lously preserved, from which the working classes draw the greater part of their best characteristics. Do what we will, we cannot reach perfection. Every system must have its evils, and the best one is that which has the fewest and the lightest. After all our changes and legislation, we must at last leave a great deal to the discretion and honesty of some part or other of the community; and the best plan must be, to confide this to those who may have the best security to offer in respect of character and circumstances, against the trust being abused. To make the working orders the favoured portion in regard to power and authority, is to do what madness alone could sanction.

There is one important topic connected with this question, on which we must not be silent. The combinations have generally asserted, that the high price of provisions compelled them to demand advanced wages. A clamour has therefore been got up for the admission of foreign corn, and Parliament is pledged to make some alteration in the Corn Laws in the next Session. Now, we beseech our Country Gentlemen to insist upon having the most full and correct information laid before them on the following points, before they consent to anything whatever that may depress the corn-market:

1st, The exact wages paid by every trade and manufacture to the workmen employed in them.

2d, The exact sum which these workmen really require for procuring a sufficiency of the necessaries of life.

3d, Whether these workmen are not receiving wages far higher than are necessary for procuring them such a sufficiency of necessaries.

4th, Whether these workmen are

not receiving wages, which not only support them in a plentiful manner, but enable them to contribute largely to the funds of the combinations, which not only support them thus when they deign to labour, but which enable them to spend weeks and months in idleness, to the grievous injury of the empire.

5th, Whether these workmen are not receiving-making every proper allowance-double the wages received by the husbandry labourers.

6th, Whether these workmen―taking all things into calculation-do not possess much greater incomes than the mass of our counting-house clerks, naval and military officers, officiating clergymen, and shopmen.

The most full and correct information, we say, must be demanded on all these points. It is alleged, that the sums paid for the labour of these workmen render it necessary for the price of corn to be lowered; and certainly this ought not to be listened to, until it is satisfactorily proved that these sums are not greater than they ought to be.

When we write, some of these work

men

are earning in London three pounds a-week, others fifty shillings, and others forty-five and forty shillings. Some of those who have lately struck, were hired at the rate of five shillings per day before they struck; and, if they thought proper to make what is called seven days in the week, they earned thirty-five shillings weekly. Most of those workmen earned before their strikes twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty shillings per week. In London, the mass of the clerks, shopmen, curates, half-pay officers, &c. men who have been educated as gentlemen, who are compelled to appear as gentlemen, and who are

constrained to live at far greater expense than the workmen in question -have not, perhaps, more than from seventy to one hundred pounds per

annum.

In all this we are saying nothing against high wages, if they can be with propriety demanded. We should rejoice if our labourers could earn ten pounds per week, even though ten shillings might supply them with necessaries, if they could do this without producing injustice and public evil. But the question is not, whether general high wages be, or be not, beneficial-it is, whether one part of the working-classes shall be doomed to penury and want, that the other part may receive far higher than necessary wages? It is declared, that the present wages of the workmen in question cannot be paid without a reduction in the moderate rents of the landholders, the scanty profits of the farmers, and the bread-and-water earnings of the husbandry-labourers. It is declared, in effect, that our country population must be condemned to distress and privation, that our town population may riot in profusion and extravagance. We protest against such outrageous injustice and oppression. If trade ought to injure one part of the community more than another, it certainly ought to injure those who are engaged in, and not those who have nothing to do with, it. If trade cannot be maintained without sacrifices-if, in reality, a grinding tax must be imposed upon us to make it flourish-in the name of common justice let us all suffer equally. Bring down the profits of the merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen, to the level of those of the farmer-reduce the wages of the town workman, until, all things considered, they only equal those of the husbandry-labourer-and then, whatever sacrifices may be necessary for the prosperity of trade, we will answer for it, that agriculture will bear its part without a murmur. But this abominable attempt to sacrifice, not only one great interest to another, but one part of the population to another, must be fairly resisted, whoever may countenance it. This has always been a land of justice and equi

ty, and we trust it will remain so. In spite of all that Political Economy has invented, or may invent, we maintain that the government has a right to give, not only the most full, but the most equal, protection to the proprety and industry of the nation; and that it cannot favour one interest, or one part of the people, to the cost and injury of another, without grossly violating its duty.

Let these misguided workmen who are agitating the country, and preparing for it the most serious evils, be assured that, in the upshot, they will be the greatest sufferers from their madness. The cup of bitterness will not be long in reaching them. Their turbulence and outrages-their sickening cant, touching their right to infiict the most grievous wrongs on all but themselves, have already stripped them of all respect and sympathy on the part of the rest of the nation. They stand the objects of general indignation-they are regarded as men who disgrace their country-who are acting the part of enemies to their country. Do they suppose that the masters, and the rest of the community, are men to be robbed of the control of their property and of their sacred rights by them, or any other people in the universe? If they do, they will soon be better informed. They may rely upon it, that if one law fail to curb them, another will be framed that will; and that if nothing else will do, the rest of the nation will unanimously place them bound hand and foot at the mercy of the masters.

We entreat the more moderate and honest members of the combinations to withdraw from them immediately, and we call upon those of the working classes who are unconnected with them to remain so. The workingorders ought to be the last to prepare public evils, for such evils always fall upon them the most heavily. Calamity cannot visit the empire without pouring its worst ills upon them. They can only prosper through the prosperity of the masters; and they will ever benefit far more from gaining the respect and good-will of the masters, than from exciting their animosity.

HONOURED MADAM,

FOR a circumstance of which you are not aware, I owe you an ample apology; but as, some day or other, the extent of my error may reach your ear, or be unfurled to your discover ing eye, I deem it incumbent on me to offer you some explanation in writing. I have, therefore, set myself down with the intent of inditing a long letter, giving you some account of the most singular character I have ever met with; and though the circumstances I have to relate are trivial in themselves, and things of no value, I am certain they will strike you, as they did me, with a novelty altogether peculiar.

When I visited you in May last, on my way to Glen-Lyon, what did you think of my companion? You certainly showed him every attention and kindness; and, on the whole, appeared a good deal captivated by his manner and conversation. But I have some impression which did not strike me till very lately, that on the day we took the ride up the river, you either said something, or locked something, or hinted something, in one way or other, that you had suspicion of something equivocal in his character. I assure you, my dear madam, that I had none; and whether I had any reason or not, the following detail will fully evince.

In December last, I chanced one evening to stray into a billiard-room with a Mr Robertson, a friend of mine; but being only a looker-on at that engaging game, I had to saunter about, waiting for Mr Robertson, with whom I was going to sup at a tavern. I had not well entered, till my eye caught a gentleman with whose face I felt conscious of being intimately acquainted. He was an on-looker like nyself, and was watching the game very attentively through a quizzingglass. I was assured I knew him perfectly well, and, as I thought, for something very remarkable; but for all that I could toil in a confusion of reminiscences, I could not recollect his

name, (indeed, I rarely ever recollect anybody's name at first,) so, for the present, I was obliged to defer addressing this intimate and interesting acquaintance. The party at the table where we both stood, were playing a pool, and some of the on-lookers were making casual remarks, when this mysterious gentleman made a chance reference to me, naming me at the same time in that easy familiar way, as if we had not only been daily, but hourly companions.

I was now more puzzled than ever, and before I left the room, I asked Mr Robertson, I asked Captain Harper, the master of the billiard-room, and several others, who was the gentleman in black, with the gold chain and quizzing-glass? All of them declared an acquaintance with his face -none with his name; and for several days and nights I could not forget the circumstance, but neither could I tell why I was so much interested in it.

Some weeks subsequent to that, as I was sitting in the Turf Coffee-room, an officer, dressed partly in a Highland uniform, came in, and began reading the papers straight opposite to

me.

I knew the face quite well, and he likewise tipped me a nod of recognition. I do not know what I would have given to have been able to recollect that officer's name, for it struck me that I had been particularly obligated to him at some former period; but his name I could not recollect, so I was obliged to go away highly dissatisfied with myself for my stupidity, and suspecting that I had lost my small portion of memory altogether.

On the same day I again perceived this gallant and respectable-looking officer, coming up the street after me, still walking by himself; and so much did I feel interested in knowing him, that I determined to wait his coming up, and address him at all hazards. Ĭ thought him one of the Highland chiefs that had entertained me in the north, but where, Heaven knew!—I did not. I moved my bonnet to him,

and bade him good day. He instantly held out his hand, gave mine a hearty shake-named me, and expressed much satisfaction that I recognized my old friend, having of late suspected I had forgot him.

"I am in a worse predicament now than ever," thought I; and I am sure I looked very sheepish; for, indeed, no situation could be more awkward than the one in which I stood, having forced an introduction of myself on a gentleman of whom I still knew not the least circumstance. I am sure, my dear Mrs A- -, you will think that was a dilemma that must soon have come to an end? I thought so too; but, on the contrary, it still increased -never came to an end-and never will come to an end while I live. There was one thing, however, that I now discovered, which stunned me still the more. I perceived that he was the very individual whom I had met in the billiard-room, but so transformed, that a witch could not have known him.

It was necessary for me to say something; and so I did. "I beg pardon, sir," says I.

"But I was so sure we were old acquaintances when we met at billiards the other evening, that I have been both grieved and angry with myself ever since for forgetting your name."

"And what was the great matter for that?" said he. "You might have called me Captain, which never comes wrong to one of my countrymen; or Colonel, which would have sounded a little better; or Duncan, or Donald, or M'Devil, or any patronymic you listed. What was the matter how you denominated an old acquaintance? It is a long time, Mr Hsince you and I first met. Do you remember that morning, at a fishingparty, in Major Campbell's boat?"

"Perfectly well, sir," says I, (which was not true.) "Was it at Ensay, in the sound of Harries, that you mean?" "Yes, to be sure!" said he.

"I was at so many fishing parties at Ensay, that I can hardly at this distance of time recollect one from another," said I. "Was it that morning that Dr M'Leod, and Luskinder, and Scalpa, were with us, when we caught the enormous skate, that weigh ed 300 weight?"

"Yes, to be sure, the very same," VOL. XVIII.

said he, "that was such a morning, and such a day, ay, and such a night!" "We had sad doings at Ensay, certainly," said I, "but shame fa' me, if I remember of meeting you there, Cornel. I hope I am right in calling you Cornel?”

To this last question he shortly nodded assent, and then went on. "It is very likely you may not, for I was then only a sort of a-a-a-boy, or a something between a boy or a lad—a stripling, in short. My father, the Colonel, had set me out on a ramble that summer, and happy I was to come several times in contact with you. We met again at Tarbet and at Greenock, you know." "Tar

I was utterly confounded. bet? Tarbet?" says I. "Sure, Colonel, I never did meet you at Tarbet? You were not of that ridiculous party, when we sailed away with the man's two daughters to Cowal, and then took them with us to Bute for two or three days."

"Was I not? But I was, though," said he ; "For though I could not get my father's brigandine, the Empress, left, as he had allowed me to take her out on a pleasure jaunt that summer, I treated your party at the inn, and saw you fairly away. We met again at Greenock, and had a brilliant party at the Tontine.-But this is my domicile for the present," added he, stepping up to the door of a hotel in Prince's Street. "Dine with me here to-day at half past five, or six-say six, punctually, and we will have a chat about old matters, and some literary things. We shall have a quite sober dinner, and I promise you that we shall not have above a bottle and a half a-piece -or two bottles-well, say two bottles each. Will you come, now? Give me your hand on it."

"With the utmost pleasure, sir," says I. "At six o'clock precisely? And whose party shall I ask for?"

"Oh, no party. We dine by ourselves in my own room," said he. "Ask for me— -just for me.'

I went away over to Charles' Street, scratching my ears and beating my brains to no purpose, trying to find out who the devil this grand Colonel was. I had been engaged in all these scenes that he had mentioned, but I could have made oath that he was not present at one of them, unless it had

E

been as a servant. As to his father the Colonel's splendid pleasure-vessel, the EMPRESS, I could remember nothing, either at Ensay, Rothsay, or Tarbet. I recollected something of a Mr M'Neill coming into Loch-Fine in a little stout square-rigged vessel of his own from some of the western isles, and of his being bound to the Clyde, but nothing at all of ever coming in contact with the gentleman. I was fairly bamboozled, and began to suspect that the man was a warlock or an enchanter.

At the hour appointed, to a very second, I went to the hotel, rung the porch bell, and taking the waiter aside, asked him very ingeniously for the proper designation of the Highland gentleman who lodged there, for that I was engaged to dine with him privately, and it looked so exceedingly awkward to have lost his address.

The lad said, there was no Highland gentleman lodging there at present but Major Cameron, who was dining out; but there was a gentleman in No. 6, who had ordered dinner for two, and whose address he supposed was Colonel Cloud.

66

says I.

M'Leod, you mean," "No, no," said he ; not MacLeod; that is my own name, which it is not likely I would forget. The gentleman, I think, gave his address as Colonel Cloud of Coalpepper. But he does not lodge here. I never saw him before to-day."

"You astonish me, callant, more ways than one," says I. "Such a designation as Cloud of Coalpepper I never in my life either heard or read, and this gentleman and I are old and intimate acquaintances. That cannot be the gentleman I want."

"Come up stairs and look at him,” said the lad; "and if he is not your man, you have nothing ado but to beg pardon, and come down again."

I did so, and found my friend in the full insignia of his honourable office. He was, as I judged, extremely polite, only that he took the greater part of the conversation on himself, which proved a great ease for your awkward friend in his awkward predicament. To have heard him talk, you would have thought that I had been in his company for the greater part of a number of years. He never instanced a party in which I had not been; but then he never represented one of them as

they were; the greatest part of the particulars he mentioned, I was certain, were purely imaginary, but yet I did not like to tell the gentleman to his face that he was lying. He mentioned the Right and Wrong Club with great sang froid-said he was only one night there, and had no inclination ever to go back again. I asked who was in the chair that night?

"Confound me, if I recollect," said

he. "But whoever it was, he was as often on the floor as in the chair. However, there was a great battle that night, so that you cannot have forgot it, unless you had one every night."

Cornel, I declare, I never saw any fighting at that famous club," said I. "I think there was a sort of row one night between some M'Leods and M'Donalds, which gave the designation to the club, but there was nothing serious; merely a drunken rally."

"What! have you forgot your rising to knock Norman M'Leod down? and how he tripped the feet from under you, so that you fell against a green screen, and down went you and screen together with a tremendous rattle? And don't you remember what you said when you arose, which set us all into such a roar of laughter, that, saving two at the farther end of the room, we all took to our seats again, and no one could ever tell that night again, what we quarrelled about?"

"I remember nothing about it at all?" said I.

"But I do," said the Colonel ; " you got up, and held your elbow, which seemed to have got some damage,'D-n the Hieland blude o' him,' says you, 'an it warna for his father's sake, I wad pit the life out o' him.' I may well remember the circumstances of that night's fray, for, being a stranger, I had meddled too rashly in the dispute, and had like to have paid very dearly for my temerity. This won't do, thinks I; I must show the lads some play before I am overpowered in this way. I had, at one time, five of them floored at once, all lying as flat as flounders. And don't you remember of two that fought it out?That was the best sport of all! After the general row, we had all taken our seats again, and sat I know not how long, when the president, whose name I think was Mr Gildas, or Gillies, or something of that sound, says in a queer quizzical voice, Gentlemen, I