512 Recollections of Lectures-Price of Labour. called the "monied interest." These lend out their money without trading; and this though it adds to the number of borrowers, does not necessarily increase the rate of interest, for the competition in lending increases also, and thus keeps it down. In the third place, as low profits in commerce lower interest, so does a reduced interest lower the profits of commerce. In Holland, all persons were in trade; for interest there being only 27. and 31. per cent. few or none could live without trade. By cheapening commodities, and increasing consumption, low profits have a tendency to increase commerce. Hence, says Mr. Hume, a low interest is the best and most universal sign of wealth. The same author remarks that the substitution of the term interest for usury, was a happy instance of the good effects of a change of words, doing away the odiousness attached at one time to the lending of money. In Elizabeth's reign, interest was at 107. per cent.; at the period of the Revolution at 6l.; and during the reign of Queen Anne it was reduced to 5. Since the time of Henry VIII. interest had been falling, from the gradual improvement and extension of commerce. Clarendon relates the rapid progress of improvement in the beginning of the reign of Charles I.; and even the rebellion that succeeded, though for awhile injurious to both king and people, by drawing the orders of society closer together, tended eventually to add, as Mr. Chalmers says, to the fund of national wealth. Towards the end of King William's reign interest fell, and continued low. In George the First's reign it fell to 41. and has since that time been as low as 31. per cent.-During all this fall of interest the wages of labour have risen. In France the fluctuations of interest have been more variable than here, from the arbitrary interference of the government. In 1720 it fell from 57. to 21. per cent., and in 1766 it was again raised to 5. This lower rate of interest shews trade to be more profitable in France; and many English have been induced to settle there, though iu that country trade was so little respected. The wages of labour, however, continued low, and therefore the poor of that country were more miserable than those of England. In the West India colonies, also, interest has gradually fallen, as commerce and money became more abundant. High wages for labour, and high profits [Jan. 1, in stock, occur together only in new colonies, where capital increases faster than labourers can be found to work it; but whatever the profits of stock may be, the demand for labour continues and hence we see that in those colonies, although the profits of stock have diminished, the wages of labour have kept up. In the East Indies wages are low, and interest high. Sometimes money is lent to farmers at 401., 50l, or 60l. per cent. and their crop mortgaged to pay it: so that the labourer gets little or nothing for himself: hence the rapidity with which riches are accumulated in that country, and the wretchedness of the labouring classes of the community.Where the law either prohibits interest altogether, or does not cuforce a legal payment of it, usurious transactions necessarily arise. The ordinary market-price of land is regulated by that of interest, and the market-rent of land may be always expected to fall short of the market interest of money. If money did not procure a higher interest than land, all would be tempted to purchase the latter from the greater security it affords. When interest was at 10l. per cent, land sold at ten and twelve years' purchase: as interest has fallen, land has risen in value. The value of land must vary often from local circumstances. Thus persons who acquire money in trade, not by impoverishing their neighbours, but by drawing it by the profits of their labour from a distance, often wish to get land in the vicinity of their manufacture, and thus increase the number of buyers.The extravagance, and consequent poverty of landholders, leads also to the sale of land, and at the same time cheapens it. Mr. Locke observes, that estates are seldom sold without being previously mortgaged. As to the question of policy, how far the legislator should interfere in the regulation of interest, will be spoken of hereafter. LA SCALE for REGULATING the PRICE of La IT has long occupied my mind, that few measures would promote more general happiness throughout the kingdom, than adopting some scale by which to regulate the price of labour. Let me not be supposed to wish to oppress the poor, or to see them working hard for a bare subsistence; on the contrary, I feel de lighted to see them comfortable, indus 1815.] Davy's Agricultural Chemistry-Small-Pox Hospital. trious and independent. This is my wish I desire to befriend the labourer and the farmer also, and I think I cannot do this more effectually than by submitting the following proposal to your readers, some of whom may perhaps take the matter in hand. To proportion the price of labour to the price of provisions has always been the most difficult task; and which, indeed, with justice to ourselves, we farmers never yet have been able to accomplish. For, having once raised the price of labour we have invariably found that here it must remain; we have not had the power to reduce it again, though provisions may have fallen to their old standard. Feeling the ill effects, I have long turned my thoughts to this point, and imagine that if the price of labour were regulated by the price of bread in the following manner it would entirely remove the difficulty, viz. making the price of the half-peck loaf the price of a man's labour by the day. Every village should be regulated from week to week by that market town which the justices for the hundred should appoint. We then should have a regular standard to go by, and should never object to raise our labourers' wages in the time of scarcity, knowing that we could reduce them again. The labourer would always have it in his power to earn enough to support him in the worst of times; and we have the pleasure to see an abundant harvest once more operate in lowering the price of every thing else. But now it has not that effect, as we most sensibly feel at the present moment, when wheat is low, yet labour, meat, and every thing else, keep up their price. Should it continue so, it will be more to our advantage to have a middling than an abundant crop. We must sow less for fear of bringing down its price. A FARMER. 513 fore, be adding much to the favour, if HODGE. On the SMALL-POX HOSPITAL. MY acknowledgments are due to the I BEG leave by your assistance to remark, that an abridgment of Sir Humphry Davy's Agricultural Chemistry of the price of seven or eight shillings would be very useful to farmers like myself, who have neither time nor patience to read the whole of the present lectures. In fact, it is to us all time thrown away; for scratch our heads as long as we will after reading one of them, we cannot understand one half! It would, there NEW MONTHLY MAG.--No. 12. VOL. II. 3 Y 514 Original Letter of Dr. Paley-Singular Epitaph. [Jan. 1, determined was simply whether the building should remain as it now is, or be made an infirmary on a large scale. But this is not the case; for though such a charity is very desirable in that neighbourhood, there are other uses to which the present structure might be well appropriated, so as to take off from the capital of the British empire the disgrace of retaining a hospital having the name of the small-pox. While such an establishment is suffered to continue with that designation, it is in vain to look for the extermination of the malady, though Providence has graciously put the means of eradicating it into our hands. None of your readers can be ignorant that the practice of variolous inoculation is still prosecuted with great activity, and in the immediate vicinity of the small-pox hospital. At the very time I am now writing there are many cases around me of the very worst kind, and such as would not have happened had not the apothecaries been restrained by a dread of the law or a sense of duty. It would, I am persuaded, be no more than justice to hold up the names of these men for public reprobation, but at present they shall be left to settle it with their conscience, whether he who professionally communicates a disease that may prove mortal, when he has it in his power to counteract the infection by an effectual preventive, can morally be acquitted of the crime of culpable homicide? Νου. 10, 1814. A PANCRATIAN. (Copy.) SIR,-You inquire what is the purport of Ch. I. B. 3. of my Moral Philosophy. It is expressed in the first sentence of the chapter which follows it, viz. “There must be some very important advantages to account for an institution in one view of it so paradoxical and unnatural." What is said in the preceding chapter is for the purpose of introducing this ob servation. If you read the two chapters together, or, if you please, consider them as one, I think you will perceive how the first bears upon the second, and both upon the subject of the book. I am obliged to you for the favourable opinion you entertain of my worth and public principles, and am, Sir, your obe dient servant, W. PALEY. It must be regretted as a singular misfortune, that the publication of the me moir of this eminent man by Mr. Meadley, led to the abandonment of the late Bishop of Elphin's intended life of his illustrious friend. V. M. H SINGULAR EPITAPH. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. SIR, IN passing through France the other ORIGINAL LETTER of DR. PALEY on his day, I met with a curious epitaph, which, "MORAL PHILOSOPHY." To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine, SIR, MANY of readers will probably your remember that, when the late Archdeacon Paley first published his celebrated work on Moral Philosophy, a considerable agitation was excited in the political world by the subject of the Chapter on Property.* The following letter from the author himself, in illustration of the particular scope of this very argument, which caused so clamorous an outcry against this intrepid champion of liberal sentiment, will shew how little foundation there existed for the perverted use which was at the time made of his supposed doctrine. The letter which I subjoin for the perusal of your readers, clearly * See Mor, and Pol. Phil. vol. i, Look iii. chap. i. having translated, I have submited to your inspection. An Epitaph on å Tomb at Arlington, near Paris. Here lie Two grandmothers, with their two grand daughters; Two husbands, with their two wives; Two fathers, with their two daughters; Two mothers, with their two sons; Two maidens, with their two mothers; Two sisters, with their two brothers; Yet but six corpses in all lie buried here: All born legitimate, from incest clear. Nov. 1814. WHIMSICOLOS For the New Monthly Magazine. NATURAL HISTORY of the COMMON LEL By the REV. W. BINGLEY. (Concluded from p. 412.) Professor Bradley attempted, in earthen pans, to breed and keep young 1815.] Rev. Mr. Bingley on the Natural History of the Eel. fish; amongst many others, he procured some eels which were not thicker than a coarse thread. For six months they were always immersed in the mud or earth at the bottom of the pans, having only a small hole open where their mouths were. Various other kinds of fish were at first kept in the same vessels; Mr. Bradley has often seen them seize a fish as it passed by them, and, he says, if he had not removed several which he had put into other pans, he should soon have lost them all. There is at present not much known respecting the growth of fish. Numerous attempts to rear them in close vessels under immediate inspection have been made, but none of these have been attended with the desired success, since, in this confined state, and deprived of their natural food, their developement must necessarily be much slower than in the open waters. There cannot be a stronger illustration of this circumstance than that which was afforded by the eels that were kept by M. Septfontaines. In the month of June, 1779, he procured sixty eels, each about seven inches in length, which he put into a large reservoir. At the end of more than four years, namely, in September, 1783, they had only increased to the length of about seventeen inches. In October, 1786, they measured about twenty inches, and lastly, in July, 1788, after a confinement of upwards of nine years, not more than about twenty-one inches. Much has at different times been said respecting the enormous size that eels have attained. But I am inclined to suspect that, at least, in some of the instances, the conger has been mistaken for the common eel. In the river Ban, in Ireland, where there is an eel fishery so considerable as to let for 10001. ayear: it is, indeed, well known that the common eels do arrive sometimes at a weight of betwixt fifteen and twenty pounds. But the eel said to have been caught near Crick sea, in Essex, the length of which was five feet eight inches; that in the Maldon Channel, about half a mile below the town, which was seven feet in length; and that taken on the Norfolk coast, which weighed betwixt fifty and sixty pounds, have certainly been congers. The hybernation, or winter retirement of eels, is not a little curious. I am credibly informed that they do not merely sink themselves deep into the mud, but that they oftentimes make their way to the distance even of three 515 or four yards under the bank of the river or ditch which they frequent. In such situations they have been dug out in immense numbers, coiled together in one great mass. An instance of this took place near Waltham, some years ago, in which there was as many discovered as would have filled a bushel. Eels are proverbially tenacious of life. It is considered so difficult to kill them, that many persons have the cruelty to skin them alive rather than take the trouble even of attempting first to ren der them devoid of feeling. Perhaps the easiest and most efficacious method of doing this is to divide the vertebræ behind the head by means of a penknife, The natural duration of the life of eels has not yet been ascertained. Some persons have supposed them to be very long lived, whilst others do not believe that they usually outlive the term of from five to eight years. The enormous size to which some individuals have grown would, however, seem to militate against the latter opinion. These fish are usually considered in highest perfection for the table from the commencement of Spring till about the end of July: yet they continue good till the end of September or beginning of October. The skins of eels in some parts of the continent are made into a kind of ropes, which have great strength, and considerable durability. In some districts of Tartary they are used to supply the place of glass in windows. The inhabitants of the Orknies wear them as a remedy for the cramp. In many countries of the north of Europe the scales of eels, which are extremely minute, are mixed with cement for the purpose of giving a silvery lustre to the houses. With respect to its interior conformation, we find that the abdominal cavity of the eel is narrow. The heart is somewhat four-cornered. The liver, which consists of two long and unequal lobes, is of a pale red colour; and the gall bladder is large. The spleen is triangular, and the air-bladder simple. The intestinal canal is short, and without either sinuosities or appendices. The backbone contains one hundred and six teen vertebræ. On NOISE in the HEAD, I BEG leave to inform your corre spondent G.W. that I was a considerable sufferer frem the complaint he mentions; 516 Noise in the Head-Marriages of Minors. and, during my residence at Wells, in Somersetshire, I applied to Mr. Bernard, an eminent surgeon at the adjacent village of Wookey, from whom I received much benefit, and should no doubt have experienced a complete cure, had I not left Wells sooner than I intended. That gentleman was of opinion, that noise in the ear might proceed either from a nervous affection, or from the tympanum of the ear being perforated-the air, rushing through the aperture, causing the hissing noise. If G. W. is a military or naval man, the perforation might be the effect of his being close to cannon during a heavy discharge, or of some sudden and loud noise. As the complaint is very annoying, I would advise him to write to Mr. Bernard, detailing all the particulars he can, when I have no doubt he will receive such advice as will procure relief, if in the power of medical abilities, which, from experience, I judge will be the case. I am, &c. Southampton, Nov. 8, 1814. T. Q. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. SIR, IN your last, a correspondent, who signs G. W., wishes for a remedy for a noise in the head; but his having had medical advice, leaves me poor encouragement to expect to succeed after that bas failed. I should feel pleasure in affording G. W. even a partial relief, and the simple means I would advise I think he will readily adopt; it is one of my little domestic recipes, which I have often known to cure; and if he derives benefit I wish him to inform me, as I may hit upon some other means. Take some cotton wool, and press it firmly into the ears, not to oppress the part, but so effectually to stop the aperture as to produce a degree of deafness: let it remain in for a week or ten days, and if the noise is diminished or cured, take the cotton out, and put some fresh in, pressed lighter than the former; and so continue to diminish the pressure, until he will be enabled to cease the applica tion, and be perfectly relieved. Clapham, Nov. 18, 1814. J. T. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. SUFFER me, through the medium of your very useful miscellany, to thank your obliging correspondent H. M. for his prompt and friendly reply to my letter; and also to inform him that the patient has lost by cupping about six [Jan. 1, ounces of blood, which was of a good colour, but thick, and obtained with much difficulty. This operation produced on the same day no sensible alte ration, but on the next a small degree of giddiness was felt, attended with nau sea, which induced abstinence from food. This nausea, however, was soon overcome by taking gruel and beef-tea, and the stomach restored to its former tone. A week after this recourse was had to a blister behind the ear, the painful effects of which awoke the patient about three o'clock in the morning. The noise or singing was much increased, the sight affected, vertigo ensued, which produced sickness and vomiting. This indisposi tion of the stomach was soon removed, without medical aid, by the use of gruel, &c. Since that time the patient has enjoyed good health, but is at this moment recovering from a slight paroxysm of the gout, which was preceded by a swelling of the feet and legs. The pain is now subsided, and the feet restored to their wonted size; but the noise of which he complains remains the same. It was hoped that this attack of the gout would have removed the complaint in the head, but it has not. This attack of the gout, in the present instance, is the more remarkable, as the patient in all his habits is very temperate-drinks very seldom, either wine or spirits-and uses much exercise in walking every day. This is the second attack he has had of the gout. The patient has, during a long life, enjoyed uncommonly good health; hardly ever experiencing any other indisposition than that produced by cos tiveness. Should your good correspondent H. M. see this, I beg be will accept of my thanks for his friendly information; and should be, or any other of your readers, indulge me with any further commu cations on the subject, they will be thankfully received by yours, &c. Dec. 8, 1814. G. W. MARRIAGES of MINORS. YOUR correspondent HUMANITAS (in p. 423 of your number for December) states the case of an unfortunate woman, whose husband has deserted her, and threatens to set aside their marriage because he was under age at the time. Had they been married by licence, with out the consent of parents, the objec tion would have been insurmountable under the marriage act, 26 Geo. II. c.53; |