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

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

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AMERICAN HORSE-RAKE.-In some parts of the country, where labour is very dear, they use a machine for raking the hay, 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 yessel 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,

by passing a tube through the bow of the vessel, and carrying it along the flooring to the centre of gravity of the vessel, where it terminated in a vertical glass tube, exhibiting the weight of water within. To this tube there was attached a moveable scale, the zero of which being placed on a level with the point at which the water stood when the vessel was at rest, the rise of the water in the tube when the vessel was set in motion exhibited the velocity at which the vessel was passing through the water. With the view of testing the accuracy of this invention he had tried it repeatedly over a distance of 15 miles, measured trigonometrically. He had also compared it with the best logs, and was perfectly satisfied of its accuracy. From these experiments he had constructed a scale, which he exhibited, and of which the following is a copy; the first column exhibiting the speed in miles per hour, and the second the height of the water in the tube above the zero line expressed in feet and decimal parts

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IMMENSE GUN.

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On Wednesday last a barge arrived at the wharf of the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, having on board the largest gun ever made in this country. A powerful shears

was put up expressly for landing this ponderous piece of ordnance, weighing very nearly eighteen tons, none of the cranes on the wharf being equal to the task. The arrangements for landing this great gun were excellently made, and carried into effect without the slightest accident; and the labour of conveying it to the butt, shows great ingenuity, being effected by a coil of strong rope around it, moving the immense mass in a rolling manner along four large logs of wood, changed alternately as the gun progresses. This gun is made on the howitzer principle, and is about 12 feet long, with an immense quantity of metal at the breech. The diameter of the bore is within about one-tenth of 16 inches. The weight of solid shot with which it will be fired is 455lb., and shells of 330lb., and it is expected two solid shot of that weight and four shells in the same proportion will be used when it is proved at the butt. The howitzer was cast and bored by Messrs. Walker and Co., for Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, and two other large guns, 130 pounders, were landed at the same time to be proved for service in Egypt.

PERMITTED TO BE PRINTED,

St. Petersburg, September 1st, 1842.

P. KORSAKOFF, CENSOR.

Printed at the Office of the Journal de St. Pétersbourg.

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TRIAL OF MADAME LAFARGE.

FRENCH CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE.

1.- Procès de Madame Lafarge, (Vol et Empoisonnement,) complets et détaillés. Deuxième édition. Annales criminelles, au Bureau, rue d'Enghien. Paris: 1840.

2.- Procès de Madame Lafarge, etc. Deuxième édition. Pagnerre, Editeur. Paris: 1840. (')

3.- Mémoires de Marie Cappelle, veuve Lafarge, écrits par elle-même. 2 Tom. 8vo. Londres: 1841.

The works placed at the head of this paper form together a mournful and startling history. They have indeed been but too generally perused in the careless spirit with which a novel is glanced at and forgotten; because they have been supposed to contain merely the story of one of the common horrors of the day, sent forth to gratify the prevailing taste for excitement-lo occupy for its hour the columns of a Newspaperto be hurried over and superseded by some more terrible catastrophe, and then forgotten for ever. To one, however, who

(') We have placed these two accounts of the Trial of Madame Lafarge at the head of this paper, because they mutually explain and correct each other.

VOL. III

60

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will more carefully scan the events of this singular drama, there is offered much that should be the subject of very earnest and anxious enquiry-problems, indeed, upon the solution of which depend the security and the happiness of society. The more narrowly we investigate each fearful step in this appalling proceeding, the more profound will be our astonishment and alarm at finding that, among a people who must be considered to rank among the most civilized of nations in an age, too, boasting loudly of its many and vast improvements in science and in art almost every judicial safeguard which experience and forethought have discovered and suggested, for the protection as well of the accused as of the society which arraigns him, has been overthrown and trampled down; the dictates of humanity, of common justice, violated; and a court of justice, assembled to decide upon the life or death of a fellow-creature-where all ought to be calm, impassive, dignified mild though firm, 'compassionate though severeconverted into a scene of rudeness and violence, of passionate invective, of cruel and unjust vituperation, and melodramatic display.

A scene so remarkable ought not to pass by without comment. The community of nations should so make of Europe one family, that the errors fallen into at Corrèze, should be deemed an injustice done to the whole European community. The imperfections of the French system of Judicature should be signalized by a comparison with other and varying systems; and thus comparison and friendly criticism be made to tend to mutual improvement.

Our language respecting this celebrated proceeding will, we fear, sound harshly in the ears of our neighbours. Nevertheless, we feel assured, that before we leave the painful subject before us, the justice of our animadversions will appear but too manifest. In many things has France improved; in many has she set a bright example to other nations; but the judges of Calas and La Barre have unhappily been succeeded by functionaries not wholly unlike themselves; and her system of judicature, as exhibited on this occasion, though certainly somewhat less barbarous than the atrocious proceedings signal

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