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upon the border of the crater, and it gave symptoms of an high degree of electricity; which was confirmed by the continual flashes of lightening that appeared in the east, although the night was calm, and the sky serene.

A thought struck my mind; can it be true that water is decomposed in the heart of volcanic mountains, which hinders the electric fluid from inflaming one of the constituent parts of this water, that is to say, the hydrogen, and in this way provokes the eruptions? In this case, the oxy. gen, its other constituent part, would be there to call forth the internal combustions, and to furnish the acidifying part to the alkaline, sulphuric, and metallic bases.

I inferred from these observations, that by reason of the intensity of the fire, and of the great collection of electricity, this would be one of the longest and most terrible eruptions, that the light perceived from Naples was only a shining emoke, which reflected the lustre of the internal fire, since the real pillar of fire was not so high as the borders of the crater; that the lava, after having filled the empty space, would overflow towards the south, because that was the most inclined side of the cone."

From the 15th to the 18th, the fire continued equal; the roarings were frequent; yet no earthquake was felt.

On the 19th, the fire and the smoke redoubled. From Naples was heard a hollow sound, like that of distant thunder.

From the 20th to the 25th nothing new; only the showers of ashes and sand were more frequent.

On the 26th, for the first time, ashes arrived at Torre del Greco, and at Resina. The fire was perceived to diminish a little.

On the 27th, a man having ascended the mountain, informed the Duke della Torre, that the mouth of the gulf, which had at first opened

to the west, had fallen back considerably to the east, that is to say, towards the walls of Ottajano; that the lava, which flowed always to the south, was so near the borders that it almost overflowed them.

On the 28th, a new mouth was 0pened, nearer the south, which threw up fire and stones.

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On the 29th, the eruptions were more considerable. Towards the evening, an extraordinary noise was heard, and the declivity of the mountain was covered with a thick smoke. This was the moment in which the lava overflowed. The writer of the journal went immediately to Torre del Greco, and saw this lava in form of a stream of fire, descending rapidly along the cone. The next morning, it had reached the foot, and had passed over an extent of 3,528 palms. There it divided itself into four bran ches, which took a direction, some to the south, others to the south-west, and entered the cultivated fields, carrying every where desolation and terror. -Two of these currents, having united, presented a front 1500, palms broad, and 8 or 9 high. Taking the middle rate of their progress since their departure from the crater, we might say that they had run over a hundred palms an hour. Yet the lava was very hard; scarcely, using all our force, could we thrust the point of a staff into it the length of two inches; nor was it entirely liquid; it carried on its surface stones of diverse bulk and colour, and sand. When it advanced, its upper banks fell back with a noise like that of a sack full of pieces of glass, and laid open the inner part, which was fluid, and like tongues of fire. Its heat was intolerable at the distance of 4 or 5 palms; but a little further was easily supported, and seemed even to give a tone to the fibres. It exhaled a smoke of sulphur and ofmmoniac salt, and an odour which might be compared to that of a lime kiln set on fire.

The

The pieces of this lava cracked, as they cooled, and were covered with a substance, sometimes white, some times yellow, which was nothing else than sulphur and nitrous ammoniac salts.

On the 31st, the currents made great progress; when they met a wall, a house, a rock, they surrounded and went over it, or made their way laterally, according to the magnitude of the obstacle and the declivity of the ground.

(To be continued.)

On MENDICITY, and its Remedies; with Strictures on the different Modes of providing for the Poor.

From the French of Garnier.

A Hideous, devouring, and almost incurable wound of the political body, in modern societies, is mendicity. A writer of our days, who has distinguished himself by the boldness and singularity of his ideas, has imagined he sees a remedy for this shameful malady in an ancient institution, justly abhorred, and he has sought in mendicity motives for justifying and for regretting slavery. True it is, that if one of the ten thousand slaves who were maintained in the palaces of Lucullus, should return among us, and find himself in our public streets near one of these repulsive creatures, covered with rags and ulcers, assuming the plaintive. accent of grief, or the rending cry of famine, to draw from the pity of the passenger a piece of the smallest coin, he would turn his eye away with disgust, and struck with aversion for a country so shamefully degraded, he would be far from think. ing on the weight of his chains. But it is not on this superficial view that the question can be decided. To prevent this humilation of man, by making him an article of merchandise, is not the means of exalting human nature, nor will we render it

better, if, to the mendicity which cor. rupts only the beggar, we substitute slavery, which corrupts at once the slave and his master. Besides, mendicity is an evil rather afflicting for society, than for him who has adopted this shameful resource. The condition of the beggar, so deplorable in appearance, is not at all what it seems to be. The beggar is a sort of low comic performer, who lives by the emotions which he is able to excite, and who laughs in his sleeve at the pity which he inspires. This trade requires him only to make one effort, that of surmounting shame. This step once got over, the life of the beggar has so many charms, that he would find it impossible to quit it for any other. He is a stranger to all the burdens, and to all the restraints of society. He enjoys the liberty and the independence of savage life, amid all the conveniences and comforts of civilization; pay without labour, and enjoy. ment without fatigue. We need pot hope then that a man, who has once descended to this condition, will ever be recalled to the habits of a life of labour and subordination. Yet, on the other hand, to confine a man because he has begged, to deprive him of his liberty for a fixed period, because he has exposed his misery and implored aid, has always appeared too severe a regulation, the execution of which bas frequently given occasion to a number of arbitrary vexations.

What measure then shall we employ against the evil of mendicity? This disorder, it would appear, is one of those which we must seek to prevent, rather than to suppress. Much may be done to prevent mendicity, by opening the most easy access to labour in all the different. branches of industry; by allowing it to circulate from one place, and one employment, to another, with the most perfect freedom; and by not seeking, through encouragements or

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artificial advantages, to draw it into a direction which it would not take of itself. In such a state of things, it is impossible that a man in health should want employment, unless prevented by bad conduct or idle inclinations. Although even society should find itself in the situation most unfavourable to the poorer classes, that in which the number of la bourers exceeds the demand for them; even in this case the wages would be reduced as low as possible, but this reduction of wages would affect the whole of the class of labourers; and one individual would not be more exposed than another to a total want of employment. He would have no title, more than another, to demand from society a gratuitous assistance; and every extraordinary assistance which he would obtain would be a preference obtained, without any reasonable motive, over all other individuals of his class, whose lot is the same, and who have the same difficulties to struggle with.

This wise police then being once established, all that remains to be done will be to suppress whatever can tend, in one way or another, to encourage idleness and want of foresight; the two high roads which lead to beggary.

Prejudices which took their rise in ages of poverty and idleness, have perverted the natural disposition of the people to foresight; they have destroyed that salutary anxiety, the best spur to labour and to private economy; they have disposed men to indolence, by holding out to view a secure asylum for their old age; and by thus relieving them from all care of the future. These institutions, created by a false humanity, and by a blind piety, must be abolished gradually, and with due precautions, By preserving retreats for those unfortunate beings, whom natural infirmities condemn to inaction, we shall have satisfied every demand that hu,

manity can make from the justice of government; and as this unfortunate class of men is necessarily confined within a circle drawn by nature, we shall not have to fear that such aids should ever tend to augment the number of idle hands to whom they shall be offered. Leaving to individual beneficence every means of col lecting and bestowing with discernment the aids which it destines for those, whom inevitable accidents have plunged suddenly into wretchedness, the police ought severely to prohibit all almsgiving in the streets, and public places, as bestowed without sufficient information. Whoever gives alms without examination and without precaution, encourages one of the disorders most hurtful to industry and morals: he becomes an accomplice of mendicity, and of all the evils which follow in its traine he is guilty of a real offence against social order. I am surprized to find, in an age of ignorance and superstition, a law of Edward III. King of England, "which forbids every one, under pain of imprisonment, to give any thing, under the title of a work of piety or charity, to those who are able to work, in order not to encourage idleness and sloth among the workmen. It is true, that in those times the excessive donations bestowed upon the poor, had multiplied and emboldened beggars and idlers to such a degree, as to alarm government; and to this cause we must ascribe the bloody laws which were passed against them at this period. The suppression of monasteries, the reformation, and other political circumstances, made all these measures be revoked, and caused the English government to run into a quite op posite extreme, by establishing that fatal poors rate, which, very far from curing or stopping the evil for whic it has been created, is, on the contrá'ry, compelled to follow the fearful progress which it causes it to make.

If it was believed necessary to employ some punishment for repressing mendicity, it would be doubtless more easy and more effectual to direct it against him who gives the alms, than against him who receives them.

servation ; government there being hardly any thing more than the ma nagement of a family; and posses sing such a proximity to all the citi zens, as may enable it to descend into particular details respecting every one of them.

But work-houses, conducted on the vast dimensions which a great state would require, however regularly administered, would be necessarily hurtful, at least if they were not perfectly useless. The produce of this forced labour coming to market in competition with the produce of voluntary labour, would infallibly lower somewhat the wages of the latter. If they lowered them below the rate necessary for the subsistence. of the workman and his family, then the institution would be highly per nicious, since, in the view of procu ring a better subsistence to the vi cious and idle, it would have driven from employment some portion of the honest and laborious class. If this increase of produce did not reduce wages below what would furnish simple necessaries, then, altho' the institution tended always, to a certain point, to discourage active industry in favour of vice and idle

Yet we must not hope, even under such a system, that there would exist no longer other poor, than those who should have become so by bad conduct or want of foresight. Many will still deserve that an helping hand be held out to them, and will require only a little aid to make them again become useful members of society. A family more numerous than common, a long illness, fire, and a thousand other accidents, against which all human prudence must fail, will still drag into an abyss of misery many innocent victims. But for the care of seeking out these honest poor, and of recognizing them amid the crowd of those who are attracted by offered succour, government must rest upon the active and watchful beneficence of individuals. If the high civilization of society multiplies the sources of unhappiness, it tends also to render more acute the sensibility of those who are in easy circum. stances, and to inspire a more anxiousness, it would deserve less to be bladesire of relieving the sorrows of others. Measures taken by government to relieve these private misfor. tunes, would fall almost always where they ought not, and would extend the evil which they were designed to remedy.

In some states of small extent, government has attempted with success establishments for receiving the indigent, and for subjecting them to regular labour; but in these states, there is less danger of being deceived in the distribution of aids.The police of such small countries may easily procure information concerning each individual, it can search into and follow his conduct, and keep him continually within the reach of ob

med as hurtful, but at least it should be abolished as completely useless. This, in fact, would be the clearest proof that society was in a capacity of absorbing much more free labour: that it was not supplied with as many paid workmen as the demands of the market admitted of; that, of consequence, all these pensioners, whom government had undertaken to set at work, would naturally have found employment for themselves, had they been disposed to seek it. Government would thus have been at pains to accommodate their indolence and inactivity, not to supply any real want of labour. Thus, such an institution, in all cases, tends to blunt, more or less, that stimulus so power

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ful and so energetic, that principle of life and growth in the social body, which keeps the industry of the lower orders continually awake.

Notes à la traduction de la Richesse des Nations.

halt is obliged to find you straw chatiest, and wood for nothing, all of which are charged to the circar]; milk, sheep, fowls, &c. at a price fixed by government.

Pallywood.-The Monigar * of this village (a Bramin) by his incivility, and much against our inclinations, again forced us to make use

Journal of a TOUR over Land from of arms, in order to bring him to a

INDIA in 1785 *.

By Ensign THOMAS CURRIE. Never be. fore published.

proper sense of duty.-This fellow, upon our arrival, made most of the inhabitants shut themselves up in their Pagodas, and refused to provide

Anecdotes-Travancore - Portuguese us with any thing, altho' all requiPriest-Anjengo-Coilong--Cochin red of him was only a few eggs -Itinerary across the Peninsula.

REACHED Ulundoorpettah at 11 A. M. At this village we found the inhabitants remarkably averse to providing us with different articles ; after repeatedly having sent into the village (having halted a few hundred yards from it) to procure what we wanted, and been constantly refused, we at last sent in a part of our guard, with their arms, to take the cutwal† prisoner, which they very soon effected, and brought him to us, where he was kept prisoner, until we were provided with every article we were in need of. To punish him, in some degree, for his insolence, we obliged him to run after us for several miles, taking care to bring up his rear with fixed bayonets. It is necessary to observe, that in travelling through any part of his highness the Nabob of Arcott's country, the Hamildar of every village where you

* As this journal is of considerable length, and not equally interesting throughout, we have contented ourselves with extracting such parts as seemed likely to afford either information or amusement to our readers.

Next person in power to the Hamildar (who is a kind of governor of the village) and obliged to see all his orders put in execution.

and a little milk.--In order to teach him discretion hereafter, and to punish him for his unprovoked insolence, we obliged him to take one of our trunks upon his head, and carry it as a common cooly ; this we made him do to the gate of Travancore (27 miles) where we discharged him without any reward whatever, but first explaining fully the cause of such treatment.

This was not only an outrageous insult to his holy order, but would require a length of time, by washing and praying, before he could be properly purified, so as to be again admitted to the Sanctum Sanctorum; The Bramins are so very superstitious, that if they even rub a European in passing, they will instantly" wash, supposing by their touch they are polluted.

In our passing through the gate, the guard was turned out, who salu. ted us as we passed. On our entering, we were met by all the principal people of the village, who con. ducted us to the choultry, at the farthest end of it. Here we had a misunderstanding with the com

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