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Aids to Progress.

WE are all here in this life subject, in a certain degree, to the power of circumstances. But above these there stands unshaken an eternal order; to go into this, and to find our place in it, is the problem given to us all, and it is possible to all to solve it.

The world of mind is ever growing. Men of thought are ever giving fresh contributions to the imperishable treasures of science, history, and experience; moral heroes are ever multiplying examples of magnanimity of soul, and stamping ineffaceable impressions, as the result of loftiness of conception and grandeur of deed, on the memory of the world. Poetry is ever tuning her lyre, and singing of that beautiful state to which the human race is capable of rising. Hope is ever pointing her telescope to that better time which is coming. Religion is ever fostering the latent capabilities of sympathy and love, which are firmly laid in the foundations of human nature, and opening up before them scenes of brightness and beauty which stretch beyond the tomb.

For eighteen hundred years man has been satisfied with reading the Gospel: that is not enough. It is henceforth

necessary that he should write it himself upon the surface of the earth, upon the brow of nations, upon the sand, upon brass, on laws, institutions and new charters. When the Book shall be everywhere, not upon a perishable leaf, but in living things, people will no longer awake every morning inquiring of one another, whether some man has not, peradventure, destroyed in a night, a verse or a chapter; humanity will feel easy about the Sacred Volume when she has engraven and printed it, in permanent characters, on the surface of the world: and when neither the winds nor criticism will any longer carry away its pages.

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.

ABSTAIN from all intermeddling in the education and elevation of man, and, most of all, with that which concerns man's belief in things unseen, and the nage which man pays to the Power Let government pause on the

outer side of that boundary. It may keep the Queen's peace if it can; it is not amongst its functions to keep "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding." It may prevent invasion of the rights of property and liberty-it may secure the persons and possessions of one against another-but it has no

business to interfere with the advance

SIMPLICITY OF DIET.

of opinions, though it may hold those opinions to be essentially dangerous. Let us, between man and man, uphold the claims of justice, and leave each to settle for himself, uninfluenced by interference or bribery on the part of his fellow creatures, whatever belongs to his integrity or his penitence, his conscience and his God.-W. J. Fox, M.P. I HAVE had some intercourse for several years with a large number of physiological reformers, who subsist upon vegetable food, and find that they are much more healthy and vigorous than those who make use of meat. those reformers are labouring men, who are compelled to work from the rising that they possess a greater amount of to the setting sun, and they assure me physical strength than when in the habit of flesh-eating. Moreover, they always have a relish for their meals, without being troubled with a loss of appetite at one time, or the cravings of hunexempt, also, from attacks of disease, ger at another. They are comparatively

such as

Some of

colds, diarrhoea, dysentery, and the prevailing maladies of the sea son; and among the whole of these reformers, I rarely or ever met with a case of constipation or sick head-ache, complaints which are so general at the present day.-James Simpson.

EVERY ONE USEFUL BUT NO ONE ESSENTIAL.

No individual is so insignificant as to be perfectly useless--no combination of individuals so important as to be ab fare. There are two errors seemingly solutely necessary to the world's welof an opposite kind which the soil of human nature absolutely produces→→ two shoots from the same root-dif ferent buddings forth of the same selfcomplacency-a tendency to underrate every movement which we neither ori ginated or can control, and to cherish the most exaggerated notions of the

SMALL SHOT FROM THE PEACE ARSENAL.

importance of any great plan which have been concerted by our wisdom. We forget that we are only to ourselves the centre of the universe-that if all creation appears to revolve around us, the semblance results from the point of vision from which we look at it-that the things wear the same aspect to every other man-and that, were we suddenly annihilated, the great schemes of Providence would unfold themselves much the same as they did before. We are like nervous people in a stage-coach; we seem to fancy that we must keep our eye on the horses, or everything will go wrong-that we must look neither to the right or to the left, more especially when we apprehend the chance of a collision. We take upon ourselves an imaginary responsibility, and wholly lose sight of the fact, that our anxiety serves only to tease ourselves-that the reins are in the hands of the coachman-and that, with all our care, we are not driving, but driven.-Edward Miall.

Small Shot from the Peace Arsenal.

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I have read in that Book which may be considered as the law and lesson of universal peace, "That every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.' Then, most certainly, war will one day be rooted up from the face of the earth.-Athenese Coquerel. There are two nations in Europe which have been the cradle of modern liberty; they have created, as it were, the public fortune of the people, and propagated knowledge, the source of civilization. It belongs, then, to England and France to crown their glorious mission by securing the peace of the world.-Francisque Bouvet.

Peace alone allows of an accumulation of the

fruits of national industry, and of its formation
into capital; capital is the foundation from
which must spring the improvement of the
society.-Michel Chevalier.
condition of the people, and the progress of

War is evidently upon the retreat throughout the world; it loses ground as liberty progresses-for it is to the genius of war and the genius of liberty we may apply the words of a philosopher, that the profit of the one is the loss of the other.-Michel Chevalier.

In our ancient Europe, England took the first step, and declared to the people-" You are free." France took the second step, and announced to the people-"You are sovereign." Let us now take the third step, and all simultaneously, France, England, Germany, Italy, Europe, America, let us all proclaim to all nations-"You are brethren."-Victor Hugo.

In the place of the words armed peace, let us substitute the words organized peace. It is not only liberty in danger which demands it, but also civilisation in peril.-Girardin.

War is an inheritance of the savage state, disguised by ingenious institutions and false eloquence.-Louis Bonaparte.

The mania of having troops; the mania which, under the pretence of preventing wars, kindles them; which, by influencing the despotism of governments, prepares ultimately the revolt of the people; this mania will be, sooner or later, the ruin of Europe.-Reynal.

Among the nations of Europe, war at the end of a few years makes the conqueror as unhappy as the conquered. It is the abyss in up.-Voltaire.

LET England apprehend her destiny and duty now, when world-wide measures are requisite for the well-being of mankind. Unless some great physical revolution supervene, to arrest or check the propagation of the English race, in 145 years it must number 800,000,000 souls-outnumbering the present population of the globe? Shall England be the centre, the soul, and seat of moral and commercial legislation of this mighty race, at such an epoch of its history? Then let her establish an OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE now. Rowland Hill has stated publicly, that nearly half of the entire correspondence of the United Kingdom passes through the city of London. Let him extend the Penny Post to the compass of the ocean, and he may live to say that half of the entire correspondence of the world passes through England and England's ships to all the sea-divided habitations of men. Let the testimonial of Eng-Montesquieu. land's debt to his beneficient genius be deferred, until the people of every clime, colour, and country, beyond the sea, and the inhabitants of the far-off ocean islands, may add a world's tribute of gratitude for an OCEAN PENNY POSTAGE. Elihu Burritt.

which all channels of abundance is swallowed

A new malady has been spreading itself through Europe; it has seized our princes, and made them maintain an inordinate number of troops. It goes on increasing, and it has become necessarily contagious; for as soon as one state augments what it calls its troops, the others suddenly augment theirs-a fashion by which nothing is gained but a common ruin.

We are preaching by the pen and book against the bayonet. An ounce of intellect shall be worth a pound of shot.-Hy. Vincent.

War is a dictatorship, and the danger of liberty.-Gen. Cavaignac.

Slavery, monopoly, and war, are children of the same mother, whose name is Oppression. Two are already conquered, and we will vanquish the third.-Bastiat.

If different nations wish to perform a holy alliance, the people must be their own diplomatists. It is thus that we shall bring to the cause of peace the force of public opinion, which Pascal has called the "Queen of the world."-Bastiat.

War is bankruptcy, and bankruptcy is revolution.-Times.

There is not a piece of cloth lying in your warehouses that is not a protest against war; not a blow struck upon your anvils that does not send up a voice in favour of peace. There is not a piece of coal drawn up from the bowels of your island that does not send up, as it sees the light, its prayer for the brotherhood of man. There is not a grain of corn scattered by the hand of the farmer, nor a stalk waving upon his fields, but sends up a protest against war. Every sail upon the ocean spreads its arms to heaven, as if breathing a prayer for universal peace. A sa Mahan.

We could find much better employment for the spare capital and labour of the country than distributing it in the shape of cannon balls; and we can find a much more laudable occupation for the clergy of our country than to desecrate religion by the consecration of colours.-George Wilson.

I consider every difficulty thrown in the way of making war as so much gained to humanity. -Sir Samuel Romilly.

The horrors of war are hidden under its dazzling dress. The true music of war is the shrick of the newly-wounded, or the faint moan of the dying.-Channing.

Look at Europe at this moment. The people don't rule-the monarchs don't rule-the armies rule, and the armies alone. There can be no extension of popular liberty, no consolidation of popular government in any of these countries, until this vast imposture of military force shall be exposed and destroyed.-John Bright.

What is war? It is the trade of barbarism, of which the whole art consists in being the strongest at a given point.-Napoleon.

War-a wholesale murderer, nursed in the arms of Revenge.

The human mind constantly enlarges: it commenced with association-a federation between families or tribes; it will propose to itself one day, and is even now, the federation of the great human family.-Visschers.

War involves a manifest injustice, inasmuch as those who provoke the quarrels are seldom the parties to fight the battles.-Edmund Fry.

War includes all the suffering common to all other scourges, but superadds vice and cruelty, which are peculiarly its own. It triumphs in destruction, and finds its fitting glory in the ravages of death.-William Stokes.

War-a tragedy, generally written by the heads of nations, to be enacted at the sacrifice of the heads of their subjects.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BREAD.

BY JAMES SHIRLEY HIBBERD.

THE use of bread is a more universal feature of the domestic character of civilized nations than any other; and, perhaps, no better criterion of the refinement and general advance of nations can be afforded, than the improvements the preparation of food. But not in its so

cial aspect alone is the use of bread a fact of interest. It is equally so as a matter of national economy and of physical science. If we find one particular aliment occupying a position of highest importance in the domestic habits of a nation or nations, we must seek for some other explanation of the fact than mere fortuity. This is given in the constitution of the material itself. And thus the admirable adaptability to the physical sustenance of the frame of the various foods derived from the corn plants, has rendered them first in importance among the products of the earth. We should therefore expect that in emerging from the coarse and unsettled habits of barbarism to seek the more permanent comforts of civilization, the attention of man would be directed to the culture of such kinds of food as would furnish the most stable and wholesome nutriment, and the use of which would, to some extent, secure them from the sufferings of famine and of precarious subsistence. And not only so, but as civilization advanced, various methods would be devised to render the food more palatable, and to denude it of the crude aspect in which it is presented to us by Nature, and to adopt certain forms of convenience and elegance suited to the prevailing habits of the time. Accordingly, we find the use of bread in the place of unprepared grain an early feature in the domestic history of civilization. The great family of plants known as the Cerelia, afford by far the greater proportion of all vegetable nutriment, and from their wide diffusion over the earth, and admirable suitability for human sustenance, they may be regarded as the especial boon of Providence. The corn plants follow the course of man alone; they grow not in wild luxuriance where his foot has never trodden; they are not to be found in the wide wastes of the earth remote from all traces of civilization, but they ever accompany man, and need his protective influence for their production and fruitfulness. The diffusion of plants useful to man is an accident diminishing the evils of hostile invasion-it is a necessary attendant of commercial intercourse. The Indians of New England called the plantain "Englishman's foot," and in the same way, in the infancy of ancient society, wheat might have heen similarly regarded as springing from the footsteps of the Persians or the Egyptians. In times approaching nearer to our own, we know that wheat followed the march of the Romans, as the vine was in the train of the Greeks; and, to come still nearer, we find cotton remaining in countries which had otherwise suffered from the incursions of the Arabs. "The migrations of the plants," observes Humboldt, "is evident; but their (the cerelia) first country is as little known as that of the different races of men, which, from the earliest traditions, have been found in all parts of the globe."

The true philosophy of the universal use of the cereal plants is to be found in the fact that their nutritive secretions approach nearer in chemical composition to that of the human blood than any other natural kind of food. Taking the blood as the type of the various tissues of the body, we find its representative in food in wheat. In every grain of wheat there lies not only the germ of the future plant, but also the men who are to be fed upon

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BREAD.

it. The proximate principles which give the distinctive features to the blood are albumen, fibrin, hæmatin, oily matter, and alkaline salts. In the cerelia these are represented by the gluten and vegetable casein, the starch; the oxides of iron and various earthy salts found in the ashes after incineration. The more digestible properties of gluten or fibrin, have caused the plants which contain it to be used more extensively as a diet by mankind than any other. The seeds, however, of none of these plants yield these secretions alone. In all cases they contain starch, and also varying proportions of water. The following table will indicate the proportions of the protein or nitrogenous and carbonaceous secretions contained in some of the corn-plants and leguminosa:

[blocks in formation]

.... 52 48

Beans. ...... 17 Lentils ..... 19

The first five in the list belong to the cerelia, to which also belong the millet and the rye. Three main causes operate in the ceaseless disintegration of animal bodies; these are respiration, mechanical motion, and nervous or brain phenomena; to which the grand antagonist is the reparation of the system by the assimilation of new materials. Under the effects of respiration the carbo-hydrogen particles of the body are removed in the form of oxideswater, oxide of hydrogen, and carbonic acid, oxide of carbon. This combination being a main source of animal heat, the imperfectly oxidated carbo-hydrogen particles are deposited as fat. Hence the substances implicated in respiration are termed "calefacient elements," and of which the food must contain a due proportion. Under average conditions of physical activity, the mean amount of carbon consumed by an adult in twenty-four hours, is eight to thirteen ounces; the combustion of which

would furnish sufficient heat to convert 24 lbs. of water into steam, or to raise 1,000 lbs. water 24 F., or 24 lbs. 1,000 F. The blood is the great source whence oxygen is supplied to the body for the removal of effete hydro-carbonized molecules. But respiration is not the only cause of waste. Under the agency of mechanical motion, including also perception, volition, and other brain phenomena, the effete azotized molecules of the body are resolved into oxidized compounds of nitrogen, and so removed as excretions; a class of bodies possessing the highest scientific interest, including urea, uric acid, cyanates, oxalates, sulphates, and nitrates of organic or ammoniacal bases.

As these materials are being constantly removed from the body, the quantitative analysis of the oxidised excretia will supply the data for determining the amount of carbon, hydrogen, azote, &c., demanded in the shape of food. Then, by determining the composition of the aliments, and their correlation to the transformed particles, an approximation is made to a knowledge of the true principles of dietetics. The general result of such analyses and com

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parisons is this that no material can fully realize the conditions of an aliment, unless its chemical constitution is such as to enable it to counterbalance the disintegrating process already described. It must contain a hydrocarbonised and an azotised, a calefacient or heat-producing principle, and a nutrient portion. Wheat, or unsophisticated wheaten bread, will realize both these necessary condi tions. Its fecula or starch, consisting of carbon and water elements and the chemical formula of the gluten, is identical with that of animal flesh. It may therefore be determined, a priori, what kind and quantity of food are needful to sustain the body in equilibrio under its disintegrating agencies. To replace the carbon expended in respiration-wheaten bread 14 lbs., rice 4 lbs., or potatoes 74 lbs. Wheaten bread in 100 parts contains about 70 per cent. starch, 20 per cent. gluten, 3 sugar, 5 salts, carbonic acid, lignine, and volatile oils, in minute proportions. The destruction of azote is confined to the muscular and nervous systems, and is directly proportioned to the activity of volition. It is estimated that about 350 grains of nitrogen are dissipated in a healthy adult every twenty-four hours, but this must vary widely from the indolent and morbid-minded voluptuary, to the toiling labourer, "sweating in the eye of Phoebus," and by the sweat of his brow eating bread. To replace this expenditure about 3 ounces of fibrine will be needed, and this may be supplied by 8 ounces of cooked flesh, or 1 lbs. of bread. This high nitrogenization of the corn-grains and the bean tribe render them fitted to answer all the purposes of human alimentation; their gluten, albumen, and casien, or legunne, being equal to the reparation of the disintegrated animal particles. Bossingault gives the following scale of the relative amount of nitrogen:Turnips...... Potatoes

Corn, beans. lentils, &c...

44.67 180

.1335

The chemical constitution of our staple vegetable foods would indicate that on chemical grounds alone they are better fitted to support life than animal flesh, as containing not one principle merely, but all that the frame needs to maintain its integrity. And even in regard to the amount of nitrogenous compounds alone, and putting aside the starch, the comparison of the cereal products with flesh foods, will place the former on an equality with the latter. Nitrogenized compounds per cent.

Oat or wheat, from bread, &c.,......50 Roast beef, mutton, venison, &c....50 The result of the most careful enquiry as to the proportions of each kind of material for human alimentation is this-that food containing seven parts calefacient to one of nutrient material is just that which, under mean conditions of climate, exertion, and mental activity, is sufficient, to sustain the integrity of the system. Milk supplies 1 azotised to 2 respiratory, beans 1 to 24; starch, sugar, or gum 1 to 401. But wheaten bread, as the foregoing facts will show, is just suited in the proportion of its fecula to its protein compounds, to maintain the health and vigour of the organism, and may therefore be regarded as the type of all food. (To be concluded in our next.) Coventry.

PARLIAMENTARY AND FINAN

CIAL REFORM.

It is a well-known fact, that all who advocated reforms, of whatever kind they might be, were opposed and belied. Now, if that great astronomer, Gallileo, was so treated for a matter of belief which lay so far from the door of every one, there is certainly nothing to marvel at when such reformers as Hume and Cobden, who come forward to interfere with the craft of a class, should receive a warm opposition. Now, what do these men want, and what do they not want? They do not want to change the British Constitution, as made up of Queen, Lords, and Commons. They believe that under the present form of government we enjoy, and would still continue to enjoy, more true liberty than under any other form. They would not desire to dim a single jewel in the crown of the Queen, nor would they abolish or trench upon the constitutional privileges of the House of Lords. But in reference to the House of Commons, something behoved to be done. It was only the House of Commons in name, while in reality it was not the Commons' House. It was intended to represent the feelings of the people, and to protect the interests of the people; but it produced neither a reflex of their sentiments, nor exhibited an earnest regard for their weal. These were strong assertions, but they were borne out by proofs which could not be invalidated. Mr. Cobden's motion for a reduction of ten millions of taxation received only 78 votes; Mr. Scott's, for a committee to inquire into the state of the colonies, towards a reduction in their cost, 34 votes; Sir John Parkington's bill for suppressing bribery, 54 votes; Mr. Ewart's motion for the abolition of capital punishments, 51 votes; Mr. Drummond's, in relation to reducing the taxation, 100 votes; Mr. Slaney's, to consider the condition of the working classes, got the go-by, by the House being counted out; Mr. Berkeley's, for vote by ballot, got 85 votes; Mr. Hume's, for extension of the suffrage, got 81 votes; Mr. Cobden's, for international arbitration, 79 votes; Mr. O'Conner's, for the Charter, 13 votes; Mr. Osborne's, for reducing the temporalities of the Irish Church, and appropriating the surplus to education, 103 votes; Mr. Tennyson D'Eyncourt's, for triennial Parliaments, 76 votes. All these questions were more or less deeply interesting to the people, yet all of them were rejected by large majorities. But the House of Commons did not only not represent the people at large, but it did not even represent the electors themselves. Thus, on the one hand, there were 42 members in the House who represented 100,000 of a population, while, on the other, a like number represented no less than 3,780,000. Here it was plain that even the electors themselves were not represented, for the representatives of the few balanced those of the many, and neutralised their every vote. Would any one, of honesty and common sense, assert that such an arrangement was right and fair? Again, of the 658 members that constituted the House, 330 made a majority, and that number was turned by the boroughs; so that 3,127,000

mount of population these represented r.

were the real representatives of her Majesty's 26 millions of British subjects, as the minority of 328 were the representatives for the remaining 23,873,000 of the population. But it might be said, if the millions were not represented, property at least was so. No: they were as far wrong there. The vote of Liverpool, with a rateable property of £845,445, was counterbalanced by Honiton, with a rateable property of £9,891-being only one-fifty-eighth-part of the former. Yet in all votes affecting taxation, and everything else, Honiton had an equal voice with Liverpool. Again, Middlesex, which was one great conglomeration of towns and boroughs, and had a rateable property of the annual value of L.7,293,000, was represented by 14 members, whilst Harwich, Lymington, Honiton, Totness, Bridgenorth, Marlborough, aud Thetford, which returned 14 members likewise, had their aggregate rateable property only valued at £85,050. Besides, those boroughs were all more or less subject to family influence, which involved the startling reflection, that on all questions of taxation, the families which control them could neutralise the votes of the whole county of Middlesex, including the metropolis, But these were not the only instances that could be adduced. There were many more exhibiting the same anomalies in an equally broad and striking light; and he would ask if such a state of things were really to be borne?

I will now allude to the subject of taxation. As the result of the system, a gross sum of about 60 millions sterling was raised annually-47 millions of which were raised from trade and industry. Such an immense sum could never be raised by direct taxation, Had the customer of the grocer to pay the tax on his tea and sugar to an officer at the door, as he entered the shop, the impost would never be submitted to; but by including it in the price of the article, it has a less obnoxious appearance, while at the same time it is equally crushing. So heavily did the taxes press upon the poor, that a weaver, although working all Monday and Tuesday, did not gain anything by that portion of his week's labour for the maintenance of his family. Of his six days wages, he paid the whole he earned on the Monday and Tuesday in the shape of taxes. The speaker had made himself well acquainted with the miseries of the poor. He had explored the haunts of wretchedness and want. He had seen the sempstress at her never-ending and ill-requited toil, daily and hourly wasting her miserable existence in a vain attempt to prolong it. Others, too, he had visited of a different calling, but equal in suffering and wantground to the dust by a system which forced thousands to starve that a few might riot in luxury. He knew that much of the misery endured by the poor was self-inflicted; but he knew, at the same time, that the sempstress, in purchasing her tea-to her a real necessary -paid to the Government 2d. out of every 3d. in the shape of taxes; and who knew but that the very inadequacy of their wages to meet their real wants, made them, in desperation, too often indulge in courses which they would otherwise shun. But ascending the scale, go into the coffee-room, and view the workman reading his newspaper. The tea or coffee that

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