evidently only the dreadful means of increasing those calamities which afflict human nature.

17 One is astonished to think on the number of vessels and men who are daily exposed in going to bring tea from China, coffee from Arabia, and sugar and tobacco from America; all commodities which our ancestors lived very well without. The sugar trade employs nearly a thousand vessels, and that of tobacco almost the same number.

18 "With regard to the utility of tobacco, little can be said; and, with regard to sugar, how much more meritorious would it be to sacrifice the momentary pleasure which we receive from drinking it once or twice a day in our tea, than to en courage the numberless cruelties that are continually exercised in order to procure it us?"*

19 How is our country to be supplied with those imaginary necessaries of life, (which, however, are converted into real ones by habit,) when it becomes as populous as China? Where shall we find the requisite quantity of silver to purchase tea for three hundred millions of people, and pay for its transportation from the opposite side of the globe ?t

20. The increasing habit of chewing, smoking and snuffing tobacco, is too mischievous a trespasser on the public health and wealth, to be excused from an examination at the bar of reason. We shall not refuse tobacco the credit of being sometimes medical, when used temperately, though an acknowledged poison.

21 While it relieves some diseases, it aggravates others; and is both unnecessary and pernicious to persons in health, especially to youth. Chewing tobacco is almost uniformly injurious. Constantly exciting a discharge from the salivary glands, it exhausts the body of one of its most important fluids; produces obstinate chronic diseases; weakens the organs of digestion, and shortens the term of vital excitability. and life.

22 Young persons ought to be prevented from contracting a habit, which is so very reprehensible, both for its waste of vital power and property. The same may be said of smoking tobacco, except that it is more injurious, because commonly practised in greater excess, and in the form of segars, is more

*Franklin.

We go to fetch earth from China, as if we had none; stuffs, as if we were without stuffs; a small herb to infuse in water, as if our climate did not afford any simples.-VOLTAIRE.

.

expensive. Snuffing powdered tobacco, when habitual, is disgusting, like both the other modes of using it, and injures the whole nervous system, as well as the sense of smelling.

J. T.

SECTION II.

Desultory observations on Fashion;-Foreign Goods;Causes and remedy of Pauperism;-Novel Reading;War.

1 We shall next commence an attack on a variety of customs, originating in mistaken fancy, and belonging to the empire of fashion. It is doubtless a rational conjecture, that the annual expenditure of society for superfluities and trifling habits, is as great as for its reasonable necessities. This is a violation of our obligations of duty, both to ourselves, and to succeeding generations.

2 In the wanton dissipation of property, we not only annihilate the amount of its present specific value, but also its multiplying power, for perhaps an infinite space of time. Are not the most affluent men, then, inexcusable, in robbing their posterity in anticipation, by sacrificing the property in their possession, in vain amusements and fashions?

Immense sums are continually wasted by almost all classes of both sexes, in superfluities of dress. It will be conceded that the various fluctuating modes and fashions of our attire are adopted with a view to attract and interest the eyes, and attention of others, rather than for our own personal convenience or comfort. If we were all to adhere uniformly to a simple, convenient, and permanent mode of dress, we should soon all be contented.

4 The greatest mischief, probably, which results from frequent and expensive changes in the fashion of our costume, is to be found in the unconquerable desire of people of but little or no property to exhibit (especially when absent from home) a similar appearance to their wealthier neighbors.

5 The custom which enjoins it on the relatives of every deceased person, to incur an extra expense in the purchase of garments of a particular color, as a token of respect and mourning, is peculiarly oppressive to the middle and poorer classes of society. This is a delicate subject, and the writer

would prefer passing it by, if a sense of duty did not impel

him to mention it.

6 It is worthy of the reflection of the wealthy and influential, whose example is law, whether the abolition of this custom of tradition might not be compatible with true benevolence and charity. Respectable philanthropic associations (not alluding to the religious society whose discipline forbids external signals of mourning) have adopted resolutions for this purpose.

7 The reverend and venerable author of the celebrated essays published in the Connecticut Courant, under the title of The Brief Remarker," recommends, very earnestly, in one of those essays, the suppression of a custom which he considers not only unnecessary, and embarrassing to the poor, but also burdensome to the merchants in particular, who are often prevented by sympathy and delicacy, from refusing a credit to afflicted though indigent applicants for the means of imitating their more fortunate neighbors, in the display of the customary tokens of grief.†

8 It is a great duty which parents owe their children, to restrict the gratification of their fancy and passions to rational limits. We shall omit to particularize the superfluities of female apparel; if desirable, there will be no difficulty in finding much room for retrenchment. It would be criminal, however, to neglect this opportunity of condemning, without reservation, the odious, disgusting, sacrilegious, and suicidal practice of deforming the natural perfection of the human fabric with CORSETS and STAYS.

9 Incalculable sums are uselessly expended for the ornamental appearance of our dwelling houses, churches, tombstones, carriages, equipage for horses, and domestic furniture.

10 The wealth which has been vainly, if not wickedly, squandered in the magnificence of meeting houses and their lofty steeples, would be sufficient for the establishment of perpetual free schools, and free libraries for the instruction

* Mr. Sampson.

Since writing these remarks the author has met with the following seasonable and practical corroboration of his sentiments, in a newspaper: "Mourning Dresses.-A writer in the Boston Recorder condeinns the practice of wearing mourning at funerals as being unnecessary, because by no means indicative of true grief, and as being an oppressive burthen to the poor. He recently deviated from this custom in the case of a deceased individual of his family, and transmitted ten dollars, to the American Education Society as a part of the sum saved."

of all the poor children in the United States. And which would best advance the cause of virtue and happiness, and promote the glory of God? Let a reverse experiment solve this problem.

11 Who can contemplate, without painful regret, the vast quantity of silver and labor which are thrown away never to be recovered, in order to display a few white shining spots, on our carriages, harnesses, saddles and bridles? The superfluities of house furniture are numerous, and generally so conspicuous that it is only necessary to invite reflection on their impropriety. The gilding and ornamental work of looking-glasses and picture frames, books, chairs, &c. are expensive offerings to those idols, Fancy and Fashion.

12 "The poets who are ever apt to be seduced by appearances, and do not consider themselves bound to be wiser than politicians and men of business, have been loud in the praise of luxury; and the rich have not been backward in adopting principles, that exalt their ostentation into a virtue, and their self-gratification into beneficence.

13 This prejudice, however, must vanish, as the increasing knowledge of political economy begins to reveal the real sources of wealth, the means of production, and the effect of consumption. Vanity may take pride in idle expense, but will ever be held in no less contempt by the wise, on account of its pernicious effects, than it has been all along for the motives by which it is actuated.

14 "These conclusions of theory have been confirmed by experience. Misery is the inseparable companion of luxury. The man of wealth and ostentation squanders upon costly trinkets, sumptuous repasts, magnificent mansions, dogs, horses, &c. a portion of value, which, vested in productive occupation, would enable a multitude of willing laborers, whom his extravagance now consigns to idleness and misery, to provide themselves with warm clothing, nourishing food, and household conveniencies. The gold buckles of the rich man leaves the poor one without shoes to his feet; and the laborer will want a shirt to his back, while his rich neighbor glitters in velvet and embroidery."*

15 The whole country is drained every spring and autumn, of a large portion of its cash and most valuable productions, to pay for foreign commodities; a great proportion of which might be dispensed with, or manufactured among ourselves.

16 An unbridled hankering after something far fetched and dear bought, gay to the eye and pleasing to the tongue, is equally ruinous to a nation as to a private family. The nation, or family, that buys more than it sells, that exchanges articles of solid value for articles of fancy, that imports more than it exports, must eventually suffer severe embarrassment from deficiency of money and the common stock of wealth. 17 The following extract from Memoirs of the Life of Benjamin Lay, written by Roberts Vaux, is prophetically illustrative of this subject: Mr. Vaux describes the labors of Lay as one of the earliest and principal projectors of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery, and of the substitution of State Prisons for the Gallows; and thus introduces his sentiments on the great political error of sending away "good things" for evil things:

18 "With the same enlightened zeal, he pointed out the pernicious consequences which would result from the introduction of foreign spirits into this country. He declared that the general introduction of them would corrupt and degrade any people, and that there was danger, if they could be easily and cheaply procured, of their becoming the habitual beverage of the inhabitants.

19 "He introduces the subject in considering the trade which at that day was extensively carried on with the West Indies; and says, 'We send away our excellent provisions and other good things, to purchase such filthy stuff, which tends to the corruption of mankind, and they send us some of their worst slaves, when they cannot rule them themselves, along with their rum to complete the tragedy; that is to say, to destroy the people in Pennsylvania, and ruin the country.""

20 The advice of Governor Galusha, in his late farewell speech to the Legislature of Vermont, is excellent, and appropriate in this place :-"The only safe remedy against embarrassment or poverty, is a retrenchment of family expenses, and lessening the consumption of articles of foreign growth and manufacture. Much may be done by encouraging home manufactures, by legislative provisions; but the most powful of all is that of example.

21 "Let but one influential citizen, from each town in this State, return from this Legislature to his constituents, with a rigid determination to abandon the unnecessary use of foreign articles, and, while he enjoys all the real comforts and actual conveniencies of life, reject every thing that is