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and almost all the large breweries in London, now very properly use Artesian water. The wholesomeness of the Thames water is also very apocryphal. "Have you in your practice," asked the commissioners of Dr. James Johnson, "met with any injurious effects from the use of Thames water?" to which the Doctor answered-"Yes! I was informed by Mr. Ibell, of Waterloo Place, who has a great many young women employed in the millinery business, that several of the young people have been repeatedly affected with bowel complaints; if they went out of town and drank other water the complaint subsided, but often returned again on their again drinking this water." The experience of other medical practitioners is to the same effect; and it is tolerably certain, that the inconvenience which persons from the country feel on first arriving in London is to be ascribed rather to the water they drink than to any peculiar change in the condition of the atmosphere they respire. Finally, it has been argued with some show of geological learning, that we have no assurance that Artesian wells would yield a sufficient abundance of water for the supply of the metropolis. This is manifestly an assumption, and an assumption directly opposed to the evidence of experience. We have no data on which we are entitled to argue even theoretically that the quantity of water from the hills shall diminish, or that the supply existing in the chalk basin shall become exhausted. This, however, is not a matter for speculation; it can be determined only by the argumentum ad experientiam; and it is certain, that among the numerous Artesian wells in this city not one has been yet known to have become exhausted. The very contrary is the fact, for in more than one instance the proprietors of breweries and other large establishments having sunk Artesian wells, have found not only a sufficient supply for their demand in the manufactory, but that it was so prodigious as to enable them to sell the water to the neighbourhood at so much per cart. At Hammersmith an Artesian well was sunk in Peter Square, the proprietor of which still finds not only an adequate supply for his own purposes, but, such is the abundance of the water, that he is enabled to supply the houses in the square with high and low, and service at twentyfive shillings each per annum. Hence it is manifest, that this and other cities might, from the very abundance of the Artesian supply, be accommodated with water at a much more moderate rate than we at present pay the water companies for water which is so unpalatable even to the taste, that most families, for the purpose of drinking, are obliged to supply themselves with water at the parish pumps, notwithstanding the onerous burthen of the water rates.

The advantages, therefore, which would be derived from Artesian springs may be thus enumerated :

1. The Artesian water is purer and more salubrious than the river waters which flow into the vicinity and through the heart of large and populous towns.

2. The Artesian water is protected from, and not liable to, those causes of contamination which infect, more or less, all open rivers.

3. The Artesian water requires no costly reservoirs, in which stagnation alone must deteriorate its qualities, by favouring the putrefactive process, and the development of animal and vegetable life.

4. The Artesian water would not require filtration, which after all, as we have seen, does not remove those deleterious substances held in chemical solution, which are most obnoxious and injurious to the animal economy. 5. The quantity of water supplied by Artesian springs is unlimited, and no more likely to fail than are the numerous rivers to which these very springs give origin.

6. Artesian springs might be sunk throughout the country at a very moderate expense; and the water employed, as on the Continent, as a moving power to different descriptions of machinery.

Lastly. On every estate or farm throughout the kingdom these wells might be sunk, and the water so obtained would be an inestimable advantage in contributing to the preservation of health, and the conveniences and necessities of life.

We have, in conclusion, to observe, that the facts we have now stated, which are only a fractional portion of the evidence in our possession, are submitted with confidence to the reflecting portion of the community; and we are happy to add, that we have authority for stating, that the Marquis of Westminster, one of the most wealthy and influential noblemen in the kingdom, will, in the House of Lords, renew his motion on this subject early in the ensuing session. It certainly to us appears an anomaly, that while the progress of knowledge and practical improvements have, in this enlightened age, changed in a manner the entire aspect of our social condition, the inhabitants of this great metropolis are still condemned, by the subsidiary influence of water monopolies, to slake their thirst at a stream from which an Hindoo would shrink with abhorrence; the pollution of which, so far back as the reign of Henry VIII., demanded the protecting interposition of the government. Finally, the remedial measure here proposed affects not only the interests of the metropolis, but that also of every city, and even village, throughout the kingdom: the Oases of the very deserts in Egypt have been thus fertilised; and the only point which appears to be at issue is, whether the metropolis and manufacturing towns of Great Britain shall allow pecuniary interests to repress, or the progress of science to advance, those means for promoting health and comfort which nature itself has munificently provided.

SKETCHES OF SPANISH GENERALS, CARLIST AND

CRISTINO.

No. II. CABRERA.

son cœur était rempli de ruse, d'orgueil, et de cupidité. Atroce dans la guerre il trainait

a sa suite la destruction, le carnage, et la servitude.".

Metral. Conjuration contre Attila.

"Il n'eut point ces traits fiers et imposants qui frappent tous les esprits: il montra plus d'ordre et de justesse que de force et d'élévation dans les idées."

Fontanes. Eloges.

is

THE man on whom the eyes and hearts of the worshippers of legitimacy are now turned, as on their last hope - if any hope, indeed, exist, Cabrera. Of all those who have issued forth, from time to time, during the present war, to lay waste the territory they failed to conquer, he is the most formidable. His name has, during the last four years, struck his enemies with terror. Zumalacarreguy himself did not carry more dismay into the ranks of the badly organised and unwieldy masses of the

Cristino army, amidst the mountains of Guipuzcoa, and Navarre, than Cabrera in the wild fastnesses of Aragon. In the general estimate of the military talents of those who have commanded the armies, both of the Queen, and of Don Carlos, it must be admitted that the superiority belongs to the chiefs of the insurrection. Zumalacarreguy, in his single person, was worth all who have appeared as defenders of the throne of Isabella II., with, perhaps, the exception of Cordova, or Mina, whom ill health rendered a nullity. The Guipuzcoan chieftain seems to have been the model. for Cabrera. The same qualities are observable in both; the same cautious prudence in not taking too much advantage of the favourable result of an enterprise; the same quickness of apprehension in discovering the weakest points of the enemy; the same skill in leading the' unsuspecting foe into those inaccessible strongholds, where his masses were broken up into small bodies; the same rapidity in concentrating his own forces on a given point, in the shortest possible space of time, and in falling, like a thunderbolt, on his astounded and bewildered pursuers. We refer our readers to the autumn campaign of 1838, as a proof of all this, when Pardiñas lost his life and his army in attempting to storm the strongholds of this daring rebel. The masterly skill with which he has possessed himself of, and established himself in, a vast extent of country, for so long a period, without scarcely losing an inch of ground, and if he did, gaining five times the quantity elsewhere; the selection of the best possible points whereon to plant his almost impregnable fortresses; the energy which has enabled him to create and discipline a formidable army out of the worst possible materials — all qualify him for holding a high place beside the man whom he is accustomed to regard as his great prototype. It is true that the Basque provinces having, from obvious reasons, been considered as the real theatre of the civil war, and the attention of the army being drawn more particularly to the North, Cabrera was permitted to avail himself of the occasion to organise his army, and establish it in positions from which Espartero will find it difficult to dislodge him, and by which he has been enabled to make himself master of two provinces. The Duke of Victory has never possessed a daring character as a military tactician, however headlong may be his personal prowess: but one might suppose that the success which has lately attended, if not his arms, at least his diplomacy, the result of which has been the pacification of the Provinces, ought to have encouraged him to set about completing the subjugation of the remaining insurgents, with something more of energy and decision than he appears to have exhibited since the treaty of Bergara. This hesitation proves that he is quite aware of the importance and peril of the dying struggle. Espartero, an open, brave, daring and, often, a rash soldier in the field, has now to deal with a cautious, cool, and crafty chief, fighting with the halter round his throat, who, like the tiger after which he is named, will crouch, with all the untiring patience of ferocity, until the moment arrives for the deadly spring on his unguarded victim. To us it seems that the peculiar talent of Cordova would have rendered him much better adapted than Espartero to encounter such an opponent as the chief of the Aragonese insurrection.

In the year 1834, the force which had been commanded by the Valencian chief, Carnicer, and which amounted to about 3000 men, was cut up, or dispersed by the army of Rodil, which had been previously employed in watching the movements of Don Carlos on the confines of Portugal. The remnant of this band was scattered over the mountains of Catalonia, Valencia, and Lower Aragon, in parties of from thirty to one hundred, where they perpetrated the most horrid crimes, robbing and assassinating, without

distinction, Carlist as well as Cristino. Cabrera had been at the head of a small force which numbered about 500 men, under Carnicer, and had made himself remarkable for the activity and energy of his movements, and the good success which generally attended his predatory expeditions. These bands, thus dispersed, though committing ravages of the most atrocious kind, were not yet of sufficient importance to arrest the undivided attention of the regular army of the Queen; whilst the local force, combining the urbanos, and other constitutional volunteers, was unable to compete with these ferocious marauders. The appeal to arms, also, in favour of the liberal government, had been responded to in so indifferent a manner, as to afford a favourable opportunity to the first bold and ambitious chieftain who had talent and influence enough to concentrate those materials which were loosely scattered over the country. Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon were amongst these provinces, which, generally speaking, lent the least assistance, in the commencement, to the cause of the infant queen. The levy of a national force at Valencia, which, at the least, should have produced a body of about 2000 men, sent forth about 200 to take up arms. Zaragoza, with which so many noble associations are connected, could only muster one battalion; whilst at Barcelona not much more than 1500 men were enrolled to keep down the insurrection. Cabrera took advantage of all these circumstances which were so favourable to his designs. He combined with Serrador and Quilez, two chiefs of the old army of Carnicer, and soon collected together the remnant of that dispersed body. The numbers rapidly increased; and, instead of 3000 men, to which it originally amounted, each captain, in a very short space of time, found himself at the head of 4000 soldiers already trained to war. The talent displayed by Cabrera in his various encounters with the Cristino chiefs who were sent against him, and the success which almost invariably attended him, procured him the command in chief of the whole combined force, which then reckoned 12,000 men. In vain did the generals of the queen's army implore the government to send reinforcements in order to stop, while there was yet time, the progress of Cabrera. The government was unable to comply with the prayer. The young Aragonese chieftain did not allow, in the mean time, a moment of repose or delay his blows were struck, one after the other, with the rapidity and the effect of lightning. He surprised, in quick succession, all the Cristino positions, and soon menaced the whole of the country between the Lower Ebro and Valencia. Serrador joined him at Tortoza, and Quilez occupied the confines of the three provinces of Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia. The result which usually follows success in such cases was obtained by the army of the centre; crowds flocked to the standard of the fortunate chief, and his army soon became, what it is at this day, formidable for its positions, its numbers, and its ferocity, and possessed of supplies of all kinds, to an amount incredibly enormous.

Don Ramon Cabrera, Conde de Morella, who has made so much noise in Europe, and whose name is associated with so many sanguinary acts, is a young man. He is not more than thirty-six years old. He is of obscure parentage, his father having been a brigadier, during the war of independence. We must hasten to enlighten the reader, who may be apt to feel astonished at the assertion, that the son of a brigadier can be said to be of low origin. Amongst Spaniards this term is applied not only to the general officer bearing that appellation, but also to the chief of four or five muleteers, attached to the brigade of an army, and whose rank is not superior to that of a peasant. His mother, however, is said to have be

longed to a distant branch of a noble Aragonese family; and the son is reported to cherish, secretly, and with a miser's care, a certain feeling of aristocratic pride. It has been asserted that Cabrera was an ecclesiastic. The assertion is ill founded. His connection with the church did not extend farther than having officiated many years as sacristanan office which is filled by a layman-in the parish church of his native town, Babastia. In his youth, he manifested a particular taste for music and poetry, particularly for those old ballads composed in the days of Aragonese independence; and it appears that he is a finished performer on the guitar. Accident is said to have disturbed the peaceful occupations of his youth, and to have all at once changed his entire temperament. His mother held some small place in the hospital of her native town, for which she received a trifling remuneration. In settling her accounts on one occasion with a clerk in the office of the administrador, named Lerchundi, some dispute occurred regarding an item of trivial amount which she claimed, having supplied from her own resources a few necessaries to one of the invalids of the establishment. Her demand was not recognised by the accountant, and the dispute arose to such a height, that, with the insolence of a petty official, he struck the woman on the face, and turned her out of doors. She hastened home and appeared before her son with her face swollen and bleeding. She was then a widow, and Cabrera was tenderly attached to her. He heard her story, and went to Lerchundi to demand why he had ill used his parent. Similar insolence was repeated. He proceeded to the house of the administrador, and complained of the treatment he had received all in vain: he was received with haughtiness, and dismissed with insult. Cabrera did not long brood over the injury in silence or inactivity. On the next morning the dead body of Lerchundi was found lying in the streets, pierced with many wounds, any one of which would have caused death. The voice of the sacristan was no longer heard in the church of San Vicente. He fled to the mountains, and, leading a life half-shepherd and half-brigand, eluded any attempts and they were but few—which may have been made to arrest him.

Concerning the events which mark the career of such a man as Cabrera, curiosity is always excited; and the acts of his early life, however commonplace when related of ordinary men, will be always viewed with more than usual interest. It is said that the fierce spirit of Cabrera has not been always inaccessible to the softer passions. To his duties of sacristan he occasionally added those of a professor of music, and gave lessons on the guitar. One of his pupils was the niece of an Aragonese gentleman, a native of Alcañiz, a young girl of nineteen or twenty. Spain is the land of intrigue, in love as well as in politics; and a young and enthusiastic female seldom considers, with the coolness of a sage, those differences of rank which are established by the conventional regulations of society. She was an orphan, and had not only been betrothed, but had been actually casada con poder married, that is, by proxy, a frequent custom in Spain with a man much older than herself, and whom she had never yet seen. Strange to say, and incredible as it would now doubtless appear, the manners of Cabrera were then gentle and unassuming, and a mutual attachment soon grew up between them. This was not discovered until it became too late to save the honour of the lady. She was removed with her offspring from the house of her uncle, and was never heard of more. Whether she died of a broken heart, or perished by assassination, none ever knew. That nothing might be wanting to render Cabrera a monster of iniquity, it is said that the

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