clanking. Nothing better could be expected. Individuals of opposite sexes meet, mutually misunderstand each other, and marry. There follow very naturally family jars, (not pickle jars, but something quite as acid,) curtain lectures, broken hearts and divorces a vinculis. Some, with slender wit, imagine themselves heaven-inspired, write in verse— "Soar aloft on wings of light, and come down on father's wood-pile.' Others rush to the pulpit to mend morals, when they should have quietly seated themselves in their shops and mended shoes. Others still, gifted with rare genius for pruning trees, seize the scalpel and hack away with marvellous infelicity at sinews and bones. Many a plumed chief was manifestly intended for a butcher, but, being sent blindfold into the world, by mistake picked up a sword instead of a cleaver. Individuals, whose mission was to mend brass-kettles, and solder old tin, blunder into senates and commence tinkering the government. Hands, made for delving, wander from their duty to finger briefs, and soil the pages of Blackstone. Gifted pettifoggers are constructed into bad governors, and farcical presidents, while true men remain unknown to themselves and the public, in the obscurity of humble life, guiding only the plough when they should be guiding the state. The world has been full of owlish philosophers, who, at best, conld but have made respectable pedagogues; of weak kings who should have been subjects, and of quiet subjects whose right it was to be kings. Those, who in reading its history, wonder why its affairs have always been in such a jumble, are here let into the secret. With cobblers in the pulpit, and tinkers in the senate, pedagogues in the chairs of philosophy, and pettifoggers at the head of government, he would be but an indifferent prophet who should predict anything like harmony and order. Now, had there been, ab initio, some absolute test of character, men would never have got so egregiously misplaced. Each one would have perceived at a glance exactly where he was wanted, and gone, as in duty bound, about his proper business. There would have been a harmonious arrangement throughout all its sections and divisions; and, without doubt, this would have been a very respectable and quiet sort of world. The present age has supplied this desideratum. Phrenology unfolds the sublimely

simple truth, that the character of every man is written upon his cranium: and that its surface furnishes an accurate clue to the fibre and fashion of his soul. A man, intellectually and morally, can be as easily guaged and inspected as a barrel of whiskey. Fifteen minutes are sufficent to investigate the most intricate case, and determine whether the individual was cut out for a poet, or a coalheaver; for an honest man, or a sub-treasurer; for a philosopher, or a fool; for a Brutus, or a Cæsar. Nor is the test difficult of application, though the world has been so long in finding it out. It is a mere matter of sight and touch-an operation for the eye and the finger ends. It involves no acquaintance with psychological or metaphysical subtleties. Any one who can finger a skull, and distinguish between a pea and a pigeon's egg, may be a phrenologist-may read his neighbor like a morning newspaper. Every bump is a standing advertisement, set up by the gods; and the whole together make up the inventory of his stock in trade! This discovery contains the germ of reformation, and the assurance of social order.

The discovery of animal magnetism, also, is another large stride in progress. Let not the reader sneer at our credulity, nor think that we are playing upon his. We predict great things for magnetism, the mysterious sister of phrenology. With closed eye and rigid features, she scans body and soul-distant objects and secret transactions; and, like an obedient slave, lays the fruit of her observations at the feet of her master. At present, however, we cannot dilate upon it. Our limits will only permit us to mention one particular in which we think it destined to important results; and that is, upon the diplomacy of nations. It is possible that some may not at first perceive its connection with matters of such high concern, and may even deem the proposition too ridiculous to be suggested in a grave argument like ours. But let them not judge hastily. For our part, we believe it, as fully as we do that phrenology is destined to grease the wheels of society, so that they will run without creaking.

Every one knows that diplomacy, as at present conducted, is a very secret and perplexed affair. Not only do the respective governments endeavor to keep their subjects in the dark, but it is the object of their diplomatists to mystify

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each other, in hope of gaining some advantage; a proceeding not unlike that of two skillful jockies, each of whom is endeavoring to overreach the other. The diplomatic reputation of an ambassador, or minister extraordinary, would be destroyed at once should he let his antagonist into the secret policy of his government. He is expected to be as indefinite as possible, and, at the same time, to leave an impression of remarkable frankness. Being thus mutually be-fogged, they are often sorely puzzled how to proceed, and fear to accept submitted propositions which perhaps may be fair enough-lest it should be found afterwards that they have conceded too much, or lost an advantage, or involved their government in ultimate embarrassment. To get at this secret policy is a consummation devoutly to be wished" on the part of the plenipotentiary-especially when affairs are involved and stormy. To employ spies and eavesdroppers for this purpose, or to corrupt those in the confidence of the court, would be dangerous, and, if discovered, would result in the disgrace of the minister and his government. By means of magnetism, however, this object can be most felicitously accomplished, and, at the same time, all danger avoided. Let the minister keep a facile and practiced subject, and whenever there is to be a cabinet meeting, call him to his private apartment, make the requisite passes, put on his spiritual gear, and send him into the conclave. When there, by a strong effort of will, nerved by the greatness of the occasion, and held to its tension by patriotic devotion, let him fasten the attention of the subject upon the actors until the cabinet breaks up, while his confidential secretary notes down the revelations that are made, and with the nicest accuracy secures them all in black and white. We cannot conceive of a more admirable arrangement. Eaves droppers, even, could such be employed at all, could furnish but inaccurate reports. Agents near the court might be unfaithful, or themselves deceived; but here is an agent under the entire control of the minister, who, without rattling shutters, or shaking locks, glides in among the premiers and privy-councilors, fixes his keen spiritual eye upon them, and brings away, unsuspected, their budget of state secrets! Look to it, ye Richelieus, and Talleyrands, and Peels!

How soon will ye not be the playthings of this scientific omniscience!

This political Ganymede of the ministers, for greater security, should be one of his lackeys, or his favorite page, and in daily attendance upon his person; but even if by some unlucky contre-temps, he should be caught at his manipulations, it would in all probability be little regarded, and only subject him to the imputation of being a somewhat curious speculator in mental science. The advantages of such an arrangement are so apparant that amplification is unnecessasy. If our minister at St. James was at this time provided with a good subject, he might at once get at the whole British policy, and thus relieve the government and people from distressing doubts, and "thick-coming fancies" which trouble their sleep, and enable us to prepare for whatever action may be necessary. Great as are his talents for diplomacy, we venture to say that one such spiritual interview with Sir John and the Privy Council, would be worth more than all his observation, and official intercourse, during the next year. With these views of the matter we would respectfully suggest to the President and Senate the propriety of ascertaining hereafter that all our accredited ministers, in addition to the usual qualifications, understand the magnetic passes; and also of seeing that they are provided with suitable subjects. All appropriations on the score of these subjects, to avoid suspicion, can be charged to the account of secret service money!

We might multiply proofs ad infinitum; but those who are not already convinced that this is an age of progress, would not be, though folios were written. That there are such, we know well; but they are, for the most part, men who have lived in chimney-corners, and know little of the stirring times without, or who, in the silence of studious cells, have become worshippers of the past, and only smile when its familiar forms look in upon their solitude. They are lovers of the moss that grows on ancient monuments; men who would gather the fragments of an exploded dogma as piously as if they were those of a friend; and who would give more for a button from their great grandfather's breeches, than for a full suit of modern cut, turned off with the highest finish of Broadway. Plato informs us that all souls at their creation, were furnished with lodgings in the stars,

where they were to remain until bodies were prepared for them. If we were to judge of these men from their sympathy with the old and bygone, we should say that they were sleepy souls, who had nodded so long upon their celestial roosts, that, when they at length took wing and alighted upon this planet, they were several centuries behind their time! Any attempt to bring them into sympathy with the present would be vain. They were made for an age that has past, and, though they appeared too late to act in it, their hearts still beat with its own peculiar pulse. Like the Greenlander beneath

the tropics, who, when the unwelcome sun beats down upon him, turns towards the North and pants for his icebergs, these worthy but belated souls, turn towards the elder times and sigh for their congenial airs. The regiment in which they were enrolled, mustered, and marched and fought its battle, long before they, were awake: and, inasmuch as they have done nothing since but skirt about the old battle-ground, and write eulogies upon the heroes who fell there, we would suggest, as we take leave of them, that, so far as the world is concerned, they might as well have continued to sleep.

We have another report from Mr. Walker on the subject of the Tariff in answer to the following resolution of the Senate :

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to report to the Senate on what articles embraced in the tariff act

of 1846 the duties can be increased beyond the existing rates, so as to augment the revenue, and to what extent the said duties can be increased, and what additional revenue would accrue therefrom. And fur

thermore, that he be requested to report what articles on the free list may be taxed, and what amount of duty should be laid thereon; and that he also report on what articles, if any, the rates of duty may be reduced below those imposed by the aforesaid act, so as to increase the revenue, the rate of such reduction, and the amount to which the revenue would probably be increased thereby, and whether, in his opinion, any tax which may be laid upon such articles will increase the price of the same to the consumer to any amount; and if any, to what amount."

This document, like all others emanating from the same source, displays the most consummate ignorance of the first principles which govern the subject upon which the Secretary undertakes to give advice to the Senate. Instead of examining his subject with statesman-like views, and coming out manfully, and proposing an increase of duties, that would stimulate the industry of the country and augment its power of consumption, so as to insure a demand for foreign productions, commensurate to such power; he goes into comparisons

of the imports in 1845 and 1846 predicating all his reasoning upon the amounts of the different articles imported, upon the rates of duty; as though the quantity of goods imported depended upon such rates, when every tyro in political economy knows, that demand and supply are the great regulators of trade of all kinds, foreign and domestic. He tells us that "in order to reply to the resolution it became necessary to review every item embraced in the Tariff of 1846, to re-examine the imports of each article, with the rate of duty and revenue accruing thereon for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1845, and also to have prepared and considerd new tables of a similar character for the fiscal year ending 30th of June, 1846, and to compare the results." From the examination he deduces the fact, "that the equivalent ad valorems under the imports of 1846 generally approximate more nearly the present rates of duty, than the equivalent ad valorems of 1845;" and that therefore "a smaller augmentation of the present duties will be required to augment the revenue in cases where any duty under the last tariff produced a larger revenue on the import of any article, than the present duties on the same;" and then gives the different rates on certain articles of iron. Pig iron paid in 1845 a specific duty equivalent at the then price to 48 per cent., and in 1846 but 44 per cent.; rolled iron in 1845 paid equivalent to 75, and in 1846 but 53; round or square iron in 1845 paid an equivalent to 56, and in 1846 an equivalent to 51, &c. &c. This he says,

"was in consequence of the enhanced price at the latter period-which brings the duty estimated in 1846 by the imports much nearer the present rates, than the duty estimated in 1845." Hence he says: "Unless in cases where there are other data, entitled to higher consideration, which have been presented since the estimates made last year, the department would, as a general rule, in cases where any increase of duty would augment the revenue, estimate a smaller increase of the duties as necessary to produce in such a case the largest amount of revenue; judging from a comparison of the duties under the acts of 1842 and 1846; than when the tables were prepared last year, when the estimates were made by the tables of 1845." Now divest these details of all their verbiage, and what do they amount to. All the truth they contain, is, that when an article paying a specific duty raises in price in the foreign markets, the specific duty is less, when rated ad valorem, than at the reduced price. Thus if pig iron pay a specific duty of $20 per ton, costing in England £6 sterling, the ad valorem equivalent will be much lessened if the same iron cost £9 sterling. Surely it required not a lecture from a Secretary of the Treasury, to convince the Senate of this self-evident proposition. But we ask the particular attention of our readers to the proviso which we have italicised, namely unless in cases where there are other data entitled to higher consideration, which have been presented since the estimates made last year. That is, unless the exchange or the freight be higher or lower, or the home product be greater or less; or in fine, unless the all-governing principle of trade, the demand or supply should increase or diminish. The Secretary's rule may thus be seen to have vastly more exceptions than examples.

But when Mr. Walker stumbles upon a truth in the affairs of trade, and avows it, he invariably upsets his whole theory, as we shall show he has done in this. For it is susceptible of the most indisputable proof, that so far as revenue is concerned, no calculation approaching to accuracy, when the duties are ad valorem, can be made of the amount to be received, on any one article, from the very fact he has stated, namely, the fluctuation in prices, influenced as they are, and as he admits them to be, by so many causes.

But one fact is worth all Mr. Walker's comparative statements, and we shall

take the liberty to state several, to show that on this very article of iron his proposed ten per cent. additional duty, is a ridiculous proposition, made with a view to manifest a disposition to favor Pennsylvania from political considerations.

The price of bar iron in England in 1839 was £10 sterling per ton, in 1840 it was £9, in 1841 it was £7, in 1842 it was £5. 10., and in 1843 it was £4. 10.

Suppose in 1839 the then Secretary of the Treasury had made his calculations upon £10 sterling per ton and laid an ad valorem duty of 30 per cent., would his revenue have been half as much in 1843 when it had fallen to £4 10. And thus it will always be. No such fall, it is true, is at present anticipated on iron, on account of the railroad mania; but this cannot last many years, and if it should, we know that the manufacture of iron is becoming more and more extensive, and can be increased in England to any amount. Bar iron is now worth £10 sterling, and if it should therefore fall twenty-five per cent., a thing by no means unlikely to happen, then the ten per cent. additional would produce no increase of revenue. And so of cottons and woolens. These latter articles, however, fluctuate much more in the quantities imported, from variations in demand and supply, changes of fashion, &c.

There is no term which so fully expresses the extreme folly of Mr. Walker's proposed alterations in the tariff of 1846, as shown in the report under consideration, as the word tinkering, and had not the late election in Pennsylvania resulted as it has, Mr. Walker would not have discovered before this Tariff of 1846 has been three months in operation, that to raise the duty on coal and iron would increase the revenue.

The country has unjustifiably been plunged into a war, and large revenues are required to sustain its credit and enable it punctually to pay the interest on the increased expenditure; the presses in the interest of the government declare the war to be popular; and all parties express themselves willing to place at the command of the Executive means to carry on the war with vigor, and thus, in the slang of the day, to "conquer a speedy peace." Yet the Secretary of the Treasury, instead of manfully coming forward and recommending an increase of revenue sufficient to place the credit of the country where it was when he took office,

has so managed its fiscal affairs, by his tariff of 1846 and the sub-treasury, as to be obliged to resort to an issue of treasury notes; and failing as yet to procure a duty on tea and coffee, openly confesses in this Report that there is great danger of reducing the value of the public securities as they were reduced in the war of 1812. If Congress believe the war to be so popular, why do they not, at once, take the proper means to revive the public credit? But this is in some degree departing from the object of this article, which is to show the fallacy of the prin ciples laid down by Mr. Walker, who blows hot and cold in the same breath, recommending a higher duty on coal and iron, and a lessened duty of five per cent. on certain manufactures of iron, and upon cotton goods not exceeding in cost 8 cents per square yard. The latter (will the reader believe us?) to produce an increased revenue of twenty-five thousand dollars!!-scarcely enough to pay one hour's expenditure for the war-no matter at what sacrifice to all concerned, in the United States, in the production of low-priced cotton goods. What a burlesque upon statesmanship is such pettifogging, if indeed it is not something much worse-a design to injure political opponents. To show the utter incompetency of Mr. Walker to meddle in any way with a Tariff, it is only necessary to say that he predicates the success of the Tariff of 1846, upon its operation since the first of December last-being at the time this Report was made up, about two months; because the receipts into the treasury under it have exceeded those for the same period last year, under the Tariff of 1842. We could excuse the ignorance in one so totally without knowledge, as he has shown himself, of the nature of trade, if it were not accompanied with the unfounded assertion, that the new tariff is advancing the interests of the country!—an assertion, we venture to say, not only without the slightest foundation, but at utter variance with the truth, as will fully appear as soon as the extraordinary state of things brought about by the failure of the crops of grain in Europe, the disease of the potatoe, and the short crop of cotton shall have passed

away.

These new phases introduced into the commercial state of the world, have given great activity to trade; particularly the rise in grain, bread-stuffs, and provisions generally. Very large shipments have

been made from the United States, which have given greatly increased employment to our ships, and much better prices to our farmers, for the time being; which will continue probably for some time, and thus the evils of the new tariff may be overlooked. But the end has not yet come! and we caution Mr. Walker and his English friends not to be too confident. The Tariff of 1846 has no more to do with our present prosperity, than the war with Mexico, or the debt which it is fast entailing upon the country. Had there been an abundant crop in Europe, a full crop of cotton, and no disease in the potatoe, we should have seen a very different state of things; and something very different from past experience must occur, if this unnatural state of things shall pass off, and business again find its level, without proving how little the permanent prosperity of a country is promoted by extraordinary prices in a foreign market, creating an unusual demand for its staple productions.

Mr. Walker will find that the home industry of a country is its best reliance, and when he shall retire to private life which assuredly he will do, as soon as the provisions of the Constitution will permit-he will be made to know that though official station may, for the moment, influence legislation, it cannot overturn settled principles; one of which is laid down by a great writer in favor of free trade called Adam Smith; and we commend it to his followers as being, like the accidental truisms of the honorable secretary himself, wholly subversive of the whole theory he proposes to prop up. We give the quotation in Smith's own words: "Whatever tends to diminish in any country the number of artificers and manufacturers, tends to diminish the home market, the most important of all markets for the rude produce of the land, and thereby still further to discourage agriculture."

Now, it is a fact well known that the Tariff of 1846 has diminished, and it will continue to diminish, the number of artificers and manufacturers; for the very reason, that, as Mr. Walker states, at lower duties it produces an increased revenue, by supplanting articles made at home with similar importations from abroad.

An appeal to some statistics of past years may not be out of place here, and we shall refer to them with a view to show the results of extraordinary import