reaped the benefits of its influence. Titles, pensions, and promotions, have been heaped upon them in unexampled profusion, which presents a strange contrast with the impeachment of Hastings, and the general neglect experienced by those who laid, in past days, the foundations of our Asiatic rule; and before their short-lived laurels have had time to wither, they have been recalled to the tranquil enjoyment of their honours in England, leaving the rectification of their errors to their successors. Even to the last moment of his stay in India, the late viceroy was fostered by the breath of popular favour; and the thunder of the cannon which announced the arrival of Lord Ellenborough, was mingled with the acclamations which rang through the Town Hall of Calcutta from those assembled to do honour to the ruler whom he came to succeed. With the tributes of respect thus tendered. we have no fault to find, if considered as on the principle of speed the parting guest, or with reference to the amiable character and high private worth of the individual; but the laudatory allusions to his trans-Indian policy, with which the Calcutta addresses were filled, were equally opposed to fact and to good taste; and must (we think) have been felt by the object of them as a painful and humiliating mockery. When Lord Auckland assumed the reins of government in 1836, the external relations of our Eastern empire were peaceful, the finances prosperous, and the army, notwithstanding the injudicious reductions of Lord William Bentinck, amply sufficient for any duty required within our own frontier; but a far different prospect awaits his successor. A treasury drained to the last rupee-an army defeated in one quarter, and disaffected in another-an almost hopelessly-involved foreign policy-with a war of extermination in Affghanistan-a seemingly interminable bucanier warfare in China, and the probability of hostilities with Burmah and Nepaul-such is the frightful catalogue of difficulties with which the new governor-general is called upon at once to grapple !

But Lord Ellenborough approaches the task with far different qualifications to several of his immediate predecessors, who seem to have assumed the viceregal sceptre of India as

a dignified and lucrative sinecure; for the creditable fulfilment of the duties of which little exertion would be requir ed, and still less any previous knowledge of the institutions and political condition of the countries they were thus called to govern. His services as President of the Board of Control in 1828, and, more recently (in 1840) as chairman of the Lords' Committee on East Indian produce, bear ample and honourable evidence of the extent to which his researches have been carried in the commercial and agricultural resources of our Asiatic territories, and afford a hope that this knowledge may, when the present storm has passed, be brought efficiently to bear on the development of these too long neglected natural riches. The trade of India has now been open seven years, but neither the parliament nor the public have as yet shown themselves adequately aware of its true value and importance. While the possession of the Indus ought to secure to us the whole commerce of Central Asia (1), the tea of Assam, the sugar of Hindostan, and the cotton recently introduced from America and Egypt, might be cultivated so as eventually both to render us independent of our now precarious trade with China, and to secure our supplies of cotton in the event of a rupture of our hollow friendship with America.

For the first time during many years, the care of these mighty interests has devolved upon one who is endowed not only with zeal and goodwill, but with that previous acquaintance with India, its resources, and its customs, the want of which has so lamentably marred the well-meant endeavours of more than one of his predecessors. Of his foreign policy, hampered as it must necessarily be at the outset by the task of unravelling the tangled web which has been bequeathed to him, little can at present be said :-but he has set out with

(') The exertions of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce have already worked wonders in this quarter-depots have been established at various points on the Indus, and the port of Soumeeani, on the Belooch coast west of the mouth of that river, is fast becoming the emporium of a wool trade, the staple of which is supplied by the innumerable flocks grazing on these elevated table lands. A town in the interior called Wudd (145 miles from Khelat and 152 from Soumeeani) is the inland mart for this new trade. 59

VOL. III.

the commander-in-chief for the north-western provinces, in order to be nearer the scene of action-a journey, we trust, to be attended with different results to the memorable progress of Lord Auckland to the same quarter; - and his domestic administration has been commenced auspiciously, by an act of justice to the Madras sepoys in the restoration of the disputed batta. But on the course of Lord Ellenborough's government will mainly depend the question of the future stability, or gradual decline, of our Anglo-Indian empire; for, though we are not among those who hold the opinion said to have been expressed by a late governor of one of the presidencies (Sir Charles Metcalfe,) that he hardly felt secure, on retiring to rest for the night, that the whole fabric might not have vanished into thin air before the morning, it cannot be denied that the prestige of unerring wisdom and invincible good fortune, which powerfully conduced to the maintenance of our authority, has sustained a tremendous shock from the late oc currences beyond the Indus. The French press already, in exulting anticipation, has ventured to indicate the period of its extinction. England (says the Siècle) is rich and energetic she may re-establish her 'dominion in India for some time longer; but the term of her Indian empire is marked: it will conclude before the quarter of a century. » Less than the prescribed period would probably have sufficed, under a continuance of the policy lately pursued, for the accomplishment of this prophecy; but we have good hope that the evil days have now passed away and if Lord Ellenborough, at the conclusion of his viceroyalty, has only so far succeeded as to restore our foreign and domestic relations to the same state in which they stood ten years since, he will merit to be handed down to posterity by the side of Clive and Hastings as the second founder of our eastern empire.

(BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.)

MISCELLANEA.

FROM THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN PARIS.

CHIFFONNIERS.It is in Paris only that the chiffonniers, or: rubbish-hunters, form a distinct and specific class :-

'The extension of industry during the last thirty years has added to the dignity of this profession, which is alike followed by men, women, and children. It requires no apprenticeship, no previous course of study, no expensive outfit: a large and compactly-shaped" basket, a stick with a hook at the end of it, and a lantern, are the eutire stock-in-trade of this singular species of labourers. The men gain, on an average, and according to the season of the year, from twenty-five to forty sous a-day; but to do this they are obliged to make three rounds, two by day, and one during the night; their labour commencing at five in the morning and erding at midnight, Between their rounds they examine and sort the cargoes which they bring in, and which they term their merchandize; and having done so, go and sell the arranged treasures to the master or managing chiffonnier for, like all other professions, this has its gradations of rauks, the higher of which are only reached after long periods of subordinate labour. Many of these chiefs keep furnished lodgings, which they let out exclusively to those ambulatory chiffonniers who have no fixed residence; reserving to their own use the groundfloor, as a magazine for their wares. The important operation of sorting his booty, if the chiffonnier is one of the better class, ant desirous of a healthy lodging, is performed either in a separate room, hired for the purpose, or, when the weather will permit, in the open air; but the far greater number possess only a single room, and in this, surrounded and assisted by their children, they spread out, examine, and sort the filthy produce of each journey. The floor is covered with rags, fragments of aniinal substances, glass, paper, and a thousand other things, some whole, some broken, and all begrimed with dirt; whilst the several selections fill all the corners of the room, and are heaped up under the bed. The stran

favourable to their character, since they were compounded of naughty knaves and puppies-(Naute-aves-puppes.)

GREEK LITERATURE. The Greek literature is like the shafts of a mine, always warmer the deeper we penetrate, though it be cold on the surface; most modern poems have heat only on the outside.

"

AMERICAN HORSE-RAKE.-In some parts of the country, where labour is very dear, they use a machine for raking the bay, called the Flexible Horse-rake It is distinguished from all others by a joint in the centre of the head, by which the rake contracts to any uneven ground, and ́takes the hay clean. Also, by the form of the teeth, which glide over hillocks or stones, like the runner of a sledge. This rake has also a smoth back-board, on a level with the teeth which support it; and it is not liable to become entangled with the hay, when canted over to be emptied. Twenty-four acres a day are raked perfectly clean with this instrument-one man holding it, a small boy riding the horse. The labour of managing it is less than that of holding a small plough.

SUBORDINATION. An Englishman made the remark that, in madhouses, the idea of subordination is very seldom to be found Bedlam is inhabited only by gods, kings, popes and philosophers.

:

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MR. SCOTT RUSSELL'S INDEX FOR THE SPEED OF STEAM-VESSELS. Mr. Russell stated, that his index of speed was founded on the well-known dynamical fact, that if an aperture were made in the lower part of a vessel containing water, and a stream were allowed to issue from it against an aperture in another vessel containing water, the force of the current would keep the water in the second vessel at the same height as in the vessel from which the current issued. It would follow, from this principle, that if a vessel were passing through the water at a speed equivalent to that of the current produced by a given head of water, the resistance would raise water in a tube inside the vessel, but subjected to the action of the external fluid. Mr. Russell then proceeded to detail the particulars of the invention to which he had applied this principle,