Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 405, December 19, 1829», страница 4

ROYAL INCOMES

The income of the King of England is somewhat more than £400,000. per annum; but its amount does not perhaps exceed, in a duplicate ratio, the receipts of some opulent subjects; and may be advantageously compared with the French King's revenue, a civil list of about one million sterling, free from diplomatic, judicial, and, we believe, from all other extraneous charges. Our late excellent king's regard for economy led him, in the early part of his reign, to approve a new arrangement of the civil list expenditure, by which he accepted of a fixed revenue, in lieu of those improvable funds which had formerly been appropriated to the crown. On the revision of the civil list in 1816, it appeared, that had George III. conducted the entire branch of expenditure with those funds which had been provided for his predecessors, there would at that period have remained to the crown a total surplus of £6,300,000. which sum the public had gained by the change of provision. Quarterly Review.

BRITISH ALMANAC AND COMPANION

Swift, if our memory serves us aright, compares abstracts, abridgments, and summaries to burning-glasses, and has something about a full book resembling the tail of a lobster. The French too have a proverb—"as full as an egg"—but these home similes will hardly give the public an idea of the vast variety of useful matters which these two Year Books contain.

The Almanac, besides an excellent arrangement, astronomical, meteorological, and philosophical, contains a list of common indigenous field plants in flower, and even the taste of the epicure is consulted in a table of fish in season, at the foot of each month. The Miscellaneous Register includes nearly all the Court, Parliament, and other Lists of a Red Book; and a List of Mail Coach routes direct from London, with the hours of their arrival at the principal towns, is completeness itself: but how will these items be deranged by Steam Coaches? Among the Useful Tables, one of Excise Licenses is especially valuable.

The Companion is even more important in its contents than last year. An Explanation of the Eras of Ancient and Modern Times, and of various countries, with a view to the comparison of their respective dates,—stands first; next are "Facts pertaining to the course of the Seasons," under the "Observations of a Naturalist;" an excellent paper on the Tides; and a concise Natural History of the Weather—to be continued in the Companion for 1831; this is a delightful paper. The Comparative Scales of Thermometers are next, with a wood-cut of the Scales and Explanation. We have only room to particularize a Chronological Table of the principal Geographical Discoveries of Modern European Nations; a paper on French Measures; and a List of our Metropolitan Charitable Institutions, their officers, &c. The Parliamentary Register is as copious as usual; the Chronicle of the Session is neatly compiled; and a rapid Sketch of Public Improvements, and a Chronicle of Events of 1829 will be interesting to all readers. In short, we can scarcely conceive a work that is likely to be more extensively useful than the present: it concerns the business of all; it is perhaps less domestic than in previous years; but as "great wits have short memories," its scientific helps are not overrated.

PENITENT LETTER

The following letter occurs in Captain Beaver's Memoirs, said to be written by a runaway pirate:—

"To Mr. Beaver.—Sir, I hope that you will parden me for riteing to you, which I know I am not worthy of, but I hope you will forgive me for all things past, for I am going to try to get a passage to the Cape deverds, and then for America. Sir, if you will be so good as to let me go, I shall be grately ableaght to you. Sir, I hope you will parden me for running away. Sir, I am your most obedent umbld servant,

"PETER HAYLES.

"Sir, I do rite with tears in my eyes."

FRENCH TRAVELLERS IN ENGLAND

A Frenchman in London, without any knowledge of our language will cut but a sorry figure, and be more liable to ridicule than an Englishman in a similar condition in Paris: to wit, the waggish joke told of the Parisian inquiring for Old Bailey, or Mr. Bailey, Sen. It is, therefore, quite as requisite that a Frenchman should be provided with a good French and English phrase-book, as that an Englishman should have an English and French Manual. Of the former description is Mr. Leigh's "Recueil de Phrases utiles aux étrangers voyageant en Angleterre," a new and improved edition of which is before us. It contains every description of information, from the embarkation at Calais to all the Lions of London—how to punish a roguish hackney-coachman—to criticise Miss Kemble at Covent Garden—to write an English letter, or to make out a washing-bill—which miscellaneous matters are very useful to know in a metropolis like ours, where, as the new Lord Mayor told a countryman the other day, we should consider every stranger a rogue. Glancing at the fêtes or holidays, there is a woeful falling off from the Parisian list—in ours only eleven are given—but "they manage these things better in France."

CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES

In the Quarterly Review (lately published) there is an excellent paper on these Societies.

Of the spread of these Societies we take this anecdote as an example:—"A lady, who became acquainted at Brighton with the Co-operative Society of that town, and carried away a knowledge of the scheme, has formed three similar societies!, one at Tunbridge, one at Hastings, the third we know not where. That at Hastings was, at the end of July, just thirteen weeks old; it had made a clear profit of £79. 5s. 4d. and its returns for the last week of that month were £104. There are now upwards of seventy Co-operative Societies in different parts of England, and they are spreading so rapidly that the probability is that by the time this number of our Review is published, there will be nearly one hundred." Upon the system of Co-operation the Editor forcibly remarks, "It is at present in its infancy—a cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Whether it is to dissipate in heat, or gradually spread over the land and send down refreshing showers on this parched and withered portion of society, God only knows, and time only can reveal."

STANDARD OF THE JANISSARIES

Odd as it may seem, a soup-kettle is the standard of the Janissaries, an emblem rather more appropriate for a Court of Aldermen. Dr. Walsh says that he saw in the streets of Constantinople, an extraordinary greasy-looking fellow dressed in a leather jacket, covered over with ornaments of tin, bearing in his hand a lash of several leather thongs; he was followed by two men, also fantastically dressed, supporting a pole on their shoulders, from which hung a large copper kettle. They walked through the main streets with an air of great authority, and all the people hastily got out of the way. This he found on inquiry was the soup-kettle of a corps of Janissaries, and always held in high respect; indeed, so distinguishing a characteristic of this body is their soup, that their colonel is called Tchorbadgé, or the distributor of soup. Their kettle, therefore, is in fact, their standard, and whenever that is brought forward, it is the signal of some desperate enterprize, and in a short time 20,000 men have been known to rally round their odd insignia of war. Apropos, have they not something to do with kettle-drums?

HOME COLONIES

Workhouses are moral pesthouses, for the encouragement of idleness and profligacy, where at a great charge to the public, a host of outcasts are reared and trained for a career of misery. For these costly and demoralizing establishments, which the English poor dread even more than imprisonment or transportation—for

"That pauper-palace which they hate to see,"

we would fain see substituted a district or county colony, where every able-bodied human being out of employment might find work and subsistence.—Quarterly Review.

BEWICK, THE ENGRAVER

The Duke of Northumberland, when first he called to see Mr. Bewick's workshops at Newcastle, was not personally known to the engraver; yet he showed him his birds, blocks, and drawings, as he did to all, with the greatest liberality and cheerfulness; but on discovering the high rank of his visiter, exclaimed, "I beg pardon, my lord, I did not know your grace, and was unaware I had the honour of talking to so great a man." To which the duke good-humouredly replied, "You are a much greater man than I am, Mr. Bewick." To which Bewick, with his ready wit that never failed or offended, resumed, "No, my lord; but were I Duke of Northumberland, perhaps I could be."—Mag. Nat. Hist.