der that a lawyer, who professes also to be a logician, should remonstrate against the facility of marriagemaking; and the doubt, regarding the formation of marriage, as co-existing in one country, at one time, and under the same law. In Scotland, Lord Brougham says, that an admission of marriage accomplishes the fact, in whatever circumstances the admission be made. Not merely before an anvil, be side a forge, in the presence of a smoke-begrimed blacksmith-but even in a brothel, may the magic words be spoken, which bind human beings for weal or woe through life together. Even, says Lord Brougham, the continued residence together of persons not man and wife, in the capacity of man and wife, is held to constitute them what they are not; namely, married persons. Persistence in wrong will, in other words, ultimately produce right. People have only to go on sinning for a sufficient time in order to become virtuous! This is, we think, the fair interpretation of Lord Brougham's expositions on the Scottish law of marriage. We repeat the conclusions stated by him as indisputable facts. Many persons are ignorant whether they be or be not married-many more whether they be or be not legitimate many marriages are contracted in brothels and many parties become moral people by continuing to live in immorality. The vice, in short, consists not in the fact, but in its duration; and people have only to travel long enough on a wrong road to be right in the end.

The marriage law of Scotland affords no ground whatever for the unmeasured anathemas of the learned Ex-Chancellor, or the alterations proposed by other authorities. These changes are not in reality required on Scotch account. The hurried marriages celebrated at Gretna, and other places on the borders, are not those of Scotch persons. The individuals who visit blacksmiths' shops, or even their dwelling houses, on this important mission, are not subjects or citizens of Scotland. The marriages which Lord Brougham says can be accomplished in brothels are not Scottish marriages. The people of this country have nothing whatever to do with the matter; and they have asked for no amendments of the law, nor for any new act on the subject. They only beg from Parliament, peace. They petition for nothing more than not to be disturbed. They are quite contented with the common law of the country; and yet, in spite of their petitions and remonstrances, they are to have new laws inflicted on them, not for their convenience, but for the aid and comforting of parents and guardians in England.

This state of acquiescence in the law could not exist contemporaneously with the domestic hardships and sufferings described by Lord Brougham, in a country where public opinion runs avowedly and strongly in favour of good and decent usage in all affairs of this kind. We are convinced that no hardship whatever results from the laws and usages of society regarding marriage in this country-that Lord Brougham could not name a dozen persons of whose marriage the slightest doubt exists-or a similar number regarding whose legitimacy any question can be asked by themselves or others. The law in Scotland on this topic does not rest the proof on records or registers in which errors may occur. The improvement and perfection of registration are essentially necessary. No more ob

||jections can be entertained to that measure in, than out of Scotland. Complete registration is most desirable, and perfectly attainable without altering the present marriage law. The most accurate system of registration is, however, liable to error. It so happens with us, that we have personal and expensive proof of that fact. An error in a parochial registry has cost us considerable sums of money already of additional payments on policies, and will continue to cost more than is just and right to the last of these payments. Similar errors may occur in any registry, and the Scotch mar riage law, without refusing that description of proof, includes all others that can be offered, and especially the most convincing and ostensible. An improvement in our registration need not, therefore, interfere with the existing old, and, in reality, common law of the land; which accepts as proof of marriage, for all civil purposes, the admission or recognition of the relation by the parties who should know best whether they have wished to form, and have formed that contract.

We remember some old romances, in which the vil lain and the victim were the subjects of a mock marriage. They were married by a tool of the villain in the garb of a priest, and who was believed by the victim to be a priest. The marriage was, however, spurned by the intriguer, or by the novelist on his account, as wholly untenable, because the "tool" was not in holy orders, and certainly deserved to be within no other or better orders than those of the nearest bridewell. A recent work, the history of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, gives a narrative of a deed, by which Catherine of Russia, through one of her spies, destroyed an heiress of the Russian throne in Italy by a similar stratagem. All these projects of romance or of reality would have been cheated by Scotch law. Parties who declare themselves to be married, before sufficient wit nesses of any description, are married, and there is nothing farther to say in the matter. Parties who live together before the world, in the capacity of man and wife, avowedly and notoriously, are also married, and we believe no doubt can be entertained, in all these cases, of the effect in law. Some instances have occurred where the expectant successors of wealthy persons have blamed these arrangements, and would rather have illegitimatised the offspring of a rich relative than lost their anticipated share of his wealth. The public good does not sympathise with private ends of that nature, and would not be promoted by encouraging them. Other parties have argued that weakminded men are sometimes imposed upon and cheated out of themselves by cunning women; but that may happen out of Scotland, and with the slim and puny terrors of a registraar looming between the lady and her prize. Experience of life, however, shows that the female portion of the community are the most frequent and the severest sufferers; and a civilised community will give them what the Scotch give-the advantage of all doubts. The offspring of such irregularities are not, of course, guilty parties, and do not consent in any way to their own disadvantage. For their sake, therefore, society gains by casting all doubts to their scale and in their favour. Justice indeed demands this to be done; and any system that coolly puts the weak and the innocent portion of society to the disad vantage of having every possible doubt cast against them is unjust. Man or woman should be held to be

innocent in law until they are proved to be guilty; || but in this important particular, the parties are to be called upon, not to disprove their guilt, but to prove their innocence- -an important distinction, as we shall

see.

troublesome all the future. Under this act a considerable business is done by a class of officials called "registraars," who do marriages at a cheap rate, after the Gretna fashion, and who are appointed by the Government with power, if we remember rightly, to If a person be charged with criminality against the license places of public worship for the performance law, the onus probandi rests with the accuser, and not of marriage before noon. Nobody can get married with the accused. A prisoner at the bar of a court who will not get up, once in life, before the canoni has not to prove that he did not commit murder-thatcal hour of twelve o'clock; unless by the registraar, he did not steal-that he did not break the peace, or who is probably either above or without canon his neighbour's gate, bell, or door-knocker. In a fit of law. This functionary keeps a book of notice, indignation against a worthless charge, or as the best open to public inspection; and so any parent or guarmeans of averting it, he may prove all that if he pleases,dian who may feel suspicion of the tendency of child by an alibi, or otherwise;—but his safety is secured by or ward to contract a mis-alliance, has only to keep up standing out on the defensive, maintaining a dogged si-acquaintance with the notice book in order to counlence after pronouncing the words "not guilty," and teract the design. We need, however, scarcely say saying nothing more, unless his prosecutor can estab-that the manuscript work in question is seldom perused lish his guilty connection with the crime by evidence. with attention by the proper parties, and the oddest This is the precise position of a female in Scotland imaginable relations are occasionally formed by the whose marriage is denied by the person with whom she official, who, generally, reads a few verses from the 1st has openly lived as his wife, and used his name pub-chapter of Genesis, to seal his blessing with scripture, licly, and apparently with his knowledge. The occurand all is over. rence of marriage might still be denied by the individual, or, more probably still, by his relatives; but he or they have to prove that no declaration of marriage occurred-a proof clearly impossible-so perfectly impossible, that the law assumes at once that it must have occurred; or in other words, that the assumption and use of the name with the concurrence of its owner constituted marriage for the purpose of civil law. The declaration before witnesses is self-sufficient.

land; and in none do fewer complaints exist on the topic which Lord Brougham and the legislature propose to redress and amend.

We have described possible occurrences under the law of Scotland, but the practice is particularly public. Contracts of this kind are formed always after due notice in the parish church, or churches, when the parties reside in different parishes. The whole probabilities of the case have been discussed for weeks before the occurrence of the solemnity, as this proclamation is generally repeated twice or thrice on successive Sabbaths. All the arguments for and against the Lord Brougham and his friends wish to substitute match have been debated by everybody acquainted for this law a system of registration, of rules and regu- with the parties for a considerable period. The sessioulations, similar to that existing in England and Ireland. clerk has made the necessary entries. The minister of The product of these laws in these countries is a mul- the congregation at which the bride attends is requested titude of bigamy cases and of provokingly quiet mar- to perform the ceremony, which becomes one of an riages. The English and Irish newspapers contain, we entirely religious character, to which the fullest pubshould think, a bigamy case on an average for each licity has been given. In no country on the face of publication. Sometimes these cases are very compli-earth are fewer secret marriages effected than in Scotcated. Recently, one man, lame of a leg, and deficient of an eye, was seized by three females in the street, at Cork, who each claimed to be his lawful wife, and not one of them, perhaps, was lawful; for some difficulty exists in observing all the forms of law in Ireland, so as to be perfectly married. The best course when a sure and firm act of matrimony is intended, is to employ an acute solicitor. Neither man nor woman is absolutely safe otherwise. To be married without a distinct knowledge of the religious sentiments of the person to whom one wants to be thus engaged, is dangerous anywhere, and doubly dangerous in Ireland. We remember the commotion raised a few years since by an ecclesiastical official, termed the "surrogate" at Armagh, and his allies and supporters, who insisted that one-half of the community who believed themselves to be respectable married people were anything but right in their notions. The dodge was clever and wicked. Some men of pernicious character determined to become bigamists without incurring the punishment annexed; and so they insisted that they always had been members of the Established Church, but had been erroneously married by Presbyterian ministers, and therefore were in no ways to be considered as married. The plea was actually successful. An act has since then been passed, with an ex post facto application to make valid the doubtful past, and render

The Lunacy bill, intended to obviate an old and a very serious defect, at a great and extravagant cost, after the general adoption of means under the present law, almost commensurate to the evil, is delayed for the session; and the Marriage and Registration bills promise to be the most productive jobs for the variety of young and deserving Whigs, who wait appointments with all the anxiety and impatience evinced by Van Amburgh's young lions for their food. We have no quarrel with the prudential anxieties of those gentlemen for their own interests, or with the activity of the Lord-Advocate on their behalf. That unfortunate official has to stand sponsor, not for the learning, but for the living of a numerous flock, and must be naturally desirous to have all of them well housed. If, morcover, new appointments, commissionerships, and so on, must be made, no reason exists against their distribution amongst this class of politicians. They are not less deserving than their opponents. Their influence is not likely to be more prejudicial than that of their antagonists. The most inveterate economist would probably allow them to be the least of two evils. Certainly they are better than the Mulesthe followers of Peel; because they know something

of their own mind. Our complaint is against the mul- 11 ber for Sheffield. Let it be understood in passingtiplication of places-not against the men in whose favour they will be multiplied.

merely being conveyed westward; although we put in remembrance our opposition to the mad freaks and wicked proceedings of Mr. O'Brien and his friends. The Whigs must cease centralising, or they will waken some day from their dream with the discovery of a federal union.

understood in London and elsewhere-by Mr. Roebuck and by others, that if Mr. Smith O'Brien should, or might The Scottish Sanatory Act has bored its way like a be hung, M. Kussoth, General Georgy, the Dembinmole under ground. We know nothing of it except skis, and all the other friends of the London Whigs, from the dust it throws up-the little hillocks made || commanding in Hungary, including General Bem, the by it here and there, as, when it was proposed for a clever correspondent of Lord Dudley Stuart, should second reading and denied; when it was ultimately be doubly hung; for we know not how virtue in Hunread a second time; or when a committee was appoint-gary can be transformed into crime in Ireland, by ed to consider the details. A bill of a similar character, belonging to any other section of the empire, would have been openly discussed. The measure comprehends immense interests, and its purposes require enormous powers. Very few of the public are, however, acquainted with its provisions. They generally know the want of sanatory regulations; and they hear that the worthy Lord-Advocate and his parliament are doing something against the cholera, typhus fever, doctors, and druggists. With the exception of the members of the metropolitan municipality, few of them knew anything more of the business up to the middle of last month. They assumed that anything in the form of a sanatory act was sanatory; and the Edinburgh Town Council negative the opinion, and ask delay and a careful consideration of details. The bill has been already too long delayed; and now its advocates say-When you are offered a measure, you seek a reprieve for dung hills-commutation of the sentence on bad drainage, and you cast many objections before the bill you sought. The great error is in the last clause of this sentence, which assumes that our want of a sanatory act justifies the legislature in imposing upon us anything under that name. Their proposed bill is liable to numerous objections-"to objections as," say the auctioneers, "too numerous to mention;" but its obvious tendency to centralise all power is an insuperable obstacle. Nothing will warn our Whigs against centralization. They want to do everything as the Socialists propose to cook their food and bring up their children in one establishment, with a boiler like a beertun, or on a nursery floor of two acres, and by steam. That system will neither do well in England nor in Scotland. People want to mend the ways of their own parish, and pay for the gas of their own street lamps, and not those of the streets in other towns. Nothing is more amusing than the terrible protests of the London Whig journals against the imprudence, oppression, and tyranny of the Austrians towards Hungary on the present occasion. The poor Austrians have done nothing more than copy the Whig policy of Britain. They merely wanted leave to do everything for Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Bohemia, Lombardy, Venetia, and the Tyrol, at Vienna; as the Whigs try to do everything for Scotland, Ireland, Wales, India, and all our forty-three colonies, at London. The Austrians made slight differences, certainly, in the mode of Government. They proposed universal suffrage, or something approaching to it, like Mr. Hume's suffrage; and they have fallen into dreadful trouble by their liberality. The Hungarians, whom the London Whig journals support so lustily, are merely fighting for the privileges sought by Mr. Smith O'Brien for Ireland-whom, we fear, Mr. Roebuck would almost permit to be hung in his strict attachment to legal sternness, unless, indeed, the Times of 19th ult.mis reported, as is more than likely, the speech of the mem

The Scotch complain with truth, more of omission than commission. We ask a sale of Encumbered Estates (Scotland) Bill, and might as well beg the moon, from our present legislature. We solicit corresponding facilities for our business to those prepared and proposed, and rightly proposed, for Ireland. We find our countrymen expatriated from the fertile regions of the Western Highlands and Islands, because the Duke of Argyle does not wish to improve his principality; and the Marquis of Breadalbane has a deer forest of forty or fifty miles long. We find poorer, and, literally, penniless landlords copying the example of the leviathans in land. We have these atrocities to the public interest, and often even to individuals committed under legisla tive sanction. We demand free trade in land, that our waste places may be cultivated; that one-half of the country may not be depopulated; that the resources of the soil may be evolved, and made subservient to the support and employment of the people. In answer, we are told that the country is poor; that the soil is bad, and the climate is worse, so that the capital and the labour requisite for its improvement would be thrown away. More objectionable means of spending money exist, however, than by paying labourers even to trench bad soil in a cold climate. We have no right to compel the existing landowners to pay out money in this way. If they think their waste lands valueless, they will be disposed to accept a small price for them. If capitalists can be found willing to give them anything for nothing, then they should accept and be thankful; but the Legislature will not permit them. The entail law stands in the way. Somebody in leading-strings cannot consent, or some other person refuses to concur; and because the land is held in joint ownership by the present and the future, the manufacture of wildernesses proceeds briskly, and their maintenance is secure.

year

The persons who say that the improvement of land in the West Highlands and Islands will not pay, are answered by experience. One gentleman, a Glasgow merchant, Mr. M'Ewan, purchased, in the first of the potato failure, an estate in the island of Islay. He has published his experience; and it is highly favourable. When the Duke of Argyle, and other little potentates, were begging money to feed and expatriate the peasantry on their estates, Mr. M'Ewan frankly told the people on his estate that no charity would be given by him, none sought from the public, and none permitted, if his influence could prevent the contagion of dependence from spreading amongst them, except in the cases of the sickly and the in

population than are now engaged in its cultivation. Instead of being a nation of nearly three millions, we might be nearly five millions, and be all the happier for the increase. Free trade in land is requisite to accomplish this change, and it cannot be obtained without the sanction of the Legislature, so that the business of the country with the Parliament is most important-its safety, and the subsistence of its children-an important business, requiring energy and talent for its accomplishment.

firm, for whom he would provide; but he offered em ployment on the soil at their own doors, on fair wages. He began his operations. The agriculturists of the Highlands pronounced them Utopian, but he persevered; and, from statements in his letter to Dr. Begg, which may be found, we believe, in a valuable pamphlet published by that gentleman, he appears to have been eminently successful. Other landlords might have been equally successful. The Duke of Argyle, instead of pestering the Highland Relief Committee for money, to buy food for his "banished cottiers" We referred to the state of the Scottish representafrom old Iona and Tyree, could have found work to tion as a reason for the carelessness evinced to Scottish them, and wealth to himself, and strength to the business. The majority of our members belong to the country, by employing them on his own estates. We class of respectable men, who are competent to manage need badly a sale of Encumbered Estates (Scotland) their own affairs, to mix in society without reproach, Bill; for, although the Lord Advocate's Entail Act and to pass through the world in an easy and creditnas been a partial improvement, yet its benefits are able way. They will not materially trouble themselves too limited for the field that has to be wrought. Re- on public affairs. The wonder regarding them is their lief to the Highlanders never would be sought in presence in Parliament under any condition. Why charity if the laud were relieved from the thraldom of were they sent there, and why did they go? are very impoverished or spiritless owners. The people are reasonable queries; but difficult to answer. If there accused of indolence, and the charge is not deficient in be any genius in Scotland, it is not represented amongst truth, but the fault is created and fostered by law. the members. Mr. Fox Maule has more talent They are made indolent by bad legislation. Men who than ambition, and he is subject to the atmospheric cannot be ensured in the enjoyment of the product influences of the Upper House. He is rather a Peer from their toil will not be patient and persevering in than a Commoner, while his public appearances are their labour. The Highlanders are not only tenants limited to the necessities of his office. The Earl of at will, with the exception of a few extensive sheep Lincoln is named the forlorn hope of the Peel party; farmers, but they are debarred from the most productive but although he represents a Scotch constituency, he parts of the land. The infatuation on the minds of some can scarcely be called a Scotch member, having merely of the most extensive landholders is inexplicable. Men | condescended to sit for Falkirk, in want of any other are driven from their native land to "tear in" and till place. Mr. Ewart, the member for Dumfries, is a perforests and prairies in the west, who leave behind them severing man, crowded with good intentions, but he is land, from its position and other circumstances, natu- English, and only came for refuge to Dumfries in conrally more valuable, but uncultivated. We have no sequence of an eviction; and remains there, by reason doubt that owners are told by practical agriculturists of of its cheapness when compared with Liverpool. Mr. the unproductiveness of the soil and the disadvantages Bouverie is also an English Peer's son, who fell into of the climate, as Mr. M'Ewan was told and warned Kilmarnock by accident, and may remain there for against his outlay; but let us have free-trade in land, many years, especially as he displays some sympand men will be found willing to expend the money, toms of an intention to advocate reciprocity, a preand take the risk of the results. The Western High- || valent doctrine amongst his constituents. The town of lands and Isles have soil in many places equal to the Greenock is represented by the Earl of Minto's son, Lothians, and a climate not inferior to any part of Lord John Russell's brother-in-law, who never opened Scotland. They are intersected by innumerable lochs his mouth in Parliament, but once wrote a pamphlet and arms of the sea, forming the cheapest means of on education. The neighbouring town of Paisley is conveying heavy produce. They are situated in the represented by another virtual Englishman, although eye of the most desirable markets, for they all commu- originally connected with the banks of Cart, a man of nicate by these water channels with the Clyde. They strong good sense, but a quiet member. Glasgow has have the most unquestioned facilities for rearing all sent a mercantile and a statistical member. The former descriptions of stock, and supplying all kinds of pro- makes remarkably condensed speeches in the Commons, visions. The soil is more accessible during winter and the talent of his colleague is not oratorical. The than even in the Scottish lowlands, supplying thus the House would lose nothing if they both adopted the same most necessary advantages in what is called green course. Mr. Hastie, of Glasgow, may be a very good mercropping. This district of country is quite competent chant, and Mr. Macgregor an excellent bank manager, to rear and fatten all the stock imported into England or Secretary of the Board of Trade, but they do not or Scotland, and all the provisions brought from Ame- adequately represent Glasgow. The Government do not rica or elsewhere. In making up this supply, an enor- wish to encourage Mr. Macgregor, who revealed the mously larger population would be supported in com- secrets of the bill manufactory and statute production, fort than now exist in penury. The Western Highlands but who is devoid of oratorical powers. They were and Islands, instead of supporting in misery two hun-indebted to the secretary's working habits; but they dred thousand persons, might have a population of two dislike the member. The feelings of the Whigs are million subsisting in comfort, buying manufactures for often unaccountable. We never discovered a good the produce they sold; and between whom and the reason for petting Mr. Wilson and opposing Mr. Maclooms and forges of this country no tariff barrier would|| gregor. They are equal in every respect, except intervene. Sufficient evidence has been afforded that years and experience, in which Mr. Macgregor has the the soil of Scotland might employ profitably a far larger]] advantage. We certainly do not undervalue the pub

lic services of the one gentleman, but the Whigs ap-|| design, and worthless for other than "signal" purpear to have profited as much from the exertions of poses. It was a grand "sign-post," and nothing more. the other; and do not, we think, display the necessary Many individuals feel that something should be done gratitude. Mr. Macgregor, although a native of Scot- to rescue the country from the post-mortem legisland, is not much attached to Scottish interests. His lation to which it has been long subjected; but they effort to make a new borough of Kensington, Chelsea, know not what to do. The parochial boards have and Brompton, was not liked amongst his constituency, shown them the course that they should take, and the who believed that they needed a member more, and hint will probably be adopted. A convention of this that Scotland could consume the savings gained by the nature, quietly collected after the meeting of Parlia disfranchisement of Sudbury without attaining a fair ment, to review its Scotch measures, and, before the proportion of representation. The statistical member || commencement of a session, to consider our legislative for Glasgow is, moreover, not quite so skilful of speech necessities, would procure for Scotch business a beas of figures. He may be an arithmetical genius, but coming share of attention. The question naturally he is not an oratorical; and the latter particular is that occurs, by whom would the members be elected? And in which Scotch senators are deficient. of course it is the most important question connected The county representation is merely respectable, al- with the affair. The poor-rate delegates had an autho though better than the boroughs. Mr. Bailie, Mr. rised and legal basis, while a genera convention would Cumming Bruce, and Lord Drumlanrig, in their several rest merely on the people who are willing, in the eye walks, address the legislature so as to command an of the law-nothing more than producers, out of whom attentive hearing. The county representation produces rates and taxes must be excavated. The Convention no member equivalent to Mr. D'Israeli on the one of Royal Burghs was once in a position to have accomside, or Mr. Cobden on the other; but it is better than plished this work; but it is defunct, a mortuum corpus the boroughs. Mr. Hume is a native of Montrose, and its vitality is suspended, probably never to be rerepresents the respectable eastern knot, and may do so during his pleasure; but he is in reality more Eng-be formed by the representatives of voluntary associa lish than Scotch. His feelings and sympathies are tions; and might degenerate into a political clubthoroughly English. He might have saved himself useful in its way, but not for this immediate purpose. much labour by remaining steady in Montrose; but We require the revival of industry, the cultivation of Mr. Hume, although one of the most useful and honest our waste lands, the removal of all barriers to the men in Parliament, is not peculiarly a Scottish repre-employment of any or all our resources; and the desentative, is not even particularly conversant with Scot-struction of that tendency to centralisation and com. tish affairs; and devotes his time and his labour most missionerships, which exercises a baneful influence on zealously and assiduously to the general good. freedom wherever it exists.

vived. Any convention of a useful character can only

For the leaders of Scotch opinion we would naturally These are the points for which chiefly we require look to the metropolitan representation—the four gen- some such organisation. They are different from genetlemen who sit in Parliament for Mid-Lothian; but at ||ral political questions, because our wants of that depresent we must look in vain to that quarter. The scription we hold nearly, but not altogether, in common county member is not given to legislative exhibitions, with our fellow subjects. Not altogether," because and the Lord-Advocate is the very man against whom while England has its forty-shillings freehold suffrage the country requires the protection of a few able de- -a most Conservative qualification assuredly, but one, baters. The city of Edinburgh is represented by one nevertheless, of a good and desirable character-Scotgentleman who owes his seat to the respect entertained land has only a two hundred shillings county qualificafor his father, as Louis Napoleon is indebted for his tion, and yet we are not five times richer than Eng. presidency to the pre-existence of his uncle; and by land. Why should our artizans, our rural tradesmen, another who was elected in a period of deserved antipa- the most industrious and the most valuable class of any thy to Mr. Macaulay. The one member will not speak, population, be denied the advantages and the privileges and the other is never heard when he does speak. Two bestowed on English artizans, and English village pamore respectable men in their several and proper de-triarchs and their sons? Why should our old curpartments could not be wished; but for the represen-rency usages-a system that has carried the country tation of the most intellectual and literary city in the with credit through many difficulties and changes-be kingdom they are ill adapted. The descent, even from blackguarded by Peel, and changed to please him— the days of Abercromby and Campbell, is painful. The as the marriage-law is abused by Brougham, and altered city of Jeffrey and Cockburn could surely produce for his satisfaction. members able to take a higher standing in the house than the gentlemen by whom it is now represented, without resorting to Leeds or drawing upon India for a representative. And even if one heavy, plodding, useful man be advisable to manage improvement bills, the annuity tax, and the poor-rates, the metropolis has, we trust, still another person who might be able to take a leading position in the House of Commons, and do justice to his country.

A few weeks since, a convention of parochial representatives was held in Edinburgh, to consider the state of the poor-law. They appointed a committee, and then separated. It was a lame conclusion to a great

Why, merely to please English members, should our prisons be made palaces, and our homes of honest men left equivalent, in damp and darkness, almost to the dungeons of Chillon, since they are so likely never to require confinement in the first, and never to enter the second? Why are all local, but important, laws, privileges, interests-or, if they will, even prejudices -changed and transmuted; and all important business and objects delayed, burked, or neglected by the English members, as the great and preponderating majority of the Imperial Parliament? Not, certainly, by the fault of English members; but most assuredly by th errors of Scotch electors.