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A FEW THOUGHTS FOR "FAST" YOUNG | fied, the observed and approved, rise in rank and

MEN.

In walking along the principal thoroughfares, or visiting the great marts of business, in our cities and large towns, one cannot help being painfully struck with the number of young men of apparent respectability and intelligence, who, it is evident from their air and manner, are sacrificing the freshness and vigour of their hearts and minds to the most frivolous and fruitless pursuits, and often undermining for life the foundations of health and happiness. We are often conscious of the workings of a strong solicitude for the welfare of this deeply interesting and, hereafter, highly influential class, but have felt the extreme difficulty of making any appeal calculated at once to reach and affect them. We are, therefore, truly glad to find that Mr. Binney, who is so well known for the successful efforts which he has for years made to promote the highest interests of young men, has lately published a new work, bearing a title admirably adapted to catch the eye of a commercial age, "IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS ?" This volume, which is the expansion of a lecture delivered about twelve months ago before the members of the "Young Men's Christian Association," abounds with original and striking thoughts, forcible appeals, manly remonstrances, and unanswerable arguments, and we should like to see it in the hands of every young man in our country. As a sample of the sterling stuff of which most of the treatise consists, we give the following extracts, and commend the solemn truths which they embody in all earnestness to the attention of the reader. We compress them from want of space.

An intelligent and virtuous young man will have neither vices nor vanities; he will not be in the habit of spending his earnings on expensive pleasures-in dress and ornaments, at theatres and casinoes. His spare time will be given to books to the acquisition of general knowledge, or to mastering the theory of business, and getting ready for possible openings and opportunities; to innocent recreation; to intercourse with respect able friends and acquaintance; to getting or doing good. He will risk nothing by late hours at night; he will excite no suspicions in the morning by his heavy eyes and languid gait-his gaping and absence suggesting the idea that some folly or debauch had made him stupid and useless when he should be wide awake. There will be no glaring mistakes in his accounts; no frequent necessity for revision; he will not be continually wanting more time to get up what is required; he will not stare with ignorant wonder, or be silent with conscious shame, when appealed to about something that he ought to know, or might have known, and the thorough masterhood of which, had he known it, would have been the making of him. He will not be passed over as unpromising or incompetent, when necessary changes are to be made in the establishment, opening, to the tested and quali

advancement of income. In the same way, the thought, prospect, or ambition of being anything journeyman and mechanic, who may have little else, by industry, steadiness, sobriety, and all the other virtues which worldly prudence recommends, but which religion at once inculcates and secures, will keep in work, gain confidence, and gradually get to be a sort of fixture about the place; he will have things comfortable and happy at home, a coat on his back and a watch in his pocket, bread in the kitchen and books on the shelves; his family will all be respectable in appearance, and will always be at worship on the working-man's day of somewhat higher education than their father, and, weekly rest; his children will mostly receive a though he may not, it is next to certain that they, or some of them, will rise to a higher level in life. So of the master: the young principal, ven turing into business as a partner or alone, who has probity, honour, scrupulous integrity; who dis limits his private expenses; and who, whatever he plays activity, tact, attention; who conscientiously has to deny himself, struggles to maintain his com mercial credit; who, as at once a religious and sensible man, has a quiet conscience, a pure heart, a true lip, clean hands and a clear head;-why, all these things have a natural tendency to help him on-not to mention God's blessing on earnest goodness and honest work. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich." But there is such a thing as a diligent but bad man making money, and, from God withholding his blessing, "putting it into a bag with holes." And there is such a thing as "God giving a man power to get wealth;" blessing "his basket and his store;" advancing him in condition and honour, and thus, age after age, repeating the story, and realizing again the expe rience of the young Hebrew exile-"the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man."

I know it is thought that religious people have a great many drains upon them in the way of pay. ments and subscriptions to this and the other institution or society. Why, a worldly man will often spend more in a single evening, in giving a ball and supper, or treating a party to the opera, than many a religious man of the same rank is required to pay for his religion in a year. Depend upon it the truth, in more senses than one, is that there is nothing so expensive as sin; nothing so exhausting as pleasure. The man who is the slave of neither may have other expenses, but, all things else being equal, he will generally be best prepared for making a deposit, getting credit or security, or taking a step onwards from his present position. A carefulness to maintain an inward harmony with the upper world, by preserving him from the follies and clothing him with the virtues of this, will often command, without his aiming at them as a chief end, the prosperity and success which the laws that regulate society attach, as a natural consequence, to inexpensive habits and true worth.

So with respect to old age. The way in which a good man uses his body and soul, his heart and conscience; the principles and habits favourable to character; the practical course conducive to com fort, competence, and success; why, all these have a direct bearing, by way of natural consequence, upon long life. He, who inherits a good constitu

triumph; and that the road from Rochester to the capital was lined with booths on either side of the way, presenting the spectacle of a continuous fair nearly thirty miles in length. Charles, though a man of vulgar sentiments and scandalous profligacy, retained his popularity during the whole of his reign; and the day of his accession to the throne, which was also his birth-day, continued to be observed as a general holiday as long as he lived. After his death, the custom of making holiday on what was vulgarly called "Oak-appleday," in allusion to the concealment of the royal fugitive in the oak at Boscobel, had been too long established to die a sudden death. It could not be displeasing to James, who inherited his brother's crown; and if, as we may suppose, it fell into disuse under the reign of William of Orange, it prevailed during that of Anne, under whom the oakleaf in the hat towards the latter end of May began to be assumed as the badge and profession of loyalty, while its absence was looked upon as indicative of a leaning to puritanism. It frequently happens that the outward and visible signs of partisanship will long survive the spirit which gave them birth; and there is many an old ceremonial custom periodically observed in various districts of this country, in which those take a part who would be puzzled to account for their origin. It is true this remark is not strictly applicable to the custom we are about to describe, inasmuch as the story of Oliver Cromwell, the execution of Charles 1, the escape of his son from the parliamentary search, and his final restoration to the throne, are just that portion of English history, which, from the romance associated with it, is best known among the uneducated populace. But it is true also, that the animus which originated and gave importance and signification to this strange custom, if it were not entirely dead and buried, had long subsided into indifference, before it was our lot to witness the singular performances which characterized it.

tion, may-barring accidents generally live as long as he likes. All the laws of our nature, when respected and obeyed, work in favour of us; they are intended to do this-to promote growth and development, to give strength, compactness, elastic force, health, perpetuity-such perpetuity as may belong to a physical system like ours. Disease is disorder, derangement, obstruction, infection; life may be endangered by casualty, terminated in a moment by accident, and so on. Now, there may be no avoiding a flash of lightning, or escaping a storm at sea, or surviving a collision on the rail. Fracture and injury from external things, death from unknown or uncontrollable causes, must be put out of the discussion. We then say, that according to all natural laws, a thoroughly virtuous, and therefore regular and temperate man, will not be likely to shorten life by sowing the seeds of disease within himself, or occasioning functional derangement. He will be better able than others to resist infection, to be unhurt by any mysterious, malignant miasma; and he will not be exposed to some accidents that are often fatal, those which never happen but to inconsideration, folly and recklessness. He will sustain, too, better, and for a longer time, the wear and tear and toil of life... The vicious die early. They fall like shadows or tumble like wrecks and ruins into the grave, often while quite young, almost always before forty. The wicked "liveth not half his days." The world at once ratifies the truth and assigns the reason by describing the dissolute as "fast men;" that is, they live fast; they spend their twelve hours in six, getting through the whole before the meridian, and dropping out of sight and into darkness while others are in the glow and glory of life. "Their sun goes down while it is yet day." And they might have helped it. Many a one dies long before he need. Your men of genius, like Burns and Byron, to whom, when dissipated and profligate, thirty-seven is so fatal; and your obscure and nameless "wandering stars," who waste their youth in libertine indulgence; they cannot live long. They must die early. They put on the steam till they blow up the boiler. They run at such a rate, that the fire goes out for want of fuel. The machinery is destroyed by reckless speed and rapid wear. Nothing can save them. Their physical system cannot stand the strain they put it to; while the state of their minds is often such, that the soul would eat through the substance of the most robust body, and make for itself a way of escape from the incessant hell of its own thoughts. But all probabilities are on the side of a different fate for the good. Peace and contentment, religious faith and religious virtue, are so many guarantees for long life.

A CUSTOM OF THE TWENTY-NINTH OF
MAY.

THE restoration of Charles II, which occasioned
such a delirium of joy when it occurred, could
hardly fail of being honoured by the observance
of what might be considered appropriate ceremo-
nies at each returning anniversary. We are told
that the passage of the king on the 29th of May,
1661 from Dover to London, was one continued

In our boyhood, when the Peninsular war was raging, we chanced to reside in the neat and picturesque market-town of Tiverton, on the banks of the Exe. It was here that the custom to which we have alluded, and which, by the way, would have been far more honoured in the breach than in the observance, had full sway. In the year 1810, and of course for many generations previously, the 29th of May was as complete a holiday in this town as it could ever have been in any part of England since the first year of the Restoration. At early dawn, the whole town was awakened by the furious clanging of church bells, and instead of rising to pursue their usual occupa tions, they had to turn out and sally forth into the neighbouring fields, woods, and hedge-rows, where they set to work felling huge branches of oak from the trees, with which the locality abounded, and ders to decorate the fronts of their houses. Woe which they brought into town upon their shoulto the luckless or drowsy tradesman who, by the usual time of opening shop, had not metamorphosed his shop-front into a green bower; he would find his apartments gratuitously ventilated by a shower of compliments from the unruly mob, and be driven to beg. borrow, or buy a bush in his extremity to shield himself from popular vengeance. No shops were open-no business was thought of

parish, and perfectly well known to every indivi dual in the town, made captive by Oliver. The reverend gentleman suffered hideously from the grasp of the protector, and only escaped a dive into the grease-bag by the prompt payment of a guinea.

It is not easy to imagine all the circumstances presented by this unique and disgraceful spectacle: the uproar and tumult which swarmed round

throughout the day. King Charles was personated by stuffed dolls, with tinsel crowns upon their heads, sitting astride upon the branches of the oak, not in accordance with history, endeavouring to conceal himself from observation, but making the utmost possible show of the gaudy trappings and glittering tiara with which he was adorned. Those who could afford it, covered a good portion of the leaves of the oak with leaf-gold, and the oak-Oliver wherever he went-the panic which seized apples, which had been carefully collected for many days previous, were gilded or silvered, and worn in the hat or the button-hole by all who could procure them. In those times there was neither city nor rural police; the only peripatetic delegate of authority being the parish constable, and he, for a reason best known to himself, never ventured to put in an appearance on oak-apple day. The whole town was delivered up to the mercies of the mob. It was a day on which ruffianism may be said to have been at a premium, the greatest ruffian being invariably selected from among a hundred or two of candidates to enact the part of Oliver Cromwell.

he came.

the pursuing multitude when he turned and pursued them-the insane yells and cries of encouragement when he had caught some unlucky or obnoxi ous individual-and, above all, the hideous appearance of the baited wretch himself, when worn out with the toils of his disgusting occupation, and savage with the jeers and injuries of the mob. Between the green boughs that covered every house-front, the windows were filled with spec tators, among whom women and children looked on in safety upon a spectacle little calculated to inculcate the social or domestic virtues.

In our time Oliver held undisputed possession of the town until five o'clock in the afternoon, when his reign was at an end, and he was led off to retirement, and to count, and enjoy if he could, the fruits of his labours. After he had disappeared, the more respectable inhabitants were at liberty to come forth from their dwellings, and generally devoted the long summer evening to cricketing in the meadows or pic-nics and parties in the neigh bouring villages.

This historical personage made his appearance upon the stage about eleven o'clock in the day, by which time it was supposed that all unavoidable business might be transacted; and no female dared venture forth after that hour. The appearance of Oliver was the general signal for flight wherever Imagine a brawny six-foot man, his face begrimed all over with a mixture of lampblack and oil, and surmounted by a prodigious This absurd and mischievous custom, which it shock of hair dripping with grease, the lank locks may be fairly hoped has long been abolished, is in of which hung dangling over his savage eye; his its details sufficiently suggestive of its origin. body, like that of a prize-fighter, naked to the There can be little doubt that it was originally set waist, round which was tied a bag containing on foot by the royalist party soon after the Restora several pounds of the mixture with which his own tion, in malice against the puritans, who in that skin, as far as it was visible, was anointed. This part of the country must have been sufficiently was Oliver Cromwell, and his mission was to catch numerous to provoke such a popular demonstration hold of anybody and everybody that he could of dislike. It is evident that the mission of the overtake, and, by forcing their heads into his ca- first greasy Oliver who figured in Tiverton streets, pacious bag, make them free of the commonwealth, was to catch the adherents, real or supposed, of the if they refused to come down with a ransom, the Protector; and the nonconformists, of whatever amount of which he fixed at his own discretion persuasion they might be, were naturally regarded according to the circumstances of his captive. As as his legitimate spoil. We may conceive that a fleet and powerful fellow was invariably chosen the poor puritans of that day, having once had ex to play Oliver, it was of course necessary to take perience of the mercies of the unctuous ogre, would measures to prevent him from becoming, in the ex- be careful to shut themselves up in their dwellcitement of the chase, too indiscriminate in the be- ings, with the security of bolt and bar, whenever stowal of his favours. As he was pelted by the the anniversary of the monstrous saturnalia came mob, and plentifully swilled with water, of which round; but sport, rather than persecution, was the there were running streams in most of the streets, object of the mob, and it mattered little to them it is no wonder that he should lose his temper, and who were the victims, so long as they were not become really savage, after having played the balked of their pleasure. It may seem surprising tyrant and the target for a few hours. By way of at the first glance, that a custom so silly and puerile restraint, therefore, he was tied round the waist by in its origin, and so hateful and immoral in its a stout barge rope about fifty yards long, the end operation, should have survived in all its complete of which was in charge of his cabinet council, ness through five or six generations, and lasted consisting of half-a-dozen congenial spirits, who until our own day; but the force of precedent will probably shared his profits, and who, if they chose, keep alive even greater abuses; and of all the abcould moderate his pace or pull him up suddenly surdities which gradually disappear from the face when in pursuit of unlawful prey-such, for in- of the earth, those perhaps are among the longeststance, as the parish doctor on a visit to a patient, lived which are linked with the recreations of an or a magistrate amusing himself with a sight of ignorant populace. the popular sport. That they were not very particular in these exceptional cases, may be gathered from the fact, that we once saw the Reverend Caleb Colton, the author of "Lacon," and "The Sampford Ghost," who was then clergyman of the

Now."Now" is the constant syllable ticking from the clock of time. "Now" is the watch-word of the wise. "Now" is on the banner of the prudent. Let us keep this little word always in our mind.

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spreads at length into a shoreless sea vast as the ocean, across whose waves it pours its muddy billows.

More than two centuries ago there lived upon the borders of this lake a wealthy Spaniard, named Don Jose Ugarto. Like many mountain settlers in the present day, he derived his wealth chiefly from the produce of his flocks of sheep and llamas, that fed in the sheltered valleys, tended by Indian shepherds. The scarcity of pasture often led the flocks far from the shepherds' huts, and then, as now, it was common for the Indians to wander with their woolly charges amongst the mountains for many successive days. On one of these occasions a shepherd, whose name, Huari Capcha, is still preserved in the sierra, made his little encampment in the hollow of a great rocky basin, and, having seen to the safety of his flock, lighted his fire of withered cactus and dry grass, and then lay down to sleep beside it. When he awoke in the morning the fire had burned out, and the stone beneath it, melted by the heat, was transformed into a lump of solid silver. Delighted with his discovery, the Indian hurried home to report it to his master. A slight examination of the locality disclosed the existence of a rich vein of silver; and the news of this valuable discovery soon spreading to the neighbouring villages, attracted to the barren and secluded spot a numerous and rapidly increasing population, eager to share in the new source of wealth thus opened. Such is the story of the foundation of the city of Cerro Pasco-the Treasury of Peru-the highest city in the world, and perhaps also the most remarkable in its situation, in its general appearance, and in the extraordinary variety of its inhabitants. A recent tour amongst the Andes having led me to Cerro Pasco, I am enabled to give from actual observation a short sketch of these peculiarities, and likewise of the present condition of the mountain city and its motley population.

The party with which I travelled was employed in conveying machinery from the coast to the silver districts, to be used in the mining operations of an English firm there; and, in consequence of the heavy loads of iron borne by the mules, our progress up the mountains and across the passes had been unusually slow. It was, therefore, with considerable pleasure that, after a short descent from a very high and broken ridge, a sudden turn in the mountain-road revealed an apparently well-built town, lying in an irregular valley, surrounded by little lakes and patches of grassy morass, the whole encircled by a wall of bleak and lofty rocks, on one of which I stood. From this point the narrow road wound, with many turnings, through the defiles that led downwards to the town, until we at length entered the low suburbs, and mingled with the many-coloured crowd that sauntered through the streets.

The outskirts of Cerro Pasco, as of almost all the Peruvian towns, are a collection of miserable huts, built of mud and reeds, and inhabited only by the lowest class of Indian cholos; but the middle of the city contains many good houses, the property of mine-owners and shopkeepers, though in the best streets the conical Indian hut stands pertly forward among its more lofty neighbours. Within many of these huts are the mouths of

silver-mines--for nearly all the mining operations are conducted within the city itself-and the mineowner can, not unfrequently, pass at once from his dining-room or chamber into the pit that leads to his hidden treasure. Even in some of the streets these pits are opened, and the foundations of the whole city are so thoroughly honey-combed, that it may easily be at any moment buried amongst the glittering ores that have alone caused its erection. The mines are generally shallow, rarely exceeding a hundred feet in depth, whilst many of them are mere openings of thirty or forty feet. The mode of working them is the simplest and most original that can well be conceived. The descent into the smaller mines is usually by steps cut in the perpendicular side of the shaft, or built up with loose stones, that occasionally give way beneath the tread, and clatter down the dark opening, to the dismay of the unpractised stranger. In the deeper mines, a common winch is used, or sometimes a gin worked by mules; but the machine is usually of such a fragile construction, and in such a decayed condition, that every safe descent by the half-rotten rope and rusty chain seems to be one of a continually-occurring series of miracles. The scarcity of timber prevents the miners from placing the necessary supports in the galleries, and men are consequently often killed by a fall of earth; but it is a melancholy fact, that very little notice is taken of such accidents, under the feeling that Indians are tolerably plentiful, and that, when killed, they can easily be replaced. Nearly all the work is performed by Indians, who are paid generally by the day, earning from two to three shillings; but, when an unusually prolific vein is opened, many extra hands are employed, and these are always paid by a share of the ore which they succeed in obtaining. At such times the popula tion of the city is greatly increased by the influx of Indians from the villages of the sierra, and these men often earn very high wages, so long as the new vein continues to yield well; but immediately on its failure they return to their homes, often penniless, having spent their hard earnings in the purchase of absurd and useless finery, or in the most foolish and disgusting excesses.

The ore obtained in the smaller mines is carried up the dangerous ladders by the miners in hide bags; and it is then conveyed to the smeltinghouses, most of which are situated beyond the city. Here it is amalgamated with quicksilver in a most primitive fashion, by throwing the two metals together, and then driving mules or horses over them until the trampling has caused a tho rough union to take place. The quicksilver then separated by heat; but the whole operation is generally conducted in the rudest and most inefficient manner, though the recent improvements introduced by the enterprise of an English firm promise to effect a complete revolution in the present wasteful system.

Of the amount of silver actually obtained from the mines of Cerro Pasco it is difficult to form any correct estimate; for, though every bar is supposed to be assayed and stamped at the govern ment smelting-house, where a trifling duty is levied on it, yet such vast quantities are annually smuggled to the coast, that the government returns are worthless as a means of ascertaining the

and

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