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1814.]

Account of the American Steam Boats.

North River, Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence, making such communication perfectly easy; and, indeed, the only deficiency at the commencement of hostilities, was the imperfect state of the boat on the St. Lawrence, and that only affected one line, the communication between the other two places being regular in the season; viz. when the waters were not frozen.

Why they should be called boats, I cannot surmise; the Paragon, the last one launched at New York, just before war was declared, is the length of a firstrate man-of-war; and although not wide in proportion, still the deck is very spacious. I cannot recollect the precise dimensions, but as two tables can be laid on it for the accommodation of upwards of200 persons, with sufficient room for the attendants, &c. some idea of it may be formed. Below these are four cabins, two before and two behind the steam-engine, which, with the kitchen, occupies the centre. The after-cabins are very elegantly fitted up, with beds, &c. The distance from New York to Albany is about 160 miles: the boats which leave New York at five P.M. on Saturday, almost to a certainty reach Albany by twelve on Sunday night. The fare is seven dollars, for which tea

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and supper are found on Saturday evening, and next day breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, that is, exclusive of liquors; and every thing is in profusion and of good quality; so that an American steam-boat is in fact a moving hotel of the very first class, in which families may be conveyed hundreds of miles, at a moderate expence, without trouble, fatigue, or danger. In this country, however, our rivers are not of that character or magnitude to admit of their establishment to the same extent, nor are they so necessary.

There is, by the bye, a species of ferry steam-boat, or rather floatingbridge, lately constructed at New York, and which runs between that city and the Jersey shore, likely to be of more practical use in this country, in such situations, for instance, as between Tilbury Fort and Gravesend; or wherever a common floating-bridge would interfere with the navigation. I sub.. join a sketch from memory of the one at New York, and, with a description, it may convey to your readers some idea of the most commodious method of crossing a wide river like the Hudson; the distance across the ferry being a mile and a quarter, which is got over in fifteen or twenty minutes.

This bridge is a large platform laid on two boats, attached together side by side, yet so as to admit the single wheel, which moves the whole, to work between them; and the machinery is completely inclosed in a wooden building in the centre of this platform, so that the pas sengers, cattle, carriages, &c. are accommodated on the railed gallery all round it. A troop of mounted cavalry, or 500 foot passengers, at one time has crossed on this bridge; and I saw my self between 70 and 80 head of cattle drove into it, and they did not occupy Que side, and scarcely gave it a heel.

On each side the river there is a wharf, so constructed as to receive and break the concussion of this immense body; and to prevent the necessity of its turning, it is furnished with a moveable rudder at each end. It is considered so safe, that people seldom get out of their carriages; and the uncommon advantage resulting from this improvement was so evident and eminently acknow ledged, that it was in contemplation immediately, that is, eighteen months ago, to construct similar conveyances between New York and Long Island, across what is called the East river, and E 2

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ERMIT me to intrude on the atten

Ption of your readers the very solemn subject of war; and to submit to their consideration whether a Christian can be a soldier, or whether war can be defended on Christian principles.

The following texts taken from the Bible seem to condemn war, viz. "Thou shalt not kill.-No killer hath eternal life abiding in him.From whence come wars and fightings tuong you; come they not from your lusts?-Resist not evil.See that none render evil for evil to any. -Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.-Some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just.-Avenge not yourselves, but give place unto wrath.Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.-Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. -Christ suffered, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps." And killing stands high in the N. T. lists of the most heinous sins.

I might produce other texts of the same kind, more striking than many of the above; but these, if not to be controverted, are sufficient to appal a soldier whose conscience respects the word of God.

OMICRON.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

J

SIR,

OUHAUD has published recently a Description of Paris in the nineteenth century. Among other things, he consecrates an entire chapter to hired carriages, and notices the great increase of onehorse hacks. Cabriolets, shut up like our post-chaises, with glass-windows, mounted on two wheels, drawn by one horse, and attended by a boy, who drives on a stool attached to the shaft, stand in every street within call, and are preferred to four-wheel carriages, because they carry one or two passengers cheaper and quicker, either by the hour or by the distance. Surely this establishment might deserve imitation in Loudon. Y.

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1814.] Caledonian Canal.-Pestilence from Embankments.

a ship of war through it; if so, what is its use, and why throw away so great a sun of money as that which I have been told it has cost, on that which will never be of any essential service to the proposed end? The Cyclopedia of Dr. Rees says, that above 558,000l. will have been already expended upon it up to May 1812. This part of the kingdom would be much more suitable for such an undertaking by government, and more likely to pay some interest, than through by Fort William and Augustus; as this country, or rather the line through which it would run, is full of coal, lime, lead, iron, stone, &c. &c. and unquestionably the shortest voyage for the Irish ships to the Baltic, as well as those from Liverpool.

ހ

Newcastle, Nov. 1, 1813.

G. S.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

Si R,

TH

HE chief amusement of my life is travelling; and, like many other British travellers, I set out to explore foreign countries, ere I had made myself properly acquainted with my own. The result of this proceeding, however, was, that I saw and examined, among other things, the various regions of the Continent infected by Malaria; and anxious to trace the cause of a pest which depopulated, according to Pliny, three and thirty cities on the Poutine marshes, I threw together a few hasty observations, which I am induced to publish in your excellent Magazine; because, since my return to England, I have observed, on travelling through its various counties, the rage for making embankments daily increase.

It certainly is natural, nay even commendable, in times like the present, that every father of a family should wish to augment the number of his acres: but embankments cannot prove advantageous to their owners, unless the newly-gained ground be made healthy. Every person who considers the subject, must admit that decaying organized matter contained within new embankments, (especially those which border on the sea) becomes putrid when rain rapidly succeeds a hot summer, so that not only the recently enclosed ground, but all the neighbourbood, must, unless proper precautions taken, become unwholesome. Exhala tions from swamps and marshes are known to produce miasmata, even in the eastern and northern parts of England. What, therefore, must be their effect in the western counties? Near Exmouth,

be

20

for instance, (a peculiarly warm spot) there has recently been made an extensive embankment; the exhalations from which are likely to infect, not only the town itself, but every vale in the vicinity. Indeed miasmata will occasionally rise high enough to reach elevated situations; this has sometimes been the case at Corinth: and all places thus infected, if we may credit Galen, are visited during the latter part of summer, and till the au tumnal rains have fallen, with phthisical complaints, agues, intermitting ferers, jaundice, and dropsy.

The antidotes to malaria are, however, easily obtained, and, generally speaking effectual. They consist of lime-kilns and windmills, within the precincts of newlymade embankments, plantations of bay and lime-trees, active cultivation, and, above all, capacious drains, the beds of which should be continually cleansed, by the admission of running water.

Precautions like these, according to Livy, made the Pontine marshes the gra nary of Latium, in the early ages of the republic: but it should be remembered that the Emissarii, or great drains of the Romans, were so conducted as to ensure a constant and plentiful current of water flowing through them: indeed, the Cloaca Maxima at Rome is said to have been washed by three streams resembling rivers.

If these observations, founded on the experience of ages, should prove benefi cial to the owners of newly made embankments, and to the persons who reside in their neighbourhood, a great pleasure will be added to those I have already experienced from being Devon, Jan. 1.

A TRAVELLER.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

I

SIR.

REQUEST you will insert, for the benefit of the public, a mode, which I have long practised, of procuring plenty of new-laid eggs at Christmas.

Let the lens be put upon eggs as early in the year as possible, not later than March. A hutch should be made for the hen and chickens, 24 inches long, 12

*Herodian Informs us that Commodus retired to Laurentium during the plague. as the sea-air, perfamed by the odour of bay-trees, was considered as an antidote to malaria. Herodian, lib. i. 96.

The Romans are said to have thought the neighbourhood of lime-trees so conducive to health, that, to increase the rapidity of their growth, they frequently nourished the roots of these trees with wine.

inches wide, and 18 high, divided in the middle, so that half may be open and half very close; let down a door to keep them very warn in the night, and when it is rainy, or very cold; if made light, it may easily be put under shelter.

The chickens are to be fed with plenty of boiled eggs for 12 or 14 days; if too much relaxed, eggs are at all times a speedy cure. Chickens hatched early will be nearly as large as the hen by Midsummer, and in November and December will always lay plenty of eggs, and will want to sit upon eggs very early the Dext spring; this will produce an early breed of poultry. The best fowls for laying are not very large, and the white ones do not lay so well in cold weather.

Poultry should roost very warm in winter, and in summer the house should have air, and be cleaned every week. Many die through drinking dirty water. An earthenware fountain keeps the water clean, and preserves their health in hot weather. After three years hens cast their feathers later and later every year, and are hardly in full feather until December or January; seldom lay eggs until March or April; and then only 20 or 30 in the season.

By the above method 6 hens will lay more eggs than 12 in the usual way. Feb. 12, 1813. J. S.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIP,

NFIDELS have complained that the Christian religion, by exciting exces sive alarms about the future condition of the soul, drives men into dispiritude: and progressively occasions seriousness, low. spirits, hypochondriasis, and insanity. To resist these tendencies men have recourse to strong drinks, and stimulant drugs; and thus bring on themselves intempe rate and expensive habits. It would be well to find, in the christian canon, an adequate preservative against indulgences so pernicious; and, in our improved versions, to render pagpasa, not by the word sorcery, (Galatians, v. 20,) which it ill represents, but by the word dramdrinking, or tobacco-smoaking. Although distilled spirits and American leaves were yet unknown, there were poison-mixers,

denominate sorcery and witchcraft are not described by the word paguánɛa. Ic might be rendered quackery. R.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

Ν

SIR,

TN number 229, page 223, I endea

voured to shew that Mr. Bennett was in an error when he asserted that the Asiatic sabres were superior to the European, especially in the tempering of the blade; I instanced one particular artist, even in the highlands of Scotland, who appeared to me to be a positive proof to the contrary, not to be controverted. It is well known that the highlandmen are to this day good swordsmen. And there can be no doubt that they would. keep that valuable art alive among them from one generation to another; I mean the tempering of the sword blades, which gained them so much renown in former ages.

But after all that can be said about that instrument, which exclusively be longs to even-handed justice, what are our swords and sabres of the present day but as mere skewers, or Lang-kail-gullies, when compared with those of our Henrys, and our Edwards; of William Wallace, and of Robert Bruce? some of which are to this day still exhibited in old towers and castles as objects of great curiosity.

Having occasion to be in the country, a considerable distance from London, some little time ago, my curiosity led me to visit some of the old castles, where, among other things, the swords of Edward, of Wallace, and of Bruce, were shown to the inquisitive stranger as some of the rarities and antiquities of the place. And I observed that although they had not been used for so many ages, yet the rust had made no inroads into their well-tempered blades. The iron hilts or handles were indeed much decayed, and nearly perished. Is it probable that the best tem. pered modern sword-blades, or even Mr. Bennett's favourite Asiatic sabres, will endure for so many hundred years, as those of our ancestors, without corroding? CRISPIN.

Fleet-street.

SIR,

T has often occurred to me in the

Ireading of your valuable Magazine,

as they were called, in all the great cities, To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. who sold various intoxicating drugs and drink, analogous to our West Indian tobacco and rum. It is this abuse of intoxicating drugs, of opiates, of philtres, and aphrodisiacs, against which the apostle here inveighs. The practices which we

wherein all new works are announced, that I have never once seen any pro spectus given out for the publication, in

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1814.] Early Histories-Provincial Dialects. Parsonage-Houses. 31.

but we

an English dress, of our old original historians, as Mathew Paris, William of Malmesbury, the Decem Scriptores, &c. are tantalised with quotations from them, that make us the more desirous to see the whole of the original, which most certainly would find a ready sale; not perhaps if they are printed in the extravagant manner of Hollingshead, Froissart, and some other late reprints, with one half of the book margin, and paper of the thickness of pasteboard. Newcastle, Dec. 10, 1813.

G. A. N.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

I
T would be a pleasing and useful
feature of your inimitable miscellany,
if your correspondents in different coun-
ties, were to send you a list of provin-
cialisms, and peculiarities of pronuncia-
tion and dialect; and I shall set them
an example, by sending for insertion, at
your convenience, the following parti-
culars of the dialect of the border coun-
ties immediately north of the Tweed.

The most marked peculiarity in the dialect of Berwickshire is in the pronunciation of the ch, which is usually softened into sh, as a shire for a chair. Yet the sound of sh is sometimes hardened by the prefixion of a t, as tshop for shop; and tchaise for chaise. It singularly happens that the Northumberland bur, or parler gras, never in the least overleaps the boundary between Scotland and England, and consequently has not the smallest existence in Berwickshire.

called respectively rig and fur; and an oblique furrow for carrying off surface water is a gaw fur. A horse collar is a brecham; a back-band is a rig-woody; horse trees for ploughs and harrows, swingle trees. Oats are uits, or yits; barley usually bear; big is rough bear; peas piz. A set of farm buldings is called a stead, or steading; the strawyard is the courtin; and sheds are named hemmels. The cow-house is called byre; and the farm house is often named the ha, or hall. OBSERVATOR,

Kelso, Sept. 10, 1813.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

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Bristol
Canterbury
Carlisle
Chester
Chichester
St. David's

Gloucester
Hereford
Landaff.

A few common terms of the ordinary Durham provincial dialect may amuse. In male Ely sheep, the ram is called tup; and tup Exeter Jamb, wether lamb, wether hog, and dinmont, express the different ages. In female sheep, the ewe lamb, ewe hog, gimmer, and ewe, express their different ages. Of black cattle, a young ox and heifer are usually named steer and stirk; the latter is often called a quay or quey. A young gelding is often called a staig, and a stallion is sometimes called a cussor, probably corrupted from courser, or war horse.

Formerly, in speaking to their horses, carters employed hap and wind in order ing them to either side, now mostly highwo and jee; and in calling to stop used the incommunicable sound of prroo, now , or woy. In calling a cow to be milked, hove, hove, often repeated, is the ordinary expression; anciently in the Lothians this was prrutchy, and prrutchy lady.

A ridge or land, and the furrow, are

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York

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