REPORT OF THE NATIONAL VACCINE FS TABLISHMENT, FOR THE YEAR 1815; DATED 31st MAY, 1816. To the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Sidmouth, Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. &c. &c. &c. National Vaccine Establishment, LeicesterSquare, May 31, 1816. MY LORD, Within the last year the surgeons of our different stations in London have vaccinated 6,581 persons, and have distributed to the public 32,821 charges of vaccine lymph. We cannot state precisely what the sixty-eight honorary and corresponding vaccinators may have effected in the country, as returns are not always sent: however, we have ascertained that those practitioners whom we have supplied with lymph have vacci nated 42,667 in the course of the year. We have the satisfaction of informing your lordship, that we have furnished the means of disseminating this blessing in the island of St. Domingo; and that the director has received the annexed letter from the government of Hayti on that subject. It is equally gratifying to us to state, that by the ingenuity of Mr. Giraud of Faversham, means have been devised of preserving the lymph in a fluid state; by which we have just reason to hope that it may be found efficient in any climate, and for any space of time. Your lordship has probably been informed, that in consequence of the decisive measures adopted in in Russia, Sweden, Germany, France and italy, the small pox has become a very rare disease in those countries; and that, by like means, it is no longer known in Ceylon and at the Cape of Good Hope. It is a source of sincere regret to us, that it should not be equally so in this kingdom; and still more so, as this is not attributable to the casual occurrences of that disease; but, we believe, entirely to the practice of inoculation, which seems to be adhered to on interested or mistaken motives. In Edinburgh, Glasgow and Norwich, Inoculation is disused, and, in consequence, the sinail-pox is scarcely known. in the country about Aberystwith in Wales, and Bawtry in Yorkshire, it has entirely disappeared. The reverse is found unhappily to be the case in Portsmouth, Bristol and London. In the metropolis alone, the mortality by small-pox may be estimated at a thousand annually perhaps throughout the United Kingdom it is not less that ten times that number. We beg to conclude by stating, that it appears to us, this waste of human life can be prevented only by such legislative enactments as will entirely put a stop to inoculation for the small-pox. The Board is happy in stating, that it has no occasion to ask Parliament this year for any sum of money beyond that usually granted. (Signed) J. LATHAM. President of the Royal College of Phy- Henry Halford, M. D. Censors of the Governors of the Royal By order of the Board, James Hervey, M. D. Registrar. Palace of Sans Souci, Feb. 5, 1916, 13th Year of our Independence. The King of Hayti to Mr. James "loore, Director of the British National Vaccine Establishment, &c. &c. SIR, Mr. Prince Sanders has presented me with the work which you sent me on the small-pox: I have accepted this work with pleasure, and thank you infinitely for your honourable and obliging attention, nd the interest which you evince for the Havtians. The precious discovery of Vaccination is too important to human life, and does to0 much honour to humanity, not to induce me to adopt it in my kingdom. On the arrival of Mr. Prince Sanders, I put Vacci nation in use with a view to make it generally followed by the Haytian practitioners, -we have an innumerable quantity of children to vaccinate. It is my intention to give every possible latitude to the happy results of this immor tal discovery, which I had not hitherto been able to put in practice in consequence of the disappointment which I met with in the applications I made at Jamaica, St. Thomas, and in the United States of America, relative to this object, the salutary ef fects of which I am well acquainted with. This benefit will still add to the gratitude of the Haytians for the great and magna nimous British nation. I have charged Mr. Prince Sanden to testify to you personally my sincere (Signed) HENRI. thanks. The rivers of lava are the less abundant if a great quantity of scoriæ and small stones are thrown out during the eruption. The whole cone is covered with those small stones, which are soon changed by the acid vapours, and assume those lively and variegated colours which make them look like bunches of flowers at a distance, and which have inclined naturalists to sup ON THE NATURE OF VOLCANOES. From the Analysis of the Labours of the Royal Institute of France, for 1815. By M. Cuvier. Among the most perplexing, as well as remarkable phenomena of the globe, are those terrific fires, which, with respect to the surface of the earth, are sub-pose that the crater is filled with sulphur; terraneous; but with respect to the whole which is so far from being true, that it is even very rare that sulphurous vapours are mass of the globe are superficial. The perceived in it: on the contrary, there rise principle on which they maintain their strong and continual exhalations of muricombustion--the great numbers of thematic acid, and sea salt is every where concreted throughout. which have left traces of their existence, although apparently extinguished, at present-the number of them yet in activity, with the supposeable consequence, if ALL were extinguished, are matters of great curiosity and concern to the Geologist. Nature neither had, originally, nor has now, any operative agency, in vain. Does their number increase or diminish? Is their power greater or lesser? Are their eruptions more or less frequent ? The more we know of the globe, the more extensive is our list of volcanoes. Hitherto, they have defied our researches, and eluded the arrangement of our systems: will it be always thus ? The following paper comprises remarks on this subject, distinguished by their ingenuity and interest :— The mysterious nature of Volcanoes, those immense foci of heat, far removed from all the conditions which keep up heat at the surface of the earth, will be still a long time one of the great objects of the curiosity of natural philosophers, and will excite their efforts so long as any hopes of success remain. A young mineralogist as zealous as he is learned, M. Mesnard de la Groye, having had occasion in 1812 and 1813 to observe several of the phænomena of Vesuvius, drew up a journal of them with great accuracy, intermixed with many original suppositions and ideas. Since the enormous diminution which the cone of the volcano underwent in 1794, when it sunk more than 400 feet, all the eruptions have taken place from its summit; which seems to have prevented them from being so abundant and so destructive as those which issued from its sides. The bottom of the crater rose, and it is not unlike ly that it will be filled. M. Mesnard de la Groye thence takes occasion to divide volcanoes into two classes; those in which sulphur performs muriatic acid prevails. an essential part, and those in which the It is among the latter that he classes Vesuvius. He also notices the continual smoke which rises from the rivers of lava, and which announces great humidity. This smoke is in fact purely aqueous. No flames are seen; but sands and burnt stones; and the reverberation of the internal furnaces on the vapours which issue, causes this illusion. The lava flows very slowly: its edges when cooled form an embankment for it, and keep it above the level of the soil, which is covered with scoria; it is very difficult to get a sight of its fluid parts. We know besides, that its heat has nothing in it similar to that of glass in fusion; for when it envelops trunks of trees, it does not char them to the centre. M. de la Groye is also of opinion that the lava owes its fluidity to some principle which is consumed by the very act of fusion, and to this circumstance is owing the difficulty of fusing again that which has once cooled. The full mass, the part not swelled up into scoriæ, has a stoney aspect: this is what the Germans call graustein. The author compares the periods of the fusion of the lavas with those through which the salts pass, which fuse after being swelled up. He relates some curious facts with respect to the prodigiously long duration of their heat, and thence concludes that they bear within themselves the principle of their own heat, and that they do not possess a heat simply communicated. To all these remarks M. de la Groye adds a very dedetailed account of the grand eruption of 1810, which produced an infinity of ashes and small stones, but the lava of which did not reach the length of the cultivated grounds. REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE The Committee appointed to take into consi- be the first introduction of a qualification to kill game.) By the 32 Henry VIII. c. 8, a penalty upon selling game was first enacted; but this was a temporary law, which was suffered to expire, and the sale of game was not again restrained till the 1st James 1, c 27. By the ad James I, c. 13, the qualification to kill game was increased to 401: in land, and 2001. in personal property. By the 22 and 23 C. I, cap. 25, lords of manors, not under the degree of esquire, may by writing under their hands Your Committee, in investigating this impor- and seals appoint gamekeepers within their tant subject, proceeded to the consideration of respective manors, who may kill conies, hares, the present existing laws for the preservation &c. and other game, and by the warrant of a of game; their adequacy to their professed Justice may search houses of persons prohibited object; their policy and justice; and their efto kill game.-It appears to your Committee, fects upon the habits and morals of the lower that the statute 22 and 23 C. II, is the first inorders of the community. In considering the stance, either in our statutes, reports, or law existing state of the law upon this subject, treatises, in which lords of manors are distintheir attention was naturally directed, in the guished from other land owners, in regard to first place, to its state in the early periods of the game. The same statute, section 3, confines common law; and in that your Committee finds the qualification to kill game to persons hav concurrent and undisturbed authorities for con- ing lands of inheritance of 100l. per amum, or templating game as the exclusive right of the leases of 1501. (to which are added other desproprietor of the land ratione soli. In a law of criptions of personal qualifications); and perCanute's (vide 4th Institutes, p. 230,) your sons not having such qualifications are declared Committee find that he thus expresses himself: to be persons not allowed to have or keep gamePræterea autem concedo ut in propriis ipsius præ-dogs, &c. The 22 and 23 C. II, c. 95, was foldiis quisque tam in agris quam in sylvis excitet lowed by 4 and 5 W. and M. e 23, and the agiletque feras; and in Blackstone, II. p. 415,28 Geo. II. c. 12, which enacted penalties Sit quilibet homo dignus venatione sua in sylva et in agris situ propriis et in dominio suo. In the preamble of the statutes 11th Hen. VII. c 17. a parliamentary recognition of the common law is most distinctly made, and in unequivocal language. It states, that persons of little sub-sion.-Such appears to your Committee to be stance destroy pheasants and partridges upon the lordships, manors, lands, and tenements of divers owners and possessioners of the same, without license, consent, or agreement of the same possessioners, by which the same lose not only their pleasure and disport, that they, their friends, and servants should have about hawking, hunting, and taking of the same, but also they lose the profit and avail that should grow to their household, &c. In the 4th Institutes, p. 304, it is laid down, that seeing the wild beasts do belong to the purlieu men ratione soli, so long as they remain in his grounds he may kill them, for the property ratione soli is in him. In 11 Coke's Reports, p. 876, it is laid down, but for hawking, hunting, &c. there needeth not any license, but every one may, in his own land, sue them at his pleasure, without any restraint to be made, if not by parliament, as appears by the s'atutes 11 Hen. VII c. 17, 23 Eliz. c. 10, and 3 James I. c. 13. Si against unqualified, and, finally, against quali fied persons, who shall buy, sell, or offer to sell, any hare, pheasant, partridge, &c. milar penalties are therein enacted against unqualified persons having game in their posses the state of the laws respecting game, as they at present stand The various and numberless statutes which have been enacted upon the subject, and to which your Committee have not thought it requisite to allude, have not been unobserved by them; but seeing that they are merely supplementary to those to which your Committee has made reference, they have not felt it important to enter into a detail of their enactments. You. Committee cannot but conclude, that by the common law, every pos sessor of land has an exclusive right ratione soli to all the animals fera nature found upon his land; and that he may pursue and kill them himself, or authorize any other person to pur sue or kill them; and that he may now b the common law, which in so far continues unrestrained by any subsequent statute, support an action against any person who shall take, kill, or chase them. The statutes to which your Committee have referred have, in limitation of the common law, subjected to pe nalties persons who, not having certain quali fications, shall exercise their common law right; but they have not divested the possessor of his right, nor have they given power to any other person to exercise that right without the consent of the possessor. It appears to your Committee, that the 22 and 23 C. IL In limitation, and to a certain degree in deroga- has merely the effect of exempting from tion of the common law, a variety of statutes those liabilities which were previously enacted has subjected to penalties persons who, not against unqualified persons, such gamekeepers having certain qualifications, shall even upon as shall receive exemption from them by the their own lands kill any of those wild animals lords of manors (and which exemption the said which come under the denomination of game. lords of manors are thereby empowered to give), By the 13 Richard II. stat. 1, c. 13, laymen but that the restraints upon the sale of game not having 40s. per annum, and priests not ha-equally affect the entire community. Your ving 101. per annum, are prohibited from taking or destroying conies, hares, &c. under pain of a year's imprisonment (this statute appears to In Sutton and Moody's 5 Modern Reports, p. 375, Holt, Chief Justice, says, the conies are as much his, in his ground, as if they were in a warren, and the property is ratione soli. So in the Year-book, 12 Hen. VIH. pl. 10, if a man start a hare in his own ground, he has a property in it ratione soli. Committee conceive, that in the present state of society there is little probability that the laws above referred to can continue adequate te the object for which they were originally enact- killed. The Fantees, on learning the aped. The commercial prosperity of the coun-proach of the Ashantees, assembled in try, the immense accumulation of personal property, and the consequent habits of luxury and great numbers, to give them battle; but indulgence, operate as a constant excitement their resolution failed them, and they were to their infraction, which no Legislative inter-happy to save themselves by flight. Men, ference that your Committee could recom- women, and children, fled in crowds to mend appears likely to counteract. It appears, Cape Coast Castle for shelter; about the that under the present system, those possessors of land who fall within the statutable dis14th April, the Ashantees still continuing qualifications, feel little or no interest in the to proceed towards the coast, messengers preservation of the game; and that they are were sent by the Governor in Chief of the less active in repressing the baneful practice of British settlements to the Captain to inpoaching than if they remained entitled to kill quire the cause of his approach. The anand enjoy the game found upon their own lands. Nor is it unnatural to suppose, that swer returned was, that he was determined the injury done to the crops in those situations to pursue Quow, Saffaroutchie. Cudjoe where game is superabundant, may induce the Coomah, and Coffee, Ashantee-men, to possessors of land thus circumstanced, rather whatever place they might retreat; that to encourage than to suppress illegal modes of should they throw themselves into the sea, destroying it.-The expediency of the present restraints upon the possessors of land appears bury themselves in the earth, or secrete further to your Committee extremely problema- themselves in a rock, thither he would foltical. The game is maintained by the produce low them. of the land, and your Committee is not aware of any valid grounds for continuing to withhold from the possessors of land the enjoyment of that property which has appeared by the common law to belong to them. The present system of game laws produces the effect of encouraging its illegal and irregular destruction, by poachers, in whom an interest is thereby created to obtain a livelihood by systematic and habitual infractions of the law. hardly be necessary for your Committee to point out the mischievous influence of such a state upon the moral conduct of those who addict themselves to such practices; to them may be readily traced many of the irregularities, and most of the crimes, which are prevalent among the lower orders in agricultural districts. Your Committee hesitate to recommend, at this late period of the session, the introduction of any immediate measure upon a subject which affects a variety of interests; but they cannot abstain from expressing a sanguine expectation, that by the future adoption of some measure, founded upon the principle recognized, as your Committee conceive, by the common law, much of the evils originating in the present system of the game laws may be ultimately removed. Upon mature consideration of the premises, your Committee have come to the following Resolution: It can Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, that all game should be the property of the person upon whose lands such game should be found. National Register : FOREIGN. AFFAIRS IN AFRICA. Cape Coast Castle, April 22.-The Ashantee forces, amounting to upwards of 20,000 men, were met by the people of Adjamoucooa and Agoonah, who, after fighting bravely, were entirely routed, with the loss of many killed, and several made prisoners. The Ashantees also had many On a conference being obtained, the Captain of the Ashantee army was assured that the men he was in quest of were not in Cape Town. The Fantees made peace by paying a hundred ounces of gold. AMERICA: UNITED STATES. At New Orleans, so late as May 22, all hopes of resisting the torrent which broke through what is called the Crevasse, has been relinquished. This volume of water is represented to be 200 feet wide and 20 deep so immense a body, bursting with irresistible force, cannot, it appears, be restrained; and they must wait for the falling of the Mississippi to repair damages, and re-embank the Great River more securely. The water covers about one third of the town. The loss and inconvenience must be great to the inhabitants. The apprehension is, that when the waters shall sink to the usual level, the hot sun acting upon the inundated parts, may cause a pestilential disorder. Conflagration. It is stated in an American Paper, under the date of Easton, May the 3d, that for several days the surrounding country had been darkened by clouds of smoke, which evidently proceeded from the Blue Mountains; the bushes and trees on which had been on fire for upwards of a week. The fire, it is said, first commenced in the vicinity of Roscommon, about fourteen miles from Easton, and advanced rapidly with the wind, which blew from that quarter towards the upper parts of the mountains, extending itself over the country about twenty or thirty miles, consuming property to a considerable amount. The fire was not extinguished, but raged in some parts of the mountains with the greatest fury. It is a curious fact, that se veral hundred rabbits, those shy and harmess tenantsof the woods, ran from their perilous situation, as the fire approached them; but encountering the face of man, they retreated and perished in the flames! Extraordinary Severe Weather. BOSTON, JUNE 20.-There has been remarkable weather since June commenced; frust on eight nights, which has destroyed many of the tender vegetable tribe. Snow fell in the town on Saturday; and at Wis casset it snowed for several hours in suc cession. The occurrence is uncommon, but cannot excite any distrust of the goodness Pictures cleaned and renewed. Antwerp, July 6.-A chemist in this city has discovered a means to remove from the pictures restored by France the modern varnish, and to leave the ancient varnish, under which the painting has resumed all its pristine splendour. Increase of Suicides. Brussels, July 14.-The French Journals announce to us suicides from time to time. It would appear that profound demoralization, oblivion of religion, and of all the duties that a man owes to his family and his country, have made equally alarming strides of the God of the Harvest. in the Netherlands; for the number of suiFrom the last American papers it ap-cides that have come to the knowledge of pears that the weather still continued extraordinary cold. In June, a variety of birds, among which are the humming-bird, the marten, and the beautiful scarlet sparrow, were so benumbed as to be taken by the hand; and great numbers had actually perished with cold. Steam Boat blown up by its own machinery. A melancholy catastrophe has taken place on board a steam boat: the following are the particulars : the officers of police, for the last nine months, in six of the southern provinces alone, amounts to no less than 37. Another crime, that of sacrilege, become extremely frequent of late, leads to a similar conclusion. No fewer than fifty churches have been broken into and robbed during the same period. CHINA. Religious Persecution. NEW YORK, JUNE 17.-The whole In June last there was a persecution cartown was alarmed by the explosion; every ried on against the Roman Catholics of physician, with a number of the citizens, Sze-chuen. The Viceroy of that province went immediately to their relief. On going begins his Report by saying, that the relion board, a melancholy and really horrible gion of the West denominated the religion scene presented itself to view; six or eight of the Lord of Heaven, is a depraved or were nearly skinned from head to feet, and irregular religion, particularly injurious to others slightly scalded, making in the the manners and hearts of men. He says, whole seventeen. In stripping off their that in the 15th year (five years ago) 2,000 clothes, the skin peeled off with them to a families recanted, and since upwards of considerable depth; added to this melan-200 families. He recently apprehended 72 choly sight, the ear of the pitying specta-persons, and seized 53 books. It is, howtor was pierced by the screams and groans of the agonizing sufferers, rendering the scene horrible beyond description. ever, distinctly stated, that in the books seized there were not found any expressions that could be construed into an opposition to Government. He closes his Report by saying, that he suspects there is some European among the mountains of Sze-chuen, though he has not been able to apprehend him. His Majesty begins his reply, by noticing the blind obstinacy of men; that though their persons be involved in the net of the law, when once a notion of ascending to Heaven takes possession of the mind they are regardless of death. Inundations of Rivers. Arnheim, July 8.-The water in the Rhine contiuues to rise, and is now at 17 The two leaders who would not recant, feet. This continued increase, which also Choo-yung and Tung-gaen, are ordered to takes place on the Waal, has had the fatal be strangled immediately; 38 others, who consequences that might be expected. A also refused to recant, are ordered to be great quantity of land has been overflowed. sent to Tartary as slaves; among these are Happily we do not hear of any more cattle several women, and an old man of 80. Wobeing lost; they were, however, saved in men and old men are in many cases almost places with great difficulty, and even lowed to redeem themselves by paying a at the risk of the lives of the owners, from fine; but in this case it is directed that the rapid advance of the flood. they shall not be allowed to do so. Fur |