Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.307

The family had no lack of servants. There was a coachman, butler, lady's-maid, and several house and kitchen-maids. I never clearly understood the number of these female domestics. On the two or three occasions that I entered the kitchen, there were always some women sitting round the fire engaged in solemn conclave. One was pretty sure to be smoking a black stumpy pipe, while the others were warming their hands, and talking on some important piece of business. Such, I fancy, were the hangers-on of the family. They would go an errand at a pinch, or do any other odd job when required, for which, of course, they enjoyed the loose hospitality of the Tolmies – 'a true Irish family, always kind to the poor; God bless them!'

One morning at breakfast Mr Tolmie kindly suggested that the young ladies and I should have a holiday. 'There is to be some boat-racing to-day down at the town,' said he, 'and you will all go and see it. My brother, the colonel, will be there, and pay you all proper attentions. So just take the car, and make a day of it. But don't forget the large umbrella; for you may perhaps have a shower before you reach home again.'

The offer was thankfully accepted, and we went off in the car, Reilly the coachman driving us, and not forgetting the umbrella. We spent a very pleasant day; and the colonel, to do him justice, proved a most valuable cavalier. However, when the period for our return arrived, there was no Reilly to be found. After a world of searching, the faithless driver was discovered, not in the best balanced condition. That, however, is nothing to an Irishman, who can drive as well drunk as sober; so we got away in the car, not more than an hour behind our time. When we had proceeded several miles on our way homewards, we discovered that the large umbrella was gone.

'Reilly,' said I, 'where is the umbrella?' Reilly answered not a word, but drove on furiously. I could not get him to speak; and as my questions only caused him to drive with more frantic speed, I was fain to desist. When we reached the hall, we communicated the loss to Mr Tolmie, who did not express any anger on the occasion. 'Be quite easy about the umbrella, my dears,' said he, 'for it will be quite safe. Reilly has only pledged it for whisky, and we shall soon recover it.' Next morning Reilly received an advance on his wages; and the whole day was spent by him in bringing back the umbrella.

I mention this trifling circumstance only to show the want of exact management both in master and man. Everything was done in a loose sort of way, as if it were a matter of indifference how matters went. After a windy night, we were sure to see the ground around the house littered with lime and broken slates; but I never saw the damages repaired. 'Everything would do well enough, thank God!' Such was the consoling philosophy of these curious people. As long as the house hung together, and an outward appearance of gentility was maintained, there was little regard for substantials. Often we had very poor fare; but there was a tolerable show of plate; and if clean glasses were sometimes wanting, there were at least not bad wines, for those who liked to partake of these liquors.

I walked daily in the grounds with my young charges; and occasionally, to amuse ourselves, we visited the cottages of the humbler class of persons on the property. Mr Tolmie, who had been in England, where he admired the houses of the peasantry, was rather anxious to introduce the practice of keeping neatly-whitewashed cottages, and he gave strict orders accordingly. His injunctions in this respect were pretty generally obeyed; but unfortunately the whitewashing was all on the outside. While the exterior was white and smart, the interior – all within the doorway – was black, damp, and dirty. One of the cleanest-looking cottages was the lodge at the gate, inhabited by Larry the forester and his wife. In driving into the grounds, you would have said, 'There is a comfortable little dwelling – it speaks well for the proprietor.' Had you entered the cottage, how your feelings of gratification would have been dispelled! The truth was, that the interior possessed scarcely any furniture. The bed was a parcel of straw, hemmed in by a deal on the floor; the whole cooking apparatus was an iron pot; and a bottle, one or two pieces of earthenware, three wooden stools, and a deal-table, maybe said to make up the entire list of household articles. Breakfast, dinner, and supper consisted of a pot of potatoes emptied on the table. Dishes at meals were out of the question, and so were knives, forks, or spoons.

Well, this family of husband and wife was one morning augmented by the arrival of a baby, for which, as I learned in the course of the day, little or no preparation in the way of apparel had been made, and the little stranger was accordingly clothed with such scraps of dress as the young ladies and I could gather together at a short notice – all which was declared to do beautifully, 'thank God.' The second or third morning afterwards, dreadful news was brought respecting baby: it had been attacked by a rat in the night-time, and very much bitten about the forehead. But the 'ugly thief' had been scared away before he actually killed the infant, which was considered a 'lucky escape, thank God for it.' In spite of this untoward disaster, the child throve apace; and with never a shirt to its back, grew up as healthy, and plump, and happy as any of its unsophisticated ancestors.

The gleam of joy which the arrival of baby had given to Larry's cottage was destined to be of short duration. Larry, poor man, had been for some time suffering under what he called a 'bad cowld,' but which I apprehended was a bronchial affection, aggravated by want of medical care. At all events, from bad to worse, and when nobody was expecting such a melancholy event, Larry died. His wife did not discover her misfortune till she found in the middle of the night that her husband was lifeless, or in a swoon. Franticly, as we afterwards learned, she drew the body from the bed, laid it before the expiring embers of the fire – possibly with the view of catching a little warmth – and then went to alarm the neighbours. The first female acquaintance who arrived in the cottage was Alley Doyle. All was pitch-dark, and as Alley was hastening through the apartment to the bed where she supposed the dead or dying man lay, she stumbled, and fell over the corpse; and before she could recover herself, others tumbled in, and increased the heap on the floor. The yelling and struggling which ensued I leave to the imagination of the reader! Not till lights were brought was the full extent of the catastrophe learned in all its grotesque horrors.

When it was discovered that Larry was dead beyond recall, his body was laid out on the top of the table; candles were placed according to custom; and forms being brought in, all sat down, and began a regular course of wailing, which lasted till the morning; and even then the uproar did not subside. On looking into the cottage in the forenoon, I was surprised to see, in broad daylight, four candles burning within, and all the shutters closed. The air of the house was hot and stifling from the number of breaths. Around the apartment sat the mourners, muffled up in blue-cloth cloaks; and nothing was heard but one monotonous chant, again and again repeated – 'Sure he is not dead; for if I thought he was dead, I would go distracted now!' By this time Larry was in his coffin; but still on the table, and his face uncovered.

This miserable scene, so characteristic of Irish habits and feelings, continued till next day at twelve o'clock, when, by Mr Tolmie's orders, a hearse and cars were at the gate to carry the body of the deceased to the grave. Being anxious to witness the departure, but not wishing to intrude, I stood at a respectful distance from the cottage. This was likely, however, to prove rather a tiresome affair. One o'clock came – two o'clock came – and yet the funeral did not lift or move off. The lid of the coffin stood at the door, as if it were going to be a fixture. Astonished at the delay, I ventured forward to ask the reason. Nobody could tell, although hundreds of people were waiting.

'Where is the undertaker?' I inquired.

'There is none,' was the reply.

'Then who has charge of the funeral?' I again inquired of a person who seemed to be chief mourner.

'Nobody,' said he.

'In that case,' I observed, 'I think it would be proper for you and the others to get the lid put on the coffin, and go away as soon as possible; for it is getting late, and there is a long way to go.'

'Ah, miss,' said the man, as if clinging to the semblance of authority, 'I wish you would give the orders, and we would all do your bidding, and be thankful.'

Thus encouraged to take the upper hand, I requested some of the bystanders to follow me into the cottage, to fix down the lid on the coffin, and bear it to the hearse. All was done according to my orders; but such a scene I shall never forget – the widow dismally wailing when she saw the coffin borne off; the candles, with their long unsnuffed wicks, melting in their sockets from the heat; and the haggard faces of the mourners, worn out with their vigils. At my request all left the cottage; and in five minutes the mournful procession moved off.

It is customary in Ireland for women to accompany funerals to the grave; but on this occasion I endeavoured to dissuade the poor widow, exhausted by hunger, grief, and watching, from going in the procession. At this impious proposal I was beset by two viragos, who brandished their fists in my face, and dared me to prevent a woman from looking after her husband's corpse. I said that I had no objection to her going, further than that she was evidently unfit for the journey, and had not a farthing to buy any refreshment by the way. This announcement had a wonderfully cooling effect. The vixens ceased their remonstrances; and when the very discouraging intelligence of 'no money – no drink' spread through the miscellaneous groups who were now on the move, all gradually slunk away; and Larry's corpse was left to the charge of the kitchen-maid, the stable-boy, and the gardener and his sister.

I was thankful that even these few members of the procession proceeded to do their duty; and having seen the last of them, went home to the mansion, thinking of course that Larry would encounter no further difficulty in getting below the ground. Delusive hope! I did not know Ireland. Next morning I learned, that when the hearse arrived at the burying-ground, it was all at once discovered that that very important particular, a grave, had been unaccountably forgotten. The party looked about and about, but no grave or apology for a grave could they cast eyes on; and, worse and worse, there was no shovel of any description wherewith a restingplace for the unfortunate Larry could be dug. So off the gardener trotted to borrow the necessary implements; and these being fortunately procured at a farmhouse not more than three miles off, a grave was at length prepared; and the coffin was entombed just about midnight, all right and comfortably, 'thank God!'

I did not remain long in Ireland after this event. All the family were as kind as they possibly could be. But there were deficiencies in the ménage which the utmost stretch of politeness could not compensate. The rude disorder which prevailed was disheartening; and as my health began to leave me along with my spirits, I longed for home. I am now in that dear home, which no temptation, I trust, will ever again induce me to leave.

'L'ACADIE.'

'L'Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British America, by Sir James E. Alexander,'[4 - London: Colburn. 2 vols. with Plates. 1849.] is one of the latest published books of travel, and differs so much from other works of its class, that it comes before us with the effect of novelty. Sir James is a soldier, was on active service in the country he describes; and to military men, therefore, his volumes will be more acceptable than to the reading world generally. At the same time there is much pleasant, off-hand observation on matters of social concern; and the author's account of his proceedings while surveying for a military road through New Brunswick is in a high degree amusing and instructive.

We should be glad to think that officers of Sir James Alexander's standing partook of the sentiments we everywhere see expressed in the work respecting temperance and rational economy. Wherever it can be done appropriately, he gives a smart rap to smoking, drinking, and similar follies. At a public dinner he attended at New York, plates of cigars were handed round during the toasts, and almost all helped themselves to one; whereupon he observes – 'One gentleman said he always smoked twenty-five cigars a day, and often forty. It is really astonishing that men of intelligence and education will cloud their senses, and ruin their constitutions, with this absurd habit, originating in youth in the desire to appear manly.'

We have a long disquisition on desertions in Canada, the close neighbourhood of the United States offering a ready refuge to men who are disposed to break their allegiance. The monotony of garrison life and drunkenness are described as the principal causes of disgust with the service; and Sir James recommends employment, and the encouragement of temperance societies in regiments, as means for assuaging the evil. According to his account, deserters are not esteemed, and seldom do any good within the American territory. Many men, however, are either drowned in attempting to swim across to the States, or are captured. 'The drowned bodies of deserters have been seen circling about for weeks in the Devil's Whirlpool below Niagara.' An amusing story is told of the capture of a deserter: – 'He left Amherstburg to swim across at night to the opposite shore. He managed to give "a wide berth" to Bois-blanc Island, on which there was a guard, and he breasted the stream gallantly; but getting among some other islands, he got confused; and instead of keeping the stream always running against his right shoulder, he got it on his left, and actually relanded on the British shore in the morning, thinking it was the American. A woman coming down for water was naturally a good deal surprised at the appearance of a man issuing, like Leander, from the flood close behind her, and exclaiming to her, "Hurrah! here we are on the land of liberty!" "What do you mean?" she asked. "In the States, to be sure," he answered. The woman immediately saw the true state of the case, and saying "Follow me," he found himself in the guard-room.'

In various parts of Canada bodies of Scotch are settled in clusters, or at least at no great distance from each other; and according to ancient habit, they endeavour to maintain some of their national customs. At one place Sir James had an opportunity during winter of engaging in the game of 'curling.' Instead of stones, however, which would have cracked with the frost, masses of iron of 56 to 80 lbs. weight, of the shape of curling-stones, were used. On St Andrew's Day he attended the dinner given by the Scotchmen at Kingston; and here he made the acquaintance of the chief of the MacNabs, who some years ago removed to Canada with 318 of his clan. The locality they selected was on the Upper Ottawa, in a romantic and agreeable situation near Lake Chats. Strange, to find a colony of the ancient Gael perpetuating the language and manners of their ancestors in the recesses of a Canadian forest! At the dinner in question, 'the MacNab was distinguished by a very fine appearance, stout and stalwart, and he carried himself like the head of a clan. His manners, too, were particularly courtier-like, as he had seen much good society abroad; and he was, above all, a warm-hearted man, and a true friend. He usually dressed in a blue coat and trousers, with a whole acre of MacNab tartan for a waistcoat – at great dinners he wore a full suit of his tartan. On the jacket were large silver buttons, which his ancestors wore in the "rising" in 1745.'

Another anecdote of a different kind informs us that the commercial genius of the New World has found in rattlesnakes an object of regular traffic: – 'My respectable old friend, T. M'Connell the trapper, told me that he was in the habit of visiting Niagara for the purpose of killing the rattlesnakes for the sake of their fat, and that he has sometimes killed three hundred in a season, and thus: – He watched beside a ledge of rocks where their holes were, and stood behind a tree, club in hand, and with his legs cased in sheepskins with the wool on, to guard against bites. The snakes would come out cautiously to seek on account of food or to sun themselves, fearing to go far for their enemies, the pigs. The trapper would then rush forward and lay about him with his club; those which escaped to their holes he seized by the tail; and if they turned round and bit him in the hand, he would spit some snake-root (which he kept chewing in his mouth) on the wound: it frothed up, and danger would cease. The dead snakes were then roasted, hung up by the tail over a slow fire, and their fat collected, taking care there was no blood in it. The fat would sell for twelve dollars a bottle, and was considered of great value by the country people in cases of rheumatism and stiff joints.'

The survey of the great military road through the interior from Halifax, which was projected by government in 1844, formed a suitable opportunity for Sir James employing his skill in engineering; and he was accordingly engaged on a section of the undertaking. The road was designed to extend upwards of five hundred miles in length. Beginning at Halifax, it crossed Nova Scotia by Truro and Amherst; having arrived in New Brunswick, it pursued a pretty straight line by Boiestown and Lake Madawaska to the south bank of the St Lawrence, whence it went onward to Quebec. The main object of the line was to favour the transit of troops to Canada; but practically it would open new and vast regions for settlement, and greatly advance the prosperity of the colonies, New Brunswick in particular. Already a travelled road existed for a hundred miles or more at each end, and therefore the only trouble lay with the central divisions. The exploration of the portion from near Frederickton to Boiestown was assigned to Sir James Alexander; and his party was to consist of one officer, one assistant surveyor, one Indian guide, and eight attendants, woodmen, or lumberers. The duty was of a very serious kind. It was to hew a track of six clear feet through the trees and brush, so as to permit the use of the measuring chain and compass with sights; and this being done, axemen were to follow and blaze the trees, by cutting a slice of bark off each tree along the proposed line. When it is considered that the line was to perforate woods which had never been traversed by civilised man; that for months the party would not see a town or village, if, indeed, any human habitation; and that provisions and all other articles required to be carried on men's backs – for no beast of burthen could travel such entangled wildernesses – the difficulties will seem almost insurmountable. Yet even all this was found to be as nothing in comparison with that most fearful of all torments – the plague of insects. That a gentleman accustomed to ordinary refinements should have volunteered such an exploration, is only another proof of the sturdy heroism of the English soldier, who fears nothing in the cause of duty, or which can redound to the glory of his country.

Instead of tents, which would have been cumbersome, the party took three sheets of ticking, which, unrolling at night, they stretched on poles to windward, the poles being cut on the spot; and under lee of this shelter, and wrapped in blankets, they lay down to rest. There was no undressing or shaving except on Sunday, when, no work being done, the day was spent in religious exercises and general recreation. The fare was simple, chiefly salt pork, tea, and biscuits, and little cooking was necessary. The expedition started from the end of the line next Nova Scotia, so as to explore northwards to Boiestown; their departure being on the 28th of May, while yet the snow was not quite thawed and gone. Starting from their lairs at five in the morning after the first bivouac, all were speedily at their assigned duties. Sir James went ahead, axe on shoulder, and with a compass and haversack, exploring with the Indian André, and indicating the line of march. With intervals for meals, all went merrily on till five P. M., when the party camped for the night. 'The anxious inquirer may ask how many miles we got over in a day, suggesting "eight or ten?" and will doubtless be surprised to hear that a mile and a-quarter a day (though sometimes double that was accomplished), cut through the bush, was considered a fair day's work, and yet we were regularly at it from morning till night.'

The heat was usually about 60 degrees in the morning; at noon 75 degrees; and at sunset 65 degrees. This range of temperature would have been very pleasant in an open airy country; but in the stagnation of the woods the closeness was sometimes terrible to bear. Then came the savage accompaniments – 'the minute black fly, the constant summer torment; the mosquito, with intolerable singing, the prelude of its sharp probe; the sand-fly, with its hot sting; the horse-fly, which seems to take the bit out of the flesh; and the large moose, or speckled-winged fly. The party were never,' adds Sir James, 'free from flies of some kind or other; and I have seen the five different kinds just enumerated "doing their worst" at the same time in our flesh, and the black pests digging into it, and elevating their hinder end like ducks searching below the surface of a pond.' To avert the attacks of these winged pests, all the members of the expedition wore gauze veils, tucked in carefully round the face and neck; but with this and all other precautions – such as constantly carrying a burning green stick, so as to raise a smoke – proved of comparatively small account. To vary the entertainment, a bear or wolf occasionally looked in upon the camp; but no accident was suffered from their visitations.

The country through which the line was tracked is generally level, of a good soil, and requires only to be cleared to be fit for the settlement of a large population. Several small rivers were forded by the party; and at different places picturesque falls made their appearance. One of the largest rivers reached was the Gaspereau on the 10th of July, which it was not easy to cross with loads. Shortly after this, they entered on the scene of the great Miramichi fire of 1825, a conflagration of the pine-forests over many hundred square miles of country, and which is understood to have burnt to death five hundred people. The blackened stumps of the magnificent trees which were destroyed still remain on the ground, interweaved with a new vegetation, differing, as usual, from that which preceded it. After chaining about ninety miles, and when nearly knocked up with fatigue and privations, the party of explorers came in sight of the limit of their measurements. Here they got well housed, and their hunger was satisfied with the wholesome country fare in Mackay's Inn at Boiestown, on the Miramichi.

It is much matter for regret that the engineering explorations of Sir James Alexander and others on this proposed road should have ended in nothing being done. At an expense of L.60,000, the road, it is said, might have been made; and made it probably would have been, but for the freak of making a railway instead. This new project, started during the railway mania of 1845, and which would have cost that universal paymaster, Great Britain, not more than three or four millions of money(!), did not go on, which need not to be regretted; but it turned attention from the only practicable thing – a good common road; and till this day the road remains a desideratum.

After the pains we have taken to draw attention to the work of Sir James Alexander, it need scarcely be said that we recommend it for perusal. In conclusion, we may be allowed to express a hope that the author, the most competent man for the task perhaps in the Queen's dominions, will do something towards rousing public attention to the vast natural capabilities of New Brunswick – a colony almost at the door, and that might be readily made to receive the whole overplus population of the British islands. To effect such a grand social move as this would not be unworthy of the greatest minds of the age.

THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE

An association, as we learn, has sprung up in London with the view of procuring the abolition of all taxes on knowledge – meaning by that phrase the Excise duty on paper, the tax on foreign books, the duty on advertisements, and the penny stamp on newspapers; the whole of which yield a return to the Exchequer of L.1,266,733; but deducting certain expenses to which the government is put, the aggregate clear revenue is calculated to be about L.1,056,000.

We have been requested to give such aid as may be in our power to facilitate the objects of the Anti-tax-on-Knowledge Association, having, as is pretty correctly inferred, no small interest in seeing at least one department of the exaction – the duty on paper – swept away. So frequently, however, have we petitioned parliament on this subject, and with so little practical avail, that we have made up our minds to petition no more. If the public desire to get cheap newspapers, cheap literary journals, and cheap advertisements, they must say so, and take on themselves the trouble of agitating accordingly. This they have never yet done. They seem to have imagined that the question is one exclusively between publishers and papermakers and the government; whereas, in point of fact, it is as much a public question as that of the late taxes on food, and should be dealt with on the same broad considerations. We are, indeed, not quite sure that publishers, papermakers, and other tradesmen intimately concerned in the question are, as a body, favourable to the removal of the stamp, the Excise, and other taxes on their wares. Generally speaking, only a few of the more enterprising, and the least disposed to maintain a monopoly, have ever petitioned for the abolition of these taxes. This will seem curious, yet it can be accounted for. A papermaker, to pay the duty on the goods he manufactures, must have a large command of capital; comparatively few can muster this capital; hence few can enter the trade. London wholesale stationers, who, by advancing capital to the papermakers, acquire a species of thraldom over them, are, according to all accounts, by no means desirous to see the duties abolished; for if they were abolished, their money-lending and thirlage powers would be gone. So is it with the great monopolists of the newspaper press. As things stand, few can compete with them. But remove the existing imposts, and let anybody print a newspaper who likes, and hundreds of competitors in town and country would enter the field. There can be no doubt whatever that the stamp and advertisement-duty, particularly the latter, would long since have been removed but for the want of zeal shown by the London newspaper press. If these, however, be mistaken opinions, let us now see the metropolitan stationers and newspaper proprietors petition vigorously for the removal of the taxes that have been named.

But on the public the great burthen of the agitation must necessarily fall. Never would the legislature have abolished the taxes on bread from the mere complaints of the corn importers; nor will the taxes on knowledge be removed till the tax-payers show something like earnestness in pressing their demands. The modern practice of statesmanship is, to have no mind of its own: it has substituted agitation for intelligence, and only responds to clamour. The public surely can have no difficulty in making a noise! Let it do battle in this cause – cry out lustily – and we shall cheerfully help it. If it wont, why, then, we rather believe the matter must be let alone.

Who will dare to avow that the prize is not worthy of the contest? We do not apprehend that, by any process of cheapening, the newspaper press of Great Britain would ever sink to that pitch of foulness that seems to prevail in America. The tastes and habits of the people are against it; the law, strongly administered, is against it. The only change we would expect by the removal of the stamp-duty, and the substitution of, say, a penny postage, would be the rise of news-sheets in every town in the kingdom. And why not? Why, in these days of electric telegraph, should not every place have its own paper, unburthened with a stamp? Or why should the people of London, who do not post their newspapers, be obliged to pay for stamps which they never use? As to the advertisement-duty – an exaction of 1s. 6d. on every business announcement – its continuance is a scandal to common sense; and the removal of that alone would give an immense impetus to all branches of trade. The taxes which press on our own peculiar sheet we say nothing about, having already in many ways pointed out their effect in lessening the power of the printing-machine, and limiting the sphere of its public usefulness.

DR ARNOTT ON VENTILATION AS A PREVENTIVE OF DISEASE

Dr Neil Arnott has addressed a letter on this subject to the 'Times' newspaper. Any expression of opinion by him on such a subject, and more particularly with reference to the prevailing epidemics, must be deemed of so much importance, that we are anxious, as far as in our power, to keep it before the world. He commences by assuming, what will readily be granted, that fresh air for breathing is one of the essentials to life, and that the respiration of air poisoned by impure matter is highly detrimental to health, insomuch that it will sometimes produce the immediate destruction of life. The air acquires impurities from two sources in chief – solid and liquid filth, and the human breath. Persons exposed to these agencies in open places, as the manufacturers of manure in Paris, will suffer little. It is chiefly when the poison is caught and retained under cover, as in close rooms, that it becomes notedly active, its power, however, being always chiefly shown upon those whose tone of health has been reduced by intemperance, by improper food or drink, by great fatigue and anxiety, and, above all, by a habitual want of fresh air.

Dr Arnott regards ventilation not only as a ready means of rendering harmless the breath of the inmates of houses, as well as those living in hospitals and other crowded places, but as a good interim-substitute for a more perfect kind of draining than that which exists. 'To illustrate,' he says, 'the efficacy of ventilation, or dilution with fresh air, in rendering quite harmless any aërial poison, I may adduce the explanation given in a report of mine on fevers, furnished at the request of the Poor-Law Commissioners in 1840, of the fact, that the malaria or infection of marsh fevers, such as occur in the Pontine marshes near Rome, and of all the deadly tropical fevers, affects persons almost only in the night. Yet the malaria or poison from decomposing organic matters which causes these fevers is formed during the day, under the influence of the hot sun, still more abundantly than during the colder night; but in the day the direct beams of the sun warm the surface of the earth so intensely, that any air touching that surface is similarly heated, and rises away like a fire balloon, carrying up with it of course, and much diluting, all poisonous malaria formed there. During the night, on the contrary, the surface of the earth, no longer receiving the sun's rays, soon radiates away its heat, so that a thermometer lying on the ground is found to be several degrees colder than one hanging in the air a few feet above. The poison formed near the ground, therefore, at night, instead of being heated and lifted, and quickly dissipated, as during the day, is rendered cold, and comparatively dense, and lies on the earth a concentrated mass, which it may be death to inspire. Hence the value in such situations of sleeping apartments near the top of a house, or of apartments below, which shut out the night air, and are large enough to contain a sufficient supply of the purer day air for the persons using them at night, and of mechanical means of taking down pure air from above the house to be a supply during the night. At a certain height above the surface of the earth, the atmosphere being nearly of equal purity all the earth over, a man rising in a balloon, or obtaining air for his house from a certain elevation, might be considered to have changed his country, any peculiarity of the atmosphere below, owing to the great dilution effected before it reached the height, becoming absolutely insensible.

'Now, in regard to the dilution of aërial poisons in houses by ventilation, I have to explain that every chimney in a house is what is called a sucking or drawing air-pump, of a certain force, and can easily be rendered a valuable ventilating-pump. A chimney is a pump – first, by reason of the suction or approach to a vacuum made at the open top of any tube across which the wind blows directly; and, secondly, because the flue is usually occupied, even when there is no fire, by air somewhat warmer than the external air, and has therefore, even in a calm day, what is called a chimney-draught proportioned to the difference. In England, therefore, of old, when the chimney breast was always made higher than the heads of persons sitting or sleeping in rooms, a room with an open chimney was tolerably well ventilated in the lower part, where the inmates breathed. The modern fashion, however, of very low grates and low chimney openings, has changed the case completely; for such openings can draw air only from the bottom of the rooms, where generally the coolest, the last entered, and therefore the purest air, is found; while the hotter air of the breath, of lights, of warm food, and often of subterranean drains, &c., rises and stagnates near the ceilings, and gradually corrupts there. Such heated, impure air, no more tends downwards again to escape or dive under the chimneypiece, than oil in an inverted bottle, immersed in water, will dive down through the water to escape by the bottle's mouth; and such a bottle, or other vessel containing oil, and so placed in water with its open mouth downwards, even if left in a running stream, would retain the oil for any length of time. If, however, an opening be made into a chimney flue through the wall near the ceiling of the room, then will all the hot impure air of the room as certainly pass away by that opening as oil from the inverted bottle would instantly all escape upwards through a small opening made near the elevated bottom of the bottle. A top window-sash, lowered a little, instead of serving, as many people believe it does, like such an opening into the chimney flue, becomes generally, in obedience to the chimney draught, merely an inlet of cold air, which first falls as a cascade to the floor, and then glides towards the chimney, and gradually passes away by this, leaving the hotter impure air of the room nearly untouched.

'For years past I have recommended the adoption of such ventilating chimney openings as above described, and I devised a balanced metallic valve, to prevent, during the use of fires, the escape of smoke to the room. The advantages of these openings and valves were soon so manifest, that the referees appointed under the Building Act added a clause to their bill, allowing the introduction of the valves, and directing how they were to be placed, and they are now in very extensive use. A good illustration of the subject was afforded in St James's parish, where some quarters are densely inhabited by the families of Irish labourers. These localities formerly sent an enormous number of sick to the neighbouring dispensary. Mr Toynbee, the able medical chief of that dispensary, came to consult me respecting the ventilation of such places, and on my recommendation had openings made into the chimney flues of the rooms near the ceilings, by removing a single brick, and placing there a piece of wire gauze with a light curtain flap hanging against the inside, to prevent the issue of smoke in gusty weather. The decided effect produced at once on the feelings of the inmates was so remarkable, that there was an extensive demand for the new appliance, and, as a consequence of its adoption, Mr Toynbee had soon to report, in evidence given before the Health of Towns Commission, and in other published documents, both an extraordinary reduction of the number of sick applying for relief, and of the severity of diseases occurring. Wide experience elsewhere has since obtained similar results. Most of the hospitals and poor-houses in the kingdom now have these chimney-valves; and most of the medical men, and others who have published of late on sanitary matters, have strongly commended them. Had the present Board of Health possessed the power, and deemed the means expedient, the chimney openings might, as a prevention of cholera, almost in one day, and at the expense of about a shilling for a poor man's room, have been established over the whole kingdom.

'Mr Simpson, the registrar of deaths for St Giles's parish, an experienced practitioner, whose judgment I value much, related to me lately that he had been called to visit a house in one of the crowded courts, to register the death of an inmate from cholera. He found five other persons living in the room, which was most close and offensive. He advised the immediate removal of all to other lodgings. A second died before the removal took place, and soon after, in the poor-house and elsewhere, three others died who had breathed the foul air of that room. Mr Simpson expressed to me his belief that if there had been the opening described above into the chimney near the ceiling, this horrid history would not have been to tell. I believe so too, and I believe that there have been in London lately very many similar cases.

'The chimney-valves are part of a set of means devised by me for ventilation under all circumstances. My report on the ventilation of ships, sent at the request of the Board of Health, has been published in the Board's late Report on Quarantine, with testimony furnished to the Admiralty as to its utility in a convict ship with 500 prisoners. My observations on the ventilation of hospitals are also in the hands of the Board, but not yet published. All the new means have been freely offered to the public, but persons desiring to use them should be careful to employ competent makers.'

Having seen Dr Arnott's ventilators in operation in London and elsewhere, we can venture to recommend them as a simple and very inexpensive machinery for ventilating rooms with fires. The process is indeed generally known, and would be more extensively applied if people knew where to procure the ventilators. We have had many letters of inquiry on this subject, and could only refer parties to 'any respectable ironmongers.' But unfortunately, as it appears, there are hundreds of respectable ironmongers who never heard of the article in question, and our recommendation goes pretty much for nothing. Curious how a little practical difficulty will mar a great project! We trust that the worthy doctor will try to let it be known where his ventilators are to be had in town and country.

AN OLD-FASHIONED DITTY

I've tried in much bewilderment to find
Under which phase of loveliness in thee
I love thee best; but oh, my wandering mind
Hovers o'er many sweets, as doth a bee,
And all I feel is contradictory.

I love to see thee gay, because thy smile
Is sweeter than the sweetest thing I know;