virtue or health of the soul, because it is to be found to some degree everywhere, even though but sparse and rare, and nowhere complete, we must not deny its existence; and a very good answer to the pessimists Proudhon's argument forms. He was far too energetic himself to be a pessimist; he felt that health, and not disease, was the primal and greater law. Proudhon then proceeded to prove that his correspondent actually possessed some moral health. "The beasts,' said he, 'know no ennui, no disgust, no despair; their existence is protected by their animality. The proof that a being participating in superior life, and not following an inflexible instinct, but obeying reason, whose equilibrium is liable to be disturbed, is not wholly without moral health, is to be found in his profound sad desire to have more virtue, like a convalescent who aspires to perfect health.' Proudhon put himself to this trouble on a faint possibility that his words might be of service to an awakening conscience. We cannot help a feeling of disgust when we hear that this letter to him was a hoax. The real writer was a journalist named Gabriel Vicaire, who, when he had received Proud hon's reply, took it round to the autograph merchants for sale as a curiosity. Never let me meet M. Gabriel Vicaire,' said Proudhon, when he learned how disgracefully his generosity had been abused: and the sentiment was natural. This little incident at least serves to show how deep and genuine were the courtesy and charity of the man. Proudhon had, even in the latter years of his life, a powerful frame, an energetic mien, and a voice clear and vibrant like the sound of a bell. In Paris, so full of ennui and unbelief, he was always fresh-hearted and young. Every thing he did, we learn, he did with passion. He had been through many a troubled time; following the caprice of circumstances, he had been journalist, representative of the people, originator of a new species of bank, organiser of a Utopia, accused, condemned, prisoner, proscribed; he had married; he had, too, poor as he was, the responsibilities of a family; he was the willing adviser of all who came to him for guidance. He lived, we are told, a solitary thinker in one of the least noisy suburbs of Paris, writing page after page for very scanty pay, dishonoured by some, abjured by others, aimed at without ceasing by the sentinels of the reigning law. How then, it is asked, had he avoided wearing himself out, as so many have done, in the strife of politics, in prison, in exile, in the disappointments of a legitimate ambition so quickly frus trated, and in the midst of petty artist life unelevated by ideas and all burdened with ennuis? And the answer which is given to this goes to the bottom of the man's character. He had lived a peasant of the Franche-Comté (he was born at Besançon), even in the midst of the whirl of Parisian life. He had not departed a single day from sobriety and activity. He was invited one evening to the house of a rich man, where he might expect to meet a number of the gilded youth of Paris. His reply was like a message from a simple and patriarchal world: 'It is impossible for me to accept your invitation, because I have the invariable rule of going to bed every evening at nine o'clock.' We can scarcely contemplate Proudhon as a Frenchman, he is so absolutely at the antipodes of the conventional ideal of the Parisian revolutionist. His face, as we find it engraved, is as that of a highly idealised, nay, of an almost angelic blacksmith; and all who were his oppo nents were compelled to recognise in him the existence of a fine capacity for hammering. Such occupation came natural to him: wherever he saw abuses, he was ready with his powerful right arm. Conventionalities, and shams, and things unjust, coming across his path, could not hope to escape without a mark being put upon them. He was not, however, without his own proper pride. When some one was endeavouring to demonstrate to him the advantages of the aristocratic principle, he responded, I have fourteen quarterings of paysannerie; cite me a noble family counting so many in its own order.' He was more than once in prison he was even married from thence. He was several years in exile; and while editor of the Représentant du Peuple in August 1848, his journal was suspended and he condemned to a fine of 24,000 francs. On account of his work La Justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Eglise, he was in 1858 condemned to three years' imprisonment and a fine of 4,000 francs. He fled to Brussels and remained there till 1862. Returned to Paris, he was seized in July 1863 with physical prostration and utter loss of energy. He had but strength to crawl day by day into the Bois de Boulogne, where, lying down on the grass in the shade, he would sleep or dream for hours. From this attack he partly recovered, but only for a time. The air of his native county had proved beneficial to him; but various disorders came upon him, under which the frame which had been the medium of so vehement an energy at length succumbed. He died in January 1865. Those who most severely criticise Proudhon's works assert that he is not a politician in the true sense of the word, but that he intervened in public affairs, being But merely a philosopher and economist. They allow him to be a brilliant journalist, but set him down as a defective tactician-an incomplete appreciator of events; as one that regarded ensemble and avenir to the detriment of his appreciation of détail and présent. There is truth in this latter remark. Proudhon was philosopher rather than statesman, ideal rather than practically minute. What strikes us in his system is a certain unfinishedness, as if his ideas, although laboured so long and so earnestly, had not reached their final cast and completeness. He is apt, too, to lean towards a certain scholasticism, and to trust overmuch in the infallibility of his logical abstractions. there are in his works rare and noble elements; we find an unselfishness, a consecration to purpose, a devotion to an ideal and to humanity in disregard of any sacrifice it might entail-a steadiness of labour and a chastity of life that are in every way remarkable. This workman, son of a workman—this peasant of fourteen quarterings, says with even Mazzinian gravity and sternness, Jouir n'est pas le fin de l'homme.' If his class could but follow this maxim and persevere in the doctrine in spite of the allurements to which, when brought within reach, it so speedily succumbs, it would have no difficulty in becoming the dominant class and in moulding the world to its designs. But for nights of study, days of care, hours of plodding labour for bread, imperviousness to scorn, charity in spite of wrongs, sympathy in spite of antipathy, patience in spite of rebuffs, energy in spite of defeat, faith in spite of despair, Proudhon is without a peer, and he must be a strong man who can support himself through and in all these. Proudhon was a strong man; but he died at fifty-six, worn out. TEA-PLANTING IN INDIA, AND THE LEWSHAI TRIBES. THE HE large amount of capital invested in the cultivation of the tea-plant in the valleys of the Brahmaputra and Surmah, and the rapidly increasing number of Europeans who are there finding a new field for energy and enterprise, have combined to awaken public interest to what till very lately have been the least known provinces of British India. After a long struggle for existence, success seems to be at last almost within the grasp of the planters of Sylhet and Cachar. Many have been the difficulties they have had to meet, and not least among the number the question of how to obtain a sufficiency of labour at a reasonable rate. This difficulty is still unconquered, and on the success of the small force which this passing winter takes the field in the Lewshai Hills the very existence of tea-planting may be said to depend. Some idea of the country, and of how the labour required for cultivating tea is at present obtained, is necessary to understand the importance of the operations that are now taking place. Cachar and Sylhet form a valley bounded on all sides but the west by ranges of densely-wooded hills inhabited by savage tribes; some of these have been reduced to subjection, while of others little but the name is known. On the north, the Garrows, Cossyahs, and Jynteahs, who for many years raided with impunity in these valleys, have been reduced to subjection, and are now among the most peaceable and thriving of our subjects. More to the east, the Nagas and Ungami Nagas, by a judicious combination of firmness and kindness, though retaining their independence, have ceased for some years to harry our dominions; and still further eastward, the small kingdom of Munipoor, maintained by British influence, has been converted from a most troublesome neighbour to a ready means for keeping many of the unruly tribes who inhabit the hills to the north and east from coming into actual contact with us. The condition of the frontier on the west, north, and east may then be considered in a satisfactory condition. Before passing on to the southern boundary, it will be well to point out in what way any frontier-disturbance influences the success of tea-planting. The larger portion of both Sylhet and Cachar is thickly wooded with tropical jungle, and the population is very scanty; the soils adapted for tea-planting are the small rounded hillocks which rise in numbers from what, during the larger portion of the year, is simply an expanse of water, mud and jungle. The resident population gain an easy livelihood by growing rice, and as each man cultivates his own farm, are not available as coolies for the tea-planters ; the planters, then, have been obliged to import labour, and experience has shown that the natives of the north-west of India make the best colonists. All inhabitants of India are intensely attached to their homes, and it is only when driven by famine, or tempted by their ruling passion, avarice, that they can be induced to cast their lot in what appears to them an unknown and distant land. The languages of the two districts are different, the food is one to which they are not accustomed, and the climates of the two countries differ as much as those of Mentone and St. Petersburg. Again, in their own land, there is but little jungle; while their new homes are mere clearings in the heaviest tropical vegetation in the world. They leave, then, their birth place and friends with but small success and fortune are almost hopes of ever seeing either again, and go forth with the feelings all must experience on leaving home, heightened by their superstitious fears and ignorance. Under these circumstances, it is only by paying a large bounty that coolies can be procured; those who are willing to emigrate enter into a contract to serve for three years in the tea-gardens, are sent down to Calcutta, and thence go by river steamers to Cachar and Sylhet. Men, women and children, all go together, and by the time they reach their destination each has cost the planter five pounds. The change of climate, the difference of diet from flour to rice, and exposure to malaria, are fertile sources of disease and death; and though each planter is compelled by law to keep a native doctor on his garden, and, in his own interest, does everything in his power to make their new homes and occupations congenial to their tastes, numbers die off at first. All work-the men with the hoe, and in the tea-house the women and children picking leaf; and as they are paid by the piece, they are able not only to live in great comfort, but to save money. Each family has its homestead and cows; all are well paid and well treated, and many become attached to their new homes, and are glad to renew their contracts at the end of three years, for which they originally engaged. To induce them to do so is the great object with the planter, for, if he succeeds, he escapes the heavy expense attending a fresh importation of labour, and the coolies having learnt their work and become acclimatised, are far more valuable than new hands; in fact, so important a consideration is this, that if from any cause a garden becomes distasteful to the coolies, and they will not re-engage, it is impossible to work the plantation except at a dead loss; and the owner, when within his grasp, finds himself hopelessly ruined. Several causes tend to make a plantation disliked by the coolies: a very unhealthy position, want of tact and kindness on the part of the manager; but, above all others, the risk they run of being murdered. Men, women and children, are driven off into slavery by organised gangs of savages, who periodically make raids upon British territory, and return unpunished and laden with booty to the mountain fastnesses that afford them a home. These raids are generally made from the south, and before proceeding to a brief history of our relations with these southern tribes, some description of the country they inhabit will be necessary. The southern boundary of Cachar has never been defined; but some thirty miles south of the Surmah, or rather the Barak, as that river is called in Cachar, ranges of hills rise from the plain, running nearly due north and south, and gradually increasing in height, until they attain the dimensions of mountains; these hills extend into the province of Chittagong, and are bounded on the east by the Burmese empire, and on the west by Hill Tipperah, an independent State. Most of the rivers of this tract flow nearly due north, and are tributaries of the Barak; but far to the south others find an outlet in the Indian Ocean. The whole of these hills, the highest peaks of which reach a height of over five thousand feet, are thickly wooded; the banks of the streams are covered with tropical grass and cane-brakes, through which nothing but an elephant can force a passage; the hill-sides, which are usually very precipitous, are hidden from sight by clumps of bamboos and forest trees, covered with all kinds of creepers, the whole so matted together that the sun's rays rarely penetrate the almost Cimmerian |