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actions in which he was

to already stated

the Duke of Wel Hon. Baronet at leisure i servion of his country. Ha wsa Lieutenant ing the years 1824 and erind un 1928 he was

Ireland,

the office of Colonial Secretary On the fall of the Wellington Janer rear, he followed his nemployed in 1834, when eneral of the Ordnance did not long hold, being succeeded

THE FRIEND OF CHINA AND HONGKONG GAZETTE

How

is given in an Essay on the Farming of Cambridge six chapa. From shire," to which the society's prize has been awand ed. And the writer has contrasted this detrict with ofle a better farmed clay district on the eastern: county, where, nevertheless, it would barens the existence of a margin for improvement, quite vur fcit to make the farmer content with 40s & quite for wheat. In the western strict the lands are at first of good deep staple," becoming, as you ascend the hills, of a thin aple and very poor, resing upon a tough, retentive, tenacious, clayey subsoil of little value, and which bas never yet been well farm ed." The land is formed into high backed wide lands, with deep furrows to carry off the water, so and that that the land cannot now be ploughed across, complete pulverization, which is so essential to the fertility of clay land, has never been effected: Where the lands are drained at all, it is by means of shallow drains placed in the furrow, which bare little effect in draining the inert mass et clay lying between them. The writer says in riding over several thousand acres in the month of Decomber, I found only three men hollow draining; two were on the state of Lord Hardwicke, at Wimpole-this lordship is one who cries Instily that farmore can't live with put protection)--putting in drain tiles on very flat land, 7 yards apart, and only 21 inches deep; the other was on the hill near Hadley-be was at work upon one of the old furrows of a high backed field, with lands two rods (33 feet) wide, and putting the drains in only 14 inches deep, filling up with haulm

border."

This and bushes cut from the hedgerow is the state of husbandry which has been protected for thirty years; and protection was to bring bus-, bandry to perfection t

of the Conservative party to Parlin 1911 again witnessed Sir George Murray of the Ordnance, and he continued such in the change of ministry a few nederstood that Sir George en more than ons vecasion, owing to the ealth, landared his resignation to Siz Fred, but Sir Robert, it is stated, entreated Cafani Grotal to tatam he office.

got years, Damdy, from 1921 to 1892, he ed his native country (Perth) in Parlia. west elected in 1934, but in 1837

ch that county ceased. On the oc rel election in the latter year he My makamatas with the present members, A in a considerable minority on the pall, contented Manchester with the present (3 and Phillips), and not succeeding in fading a seat elsewhere, he was obliged, like some others of his colleagues in the Peel Govern. ment, to discharge the duties of his office without

The personal appearance of Sir George Murray, when in the enjoyment of health, was distinguish ed by that bearing in character which bespeaks the soldier as well as the gentleman. He was above the middle height, and notwithstanding the near and tear of his active life, looked much younger then he really was. Lengthened illness, however, rought a remarkable change. His hitherto noble form was fearfully emaciated, and it for some time past became painfully evident to his friends that the

of death was upon him,

The Coloneley of the 1st Rayala becomes vacant by the Right Hon. Baronet's decense. By virtue of the office of Master General of the Ordnance, the deceased for many years held the Colonelcies in Chief of the Royal Artillery and Corps of Royal Engineers.

Yel even this miserable attempt to drain produced "wonderful improvements; " and the writer adds, "unless each soils are well thorough drained, well ploughed and kept clean, their cocupiers cannot, I am confident, realize a profit? And each we learn, from a person well acquainted with the district, to be the fact. The tenants are miserably poor and con- Now, this is not pleasant land stantly changing. to cultivate, but it is by no means so difficult to be brought round as many persons suppose. The first step is to drain it 30 or 36 inches deep with pipes. and this ought to be done by the landlord, charging a moderate per contage of not more than four per cent to the tenant, by way of additional rent. The high lands may then be gradually ploughed down level, and, as was observed by the late Mr Heart Handley, the art of plonghing and the art of making manure is all that is required to enable a farmer to live on strong land. That manure goes farther, and its effect is more permanent on strong then on light land, is certain; and moreover, clay land contains aithin itself an inexhaustible source of fertility, which may be obtained by mere manual laboure We have seen land of this mean burned clay The little knot of lords and gentlemen, who lately kind which had never grown more than from 12 to met at Lyan to compliment each other, and proclaim 10 bushels of wheat to the acre, made, in three to the world how utterly lost is British agriculture, years, by cleaning, burning, and manuring, to pro- have made a second appearance at Waltham, in Lei duce, as it did last year, 46 bushels of wheat por cestershire. Whether they all travelled from Lynn acre. Nor is such improvement beyond the reach to Leloerterabire in one carriage, wo know not, but of the humblest farmer, as the next paper we shall we find the same persons sustaing the same charac- refer to will show. In a paper on breaking up ters in the identical farce the one place as at the gross lands," also a prize essay, the writer mentions other. Each eulogized each his talent, high prin- a tract of clay land called Braydon forest, in North Ciple, elegence, and dising stedness. There was Wilts, as singularly notorious for being worthless en toterchange of praise by no means faint. Each land."

We happen to know the lat well, and it Dering the high pledged himself to the impossible task of re-enacting fully justifies that description. protection, called open the farmers to aid in the for prices of the war, it was broken us, com grown forn stemp, and inspirited them to the effort by the upon it as long as it would bear anything, and then arance that they are hopelessly ruined. For in it was laid down to grass. Nature and mismanage stance, Lord George Bentinck, at Lynn, said I need, ment have combined to render it the least hopeful not tell you that this measure of free-trade in corn, strong land with which we are acquainted. Yet it is one of rain to the farmers of England" So tho is not hopeless. The prize cssayist gives an analysis Dake of Rutland, at Walham, spoke of his unsuc- made by an agricultural chemist. He says, In cessful defence of British agriculture," and his son, looking over this analysis, you will be struck with the Marquis of Granby, said, "It is impossible to the smalleas in quantity of many of the essentials of carry on the agriculture of the country unless we have vegetable life, and the vital absence of others." Sui protection," and denounced the audacity" of those phuric and phosphoric acids could scarcely be de

who

HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS.

*

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་

had to struggle with from frontier warfare and the hardships of the wilderness. The second displayed the favourable terms on which they do their lands to pool tenants, and the wholesale manner in which they were plunders of their timber by squatters on large scale. The present fiction exhibits these hardships overcome the property of Laveneest brought under cultivation, the original ferse on lives at trifling rents about to full in, and the tenants of the district (for other properties are in the same condition) desirous of getting the farms in foe without paying the value, For this purpose, all the usual American arts of meeting, specchifying, and pas. "In addition sing resolutions, are had recourse to, in order to intimidate by means of “majority.' to these more open means, the tenants resort to violence, somewhat after the fashion of the Rebec. caltes in Wales, but with more of deadly purpose, roaming the country in the disguise of Indians threatening life and property,

The form of the novel, like that of its predeces sors, is an autobiography: the hero is a docendunt of the original owners of the property: and the frn- mework is well enough adapted to exhibit the des criptive and didactic purposes of the author. Young Latilepage and his uncle and guardian are called home from Paris in consequence of the state of affairs; and as a landiral seame to ruo some risk of tarring and feathering, they make their way to the Ravensues! property in the disguise ofa podlar As this masqueraile is and itinerant musician. thrown off on the arrival of a body of "Redskins " or real Indiana in sufficient force to protect the family, the two sides of the agitation are exhibited; the Littlepages being at first considered as of the people," and admitted, with sufficient likelihood for fiction, to the confidence of the agitators.

viously knows his mon" au fond, and allows their good qualities as well as explains the causes of their Ind. He more than confirms the late writer Wys as to the corruption of lawyers and even jurors; showing, if his instances be trustworthy, that justics Some of these is poisoned at ils very source. statementy are so curious, coming from the quarter they do, that, at the risk of being didactic, we will- extracta few. The character of the book is un favourable to quotation from the strictly novel pack.

*MARSAMENTI AND JURIES, But dat is not right." Bight Who says it ie? q who thinks there is anything right about assesanienia, any where I have beard assensors, with my own ears, use such words s these Sich a man is rich, and can afford to pay': and 'sich a man la poor, and it will come hard on him f Oh they kiver up dishonesty now-a-days under alt sorts of argoments."

But der law der rich might hat der law on dele side, surely

In what way, I should like to know? Juries Le everything; and juries will go accordin' to their feelin'a, as well as other men. Te seen the things with my owo eyes. The county pays just enough a day to make poor men Uka to be on Jories, and they never fail to attend; while them that can pay their linen stay away, and so leave the law pretty much in the hands of one party. No rich man gains his cause, unless his case is Au strong it can't be helped."

I had beard this before; there being a very general complains throughout the country of the practical abuses connected with the jury system. I have hesit intelligent lawyers complain, that whenever a cause of any interest is to he tried, the first question asked is, notWhat are the merida?" "Which has the law and the facts on his aide?" but "Who is likely to be on the jury thus obviously placing the composition of the jury before either law or evidence. Systema may have a very fair appearance on paper and as the ories, that are execrable in practice. As for juries, E believe the better opinion of the intelligent of all coun- tries is, that while they are a capital contrivance 10 resist the abuse of power in narrow governments, fa governments of a broad constituency they have the effect which might easily be seen, of placing the control of the law in the hands of those who would be most apt to abuse it since it is adding to, instead of with.

State, from which, in a popular goyocumeur, most of standing and resisting, the controlling authority of the the abuses most unavoidably proced.

*

The reader who is not acquainted with the interior of our social habite, must not suppose that I am colour. ing for effect. No far from this, I am quite conscions of having kept the tone of the picture down, it being an undeniable truth that nothing of mach interest now-a-days is left to the simple decision of principles and laws in this part of the country at least. The su- premacy of numbers is so great, that scares a private quit of magnitulle la committed to a jazy without attempts, more or less direct, to influence the common mind in favour of one side or the other, in the hope shat the jurors will be enduced to think as the major ity thinks In Europe, it is known that judges were, say are visited and solicited by the parties; but here it is the public that must be treated in the same way.

As a novel, Ravensnesi is not equal to its prede- The manners and characters have not cessors. the same novelty or breadth; and of slirting action The closest approach even to in there is none. cident is an attempt at arson: but as the owner of the manor-house of Ravenanest is on the alert, and the Red Indians on the prowl, we feel sure it will be crushed. There is a love story between the hero and the daughter of the Episcopalian cler- gyman of the village: but it runs too smooth to have much interest; nor is either lily or gentle- tan very attractive. The most striking characters are Jop, the old family Nigger," and Trackless, the Red Indian; both of whom having appeared in the action of the previous stories, now figure in extreme old age, as patriarchal specimens of the respective races, such as the author says are pe

For anything like action they casionally seen. are both too infirm; but the truth of their personal appearance, and the nice discrimination of their faculties, interest the reader; and the high repute of Trackless is the cause of the visit of the Reds kins to Ravensmest, and the consequent baffling of

ARISTOCRATIC IN AMERICA. the insurgent Ingins." These pieces of dramatic painting, however, are rare, Discusion in the

This word aristocratie" I find since my return home, has got to be a term of expansive signification, shape of dialogue is the staple of the book; someti. mes to expose the dishonest arts and impudent are meaning depending on the particular habits and guments of the Anti-Renters, with Cooper-like opinions of the person who happens to use it. Thus, digressions de omnibus rebus; and sometimes con trived to exhibit the Democracy either in discourse or public meeting. The characters both of the scheming itinerant derasgogue, and of the rade, grasping, active yeoman, not dishonest in himself, but made so by agitators upon questions connected with his own immediate interests, are well drawn, but overdone from the didactic purposes of the author, and, it strikes us, somewhat exaggerated,- although there is a marvellous resemblance in the arguments about rent to some we have met with touching territory. Though the novel of Ravens mest is heary, it is solid and real, without the generality of novel-writers' repetion of self, beyond the general foible of the author as en arbiter ele- gantiarum and Solomon without appeal.

La

the agricultorists of this country require to tected. On the other hand, the quantity of organic to fail pretty much as it did in The Chainbearer, be excited by competition" Now all this must matter is far greater then in most fertile soils, in all have been gloomy enough, and would naturally have probability due to the district having been the site of sent home the few real farmers who had been been an ancient forest. The available silica is also ata together in to very comfortable fame of mind, but minimum." This was alighted to the exhausting for two circumstances which occurred atthe Waltham crops it had undergone; and the professor suggests dianer. One was a bit of broad farce by a waggish that "the mechanical texture of the soil must be al- Lenant farmer, a Mr Healey, from Lincolnshire, who tered either by adraixunro or partial burning" to ob- declared he could answer for his brother tenant tain a fertile soil. The accuracy of these views hat fermera cad himself that they adored the aristocra- been demonstrated. One of the proprietors of the cy, and regarded it as a wise dispensation of provi- forest parcelled out his land into cottage farms, vary. Beace The perpetrator of such a joke must haveing in extent from 5 to 25 acres, which he let at had the face of a Liston, and accordingly we find it recorded that, notwithstanding the weight upon the hearts of the ruined tenantry, they received Mr Hea- ley's speech with much and continued laughter. The other circumstance of alleviation to which wo allade was, the remark of Mr Sills, another tenant that farmers could better afford to sell their farmer, when now at 550 a quarter, than they used to do 20 peare age at 60, owing to the greater population of the country. Now, we believe, though we speak subject to correction, that even Lard George would not attempt to prove by figures that our population is not creasing. Here then at least there is hope. But, aeromaly, Mr Sills facts are significant. Farmers con tilen better at this moment to sell their wheat at 654, than they could 20 years ago at 80s. Why is this? Simply because twenty years ago there was a are power of production in the soil and the farmer's which had not been developed. But is there tion to belies that some of that power gille ning undeveloped? May not farmers at no distant etter afford to sell wheat at 408 than they have

rents, exclusive of cottages and buildings paid for besides, from 258 to 40s per acre. These rents los clude tithes and all rates and taxes. The operations of several of these file farmers are detailed, and they point out distinctly the method by which such land can be improved. And, first, it must be remarked, their lands are not drained; hence the foundation of, improvement is not well laid. One man, holding six-and a-half acros. divided his land into two parts, on one of which he grubbed up the furze, pared of the sward, and burnt it, heaping an as much soil as would burn," the other part he dug deeply, and the whole was planted with potatoes. On the pert which had been burnt the produce was 800 bushels of potatoes, but on the other part the top wallacer cely worth taking in. The same result followed burning in every case. One lot, in 1844, produced 36 bushels of wheat to the acre. Another man, who has 25 acres, keeps some stock, and has half his arable land in wheel, and the other ball potatoes, barley, cats, peas, prise, Sweden, turnips, cabbages, broad clover, &cc, every year, and obtains good crops. He manures the land for whom and also lot potatoes, as is truly observed, thus adopting the prac tice of Whitfied farm, of which he had never heard. akare is yet in its infancy" is the senti. Now, these things have been done on

at nearly every agricoltural meeting why can they not also be done on the

be husbandry of a great acre farms? There is nothing bat

And low cultivation too much hand with a arty total which the Landa

have not the slightest doubt that they can and

and imperf

of which

fostered. to pretest if causea icens

The effects will not long

he who chews tobacco thinks it aristocratic in him who deems the practice nasty, at to do the same; the man who stoops accuses him who is straight in the back of huring aristocratic shoulders; and I have actually met with one individual who maintained that it was exces. sively aristocratic to pretend not to blow one's ecse with his fingers.

TRUTH AN AMERICS.

One of the astounding circumstances of the times, is the general prevalence of falsehood among us and the almost total suppression of truth. No matter what amount of evidence there may be to contradict a state- ment, or how often it has been disproved, it is reaffirmed with just as much assurance es if the matter had never been investigated ay, and believed, as if its substance, were uncontradicted. I am persuaded there is no part of the world in which it is more difficult to get a truth into the public mind, when there is a motive to sup- press it, than among ourselves. This may seem sin- guler, when it is remembered bow many journals there Are, which are uttered with the vowed purpose to circulate information. Alathe machinery which can be used to give currency to truth is equally efficient in giving currency to falsehood. There are so many modes, too, of dilating truth, in addition to the down right lies which are told, that I greatly question if one alleged fact out of twenty that goes the rounds of the public prints, those of the commoner sort excepted, is true in all its essentials

As a didactic work, the philosophy seems to us touching the landlord's right to the artificial value of the plants, because the squatter had wrongfully cut down the trees. We make no doubt that the Anti-Rem cry is an unprincipled cry, based upon morals of the same kind that characterize the various American territorial demands, resolving everything into question of will and convenience. But the Incidents or the arguments scarcely sup-

WAR AGAINST PROPERTY. port the denunciations. Putting aside the violence,

As a whole, the disorders, disturbances and convulsions which ignorant mobe continually have recourse

of America, have certainly been much fewer than those to, and the self-satisfied sufficiency, and truckling of most, perhaps of all, other Christian nations, compar submission to the will of the majority, (both of ing numbers, and including the time since the great which flow from the circumstances and "justila experiment commended. But such ought to have been tions" of the country,) the chief ground of com- the result of our facts, quite independently of national plaint is an act which has passed the House of Re-character. The institutions leave nothing for the

resentatives but not the Senate of New York,

masses to struggle for and famine is unknown among us. But what does the other side of the picture exhi By this law, on the death of the landlord the tenam bit? will be enabled to go before the Chancellor, change his reserved rent into a mortgage, and redeem it on paying the capital sum fixed upon. No doubt, if this capital sum is settled by the tenant alone, or by the law on any "hocussing" principle, wholesale fraud and confiscation will be the result: but if fairly done, the legislature has the right to do it. Pro- perty in the creature of legislation; legislatures have always exercised the power of mod

modifying the condi- tons of its tenure, enormous estates of the Rensselaere are cleary contrary to the objects, scope, and spirit of American Democracy; and, for aught we know it may be contrary to the dignity of a "free and enlightened citizen" to be the tenant of any landlord. It these things create confusion in the country, or even

hey do not, the state has

as much right to interfere with leases on grounds of publo policy, as it has to take land for a turnpike

road or a town im fub, but not the fi

tern of worse than eily

ways paying the tez upon the rent

hough the motive camus. The fact is, Mr. overnor her denoun-

the

which a great political movement has commenced on a Can any man point to a country in Europe in principle as barefacedly knavish as that of transferring property from one class of man to another? That such a project does exist here, is beyond all just con- tradiction and it is equally certain that it has carried its devices into legislation, and is fast corrupting the Government in its most efficient agents.

THE MAJORITY. The prevalence of the notion of the omnipotence of majoritles in America is so wide-spread and deep among the people in general, as to form a distinctive trait in the national character it is doing an infinity ciple of the Institutions, when in fact it is merely of mischief, by being mistaken for the governing prise necessary expedient to decide certain questions whic must be decided by somebody; and in some mode or other. Kept In its proper sphere, the use of majorities is replete with justice, so far as justice can be exercised intolerable tyranny. As a matter of course, the errors among men ; abused, it opens the highway to the most connected with this subject very through all the grada- hous of intellect and selfahness. The following auec- dote will give the reader some notion bow the feeling impressed a stranger shortly after his arrival in this

country,

A year or two since the writer had in his service Irama who had been only two years in the county, It was a part of this man's duty lo look after the welfare of certain pige, of which one occupied the position of a “runt." "Has your honour looked at the said the honest fellow, one day. No, Tat is there any change?" That is there, and great change the litle fellow is gel

of the rest and will make the best

and Published by Jour CARI,

Ching and Hongkong Ofice, Goven. STREET. LOTORIA, HONGKONG, 1846,