in Stage Coaches, call loudly for some means of prevention. It is now absolutely unsafe to travel in that way. The number of times that the Coaches belonging to some proprietors have had accidents is astonishingly great, and exceeds what any of your Readers could suppose; and when it is considered that each time men in the middle ranks of life, highly respectable and useful members of Society, were passengers, whose families were entirely dependent on them for support, we may judge of the distress occasioned by these accidents. think yearly about 70 persons are killed and dreadfully mangled by accidents happening to Stage-Coaches.

I

An enumeration of the causes will probably lead us to the remedy. One great cause is, the immense loads of passengers and luggage on the top; so much so, that if the Coach be going, as usual, pretty quick, a small hole in the road, or a stone, will overturn it: indeed the coachmen and guards are fully aware of this; one of the latter pointed out to me a road lately repaired, where the channel for the water was made rather deeper than usual, and said, if they went along that road with a full Coach, they would be in great danger. Now I think, Mr. Urban, the law on this subject allows too many passengers, and too much luggage on the top.

I should recommend outsides, as they are termed, to be reduced to nine, instead of twelve persous, and the quantity of luggage on the top to be lessened, if not entirely prevented. If the Coach-owners object, let them raise their fares, which are on some roads very low; but let us go safe. Indeed I conjecture, by the very extensive oppositions, theirs is not a bad trade. At any rate, the Country cannot afford to lose so many valuable lives, to continue their profits.

Coaches sometimes are overturned by the passengers who have paid for inside places going out, adding their

Accidents have also happened by the owners providing an insufficient Coach. I know an instance where, in traveling along a level road, with two passengers and not more than 50 lbs. of luggage, the Coach broke down: it was an old unsafe Coach, and the passengers were to take it, or be delayed in their journey. Letters addressed to the proprietors, stating the accident, were treated with silence and contempt. Had the Coach broke down in passing a river two hours before, when fully loaded, in all probability ten lives at least would have been sacrificed.

Accidents have also happened from the bad state of the trappings, and not a few by the shocking custom of trying young horses; we may also add, the racing of Opposition Coaches, and the carelessness of Coachmen in leaving their horses when they stop on the road.

These are the usual causes of such dreadful accidents. The accidents themselves are detailed in almost every newspaper; and were I to send you an account of them for the last twelve months, I should fill several pages, and present to your Readers a very melancholy catalogue of disasters.

The question now arises, whether this needless waste of life should continue. I fear, if no Legislative provisions be made, nearly 70 persons will suffer in twelve months from this time; and it is to prevent this dreadful, and, as it seems to me, most unnecessary waste of life and feeling, that I call upon some patriotic Member of the House of Commons, to move without delay for a Committee, to investigate the causes of these accidents, and to propose some Legislative provisions on the subject, more effective than the last, which are treated with contempt by the Proprietors. PALATINUS.

Mr. URBAN,

Coach empty; a circumstance that obviously increases the danger.

The degrading Whip-mania of young men is another cause of accidents. I recollect travelling when a young Col. legian requested the reins; they were given him, and, overcome by fear, he immediately dropped them it was a miracle the Coach was not overturned.

Bridge, occasioned by its unscientific construction, of fourteen persons having lost their lives in passing underneath it, although attended by a sober and skilful waterman, has given rise to the following reflections.

The Bridge at Rochester is almost a fac-simile of the old Bridge of Londun,

don, which, as well as the former, has caused the loss of many lives; and those who equal us in information and experience on this subject know, that it also stands on wooden stirlings, like the disgraceful pile of London Bridge, with an almost equal fall of water during ebb tide, so injurious to the navigation of the river. The approach to the bad and imperfect Bridge of Rochester not presenting a straight line, as the roads do, renders it necessary to go up the river bank, and down again, before you can cross it. The Bridge is, in fact, not durable, from the river worms, so common in the Medway, eating the wooden stirlings it stands on; and how the Bridge-wardens could think of repairing it, instead of building a new one in the straight line that it ought to be, I cannot conceive. Had they done the latter, and left a sufficient water-way, without, as at present, stopping it up with wooden stirlings, and so preventing the tide flowing up, they would have saved the expence of building the River Lock above it; as the tide would have flowed up freely beyond Maidstone, of a sufficient height, and saved the taxation of the trade to that town, arising from goods in craft passing up and down the River. The principal consideration, however, now is, how a new Bridge is to be procured for this antient City of Rochester, and high road to the Continent; and, of course, to suffer the old one to stand until the new one is built: also, what sort of a Bridge it ought to be; how it is to be paid for; and whether it would be most advisable to have it erected of Stone or Iron. As the Bridge of Rochester has estates belonging to it, I imagine that that revenue, with a small toll, would soon clear the expence of a new one, particularly if built of Iron; and it might remain a free Bridge as at present.

con

I understand, the new principle upon which Iron Bridges are structed, is executed at nearly one third of the expence of Stone, and in much less time; and also without the use of centres, or obstructing the navigation while building.I have been informed that Mr. Dodd, the engineer, is at present executing an Iron Bridge on the principles of Tenacity, of more than one hundred feet span, for GENT. MAG. October, 1816.

one of our West India Islands, that will not cost more than 2000l. Surely, if this be correct, he ought to make the world acquainted with it, as in this case they would be even cheaper than Wooden Bridges, and unquestionably of much more durability. There are two things to be guarded against in Iron Bridges: first, as much as possible to prevent their oxidation, or rusting; next, to give them sufficient play, or room, for contraction or expansion by heat or cold. I see from actual experiment, by my thermometer, that an 18-inch rod or bar of iron, from a degree of heat to cold, or the reverse, will vary onetenth of an inch by expansion or contraction. What must this be in those tremendous curved iron ribs that, on the old principles of gravity, go from buttress to buttress, or from pier to pier, without the possibility of effectually providing for this expansion or contraction? No doubt, this has been the cause of some of our former Iron Bridges giving way; but if this is prevented or provided for in the new principle, I would by all means recommend one of them for Rochester; as, in addition to the many advantages it would possess, it might also help to afford some temporary relief to the Iron Trade, of which it stands so much in need.

Mr. URBAN,

PERCE

B. F.

Adderbury, Oxon, Oct. 3. ERCEIVING, on the perusal of your last Number, that I have inadvertently omitted the name of the County wherein Adderbury is situate, and as the event of such omission might occasion inconvenience to any Gentleman desirous of corresponding with me on the subject there introduced, I must request you will have the goodness to insert the present address, in order to supply that deficiency. The communication should have been dated thus: " Adderbury, Oxon, August 12th."

It may not be amiss to state, for the satisfaction of some of your Readers, that the antient Gold Coin said in many of the public papers to have been recently found near Lord Cowper's park-wall, does not belong to Arviragus, as therein asserted. Coins of Arviragus and Prasutagus exist only in imagination; no coins

of

ting, as one would think they necessarily must, that it is at the expence of every principle of their own inte

Yours, &c.

of the writer of this article.

Before I conclude, I will beg leave to hint my suspicions that the account of the gold coin said to have been found as above related, is a forgery; as it so much resembles a similar article which was, a few years since, inserted in several country papers, and which I discovered to be almost entirely such. In order, therefore, to guard your Readers against impositions of this description, I will request your permission to lay before them the particulars of this discovery.

It was said, that “on recently removing some banks of earth on the estate of- Ffrench, esq. at Castle Camps, Huntingdonshire, a small dagger in high preservation, and a large number of British Gold Coins of Prasutagus, had been found." Desirous of adding some of the Coins to my Cabinet, I immediately addressed to the Gentleman just named a proposal, to treat for as many of them as he was inclined to part with. To

this proposal I received a very prompt and polite reply, intimating that," instead of a dagger in high preservation, and a large number of British Gold Coins of Prasulagus, having been recently discovered, there had been found only the rusty remains of about half a dagger, and that more than 20 years ago!!!" Never, surely, Mr. Urban, were more gross falsehoods committed to paper in so narrow a compass; if we except the ridiculous and absurd stories, universally circu lated some years ago, respecting the value of Queen Anne's Farthings; a delusion which, to my personal knowledge, imposes on many persons even to the present hour! I cannot account for the fabrication and circulation of such detestable frauds upon any other principle, on the part of their inventors and publishers, than a wish to see how far their culpable ingenuity can impose on the publick, and to enjoy a solitary, mean, and pitiful laugh at its credulity; forget

W. WOOLSTON.

To the Bishop of LINCOLN.
My Lord,

THE Respect which is due to your Lordship for your life and writ ings leads me to approach you with deference, and to appeal to your candour. It has been publicly stated in Newspapers, that your Lordship has recently signified your disappro bation of the British and Foreign Bible Society; but the same reports have not yet been accompanied with your reasons for this determination. As those reasons would probably have great weight, they would, perhaps, assist the zeal of the Supporters of the English Church, and at the same time shew that the Friends of the above Society are in an error, al though they are daily increasing in number, and have been the means of visiting 63 Nations, from the Northern to the Southern Poles, and from the shores of Asia to those of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, with the Holy Scriptures in their native tongues (1,557,973 copies); and of thereby converting many ignorant multitudes from Paganism, Idolatry, or savage ignorance, to the light of Truth! It seems that you have joined the opinions expressed, but not substantialed, by Bp. Marsh, on this interesting subject, and have broached or implied a doctrine, as it appears to me, subversive of the very foundation of every Christian Church as well as that of our own-that to spread the Scriptures without note or comment, over all lands, is injurious or dangerous to the Church of England.

Although I have not the honour of knowing your Lordship; yet as a Christian, and praying for the glorious period when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the channels of the sea (Isa. xi. 9.; Hab. ii. 14.); when all mankind shall become as one fold under one Shepherd (John x.16.), the great Shepherd of the Sheep, (Heb. xiii. 20.)—and as preferring above all others in this country the worship of the English Church; I feel pecu liarly anxious that my own notions

should

should be corrected by your Lordship's critical and erudite elucidation, which also appears to be justly due to the Established Church itself.

If the general spread of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment can be injurious to our Church, allow me to ask on what foundation does our Church stand? There must then be some other corner-stone than what is permitted to appear; and the people even under Protestant dominion must have been misled, in conceiving that this corner-stone is Christ Jesus, who promised that when two or three are gathered together in his name, there will he be in the midst of them, Matt. xviii. 20.-But the worship of the English Church is in a considerable degree Trinitarian. Is your Lordship apprehensive that it is likely that, by a more free circulation of the Scriptures, the world should be induced at any future period to form and adopt a different interpretation of their meaning; more especially as your Lordship has lately given up as interpolated one of the chief restingplaces for this doctrine. 1 John v. 7.

If it be, as you, no doubt, with the rest of your Brethren claim, that our Church derives its origin and descent from the Apostles, it must take its strength from the Holy Scriptures, which their Divine Master and theinselves were united to preach; your own descent from them must therefore be sanctified by the same evangelical truth; free from, though assisted by, the studies of men devoted to their service. Your Lordship's own studies and deep researches must have produced in your mind the consolations of hope, and the expectations of that future glory which they were inspired to promulgate; but, had these been denied to you as dangerous to your Church, and instead of the blessings of this education you had been wrapped in Cimmerian darkness, or left only to look at the Scriptures through the medium of any

one

teacher or any peculiar set of commentators, you would never have attained your present knowledge in Divine truth, or probably the fixed means of your hope of salvation. "No doubt the Scripture is true; but it may," says Dr. Hey, vi. 4. "be falsely interpreted; and all that any man should really be understood to mean, when he speaks of the Word of God, is human interpretation of it."

-You have, on the Christian principle of disseminating the same knowledge, no doubt, for many years assisted the two Societies for promoting Christian Knowledge, and propagating the Gospel, whose objects are to disseminate the Scriptures. Why then should you find objections that others should do the same thing in any other Society? For the only differences seem to be, that those Societies require tests of every member who is ready to lend his pecuniary aid to them, that they must be, in morals and opinious, members also of the Established Church; and that, when these Societies distribute the Holy Scriptures, they should be accompanied with the Liturgy and other Religious Tracts. Now the Bible Society is charged with being hostile to the Church, because it requires not either of these conditions. But it never has been guilty of excluding either of them.-Members of the Church and of all other Christian persuasions are united in it, and have never objected that any of their members may add the Liturgy or Tracts which are furnished by the funds of other Societies. Besides, your own two Societies have always distributed Bibles without note or comment, and without Tracts, unless they are called for; so that in this, if there were any injury to your Church, they long since struck the first blow. But it is the requisition of those unpleasant tests which has prevented the extension of those Societies from doing the general good in more than 100 years existence, with all the power of the Establishment in their hands, which without them this single Society has effected in 12 years! Has the language of the Pharisees never been adopted in any of their Committees? Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing behold the world has gone after him; John xii. 19.? It is but of very recent date that those Societies have published a Bible with notes, edited and collated by Dr. Mant, and Mr. D'Oyley; which, however ably executed, is yet new in the records of your Societies.-Why then should the Bible Society be suspected of danger to the Established Church? The only test it has required, is a good conscience towards God! and this test it has pleased God to maintain as sufficient for this purpose, by rendering it instrumental, and sanctioning that instrumentality in car

rying his Holy Word to the remotest corners of the globe.

The Roman Catholic Church acted until now upon the same rule of restriction, rather more rigidly exacted; and denied to their flock the reading of the Holy Scriptures, or the knowledge of them, without such Catechisms and Comments as their Priesthood thought fit to put into their hands: thus blind ignorance was made to be the mother not only of their devotion, but of their hope; they took it all as their teachers pleased to relate. But at the Reformation, when the English Church became Protestant, a new æra, triumphant for Religion, rose with healing in its wings, and the Scriptures, notwithstanding the struggles of a short period, became general. An attempt was made in the time of Rich. II. A.D. 1350, to |_ suppress this progress by a Bill in the House of Lords to prohibit the use of English Bibles; but it was rejected, on the opposition of John Duke of Lancaster, who is recorded to have said, "We will not be the dregs of all, seeing other Nations have the Law of God, which is the Law of our faith, written in their own language." I need scarcely refer for this fact to Dr. Gray's Key to the Old Testament, who states it upon the authority of Usher, Parker, Linwood, and Collier. The History which is there given of the several editions which followed, shews not only how contradictory to the principles of Protestant Christianity is the least suppression of the Holy Scriptures; but also how contrary does it seem to the will of God, and to the end and design of the great Messiah, who, by the spread of his Holy Word wills that all mankind should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim. ii. 4.

But is not the command gone forth, that every thing should be done which can tend to promote the free circulation of the Holy Scriptures, and that without note or comment; that all who read them may judge for themselves? The Spirit of God, which is over all his works, may effect his own divine Councils, and in his own graci. ous time! If the book of the Revelation of St. John has any genuine authority, (and it closes the sacred Canon of the Church,) our Lord is there represented, in terms of the highest sublimity and dignified au

thority, to have announced his desire, and invited all to come to him; and "whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely; for I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this Prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book," Rev. xxii. 18.

I cannot read these passages without making application of them to the whole of Holy Writ; and i take my authority for this from the Old Law, where the same is expressed by Moses. "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you;" Deut. iv. 2.-And Solomon gives the same admonition in Prov. xxx. 6,

In some of your Public Charges to your Clergy, and in many Discourses which your Lordship has preached, has not neglect of the study and reading of the Scriptures been stated as the subject, or at least the root of some moral evil which it was necessary to expose? The Church has viewed this study as the chief meaus of checking vice and immorality: yourself and all other Christian Ministers have exhorted their people to be frequent in assembling themselves together; and they have most wisely been taught that the study of the Scriptures is perhaps the only one worthy of man, while he is charged with neglecting it the most, (Darnaud.) Now, if to present them with a Bible without note or comment is a subversion of the Church, what has been the tendency of all these Discourses? for whosoever has had the means has purchased one, and those who have been destitute have gladly received the gift; so that our venerable Monarch's prayer is answered, that" every cottager in his dominions should read his Bible!" and HE could not intend any injury to the Church, of which he is the acknowledged temporal head.

"God himself (says Lucas) has ever carried on this one design of advancing wisdom amongst the sons

of