Extracts.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 189, 22 March 1848, Page 2

Extracts.

Obligations op Governments to encourage Commerce.— All men ought to find on earth the things they stand in need of. In the primitive state of communion, they took them wherever they happened to meet with thtm, if another had not before appropriated them to his own use. The introduction of dominion and property could not deprive men of so essential a right and consequently it cannot take place without leaving them, in genpral, some mp»n» of procuring what is useful or necessary to them. That means is commerce — by it every man may still supply bis wants. Things being now become property, there are no means of obtaining them without the owner's consent ; nor are they usually to be had for nothing — but they may be bought or exchanged for other things of equal value. Men are, therrforp, under an obligation to carry on that commerce with e-ich otl er. it they wish not to deviate from the views of nature— and this obligation extends also to nations and states. It is suldom that nature is seen to produce^iu one place everything necessary for the use of man — one country abounds in corn, another m pastures and cattle, a third in timber, and metals, &c. If all thf se countries trade together, as is agreeable to human nature, none of them will be without such things as are uieful and necessary — and the views of Nature, our common mother, will be fulfilled. Further, one country is fitter for some kind of products than another, as, for instance, fitter for the vine than tor tilhge. It trade and barter take place, every nation, on the certainty of procuring what it wants, will employ its land and industry in the most advantageous manner— and mankind in general prove gainers by it. Such art the foundations of the general obligations incumbent on nations reciprocally to cultivate commerce. — Vatlel, book ii, chap. 2, sect. 21. Dk«ire or Distinction.— Excellence in all things is no longer attainable, when the standard of excel ! lenee has universally been raisrd so high. A youth ' soon discovers this : he is beaten in his classici at school— he is left behind in his science at College — he is eclipsed in accomplishment in the drawing-room — he is awed into silence by the pedantry of the dinnertable : his vanity it piqued, he do^s not allow himself to reflect till he finds out the 'me solution of the probi blem, in his own idleness or desultory reading, or perhaps in the thoughtless ambition that would grasp at all knowledge when unable to retain a fraction — he therefore settles down ino the determination—" I will be distinguished in something !' and standing tiz feet in his shoei, and blessed with a muscular arm, he forthwith speculates on rivalry with Tom Cribb, or passing a-head of Mavnard or Campbell, in a sculling match to Putney. His mistake is this — the world admires the rare combination of bodily gracs with a wellendowed mind and power of understanding It is felt, and justly, tbathumtn perfection is attained when the person and the intellect are equally and splendidly ornate— but this admiration is not capable of division : detach the personal merit from the intellectual excellence, and the wonder is gone. A profound mathematician, or an elegant classic, or an acute historian, will be honored as sueh — and an expert rower or a skilful boxer, will receive such meed as may be due to his performance— but neither in the one case nor the other will it be the applause elicited by an "admirable Crichton." Even real versatility of talent does not necessarily imply transcendant genius — buttha affectation of it provokes a smile. Where muscular power it substituted for learning, as the object of ambition, it is tantamount to a confession that the vanity of the aspirant is limited to the distinction of VVapping Stairs or the Castle Tavern. To dance wellj to ride well, to carry the head erect, and the limbs gracefully, ate all accomplishments in some measure essential to every one whom biith and education raise above the laboring class ; but unless a man is intended for a dancing-master, or a drill-serjeant, he may rest perfectly satisfied with as much in this way as he acquit es in itatu pupillari ; and if he has not acquired sucli graces before he leave* school, he may be assured that all the teaching and training in the world will not, at riper years, transform him either into a Hercules or an Apollo : but though guiltless of this desiderated end, they may lead to another which he little anticipates—they entangle him in familiarity with the lowest of the low, they identify him with the circles of profligate blackguardism— they mark him as the associate of ruffians and thieves, and it need scarcely be added, that they thus alienate the confidence and abridge the esteem of sll that are good and respectable in society. Every rowing-ma'ch, or boxing-match, more especially the latter, is the refort of all the scum and scamps of the metropolis — a race-cou^e or a suburban fair, is scarcely a shade better — diunkeuness, debauchery, and licentiousness, are common alike to all, and exhibited too in their grossest and m >&t revolting formi. Some coarse and foolish peopla are found to uphold them under the sophistical pretence, that the amusements of the poor should be respected : and if their amusements are legitimate and rational, most undoubtedly they ought not only to be respected, but liberally promoted. But we Lave seen the very men who thus court popularyit, by pandeiing to the worst passions of the poor, in the sporting papers of the day, shrink with disgust fiom the contarai lation of the brutal scenes which they attend to report, and empty their pockets most cautiously of watcli and purse, before they elbow their way among the ruffians whose prowess they celebrate ! The young tran may be assured that he caunot habitually attend these degrading arenas without pollution and eventual infamy, or even avow an accustomed interest in them without endangering his welcome in every well-ordered family. •' Life in London 1 ' is not yet, we are happy to say, recognized as the life of London's educated circles. — Guide to Service.— The Cleik. Turkish Houses —The Turkish houses in Constantinople, as it is well known, are commonly of wood. The best of them of ample dimensions, gaily p-iinted, are pleasing to the eye ; and all of them, however poor, are, from their form, invariably picturesque. Even the moit splendid of the palaces of the Sultan, is of the same destructible material. The preference is given to wood by the Turks, not chitily on account of economy, but from the persuasion that it is more wholesome than stone, and also it is said trom a feeling of humility, it being considered by them presumptuous to dwell in houses like their mosques, made, as it were, tor eternity, and keeping no measure with the frailty of the occupants, The idea of the un-

whoiesomeness. of stone buildings is not perhaps without foundation in such a climate. The stone houses in Galata, built by the Genoese, with walls of extraordinary thickness, are of bad repute. Unless the rooms are kept warm in winter, they must be damp in the spring and early summer : so long as the walls are cold on the occunence of a southerly wind, they will act as refrigeratories, and occasion a precipitation of moisture, from the humid warm air. The thin, walls of wood, on the contrary, conlormmore to the temperature of the atmosphere. None of the sittingrooms of the houses have fixed fire-plac-s or chimneys j they are heated in winter chiefly by a charcoal fire contained in the open manual or covered tandour. The mode of warming their rooms is also suitable to the manner in which they are constructed. The crevices in the wooden work allow of a certain admixture of common air and escape of carbonic acid gas, sufficient to prevent any danzerous accumulation of the gas, 80 that the room? are easily warmed, a id kept warm and dry. without risk of life. Weie the doors and windows of Turkish rooms suddenly made air-tight, and the fisiures in the wood work closed, there being no chimney to give veut to the fixed air, half the population of Constantinople might be suffocated any winter night between sun-set and sun-rise. — Dr. Davy's Malta and the lonian Iblands. Demands of Increashd Annual Pjpula.tiox. —It may lie of interest to observe that, as the whole population grows in age, the annual increase in numbers may be deemed to be equivalent to an annual increase of numbeis of the average of ages of the com" munity. It they were maintained on the existing average of terntoiy to the population in England, the a<lditi mal numbeis would require an annual extension of one- fif.y-suventl) ot the present territory of Great Britain, possessing the average extent of roads, commons, and unproductive land. The extent of new territory required annually, would form a County larger than Surry, or Leicester, or Nottingham, or Hereford, or Cambridge, and nearly as large as Warwick. To feed the annually increased population, supposing it to consume the same proportions of meat that is consumed by the population of Manchester and its vicinity, (a consumption which appears to me to be below the average of the consumption in the Metropolis), the influx of 230,000 of new population will require for their consumption an annual increase of 27,327 head of cattle, 70,319 sheep, 64.715 lambs, and 7,894 calves, to raihe which an annual increase of upwards of 81,000 acres of good pasture-land would be required. Taking the consumptiun of wheat or bread to be on the scale of a common dietary, i c., 56 ozs. daily, for a family of a man, woman, and three children, then the annual addition of supply of wheat required will be about 105 COO quarters, requiring 21,658 acres of land, yielding 3l) bushels of wheat to an acre : the total amount of good land requisite for raising tbe chief articles of food will therefore be, in all, about 109,000 acres of good pa»ture-laiid annually. If the increase of production obtained by the use of the refuse of Edinburgh (that is of 3,903 oxen from one quarter of the iefube of Edinburgh,) be taken as the sc>le of pro. duction obtainable by appropriate measures, the refuse of the Metropolis alone that is now thrown away would serve to feed no less than 218,288 oxen annually, which would be equivalent to the produce of double that number of acresof good pasture-land. — Mr. Chadwiclj's Sanitary Report.