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and the colonies. Our surplus population finds an outlet for its energies in new lands; our engineers and architects find a new world to enrich with their railways, docks, bridges, churches, and public buildings; our clergymen and ministers, schoolmasters, physicians, surgeons, lawyers, artists, can obtain a wider sphere for their professional labours than in over-crowded England; our manufacturers have an increased demand for goods suitable for colonial markets; our shipowners find it profitable to increase more and more the service of well-appointed vessels, to convey emigrants and manufactured goods in one direction, and raw produce in the other; and our government and legislature find an inducement to subsidize mail steamers and submarine telegraphs to a degree that would not be justifiable but for the increasing wealth and importance of the colonies. Recklessness and profligacy, as

we

know, have attended the sudden assemblage of thousands of golddiggers in new patches of country; but it is equally certain that large communities of influential men have grown up as consequences of the gold-finding, and that the old country is benefited in a variety of ways thereby.

Nor is it only in connection with gold that our colonies are enriching themselves and us by their mineral treasures. The cask or tub of coal from Queensland is a humble affair, but it may, perchance, tell of a great future. This invaluable fuel is found in several of our Australian and North American colonies; and if they can only find a good hard steamcoal, in sufficient abundance, it will do wonders towards encouraging ocean-steaming. Iron, copper, tin, lead-all are found in the colonies, as the several courts in the Exhibition amply show. What a magnificent mass of copper ore that is from Australia, on the west side of the colonial transept! A country that can produce such a splendid block (weighing something like fifteen thousand pounds) has one certain source of wealth at the least.

Nor

must we forget the malachite from South Australia, wrought into a

table-top that really makes some approach to equality with the gorgeous productions of Russia in this line-productions, by the way, which are not so conspicuous in 1862 as they were in 1851.

some

Transferring attention from the mineral to the vegetable produce of our colonies, none but the most careless observer can fail to be struck with the splendid specimens of wood, for useful and ornamental purposes, displayed at the Exhibition. No such a collection has ever before reached this country. The colonists have ingeniously contrived to show the qualities of the wood in various ways. Some send slices from the big trees; some masses or square baulks; some thick planks; some thin planks; some small pieces, square, flat, or rounded; polished at one end and unpolished at the other. There are the magnificent slabs of Wellington pine from New South Wales; the numerous pieces of the Tasmanian timber trophy, with some furniture to show the peculiar beauty of the muskwood; the chess-table and cabinet of a remarkable Queensland wood; the gigantic slab cut from the trunk of a tree in Western Australia, and the cabinet made by convicts out of forty different kinds of wood from that colony; the Canadian slab of black walnut, six feet in diameter, and the slice of white pine, twentytwo feet in circumference; the New Brunswick book of leaves, each leaf formed of six different kinds of wood; the piece of the magnificent Douglas fir-tree from Vancouver, which tree, we are told, with a diameter of trunk equal to seven feet, soared to a height of nearly two hundred feet before the first branch sprang; the cork-wood from Demerara, so wonderfully soft and light; the beautiful slabs of lignum vitæ from Jamaica; the richly-varied cedar furniture from Bermuda; the spotted letter-wood from British Guiana, and the tabletop made from nearly five hundred different kinds of wood growing in the same colony. And then our eastern possessions, India, Ceylon, &c., contributed multitudes of specimens of wood among the articles exhibitedall interesting, although we may

perhaps be a little puzzled by the names of some of the Ceylonese exhibitors, such as Rattemahatmeya, Wijesinhe, Obeyesekere, Weiralasirinayana, Wimalasiririayana, and others equally formidable.

Scarcely less important are the many kinds of fibre and other vegetable produce applicable to papermaking, rope and twine-making, spinning and weaving, &c. The pretty articles from Bermuda show how well fitted the palm-leaf is as a material for hats and bonnets. The silver wattle bark, from West Australia, is a type of a most valuable class of substances in those regions. The fibre of the pita plant shows how cordage is made in Bahamas. The sunn and kittool fibres, the datepalm leaf, the coir and pooswell fibres, are exhibited by Ceylon in forms tending to illustrate their variety of application. The admirably-arranged Indian collection makes us acquainted with numerous varieties of those fibres which Dr. Royle and Dr. Forbes Watson have recommended so strongly to the notice of our paper-makers. Jamaica, with its bast and other fibre; Mauritius, with its lalo fibre; Natal, with its barks and fibres; New South Wales, with its nettle and sycamore fibres, and its cabbage-tree plait, and similar products from nearly all the other colonies-show that we may yet possibly make some of our paper and our textile and plaited goods of substances little known among us at present.

Far more important are the fibres mainly relied upon in textile manufactures of the usual kinds, and far more interesting to know whether our colonies can furnish us with a supply. Of wool there can be no doubt whatever. Australia sends over larger and larger shipments, until, at length, our reliance in that quarter has become very beneficial both for us and for the colony. We may smile at the architectural arrangement of the wool-packs at the Exhibition, where they form a kind of triumphal arch at the entrance of the Victoria Court, with one particular bale as a keystone; but the arch, at any rate, is so disposed that the packs may well display the

quality of the wool. New South Wales, and all the other Australian colonies, have in like manner sent specimens of the sheep's wool which they are wont to consign to the English market. Alpaca wool, also, is about to form one of the elements of Australian wealth. Mr. Ledger, an enterprising man, conveyed a flock of alpacas and llamas from Peru to New South Wales, a few years ago, at great risk and difficulty; and those animals form the stock from whence numerous flocks are gradually forming. At present, most of the alpaca for our manufactures is obtained from Peru, but a grand supply from our own colonies is 'looming in the distance;' and the New South Wales department at the Exhibition enables us to see what a beautiful silky substance this is. Concerning flax, another important member of the fibrous group, New Zealand is rich in a particular kind, which that colony will be able to send over to us in increased quantity whenever the distracting quarrels with the natives cease. Of silk it must be said that the only British possession which produces it in any considerable quantity is India, although isolated attempts are made elsewhere. Beautiful are the hanks of this substance as shown in the Indian department, soft in texture and glowing in golden yellow.

Far excelling, however, in vital importance to England, all other fibrous substances whatever, is cotton; and thoughtful visitors to the Exhibition are anxiously inquiring whether the Colonial departments have anything to tell us in this matter. We know from the newspapers that millions of persons in the northern counties are dependent for their bread on the cotton manufacture, and that this sustenance is imperilled by the hideous fratricidal war in America. A cry of anguish is raised for cotton, the raw material of the manufacture; and every one is asking whether the colonies can fill up the gap which the blockade of the American ports has occasioned. India, we know, can and does grow cotton largely; and the chief inquiry now is, in respect to that vast country, whether the cotton can be shipped clean

enough and cheaply enough for the requirements of the Liverpool market. Most interesting is it to watch the mode in which the colonies have tried to send us their little bits of cotton, as samples of what they hope to be able to do on a larger scale if we will only encourage them. Almost every colony has done this, as the north-eastern transept at the Exhibition will show; and in the Eastern Annexe one particular case contains samples of cotton grown in almost every part of the world, collected and exhibited by the Cotton Supply Association. Queensland, quite a young colony, carved out of the northern half of New South Wales, means to try sedulously whether she can profitably include cotton culture among her regular branches of industry; and when we find that some of the Queensland samples now in the Exhibition are ranked by Manchester men among the finest ever seen, with a market value of four shillings a pound, we may perhaps indulge in the hope that though our colonies cannot shield us from the miseries consequent on the American turmoil, they may, at least, prevent us in future from being so utterly dependent as hitherto on Transatlantic supply.

We are too far distant from most of our colonies to purchase much corn from them; yet it is pleasant to know that the corn is there, if we should want it. How bravely they are all struggling! In England our wheat is reckoned pretty good if it weighs sixty pounds per bushel; but the colonies are pushing a head of this. The little bags and boxes, cans and cases, casks and bottles, arranged about the various colonial departments, contain specimens of wheat ranging from sixty to seventy pounds per bushel; and it is pleasant to see the farmers and millers, who, like other people, flock to Brompton in great force, handling

this fine heavy wheat admiringly, and speculating on the richness of the soil where it was grown. It is a question of labour and freight: so far as extent and quality of land are concerned, our colonists could feed the whole British community many times told. Quite as important is it to learn what our friends can effect in cultivating maize or Indian corn, a kind of grain that we know little about in England. It is a very prolific crop; and many experienced agriculturists are of opinion that a day will come when we shall understand what good maize bread is, made from trained or artificial varieties of the plant.

Thus it is, then. The mighty Exhibition at Brompton tells us that, in some departments of produce and industry, our neighbours are pressing us rather closely-France in one commodity, Austria in another, Germany in a third, Belgium in a fourth; but that this pressure is, on the whole, not of such a kind as should reasonably alarm us. In making useful things out of raw produce, we have only to keep our eyes open, and not to lag in the race; in obtaining raw produce for making the useful things, we should rather be grateful than hostile to our neighbours for opening up new sources of supply, seeing that we as well as they are benefited thereby. And if matters were gloomy instead of cheering in this direction, we should still have our brave friends, our distant colonists, to back us. All their gold and copper, their iron and coal, their wool and flax, their silk and cotton, their timber and bark, their gums and dyes, their corn and their live stock-everything that enriches them in the first instance will enrich us in the long run. And the more we trade with them, the less inclined will they be to run away from us, and set up business on their own account-as Republicans.

Fashionable Promenades.

'IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.'

[P and down the broad walks where the gay sunshine slumbers,

UP

And o'er the broad lawn where the grass is so green,

The throngs of gay people are moving in numbers,
To laugh and to listen, to see and be seen.

The ladies are come in their silks and their laces
To saunter in Kensington Gardens to-day,
To garland the place with their beautiful faces,

To talk and to walk, and to hear the band play.

They are come to bring smiles and polite little speeches,
To inveigle the men from their studies and stools,
To shed that soft light from their bright eyes that reaches
The hearts of them all, whether wise men or fools.

The chairs are all filled with a line of gay dresses,
And parasols waving like groups of strange trees,
And the hum of the laughing and voices ne'er ceases,
Borne hither and thither, perfumed on the breeze.

As bright as the sun are the eyes and the glances,
And answering looks are as warm as his rays,
For words may be spoken, and fortunate chances
May favour a lover while here the band plays.

I would not miss going once all the whole season,
If the weather is fine and if brilliant the day;

I am sure I've given many an excellent reason
In Kensington Gardens to hear the band play.

L.

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