YORKSHIRE.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 147, 18 March 1859, Page 2

YORKSHIRE.

The " company" were various rustics in a publichouse, who earned eighteenpence a day and as much as they could eat, and who were well content with earthly matters as they found them. As for heavenly subjects, they, for lack oi what they can better comprehend, obtain such information thereon as is contained in the popular songs printed at Otley, and sold by the hundred. The following is a sample, quoted from a song entitled " The Railway to Heaven:"— 0! what a deal we hear and read About Railways and railway speed, Of lines which are, or may be made; And selling shares is quite a trade. Allow me, as an old Divine, To point you to another line, Which doth from earth io heaven extend, Where real pleasures never end. Of truth divine the.rails are made, And oa the Rock of Ages laid ; The rails are fixed in chairs of love, Finn as the throne of God above. • One grand first class is used for all, For Jew and Gentile, great and small,' :' i There's room, for all the world inside, " And kings with beggnrs here do ride... - * About a hundred years or so Wesley and others said they'd go: A carriage Mercy did pioviJe, That Wesley and his friends might ride. 'Tis nine-and thirty year.", they say, Whoever lives to see next May, Another coach was added then Unto this all-important train. - ■ Jesus is the first engineer, He does the gospel engine steer; We've guards who ride, while others stand Close by the way with flag in hand. chorus. ' My Son,' says God, ' give me thy heart'— Make haste, or else the train will stnrt. Mr. White says, with great truth, on this and similar productions, that " though good taste and conventionality may ha offended at such hymns as these, it seems to me that.if those, who ping them had words preached to them which they could understand and hearken to gladly, they would be found, not unprepared'to lay hold of real truth1 in the. end." . There is evidently a longing for instruction among many of 'the people. A good woman at a farm house near. Street Houses, conceiving that {lie knapsack of the pedestrian was warrant for his being a pedlar, called after him, "Eh ! packman, d'ye carry beuks?" She wanted a new " spelder-beuk" * for one of her children. The women, it would seem, have more care for the instruction of the young than'their fathers have.— Athenaeum AN T AMERICAN BATTERING VESSEL. A correspondent of the Weekly Times of the 7th November, gives the curious information that the Americans have already constructed a battering ram vessel:— " Not many years since, there lived in America a rich merchant named Stephens. He suffered seriously in his pocket from sundry unfortunate- collisions at sea, and- thus hit> attention was turned to the Rubject, and it occurred to him that the tremendous force of ste.un power might be turned to account in naval warfare in the same way- In a word, be conceived the possibility of building a steam ram, and, after.long thought, he communicated his ideas to the Government. These new-fangled notions were not appreciated ; but Stephens was so' impressed with" the importance of the.matter, that he determined-to set to work at once. Being a rich man, lie met no serious obstacle, and ransacked the workshops of New York in search of first-rate and respectable workmen. He bound them over to secrecy, and then threw up a high wall round the slip where' he proposed to give reality to his idea. ' \ ■ • ■ " Year after year went by, and gradually the leviathan progressed.-' The steamer was to be shot-proof by means of iron plates, and since then the manner in which those plates resist .for hours the heaviest shot has' become no notorious that I need dwell no longer on that thmne. Jfc was to be the largest etearner afloit, which I need hardly say it is not now, being surpassed by our Great Eastern, and- it was to travel at the rate of twenty, knots" an hour—that is to say, faster than ocean steamers,' though not so fast, for instance, as her.-Majasty's yacht. "It/ was to be propelled by six powerful engines, to be sharp at the bow and stern, being-abed of iron at'both extremities, carrying one monster gun, arid •a • heavy, but not numerically strong, armament, after the Merrimac model. Such a vessel would be a fearful antagonist for even a fleet of three-deckers to meet with on the wide ocean, and ail she would ;have to fear would be ; being laid aboard. To prevent this she was to throw , .stre-uns of boiling water f;om her sides, so as to be unap-pi-oach aLle. The enterprise gradually progressed, but Mr. Stephens did not live to see it completed, although he was fortunate enough to have his conception approved by his country and]iisexpensesrefunded ; the American Government carrying out his idea. This mammoth naval ram is now nearly finished, a yearly sum having been' allotted to the work—so nearly as to, be ready for im-i mediate use, and what a fearful power,is thus possessed by A merica!" , . ' ■ . The best thing about a girl is cheerfulness. We don't care how ruddy her cheeks may be, or how velvetty her lips, if she wears n scowl even her friends will consider .her. ill-looking; while-the young lady who illuminates her countenance, with 'smiloß, will be regarded as handsome. . As perfume is to the rose, so is" good" nature to the lovely. .. \ ■f"-jt. ■- ■''•'- •

'Colonial."Sfodi,.—A recent official'return displays :strikih]Ppl the immense benefits which the woollen manufacture has derived fVom the extension and establishment of British colonies. The total imports of wool into the United Kingdom advanced from 49,2-1:0,093 lbs. in 1813, to 129,749,898 lbs. in 1857, and the following shews that by far the larger proportion of this increase' has been derived from British colonies : — i " BRITISH- FOREIGN*. '' - 1843 .V.'-21,078,362 lbs." ... 28,164,731 lbs. r 1844 . ... .22,565,243 „ ... 33,148,-518 „ 1845 ... 31,660,107 » ... 45,147,748 „ 1846 ... 29,308.-184 ~ ... 35,947,078 „ 1847 ... 32;597.349 „ ' ... 29,09-5,249 „ 1848 ... 30,520.252 „" ... 3J,305,."i.05 „ 1849 ... 45.4:10,529. „ ... 31,329,118 „ 1850 ... 41,201,002 „ ... 26,225,770 „ 1851 ... 52,176,228 „ ... 31,155,747 „ 1852 "... 57,466,881 „ ... 30.291.577 „ 1853 ... 66.798,327 „ ... 52,591,122 „ ■ 1854 ... 70,678,430 „ ... 35,443,550 „ 1855 ... 84,501,806 „ ...' 24,798,040 „ . 1856 ... 81,743,905 „ ... 34,067,487,,, 1857 .... 82,868,224 „ ... 46,881,674 „" It thus appears that in 15 years the imports .of colonial wool have increased (with one exception, progressively) nearly 400 per cent., while the increase in foreign does not exceed 60 per cent., and does not appear to be either progressive or permanent. A tragic incident has just occurred at Dublin. A clown, attached to an equestrian troupe which was performing in that capital, on the night selected for his benefit, in order to give an additional attraction to the usual entertainment, announced his intention of performing an unusual and extraordinary feat. This consisted in jumping from, the gallery of the Music-hall, temporarily fitted up as a circus, into the centre of the arena, turning three somersaults in the air during his descent. When the time for the performance'of the feat arrived, the adventurous man appeared in the gallery, jovial enough to outward observation, whatever inward misgiving he might have had as to the result of his perilous experiment. Every reasonable precaution was taken, we are told, by the proprietors of the circus to prevent an accident, a large quilt, for the purpose of receiving him, being held by 12 men in the arena, and a mattrass laid on; the ground beneath. These precautions, however, proved of no avail. At the appointed moment the unfortunate man sprang from his place in the gallery, but instead of turning over three times and alighting on his feet, he only turned two-and-a-half times, and fell heavily oh his head. The mattrass, unable to break the force of such a fall, simply diverted the fracture from the skull to the spine. The poor man lay quite motionless, and many people, shocked with the conviction that he was killed, hurriedly left the place. The fall v however, was not instantaneously 'fatal, though all further need of paint and motley was at an end. The daring jester had entered the ring for the last time that evening, and his favorite gibes, gambols, and flashes of merriment, the echo of which had scarcely died away, would be seen -and heard no more. He was carried out from the theatre still breathing, though insensible, and.died ■within a short time afterwards. Natives of the Gold Coast.—The natives stand in ignominious contrast to the overpowering wealth of the scenes in which they live ; beneath the blaze of the fierce tropical sun, and through forests in which the very trees are gorgeously clothed with orchids heaped about in brilliant festoons. He bears on his head an ear them vessel of palm-oil, or carries two or three quills of golddust, the result of his own industry ia washing the sand after the rains. His sole article of clothing is a Manchester remal,'or 'length of checkered ■cotton, girded round his loins.. But lie knows the value of .his own merchandise, and of that for j ■which he intends to exchange it. He is a bird by no means to be caught with chaff. He will not 'change his palm-oil for a bunch of feathers, nor ■his gold for a string of beads; neither does he affect any article of European clothing, nor hanker after any produce-of European civilisation. He „wants rum—the strong, "coarse American ram— and he knows to' a teaspoonful how much he ought to get of it. He wants from time to time a new remal, also a cloth or blanket to throw over his shoulders on State occasions, and a musket to make a .tow with and fire off ..when lie keeps custom. But he wants no food, because the maize springs up for him almost without cultivation, and his women pound it between two stones, and add water to make a paste which he calls kankee, and on this he gorges himself with great relish. Sometimes his soul liisteth for meat, and then the black snails of "the forest, as big as a fist, furnish him • with a soup of which palm-oil is also an essential ingredient. The provident housewife threads these, snails on a bit of grass and dries them in the sun, thus saving her lord and master from the toil of putting1 out his hand to take them. The long black-haired monkey also provides him with 3, bounteous repast. Pity the sorrows of a European travelling through the bush and partaking of the hospitality (he will have to pay handsomely for it) of a native, when, as a delicacy reserved for him, there is fished up out of the big pot of soiip a black head with the lips drawn back, and the white teeth grinning, and such a painful resemblance of the faces around him, that for a moment he wonders which of the younger members of the family has been sacrificed to the exigencies of the occasion. But he is re-assured, and discovers that he is not eating man, but monkey. The native of the Gold Coast has no. desire to buy a house, nor to build a house, nor to live in a house. He does not wish to add field to field, or to make a name in the land. His chief and only de3ire in life is to eat when he is hungry, to drink whenever he can, and to sleep in the interim. Re has no anxiety for himself, and certainly none for his offspring, who have neither to be educated nor clothed; nor has he any-misgiving about their future prospects. They run about the bush if he lives inland, or he turns them into the-sea if he lives on the coast. You may watch them in any number, and of all ages, from two to twelve, diving and ducking under the waves, waiting for a big one ; and then, on the crest of it, you see.the little shining black bodies tossed over and over, and round and round, till, screaming with'pleasure, they are washed up on the sand, like a tangle of black seaweed. Then slowly, and with much noise, they -.unravel themselves and crawl back to the water, and continue this sport the whole day long, with the exception' of the time occupied in consuming huge lumps of kankee brought to them by the mothers. The paternal domain is, for the most part, a circular hut,, under the mud-floor, of which the ancestors of the, family have been buried for many generations.— Dickens' Household Words. : . -.-■■'••' ' - • ■ The World and One's Self.—The world can pry out everything-about us which it has a mind to know. . But then there .is this consolation, which men will never accept in their own cases, thatrthe world doesn't care. Consider the amount of scandal it has been forced to hear in its time, and how weary and blase it must be of that kind of intelligence. You are taken to prison and fancy .yourself indelibly disgraced ? You are bankrupt under odd circumstances ? You drive a queer bargain with your friends and are found out, and imagine the world will punishyou ? Psha ! your shame is only vanity. Go and talk to the world as if nothing had happened, and nothing has happened. Tumble down; brush the mud off your clothes : appear with a smiling countenance, .and nobody cares. Do you suppose that society is going to take out its -pocket-rhandkerchief and be inconsolable when.you die? Why should it.care very much, then, whether-your worship graces yourself or disgraces yourself \ Whatever happens it talks, meets, jokes, yawns, has its dinner, pretty much as before. Therefore, don't'%e so conceited about yourself as to fancy your private affairs of so much importance, mi fill. — The Virginians.Life is what we make it. Let us call back images of joy and gladness, rather than those of grief and care. The latter may sometimes be our :gue3t to sup and dine, but let them never be pei.mitted to lodge with us. A sensible" down east" female is decidedly opposed to the interference of women with politic-. .She pointedly asks : "If men can't do the voting and take cane of the country, what is the use of them 1" Good.

Dining with a. Bishop .—One of our leading prelates not long ago invited toll is hospitable man-' sion in London'a country rector, an old friend, from one of (ho remote provinces. The simple--minded gentleman came about five o'clock, having a notion that he should arrive al)6nt the dinner hotiv. Soon after he had taken his seat, tea was brought round. '5 Well," thought tiie rector, " this is bare living at any rate ; if I had known, I would have had a beef-steak at a-chop-house before I came; but 1 hardly expected that a bishop would 'dine at one o'clock. ,Is it a fast-day, I wonder ?" He drank his tea, however, and said nothing. About half-past 7 o'clock his bed candle was placed in his hand, and he was conducted to his sleeping-room. " Call you this London ?" he soliloquised ; "why I should have fared far better at Silverton; I should have had my comfortable mutton chop and my glass of beer at 9 o'clock, and I should have been in bed at 10, well fed and contented. But here I am, half-starved in the midst of splendor—as hungry as a hunter— almost ready to devour my blanket, like the boaconstrictor~ha, ha '.—and where everything looks so grand. Well, fine furniture won't make a man fat; give me substantial victuals, and, you may take gilding." Soliloquising in this fashion, he .undressed himself, pulled over his ears his cotton nightcap, ".with a tassel on the top," asthe song says, and crept into bed, coiling himself up comfortably; and being of a forgiving temper, he soon forgot his troubles, and sank into his first sleep as sweetly as a " christom child ;" when lo'! after a while bells begin, to ring, and a smart knock at his door resounds through his room, and a voice was heard saying, "Dinner is on the table, sir !" The old gentleman awoke in confusion, not knowing whether it was to-day or to-morrow; and according to the most authentic account .he appeared shortly after, at the dinner-table, though in a somewhat ; ruffled . condition as relates to his wardrobe, and mentalty in a maze, of uncertainty as to the day of the week and the meal he was eating."— Frazers Magazine for November. Exhaustion of the Land in America.'—Will it greatly surprise our readers to hear that complaints are becoming common over the vast spaces of the American States of a lapse of the land more marked than the worst, ( of England? It is to be feared that such complaints are only too well founded. We have been accustomed to think of the valleys of all the great rivers, of the prairies and forest clearings, as practically inexhaustible. Yet we now find that in some of the richest of them, as far as repute goes, cultivation is actually ceasing, while in many more it is becoming so ill repaid as to render the prospect very dreary. The celebrated Genesse valley i<s so infested with the Hessian fly and the weevil that it is now a question whether to grow wheat there again. The farmers'are crying out for game laws.— Daily News. Parentage of Great Lawyers.—Lord Somers's father was an attorney at Worcester; Lord Hardwicke's, an attorney at Dover; the late Lord Gifford's, a grocer in the same city; Lord Thurlow's, a poor country' clergyman ; Lord Kenyon's, a gentleman of small estate in Wales ; Dunning's, an attorney at Ashburton ; Sir Vicary Gibbs's, a surgeon and apothecary at Exeter; Sir Samuel Romilly's was a refugee family; Sir Samuel Shepherd's father was a goldsmith; Lord Tenterden's, a barber at Canterbury; Lord Mansfield and Lord Erskine were men of noble family; but all Lord Mansfield got by his noble connections were a few briefs in Scotch appeal cases ; and Erskine, just about the time he was called to the bar, was heard emphatically giving .thanks that out of his family he did not know a lord. - Miss Hoop's View. —In one of Caroline Gilman's romances this passage was marked and much, thumbed:—"There "is no object so beautiful to me as a conscientious young man ; I watch him as a star in neaven.": —"That is my view, exactly!" sighed Miss Josephine Hoop, as she laid down the volume.; "in fact, I think that there's nothing so beautiful as a young man, even if he ain't conscientious." ' ; A Genuine Yankee.—A teacher of one of the/; public schools in the town of Essex, (Mass.,) whileimparting moral and religious instruction at the opening of the school in the morning, asked why we ought to love God? Whereupon a bright little urehing.of five years of age very promptly answered, " Because he gives us our parents to take care of us, and gives us our clothes, and learns ■us how'to make money !" Old .Men in Old Times!— Modern Degeneracy !—Modern luxury is not favorable to. long life. In the patriarchal era, if translators of the scriptures are correct in the interpretations of the Mosaic measurement ot time, an ancient Hebrew was quite a youth at the age of a century or so, and could scarcely be considered settled for life before he had reached his second centennial epoch. Now, however, a man is venerable at fifty, and although Old Parr saw his 159 th birthday, and the census occasionally brings a centenarian to light, seventy is usually the extreme limit of human existence. The fact is, we moderns eat too much, drink too much, loaf too much, and work too little. We spoil our stomachs with over indulgence, and the result is impure blood, vitiated secretions, a disordered system, and : premature decay. The root of half the fatal diseases of the race is dyspepsia, a complaint unknown, it is presumed, in the days of Moses and the prophets, when turtle soup, terrapin stew, rich pates, and champagne were uninvented. As these and hundreds of other indigestibies, however, form "an indispensable portion of the carts of the nineteenth century, and human nature or rather artificial appetite will invoke dyspepsia with all its kindred horrors, one of the great objects of medical science should be to provide a cure for them. This/ we really think has been accomplished by Holloway. His Pills seem almost to realise the fable of the Elixir Vitce. There can be no manner of doubt, (unless we choose to reject a mass of-testimony which would be deemed conclusive by any court and jury in Christendom), that they are the most potent and unfailing the world has ever seen for indigestion, and all disorders of the stomach, the liver, and the bowels. We do not advise our readers to tempt an attack of any of these maladies by neglecting the condition of health; butifthe mischief is done, wo most earnestly recommend this famous laxative and stomachic —for strange to say, the Pills combine the two qualities—as the speediest, the safest, and the most infallible means of cure. In so doing, we simply act upon our own convictions, founded on personal .observation, as well.as on.yolumes upon volumes of unimpeachable vouchers. Given.—A policeman, whose height is 5 ft. 9 in., his beat being three-quarters of a mile; wanted to know, what's his area ? (a reward is offered for the solution of this problem.) A 'cute Yankee in Kansas sells liquor in a gun barrel instead of a glass, that he' may avoid the law, and make it appear beyond dispute.that he is selling liquor by the barrel. Of course the "cute Yankee's' customers are liable to go off halfcocked. - , .■-.■■■■■'■ A scamp meeting an acquaintance one day, remarked, "My wife had a fine little boy two days ago, but unfortunately he died immediately after his birth.": "I don't wonder/ was the answer, " that when he came into the world and saw who his father was, he went immediately but of it." . ' . " John, how do you parse grandmother ?" ' " I doen't pa?s her at all; always goe.s in to get a cookey." " What is the singular of men ?" " They in singular yon they pay their debts without being axed to do it a dozen times." " Young women are beautiful. What is it that comes after young women ?" " It's the felleiy, to be sure. They are always arter the young women." " That will dp : now you may go and hunt for cigar stumps.'1 It is ti'tatfjJ in the Edinburgh papers that the lato Miss Alary Barclay, of Carlton-terrace, has bequeathed her entire property, amounting to about ,£30,000 it is estimated, to the Free Church. Of this the trustees are to apply ,£IO,OOO for the -purpose of building a Free Church in the New Town; but the will gives them power to allow that sum to lie in abeyance till it accumulate to £20,000, when the erection of the church may be proceeded .with. The other J2O,OOO ; is to be devoted to the education of the sons of the clergy.1 Mf. Zachariah Charles Pearson, managing director of the Intercolonial Royal Mail Steam t Company, has been elected High Sheriff of Hull.

."!'.'.": .THE-UNKNOWN LAND.". . ; ' A marvel has been disclosed to. us, a new wonder has .been opened to us. Suddenly, as if by magic, we have revealed to us an unknown people, v/ith an unknown civilisation and un-. known institutions. We have ront the veil that i shrouded a mystery which has puzzled the' world for centuries. Access •has been gained for the West to a paradise in the East. The " brazen wall" of protection which surrounded Japan has been thrown down. The'gates of an extensive, wealthy, and populous kingdom have been thrown open to the traders of the world. And all this has been done without force or menace, by reason and persuasion, and we may add by the t progress of eulightened opinion amongst the Japanese themselves. When Lord Elgin arrived at Jeddo i» August, he found commissioners ready to treat with him, and the strangers received from the natives a simple and hospitable welcome. As yet our spies have not penetrated beyond the exterior, but what they have seen and described fills us with amazement and admiration, and excites an ardent thirst for more ample'information respecting a community whose external manifestations afford materials for limitless speculation. Hitherto Japan has been as a sealed book, and now the seal is broken. • We knew .indeed that the country is about the size of the . British Islands, with nearly the same popula- j tioti and climate, and the same insular position j between a {jreat continent and a great ocean.,1 We had hvard that the state is governed by ' two sovereigns, one exercising the spiritual authority, a»d the other conducting the civil and military rule. History had recorded that , Japan was not always isolated from the rest of the world, or opposed to Christianity. Two centuries ago the Portuguese missionaries were

allowed the fullest latitude' for the promulgation of their doctrines. Not satisfied with this freedom, they interfered in a question of disputed succession, and .brought the aid of the Christian population to the candidate they supported. Their intervention was followed by most disastrous results, for the party * which they joined proved unsuccessful, and two hundred thousand persons were slaughtered. Since that period Japan has been hermetically closed, not in the arrogant spirit which animated the Chinese, but because the Government dreaded a renewal of interference, intrigues, and bloodshed. The Dutch alone were allowed commercial intercourse under the narrowest and most humiliating restrictions. For two hundred years they were confined to a small island four 'hundred yards long by three hundred broad; and until within a few years they were not allowed to pass the boundary of their prison to enter the town, or the surrounding country. The American expeditfon, under Commodore Perry, opened a postern of the empire. The residence of an American consul at Simoda, and the visits .of Eussian and English ships during the late war, prepared the way for a change, the inevitability of which, it is said, was recognised by the Japanese themselves. Mr. Harris, the resident representative of. the. United States, proved himself an.able, accomplished, and indefatigable pioneer. . For two years he labored to obtain a commercial treaty; and when the news reached Japan of. the allied operations in the Peiho, his efforts were crowned with success. He did not strive to secure any 'exclusive advautages for his own countrymen, ■but- assisted other nations: to. enter by the Way that he had made. • .

The history of Lord Elgin's treaty is full.of novel adventure and strange surprises. While the British Plenipotentiary was engaged in bringing his negotiations with the Chinese to a conclusion, the American and Russian ministers, proceeded in hot haste to Japan. Lord Elgiu soon followed, and on bis arrival at Nagasaki he.found that the American" treaty had been signed ; that the Russians were trying to-open negotiations, but that. there were symptoms of reaction-on the part of the Japanese Government. The Liberal Prime Minister with whom Mr. Harris had concluded a treaty, had been turned out of office,, and a Conservative or.Protectionist . Administration had succeeded to power. Lord Elgin was not discouraged, but determined to.push on to Jeddo, and to treat within the capital itself. He had with him a steam-yacht seat out as a present to the .Em-i peror, arid he resolved, if possible, that it should not be delivered over at any .'place of secondary importance. On the I2th of August the British squadron arrived off the port of Xanawaga, where the Russians were at anchor. Beyond this poiut no foreign ships had ever ventured, but Captain Slierard■■■ Osborn. expressed an opinion that deep water could be found to Jeddo, and Lord Elgin gave orders to approach as near as possible to the sacred city. Cautiously threading their way through a tortuous channel, the British ships, advanced till they, came to anchor under the forts of the capital. Then came visits from corteoijs officials praying that they would return to Kanawaga, and expatiating on the advantages of that anchorage. Lord Elgin was equally courteous, but inflexible, and when-"the Japanese found that he was not to be moved, they wisely made the best of the -situation..- They sent off supplies : to:the; vessels, aud prepared a residence for the ambassador on shore. The lauding was a '.striking spectacle—an English guv-boat steaming along with a dozen ships' boats, officers in full uniform, and band playing, while the ships thundered out salutus. As Lord Elgin made his progress through th« city, crowds rushed to see the procession, and the influx from the side streets had to bs checked by ropes. Finally, he was lodged in one of the temples, where he and his suite found clean and even luxurious quarters. The arrival of the English Ambassador brought, about another ministerial crisis; the Liberal Premier was restored, and after a residence of eight clays Lord Elgin departed with, a treaty containing enlarged conditions, which the other plenipotentiaries had not even ventured to ask for. The happy audacity of the British led to a most triumphant result.

Our countrymen had no restraint placed upon their movements, and they quickly availed themselves of their freedom. They found that they were located in the Belgravia or the court end of Jeddo. . Around them were the palaces of the feudal nobles, mansions of vast extent, eacli capable of containing the ten thousand retainers who followed their lord to the capital. As there are three hundred and sixty of these nobles who are compelled to reside half the year at Jeddo, the exteut of the aristocratic quarter may be imagined. visitors saw before them a street forty yards broad, ten miles long, and •" as closely packed with houses aud as densely crowded as from, Hyde-park-corner to Mile-end." Towering above.the vast city is the castle or palace of the temporal sovereign. This is surrounded by a moat seventy or eighty feet wide, from which rises a grassy mound of the same height. Thi3 is topped by a wall of cyclonean architecture, encompassing buildings

in which forty thousand men can be accommor. dated. From this place a view was obtained of "the great city of Jeddo, with its trees, and gardens, picturesque temples, and densely' "crowded streets, extending as far as the eye can reach towards tho interior, a thickly built suburb, mid trees and green fields in the distance." Tho capital of Japan covers a larger area than London, and contains a more numerous population.. . The streets are well paved, and perfect cleanliness rules in doors and out. There are none of the dirt and bad smells of a great city, while evidences of wealth and luxury are seen on every side. The country is as interesting as the town. Neat cottages stand within beautiful gardens, and private residences are as neatly kept and as carefully fenced as in England. At every spot presenting great natural beauties, a temple or a tea house is to be found. The weary traveller may always find rest and refreshment, and, reclining on soft mats, receive from neat-handed Phyllises the most delicately flavored tea. The description of all the magnificence, and the natural and artificial beauties that met the eyes of the visitors, reads like a character we read of in the Arabian Nights. . An occasional correspondent, evidently accompanying Lord Elgin's embassy, gives some curious particulars of Japanese manners and customs:— " In their personal cleanliness the Japanese present a marked contrast to the Chinese; no deformed objects meet the eye in the crowded i' streets; cutaneous diseases seem almost unknown. 'In Nagasaki towards evening a large portion of the male and female population might be seen innocently " tubbing" at the 'corner"'of tho streets. Cleanliness seems one great characteristic of the Japanese—they are constantly washing in the most open manner. To our great surprise, "as we wandered the first day through the streets,.we saw two or three ladie3 quietly sitting-in tubs in front of their doors , washing themselves; with the utmost unconcern, traffic and the business through the street going, on past them as usual. We understood after wards it was a general custom. In Jeddo they frequent large bathing establishments, the door of which is open to the passer by, &ud presents a curious spectacle, more especially if the inmates of both sexes ingenuously rush to it to gaze at him as he rides blushingly past. But it would not be possible to coudense within the limits of a letter the experiences and observations of a residence in the capital of an empire about which the information at home is so very scanty *• and which presents.probably a greater variety of interesting and curious matter to the stranger than any other part of the world. Suffice it to be recorded as our general .impression, that in its climate, its fertility, and its picturesque beauty Japan is not equalled by any country on the face of the globe ; while, as if to harmonise with surpassing natural endowments, it is peopled by a race whose qualities are of the most amiable and winning description, and whose material, prosperity has been so equalised as to insure happiness and contentment to all classes. We never saw two Japanese quarrel, and beggars Jiave yet to be introduced with other luxuries of Western civilisation. "It is not to be wondered at that a people reudered independent by the resources of their country, and the frugality and absence of luxury, which so strikingly characterise them, should not have experienced any great desire'to establish an intercourse with other nations,';which in all probability, would carry in its train greater evils than could be compensated for by its incidental advantages. Their' exclusiveness has arisen, not, as in China, from an assumption of superiority over the rest of the world, but from a conviction that, the well-being and happiness of the community would.not be increased by the introduction of.foreign tastes and luxuries ; and that very propensity. to imitate and adopt the appliances of civilisation, so foreign to the Chinaman, is so strongly developed in Japan, that their rulers foresee that the changes now being effected will, iii all probability, some day or other revolutionise the country,—an apprehension which need cause the Emperor but little alarm ; no one can doubt who has visited the two countries that the Chinaman will still be navigating the canals of his country in the crazy old junks of his ancestors when the Japanese is skimming along his rivers in high pressure steamers, or flying across the country behind a locomotive. We have yet to discover what the exports of Japan may be beyond camphor, Wax, and copper; but from a consideration of the natural tendencies and "go-a-head" disposition of the people, there can be little-■ doubt, that a market will at some future day exist in these islands for the produce and manufactures of the Wtst of sufficient magnitude and importance to secure for them a high place in the list of Great Britain's customers." The. rest of the letter is devoted to a record :of Lord Elgin's perseverance and tact in pushing on to Jeddo. \Ye make one .more extract :-— -," The landing of a British Ambassador in state at the capital of the Empire of Japan was only .iri keeping with the act.of unparalleled audacity which had already been committed in anchoring British ships within the sacred limits of its harbor. Japanese officials were sent off to superintend the operation, hut they little expected to .make the return voyage in one of her Majesty's gun-boats, with thirteen ships' boats in tow, amid thfi thunder of salutes, the inspiriting strains of a naval band, and the flutter of hundreds of Hags with which the ships were dressed Close under the green batteries, threading its way amidst hosts of huge-masted, broad-sterned junks, the Little Lee, surrounded by her. gay flotilla, steamed steadily, and not until the water had shoaled to seven feot, and the Japauese had ceased to remonstrate, or even to wonder, from shea* despair, did she drop anchor, and the procession uf boats was formed, the four paddlebox-boats, each with a 24-pouudor howitzer in her bows,'enclosing between them the Ambassador's barge, the remainder of the ships' boats, with captains and officers all in full dress, leading the way. The band struck up ' God Save the Queen' as Lord Elgin ascended the steps of the official landing place, near the centre of tho city, and was received and put into his chair by sundry two-sworded personages, the rest of. the mission, together with some officers of the squadron, following on horseback. The crowd which for upwards of a mile lined the streets leading to the building fixed on as the residence of the Embassy was dense in the extreme ; the procession was preceded by policemen in harlequin costume, jingling huge iron rods of office, hung with, heavy clanging rings, to warn- the crowd away. Ropes were stretched across the cross streets, down which masses of the people rushed, attracted by the novel s'ght; while every few hundred-yards were gate 3 partitioning off the different wards, which were severally closed immediately., on the passing of the procession,. thus .hopelessly barring the further progress of tho old crowd, who strained anxiously through the bars and envied the per-. sons coiuposiug the rapidly forming nucleus.

During Lord,' Elgin's stay of eight days on shore, nearly all the officers of the squadron had an opportunity of paying him a visit. His residence was a portion of a temple situated on the outskirts of what was known as the Princes' Quarter —in other words it was the Knightsbridge of Jeddo. In front of it was a street which-continued for ten" miles, as closely packed with houses, and as densely crowded with people, as it is from Tlyde-park-corner to Mileend. At the back of it stretched a wide and somewhat dreary aristocratic quarter containing the residences of 360 hereditary princes, each a petty Sovereign in his own right, many of them with half-a-dozen town houses, and some, of them able to accommodate in these same mansions 10,000 retainers.

" And the people are as wonderful as. the country they inhabit. They appear to have retained much of the simplicity and innocenoe of the golden age. They,possess 'the most amiable and winning qualities.' In personal cleanliness they surpass all other nations; bathing is an institution, and is performed in public in a manner that recalls-to mind the state of man before the fall. The English did not see a deformed person in the streets, or any drunkenness or quarrelling, and beggars are said to be unknown. But although thus primitive in their manners and habits, the Japanese are industrious and inventive, and not without scientific acquirements. When the advanced ships of the British squadron arrived, at Nagasaki, they found a Japanese man-of-war steamer at anchor there.. They are" able to make engines for railways or steamships, and they have a short line of railway somewhere in the interior. The electric telegraph is no mystery to them, and they are skilful at fabricating astronomical and philosophical instruments. Their manufacture of glass is nearly equal to our owo. The Dutch language is spoken by numbers, aud some have even learned English. Japanese captains and. engineers command their war vessels, of which three are steamers. They shew every disposition to seize and adopt the discoveries made by European science. They are represented by their recent visitors to be not merely a progressive'but a 'go-ahead.people."

What we have been- told increases our curiosity^ We are not admitted to the arcana of the Government or the institutions that have produced so much peace and plenty, such wealth and comfort for a "whole people. Their head spiritual emperor or chief priest, who takes no part in governing the country, resides in sanctified retirement at Miaco.; There is a .governing Emperor, who. has his seat in the vast castle overtopping Jeddo. There are three hundred and sixty petty princes or lords, each exercising sovereign rights on his own territory and paying feudal homage to the reigning Emperor." These nobles are compelled to reside for half the year at Jeddo, and when they are allowed, in the other half, to visit their estates they leave their families as hostages. There is probable ground for supposing that tlisy act in some way as a governing council. We are informed that there are parties, as amongst ourselves—one conservative, protective, and exclusive-; the other progressive, eager for improvement, and for intercourse with European nations. Even political crisis are not unknown, and changes of ministers,' as with ourselves. It is difficult to discover what their military system is, if they' have any. The well-constructed fortifications of Jeddo shew some knowledge of the art of war-,: but none of the correspondents saw a b.ittalion under, arms. There are police, but if we can believe all that we are told, they can have but little occupation. We are offered, a series of the most perplexing problems. We have presented to us an old cquntry with annals extending back,atleast, twothousandfive hundred years, thickly peopled without a surplus population, or paupers or beggars, with a feudal aristocracy and no signs of oppression or intestinal strife, with greit wealth and no poverty, with a simple, frugal, social life. Have we come upon a nation who have solved problems that have baffled the wisdom of Europe ? Have we frund a people who enjoy all the advantages, all the material prosperity derivable from civilisation without suffering from any of the vices or diseases, moral or physical, of old societies ?

As .yet we have not penetrated beyond the surface. If the Japanese be really what they, appear to be, it seems a pity that they should be subjected toEuropean intrusion. Undoubtedly, we incur a heavy responsibility by bringing, them into close contact with what we must call superior civilisation. Bub the die is cast, and a higher power has decreed that no community shall be peiunitted to isolate itself from the rest of the world. In the very nature of things it is not possible that Japan could much longer remain hermetically closed. Such mystery as now surrounds that wonderful country, so long self-sustained and self-supporting, will soon be dispelled,. Observiug travellers will, follow in the tract of commerce, and tell us how much of the apparent social virtues of the Japanese is. lacquer, how much res|js on a substantial substratum of morals. What is now eloudod will be inade^ clear by the light, of investigation. Meanwhile, we may wait patiently, and hope that we, at least, will play a truly phristiau part towards the people whoni we have constrained to admit us to free intercourse.