THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE.

The subjoined table of the progress and general condition of the post-office department, is taken from the Democratic Review. Since the opening of the Revolution, there have been eleven post-master generals. Benjamin Franklin, the first in order, was chosen by congress, under the confederacy, on the 26th of July, 1775. His successors were, Richard Bache, Ebenezer Hazard, Samuel Osgood, Timothy Pickering, Joseph Habersham, Gideon Granger, R. J. Meigs, John M'Lean, William T. Barry, and Amos Kendall, A project is now in agitation to reduce the rates of postage: if this should be carried into operation, the receipts of the post-office would be very materially altered, and its ordinary expenses would have to be defrayed in part by some other branch of the government. Popular sentiment appears to favor the contemplated reform. Table of the Receipts, Expenditures, and Miles of Annual Mail Transportation, from 1789 to 1838.

COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS.

ALTERATIONS IN MARINE POLICIES OF INSURANCE.

Owing to the innumerable and increasing difficulties which have arisen under the memorandum" clause in cargo policies, the underwriters have been compelled to make the alterations which will be observed in the annexed notice. It will be perceived that this memorandum now includes a greater number of articles, as perishable in their own natures, than formerly; but it is believed that the alteration will not be unjust in its effect, whilst it will prevent disputes, and settle points of practice which were before doubtful.

New York, March 2, 1840.

The Marine Insurance Companies of this city have adopted the following memorandum, which will be inserted in their cargo policies on and after this day: MEMORANDUM.-It is also agreed that bar, bundle, rod, hoop, and sheet iron, wire of all kinds, tin plates, steel, madder, sumac, wicker ware, and willow manufactured or otherwise, salt, grain of all kinds, tobacco, Indian meal, fruits, (whether preserved or otherwise,) cheese, dry fish, vegetables and roots, rags, hempen yarn, bags, cotton bagging, and other articles used for bags or bagging, pleasure carriages, household furniture, skins and hides, musical instruments, looking glasses, and all other articles that are perishable in their own nature, are warranted by the assured free from average, unless general; hemp, tobacco stems, matting, and cassia, except in boxes, free from average under twenty per cent. unless general; and sugar, flax, flax seed, and bread, are warranted by the assured free from average under seven per cent., unless general; and coffee, in bags or bulk, pepper, in bags or bulk, and rice, free from average under ten per cent., unless general."

No damage to be allowed for goods injured by spotting, except caused by the immediate contact of sea water with the articles damaged.

WALTER R. JONES,

Secretary of the Board of Underwriters.

CUSTOM HOUSE REGULATIONS.

In future, all merchandise imported-1, on account of a foreign manufacturer; 2, on account of a foreign purchaser; 3, on account of a resident owner; 4, on consignment, the owner residing in the United States, elsewhere than in the city of New York, must, by a regulation adopted in the custom house of this city, be placed upon separate entries. This rule applies to all descriptions of goods, dutiable or free. As it varies from what has been the practice, it is important that it be generally understood.

The aid thus far extended to our undertaking, encourages us to press forward in our efforts to render the Merchants' Magazine all that its warmest friends could wish. The subjects connected with the great interests of trade and commerce are indeed multifarious, but it will be our aim, in time, as far as is practicable, to embrace them all within the scope of our labors. We have plans in view, which, when carried out, cannot fail of giving new interest and permanent value to the pages of this work. Now there are on our list of patrons, merchants and men of business who will ever command respect for their intelligence on points relating to their profession, and who have it in their power to do much towards elevating the mercantile character, and illustrating the principles of commerce. To such, we would say, our pages will always be open to the admission of communications on all topics which may fall within the design of our Magazine.

HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1840.

ART. I.-DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.

THE progress of civilized nations has been impressed with three distinct and strongly marked epochs. The first may be considered the era of the fine arts, commencing with the period when Greece was in its full glory, and ending with the downfall of the Roman Empire. The minds of men, at that time, appear to have been turned less to productive industry, the establishment of general comfort, and the diffusion of useful knowledge, than to the arts of luxury, which tended rather to benefit the few than the many. Painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, poetry, and eloquence, flourished in their full meridian under the patronage of the state. Poets were encouraged to recite their productions before the people, and were invested with the laurel crown, as a meed of popular applause. Orators were upborne by the tide of public favor, and received the reward of their exertions in the thunders of an acclaiming populace. The chisel of the sculptor was endowed with new life, and awoke from their marble beds the almost breathing forms of the most perfect statuary. Fabius, the admiration of all times, arose under the fostering hand of taste. Yet, amid this luxury and refinement, the utmost ignorance prevailed. The minds of men were pressed down by childish superstition. Barbarous forms of amusement stamped the character of the people with what appears to us to be a sort of savage cast, and the most perfect models of physical man were slaughtered to make a Roman holiday. Yet the monuments of that period which have come down to us, furnish conclusive evidence that, notwithstanding the amount of popular ignorance, superstition, and barbarity, which then prevailed, there existed a taste in literature and the fine arts which has marked that epoch as the classic age. What architectural forms of modern invention equal the exquisite proportions and finish of the Coliseum or the Parthenon?-edifices which cannot fail to convince us, that just to the extent in which we depart from them as models of form, we leave the true principles of architectural taste. What refinement of modern taste has ever exceeded the elaborate beauty of the vases and other do

mestic utensils which we now dig from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii? What modern art does not shrink back discouraged, even in its attempt to vie with the statues of the Venus and the Apollo which now stand in the temple of the Vatican? Or, if we turn to literature and eloquence, what more perfect models of poetry, oratory, history, philosophy, and rhetoric, do we find, than in the works of Homer and Demosthenes, of Livy and Tacitus, and the orations as well as the philosophical treatises of Tully, concerning government, oratory, friendship, duty, and old age?-works which are taught as text books in our schools, and without a knowledge of which the education of our youth is not considered to be complete.

The next epoch appears to us to be the age of political servitude, commencing with the introduction of chivalry into Great Britain, and extending through that night of a thousand years-the dark ages. During the greater part of that period, the energies of the great bulk of mankind appear to have been paralyzed, for the mass were chained as serfs to the soil, and the feudal system kept down their productive power. Books were confined to written parchments, and knowledge was deposited in the cloisters of monks. The tenants of the land were a sort of realty, transferable with its property, and burdened with services, and fines, and amercements, and bound in allegiance to their lords. The political power was vested to some extent in the monarch, but to a far greater degree in the haughty, stalwart, and armor-cased knights, whose power frowned upon the peasantry from the Gothic battlements of their castles,-the men who, with noble and chivalrous, though somewhat barbarous traits, and great physical power, descended from time to time through their massive gates to avenge the insults given to the fair, or to punish any aggression upon their chartered rights. In such a state of things, the power of the rulers without much enlightenment was every thing, and the people were nothing. The land was divided and granted out to titled holders for actual or professed services. With all the elements of knowledge in comparative chaos, in that age, without unity of action or motive for improvement, the vessel of state rolled heavily along upon the black waves, like a ship at midnight under a starless sky without a compass or a helm. Little was at that time done for the great cause of human improvement. What motive existed in the minds of those who wielded all the power of the government to alter that condition of things? What means of amelioration were proposed by the great bulk of the people, chained as slaves to the soil, and groping in ignorance under the combined action of the church and the state. The consequences of the political condition of society were such as might have been expected. Comparatively little was done for the advancement of civilization and the arts. Immense wastes were reserved as hunting grounds, and the soil was cultivated only so far as was required for the support of the inhabitants. The morals of the people, and the arts, were neglected. Even the laws bore the badges of vice, for they encouraged it; and although we are now shown the Gothic castles in which these knights of feudal times lived, with the jackdaws hovering around their towers, and though we still view the gigantic coats of mail which they wore, yet these have come down to us only as the relics of arbitrary power, vice, ignorance, and superstition.

Bacon, by his system of right reasoning, led the way to the establish

ment of the present age, which may be considered the age of mechanical philosophy, of general physical comfort, and productive industry. The minds of men, from that time, aided by inventions in the arts, have been urged forward step by step, to vigorous and practical action for the general good. By the agency of successive political revolutions, the elements of society are gradually working themselves clear. The energies of men which were before devoted to the mere arts of luxury, to the painting of pictures and the sculpturing of statues, the creation of edifices for the support of power and pride, or to the upholding of baronial pomp, are beginning to be devoted to the good of the mass. The mariner's compass has sent the ships, which before clung trembling to the coast, fearless across the ocean with their rich freights, and made every sea a beaten highway. The art of printing has diffused abroad, in various forms, from the penny newspaper to the luxurious quarto, the means of knowledge. Power has been gradually stealing from the few to the many. Benevolence, with its snow white banner, has traversed all climes. Chemistry has gone down from the desk of the schools to labor with the husbandman, enabling him to quadruple his production-moulded from the sand on which we tread a transparent medium, through which we can discover myriads of insects in a drop of water which are imperceptible to the naked eye, or explore the globes of heaven. Philosophy has measured the tracks of the planets, and leaving the cloister, teaches the mechanic the qualities of matter, and the economy of physical power. Geometry constructs the fortification, and builds iron roads across the land. The water is manacled like a slave, and made to work its own way to the sea. The air is forced to propel us across space, to lift the water for our use, and to assist us in war. Gunpowder enables us to destroy massive fabrics in a single day, which were impregnable to the battle axes and javelins of the past. Machinery, in its various and complex forms, has almost superseded the use of human hands, and performs the labor of almost all the arts, giving us the power to confine within the narrow compass of the signet of a finger ring the mechanism of a watch which measures time with the utmost accuracy, to imitate the most exquisite music and motions of singing birds and the minutest insects, or to command a momentum of a thousand horse power. And last of all, comes coughing or splashing on, the powerful agency of steam, binding together states with iron bars, ascending rivers, and crossing oceans, regardless of winds and waves.

We propose in this paper to enter into a somewhat enlarged discussion of the character of this productive labor, or domestic industry, in the United States. We use the term, domestic industry, in a broad sense; namely, that physical power which should be exerted in this country, producing the materiel of value, or which moulds it into a different form, either for consumption or exportation. Fertility of soil, navigable advantages, hydraulic power, climate, and proximity to valuable markets, all go to make up the natural resources of a nation, although the character of the population has a much stronger bearing upon the condition of a country; and it is equally clear that the same amount of physical force applied upon a fertile soil, will yield a greater measure of productive value than the same labor exerted upon a barren one.

We take the ground that our republic is not equalled in its capacity for production, by any tract of territory of equal extent on the face of