Rangoon, a most comfortless, overloaded vessel, where the poor subalterns had neither berths nor room in the steerage to hang a hammock, but were glad to be permitted the indalgence of a mattrass on the floor of the cuddy-preferring that to the crowded steerage, whence close air and unwholesome smells were ineffectual in expelling the revolting vermin that infested it-cockroaches there actually swarmed, issuing at night, and, as it would seem at concerted moments, in voluminous squads from every crevice and cranny in the ship's timbers! Nor were we quite free from their nocturnal visits in our fastnesses in the large cabin. With what shuddering sensations used we to hear the first mysterious but unmistakeable movement made by their out runners preparatory to a sally! With what a shrinking of limbs, and gathering together of garments did we huddle under our sheets and palampores almost unto suffocation when from some one point or corner, we heard them commence their unaccountable race! First, a few straggling cohorts; presently a strong phalanx, extending in line; lastly, a whole force of millions, scampering over and across us the whole breadth and length of the cabin. And then, suddenly as it began, the inroad ceased, and all was still, save here and there a rustle, as of a slimy wing in contact with an obstacle; then how carefully we unwrapped ourselves, perspiring at every pore from our swaddling bands, and laughing too, even whilst we shuddered to discover that some of our clammy assailants remained fixtures in the threads of our coverlids, or even struggled amidst our hair! And then, how we slammed about with slipper or shoe, wherever we thought there might be a chance of hitting a cockroach!

Now, has any great naturalist ever expounded the nature of these horrid creatures, and the causes which excite those sudden, brief, and mysterious outbreaks during certain watches of the night? But there were other and more grim insects,-nay, reptiles, on board of the Hastings than our innocent cockroaches, whose only cruelty was their frequent attempts to nibble our toe nails. Once we found a huge centipede in the lid of one of the lockers, on which at the moment Tanfield was adjusting his pillow; nor did I wonder that he screamed and fled even as a girl might do, for I felt very much inclined to do the same thing; and in the lower regions spiders of an enormous size were numerous-they must have been a species of tarantula, great big-bellied, hairy, hideous monsters, of whom our native' servants stood in great panic, accounting them, perhaps with reason, quite capable of inflicting a venemous bite.

These cockroaches have a very innocent character, biting the nails off one's feet, but we rather believe in having caught them at more serious work, and we don't believe their innocence, only they are the foes of worse foes to man; and in reasonable numbers might be tolerated as necessary evils in certain situations. Cockroaches are even more tolerable than leeches. To fall into a bog or pond of leeches would be a very sure thod of getting altogether out of existence, and that was Major's Campbell's misfortune :--

me

THE LEECHES AND TOBACCO OF BURMAH. The forest was by no means thick, nor for several miles had we much difficulty in making our way through it; but then it dwindled in size, brushwood took the place of trees, and underfoot the ground grew moist at first, then damper and damper, till at length, being in advance, I plunged head foremost into a bog. Fortunately the jemandar was not so close upon me as to follow my example, but I felt myself sinking in a quagmire, and I was almost up to the waist before the manful exertions and robust arms of Shaik Ismael succeeded in rescuing me from a dreadful death.

We were forced to repose ourselves on the brink of this treacherous morass for some time, and then the painful prickings in my legs and thighs, and in those of my companion in a less degree, apprised us of a new annoyance.

127

We were covered with those minute but hungry and loathsome leeches with which the marshes, and damp rank vegetation in the vicinity of them, in the Burmese empire, are infested.

We washed the mud from our limbs, but the water was already impregnated with blood, and we knew that by tearing the sucking water-vampires from our flesh, dangerous ulcers would ensue.

I counted fourteen on my legs and thighs, and a feeling of alarm as the blood poured down thrilled through my veins. Fast as we could, we withdrew into the drier ground, and then had nothing to do but wait till the satiated reptiles dropt off one by one. "Tombakor! Tobacco!" exclaimed the jemandar with a shout of joy, as he found that we were now in a field of that plant, already blackening to ripeness. "We are safe!" he added, "this field is not far from the river, for I was conveyed down the banks for some miles, and remember our halting near this field, and that hut-behold! They expected to find a canoe hid in the reeds, but could not discover it; and now, sir, chew the leaves of the tobacco, and spit the juice upon the leeches!"

The kindly jemandar commenced his operations by applying his first salivery sanative to one of the leeches on my leg; nor were the effects dubious or delayed. The creature almost instantly dropped off, and so with the others; but we had some difficulty in quenching the flow of blood, nor indeed did some of the wounds cease bleeding for many hours, and more than one severe sore succeeded to those bites. Retracing our way for some distance, we took a fresh path which the jemandar remembered to have passed; and just as the dawn of a misty morning began to break, we found ourselves on the margin of the Irawaddy.

The Mahomedan threw himself on his kness, and thanked Alla for our escape; nor was the Christian without many prayers of thanksgiving for the providential release from perhaps a cruel death-assuredly from captivity! The volume proceeds in the way indicated by these extracts; a setting of useful knowledge in a light frame-work, and we are glad to notice the kind spirit in which Major Campbell, like all the literary Anglo Indians, refers to his connexion with the Natives.

Life in its Lower, Intermediate, and Higher Forms. By PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F.R.S. London: James Nisbet and Co. 1 vol., illus. trated, pp. 363.

THE greater part of the papers in this volume appeared in "Excelsior," a monthly publication of great merit. The numerous illustrations probably have been added. The author of these papers evinced a very intimate acquaintance with natural history, and a very happy mode of conveying it to others. His pages resemble those of the " Epi. sodes of Insect Life," a very beautiful work, which should not be forgotten in style. And this is a great advantage to non-scieutific readers, who get tolerably learned on a subject before they know that they are students. But the style needs genius along with research and science; and these are seldom combined in the same person, This author, somewhat after the style in which the late Mr. Miller treated geology, has brought the different qualifications together; and it was right to publish his papers in this attractive and collected form for they are too valuable to have been left in a scattered condition. The book will lead

young readers into that love for natural history, which is growing in society; and, while a highly intellectual volume, a leading object has never been overlooked-in exhibiting "the manifestations of Divine wisdom, in the natural history of animals," from the lowest order of life to its higher sections.

mer

Uncle Peregrine; or, Annals and Incidents of Romantic Adventure. London: James Nisbet and Co., 1 vol., 12mo., pp., 316. UNCLE PEREGRINE professes to have been born on the banks of the calm western Leven, which carries the surplus waters of Loch Lomond to the Clyde. His aunt wanted him to become a chant, and his love of adventure inclined him to the sea. So the difference was compromised by the expectation of his aunt that the young sailor would do a little trading. The volume contains his adventures by sea and land, with wild beasts and wilder waves, in Africa and America, on the Amazon and the St. Lawrence, with panthers and sharks-the latter, or the sea monsters, being the The volume is of a class that ugliest customers. are favourites with young persons, to whom its embellishments will form additional attractions. Uncle Peregrine is an observant seanian, who has formed acquaintance with the land wherever he wandered, with its history, its population, and productions. Then he is a good man if also a good sailor, and maintaius a running commentary of improvement on his adventures, as he recites them. Tahiti afforded "one of the loveliest prospects in the world"-Bahia with its numerous spires and turrets, and many palm trees, supplied a The Galascene that was exceedingly charming. pagos islands are more out of the way places than either of those mentioned :

se

Before leaving the Galapagos islands, we landed on veral of them in succession. One of our objects was to procure water. This, however, is not possible on every one of them. The rain runs rapidly off the surface and the soil becomes dry. In one of the larger islands, however, we procured a good supply of the pure element, and were engaged a whole day in filling our casks and rolling them to the beach. We were all delighted with the extreme tameness of such birds as we saw.

There were several varieties

to embark.

Sometimes one thinks that Uncle Peregrine uses the privilege of a traveller, as when he tells us of tame tigers kept like watch dogs on the banks of the Amazon; but the tigers of South America are not those of Bengal. The production of India rubber may interest some of our young readers :

I obtained an interesting account of the mode in which the India rubber is prepared, and which is produced in great quantities on most of the great cluster of islands in the estuary of the Amazon, for we landed on our way to Marajo on an island where there was an establishment for the purpose. The labourers were busily occupied in gathering the substance, and I had an opportunity of examining the whole process, which I will describe to you.

It appears that the season for the labour is from July to January, for the river is then low, and at other times the water is so high as to overflow all the low lands, where the India rubber tree grows, so that the process cannot then be carried on. The tree is tall and straight, with a smooth bark, and sometimes grows to the diameter of eighteen inches and even more. In order to collect the juice a longitudinal gash made in the tree with a hatchet or tomahawk, and a wedge of wood being inserted, to keep the incision open, a small cup of clay is stuck to the tree just below it. These incisions are made all round the tree, and the little cups form a circle round the trunk. In these cups the juice, of the colour of milk, continues to run four or five hours, and each cup is found to contain from three to five table spoonsful.

The great island of Marajo, and almost all the other islands scattered around it, are infested by ounces and other In the former, vast numbers specimens of the feline race. of cattle are destroyed by these ravenous beasts every year, and many fall victims to the alligators, which are of immense size, and abound in every creek and inlet.

The alligators are not disposed of easily, although an industrious persecution would thin their numbers-for when young they are weak enough; but ounces and other beasts of prey on laud are expensive luxuries, where large droves of cattle are kept, and only exist from the defective energy of those who support them out of their flocks. Uncle Peregrine tells a very instructive series of experiences, and they will be popular.

EDINBURGH

MAGAZINE.

THE message to the Parliament from the Sovereign delivered on the fourth of last month, recommends the renewal of the charter of the Bank of England, and therewith all our currency laws. The appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to consider the operation of these laws since that date is a cover for the ministerial mistake. It is decent to have a committee -who may endorse iniquity in any walk; and the committee on currency for the present session is, doubtless, made safe. The currency laws are very profitable to those who gain, and also very tedious to those who lose, by them. The former are a small minority, who thoroughly understand their business; and the latter are the nation, with the aforesaid exceptions, who feel generally that the matter is in a mirage or a mist, and cannot be easily extracted. A multitude acknowledge that something must be wrong with the currency; but they cannot discover the error. All our laws on the subject are opposed to free trade. That is at least plain; but we are told that the topic is beyond the common laws of commerce. Currency is the exception, to free trade, the rule. The result of the exception is a variation in price unequalled in any other article. During the last twelve years money has been worth 2, and it has been worth 7 per cent., and some people say 9 per cent. In many cases, with low security, much more has been paid; but the difference was placed upon the risk of not recovering the loan, rather than its value. No other article has changed its value to the same extent. Corn, cotton, and iron are exposed to great changes of price, but pig iron has not been quoted at 40s. and also at 120s. during the period; cotton has not been 6d. and 1s. 6d. in twelve years; or wheat 35s. and 105s. per quarter; and yet iron was exposed to the terrible excitement of the railway crisis; corn to the famine and the war years; and cotton has been, is, and ever will be, until new fields of supply be opened,

exposed to floods in spring, and frosts in autumn, and short crops at all seasons.

Several writers upon monetary science have confounded the circulating medium with something valuable in itself. The circulating medium may have a real or a representative value. The circulation of this country is mixed. Part of it is real; part of it is representative. A penny belongs to the former class. Bank notes and bills chiefly form the latter.

We are accustomed to consider the notes of bankers payable on demand as the only circulating medium, except metals; but this is an erroneous view. Mercantile bills circulate frequently before they are discounted by a person who prefers to hold them until maturity. Exchequer bills circulate freely from hand to hand; and the Government have supplied one kind of circulation in postage stamps, which are thus applied to purposes for which they were not devised.

Bank notes are the chief circulating medium of a representative character, and the Legislature professes by the currency laws to secure their convertibility. This was Sir Robert Peel's avowed object in the acts of 1844 and 1845. These acts, like many other Legislstive achievements of that statesman, were framed without regard to any principle. Thus the joint stock banks of Scotland with a large paid-up capital, and the private bankers of England, who might or might not have had any capital whatever, and some of whom were not at that time solvent, were put on the same footing, and allowed thereafter to issue the average of their circulation, for twelvemonths previous to the act, without any fortification of bullion. The note circulation of the English private bankers was thus founded perhaps on nothing. The circulation of the Irish joint stock banks was founded upon a paid-up capital often smaller than its amount. The note circulation of Scotland was confined to one-fourth of the paid up capital upon

130

which it was founded. The Bank of England is allowed to issue fourteen millions upon the basis of the Government debt. The English circulation by joint stock banks is confined to the counties without the metropolitan circle, and has no reference to the capital of the issuers. These classes form the authorised circulation. The surplus in each case is supported by bullion to its amount. Therefore it follows that the authorised circulation may be inconvertible, while the unauthorised alone is clearly convertible.

The incidental clauses in the currency laws respecting the formation of banking companies in and out of England present similar contradictions; but as our business is with the currency, and our space limited like itself, we only remark concerning them that the single bank formed upon the new principle of taking care of banking by statute, for eleven years after the passing of the Act, in London, is the only joint stock bank that has failed there. It would thus appear that the means adopted to secure the solvency of the joint stock banks are compatible with insolvency, and, indeed, that the only institution formed upon them has become insolvent.

Touching the circulating medium, the Legislature said in 1844 and 1845 that the average of notes circulated for the preceding twelvemonths might be continued; but that all further currency required by the nation should be metallic, or convertible immediately into gold coin.

The convertibility of the paper currency was the avowed object of these laws, but they present no means of securing that purpose. The average circulation of the Bank of England may be twenty-one millions. Two-thirds of that amount may be altogether inconvertible. The bank is alone required to provide for the remaining third. The country circulation of England does not often reach the authorised amount, and the law makes no provision for its convertibility. The circulation of Ireland is generally under the same limit, and its convertibility is therefore by law equally unprovided for. The circulation of Scotland is thirty per cent. over the authorised quantity, and the convertibility of the surplus is alone secured. The result is in England, that a law to provide the convertibility of bank notes secures its object only to the extent of twenty-seven per cent. of their average quantity, a proportion nearly preserved over the three kingdoms. That is to say, Peel, through Parliament, said that he had rendered the convertibility of bank notes secure, when by a juggling Act he had attained the convertibility of one-fourth of them; or he made 5s. in the pound stand for full payment, and, for that indecent dividend, he caused all the misery to many, and the profits to a few, wrought out by these Acts.

land it was unnecessary, since bank notes had always been paid. In England notes had been issued by private persons without any security, as they may be issued still, according to recent examples, from an adequate paid up capital, and against that evil the Legislature were entitled to make provision. The bullionists taunt their opponents with supporting the "light shilling," but the sarcasm, like their laws, is light. They only provide for the suffici ency of threepence in the shilling, giving them the advantage of an average, since for many of their shillings they make no provision, while they leave ninepence in the average of cases at the mercy of the shilling manufacturers. We propose security for the whole.

They contrived these Acts to obtain monetary stability, yet it has been the most unstable article of commerce since their institution, and banking has exhibited more disgraceful errors under the new laws than it ever did before them.

Security to bank customers by currency laws is impracticable. The Scotch bank circulation is, for example, not equal to one-tenth of the Scotch deposits, and what security have the depositors? The capital of the banks, and the responsibilities of the shareholders, are considered adequate secu. rity by them; and they are ample for the small circulation, if they are good, as they are sufficient, for the large deposits. The Legislature cannot separate with accuracy between the circulation and the deposits of a banking company, if they wish to secure the convertibility of the former, because that could only be endangered during a panic, when the depositors might come in to the extent of a fourth, probably of a third, and stop everything. Absolute convertibility is therefore a fiction. Necessary convertibility is the affair of "the bankers, and "let every man mind his own busi

ness.

We do not know a banking company in the empire that could discharge all their liabilities if requested at once to pay cash. We do not know a Life Assurance Company that could pay its policies, if they were all to fall in to-morrow. The bankers and the life assurers know their liability to sudden calls; but they also know that all their liabilities will not be called suddenly. They are acquainted with the average demands, and the excess over them is never very large.

The Legislature, therefore, uphold a fiction in the currency laws-a myth that, unlike mythology in general, has no foundation. The Acts of 1844 and 1845 were devised to retain gold in the country. They take the most clumsy and costly means to that end. It has been said that the pressure on the circulation in 1847 caused a depression of two hundred and fifty millions in property and securities. Thousands of persons were impoverished, and hundreds were enriched.

The journals of the builders ascribe this contraction of trade to the high rate of interest. London bankers divide 20 per cent., and, therefore, London builders cannot continue their speculations. They are conducted generally to the extent of twothirds, or even three-fourths, on borrowed money; but interest has reached a point that sweeps away profits; and the builders suspend operations. The tradesmen become idle, intemperate perhaps, wicked even, in a few cases-thanks to the principles of the people, rather than the wisdom of the Legislature, in only a few. The workman falls into debt, pawns his clothes, sells even his household furniture, takes his children from school, withdraws from chapel or church, resigns the decent home that he occupied, and sinks down among the "unexcavated heathen," in many instances. Who is to blame? Why is the interest of money unreasonable? A few speculators want to invest in Sam Laing's line (see Punch) between despotism and tyranny-we should have said Rome and Trieste. Well, let them invest. They may have been warned that their money will be lost, but fools must take their way, and the leading speculators are not foolish. They will sell out at a convenient period. But they can't invest without drawing two or three millions of gold from the country. They cannot draw these three millions of gold out of the country without reducing the domestic circulation by that amount. They cannot reduce that circulation without in creasing the rate of interest.

Another set of speculators are offered a premium for gold by the Bank of France, who pay direct to escape from difficulty. They want to make French hay while the fiery sun of French trial shines. They can only accomplish that object by exporting gold. Each exportation contracts our currency, enlarges our interest, and therefore reduces our trade according to Act of Parliament even those currency acts which the Commons at the suggestion of the Government have named a committee to recommend.

The bullionists say that contraction of the currency, and an increased rate of interest, are necessary to bring back the gold. Would it be wiser not to let it away, rather than, by these circuitous processes, to seek its restoration? The law encourages its exportation, and then raises interest to secure its re-importation. The amount exported may not exceed two, three, or four millions within a given period, yet, in order to bring them back, the interest upon all external and internal transactions, over one hundred times these sums, is raised by two to three per cent. The profits of foreign investments can never repay the losses on the general trade of the country caused by the changes in the rate of interest. We do not Occupy space with quotations to prove, what is undeniable, that the late Sir Robert Peel and others contrived the present laws in order that, when bullion flowed out of the country, the circulating medium at home might be contracted, its

131

value enhanced, and the bullion re-attracted to our banks either by an advance in our interest, or by the depreciation of goods, so as to render payment by them more profitable than by specie. This is a fair and honest representation of the purposes sought by the promoters of these acts from their own statements; and no more complicated scheme of personal aggrandisement was ever carried through a Parliament.

We drop at present the idea of lowering the price of goods, which means reducing the wages paid for making them, in order to increase exportation,-although the machinery provided is the most powerful crusher of labour in the market and confine the following paragraphs chiefly to the monetary department of the subject.

A grazier had once a flock of two thousand sheep, which fed in a hill country, and they were food, in return, to four foxes. The grazier wished to kill the foxes, and he planted traps over his grazings. He was morally certain that, if ever a fox were caught in one of the traps, it must be crippled, it probably would be killed. Unfortunately the sheep could not read on the the placards Traps are set in the grass ;" and even if they had been accustomed to Roman letters, they would still have been obliged, for the sake of the grass, to run the risk of the traps. The consequence was that the sheep were frequently captured, and the foxes found them very convenient eating in the traps. Therefore they prospered and throve upon the precautions adopted for their destruction. Still, in the muddled parliament of the farmer's brain, theory prevailed-and it was a very undeniable theory that if the foxes stepped on his springs they would be neutralised. They did not, however, step there. The chances were five hundred to one against sheep, and in favour of foxes, until the former decreased and the latter increased so far that at last, after the farmer had nearly ruined himself, he occasionally secured a fox; and that is the policy and state of the British empire on the monetary question.

A tax of 2 per cent. upon the exportation of bullion would not be evaded to a large extent, because the exporters look for insurers, and both parties for their own benefit would register their transactions. That tax would be levied virtually upon foreign investments, which the people of Britain should not promote. It is not a tax which we recommend as consistent with fair principles of trade, but the bullionists say that bullion is exceptional. Be it so; only let these gentlemen make exceptions of themselves at their own expense. They want the bullion to be in the country. If its existence in the bank vaults be so necessary, as they say, to the preservation of private and public credit, the population should guard jealously the precious deposit. We have only the opinion of these gentlemen to its value. We take that opinion for its worth. We act upon and apply it by not letting the bullion go, instead of making a crisis in bringing it back. It is easier to keep