and to bestow an impolitic preference on those of France. On a fudden a colony of French were feen to disperse themselves over the Pruffian ftates in the various fhapes of directors, fubdirectors, infpectors, comptrollers, clerks, &c. This new fyftem multiplied without end formalities and grievances, and the fimple and falutary modes of the ancient practice were speedily deformed and corrupted.

As the vaftnefs of the Pruffian armies is ftill a matter of aftonifhment to all the world, the author, with much pains and perfpicuity, folves the myftery by explaining the manner in which they are levied. We will extract a part of the information our author gives us upon this head for the benefit of our readers:

This arrangement is founded on what is called cantonments. Each regiment, except the huffars, has a canton, or dilirict, affigned to it, comprehending a certain number of towns or villages, from which it has a right to take, for the military fervice, the young people of whom they ftand in need. The regiment keeps a lift of all the fons of citizens and peafants in the diflrict, who are marked on the baptifmal regifter. Every year one of the officers of the regiment is fent into the canton, to examine the young men, to measure them, and mark fuch as are fit for fervice. But this levy cannot be made arbitrarily, without giving notice to the chamber, which fends commiflaries, with orders to fee that every thing is conducted agreeably to the ordinances. The regulation eftablished on this fubject limits the power of the regiments, and determines the cafes in which levies may be made. There are specific exemptions, which tend to the benefit of agriculture, manufactures, and population. This regulation exempts, in the firit place, only fons who are deftined to fucceed their fathers in fome fituation, or those children with whose services a family cannot difpenfe, for the cultivation of their lands, or who are obliged to take care of a poor or infirm mother, or brothers and fifters in a state of infancy. 2dly. Strangers newly. fettled in the country, and the children they have brought with them. 3dly. Weavers (in Silefia). 4thly. Artifans in certain profeffions, according to their utility and fcarcity in each province. For instance, as the city of Breilaw, and the mountainous diftri&t, are the feat of the linen manufactories, thefe places are exempt from military fervice. It is true that the mountains of Silefia are appropriated to the king's guards; but foldiers are rarely drawn from thence for them, as the generals of other regiments make a point of offering their handfomelt men to the king for his regiment of guards.

In the fpring, the cantonifts (the foldiers of the districts) are fent to their respective regiments to be exercised; and in three months they muft be ready to appear at the king's reviews. As long as they remain with the regiment, they receive, like other foldiers, pay, lodging, and clothing. After the reviews, they return home. the captains profit by the pay of the foldiers in their abfence, there is. no fear of their retaining them a day longer than is neceffary. • When

As

• When not on duty, these foldiers return into the class of other villagers, and depend, like them, upon the lord of the estate. They may marry, purchase land, and contract other engagements.'

We cannot forbear making another extract, which may be fufficient to give the reader a good general notion of Frederick's administration in Silefia:

Only a few years were requifite to carry all these ordinances into execution in Silefia, whilft in other countries they were propofing prizes, to decide Whether it be useful to fecure to the peafant the property of his lands and of his labour?' Frederick did not wait for the decifion of academies in matters which have fo immediate an influence on the happiness of mankind, and which no circumstances, except barbarous habits, or the exceffive love of paradoxes, can ever fuffer to be called in question.

All these regulations have for their object the increase of population, and the improvement of the condition of the countrymen. Frederick exerted with no lefs vigilance his paternal care, in repairing their misfortunes occafioned by ftorms, hail, inundations, fires, diforders amongst the cattle, and other accidents. In no country are there fewer beggars, or a government more attentive in preventing and removing the mifery of the fubjects. The moral obligation of folacing the unhappy is become, in Frederick's dominions, a duty commanded by the law. The whole country is divided into certain focieties, each member of which receives fuccours in money, neceffaries, labour, &c. whenever he meets with any misfortune or confiderable lofs. If we add to this affiftance the taxes remitted him for fome years, in ready money, it is evident that he muft foon be in a condition to repair his loffes, and to resume his former fituation. A provincial counfellor inquires concerning the nature of these loffes, and estimates the damage. Next, he makes his report to the chamber, which decides on the nature of the indemnification, and takes care that he is paid. All this occafions no extraordinary expences. In the space of a few months, the buildings which have been burnt, must be repaired, and the cultivation of the land fuffers no interruption.

Great care is taken, likewife, to prevent fires. In each village there is a pump, and every individual is obliged to keep in his house a certain number of leathern buckets, and other implements, calculated to extinguish fires. All matters of this fort are examined every year by the provincial counsellors, and an exact return made to the chambers. When there is any deficiency, the provincial counsellors are responsible.

It has been obferved that we may judge of the degree of the civilisation of a people, and of the value they annex to fixed habitations, by the precautions they take against fires. In a great part of Silefia, fituated on the confines of Poland, the houses in the villages, and even in many towns, are formed of the trunks of trees placed horizontally on each other, and covered with ftraw or fhingles. There are neither ftone chimnies, nor any masonry. In this country it was found neceffary to prohibit the inhabitants, under pain of ENG. REV. VOL. XIII. SEPT. 1789. corporal

M

corporal punishment, from carrying into the barns, ftables, and other thatched buildings, lighted chaps, or candles without a lantern; from drying flax and hemp in their houses; from lining their stoves with linen and other combustible matters; from fmoking near thatched roofs, in barns, cr in the woods. All these prohibitions imply a very extraordinary negligence, infomuch that one would imagine that the people for whom they were made are but juft emerging out of the paftoral and hunting ftate, and are only begining to experience the advantages of agriculture, fociety, and permanent dwellings. The habitations of the gentlemen of this country are nearly all of the fame architecture; and the barons live, as in many Polish villages, intermingled, as it were, with their horfes, fwine, fheep, and oxen.

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During the reign of Frederick, the ordinances of this fage monarch, and the indefatigable attention of the chambers, have at length obliged them to fubftitute ftone chimnies for their wooden Funnels; or, at leaft, the prohibition is fo enforced as to prevent them from conftructing new houses on the ancient plan. In all the villages ftone ovens are now to be met with, and particular places fet apart for drying their flax, hemp, and fruits.

Oxen

From preceding obfervations the reader will naturally conclude that the villages of thefe countries are furrounded by forefts. The whole country is covered with wood, and the villages, here and there, rear up their heads in the midst of it. These damp woods, and the negligence of the inhabitants, are fatal to the cattle. and cows are not fed in ftables; but, as foon as the grafs appears, they are fent to graze in the woods and marshy coppices. Hence it frequently happens, that they are in want of food, and that the dews, the fogs, exhalations, mud, moisture, and heat, engender all forts of diforders. Every eighth or tenth year a general mortality rages among the cattle in thefe didricts. Thefe loffes the government endeavour to repair by companies of infurance, which, added to the allowances made by the chambers, comfort the inhabitants amidft their calamities. But, in thefe very aids, poffibly we may difcover one of the caufes of the negligence of the peafants, and of the increafe of the evil. To obviate this, ordinances have been pubifhed concerning the manner of treating the cattle, and avoiding the contagion; and as often as a mortality takes places, the provincial counfellor, and the phyfician of the circle, open fome of the animals, to examine whether the diforder arifes from a real infection, or from the negligence of the peafants. In the latter cafe, every kind of indemnity and allowance is refuted them. Phyficians, established in every circle, are employed to watch over the health of the inhabitants, and the prefervation of the cattle, ad to make all exertions in their power faithfully to fulfil this double duty. They are paid by the king.'

[To be continued. ]

ART.

ART. III. A Propofal for Uniformity of Weights and Measures in Scotland, by execution of the Laws now in force. With Tables of the English and Scotch Standards, and of the customary Weights and Measures of the feveral Counties and Boroughs of Scotland; Comparisons of the Standards with each other, and with the County Measures; Tables and Rules for their reciprocal Converfion; and fome Tables of the Weight and Produce of Corn, &c. To which is fubjoined Conjectures concerning the ancient Weights and Meafures of Scotland, from the Time of David I. downwards. Addreffed to his Majefty's Sheriffs and Stewarts Depute, and fuftices of Peace, of the feveral Counties and Stewartries, and to the Magiftrates of the Royal Boroughs in Scotland. 8vo. fewed. Hill, Edinburgh; Murray, London. 1789.

3s. 6d.

THE want of uniformity in weights and measures is highly difadvantageous to every country; and the detriment increases in proportion to the trade and manufactures of the country. It adds intricacy and labour to the detail of bufinefs; how much therefore muft it retard the wheels of commerce in Great-Britain.

Senfible of this, the legislature has repeatedly, from Magna Charta downwards, endeavoured to remedy the evil, but in vain; for though nearly an hundred acts of parliament appear in the English and Scotch ftatute-books relative to the weights and measures, yet the abufe ftill fubfifts; a difgrace to Britain in the eighteenth century. The power of cuftom and habit feems fuperior to all law; and what naturally arofe from a want of intercourse and connexion, from a disjointed ftate of fociety, now remains, when the cause that produced it has long fince paffed

away.

It gives us pleafure to obferve, from Sir J. Miller's intended bill, and from the prefent proposal, that another effort will be made to bring about a reform fo truly defirable. The ingenious and laborious author of the pamphlet before us, after giving a short history of the laws relating to weights and measures, fuggefts the following means to be used in order to render effective the laws now fubfifting on that fubje&t :

1. That the sheriffs and the juftices of peace of the feveral counties of Scotland fhould meet with the magiftrates of the respective boroughs, and, following out the plan in the act 1518, fhould firft of all poffefs themselves of complete and accurate fets of the legal ftandards, both English and Scotch, and fhould depofit them with the deans of guild, or other magiftrates, of every principal city and borough, and fettle a method for giving out authentic duplicates in terms of law,

2 That they should appoint in every city and borough, particular tradefmen for the purpose of making and affizing just copies of the ftandards; and particularly for making, affizing, and adjusting Linlithgow firlots and Winchefter bushels of one form, and of the capacity directed by law, and fhould fix rates as low as poffible for thefe articles, efpecially for the article of adjusting old firlots brought to them for that purpose.

3. That they fhould establish some proper method of getting an account of the cuftomary weights and measures in each county and borough, taking mediums where the differences are but small; and that they fhould afcertain the proportion betwixt these weights and measures and the legal ftandards, and make tables for converting them readily into the standards, and put these proportions and tables upon public record.

4. That they fhould give public notice in markets, and at parish churches, and otherwife, to all heritors, farmers, and others, to lay afide all weights and measures of different denominations from thofe allowed by law, and by a limited time to bring to a certain place their whole firlots, bufhels, and other measures and weights of legal denomination, which are not agreeable to the standards, and marked as fuch, to be adjusted and marked; and that, after a limited time, all perfons who fhall ufe, in buying, felling, or delivering, weights and meafures of denominations different from the standards, or difconform thereto, or who fhall ufe falfe weights and measures in any manner, shall be profecuted and punished according to law. 5. That, in refpect the execution of the law has not been uniform, they fhould make and publifh particular regulations, fetting forth the feveral other malpractices which they deem to fall under the law, and in what manner and to what extent they are to apply the law in punishing them.

6. That they appoint an officer for carrying on prefecutions, and advertise a reward for informers, to be paid on conviction.'

He then proceeds to answer the objections that might be made to his plan, and concludes this part of his work with the following fenfible remark: If judges and magiftrates would heartily fet about the execution of the laws we have, it is not to be ⚫ conceived in what few particulars we fhould require new laws. What these particulars are would be best known by the attempt, which would certainly be attended with beneficial effects in the meantime, and would pave the way for a law of entire uniformity with the English standards.'

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He next gives the following account of the annexed tables:

To promote this good work, and to make the execution of the laws more uniform and eafy, the annexed tables have been prepared. The materials from which they are made have been collected occafionally by a gentleman, who was called upon by the chairman of the late committee of the Houfe of Commons, to give his affiftance in forming fome claufes which were to have been added to the bills abovementioned, had they been refumed, in order to adapt them to