have been expended in the work of devastation, and of human destruction, while they have refused to give the least direct encouragement to philanthropic institutions, and to the improvement of the community in knowledge and virtue—and in that spirit of tyranny, and thirst for despotic power, which have led them to crush the rising intelligence of the people, and to lend a deaf ear to their most reasonable demands. For, there is no government, on this side of the Atlantic, so far as I know, that has ever yet formed an institution for promoting the objects of general benevolence, for counteracting the baleful effects of depravity and ignorance, and for enlightening the, minds of the people in useful knowledge; or which has even contributed a single mite to encourage such institutions after they were set on foot by the people themselves. Knowledge is simply permitted to be diffused; it is never directly encouraged; its progress is frequently obstructed; and, in some instances, it is positively interdicted, as appears from the following barbarous edict, published in the year 1825.—“ A Royal Sardinian Edict directs, that henceforth no person shall learn to read or write who cannot prove the possession of property above the value of 1500 livres, (or about £60 sterling.) The qualification for a student is the possession of an income to the same amount."* Such is the firm determination of many of the kings and princes of Europe, to hold their subjects in abject slavery and ignorance; and such is the desperate tendency of proud ambition, that they will rather suffer their thrones to shake and totter beneath them, than give encouragement to liberal opinions, and to the general diffusion of knowledge. -But, instead of illustrating such topics in minute detail, I shall conclude this section by presenting a few miscellaneous facts, tending to corrroborate several of the preceding statements, and to illustrate the moral state of the civilized world.

The following statement, extracted from "Neale's Travels through Germany, Poland, Moldavia, and Turkey," exhibits a faint picture of the state of morals in Poland. "If ever there was a country," says Mr. Neale,

* Hamburgh Paper, August 1825.

"where might constitutes right,' that country was Poland, prior to its partition." The most dreadful oppression, the most execrable tyranny, the most wanton cruelties, were daily exercised by the nobles upon their unfortunate peasants. Let us quote a few facts; they will speak volumes. A Polish peasant's life was held of the

same value with one of his horned cattle if his lord slew him, he was fined only 100 Polish florins, or £2: 16, sterling. If, on the other hand, a man of ignoble birth dared to raise his hand against a nobleman, death was the inevitable punishment. If any one presumed to question the nobility of a magnate, he was forced to prove his assertion, or suffer death; nay, if a powerful man chose to take a fancy to the field of his humbler neighbour, and to erect a landmark upon it, and if that landmark remained for three days, the poor man lost his possession. The atrocious cruelties that were habitually exercised, are hardly credible. A Masalki caused his hounds to devour a peasant who happened to frighten his horse. A Radzivil had the belly of one of his subjects ripped open, to thrust his feet into it, hoping thereby to be cured of a malady that tormented him.

One of the most infallible signs of a degraded state of morals in any country, is the corrupt administration of justice. As specimens of Polish justice, Mr. Neale mentions the case of a merchant of Warsaw, whom it cost 1400 ducats to procure the conviction and execution of two robbers who had plundered him; and another case still more flagrant, that of a peasant who had apprehended an assassin, and who, on taking him to the Staroste, was coolly dismissed with his prisoner, and the corpse of the murdered person which he had brought in his wagon; because he had not ten ducats-the fee demanded by the magistrate for his interference." During the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a petty noble having refused to resign to Count Thisenhaus his small estate, the Count invited him to dinner, as if desirous of amicably adjusting the affair; and whilst the knight, in the pride of his heart at such unexpected honour, assiduously plied the bottle, the count dispatched some hundreds of peasants with axes, ploughs, and waggons, ordering the village, which consisted only of a few wooden buildings, to be pulled down,

the materials carried away, and the plough to be passed over the ground which the village had occupied. This was accordingly done. The nobleman on his return home in the evening, could find neither road, house, nor village. The master and his servant were alike bewildered, and knew not whether they were dreaming or had lost the power of discrimination; but their surprise and agony were deemed so truly humorous, that the whole court was delighted with the joke!" How depraved must be the state of moral feeling, when the injustice inflicted upon fellow-creatures, and the miseries they endure, become the subjects of merriment and derision !" The morals of the people of Poland," says Mr. Neale, "were, and continue to be, nearly at the lowest point of debasement. Female chastity is a phenomenon; while the male sex are proportionally profligate. Drunkenness, gluttonny, and sensuality, prevail to a degree unknown in other countries in Europe."

The following extract from Mr. Howison's "Foreign Scenes and Travelling Recreations," will convey some. idea of the state of morals in the island of Cuba. "Nothing can be worse," says Mr. H. " than the state of society in Havannah. The lower classes are all alike dissolute and unprincipled. Assassinations are so frequent that they excite little attention; and assault and robbery are matters of course, when a man passes alone and at night through a solitary quarter of the town. Several assassinations take place in the streets every week." This depraved and lawless state of things may be ascribed to three causes the inefficiency of the police; the love of gaming and dissipation that prevails among the lower orders; and the facility with which absolution of the greatest crimes may be obtained from the priests. In fact, the Catholic religion, as it now exists in Cuba, tends to encourage rather than to check vice. We shall suppose, for example, that a man makes himself master of 100 dollars by robbing or by murdering another; and that the church grants him absolution for half the sum thus lawlessly obtained; it is evident that he will gain 50 dollars by the whole transaction, and think himself as innocent as he was before he committed the crime. No man need mount the Havannah scaffold, whatever be his crime, if he has

the means of ministering to the rapacity of the church, and of bribing the civil authorities. A poor friendless criminal is executed in a few days after sentence is pronounced upon him; but a person of wealth and influence generally manages to put off capital punishment for a series of years, and at last to get it commuted to fine and imprisonment. Of these depraved practices, Mr. Howison states several striking examples.-Those statements of Mr. H. in reference to the moral state of Cuba, I find corroborated by a short account of this island in the Monthly Magazine for March 1820, page 120. "They act here very frequently those sacred mysteries which so delighted our good forefathers. I have witnessed (says the writer) the triumph of the Ave Maria, a tragicomedy, which closes with the sudden appearance, in the midst of a theatre, of a chivalrous worthy, mounted on a real horse, shaking at the end of a lance the bloody head of an infidel. This horrid exhibition excited a titter of enjoyment in all the spectators. The ladies, in particular, seemed to be highly entertained;-no fainting fits, no nervous attacks. How could a mere fiction agonize the blunt feelings of women, hardened by the spectacle of bull fights, and almost every day meeting with the dead body of some human being who has been assassinated ?"

There is no situation in which human beings can be placed, where we should more naturally expect the manifestation of benevolent affections, than in those scenes of danger where all are equally exposed to deep distress, and where the exercise of sympathy and kindness is the only thing that can alleviate the anguish of the mind. When the prospect of immediate death, or of prolonged agonies even more dreadful than the simple pain of dissolution, is full before the mind, one should think that ferocious dispositions would be instantly curbed, and kindly affections begin to appear. Yet, even in such situations, it frequently happens, that feelings of malevolence and revenge, and all the depraved passions, are most powerfully excited to action. The following facts will tend to illustrate this remark. Mr. Byron was shipwrecked, in a violent storm, on the coast of South America. A mountainous sea broke over the ship; she was laid on her beam ends; darkness surrounded them; nothing was to be seen but breakers all

around; and every soul on board looked on the present minute as his last. "So terrible was the scene of foaming breakers around us," says Mr. B. "that one of the brayest men we had could not help expressing his dismay at it, saying, it was too shocking a sight to bear." Even in this dreadful situation, malignant passions began to appear; and, like the dashing waves around, to rage with unbounded violence. No sooner had the morning thrown a ray of light over the dismal gloom, and a faint glimpse of land was perceived, than many of the crew who, but a few minutes before, had shown the strongest signs of despair, and were on their knees praying for mercy, grew extremely riotous, broke open every chest and box that was at hand, stove in the heads of casks of brandy and wine, and got so drunk that some of them were drowned on board, and lay floating about the decks for some days after." After the greater part, to the number of 150 persons, had got to shore-" the boatswain and some of the people would not leave the ship so long as there was any liquor to be got at; they fell to beating every thing to pieces that came in their way, and, carrying their intemperance to the greatest excess, broke open chests and cabins for plunder that could be of no use to them. So earnest were they in this wantonness of theft, that one man had evidently been murdered on account of some division of the spoil, or for the sake of the share that fell to him, having all the marks of a strangled corpse." The same malignant dispositions were displayed, in numerous instances, during their abode on the desolate and barren island on which they had been thrown, notwithstanding the hunger, the rains, the cold, and the attacks of wild beasts to which they were all equally exposed.

*

There is, perhaps, no occurrence that has happened in modern times, which so strikingly displays the desperate malignity of human beings in the midst of danger, as the conduct of the crew of the Medusa Frigate, while tossing on the raft by which they endeavoured to save themselves, after that vessel had been shipwrecked. The Medusa was stranded, in the month of June, 1816, on the

* See Byron's "Narrative of the Loss of the Wager Man of War."