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What is most strange and anomalous of all in this eventful history is, that some human creatures, whom education and habits of decent intercourse ought to have civilised, frequent these places even when the mob has obtained possession of them, and seem to have a kind of insane satisfaction in exhibiting upon the ice, in the very midst of the prodigious gabble, and trampling, and pushing, and smoke puffing of ten thousand mannerless boobies and blackguards of all sorts, sizes, and complexions. How inconceivable is such a taste! Far rather would I betake myself to Avamska or Popova, a thousand miles northward of Tobolsk, or fix my dwelling amid the eternal ice and howling storms of Cape Ceverovostochnoi, within a hopstep-and-jump of the North Pole. Solitude, silence, cold-existence like that of ice or adamant-were better, far better, than the jangling and the jarring, the rude, trampling, roaring, smoke-vomiting insolence of a London mob.

But I would not have this mob left to its violence, and grossness, and want of respect for any thing and every thing. Formerly it had some respect for government-too much dashed with fear-but that is now almost all gone. It lacks a wholesome but still kindly restraint. It should be taught reverence. Institutions and rules should be devised, to create and publicly mark a distinction between such as paid respect to the decencies and proprieties of life, and such

as did not. The mob should be made to find out that ruffianism is bad policy. It should be taught that it is wicked. These things are too much neglected, and swaggering impudence becomes more and more the fashion, because, in these bustling, puffing, noisy times of physical force and mechanical, impetuosity, swaggering impudence is for the most part more esteemed than modest merit.

I had rather, with William Wordsworth, contemplate a quiet old beggar, by the way sideso he were but quiet-and extract philosophy from his use and occupation, than look on at any mob, well-dressed or ill-dressed, that ever crushed through an assembly room, or crowded upon Cockney ice. Regard, for a moment, the "Old Cumberland Beggar:"

"Him from my childhood have I known, and then He was so old, he seems not older now;

He travels on, a solitary man,

So helpless in appearance, that for him

The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand his alms upon the ground,
But stops, that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old man's hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein,
Watches the aged beggar with a look
Sidelong and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged beggar coming, quits her work,
And lifts the latch for him, that he may pass.
The postboy, when his rattling wheels o'ertake
The aged beggar in the woody lane,

Shouts to him from behind; and if, thus warn'd,
The old man does not change his course, the boy

Turns with less noisy wheels to the road side,
And passes gently by-without a curse

Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

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But deem not this man useless," &c. &c. &c.

Useless! no, by all that's gentle, and suggestive of gentle thoughts, the "old man" is anything but useless. At present he has served as a tranquillizer of the mind, which had grown passionately fretful with contemplation of the noisy coarseness of a London crowd.

BRITISH MACHINERY.

SIR GEORGE MURRAY, who, although a soldier, is not only one of the most graceful and elegant, but also one of the most ingenious of our public speakers, has lately been addressing the Manchester people with infinite skill. Of course, when a gentleman who has the gift of eloquence wishes to ingratiate himself with the good folks of Manchester, he must praise the wonderful achievements of steam, and steam machinery, in the manufacture of cotton goods, and this has been done by Sir George in the most felicitous manner. "I have gone round, "he said, "with

my friends to various mills and manufactories, where the industry and intelligence of the community are exercised with so much advantage to themselves, to the country, and to every portion of the globe. I have seen much to

interest, and still more to instruct. I have seen in operation the greatest and most gigantic power with which we are acquainted, acting with the most perfect smoothness and regularity, without noise and without vibration, extending in various directions, governed by reason and guided by ingenuity, operating upon the nicest, most delicate, and even flimsiest fabrics; and yet acting with equal success upon the rudest substances, upon the most heavy and apparently impenetrable masses. I have seen and traced that great power operating in every direction in which it is conceivable that motion could be guided, and I have seen it acting for nothing but good, always working out the same end-the comfort and convenience of the human race, uniting the interests of the remotest nations with those of the British empire, and conveying to China, to America, and to every quarter of the world, the productions of this great and mighty power."

It may be surmised that the steam-engine machinery which Sir George visited had been not only fresh fed with oil just before his arrival, but had also been given a soothing and sedative draught for the occasion. Smoothness and regularity such as he describes, must have been witnessed and admired by all who have inspected our really wondrous machinery, but in finding its action to be without vibration and without noise, Sir George was singularly fortunate. He

is very happy, however, in expressing that which really does strike one with the utmost marvel in these great manufactories, namely, the simple action of a great beam, moving up and down, which is all that the expanding and contracting faculties of steam effect in the first instance, distributing motive power in every direction, and in every variety of complicated form, circular, elliptical, perpendicular, sloping, or even zig-zag; in fine, as Sir George says, in every direction in which it is conceivable that motion could be guided.

There is something very lofty and noble in the idea of these wondrous operations of art, uniting Great Britain with the comforts and conveniences of all parts of the earth, and thus giving to the whole world an interest in the continuance and prosperity of our industrious ingenuity. This is the finest view of the subject which eloquence can take; but surely it is something too much to say that in these operations of machinery, and all their attendant circumstances, there is nothing but good. Perhaps Sir George felt that it was not judicious for him to dwell upon any but the more elevating and pleasing views of manufacturing industry, considering the object he had in view; but it cannot be doubted that, if cir

*That of being returned to Parliament as member for the town.

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