large population, at a great distance, composed of various races professing various religions, and many of them bigoted and fanatical in a high degree. But they rely on the justice of their cause. They disclaim both persecution and partiality. They sincerely deprecate all attempts at proselytism on the part of the Government. But they deprecate no less a line of conduct which indicates to the natives of India that their British rulers regard all religions as alike true, and are utterly indifferent, if not actually opposed, to the spread of Christianity among them. And your petitioners rely further on the fact, that the profession of neutrality has failed to secure the confidence and conciliate the esteem of the people of India. It has made many of them jealous and distrust ful, and at length has given occasion to some to rise in a fierce revolt which, if it be now at an end, has not been quelled without a vast expenditure of blood and treasure. Had the Government of India done its duty to its subjects, and to the Great King of nations, it would not have been suspected of a design to make Christians by fraud, and the Sepoy rebellion would have wanted the pretext on which it broke out. And, above all, believing that the safety of an empire lies not so much in armies and fleets as in the Divine protection, your petitioners venture to hope that the Most High, who ruleth in the kingdoms of men, will favourably regard a people who, having humbled themselves before Him for past unfaithfulness, are seeking to amend their doings, and would certainly vouchsafe to them His almighty protection. The principle of neutrality, being in itself unjustifiable, and having thus, after a long trial, been found incapable of a complete and consistent application, your petitioners therefore humbly pray Your Ho VOL. IV.-FIFTH SERIES. nourable House that it may be at once and for ever discarded; and that the Government of India may henceforth be conducted with an avowed regard to the supreme authority of the King of kings, and to the laws which He has enjoined upon mankind. Your petitioners further pray, that, as the consequence of such public and national recognition of the "one True God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent," all the people of India may be perfectly free to embrace the Christian religion if they will, without incurring any loss or disability from the action of the Government by so doing. That the holy Scriptures may not merely be accessible in the libraries of Government educational institutions, but may be freely taught (as in South Ceylon) to those who are willing to learn them, as part of their daily instruction. That the profession of Christianity may no longer be a disqualification either for civil or military service; but that, in choosing its servants, the Government may be guided solely by considerations of fitness and ability. That the support of idol-temples, with the large numbers of idle and unchaste persons attendant on them, and of Mohammedan mosques, may in future be left to the free-will offerings of those who frequent such places of worship, and not be provided from public funds, or administered by officers of the Government; and, generally, that no portion of the revenues of these establishments may be allowed to come into the Indian Treasury: your petitioners deeming all profit derived from such sources to be in the highest degree criminal and pernicious. That all such rites and publie processions, exhibitions, or other ceremonies of worship as are flagrantly opposed to the rules of common humanity or decency, may 3 B be discouraged, and as far as possible posed upon it, so that the faith prosuppressed, in future.* And generally that, in any measures affecting the future government of India which may be now brought under the consideration of Parliament, Your Honourable House will be pleased to provide effectually for the emancipation of the Christian religion from those disabilities which law or custom may have there im fessed by the Sovereign and Parliament of these realms may have free course in that most valuable and important dependency, and may eventually confer upon the millions of India the same inestimable blessings which it has conferred upon Britain. And your petitioners will ever pray. VARIETIES. SHANGHAI.-At a distance of three miles, in the grey twilight, Shanghai looks like a distant view of Woolwich. The tall spars of the " Pique" frigate, the English and American steamers of war, and a fleet of merchant-vessels, give an air of life and bustle to the waters of this noble tributary to the Yang-tseKiang. Higher up, where a turn in the river gives an inland appearance, we see a multitudinous mass of junk-masts, just as from Greenwich and Woolwich we see the spars of the ships that crowd our docks. All tells of a large commerce requiring a strong protection. In this indistinct light the "hongs' of the European settlement loom like the shipslips at Deptford or Woolwich. It is only upon a near approach that they resolve themselves into fine finished buildings, some columned like Grecian temples, some square and massive like Italian palaces, but all declaratory that the res angusta domi is a woe unknown to Englishmen in China. The English settlement at Shanghai is situate upon a bend of this river Wang Poo. Its boundaries are its fortifications. On one side the Soo-choo river, which comes down from the great city Soo-choo, (the Birmingham of China,) and falls into the Wang Poo, forms its limits. On the other side, the Yang-kang-pang canal shuts it from the settlement allotted to the French. This French allotment extends up to the walls of the Chinese city of Shanghai. The frontage upon the Wang Poo, between the Soo-choo river and the canal, is nearly a mile in length, and the settlement extends backwards about half a mile. This space is divided into squares by six roads at right angles with the river, and three parallel to it; and in these squares are the residences and godownes of the commercial houses, each in its surrounding plot of ornamented ground. In the rear of all is the Shanghai race-course. If I have succeeded in conveying to * On this subject the interests of public morals in England compel all writers to use reserve. But surely no pretence of religion can justify the parading of the grossest obscenity in the streets; nor should the dread of interference with the native worship lead us to be parties to the corruption of the numerous Europeans now resident in India, or of the still greater numbers who will assuredly be found there ere long. On the character of some processions, see Duff''s "India, and Indian Missions," p. 222, et seq. Some of these cruel exhibitions have been partially put down by local authorities without any evil result; for example, the churruck poojah, or swinging-festival. Among the public practices of a cruel character which, in the opinion of many judicious persons, might be easily put down, is that of carrying the sick to the banks of the Ganges to die. The end of many lives is thus doubtless accelerated, especially where the mud and water of the river are applied to the head and face as a religious rite. So notorious is the effect, and often the intention also, of this observance, that residents in India do not hesitate to speak of it as murder; the ghat- (that is, landingplace) murders, is a term in common use. the reader any notion of this place, he will recognise it in the present mainstay and the future hope of our trade with China. Almost yesterday the site of this handsome Anglo-Chinese city was paddyfields and cotton-grounds. In 1856, 309 British ships, of the tonnage 92,943 tons, unloaded on the quays. Imports from the whole world to the amount of £3,010,511 passed through the Custom House; and, in addition to these, opium value of £4,624,305 passed through this portal to the interior of China. Yet, notwithstanding this amount of legal and illegal imports, a further importation, £4,287,990 in hard bullion, was requisite to settle the balance of trade with Europe and America, and to pay for the enormous amount of tea and silk which China sent down to Shanghai, and Shanghai distributed to Europe, America, and Australia...... Beyond the limits of the European settlement, the rich alluvial plain on which Shanghai stands extends for twenty miles without a hillock. We must admire the fertility of the soil, and the industry of the people; but there all our gratifications must end. The roads are devious footpaths, and the courses of traffic are dikes and drains falling rapidly to ruin. When the fierceness of the sun is a little moderated, I walk about these fenny tracks, as they wind more tortuously than the footways in the marshes between Erith and Greenhithe. They all tell of better days. They are strongly paved with rough blocks of granite or of limestone, fortunately too solid to need repair. Small drains are crossed upon slabs of stone of many tons weight, and wider water-courses are crossed by bridges of stone built to last centuries. But where present or constant care is required, we see the evidences of a decrepit Government and an unsettled society. Reeds and bamboos choke the water-courses: some have become dry which were navigable five years ago. Here we come upon the site of the Imperialist camp. The canal which formed its defence in front is now a swamp. The peasant still retains his habits of industry. The land is parcelled out into little patches of cotton; and as the plant must be sown wide, the interstices are filled with beans, or by some vegetable that will find a market in Shanghai. Cotton (yellow and white) is the general crop; but it is not all cotton. There are patches of maize, purple gingals, and leguminous plants of many kinds; but the staple of the district is cotton. At present [August 7th, 1857] the plant is a low woody plant about a foot high. In another month the flowers will be out, and a fortnight later the yellow pods of which the nankeen cloth is made will form and burst, and all the population will turn out to pluck them. The old women will sit under the eaves of their cottages cleaning and winding, which, indeed, is their normal education all the year through; the able-bodied part of the family, having cleared their leguminous crop, will plough up the ground, and either prepare it for wheat, or, if the situation is favourable, will bank up the land, and let in the water to prepare for rice. The wheat is off the ground in May or June, and the cotton is again sown.-Special Correspondent of "Times." DR. KANE, THE AMERICAN TRAVELLER. To Dr. Kane the world was little more than a garden, intersected by ornamental waters. It had its wildernesses, such as Lord Bacon says are proper to gardens; but the tight-footed Pennsylvanian rambled from one zone to another, as though he had been the universal landlord. If he spent the summer months in Greenland, his winter was comforted by the sun of Sumatra; when he had interested himself in the barbarism of Sennaar, he compared it with the oldfashioned civilization of Persia. The wandering Cartaphilus was not more sudden in his flights across the globe. Before attaining the age of thirty, Kane had visited Madeira, Brazil, Ceylon, Luzon, China and its islands, Borneo, Sumatra, Persia, Nubia, Sennaar, Greece, Mexico, the West Indies, Nova-Scotia, Newfoundland, and West Greenland: he had been upon the equator in the Oriental Archipelago, and he had reached the utmost limits of geographical research in Lancaster Sound. With the sunny side of Europe he was familiar, with Spanish oil, with Portuguese wine, with German beer, with Italian palaces: he had chatted with the archers of the Tyrol he had received learned salutations in Paris: London had delighted to honour his great and intrepid exertions: in the Nile Valley he had climbed up to the chin of Memnon; in Luzon, dived into an unexplored crater, and bathed in a forbidden asphaltic lake. Yet this was no man of iron, no lithe Hercules exulting in health and physical buoyancy. At twenty-one, feeling himself doomed to a painful life, he resolved never to marry: upon entering the naval service he avowed himself subject to "chronic rheumatism and cardiac disturbance:" in Egypt he was attacked by the plague, in Africa by the : coast-fever; in Philadelphia he lay dangerously ill for weeks: wounded by a lance in Mexico, he was reported dead : next he had a visitation of lock-jaw: at sea he was smitten with paralysis, which ultimately touched his brain; and he died in January, 1857, in his thirtyseventh year. Here we have the example of a man chronically and acutely afflicted, not only bearing up under every form of suffering, but ransacking the whole earth in pursuit of his favourite designs, undertaking gigantic toils, venturing into the presence of every species of danger, aiming at nothing for himself, but dedicating a life of daring devotion to the service of humanity. His character was conspicuously free from the common vices and frailties of his age; he was generous, charitable, just to rich and poor, modest, and humane. The only accusation ever levelled against him has been satisfactorily dissipated. Such a citizen, such a memory, America does well to honour. The obsequies of Dr. Kane were like those of some mighty commander fallen on the field of victory. Populations followed the mortuary car; cities put on mourning. If ever a funeral resembled a triumph, it was that with which the republic of the United States exalted the labours and the virtues of their philanthropic traveller. Again, thirty thousand persons have subscribed to Dr. Elder's biography of Kane. -Athenæum. OUR LANGUAGE.-Dictionary language is something very different not only from common colloquial English, but even from that of ordinary written composition. Instead of about 40,000 words, there is probably no single author in the language, from whose works, however voluminous, so many as 10,000 words could be collected. Of the 40,000 words, there are certainly many more than one-half that are only employed, if they are ever employed at all, on the rarest occasions. We should any of us be surprised to find, if we counted them, with how small a number of words we manage to express all that we have to say, either with our lips, or even with the pen. Our common literary English, probably, hardly extends to 10,000 words; our common spoken English, hardly to 5,000. And the proportion of native or homegrown words is undoubtedly very much higher in both the 5,000 and the 10,000 than it is in the 40,000. Perhaps, of the 30,000 words, or thereabouts, standing in the dictionaries, that are very rarely or never used even in writing, between 20,000 and 25,000 may be of French or Latin extraction. If we assume 22,500 to be so, that will leave 5,000 Teutonic words in common use; and in our literary English, taken at 10,000 words, those that are non-Roman will thus amount to about a half. Of that half 4,000 words may be current in our spoken language, which will therefore be genuine English for four-fifths of its entire extent. It will consist of about 4,000 Gothic, and 1,000 Roman, words.-Dublin University Magazine. INSECT LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA. While waiting by the elephant, I observed a great number of insects, like grains of fine sand, moving on my boxes. On examination with a glass, four species were apparent; one of green and gold preening its wings, which glanced in the sun with metallic lustre, another clear as crystal, a third of the colour of vermilion, and a fourth black. These are probably some of those which consume the seeds of every plant that grows. Almost every kind has its own peculiar insect; and when the rains are over, very few seeds remain untouched. The rankest poisons, as the Kongwhane and Euphorbia, are soon devoured the former has a scarlet insect; and even the fiery bird's-eye pepper, which will keep off many others from their own seeds, is self devoured by a maggot. I observed here, what I had often seen before, that certain districts abound in centipedes. Here they have light reddish bodies and blue legs; great myriapedes are seen crawling everywhere. Although they do no harm, they excite in a man a feeling of loathing. Perhaps our appearance produces a similar feeling in the elephant and other large animals. Where they have been much disturbed, they certainly look upon us with great distrust, as the horrid biped that ruins their peace. In the quietest parts of the forest there is heard a faint but distinct hum, which tells of insect joy. One may see many whisking about in the clear sunshine in patches among the green glancing leaves; but there are invisible myriads working with never-tiring mandibles on leaves, and stalks, and beneath the soil. They are all brimful of enjoyment. Indeed, the universality of organic life may be called a mantle of happy existence encircling the world, and imparts the idea of its being caused by the consciousness of our benignant Father's smile on all the works of His hands.Dr. Livingstone. POETRY. THE "DIES IRE" OF THOMAS DE CELANO. VERSION BY DR. IRONS. [This version has left little to be desired; since it faithfully represents not merely the language, but also the metre, and, what is more, the rhyming triplet of the original.-North British Review, NO. LIII.] AN EVENING PRAYER. ("LYRA GERMANICA," 2D SERIES.-J. RIST, 1642.) FOR A WAKEFUL NIGHT. ("LYRA GERMANICA," 2D SERIES.-PASTOR JOSEPHSEN.) I Do not wake alone, Alone I do not sleep; Around me ever watcheth One On earth it is so dark and drear, With Him so calm and bright; The stars in solemn radiance clear Shine there through all our night. "Tis when the lights of earth are gone, The heavenly glories shine; When other comfort have I none, Thy comfort, Lord, is mine. Be still, my throbbing heart, be still, |
