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riot and debauchery, wear brows adorned with the virgin wreath. In point of moral dignity, they rank with the turtle that crawls about in the yards of eating-houses. They are to be bought and consumed. Those who have been bought, and used, resemble the same turtle, when he has been cooked, and served up, and warmed over, for so much a bowl.

No man can look upon these young girls, panting to be bought, (for they are to be sold by their parents,) with indifference. They have been educated for the market- taught all the graceful movements the female body is capable of. They sing, they converse, divinely. With their black flashing eyes, swimming in passion; their luxurious persons, adorned with consummate taste; with limbs to enchant the statuary; but fifteen years of age, and yet blooming in all the richness of womanhood; they certainly, though not of full blood, are the most beautiful women in the world.

It is a wretched trade! There certainly is a hell. I am convinced of it, though all my life inclined to skepticism. These children are trained as we fat our cattle for market. They bring an immense price sometimes; and after a few months or years, as it may be, of servitude to their masters, moving in the higher circles of whoredom, that is, attending balls, wearing expensive dresses, and drinking champaigne, they are removed step by step down to the herd who walk the streets, and seek subsistence and pleasure in filthy vice and drunkenness.

It is very philanthropic and sounding to discourse about abolition. It is very affecting to see tears shed for the poor negroes, chained and tasked.' Men get a vast deal of credit by these means; but we may as well hope to drain the ocean by a pump, placed at one of our wharves, as to attempt the project of emancipation of slaves at once. There are certain intermediate steps to this result. I utter not a crude opinion, when I say, that if we hope to do any permanent good, we must begin at the foundation of opinion and conduct; that when education is generally encouraged in all parts of our country, and there is not a child destitute of school instruction, and a well-informed mother, that then slavery will die. - go out, as a candle goes out when there is no oil to nourish it. Public sentiment produces reform, and not societies. Societies influence the intelligent part of the community, but not men who are steeled against them by their ignorance and their interests. If the money expended in presses, and papers, and missionaries, and preachers, and in the purchasing of slaves to colonize Liberia, were to be devoted to building schoolhouses, buying books, and paying teachers, perhaps we might not do so much for one, two, or ten years, but in fifty years we should do more than will be done by present means.

Certainly the society of these beautiful quadroons was very charming to us young men, and we did not stop to reason very profoundly about vice and virtue, but gave ourselves up to the fascination of the senses. Young men are apt to form very strong sensual attachments. I remember it is too weak a word her image is fixed in my heart one young girl gave herself to me of her own accord. She said she loved me, and I was very well pleased with the adventure. I believe it was the delicacy of my treatment of her

which gained her feelings. I never can treat a female coarsely, be she ever so bad. To talk of the affections of a prostitute, may seem quite ridiculous to some; but they know very little of human nature, who deny that a female may lose her virtue, and yet retain pure affections.

For my part, I know they can. Let us state a case. A young girl in the country, ignorant of the world and its vices, with no arranged armor against temptation, which women who live much in society always carry about them, is seduced by some young villain well versed in the art. He could only succeed by gaining her affections. She loves him, and in the madness of our shamefully excitable nature, in both sexes, she yields to his passion and her own, and is bereft of all that gives her honor. She becomes a mother - she is scorned by society - her betrayer deserts her she loses all confidence and respect she esteems herself worse than she really is; she gives up in despair. The bad gather around her; she is lured by some procuress to the city. She is initiated into the art of getting her bread by the sacrifice of her person, and becomes what is called a prostitute. Does the fault in the first instance deprive her of all goodness? We go with the multitude in our opinions, too often, and esteem that which is viewed as bad, for the sake of general principles, as bad in itself. The laws of society require us to frown upon such cases, upon the principle of general good. This is like the case of the man who commits murder in a fit of drunkenness, and yet we do not attribute that crime to him, in a moral point of view, for he was insane. We punish him with death, because we have no alternative; his execution is for the sake of the validity of the law. So the woman who loses her virtue, her physical virtue, in a moment of imprudence or mad passion, is punished; and she is made lower every day; for she cannot rise; and she gradually gets to be what she at first was falsely called, a prostitute, in body and soul. The mind will accommodate itself to circumstances, and to appearance she seems reconciled to her lot. But has this female no affections? Is she incapable of loving? Is her moral sense blunted? May she not feel constant regret for past errors, and disgust at her life? Is the door of salvation closed to her? If she may reform, if she may become a pure woman, in the sight of God, why not in your sight? Women, in this respect, play a very unequal game with men. This may appear all nonsense to the man of the world. The immaculate old maid, who has forgotten her early indiscretions, shielded by chance from the obloquy of the world, may pucker up her lips, and grin a horrible smile of incredulity. How unjust and uncharitable women are toward one another! How lenient they are toward the vices of men ! So that it seems, after all, that their detestation of vice only extends to the vice of their own sex, and is, in fact, a kind of jealousy or malice, rather than a principle of virtue. I think that in a number of the British Essayist, (I cannot specify which,) we have a story of a girl restored to her father from the pollution of a London street-walker's life; and she is given back, in a short time, 'pure in spirit,' as the writer says. Now what is physical impurity, compared with prostitution of mind? If the mind can be brought back to virtue, why not respect the body that bears it?

I am not advocating the reception of such women into society, even after reformation; but I wish to establish their capacity for forming attachments, and feeling gratitude and love to God; sentiments their own sex deny them.

The origin of making the sin of women more culpable than the same sin in men, can be traced to the nature of the English law of inheritance in that country; and I would, in our country, where no such reason exists, be in favor of viewing it equal in both sexes. If infidelity excludes the wife, let it also exclude the guilty husband.

life was at stake.

This young quadroon was evidently attached to me, and I could not injure her. She would willingly have given me all she possessed. She would have left the city with me, and in my necessities which followed my gambling speculations, and when thrown into prison, she came to me. She found me out, and clung to me as if her whole She wished to heap money upon me, for she had money from some source. She would have purchased my release by the prostitution of her person to one she loathed; and I hardly know how I should have escaped this humiliation, had not Mr. D. furnished me a supply for present exigencies. She knew and lamented the lot to which she was born, but could find no way of escape.

I was in that city ten years after the events here recorded, and found her in the lowest grade of wretchedness and vice. She knew me too; and never to my dying day shall I forget the mingled look of joy, despair, and shame, that passed over her still beautiful form and features, as she recognised me. There are some facts in life that put invention entirely out of countenance. There are some inconsistencies in our nature, which tell the student of mankind that he is in pursuit of another philosopher's stone. Man is past finding out; and, certainly, woman.

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'It is a strange truth! We do forget! The summer passes over the furrow, and the corn springs up; the battle-field forgets the blood that has been spilt upon its turf; the sky forgets the storm; and the water the noonday sun that slept upon its bosom. All nature preaches forgetfulness. Its very order is the progress of oblivion.'

WAS this thy thought, pale sophist! at the hour
When the land slept; by night from toil set free;
And thou, lone watcher, from thy silent tower
Didst woo the stars, and they came forth to thee,
Those radiant ones! and oped the glittering scroll
Of their most wondrous fore! all eloquent -
Lighting its mysteries till thy midnight soul
Glowed 'neath the splendors of the firmament!

What sought the student - o'er the darkened page
The oil of life consuming! Wisdom's mine?

A store of wealth to that fair heritage

Of mind? Renown! an offering for thy golden shrine?
- thou wert seeking death to memory!

No!

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To that one preying, withering regret!

There came a deep voice ever up to thee

BULWER.

From the stained sod, 'When didst thou c'er forget?'

lone.

SOLILOQUY

ON AWAKENING IN THE SAME BED-ROOM, AFTER AN ABSENCE OF THIRTY YEARS, AND WHILE AFFLICTED WITH ELEVEN STROKES AND AGGRAVATIONS OF PARALYSIS,

Scotland, Oct. 26, 1837.

I QUENCH'D that candle in that candlestick,
And when in bed, I saw upon the wick
A red star twinkling; then I fell asleep.
Mysterious Nature, wherefore do I weep?
The room, the candlestick, all are the same!
Sure thou hast power to reillume a flame:
Are all the same? The candle, was tall,.
That, to the socket burnt, is wasted all.

Oh such a dream as I have dreamed! Was none
To hear my spirit in its anguish groan;
(For groan'd I must have, in that dream so drear,)
Was none to waken me, did no one hear?
Methought I went, some thirty years ago,
Into the world; on all around the glow
Of hope reflected from my bosom shone,
Although I went into the world alone.

In pride of youth, with buoyant steps so gay,

All nature smiled on the perfidious day;

But soon the blasts that blight and mildew bring,

With sudden withering, check'd my prosperous spring,

And all the blossoms, ere the fruit was set,

Were as the cyphers of a bankrupt's debt.
But, unsubdued by that mishap, again,

Though in my heart I felt strange anguish-pain,
I trusted Fortune, and again the cheat
Shut her proud door, and left me in the street!

Surpris'd I stood; while ling'ring in the cold,
I saw once more the gorgeous robe unfold,
And pleased, behind, she beckon'd me to come;
All then seem'd right, the harlot was at home:
I turn'd, no victor prouder from the race-
I gain'd the steps she slammed it in my face!
With spirit gall'd, I took another aim;

Bent my stiff back, and risk'd a humbler game;
But even then the fickle loon pass'd by,
And cut the string before the shaft could fly.

Knowing too well, that by her charms enthrall'd,
Though chill'd and sullen, I was unappall'd,
She fram'd a new device, as if contrite;
A fire it seem'd, but was phosphoric light:
I went to warın, and stood with fingers spread,
But all was rottenness, and cold, and dead.
Anon, as if by hate that work'd like love,
Inspir'd she labor'd, and did seem to prove,
By glorious glaik, she was contrite at last:
But still delusive, soon the glories passed.

Then, grown indignant at the harlot's hate,
I dared her malice, with a heart elate;
Perfidious strumpet, Nature lent her wo,
To aid the purpose of my overthrow;
All in the flood-time of a seeming calm,

She struck me suddenly what was that qualm?
Have I not dreamed? - are these indeed gray hairs?
And am I, then, a theme for good men's prayers,
Awak'ning, after thirty years and more,

In the same chamber that was mine before?

JOHN GALT.

OBSERVATIONS

ON ELECTRICITY, LOOMING, AND SOUNDS: TOGETHER WITH A THEORY OF THUNDERSHOWERS, AND OF WEST AND NORTH-WEST WINDS.

BY GEORGE F. HOPKINS.

OF SOUNDS.

THERE are certain periods in the state of the atmosphere, when it seems altogether reasonable to suppose that evaporation goes on with increased force; and I think we are warranted in the conclusion, that the mass of ascending vapor presents a material obstacle to the transmission of sound. I have frequently observed, during the prevalence of serene and pleasant weather, that the conveyance of sound to any considerable distance was attended with a great deal of difficulty. At other times, without much apparent change, sound would appear to move with the utmost ease, meeting with no impediment, and spreading over an extended surface. The nature and cause of this, in my opinion, admit of a satisfactory explanation.

Whether sound appears to move with ease, and to strike the ear in a clear and distinct manner, or whether it meets with a resisting agent, and falls upon the ear in a way that seems to be imperfect and murmuring, I conceive it to be wholly owing to the principle or law of evaporation. When the agency of this power is exerted in its full strength, it follows as a natural consequence, that the atmosphere must be highly charged with this subtile fluid. And although it is ordinarily as imperceptible as the air itself, it must, from the nature of the case, occupy a large portion of space, and possess in a high degree the properties of the element from which it is chiefly drawn. Under such circumstances, it is easy to perceive, that sound cannot proceed as far, nor indeed, one would think, with the same velocity, as when there is a feebler resisting medium. And that there is often a surprising difference in the condition of the atmosphere in this respect, can hardly have escaped the observation of any man.

It is within the knowledge of most people, that owing to some cause not generally understood, the state of the atmosphere at times is such, in which an extraordinary degree of stillness seems to reign, that sounds which are not unusually loud, are heard at a great distance. The sound of men's voices in conversation has been sometimes heard across the water, for the distance of near two miles. The crowing of a cock may then be heard so far that, were it not a fact of common notoriety, it would be deemed incredible. I recollect an extraordinary instance, though of a different kind, that comes strongly in point. At one of those still periods, I heard very distinctly at the Battery, the sound of a conch-shell, that was evidently blown at the ferry on Staten Island, a distance of seven miles. My opinion at the time was, it could have been heard at least two miles farther up Hudson's river. The sound was most probably somewhat aided by a gentle movement of the air from that quarter. These and similar occurrences are common in the bay of New-York; and

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