MR. JOHN WONTNER, Keeper of Newgate.

I consider, that the allowing public-houses and the ginshops to be kept open before Divine Service in the morning causes a greater breach of the Sabbath than almost any thing else. In my immediate neighbourhood, I see them at five, six, seven, eight, and nine o'clock in the morning, coming out of the houses in a state of disgraceful inebria

tion.

mind, even of myself, for those devotional feelings which are essential when we approach the house of God. and particularly during the time I was in office, that the

I would beg to state, from the observation I have made,

scenes of drunkenness appeared to me to commence from the period of the mechanic receiving his pay on the Saturday night; he would frequent the public-houses on the Saturday night, and get a stimulus, and then he would

ing, when he completed his intoxication by church-time,

and then fall into the hands of women of the lowest

to it also.

In your experience, have you found these gin-shops to be the source of almost all the crime in the metropolis ?I have found prisoners innumerable, I may say, as to whom the love of drink, and the fault of being able to obtain it at so cheap a rate, has been the ruin of them, and the cause of bringing them to distress.

THE REV. J. E. TYLER, Rector of St. Giles's. There are many families of the lower class of English mechanics and labourers, which I know from my own knowledge to be truly religious, and within their sphere very exemplary; but they, especially the younger branches of their families, are now more than ever exposed to the worst sorts of temptation in the streets, and round the doors of gin-shops and public-houses. It is lamentable to see the number, of young girls especially, to whom the present gin-shops give such facilities for their wicked doings as they never had before.

Drunkenness has been lamentably on the increase; and notwithstanding all the efforts of myself and those inhabitants who act with me, great outrages are constantly taking place whilst we are going to church and returning. I earnestly press on the gentry in my parish, not to use their carriages to come to church on Sundays, but the dreadful scenes of intoxication and debauchery to which they are exposed, as they walk along the street, quite disarm me in this respect.

Will you have the goodness to state to the Committee the observations that you have made, applicable to the observance of the Lord's-day?—I have been most painfully reminded of the habits of drunkenness, dissipation, and profligacy, prevailing on Saturday night and Sunday, in a degree far more lamentable than through the rest of the week. The cases of cholera are reported to me, as chairman of the Board of Health, in writing every evening, and by an officer every morning. The cases of cholera on Sunday and Monday, generally exceed those of any other day, sometimes two-fold, at others four-fold, ten-fold, and even as fourteen to one.

THE HON. AND REV. GERARD T. NOEL, Curate of
Richmond.

Drunkenness is a vice which accelerates pauperism beyond every other; make a man drink, and you bring him soon upon the parish:

Mr. GEORGE WILSON, formerly Overseer of St. Margaret's, Westminster.

Will you have the goodness to describe what scenes have been exhibited on the Sabbath morning in your parish?—I should say that drunkenness, and riot, and debauchery, on the Sabbath morning, exceeded the whole aggregate of the week besides, in Tothill-street, Broadway, Strutton-ground, and those low parts of Westminster. Then people who assemble on Sunday morning do not assemble merely for the purpose of marketing?—No, not merely for that purpose, the streets are very much impeded by a number of persons making their purchases, but the number is certainly greatly increased by drunken persons, male and female, who are turned out of the public-houses. It would be impossible for myself and my family to attend the church in the Broadway; I have attempted sometimes to take my family there; I have six children, and it is not safe for their persons to approach the church, for at eleven in the morning the public-houses are discharged of their contents, and the great proportion of the people who come out of them, are in a state of beastly intoxication; mechanics, labourers, prostitutes, and thieves, who are quarrelling, and sometimes fighting, and talking in the most obscene manner; I cannot permit my children or female servants to come in contact with the horrid scene; and it ill fits the

class, by whom all these houses are filled; he is taken by work of destruction is completed, and on Monday morning them to their haunts, where, if he has any property, the he is unfit to attend to his usual avocations, frequently gets discharged, and subsequently applies to the parish for relief, Mr. THOMAS BAKER, Superintendent of the C., or St. James's Division of Police, describing the evils resulting from what are called pay-tables, at public-houses, where workpeople are, most improperly, paid by some persons, instead of at their masters' work-shops, says:

These poor wretches, who have been standing or waiting an hour or two in the public-house, have become three parts intoxicated; the foreman then comes; he pays them their wages, stops out of that for their week's drinking, which he answers the publican for, and they can drink as much as they like, so that they do not go beyond their wages; and these men thus deprive their children and their wives of three parts of what they earn during the week. The wife comes to the public-house; she gets nothing whatever of the wages. In the course of an hour or two, one of them is carried by my police, in a state of insensibility, perhaps followed by one or two of his companions, and he has perhaps a few halfpence, or a few shillings in his pocket, and it is stated by his companions, that he received so and so, and he had so much when he received his wages, and he has lost all but these few halfpence or shillings; he is locked up during the night; on the Sunday morning I release him. This is the main-spring of the disorder, and the debauchery, and I may say also, the immoral acts. In the division, it is altogether dreadful; the scenes which spring from the disorder of those public-houses. Then his companions come, and perhaps his wife comes in the morning, to see by the books what was found upon him, and perhaps there are a few halfpence only, and he has been ei ner robbed, or spent away all the rest of his week's earnings, and the wife begins to cry out, and says, there are so many children, and there is not a loaf of bread in the house, and perhaps she will scramble together a few halfpence on the Sunday to go to provide what she can for the children and herself during the Sunday.

H.M.

THE study of literature nourishes youth, entertains old age, adorns prosperity, solaces adversity, is delightful at home, unobtrusive abroad, deserts us not by day nor by night, in journeying nor in retirement.- -CICERO. OBSERVATION and instruction, reading and conversation, may furnish us with ideas, but it is the labour and meditation of our own thoughts which must render them either useful or valuable.

HASTY conclusions are the mark of a fool: a wise man doubteth, a fool rageth, and is confident: the novice saith, I am sure that it is so; the better learned answers, Peradventure it may be so, but I prithee inquire. Some men are drunk with fancy, and mad with opinion. It is a little learning, and but a little, which makes men conclude hastily. Experience and humility teach modesty and fear. JEREMY TAYLOR.

FORTUNE is like the market, where many times if you can stay a little, the price will fall: at other times she turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after, the belly, which it is hard to clasp. There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.BACON.

No man can be provident of his time, who is not prudent in the choice of his company.-JEREMY TAYLOR. IDLENESS travels very leisurelv, and Poverty soon over takes her.-HUNTER.

ORIGIN OF PROPERTY. THE first objects of Property were the fruits which a man gathered, and the wild animals he caught; next to these, the tents and houses which he built, the tools he made use of to catch or prepare his food; and afterwards, weapons of war and offence. Many of the savage tribes in North America, have advanced no farther than this, yet; for they are said to reap their harvest, and return the produce of their market with foreigners, into the common hoard or treasury of the tribe.

Flocks and herds of tame animals soon become property; Abel, the second son of Adam, was a keeper of sheep; sheep and oxen, camels and asses, composed the wealth of the Jewish Patriarchs, as they do still of the Modern Arabs. As the world was first peopled in the East, where there existed a great scarcity of water, wells probably were next made Property; as we learn, from the frequent and serious mention of them in the Old Testament, and contentions and treaties about them, and, from its being recorded, among the most memorable achievements of very eminent men, that they dug or discovered a well.

Land, which is now so important a part of property, which alone our laws call real property, and regard upon all occasions with such peculiar attention, was probably not made property in any country till long after the institution of many other species of property; that is, till the country became populous, and tillage began to be thought of. The first partition of an estate which we read of, was that which took place between Abram and Lot: and was one of the simplest imaginable: "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."

There are no traces of property in land in Cæsar's account of Britain: but little of it in the History of the Jewish Patriarchs; none of it found among the Nations of North America; the Scythians are expressly said to have appropriated their cattle and houses, but to have left their land in common.

Property in immoveables continued, at first, no longer than the occupation, that is, so long as a man's family continued in possession of a cave, or his flocks depastured upon a neighbouring hill-no one attempted, or thought he had a right to disturb, or drive them out; but when the man quitted the cave, or changed his pasture, the first who found them unoccupied, entered upon them by the same title as his predecessors; and made way, in his turn, for any one that happened to succeed him. All more permanent property in land, was probably posterior to civil government and to laws and, therefore, settled by these, or according to the will of the reigning chief.- -PALEY.

:

UPON A MAN SLEEPING- -I do not more wonder at any man's art, than at his who professes to think of nothing; and I do not a little marvel at that man who says he can sleep without a dream; for the mind of man is a restless thing; and though it give the body leave to repose itself, as knowing it is a mortal and earthly piece, yet itself being a spirit, and therefore active, and indefatigable, is ever in motion. Give me a sea that moves not, a sun that shines not, an open eye that sees not, and I shall yield there may be a reasonable soul that works not. It is possible that through a natural or accidental stupidity, a man may not perceive his own thoughts (as sometimes the eye or ear may be distracted, not to discern his own objects); but, in the mean time, he thinks that, whereof he cannot give an account; like as we many times dream, when we cannot report our fancy. Since my mind will needs be ever working, it shall be my care that it may always be well employed.-BISHOP HALL.

THE WAY TO BE HAPPY.
BY JOHN BYRON, M.A.

A HERMIT there was, and he lived in a grot,
And the way to be happy, they said he had got,
As I wanted to learn it, I went to his cell,
And when I came there, the old hermit said, "Well,
Young man, by your looks, you want something, I see,
Now tell me the business that brings you to me?"

"The way to be happy, they say you have got,
And as I want to learn it, I've come to your grot.
Now I beg and entreat, if you have such a plan,
That you'll write it me down, as plain as you can."
Upon which the old hermit went to his pen,
And brought me this note when he came back again.
"Tis being, and doing, and having, that make
All the pleasures and pains of which beings partake,
To be what God pleases,-to do a man's best,
And to have a good heart-is the way to be blest."

THAT prudence which the world teaches, and a quick susceptibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless enmities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want, or by whose malice we may not some time suffer.-JOHNSON.

THE SURINAM TOAD.

Of all the species of Toad, there is perhaps none more disgusting in appearance, or more curious in its history than that shown in the annexed figure. It is found in great numbers in Surinam, and other places in the warmer latitudes, as well as in both North and South America. The peculiarity for which it is most remarkable, consists in the extraordinary manner in which its young are hatched. After the female has deposited her spawn, her partner places portions of it, with the assistance of his fore-paws, upon her back; she then takes to the water, and those parts on which the spawn is laid begin soon to swell, and the egg becomes attached to her skin, while a thin film is spread over it; the spots, containing her future young, appearing like round projections. By degrees a small hole is formed in the back of the mother for each of the eggs, and in these chambers, protected by their filmy covering, the young undergo all their changes of form, the parent, in the mean time, never quitting the water. To explain these changes, it will be only necessary to describe those that take place in the common toad of England.

The eggs of the toad are found, in large masses, in stagnant waters, covered with a kind of jelly, and may be easily distinguished from those of the frog, which appear in long strings, like so many rows of pearls, with a black spot in the centre of each. This black speck in the egg of both animals, by degrees, enlarges, and becomes at length of the size of a pea, with a black thread, like a tail, attached to it. The jelly-like covering, on which the young one feeds, becomes gradually thinner, and at length bursts, and the young toad begins its life in the water, in the form of a tadpole. When it has first left the egg, that part which forms the head has small black fringes attached to either side, and with these it is supposed to breathe; these fringes soon disappear, and it then breathes by means of gills, in the same manner as a fish; it remains in this form for several weeks, feeding, as most fishes do, upon any animal substances that come within its reach: it is soon, however, destined to undergo another and most extraordinary change. At the hinder part of the black mass that looks like its head, two legs appear, and, if carefully examined, two others may be seen in front, but underneath the skin; the tail also becomes shorter, and at last disappears; the forelegs are set at liberty; a horny beak, which, till now, had covered the extremity of the nose, falls off, the open

ing of the gills is closed, and the perfect animal appears; it is no longer able to breathe while under water, it refuses all dead animal substances, and seeks the land, to hunt insects for its living.

The toad is distinguished from the frog, by its clumsier appearance, and sluggish crawling movements; its body is covered with small pimples, from which, when alarmed, a fetid humour flows, capable, in the instance of the Surinam toad, of blistering the skin when applied to it; but which has been improperly considered poisonous. The most probable use of this liquid is to moisten the body of the animal when exposed to the heat of the sun, the warmth of whose rays would otherwise render its skin so dry as to prevent its movement, and in the end cause its death. Disgusting, however, as this creature appears, the negroes in Surinam will eat the hinder legs of the species figured in our engraving. In winter, these animals remain torpid in the mud at the bottom of ditches and ponds, and only recover their activity when the warmth of the spring has hatched or restored to animation the numerous tribes of insects on

which they feed. Toads are known to reach a very great age.

Pennant, in his British Zoology, gives a curious account of a toad's having lived in a kind of domestic state for more than forty years, and of its having been in a great degree tamed or reclaimed from its natural shyness or desire of concealment; since it would always readily come out of its hole at the approach of its master and other inmates of the family, in order to be fed. It grew to a very large size, and was considered as so singular a curiosity, that even ladies requested to see the favourite toad, and admired its beautiful eyes; it was therefore often placed on the table, and fed with various insects, which it seized with great quickness, and without seeming to be embarrassed by the presence of company. This extraordinary animal generally resided in a hole beneath the steps of the house-door fronting the garden; and might probably have survived many years longer, had it not been severely wounded by a raven, which seized it before it could take refuge in its hole; and notwithstanding it was liberated from its captor, it never again enjoyed its usual health, though it continued to live for above a year after the accident happened.

1556

1589

1794

WEDNESDAY, 16th.

The Emperor Charles the Fifth resigned the Crown of Ger-
M. Bussy-le-Clerc, who had the command of Paris, during its
many to his son, Philip, and retired to a monastery.
siege by Henry the Fourth, sent the Parliament to the Bas-
Edward Gibbon, the historian, died.
tille, where they were fed on bread and water only.

1809 Sir John Moore, K.B., killed at Corunna,
THURSDAY, 17th.

1756 Mozart, the great composer, born. George Horne, Bishop of Norwich, author of the Commentary

1792

1595

on the Psalms, &c., died.

FRIDAY, 18th. Mahomet the Third, succeeding Amurath the Third, Sultan Prisca. Old Twelfth Day. of the Turks, put to death, by strangulation, twenty-one of his brothers, and ten women. 1719 Sir Samuel Garth, M.D., author of The Dispensary, died. SATURDAY, 19th.

1472 Copernicus, the astronomer, born.
1728 William Congreve, the poet, died.
1736 James Watt, the engineer, born, at Greenock, in Scotland.

1771

SUNDAY, 20th. SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. 1327 Edward the Second, King of England, deposed. Dissolution of all the Parliaments throughout France; and the Grand Council of the King converted into a Parliament. Australia, or New South Wales, began to be colonized. William Howard, the philanthropist, died, at Cherson, in New 1813 Wieland, the German poet, died.

1788

1790

Russia.

YORK MINSTER. NOTHING perhaps can exceed the grandeur of York Minster, as a specimen of ancient English architecture. It is justly esteemed the glory of the city in which it stands; and it has become more interesting, from the changes and injuries, which it has from time to time undergone. To enter minutely into the particulars relating to its history and architecture, is, with our limited space, impossible: but we can furnish a general account of the cathedral, and certain dates of the different portions of the building as they at present exist. These, we trust, will prove acceptable to our readers.

The first church dedicated to St. Peter, in the city of York, is supposed to have owed its origin to Edwyn, King of the Northumbrians, who was converted to Christianity, A.D. 627; but it was scarcely finished when that prince fell in battle. His head is said to have been interred in this cathedral, and his body in the monastery of Whitby.

The church built by Edwyn, was burnt down in 741, and, being afterwards rebuilt, had the same fate in 1069. Thomas, a canon of Bayeux, and the first Norman archbishop, in addition to appointing the several dignities in the cathedral, repaired the fabric, which was again destroyed by a fire that accidentally occurred in 1137, reducing to ruins the greater part of the city. In 1171, Archbishop Roger began to rebuild the choir, in which the Norman style prevailed: circular arches, single and massive pillars with plain capitals, and an entire freedom from all the "aid of ornament," were here conspicuous.

York minster was, however, afterwards entirely renewed; and by the care and munificence of some succeeding archbishops and other benefactors, the stately fabric now standing was erected.

Of the present building, the south part of the cross-aisle or transept is o. as ancient a date as 1227, and is supposed to be the oldest portion of the minster at that time, in the reign of Henry the Third, the large heavy pillar had given place to a cluster of slender and elegant columns; a quantity of rich foliage adorned the capitals; the windows were made high, narrow, and pointed; and the light tracery ran round the vaultings of the roof. The north transept was built in the same character in 1260. The first stone of the nave was laid with great state in 1291, and it was finished with the two western towers about the year 1330. The materials for building the nave were supplied by Robert de Vavasour and Robert de Boulton, earl of Boulton, the former of whom gave the stone, the latter the timber. The memory of these noble benefactors is preserved by statues at the east and west ends of the cathedral.

The choir just alluded to, as built by Archbishop Roger, not corresponding with the rest, was taken down, and a new one begun in 1365, and the great central tower in 1370. The eastern window, which forms the grand termination of the choir, was put up in the reign of Henry the Fourth. The glazing of this magnificent window was done at the expense of the dean and chapter, by John Thornton, of Coventry, who, by the contract then made, was to receive four shillings per week for his work, and to finish it within the space of three years. He was, also, to have one hundred shillings per annum besides, and ten pounds more at the conclusion, if he continued and finished his work to the satisfaction of his employers. The sum may at first appear small, particularly when the extreme beauty of the colouring, and the manner of execution in this window is considered; but it is no longer surprising, when the difference in the value of money is taken into account.

The interior of the minster is in every respect answerable to the grandeur of its exterior, and exhibits a striking specimen of the progressive styles of architecture which marked the reigns of the English monarchs, from Henry the Third to Henry the Sixth or Seventh inclusive, with the last of whom Gothic architecture may be said to have ceased.

The newest portion of the building, but not the least beautiful, is the organ-screen, at the entrance of the choir. It is of a florid kind, ornamented with fifteen statues of the kings of England, and is probably of the time of Henry the Seventh. When the great repairs were recently made in the Minster, to which we shall more particularly allude, it was at one time contemplated to remove this screen eastward, in consequence of its concealing the bases of two great pillars, which help to support the lantern tower; but the plan was afterwards abandoned, as likely to injure the proportions of the choir, besides that it would have sacrificed some of the statues on the screen. It would be difficult indeed to imagine a view more calculated to fill the mind with awe and delight than that which is presented on entering the west end of the minster. The columns, the arches," the long drawn aisle," the screen, not intercepting the noble eastern window, which sheds its rich and varied light through the forms of kings and prelates, giving that air of mingled gravity and beauty so appropriate to the sacred place, and assisting to lift the soul to Him who made us, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, and yet who dwells in the hearts of those who worship Him in spirit and in truth.

This spacious building is well-adapted for music, and considering its size, favourable to the conveyance of sound; a point to which great attention seems to have been paid in the construction of our Cathedrals. Its importance in all churches, for the general purposes of hearing properly, and for the due effect of psalmody, scarcely requires to be pointed out. But the advantages possessed by York Minster in this respect were never so fully displayed, as at the Musical Festivals which have been held there.

The first of these took place in September, 1823, when the number present on one of the days was 4860, and of vocal and instrumental performers 459.

This performance of sacred music, which was chiefly from the works of Haydn and Handel, is said to have been most grand and striking, surpassed by nothing of the kind except the commemoration of Handel in Westminster Abbey, in 1784.

The benevolent object in view was the benefit of the York County Hospital, and of the General Infirmaries of Leeds, Sheffield, and Hull, to which between seven and eight thousand pounds were divided, as the balance of the receipts. Two similar festivals, for the same purpose, were subsequently held in the minster, in 1825 and 1828.

In recording in our pages a short sketch of this splendid cathedral, we now come to a memorable event in its history which excited most painful emotions at the time of its occurrence, and must be yet fresh in