1916.] Present State of the Mission at Bethelsdorp. 497 barracks at Paris in a few days, and then warms our hearts. There is only one remark made by Sir Francis Burdett we avowedly disapprove, which was, at that momentous height of joy to introduce the subject of flogging. Had the hon. baronet moved, that the House should take into consideration the valuable services of the troops, and the addition of a small pension when they pass the board at Chelsea, Sir Francis would have been a friend; but as for the other, as proposed, we disapprove. For instance, if any part of the line had not stood firin, determined to conquer or die, but had left the field and gone to Brussels; Sir Francis I suppose would not have these men flogged? Well, I will agree then with him, that they should be hanged, and also every coward who quits his post To J. B., Esq. M. P. and flies from the face of his enemy, exposing his comrades to their mercy, or leaving them in the field; but the good soldier consents to the law, that it is wholesome and good. I approve of the last amendment respecting cowards, and I think it cannot be amended. We had a grand review of all the British, Hanoverian, and Belgian troops, on Monday last. It was a beautiful sight. The Emperor of Russia was there, and many others of distinction; and his Grace the Duke of Wellington on his right. The day the emperor arrived, and saw the duke, he fell upon his neck and kissed him, and wept, in the presence of the guard. I must conclude with noticing the great I have a hut built, and an altar erected Colour-Serjeant, 3d batt. 1st Ft. Gds. London. MR. EDITOR, IF you will be so good as to insert in your miscellany the following remarks on trades, &c. at Bethelsdorp, by Mr. George Bakker, missionary, on his way to Lattakoo, in a letter to a friend; and the account of the prompt assistance and support which the government of the colony of the Cape received from the establishment at Bethelsdorp during an insurrection in that country, you will oblige PHILANTHROPIST. "Government and others employ their waggons and oxen, for which they are well paid. They fell and prepare timber for a person a few miles off, which is sent to Cape Town by water; I heard him say that he paid for this to one Hottentot, in three months, 800 rix-dollars. There is also a tanner in the neighbourhood for whom they obtain bark. I have been surprised to see what they do:they purchase houses and gardens; Mr.C. has lately sold a house for 190 rix-dollars, and a garden for 40 ditto. Four of the Hottentots went to a sale, and purchased 400 sheep and lambs, since we came here. They have many cattle and waggons: there is a waggon-maker who is now making a waggon for the society; be three or four Hottentot carpenters, who does the smith's work also. There are Mr. Corner has instructed, who make very good tables, chairs, bedsteads, doors, &c.; a shoemaker, who has put new soles on my shoes; a tanner, from whom I have got a sheep's-skin dressed, and it is a very good one. Mr. Mhas comfor which he receives ready money. They menced baking, and bakes much bread, have some very fine gardens ap the "G. BAKKER." By letters from South Africa we learn, that an insurrection against the British government of the Cape had been made by a party of boors, near Witenhagen, who had invited the aid of the Caffres, with promises of plunder. It should seem that the execution of British justice in favour of the oppressed Hotteutots had given them umbrage, and they resolved if possible to overthrow the British government; but by the speedy and vigorous exertions of the latter, a number of the ringleaders had been seized, and a special commission appointed for their trial. The people of Bethelsdorp were called upon to assist government in the suppression of this rebellion; and thirty armed men were immediately sent off to Theopolis for that purpose; but it was hoped that their help would not be necessary. Mr. Jennings, on behalf of the Commission of Circuit then at Witenhagen, thus writes to Mr. Read:-"I shall at all times feel happy in bearing testimony to the promptitude and zeal with which the establishment at Bethelsdorp has stepped forward in the support of Government, at such an eventful period; and shall not fail to represent it to his excellency the gover Mor. P.S. I should be obliged if you would add the following particulars respecting Bethelsdorp, which have just come to hand. It appears that the number of inhabitants when the account came away was 1,170; cattle and sheep 2,672; and waggons 24. More than thirty men are constantly employed in hewing and sawing timber, which is sold to a Mr. K, who transports it by sea to Cape Town, and for which return is made in various articles of utility. Much timber is also carried to Witenhagen and Graaf Reinet. From twelve to twenty men are employed in getting bark; others in burning line; and others in carrying salt into the interior. There are also two wheelwrights, six carpenters, two shoemakers, two bricklayers, several brickmakers, one butcher, one tanner, three thatchers. Many of the women assist their husbands in gardening, making mats, baskets, blankets of sheep-skins, &c. Thirty girls are daily taught to knit; and there are eighteen girls in the [July 1, sewing-school, who make shirts for sale. About forty-seven children read in the Bible, write, and make some progress in arithmetic. Will any now say, that the missionaries neglect civilization? Let the friends of the Society tell all the world what the gospel has done for Hottentots; and that a handful of missionaries have done more in a few years to promote civilization in Africa, than a host of philoso phers could have effected in a century! MR. EDITOR, LOOKING over Whitelocke's Memorials, I was struck with the following paragraph, which certainly requires explanation: Page 45. A. D. 1640. "The queenmother went out of England into the Low Countries, and shortly after died." On reference to Hume, I find that Anne of Denmark, the mother of Charles I., died March 3, 1619. Dalrymple coincides with Hume in assigning the same period. Queen Henrietta, mother of Charles II., survived her bus band for many years. Who, then, is the queen-mother of whom Whitelocke speaks? J. W. Arundel-street, Strand. MR. EDITOR, HAVING from my infancy been taught to consider freedom as the greatest of blessings; and having very often observed in the Game Laws a spirit of a tendency directly opposite, I have been induced to offer my humble sentiments on those laws to the public eye, through the medium of your valuable miscellany. They appear to me teeming with all the evidences of the most despotic tyranny; creating in every village a tyrant with the most absolute sway; and at a time when the agriculturist is hard pressed with the indispensable burden of sup porting, to the very utmost of his efforts, the expenditure of the nation, rendered enormous by the expense of crushing a foreign tyrant, he is galled still more feelingly by one at his very door, a tyrant supported by law, and, to add mockery to his affliction, that law is termed justice! The landlord whose estate is oppressed with game, makes no allowance when he lets a farm, for the injury which the tenant will sustain from its devastations; although where it abounds it is undoubtedly far more prejudicial to the farmer than the whole tribe of vermin, which the rich have not yet thought proper to 1816.] Remarks on the Hardship of the Game Laws. preserve by severe laws for their own exclusive amusement. How great must be the vexation of that man who, having expended his money and industriously exerted himself in every measure to the utmost of his ability to render his land productive, beholds covies of pheasants and partridges picking up his grain as soon as he has deposited it in the earth; flocks of hares eating off every blade of his wheat and grass, destroying whole fields of turnips, and rendering his well cultivated and fruitful land a barren waste! Yet that man must not fire a gun during the whole shooting season, at which period he sustains the greatest injury; he must not on any account keep a dog, however small, lest by his barking he should frighten the hares when active in destroying the fruits of his master's industry. Many farmers are not even allowed to employ a boy to drive away the rooks from their corn; fearful of likewise driving away the precious game, which may inadvertently settle on the estate of some other person, who, enjoying independence, is able and willing to protect his own property, and therefore shoots them. From the Game Laws very frequently arise differences, which for years disturb the quiet of a number of people; occasion the ruin of tenants and dependents; and generally terminate in the most de termined animosity between the parties. A man possessing forty shillings a year may vote for a representative who is to sit in the most illustrious assembly in the world, to legislate, and to dispose of the property, nay even of the persons of his constituents; yet, for a man to be qualified to shoot the bird called the partridge, the beauty, size, or even flavor of which have never yet been the subject of eulogium, he must be possessed of one hundred pounds per annum. Surely the liberty held forth by the British constitution, our glory and our protection, never authorised such slavery! The morality of the country is likewise exceedingly shaken by the laws for the preservation of game; for as no one can honestly sell it but such as are possessed of large estates, and as they on the contrary monopolize and preserve it by every means in their power, some other expedient must be found for supplying the tables of the rich and voluptuous who have no estates on which they can raise it. This can only be done by have ing recourse to poachers, who, at the hazard of their lives and liberty, fearlessly venture to rob the owner of his game, 490 and the farmer of his industry which has Gentlemen who have estates abound ing with game, very frequently when in Paley, in his Philosophy, when treating 500 Farther Remarks on the Game Laws. poultry. He ought likewise to have an equally free market for the sale of it; by these means poaching would be annihilated; for the farmer could honestly supply those who wanted it, and for his own interest he would not suffer it to be altogether destroyed, but would allow as much as possible, consistently with the Preservation of the more valuable productions of his land. A FARMER. April 5, 1816. MR. EDITOR, I AM a constant reader and great admirer of your valuable magazine, and have generally felt satisfaction from reading all the letters of your able correspondents, whether agreeing in opinion with them or not; but I could not read the reply of VERITAS to PUBLICOLA, ON the Hardship of the Game Laws, in your number for April last, without some ideas suggesting themselves to my mind, far from agreeing with the opinions and reasonings of VERITAS, particularly in his reply to PUBLICOLA's observation on the cruel practice of setting man traps and spring guns-the authority for which VERITAS in the first place hints is not to be found in any statute of the Game Laws-but will any person be hardy enough to infer from hence that it does not form a part of those laws when it is universally acknowledged that they are set for the express purpose of securing game from poachers? VERITAS finishes his reply to this part of PUBLICOLA's letter by asking this question: "What can be more alarming than the nightly visits of such vagabonds, who prove desperately bent on defending their unlawful depredations with bludgeons and firearms, and in strong and formidable parties?" Surely, Mr. Editor, the mind of any man who has common humanity will find a ready answer to such a question-Must not that man feel greater alarm who lays himself down to rest knowing there is a probability that the orders he has given to his servants that night may, ere morning dawns upon him and his happy family, have been the cause of the death of a fellow-creature, merely to preserve to himself the great privilege he enjoys over those not born to affluence-that of shooting game? To bring a hardened offender against the laws of his country to justice, I conceive to be the duty of every member of sociey; but to deprive an offender (however hardened) of his life, without trial, in any way whatever, except in self-defence, is certainly KURDER. I should [July 1, imagine this latter consideration would be a source of greater alarm to a thinking mind, than the probable loss of game; but what must that man's feelings be, who finds in his victim-a stranger-one of whom he knows no harm, perhaps a man on whose future exertions a wife and family depend for support, and who wandering a benighted traveller, as thus torn from all he held dear in this world -his only crime, entering a wood, either from having lost his way, or to take shelter from the inclemency of a winter's storm ! In reply to that part of PUBLICOLA'S letter, wherein he complains of proprietors of manors preserving and monopo lizing, &c., and that the farmer is compelled to warn off his triends, VERITAS asserts it is ridiculous to say compelled, because the tenant promises and agrees to warn off all persons on his taking the farm. But, Sir, it is an undeniable fact that if the tenant who has so promised and agreed on taking his farm should not renew that promise and agreement at the expiration of his lease, he would be obliged to leave his farm, and that, perhaps, at a time when he had brought ic by his own industry to a much higher state of cultivation than when he entered it. Here, again, VERITAS observes that "it is not the Game Laws on these points that are to be complained of as a hardship, it is the law of the tenant's own signing with his landlord." Surely if one obnoxious law originates in another the original is the one to be most complained of. I cannot at all agree with VERITAS when he terms PUBLICOLA's complaints relative to cottagers' children not being permitted to gather berries "too frivolous to reply to." Deprive the rich and luxurious man of his pines and grapes, and he will feel how frivolous is the complaint of the child of poverty when deprived of his haws and sloes. VERITAS wishes to punish persons buying as well as selling game; I imagine if stat. 28 G. II. c. 12, were attended to, it would be found quite sufficient. Should the above observations be thought worthy a place in the New Monthly Magazine, you will oblige by their insertion a constant reader, and a friend to justice tempered with N. Walsham, May 15, 1816. MR. EDITOR, HUMANITY. A FEW weeks since, (being on a visit to some friends in the north,) I passed 1816.] Epitaphs in Waddington Church-yard. through the village of Waddington, in Yorkshire, and stopped at the only inn in the place. While dinner was preparing, I sauntered, according to custom, to the church-yard; which I found well stocked with tomb-stones, nearly all of which were decorated with poetry. After perusing almost every epitaph in the place, and being heartily disgusted with the farrago of nonsense which presented itself in every direction, I was on the point of quitting it, when I observed the following lines on the tomb of a young lady of sixteen, who perished in consequence of her clothes taking fire. I learned on enquiry that they were composed by the mother of a young gentleman who was paying his addresses to ber, and who has since fallen in the peninsular war. With person lovely as her heavenly face, Each sweet accomplishment, each charming grace, hour Endowed by nature with superior mind, : Here lies the body of GEORGE ELKINS, a native of Bodmin; died here March 14, 1779, in the 67th year of his age. He was a good son, a good father, and a good brother; and all his neighbours followed him to the grave. While I was enjoying this exquisite morsel of native simplicity, my attention was arrested by a stone immediately opposite. I leave you to judge of my astonishment on reading the inscription: In memory of WILLIAM RICHARD PHELPS, late Boatswain of H. M. S. Invincible. He accompanied Lord Anson in his cruise round the world, and died April 21, 1789. NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 30. When I was like you, For years not a few, On the line I have broil'd, 501 A CONSTANT READER. Arundel-street, May 16, 1816. MR. EDITOR, I OBSERVE in the last number of a work to which you manifest a violent antipathy, for no other reason that I can perceive than because its conductor strives to persuade his countrymen to live at peace with all the world except themselves, a plan strongly illustrative of the cosmopolitan benevolence of his nature. The person to whom I allude is Sir RICHARD PHILLIPS, editor of the Monthly Magazine; to whose projects, slighted as they have been by his ungrateful contemporaries, posterity will not fail to do ample justice. His profound study of natural philosophy enabled him many years since to suggest a method of preventing injuries from lightning; and had it been adopted, we should have had all our towns-aye, and all our counties too-covered at the height of some hundred feet with a forest of conductors, which would have intercepted every particle of the electric fluid, and transmitted it harmless to the earth. Not long since he proposed a plan for affording employment to a great number of poor people and beautifying the metropolis, by white-washing the exterior of all its buildings. On this occasion a wag remarked, that if he could suggest a plan for white-washing the inmates of many of those buildings with the same complete success that some years since at tended the experiment which he made on his own person, they would no doubt be willing enough to attend to his instructions. There was a time during the late war with France when the genius of this great man was directed to the means of annoying our enemy. His This is perhaps rather too severe an inRICHARD obtained his certificate by innosinuation, though it is well known that Sir cently asserting that his estate would pay all his creditors the full amount of their demands, and leave an equal sum for himself; and though the said creditors have received since 1810 only eight shillings in the pound, and are given to understand that an additional sixpence is all they have to expect. 3 T |