect circulation, for that would strike at the root of utility as well as profit; but it should take the character of a generous rivalry, as to which competitor, without compromising its popularity, should do the most to inform, enlighten, and refine. The half-million, or more, readers of such works had no existence a small number of years ago. Their minds had not begun to awaken, and they had not yet entered upon that course of progression which is the natural state of human beings. The first stirrings of their untutored thought, when these at length began, found no sympathy in the higher class of literature. They ⚫ yearned instinctively for something they could feel and comprehend; and the something came. It came in a form of thought just higher than their own, in a play of fancy their humble taste could appreciate, in romantic fiction that could be delightedly enjoyed by minds which had not opened to a conception of the artistical, and had no higher standards of comparison. The thing that came is pronounced by the supercilious to be Trash. Be it so that name will do as well as another. But we have a profound respect for this Trash; since it has enabled vast masses of But our present business is with Trash the people to enter upon a course of progress, praiseworthy and respectable Trash. Let it not and has commenced a development of their grudge the recruits it educates and turns over to moral and intellectual powers which nothing can a higher service, for this loss will be more than stop. It is as impossible to prevent its readers compensated by a daily addition to its own from rising beyond Trash, as it would have been numbers rising from the denser and darker |