Dr. Frigid.-I think it is an epidemic confined to damp, chill, unwholesome sites near rivers. Dr. Sombre.-I think it is, as I have before observed, not only contagious but capable of being carried in the south-east wind all round the globe and back again. Enter Dr. Sage from behind a screen. Dr. Sage." Well, Gentlemen, you have left no room for me to start a new opinion on this disease: climate has modified it here, under Divine Providence, and it seems to diminish fast amongst us, so that, as Spring comes on, I trust few cases will be left. That can never be a disease very fatal that takes off so few among the mass of the population; the Plague in 1665 took 50,000 from 500,000:—fear then is groundless. I see the deaths in London are less since cholera has been here than in the corresponding months of the last year. Fearful as the disorder is to the individual-terrible as it is to nature where it occurs, in a national sense I trust it will not prove of moment. Consumption alone kills five or six hundred within the bills of mortality, while the cholera takes off three or four hundred between seven or eight hundred only have, in the same time, had the disease; of consumption, it is probable, all attacked have died. In the North, out of a range of scattered population exposed to the disease, of two millions and upwards, about 6100 have been attacked, and 1892 died, in six months. Now one in forty is the average perhaps of deaths in the usual course of nature in a year, and in that time would have been 25,000. Among the concentrated population of London the yearly bills of mortality are 26,000 and upwards, and many parishes are out of their limits: in a million and a half of people, in eight or nine weeks we have had only five hundred deaths,-many of them not from cholera at all, though so put down. Let us thank God, and not ourselves, or Mr. Perceval, who recommends starvation where we recommend good living. In this disease you are all right and all wrong, as the constitution of the patient, or the peculiar circumstances of the individual case, may chance to be. We can only aid nature—we cannot cure disease: all your differing modes may be good in differing cases. As to contagion, or noncontagion, I cannot solve that question so easily; one thing, I believe, that it does not affect our conduct in the pursuit of our duty. Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinions of Simeon Sage, M.D."- -(So saying, the doctor walked off, leaving his brethren in mute admiration of his good sense and eloquence, so much of which had not been heard in the college before from the day of its foundation.) Dear Simpkin, No. XIII. Riddle Hall, February 1, 1831. Dick Gosling, my gardener, is turned out a poet. He was detected a day or two since in the green-house in a fit of extraordinary abstraction. He had evidently been writing on a slate placed upon a flower-pot, his eye in "a fine frenzy rolling," when little Emma entered, and said, "Dick Gosling -Dick Gosling!" The poor fellow stirred not, and seemed speechless. The poor child, alarmed, ran out of the house, and calling her brother; they ventured in again together. They found he had come to himself, and brought in the slate, from which I copied the following verses, inscribed to the Horticultural Society. The Latin motto I added. I first thought of sending it to Mr. Southey for his next volume of Uneducated Poets; but then I reflected that delays are dangerous, and that this extraordinary genius might pine away and be lost to the world if suffered to bloom too long unseen. I pray you mark the apposite and felicitous metaphors so connected with simple passion which appear in every stanza. Poets are indeed born, not begotten; I mean not made. In my view this is a wonderful production-but first we will have it:— THE LOVE-SICK GARDENER. HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. Hei mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis.-OVID. ALAS! alas! it is a lass that works me lasting woe, And does the seeds of mischief in my harrow'd bosom sow; Where they grow up to loathsome weeds, that rankle round my heart, To choke the little lily joys that would unseen up-start To choke the little lily joys that else would gladly rise, And peep at those bright sun-flowers-the cruel fair one's eyes! My Mary, my sweet Rose-Mary, my little Mary-gold, For my love-apples wormwood gives, and on my warmth looks cold: All, all is cloud and shade beneath the cypress of her frown, And the world is one huge watering-pot, my tender hopes to drown!— 66 When I her haughty culture try, and seek return in kind, She scorns my suit, and says she is no Marigold for me- She offers me her hand-so sweet as if 'twere rubb'd with balm! No! like her fickle promises, 'tis only to be shaken! Her lips, twin cherries, bloom and pout, but will no touch abide ; Her face is Venus' looking-glass," but her heart is "London Pride." Oh! she the in-carnation is of outward charms all met; The fairest rose, but ah! with thorns most guardedly beset— The fairest rose, the richest mint that ever yet was seen Mint? Ob if she had been but mine, what a mine she would have been! My heart's-ease" cannot ease my heart, nor "thyme" my time help slay; My hopes, like young buds, take their leaves-but take them quite away While I, amid my garden-pots, "stand pottering about" In a seedy coat, and beard untrimm'd, and hat its crown without; "ho!" "All Aloes Day" for me draws near-the bitter time is nigh! I hem in throat, and lock my arms-and soon (so horror says) Those fate-fraught words shall link in one, and "hem-lock" end my days! D. G. You see there is a vast deal of wit-easy, natural, flowing wit, in this poem. Let me hear your opinion, and whether we should not get a volume out of him and publish. Pray send this specimen to the Metropolitan, or to Blackwood, that we may hear what is thought of it by the public. Miss Sheridan and Mr. Hood have at length met their match in a natural genius. For my own part I think it prodigious. I now enclose you a second specimen, somewhat satirical, but exhibiting the versatility of his talents. He subscribes “Robin Hood"-Quite a child of nature, you see, in his ideas! TO MISS PUFF. O COME, Miss Puff, if thee I thus may call, To my prayer than zephyr ; (I'm sure thou'rt more congenial to my soul ;) For thou canst vanquish e'en the critic's howl. Thou Burlington-Street maid of ready sale, Who'd dare to "blow me up; " I do not like And if I get a blow, O be it a "blow out!" Miss Puff, be as thou 'rt wont,—all spicy, juicy; When I reach port, in something beyond porter- If thou my voyage make swift, my passage shorter And when my tankard by thy help is made Of plate instead of pewter Which my muse thinks doth not exactly suit her, O be propitious! then to thee I'll rear A wonder, not on its "hind legs," howe'er, Macassar's, Colburn's, Eady's, "Puffin Island!” Is there not genius here? the personification so exquisite, the metaphor-tropicality of the thing so well kept up! Ever, my dear Simpkin, yours most sincerely, G. ST. GEORGE. BANKRUPTCY LAWS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE METROPOLITAN. SIR,-In addressing you on the above subject, it is not my intention to say one word respecting the lately passed Bankruptcy Act, except that whatever its perfections or imperfections may beits destiny is to act a post-mortem part, or after acts of bankruptcy have been committed. What I intend is to show that there is a possibility of bankruptcies being prevented' ab initio by legislative measures, which would not at all interfere with the existence of the present Act. My plan, which embraces two propositions, has for its objects the giving greater security to the credit-giver, and the placing upon a firm footing Confidence and Credit-two most essential requisites to the successful pursuit of commerce. The first proposition is to abolish arrest for debt altogether, which I hope to be able to prove to be not only good in policy, but that it also accords with strict justice. Incarceration is a punishment and a disgrace: it is so considered in all the different relations of society; and it is measured out to criminals of every description as a punishment. If misfortunes, arising from occurrences that are totally out of his power to controul, place an unfortunate individual in a situation so as not to be able to pay his debts, he cannot be said to be in the situation of a person who has intentionally violated the law and become a criminal, and therefore to be punished. he A person may be willing, but unable, to pay his debts, or may be both willing and able to pay, and yet resist the payment upon just and reasonable, or supposed just and reasonable, grounds. surely under such circumstances a person cannot be said to deserve punishment. According to the maxims of all sound, but particularly of English law, every individual is considered innocent until found guilty, and consequently no one ought to be punished until he is proved to deserve it. A criminal is first tried before he is punished; but an unfortunate debtor, who is no criminal, is sent to prison, not only without a trial, but at the will and caprice of any one, be he a creditor or not. A person accused of some unlawful act has the opportunity afforded him of clearing himself within twenty-four hours, and, if successful, is immediately liberated; not so the already miserable debtor, he must go to prison, or find bail, which is as bad, whether he owes the debt or not, or whether he is able to pay or not. Therefore upon maxims of law and justice alone, independently of other reasons, a man ought not to be incarcerated for debt, unless it has been proved that he has obtained credit under such pretences that the credit-giver, although he may have used all that caution which a man ought to use, was notwithstanding deceived by them. It is one of the many anomalies of English law, that a man getting into debt with the most barefaced fraudulent intention, if he 'If not prevented altogether, their number might be greatly diminished. has but ingenuity enough, escapes that punishment which the unfortunate but honest-intentioned debtor undergoes. It may not be out of place to stop here for a moment and to ask, What is the end in view of arresting a debtor? Is it to recover a creditor's claim? Why! it is seldom that creditors in general succeed by such a step- I am not referring to isolated cases. Is it to serve as a warning to others? It has not diminished credit and credit-taking; on the contrary, the number of arrests multiply. What then is the object aimed at? Is it to secure confidence and credit? Nothing can be more fallacious. What! a man risk his property upon the prospect that he can ultimately have the debtor's person! The creditor's security ought to be the knowledge he has of the individual to whom he intends giving credit,-of his character, and of his means. No man that gives credit thinks that he would be compelled to incarcerate his debtor, for if he had such an idea he would not give credit. It will be said that if a credit-giver is so free from all suspicion, it is the more necessary to protect him. Without stopping to investigate whether it is the business of the legislature, or not, to give such protection,-I answer, provide him with something better to rely upon than the debtor's body. Again, is the object in view to enable the insolvent, by undergoing incarceration, to be relieved from the power of all his creditors? Would it not be better to leave the debtor, under some surveillance of one or more of his creditors, to his free exertions to pay his debts; which, if he is honest, he is sure to do if his mind becomes relieved from the horrible prospect of an incarceration? If it is humane and politic to relieve the debtor from the power of his creditors, why not deprive the latter at once of that power,-why degrade the unfortunate sufferer first? Could he not be thus relieved without that waste of time, of health, and those expenses which he can ill spare, and without the breaking his spirits? It is true that not in every case does a creditor make use of the power which the law gives him; but does the law in any other instance trust to the discretion of private individuals, where the liberty and prosperity of the subject may be placed in jeopardy? Then why should it be allowed here ;-is there no such a thing as a violent or revengeful creditor? It happens not often, if ever, that persons, when exercising a power that is given them for their individual benefit, reflect on the consequences likely to follow such an act. The creditor, in making use of his power to arrest his debtor, does not consider that by so doing he increases both his inability and liability to pay, and narrows the prospect of his own claim and those of his creditors being paid at all. Another anomaly in the English law is, that it actually justifies giving of preferences as to payments in one instance, while it punishes them in others. If a creditor threatens his debtor with an arrest, or actually does arrest him, the latter is justified in giving him a preference, to the evident injury of all his other creditors; but if done from his own free-accord, it is illegal. Now two or three creditors can, by such a process, sweep away the whole of the assets, and leave nothing to the remainder. |