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Otago Daily Times, Issue 182, 16 June 1862, Page 5

A Novel Clause in an Engagement.—The following is a literal copy of an engagement entered into between a.Belfast confectioner and his journeyman : —" I John dixon confectioner do hereby engage to work to the said John Graham in capacity of General confectioner from the 6 day of January to the first day of May at the weekly wages of seventeen shillings per week and for every day off with drunkenness 2 holl day's pay." John was soon before the police court for drunkenness, but it could not be proved whether tooth ache or drink was the cause of his absenting himself from work, and the case was dis-

LORD MACAULAY ON DEMOCRACY. The New York papers contained the following letter written by the late Lord Macaulay to Mr. 11. S. Randall, of New York :— •' Holly-lodge, Kensington, London. "Dear Sir, —You are surprised to learn that I have not a high opinion of Mr. Jefferson, and I am surprised at your surprise. I am certain I never wrote a line, and that I never, in Parliament, in conversation, or even on the hustings— a place where it is the fashion to court the populace—uttered a word indicating an opinion that the supreme authority in a State ought to be intrusted to the majority of citizens told by the head; in other words, to the poorest and most ignorant part of society. I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both.

" In Europe, where the population is dense, the effect of such institutions would be almost in stautaneous. What happened lately in Prance is an example * . * * " You may think that your country enjoys an exemption from these evils. I will frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile, and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the old world ; and while that is the case, the Jtffersonian policy may continue to exist without causing any fatal calamity. But the time will come when New* England will be as thickly peopled as Old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams ; and in those Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of artizans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be put fairly to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators, who tell Mm that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million, while another cannot get a full meal. In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes a little rioting ; but it matters little, for here the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a class, numerous indeed, but select—of an educated class —of a class which is and knows itself to be deeply interested in the security of property, and the maintenance of order. Accordingly, the malcontents are firmly but gently restrainel. The bad is got over without robbing the wealthy to relieve the indigent* The springs of national prosperity soon begin to flow again; work is plentiful, wages rise, and all is tranquility aid cheerfulness. I have seen England pass three or four times throngh such critical seasons as I have described. Through such seasons the United States will have to pass in the course of the next century, if not of this. How will you pass through them 1 I heartily wish you a good deliverance. But my reason and wishes are at war, and I cannot help forboding the worst. It is quite plain that your Government will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented majority, for with you the majority is the Government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy. The day will come when, in the state of New York, a multitude of people, not one of whom has had more than half a breakfast, or expects to have more than half a dinner, will choose a Legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of Legislature will be chosen? On one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith. On the other is a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers,. and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and to ride in a carriage, while thousands of honest folk are in want of necessaries. Which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a working man who hears his children crying for more bread ? I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of Government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the 20th century as the Roman empire was in the sth; with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman empire came from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions. '• Thinking thus, of course I cannot reckon Jefferson among the benefactors of mankind. I readily admit that his intentions were good and his abilities considerable. Odious • stories have been circulated about his private life; but I do not know on what evidence those stories rest; and I think it probable that they are false, or monstrously exaggerated. I have no doubt that I shall derive both pleasure and information from your account of him. " I have the honor to be, dear sir, your faithful servant, "T. B. Macaulay. " Mr. H. S. Randall." —Press.