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heade, and stande against them. Moreover, that about Heraclea, and Cromna, and, mainly, near the river Lycus, and in many other quarters of the kingdome of Pontus, there is one kinde above the reste that haunteth river sides and the utmost edge of the water, making herselfe holes under the bankes, and within the lande wherein shee liveth, yea, even when the banks are drie, and the rivers gathered into narrowe channels. By reason thereof, they are digged forth of the earth, and, as they say that finde them, alive they bee, as may appear by moving and stirring of their bodies." The same author avoucheth that, "in Paphlagonia there bee digged out of the grounde certain lande fishes that bee excellent goode meat, and most delicate, but they bee founde in drie places remote from the river, and whither no waters flow, whereby they are forced to make the deeper trenches for to come by them. Himselfe marvelleth how they should engender without the helpe of moisture; how beit, hee supposeth there bee a certaine minerall and naturall force therein, such as wee see to sweat out in pits, forasmuch as divers of them have fishes found within them." Now, compare this passage from Pliny with the following from Daniel: "A piece of water, which had been ordered to be filled up, and into which wood and rubbish had been thrown for years, was directed to be cleaned out. Persons were accordingly employed; and, almost choked up by weeds and mud, so little water remained that no person expected to see any fish except a few eels, yet nearly two hundred brace of tench of all sizes, and as many perch, were found. After the pond was thought to be quite free, under some roots there seemed to be an animal, which was conjectured to be an otter. The place was surrounded, and, on opening an entrance among the roots, a tench was found of most singular form, having literally assumed the shape of the hole in which, of course, he had been for many years confined. He weighed eleven pounds nine ounces; his colour was singular-his belly being that of ochre or vermilion." This extraordinary fish, after having been inspected by many gentlemen, was carefully put into a pond, and, at the time the account was written, was alive and well. To this startling anecdote we shall only add what George Agricola, in his Treatise on Subterranean Animals, and Fabricius, in a letter to Gesner, relate of these burrowing fish, which, in the latter's time, were found in two several localities in the vicinity of the Elbe, and then leave the reader to draw his own conclusion. After giving the dimensions of the fish, which averaged, he says, about a foot in length and an inch in thickness, its colour "above, being of deep cerulean, lighter on the under side, and having certain oral appendages, porrect when immersed, and retracted when taken from the water," Fabricius adds that the Saxon peasants during dry weather dig them up for household provision, and in wet weather the pigs feed upon them in the fields, "where they lie, after the subsidence of a flood, littered over the ground like worms.' Agricola is rather more explicit. He agrees with Fabricius in his statement as to the dimensions of the fish, but distinguishes two distinct species--one scaleless and shaped like an eel, the other possessed of scales and resembling the gudgeon in form. He further agrees with Fabricius in saying that the peasantry, "to whom they furnish but a poor, sorry fare, dig them up abundantly in divers places" which he names, but adds, "that they not unfrequently penetrate far through the earth, and bore their way generally from some neighbouring stream into deep caves and wine-cellars, though at other times they are exhumed in parts sufficiently remote from all running water to make their gité or genesis equally hopeless problems.”

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Review.

REFORMATORIES FOR THE DESTITUTE AND THE FALLEN.* CHRISTIAN civilisation is a great and glorious work in active operation around us. Public and private establishments have been formed to conduct, with constant assiduity, the grand divine mission of Love. To its progressive, and, at the same time, truly conserving spirit, this nation owes its present ever-outspreading vitality. Christianity is so expansive in its nature, that it outbounds the speculations of the loftiest intellect, and yet satisfies the capacities of the humblest peasant. It adapts itself to every honest grade of life. But though the moving power and the essential parts of its machinery are divine, and therefore perfect in action, many of the appliances are human, and therefore, from the imperfection of humanity, liable to do wrong. Now, Christian civilisation has had, and still has, a serious and most important work to perform-a most legitimate work, too-the reforming of those who, through no crime of their own, have been born and are being brought up in a tainted atmosphere of ignorance, crime, and brutality. Christianity is the only power efficacious enough to reclaim them. Upon this point most of us are agreed. But how are we to apply it? Upon that, great diversity of opinion exists. Habit, it has been said, is second nature. More properly it may be called confirmed nature; for it is our constitutional capability to act, which by repetition has converted itself into a power to act, and that with readiness and facility. Habit can only be educed by training; so training is what we require. By the way, there is an important consideration here to which we must advert. We commonly speak of inducing, not educing, habit. That generally used term, inducing, is the exponent of a very general error-that training induces from without, whereas the truth is, as we have said, it educes from within, and that is the reason why we call the process not inducation but education. To resume: those whom we wish to reform possess bad habits, for which, by adequate and proper training, we desire to substitute those that are good. But a condition of training is the time to do it in. Are two hours of Sabbath evening enough, where mere instruction (let alone training) is given by very incompetent, because inadequately-trained, teachers, to children who, during the rest of the week, are constantly being trained by the debasing circumstances in which they find themselves inevitably placed? Far be it from us to inveigh against the spirit of the Sabbath-school system. We only mean to mark out its necessarily limited influence and power as at present constituted and conducted, and warn the admirers and supporters of this assuredly meritorious and well-intentioned institution from trusting too much to it, and

* On "Reformatories for the Destitute and the Fallen;" being the substance of a Paper read at the Statistical Section of the British Association. By James M'Clelland, F.E.S., &c. To which is appended Report on Agricultural Čolonies, by M. Demetz, Honorary Councillor of the Imperial Court of Paris.

expecting too much from it. We would embrace much of its machinery, but expect from it only its proper and legitimate work. Nor will extending the hours of instruction to the other days of the week suffice, for what is done at school may be undone at home; and there are, besides, other practical difficulties in this plan which seriously affect its operations among the lowest in the community. After all, however, the best Sabbath-school for children is home, and their best instructors their parents. To illumine the humble dwelling and the lordly mansion with the comliness of the Christian virtues and the beauty of Christian holiness-to impress the heads of families, of every grade, with their religious duties and responsibilities-is the true mission of the clergyman.

The ragged school and penitentiary approach nearest to what is required; but these we deem still essentially inefficient. We are, in fact, behind the spirit of the age in this matter. Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, France, can boast of more efficient institutions for raising the moral status of the degraded classes of the community. It is to interest the public in the establishment of such institutions, that our liberal-minded and philanthropic townsman, Mr M'Clelland, has published his pamphlet. In a simple and straightforward manner he describes the constitution and practical working of several philanthropic institutions of this character, conducted by De Fellenberg, Wichern, Demetz, Kuratli, Suringar, and deduces the following conclusions, in which we heartily concur:

"1. That the union of labour, and especially agricultural labour, with learning and constant occupation, and work in the open air and field, are the best calculated to promote, in an efficient and economical manner, the steady and successful reclamation and reform of the majority of the criminal and destitute among the young.

"2. That under the operation of the recent legislation upon Reformatory Schools, the course which should be recommended to be followed is, to plant and encourage Reformatories upon small farms; and by following out the family system, to apportion the children in such small sections, or groups, as will be effectually managed (under a head teacher or director), by house or family fathers, apportioned in cottages upon the farm, fitted to contain each family, and living continually under their care and control.

"3. That to carry the work efficiently into operation, that the director, and house or family fathers, should be thoroughly and practically trained to the calling, and should only be employed on their, evincing, under a probationary test, their love for the work, and on giving proof of their intellectual, moral, and religious capacity for the calling.

"4. That from the foregoing views, it seems to follow, that the erection and foundation of Reformatory institutions within the precincts of cities or towns, will not serve the end in view of the promoters with so much efficiency or economy as the adoption of the family system upon small farms; and that such institutions now situated in cities or towns should be gradually removed, and located in districts of the country favourable in soil, situation, and proximity to railways."

Here is exhibited a great practical principle in our nature--that the most effectual moral training is educed through judiciously blending it with the daily activities of life. The selection of these activities, too, is properly guided by the obvious dictate of nature-work in the open air among the fields, and the hills, and the woods, where

Nature herself will lend her beautiful helping hand. Nor in the social relation is the gentle and affectionate law of nature contravened; for God's own loved family institution is the model for imitation. This is the rock on which all our institutions of a similar character split. May God befriend those who are made to leave the genial influence of home, and go to a boarding-school, or rather educational hospital, to receive the advantages of a first-class education! How fatal an exchange these monasteries and nunneries of youth, (as the Rev. Dr Robert Lee so truly and so fearlessly calls them,) for the natural and unconstrained liberty of home, whence the young and trembling heart can gradually fathom the hollowness of life, and whither it can retreat for sympathy when the world's cold grasping hand arrests the bound of its ardent spirit.

There is appended a very forcible and elegant translation, by Miss M'Clelland, of a Report on Agricultural Colonies, read at the "Ré-union International de Charité" (held at Paris in August, 1855,) by M. Demetz, honorary councillor at the Imperial Court of Paris. The reasonableness of the principles on which this class of reformatory institutions is founded, is exhibited in the following paragraph:

"It is no new idea, that of employing in agricultural labour those children whom bad dispositions or evil example expose without defence to the dangers which surround them, in the centres of great populations. The influence of agriculture on the manners of the people was recognised in early times; antiquity proclaims it by the voice of Cato: He who tills the ground,' says this wise man, 'does not think of doing evil.' The agricultural labourer has indeed but poor pay, yet he suffers nothing from the distractions of city life, nothing from the ruinous habits which make a higher rate of wages unavailing, and nothing from the frequent suspension of employment, which subjects the town workman to unlooked-for destitution; nor is the field labourer exposed to those frequent checks from want of work, which so often leave the other in destitution, his improvidence not always enabling him to foresee them. I will not dwell further on this point, it is so incontestable a truth, and has been so victoriously demonstrated, that we do not think it necessary to bring it more at length before you."

Then follows an account of Agricultural reformatories, from the time of the great Pestalozzi, who may be considered their founder, ending with those of France, which are here shown to have made real and successful progress in the conduct of such institutions. While theorising and gathering data concerning reformatories, other countries were visited, and most valuable lessons obtained. Witness the following criticism on the Dutch and Belgian institutions:

"All these colonies had been established in the midst of heaths, in barren districts. They seem to have thought more of improving the soil by agriculture, than man by the love of work. This idea of bringing in waste land by the help of arms, till then useless, by means of colonies, is tempting, and at first sight appears just the cultivation of barren land gives the undertaking a more manifestly penal character, and it makes use of those men whose lives have hitherto been troublesome and dangerous, and on whom it is reasonable to impose hard labour. We should truly have nothing to reply to this theory, if we were speaking only of men who merited severe punishment, and if these colonies had only punishment in view; but it seems to have been forgotten, that their principal object is the moral improvement of the unhappy creatures whom they receive.

"They gave barren lands to be cultivated by unwilling (boys) hands, and failure was the necessary consequence. We do not hesitate to state that the sterility of the soil on which they have been established, has been the principal cause of the want of success of the Belgian and Dutch colonies.

"To make industrious habits and a love of work take root among men whom dissipation, indolence, or laziness, has reduced to the last state of want, this work must present at least some attractions, and some quick and satisfactory results must recompense and encourage these unsteady efforts. And if these considerations hold good for the adults, how much more, then, do they not apply to the child whose flighty imagination cannot look forward and wait, and whose ardour, so easily excited, is just as easily quenched, and whose future is to

morrow?

"To deserve to be sent here,' said one of the Belgian colonists to me one day, with an accent of despair, 'one ought to have killed one's father and mother; every blade of grass is produced by the sweat of our brows.' Can it really be imagined, that by provoking such repugnance, and such rancour, there can be a hope of conquering the dislike of work in natures so obstinately opposed to it?"

A model was at last found at Hamburg, which is thus described

"It is near the village of Horn, in a picturesque and fertile country on the side of a hill, which looks over the beautiful valley of the Elbe and Bill, that the Reformatory School called the Rauhe Haus, is situated, and there we visited it. We will not stop to describe this establishment, which has become celebrated, and which has been much added to, since we saw it. We will content ourselves with noticing some of its principal characteristics. It was founded towards the end of the year 1833, by the worthy M. Wichern, for the reception of young children, whom vicious habits threatened to pervert, or had already branded. The wise founder sought in family associations a means of improvement-he tried to excite in those young hearts the soft and salutary emotions which family life produces, and which either had become, or had always been, strangers to the breasts of these unhappy creatures.

"The colonists were divided into groups, each containing twelve individuals, which took the name of families. This denomination was justified by the cords of firm affection and continued benevolence, which they endeavoured to establish between the members who composed it. To each of these families was attached a chief or guide, whom the children call father. They inhabited a small separate house, constructed by their own hands, and separated from the neighbouring house by gardens or orchards. Four existed at the time of our visit; they were like a little village, and had no communication with each other, save what the administration of the house required.

"The discipline of the colony was firm and severe, but still we must say, tempered with paternal tenderness-moral reform was its aim; energetic and persevering work, and, at the same time, profoundly religious education, were the means. There is a journal kept, stating the progress of each pupil or his relapses; the tender solicitude of the guardians does not interfere with the severity, sometimes necessary, in an institution which maintains, in the main, its reformatory character, and you could scarcely imagine, without having witnessed it, the strong sympathy which attaches to the colony, those poor children who have become honest men.

"It will be seen that the basis on which the colony of Horn rests, and to which it owes the accomplishment of these wonders, is the reconstruction of the family principle."

True success in this, as in other things, is best achieved by an imitation of Nature. Hence, Cowper, who had the penetration of a true educator, exclaims—

Oh, how unlike the complex works of man!
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan;

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