when the usual disturbance took place. On | thought. However much certain large masses one occasion, however, he was very much of the Anglo-Saxon population may have, in agitated and deadly pale. Shaking me vio- these latter days, freed themselves, either in lently from my slumbers, he declared the ship was on fire! and that the whole of his cabin was smouldering in a red heat. "I am sure it will blaze out directly," said he. "The Lord have mercy on us!" Thoroughly aroused by his alarmed appearance and frantic ejaculations, I lazily "turned out," and accompanied him to his cabin. "Look here!" said he, moving his water-pitcher in the porcelain basin. "Good gracious, all are lost!" I was certainly very much surprised at the luminous appearance that was produced by this friction, but was speedily able to calm his fears by the simple explanation that it was produced by electricity. Who can account for this singular circumstance? action or in habits of mind, from the unhallowed restraints imposed upon them by the feudal system, it still rests like an incubus on all our social state, still vitiates our laws, and still haunts the ideas, and festers in the minds of men who, for the most part, rule over us. The idea that there not only is, but ought to be, an aristocratic class, a caste of nobles and gentry, holding the land, distinguished by blood and, in a great measure, by race, from the mass of the people who keep shops, pursue trades, engage in commerce, and practise the learned professions, is an idea familiar to the mind of every man among us, whether he agree with it abstractedly or not. Almost all our legislation has hitherto been founded on this idea; all the sympathies of what is called good society are in favor of it; the prejudices of most educated people lean towards it; the church preaches it, the law works for it, and ANGLO-SAXON GROWTH OUT OF FEU-medicine, with her most courtly practitioners, Part of an Article on Colonies in the Dublin University Magazine. DALITY. THE Norman Conquest of England appeared for a time utterly to break down and obliterate the old Saxon independence, and to overwhelm it with a new polity, or method of governance, called the "feudal system," quite different from, but more resembling the Celtic than the Saxon mode of rule. This system which, more or less, completely extended itself over the west and south of Europe, was perhaps more rigidly carried out, and more symmetrically adjusted, by the Normans in England, than in any other country by themselves or any other race. The very nature of the conquest both necessitated and facilitated this, inasmuch as an army was suddenly changed into a landed aristocracy. The whole kingdom was parcelled out among the conquerors, every great leader having a large tract assigned to him, to be divided among his subordinates according to their several ranks, every man holding his lands on condition of his always being ready to answer the summons of his feudal superior, ready and equipped for battle. fosters and flatters it. We need hardly say that all the nobility and gentry are imbued with this idea. Whatever speaks favorably for our own personal consideration is naturally entertained by us with favor, and few of us are disposed, even if we happen to possess the strength of mind necessary to do it, to question sternly, and impartially - to bring to the bar of reason and justice, what is so agreeable to ourselves. But what," the reader will ask, "in the name of Heaven, has all this radical tirade to do with the colonial policy of the British Empire?" Much, we answer- very much. From the commencement of the modern Anglo-Saxon emigration under that monarch of blessed memory, James I., down to the present day, one, among many other results, has happened to all the colonies. Their populations have emancipated themselves from the feudal system and all its consequences. The AngloSaxon population in leaving England, whether in old times, to what are now the United States, or since then to the various other extra-tropical colonies, where they formed the The Normans succeeded in firmly riveting mass of the people (and were not a mere this coat-of-mail system on the mass of the dominant few, with a colored race to work Anglo-Saxon population, but it has always set for them), have shaken off the last links and more or less uneasily upon them. They have fetters of that feudal mail, have freed themworn it now for nearly 800 years, at first in selves at length from Norman conquest and all its completeness and in all its rigidity, aristocratic rule, and have reverted, in all every free muscle cramped, every independent their thoughts and aspirations, to their old movement fettered if not prevented. Grad- Anglo-Saxon habit, that of self-government. ually, little by little, they succeeded in loosen- It has not always happened that the very ing it, now in one place, now in another. More and more of their old freedom of life and action were, century by century, restored to them; but the deadening and stiffening effects of the feudal system still remain visible in our every-day life, in our habits, and our modes of men who went out succeeded in thus emancipating their minds and habits from early association and training; but it has happened, and is happening even now, that their descendants, in the first or second generation, grew up free men. They have all the instincts of their race; they are hardy, generous, enter- | propounded the absolute impossibility of prising- but above all independent; unapt to their ever being reduced to practice. Some be ruled except by their own consent - not ac- of the absurdity may, perhaps, be perceived customed and not inclined to look upon any if we just compare the value of land in the set of men whatever as their natural supe- British Islands and the proposed settlement. riors; and having both the capacity and the In the one case, £50 per acre is a low estimate determination for managing their own affairs, -in the other, 5s. is, perhaps, a high one. without the dictation or advice of any persons In the first case, the possessor of a thousand whatsoever. In the colonies a man inay be acres may expect £1,000 per annum in the eminent, and looked up to, and acquire power shape of rent-in the other case, if he get and influence on account of his abilities or a similar percentage, it will amount to little personal qualities, or on account of his wealth, more than a thousand pence, say £5 per anbut not on account of his birth or family. num, at the outside. In a new settlement No one gives himself the trouble to inquire the value of the land is a trifle compared with who may have been his father or his mother; the value of labor. The "bold peasantry," the question is, What is himself? The old accordingly, would very soon work the landed prestige of rank, and family, and hereditary gentry out of their estates. The Canterbury influence is dissolved and washed away by settlement may, perhaps, ultimately prosper; the blue water of the ocean, and no new one but it will be by the reversal of the fantastic can be acquired in the "bush," the "prai- theory on which it was founded. rie," or the merchant's store. To express it Now, Lord Grey and the Colonial Office all in few words, the government of the Uni- make the very same kind of mistake, in treatted Kingdom is an aristocratic one, on ac-ing the colonies generally, which the lords count of the strong acquired aristocratic tendencies and training of the people. The government of the colonies must, in the long run, be democratic, because the natural temper and feeling of the people is almost without exception democratic. It is of little use to enter into any considerations as to whether this result be a desirable one or not-people may honestly and amicably differ upon that point; but that the result is so, and is invariable and inevitable, there is no shadow of doubt. If we wanted an instance pat to the purpose to prove the truth of our statement, we could not have a better than the account of the recent settlement, or attempted settlement, of Canterbury in New Zealand. Sundry lords and gentlemen, backed by several dignitaries of the church, acting logically according to their own instincts and ideas, but either in ignorance or in contradiction of the essentially democratic nature of British colonies, took it into their heads to found a settlement, in which should be reproduced a miniature representation of society as we have it here at home. The church was to be a conspicuous feature in this settlement- - we are not sure whether they did not contemplate starting with a cathedral and daily service; there were, at all events, to be squires and parsons, as a natural aristocracy landed gentry, and "a bold peasantry, their country's pride," with a possible eventual middle class of merchants and shopkeepers, who were to be patronized, we suppose, by the landed gentry, and to be condescending, doubtless, to the "peasantry." Every one familiar with colonial life laughed at this scheme. It would be difficult to convey to any one who has not lived in the colonies the utter absurdity of the ideas thus and gentlemen aforesaid made as to this unfortunate settlement. They attempt to govern communities essentially democratic on their own innate aristocratic principles and prejudices, and they impose, as far as they can, and as long as they can, upon the colonies, the very worst and most irritating form of aristocratic government, that of a bureaucracy. From the Spectator, 28th May. THE CRUSADES IN CHINA. THE Chinese rebellion appears to be gaining magnitude in character as well as geographical extension. The most connected account of it that we have yet seen is derived from the proclamations of the insurgents; and although these are to be regarded with the suspicion due to ex-parte statements, they are at all events an authentic exposition of the professions of the insurgents. The extent of territory which the insurgents have covered is also placed beyond much doubt by the reports of the Imperialists themselves; and these reports concur with those of the insurgents as to the peculiar organization of the rebel staff. There is a chief or emperor, with subordinate kings. Hung-sew-tseuen, who appears at present to be the chief, and the oldest of the party, is said to be one year over forty; tall in stature, with a red face and sandy beard; a native of the Canton province. Under him are four chiefs, who take the title respectively of Eastern, Western, Southern, or Northern king. With regard to the supreme man there is a double mystery; the first concerning his origin, name, and social position. The Imperialists aver that his proper name is not known, and cannot be discovered; while he himself affects to have kept for a long time in concealment, as other great Chinese reformers have done, whose nantes and exploits he cites. The concealment of his name, in a country so attentive to names as China, his avowal of long concealment, and his claim to have been descended from the Ming dynasty, which is to replace an emperor on the throne after the Tartar dynasty should have come to an end, are circumstances that naturally suggest a suspicion that the rebellion shares much of the ordinary humbug of great impostures. The other mystery concerning Hung-sew-tseuen consists in a report that some person greater than himself is kept in the background; and that this other person is "the coming man," the son of Ming, who is to replace the barbarous Tartar on the Chinese throne and reinstate "the black-haired race" in its proper position. events that happened in China in 1837, and now in the appearance of Hung-sew-tseuen, who professes to have a direct mission from "the Saviour of the world" "to slaughter a great number of impish fiends," and who is certain of success," for how can impish fiends expect to resist the majesty of Heaven?" Thus a Christian character has been imparted to the rebellion. From this new incident missionary activities must necessarily be suspected; Hungsew-tseuen must have a partner, and missionaries probably are speculating on the commercial advantages of the association. Missionary dabblings in political agitations have been familiar to the world in all quarters, from Rome to Dublin, from Jamaica to New Zealand; and we have had occasion to show how far English missionaries can be led in the hope of worldly aggrandizement. NeverWhoever he may be, Hung-sew-tseuen has theless, this Chinese proceeding, with its collected to himself a considerable force; incidents of beheading, of capturing, and killpersons of greater means appear to be helping ing, would be rather strong for English him; his army covers a large extent of terri- missionaries; New Zealand could not parallel tory; and the Tartar dynasty totters on the the movement, nor riots at Montego bay throne. The rebellion seems to have received justify us in supposing that Exeter Hall is a new accession since it first started. In a "art and part" in this Chinese rebellion. proclamation announcing the second victory But English missionaries are not the only of the revolutionary army, and explaining dealers in religious influence, nor the most some of the pretensions of its leader, the enterprising. Our brethren of America have Tartars are assailed as a tyrannical dynasty; been particularly active in China; and they they are accused of corrupting magistrates, boast, with great reason, that they have of admitting people to official rank not through established their relations on a footing likely literary examinations but through pecuniary to succeed much better with the Celestials considerations, of neglecting the ancient ap- than ours. Instead of going with armed parel of the Chinese, and of departing from ships to establish a recognized position on the standards of Confucius and Mentius. The Chinese territory, they have gone with mersame proclamation warns the Tartars" to chant-ships, and have established a friendly collect their scattered bones" and run away; relation, reciprocated on a grand scale in the and it offers a reward of 10,000 pieces of Californian emigration. The Americans exmoney for any mandarins of the opposite side ceed the English in the zeal with which the taken alive, or 3000 for their heads; threaten- individual citizen sets himself to carry out ing to pillage cities that resist. More recent a national policy; and the habit of dealing proclamations are still fiercer. One, emanat- with outlying territories on the Texas princiing from Hung, Captain-General of the army, ple of gradual encroachment with an eye to denounces," the vicious and besotted mon- ultimate conquest has become almost a mania arch at the head of affairs," and again with the trading hero. It is probable that threatens that all officers of prefectures who the bowie-knife and revolver will be found in resist shall be beheaded. Another announces conjunction with the Bible which inspires the that "at present we are seizing the priests Chinese rebellion; a Bible, be it observed, of Buddha and Taou throughout the country interpreted according to the capacity of those and putting them to death." Here the re- who have hitherto worshipped Shang-'te on bellion begins to assume its new character. Buddhist principles. It ought not to surprise This last proclamation appears to accompany anybody, if, when the new dynasty shall be a third from Yang, the eastern king, and firmly established on the throne, and the Seaou, the western king, announcing a mission supreme government of the Central Flowery "to slaughter the imps and save the people,' "Nation shall be thrown open to an embassy on the authority of the Old Testament, and of the Great God our Heavenly Father, who in six days created the heaven and the earth, men and things." Examples of special interference from Providence are cited, in the great deluge, in the rescue of Israel from Egypt, in the coming of the Messiah, in certain The from England, some great minister of state, From the Spectator. TABLE-MOVING. IF English mansions were roofed as some bee-houses are, with glass, and if some being as superior to ourselves as we are to the manufacturer of honey could cast his inquiring eye into several of those mansions, one after another, he would probably be mystified by observing specimens of the human race sitting or standing quietly round tables of various forms and sizes, with their hands arranged in some peculiar fashion, apparently awaiting a result. In all parts of the country, in all circles of society, at any leisure momentOccasionally in the intervals of business Englishmen, foolish or clever, ignorant or instructed, seize the opportunity of arranging themselves round tables with hands systematically posed thereon, and await the moving of the table! Sometimes, indeed, it is round a hat that the human creatures collect, sometimes round one of their own species; but all with the same passive expectancy. Long do they wait, and the table moves not; and then the Englishman, whether the statesman in the most responsible post of office, or the humblest of his class, conceals his mortification, either in some generalizing terms, implying the old maxim, better luck next time, or in levelling at others the ridicule which he himself feels he has incurred. That passive attempt in table-moving, is probably the most extensively-shared occupation in the British islands at the present moment; and in some respects it must be regarded, to those who are fruitlessly waiting round the table without so much as pushing a bottle, as the greatest"sell" of the day. The origin of this. occupation, which has so suddenly developed itself amongst us, although not entirely unknown, is in some degree shrouded in obscurity. The now national custom was first imported to us from America, though Germany also claims the origin of the invention. Scientific and learned Germans have given a systematic air and a rationale to a practice which more probably originated amongst the mesmerists, clairvoyants, and rhapsodists of America. Seers at Poughkeepsie who began with clairvoyant dreaming under mesmeric influences, after the manner of the Vestiges of Creation or Humboldt's Cosmos, acquired a great éclat, and a species of systematic religious dignity was given to clairvoyance. New manipulations vere struck out, in the course of which, as it seems probable to us, "the spirits" manifested their presence by unexpected rappings, and the tables began their cantrip dances. The whole class of influences has obtained great celebrity in the Model Republic, becomes fashionable, and decidedly collects a party in the state. The Rappites of the new order not to be confounded with the followers of the Socialist, Mr. Rapp, who has long conducted so flourishing a community - have established several journals, in which there are leading articles" by the spirits." In the whole of these manifestations there are some things which are matters of fact and some things which are matters of question. Taps are heard that is fact; but whether they are made by spirits or by the toe of the foot, is the question chiefly mooted. Rhapsodies are effused, much resembling Humboldt or the Vestiges; but whether they are intuitive or crammed, that is the point of the debate. Tables are moved; but whether by muscular action, or by the spirits, or something else, that is the question at issue; and this last it is which most engages the English intellect, from Downing Street to the Old Bailey. This species of mental excitement seizing the whole world is not quite new in history. We have had paroxysms of it before, and scientific historians say that such portents precede great social revolutions. If so, we may conclude, from the amount of the delirium at the present moment, that our political system is about to become a tabula rasa. But probably these generalizing conclusions of pseudoscience are not the least empirical or doubtful part of the matter. In the ever-advancing tide of science there is a point, the surf of its waves, about which are constantly conflicting, scientific Orthodoxy, wild Imagination, Fanaticism, and Imposture; the four dispute the great waifs and estrays, and the four are as often defeated as they dispute. By the time the tide has made its next high-water mark, all of them have had their rebuke: Imposture is detected, and lies a wreck; Orthodoxy, which has denied the existence of some floating fact, is refuted by the fact lying naked at its feet; Fanaticism flies off, still to rebel amid the foam of the quarrelsome surf; and Imagination keeps its wayward flight upon winds. Perhaps, after these little combats, Orthodox Science as often looks foolish as the others. It is as dangerous to pronounce upon what cannot be as upon what is. There is not a single important discovery now familiar to science that has not at one time been derided by Orthodoxy as an imposture, and, what is worse, a puerility. the The truth is, that in all these questions there is something to interest the inquirer; if it were nothing more than a commotion of the human understanding, the cause of that commotion is worth disimpassioned note, to discover what it is. It is often something different from what it appears to be on the surface. The highest discoveries of human science have come at first indistinctly from the dreams of empirics and fanatics; and science, when hastening to its conclusion as rashly as empiricism, is as wrong. Rhapso From the Critic, 1st June. TONS. As might have been expected, the most attractive subject for animadversion is the table-moving mania; and all sorts of weapons, from the didactic teaching of the scientific prints, down to the light badinage of the Charivari, have been directed againt the phenomenon. Among the most sensible remarks that have been made are the following, extracted from a feuilleton of the Journal des Débats, from the practised pen of M. Léon Foucault, a savant of no mean repute, and best known in this country, having demonstrated the visible motion of the earth. dical persons collect round a table, raps are THE SPIRIT OF THE FRENCH FEUILLEheard, and at once it is pronounced that they are the manifestations of "spirits." What if these spirits can only commune with us through the most childish of contrivances do they not answer as we could wish? Do they not assure Mr. Robert Owen, for example, as he has announced in print, that "we are about to leave the present irrational state of society, and to adopt a more rational state?" &c.; and can anything be more convincingto Mr. Robert Owen? He has it moreover on the authority of Benjamin Franklin, whom he ascertains to be one of the spirits vouching for this prophecy! It is true that the spirits who can only communicate through "a Medium" by means of an alphabet, the correct letters of which they indicate by tappings, are thus re- It must be admitted that the success which has duced to the level of little children at their attended gyrating tables and hats has passed all accidence, or rather to that of "the Learned the bounds of the most indulgent reason. Pig;" which is a humiliating position for the our simplicity we persuaded ourselves, at the ghost of one so familiar with letters as Benja- first outbreak of this strange mania, that it would min Franklin must have been. Nevertheless, be only necessary to shrug our shoulders and the answer exactly accords with the experiences, past and future, of Mr. Robert Owen, Q. e. d. Scientific Orthodoxy pronounces that this is done by the toe, or some other equally familiar machinery; and yet, when Orthodoxy is challenged to the proof, it fails to point out the peccant toe, falls back upon the elbow, and wanders from every conceivable device, until it retires triumphant to a presumed arrangement of bones" in the pocket, à la Pell. It is electricity, says Young Science; but how does Young Science know? 66 In pass on, without giving ourselves any further trouble about the business; but we find that we reckoned without our host that we reckoned without making allowance for the credulity of mankind, the nerves of womankind, and the persecution of sceptics on the part of both. For a whole week Paris has been uninhabitable; and, even in the recesses of the country retreat which we took refuge in, the malady was raging with inconceivable intensity. We seem still to hear an ardent admirer of the mystery, who, to give more vigor to his arguments, had seized us by the button, and seemed in no degree inclined to let us off until he was assured of our complete and unreserved conversion. Now, this kind of demonstration might, indeed, reduce us into Again, the tables move, and, according to the Rappites, the spirits are proved." It is a miracle, the creation of Hayden. No, cries silence, but it could not work conviction; we Young Science, it is electricity. Pish! exare, therefore, compelled to ask pardon, and to claims gray-haired Orthodoxy, it is imposture, wait patiently until a man may hazard an opinor at the best unconscious muscular action ;' ion as to moving tables and gyrating hats, withand, as fairly bewildered as Imposture or Fa-out running any imminent risk for his temerity. naticism, keen self-possessed Philosophy confesses that it does not know whether it is itself pushing the hat or not! It is not the hat, but the head that it is turned. Confessedly, boards too have been moved, but by what agency Mr. Stafford might throw light upon this subject, the manipulation of Boards. If, as the new lights assure us, any kind of table can be turned, of course the power must include statistical tables; and we may then ask for the experiences of the Board of Trade. Really; it is a question for a select committee, and our parliamentary library will be incomplete until we have a thick blue-book on Rapping and Table-moving. Ir rusty iron is rubbed with boiled oil, in which some red lead has been mixed, on a warm day, the rusting process will be arrested. We observe, in the first place (and it is very much to the honor of our savans), that not one learned society has busied itself seriously with this phenomenon. It is true that the Académie des Sciences received from M. Kaeplin, Regent of Physical Philosophy at the College of Colmar, a memoir "On the Influence of the Will upon Inert Matter," but it was sufficient for M. Chevreul to recall to mind a letter addressed to M. Ampère in 1833, which proved that science had already taken cognizance of those kind of illusions, and that there was no necessity to be eternally reproducing the same thing. This letter has been lately reprinted in the Journal des Débats, and we have no doubt has already brought back many wandering imaginations to the right way. For all this, there are many people, who, with faith enough to move mountains, set themselves to little round tables, put their hands upon hats, and admire the wonderful effects of what is supposed to be some prodigiously powerful fluid. To whoever will consider, for one moment, and in |