a meeting of trustees, to prevent so scandalous a practice for the future. It was, however, rejected at a general meeting of the subscribers, where, in all probability, the tradesmen had made a canvass, and obtained the attendance of friends. Nay, a learned Judge, who was one of the trustees, having afterwards proposed a resolution merely to prevent any trustee or subscriber voting on matters in which he was personally interested, it was rejected instantly, and therefore not recorded on the minutes, (p. 224.); whereupon his Lordship most properly abstained from attending any future meeting, and, we trust, from ever contributing any more money to the fund.

This is one instance only of thousands, where the money collected from well-disposed persons, who take no further charge of a charity than to pay their subscriptions, is wasted by the jobbing of too active and interested managers. But suppose there had been no direct abuse, and that all the income had been honestly and carefully employed in promoting the objects of the establishment, by far the greater part of it would have been hurtfully bestowed. Instead of clothing 101 boys, and maintaining 65 girls, at the rate of 20007. a year, the fixed income alone, of 5007. might have educated a thousand children, and left 1500l. a year free for establishing other schools, if wanted; and as two others of the same size would in all probability have more than sufficed to supply the defect of education in that district, (the uneducated being to the educated children there as 44 to 33, by the examination of the West London Lancaster Association, and the district having a population of less than 50,000 inhabitants), a fund would have remained sufficient to support an institution for the instruction of 7 or 800 mechanics. Thus, the same money which is now not merely uselessly, but perniciously bestowed, might, by a little care, and a due portion of steadiness in resisting the interested clamours of persons who subscribe to it for the purpose of turning it to their own profit, be made the means of at once educating all the children in the worst district of London, and of planting there the light of science among the most useful and industrious class of the community. Now, within the same district, or applicable to it, there are probably other charitable funds, arising from voluntary contribution, to five or six times the amount of the single charity we have been considering; and it is most likely that there is hardly one of the benevolent indi

Supposing the schools required for a population of 50,000 to be in the proportion of one-ninth, schools for about 5500 would be wanted; and if there already exist schools for of that number, schools for 3100 more would be sufficient.

viduals who support this school, but contributes to one or more charities besides. How important, then, does it become for each man carefully to reconsider the use he is making, or suffering others to make, of that money which his humanity has set apart for the relief of his fellow-creatures, and the improvement of their condition; and how serious a duty is it to take care that what originates in the most praiseworthy motives, should also end in really beneficial results to the objects of his bounty!

We trust it is not necessary for us to close these observations by anticipating and removing objections to the diffusion of science among the working classes, arising from considerations of a political nature. The time, we rejoice to think, is past and gone, when bigots could persuade mankind that the lights of philosophy were to be extinguished as dangerous to religion; and when tyrants, or their minions, could proscribe the instructors of the people, as enemies to their power. It is preposterous to imagine that the enlargement of the understanding, and our acquaintance with the laws which regulate the universe, can dispose to unbelief. It may be a cure for superstition-for intolerance it will be the most certain cure; but a pure and true religion has nothing to fear from the greatest expansion which the intellect can receive by the study either of matter or of mind. The more science is diffused, the better will the Author of all things be known, and the less will the people be tossed to and fro by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.' To tyrants, indeed, and bad rulers, the progress of knowledge among the mass of mankind is a just object of terror: it is fatal to them and their designs; they know this by unerring instinct, and unceasingly they dread the light. But they will find it more easy to curse than to extinguish. It is spreading in spite of them, even in those countries where arbitrary power deems itself most secure; and in England, any attempt to check its progress would only bring about the sudden destruction of him who should be insane enough to make it.

* An amusing instance of this natural antipathy was afforded, when the Emperor of Austria visited Italy, soon after the cruel reverse of fortune which restored his dominions in Lombardy. A Professor was presented to him, and introduced as a learned man, who had made some important researches respecting the constitution of the atmosphere. The sound of the word was enough for his Imperial, Royal, Apostolic Majesty's nerves, and drew forth immediately this exclamation, Costituzione! Costituzione! Ah! e quella parola che ci ha fatto tanto male !'' Constitution! Constitution! Ah! it's that word that has done us so much mischief!'

ART. VI. A Voyage to Cochin China. By JOHN WHITE, Lieutenant in the United States Navy. London, Longman & Co. 1824. 8vo. pp. 372.

WIT ITH the exception, perhaps, of the English, there is no people who ever wandered over the globe with such persevering industry as the Americans. Yet they have not hitherto contributed their due share of voyages and travels. Their voyages, indeed, having generally been made for the sole purpose of commercial gain, and conducted by men not always qualified to take advantage of their opportunities, could not well be expected to give birth to many interesting publications. The recent increase of their Navy, however, bids fair soon to remove these impediments; and among its first fruits, we hail with pleasure the appearance of this very interesting little volume, by an officer of good sense and observation, who describes, with apparent fairness, and much spirit, the manners of a country with which we are extremely little acquainted. Lieutenant White's book has the great merit of being short and cheap; and though here and there we find indications of book-making, we are disposed to give him credit for the better part of it. Before proceeding with our analysis, we had intended to favour our readers with a slight geographical and political sketch of the country to which it relates; and had gone through a good deal of heavy work in preparation for it, when we were very agreeably relieved, by learning that a book on this very subject was in preparation by Mr Crawford, a gentleman well known to the literary world by his Account of the Eastern Archipelago, a work, by the way, which we take shame to ourselves for not having noticed at the time of its appearance. We really have no inclination to put our hasty lucubrations in competition with those of a gentleman of his talents and means of information, and gladly postpone our account of Cochin China till we have had the advantage of seeing his.

Mr White, who is a Lieutenant in the American Navy, sailed from Salem, near Boston, in command of the merchant ship Franklin, in January 1819, on a trading voyage to Cochin China. His first chapter conducts us over beaten ground; but, in the second, he fairly grapples with his subject; and having entered the China sea, has a prodigious battle with sundry Malay proas, the details of which are given with the minuteness and importance of a general action, and the whole affray wrought up with a high finish. high finish. These Malays were more formidable than any we have before heard of; but our yoyagers broadsides of grape, langrage and double round,'

taught them a lesson which they will not soon forget. In the end, indeed, the pirates appear to have had very nearly the best of it, for the American's artillery, as he calls it, lay all dismounted on the deck! But by dint of superior sailing he reached the anchorage of Mintow in Banka.

On the 8th of June, five months after leaving Salem, the navigators have their first interview with the natives of Cochin China, at the village of Vung-tau in the river of Don-nai. An officer was sent on shore to request the assistance of a pilot to conduct them to the city of Saigon. Shortly afterwards a large boat, full of men, and decorated with pendants and streamers, approached the ships. The chief who came on board is well described.

The military chief was a withered, grey-headed old man, possessing however a great deal of vivacity, tinctured with a leaven of savage childishness, which, in spite of his affectation of great state and ceremony, would constantly break out, and afforded us infinite amusement. He had several attendants, who were perfectly subservient, and promptly obedient to all his orders; yet we observed that on all other occasions the greatest familiarity subsisted between them. One of the attendants carried a huge umbrella, with which he followed the old man to all parts of the ship, where his curiosity or caprice led him; and, when invited into the cabin, he would not descend without the umbrella, so tenacious was he of every circumstance of state and appearance. Another attendant was a handsome boy of about fifteen years of age, who carried in two blue silk bags, connected with a piece of cotton cloth, and thrown over his shoulder, the arcka nut, betal leaf, chunam and tobacco, of which they chew immense quantities; and so universal is this custom among them, that I never saw a man of any rank or respectability without one of these attendants. They also smoke segars made of cut tobacco, rolled in paper wrappers, like the Portuguese, from whom probably they adopted this custom. Another servant carried his fan; and our risibility was not a little cxcited on seeing the old fellow strutting about the deck, peeping into the cook's coppers, embracing the sailors on the forecastle, dancing, grinning, and playing many other antic tricks, followed all the time by the whole train of fanners, umbrella bearers, and chunam boys, (for the attendants of the other chiefs had joined in the procession), with the most grave deportment and solemn visages, performing their several functions.

The dress of the chiefs consisted of a very short and coarse cotton shirt, which had been originally white; trowsers of black crape, very wide, without waistbands, and secured round the waist by a sash of crimson silk; a tunic of black or blue silk, the lapel folding over the breast and buttoning on the opposite shoulder, which, as well as the shirt, had a very low collar, buttoned close round the neck, and reaching nearly to the knees; coarse wooden

sandals; a turban of black crape, surmounted by a hat made of palm leaves, in the form of a very obtuse cone; a ring for the insertion of the head underneath, and secured under the chin with a string. The style of the dress of the attendants was similar to that of the mandarin, but of much coarser materials.' pp. 36, 37.

After peering about the ship, this old chief began all at once to make love to the captain, by hugging him round the neck, and other suffocating endearments, which the American evaded as well as he could, while he stoutly maintained the weathergage of his offensive visitor-wondering at the same time what all this could mean. The object was soon made known, by his taking a liking to every movable thing which came in his In order to divert his attention from a looking-glass way. and various other things which he had begged, a glass of brandy was offered him. This he lost no time in swallowing, and then he appropriated the whole bottle, placed it under his cloak, and immediately resumed his demands for more. The curtains, glass ware, wearing apparel, arms, amunition, spyglasses, and cabin furniture, were successively the object of his cupidity.' After much trouble, however, he and his party were finally dislodged, at the expense of a pair of pistols, several cartridges of powder, shoes, shirts, six bottles of wine, three of rum, and three of French cordials, a cut-glass tumbler, two wine glasses, and a Dutch cheese, besides numberless minor presents to the attendants, whom it was thought proper to conciliate. By these means the voyagers hoped to gain the good will of the natives, and to be allowed to open a trade with the country. Their difficulties, however, were only beginning, and every species of trick was put in practice to delay and obstruct them.

The Captain's first visit to the shore was at the village of Canjeo, which is situated on the banks of a creek near to the great

river of Don-nai.

On our approach to the shore, our olfactory nerves were saluted with "the rankest compound of villanous smells that ever offended nostril;" and the natives of the place, consisting principally of men, women, children, swine, and mangy dogs, equally filthy and miserable in appearance, lined the muddy banks of this Stygian stream to welcome our landing. With this escort we proceeded immediately to the house of the chief, through several defiles, strewed with rotten fish, old bones, and various other nauseous objects, among the fortuitous assemblage of huts, fish-pots, old boats, pigstyes, &c. which surrounded us in every direction; and, in order that no circumstance of ceremony should be omitted, to honour their new guests, a most harmonious concert was immediately struck up by the swarm of little filthy children, in a state of perfect nudity (which