Whether our conductor was with us, or at a distance, no difference was observable. In fact, order was carried to its highest point. Committed for Males viz. } Total 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 in the 7 yrs. 1126 1362 1455 1422 1753 2019 2584 11721 Total....1690 1959 1986/1901 2299 2592 3177 15604 The priest, with assistants, performs mass on a Sunday. On other days his duty is confined to the sick, and those under sentence of death; but, as premeditated To Death murder is the only capital crime in these countries, the number of the latter is very inconsiderable. The infirmary has a garden attached to it, for the use of the sick. There are various separate rooms and yards for those who have infectious disorders, and the remainder occupy an apartment 70 feet long, and about 30 broad, which is perfectly ventilated by windows, and valves in the ceiling. The number of the sick did not exceed 25. The whole number of prisoners was rather more than 1,300. To our question-"Out of 100 persons, re leased from this prison, how many return here? The sub-gaoler replied, " about 5.” In answer to the same question, the governor said, that "of the felons, 10 per cent. return, but hardly any of the misdemeanants." There is then no essential variation in their accounts. We did not see a fetter, or a chain, in the whole prison. The refractory are sentenced to prohibition of work, or to solitary coufinement, not exceeding ten days. In former times corporal punishment was allowed but this is now dispensed with--"merely," as the governor said, "because it was found unnecessary." Privation of work is penalty sufficient to keep 99 out of hundred orderly and attentive to the rules; and if they do occasionally receive one of an unusually turbulent and ungovernable disposition, a week's solitary confinement invariably reduces him to obedience,—a repetition of this effectual and dreaded mode of discipline is an event of very rare occurrence. Nothing in the whole institution struck me so much as the subdued, civil, submissive, decent behaviour of all the prisoners. There was a degree of cleanliness in their persons, and an air of cheerfulness in their countenances: in short, an appearance of comfort and respectability, which was the strongest evidence of the success of the system. MIDDLESEX and SURREY. Number of Persons charged with Criminal Offences, committed to the several Gaols in the Cities of London and Westminster, and County of Middlesex, the Borough of Southwark and County of Surrey, for Trial in the last Seven Years; distinguishing the Number in each Year, &c. &c. 125164167182158 263 244 1303 20 21 38 48 30 53 91 307 14 30 44 34 36 36 55 249 853 247 284 388 354 490 2254 Trans. for Life Whipping and Fine 499 554 559 551 707 775 865 4510 127 129 90 98 131 156 819 Total Total... Capital Total.. .16901959 1986 19012299 2592 3177 1560 Of whom Exeeuted ASSOCIATION FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR REPORT, 14 Jan. 1818. In the last winter, which was a season of unusual trial and difficulty to the Poor, the relief afforded by the Association, and the expence incurred, were much more considerable than in the preceding year. The distribution commenced on the 2d of December, 1816, and continued to the 9th of April, 1817; in which period four hundred and twenty-one chaldrons of Coals were sold at 9d. per bushel, also eighty tons of Potatoes, mostly at 14lbs. for 3d, affording great relief to not less than two thousand five hundred necessitous families, consisting of about twelve thousand five hundred individuals, residing in various parts of the metropolis. It appears, the loss incurred thereby to the Association, including all attendant expences, amounted to 972. 16s. 8d. Notwithstanding the expenditure in the last winter was so considerably increased, the Committee have great pleasure in stating, that such was the liberality of the old Subscribers, aided by a considerable accession of new ones, that the contributions were little short of the same amount; and as the Subscribers have had the opportunity of being their own almoners, they must generally have witnessed the great benefits derived from this mode of more nearly approached than it has hitherto | our coarser woollens, than which nothing systematically and scientifically been. It could be more acceptable to the inhabitought also to be considered that much de- ants of those parts. pends upon the season in which the attempt is made, for the changes in the ice, both in quantity and in situation, from year to year, are astonishing; one year presenting an impenetrable wall, where the next there is clear water. Another object interesting to humanity which, it is trusted, this expedition will be able to accomplish, is to ascertain the existence of an extensive Danish or Norwegian colony established on the Eastern Coast of Greenland, and which about 400 years since was cut off from all intercourse with the world, by the formation of immense barriers of ice, along their coast; communication by land with the western colony was always impossible, from the impassable mountains, covered with perpetual snow, that divide Greenland from the south to the north. If indeed the relation of Bishop Amand, hereafter noticed, be deserving credit, their existence one hundred and It evidently appears that revolutions of this kind have taken place, within the last three years, most importantly favourable to the present Expedition; and though our climate has not yet experienced any alteration from the removal of the immense East Greenland glaciers, it is worthy of peculiar remark, that almost all last year the climate of St. Petersburgh, and indeed of the whole northern continent of Europe, was mild and temperate beyond what it ever was re-fifty years after their frightful imprisonmembered. There are three kinds of ice which our countrymen will have to encounter in their enterprise in the Northern Seas The first is like melted snow, which is become partly hardened; is more easily broken into pieces, less transparent, is seldom more than six inches thick, and, when dissolved, is found to be intermixed with salt. This first sort of ice is the only one which is ever formed of seawater. The other kinds are, the sheet ice, which seems to be formed on the flat coasts and floated into the ocean by the tides and currents; and the ice-bergs or packed ice, large prodigious masses which are held to be formed ou land and precipitated into the sea, where they unite into solid continents. It is here observable that no sea was ever known to be frozen but the Black Sea, parts of the Baltic, and the White Sea, which have no tides, and are less salt than other seas, from the great influx of fresh rivers into their basins. Should the vessels which compose this expedition, be blocked up in the ice, it will not be difficult with the preparations made to winter within the Arctic Circle, and even in the instances where the ships have been lost, it generally happens that the crews have been able to save themselves. If this expedition should happily attain the object in view, although the commercial advantages might not be so great as sanguine minds predict, it is worthy of consideration, that to the northern parts of our island it must be of immense importance. The transit from the Shetland isles to the northern parts of Asia would by this way be the voyage of only a few weeks, and the hardy natives of these and the Orkneys might carry on a large traffic in | ment is ascertained; but many reasons suggest themselves against the truth of his narrative; and it is not the least hat no exertion was immediately made by the court of Denmark to open a communication with them. According to the Iceland annals, the Danish colony on the eastern coast was first settled in the year 983 by Erick the red; that the country was named Greenland from its superior verdure to Iceland; that churches and convents were built, and a succession of Bishops and pastors sent over; and that from the latest accounts, it consisted of twelve parishes, one hundred and ninety villages, one bishop's see, and two convents: that in the year 1406, when the 17th bishop was proceeding from Norway to take possession of his see, the ice had so closed in upon the coast, as to render it inaccessible. From that period, till last summer, all communication seems to have been cut off with the unfortunate colonists. It is related, however, by Thormoder Sorfager, in his History of Greenland, that Bishop Amand, of Skalholt, in Iceland, as he was returning from Norway to that Island, about the middle of the sixteenth century, was driven by a storm on the east coast of Greenland, off Herjolsuess, immediately opposite to Iceland, which the vessel approached so near that the people on board could distinguish the inhabitants driving their cattle in the meadows; but the wind coming fair, they made all sail for Iceland, which they reached the following day, and came to anchor in the Bay of St. Patrick. Of all the attested relations, this of Bishop Amand, says Hans Egede, "deserves most to be credited:" “by this” he continues, “we learn that the colony of the eastern district did flourish about a hundred and fifty years after the Commerce and navigation ceased betweeн Norway and Greenland, and, for aught we know, is not yet wholly destitute of its old Norwegian inhabitants." It was not until nearly a century after the unsuccessful attempts of the Bishop to land, that the Christraus and the Frede ricks, calling to mind these remote and Tong-neglected possessions, took measures for enquiring into the fate of their unfortu mate subjects. One Mogeus Heinson, a celebrated seaman of those days, was em ployed among others on this service. After many difficulties he got sight of the coast, but could not approach it; and the reason he assigned, on his return, was, "that his ship was stopped in the midst of its course by some loadstone rocks ridden in the sea." Many subsequent attempts were made, but all proved ineffectual. Endeavours were also used to ascertain their fate from the colony on the western side, by coasting round Staatenbock; and in one of these expeditions Egede himself embarked, but was obliged to return with out being able to effect his humane purpose. The Esquimaux pretend that they are afraid to approach the Eastern shore, which they say is inhabited by a tall and barbarous race of men, whole on human flesh. So late as the year 1786, Captain Lowenorn, of the Danish navy, was sent out for the express purpose of re-discover ing the old colony on the Eastern coast. The particulars of this voyage, we believe, were not made public; but that it failed is known. It has fallen to the lot of the present age to have an opportunity, which we are sure will not be neglected, of instituting an inquiry into the fate of these unfortunate colonies. If, as is probable, the whole race has perished, some remains may yet be found, some vestiges be traced, which may throw light on their condition after the fatal closing of the ice upon them. It is just possible that some tradition may have been handed down through a succession of a mixed race of descendants; or some in scriptions may, perhaps, be discovered on the remains of the cathedral, or the convents, which are said to have been built of stone. But even if no traces should be found, the research is an object of rational curiosity: and it would be satisfactory, at least, to have all doubt removed on a sub ject of so interesting and affecting a nature, The Government of Denmark, emulating our own in its encouragement of scientific research, is also fitting out an expedition to the North Pole, with similar views to those we have just detailed. ACCOUNT OF GREENLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS. [By M. Gieseke.] The author is a native of Augsburg, and now professor of mineralogy at Dublin. He spent seven years between the 60th and 77th degrees of North latitude, and left Greenland in August 1813; so that his aecount is the most recent which we have of this extraordinary and interesting country. at The immense glacier which traverses Greenland from north to south, cuts it, as may be said, in two halves, and by its astomishing clefts and abysses, baffles e every tempt to cross the country, from the west to the east coast. This glacier is in many places about 100 fathoms thick, and in many parts of the coast, extends, becoming gradually flatter, down to the sea; by it are formed the marine caverus at Ujurazsoak, and luglørspit, which preseut picturesque views. The country affords the botanists only alpine plants, mosses, and licheus. No tree rears its head; the dwarf birch, and the arctic willows creep with difficulty, seeking protection from the wind and cold between broken fragments of stone. Ouly the Greenlander can eat the leaves and roots of the rhodiola rosea, the knots of the polygonum viviparum, the flowers and leaves of the saxifraga oppositifolia. But the European, when pressed by hunger, eats with him the oxalis, the angelica, the cochlearia, the vaccinium uligino sum, and the vaccinium myrtillus. The natives, bowed down by the severity of the climate, do not attain longevity; 50 years is a very great age among them. They belong to the Mongol race; the women have, on an average, only three or four children; but they bear with great ease. The natives are of a yellowish complexion, have black, thick, stiff hair; their lips are thick, their eyes jet black and small, but penetrating. Their hands and feet are small, and well shaped. Their stature seldom exceeds five feet; the women are not perceptibly shorter, and as strong, being hardened by labour: for they cover boats, build houses, assist in the fishery near home, and do all kinds of work, except such as is more remote. Except their hair which is sometimes nearly six feet in length they have no beauty in any respect, not even a good shape; and they lose the freshness of youth after the birth of their first child. They always live as near as possible to the strand, because the cold is there more moderate, and for the sake of catching seals, Except their dogs, they have no The Greeulanders cannot live out of their own country, and die pining away after their icy shores. A fifth part of the people, thinly scattered along the coast, are still heathens. The Christians, as they are called, are not distinguished by more refined ideas or morality. Those who are not Christians have scarcely a glimmering of abstract ideas. They do not adore an omnipotent good being, but an omnipoteut evil being; they therefore believe in sorcery, and are extremely superstitions. They bend the heads of the dead upon the knee, lay them between split slates, in a kind of square chest, and pile a great quantity of stones upon them, that dogs and foxes may not devour the corpses. They sometimes put in the grave some delicacy which the deceased was particularly fond of when alive. They are not much acquainted with brandy, but love it extravagantly, are eaintoxicated, and then beat their wives and children. cattle: these dogs, which serve them for this is surely a proof of a good disposition) borses and beasts of burden, live on the | become notwithstanding, when they are refuse of fish, which they find on the coast, grown up, affectionate and obedient to their and often on the alga marina. They are parents. The men never beat their wives, wild aud savage, attack strangers, are are not jealous, and have no reason to be so, faithful to their masters, but ill tempered, except when Europeans land, whose attenand never caressing. The sea-shore is tions to their ugly partners they cousider throughout rocky and full of cliffs; no pro- as the greatest honour. per meadows between, but turf moor, a seil covered with sour grass, which every where sinks in; but there is moss enough, and on the rocks a great quantity of lichens, of various and beautifui colours, thick, and of luxuriant growth; thyme and angelica fill the solitary plains with perfume. The water falls of the great glacier descend magnificently into the sea between the rocks, clothed with richly coloured mosses. The inhabitants build their houses almost always in the nooks of rocks, and leaning against them. The mica-slate (gliaumer-schiefer) which is easily split into tables, furnishes them with the materials; of this they build walls, with alternate layers of turf, which they line inside with moss: the roof is of bushes interwoven, (as they are wholly destitute of wood, and the ships seldom bring any) which they cover flat with turf. This miserable roof seldom | affords shelter, and must be frequently re-sily newed. A small square low room forms the inside of the dwelling; generally 15 feet square, in which often twenty people live day and night! The window openings are covered with the entrails of seals; a long passage of stone and turf, but so narrow and low, that only one person can crawl through at a time, leads to this den before and near it, all the dirt and refuse of the seals is piled up, to keep them warmer. The beds of the rich consist of moss and seal skins; the poor lie on the bare ground. They never make fires, because they have neither roofs nor chimneys; but their train oil lamps serve them for warmth and for cookery. The seal's flesh is soon stewed, in pots which hang by straps of seal skin. It is very hot in these huts or dens, the filthiness of which is horrible! They are utterly destitute of forethought; thus, when they have been uncommonly successful in catching fish or seals, they do not bury the overplus in the snow against a time of need; hence they often suffer want in the long winters. They have no scurvy, though they neglect the wholesome cochlearia: but they seldom have salt, and do not like it. Their love to their children is boundless! they not only never punish them, but pa tiently suffer themselves, without exception, to be struck by them; the children (and When the sun returns after the long might, they hail it with dances and cries of joy, and call these days only, the feast. They have no kind of tradition, but in the long nights compose a kind of stories of ghosts, &c. which are always forgotten, and succeeded by new ones They dread and avoid the places where any one is buried. All cutaneous disorders are very dangerous in this climate-Their greatest delicacies are the eggs of the birds of passage and water-fowl; but these cannot be kept, because the birds appear in the hot mouths of May, June, and July; they are also very fond of the blue muscle, which the sea throws on their shores in great quantites They pass the long night in a state between dreaming and waking; they sleep, wake, and eat, during this time, without regard to time and order. All the Greenlanders speak the same language, though different dialects prevail in different parts of the country. Some few words are probably the relies of the old Norwegian; but these excepted, their language seems to have no athinity with any of the Northern, Tartariau, or Indian languages, as far as they are known to us, if we except the language of the Esquimaux in Labrador, who seem to be one people with the Greenlanders. National Register : FOREIGN. AUSTRIA. Vienna: Provisions. The official account of the articles of provisions consumed in the city of Vienna, in the year ending the 31st October, 1817 offers some remarkable results, when compared with that of the year before. The Consumption of oxen was 9479 fewer; Jambs, 14,615 fewer; hogs and young pigs, 11,685 fewer; Austrian wine, 27,990 bushels; Hungarian ditto, 7257 buckets; and of beer, 54,559 buckets less than in 1816. Of wheat and rye, 215,409 measures less (in 1816, the quantity was 601,451, and in 1817, only 386,042 measures); of barley, 32,765; and of oats, 248,703 measures less. The consumption of hay is diminished by a fifth, or 5405 loads; of straw but onethird, or 565,523 trusses; of fire wood by 57,682 cords; of coals by 5201 cwt.; of cheese the consumption, in 1816, was 6911 cwt.; in 1817, 4188 cwt.; being less by 2722 cwt.; of fish, in 1816, 9682 cwt.; and in 1817, 2929 cwt.; being 6752 cwt. less : but the most remarkable difference was in eggs. The year before last, 20,702,572 were imported; and in 1817, only 6,889,607. Only in flour, groats, pulse, butter, and lard, the consumption was something more considerable, because people were obliged to confine themselves to mere necessaries, and consequently to use more of those articles. This year, from November 1, 1816, to (ctober 31, 1817, includes the whole time when the consequences of the bad harvest were felt, and may be justly called the time of famine. EGYPT. cha bas purchased two frigates at Calcutta, to serve for protecting the commerce of the Red Sea. He has built one at Alexandria, and he is trying to purchase one in Sweden. To support his expenses, he has endeavoured to concentrate all the commerce of the country in bis own bands; he forces the inhabitants to deliver up to him the produce of their fields, and of their indus try, at a very low price, which he again sells to the merchants at double the value. He has established commercial houses in the principal cities of Europe; but this system of commerce is too disadvantageous to foreign merchants to have it last long. The Pacha still seeks to attract European manufacturers, principally Swiss; and he has sent some young men into Europe to be brought up in the European manners, and instructed in the arts and sciences. He is now causing money to be coined with his own likeness. Ahined, Bey of Soliman, a Mameluke Prince, who resided in France before the war of 1814, aud who has since retired to Vienna, has embraced the Christian religion, and received baptism in that capital. FRANCE. Inundations at Paris, The Seine continues to swell. The shopkeepers on the quays of la Greve and Portau-blé have caused a barrier of brick-work to be constructed before their houses, to oppose the water, which threatens to invade them. They expect to be compelled to quit their residences if the danger becomes more alarming. The gardens situated at the foot of the terrace of the Tuilleries are entirely inundated. A number of workmen are employed to discharge the boats with which the rapid swelling of the river has blocked up both sides of the bridge Louis XVI. It is also said, that the waters have overflowed the road to Versailles. Monument near Angers. According to the latest accounts, Egypt is in a flourishing condition; but the Pacha does not appear to conceal his pretensions A Paris paper states, that several families to independence. He bas raised his army of the western departments have subscribed to 80,000 men, without reckoning Arabs to purchase a spot of ground, near Angers, and Arnauts. These last, who are very on which to build a monument to the memuch attached to him, form his guard. All mory of more than three thousand victims, his forces are estimated at 100,000 men, who, in that place alone, were shot by bunbut it is probable that this is much exag-dreds, and buried in masses, in 1793. These gerated, for how could the revenues support this number of troops? It is certain that Europeans of every rank flock to the Pacha, and that he gives them the most flattering reception. French officers ob tain the preference, and all his artillery is commanded by them. They exercise it every day in the European manner. The Pa-pel will be erected on the spot. innocent victims, of the Revolution, were old men, women, mothers of families, entire families, strangers for the most part to public transactions, who were condemned either for their attachment to religion, or their love of the King, or their compassion for some proscribed person. A simple cha |