that Russia would not fail to draw closer to Prussia, and, covered by her, make a supreme effort in the East. Should we have England for us? England does not like adventures, and if she saw us engaged against all the world, she would at least keep to neutrality. Should we at least enjoy the prestige of principles? Unfortunately, we should be combating the principles of France in Italy and Germany, we should attack the principle of the national sovereignty amongst our neighbours, and we should be championing the principle of political and religious absolutism. If this be the work for which we are destined, twelve hundred thousand men are not enough; two millions of soldiers and ten thousand millions of francs would not suffice, because nothing would suffice to restore what was absurd, revive the past, and prevent the future from arriving. Not only the soldiers and treasures of France, but her good name, her prestige, and her civilizing influence would be thrown away in this mad undertaking. would have traversed the distance instantaneously. It is evident, therefore, that the nervous current, or, if you please, the speed of thought, is much slower than that of electricity. M. Radau estimates that the latter is twenty The rate of thinking and acting upon thought million times more rapid than the former. varies materially in different people. Astronomers know this to their cost, as they are obliged to introduce troublesome corrections to their observations for personal equation, as they term it. Two experienced and highly accurate observers will differ by half a second in their records of an instantaneous phenome non; and this difference between them is a constant quantity, remaining unchanged for years he who observes thus much before his fellow to-day, will do so to-morrow, and next month, and years hence. This peculiarity appears to have no connection with mental acuteness or ability: sharp, quick-witted men may observe much later than such as are slow and heavy-headed; it is purely a question of the conductive powers of the nerves and rapidity of the perceptive and reflective action of the brain. Once a Week. "As quick as thought," we say, when we would imply a maximum of celerity. But is thought so rapid? According to the recent experiments of the famous German physicist, Helmholtz, the process of thinking and willing is a comparatively slow one. An impression made upon the body takes a perceptible time to reach the brain; and when the brain wills to put in action a corporeal member, it takes time to communicate its orders thereto. The interval required by a shock given, say to the foot, to announce itself to the brain has been measured-impracticable as this may seem; and thus it has been done: - An electric current has been applied to a muscle or a nerve, and the instant of its contact has been automatically registered on a chronograph. The moment the patient has felt the shock he has touched a key, which has made a second mark upon the register; and this last mark has been found to be separated from the first by several tenths of a second of time. The interval was the time occupied by the sensation in travelling to the brain; by perception and reflection in the brain; and by the passage of the will from the brain to the digit touching the key. A few tenths of a second may not appear much; but we must remember that a direct electric current AT present the greater part of our imported mutton and lamb comes from Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Why cannot we get a cheap supply from Australia, where sheep are selling for the mere value of the wool on their backs? Perhaps they cannot be brought over alive. But we can have them dead; for, if the chemists speak truly, Professor Gamgee has given us a fresh-meat preserving process that leaves nothing to be desired. Mutton killed and preserved in London last July, and sent to New York, was found perfectly fresh several months after; and some beef treated by the process in March last year was shown to a butcher in an American market in July, and was pronounced by him to have been killed about two days. Professor Gamgee's method is briefly as follows:- The animal is made to inhale carbonic oxide gas, and when it has become insensible is bled to death in the usual way. The carcass is dressed, and then suspended in an air-tight chamber; the air is exhausted, and the receiver is filled with the gas before mentioned. After remaining exposed to the vapour for from twenty-four to forty-eight hours it is removed and hung in a dry atmosphere: that is all. The meat is reported to suffer no perceptible change in taste or appearance, and is not otherwise injured in any way. JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE: LINDA TRESSEL, by the Author of Nina Balatka. Price 38 cts. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. "" Second " The Complete Work, Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10. Our readers will see that this number is printed from new type. But we think they will find some other improvements in it. It is not only that the type is new, but that it is set up by a new compositor. And yet not exactly so, for MR. P. A. RAMSAY, our friend of a quarter of a century, superintended the work originally, and for many years, and we are glad again to leave all the arrangements to his taste. Thus relieved of much which has "vexed our righteous souls," we shall proceed to further and great additions and improvements, (over which we have brooded for years,) as rapidly and as largely as the enlargement of our sale will give us ability to do. And if our old subscribers will each take a little trouble to get up a club of five new ones, receiving therefor a copy of Horne's Introduction to the Bible (unabridged-in four large volumes), we shall commence the new year -THE SECOND CENTURY (Volume 101)—with renewed vigor. LONGFELLOW. On the previous visit of Longfellow to Europe in 1842, the following beautiful lines were written by his friend, George S. Hillard. — Transcript. LINES ADDRESSED TO THE SHIP VILLE DE LYON, "Navis quæ tibi creditum Debes virgilium, piribus atticis Et serves animæ diminidium meæ." HOR. O SHIP, beneath whose cleaving prow No costly stores of gold or gems A noble freight to thee we trust, A heart that beats with generous throbs A mind that speaks in words inspired Strong be thy bolts, thy cable sure, The storm-blast's rending stroke. For, should the tempest's shattering wing A shade would rest on many a hearth, And many a hand would deck with flowers But we should weep the long-loved friend, Wind of the north, with hollow blast, Ye whirlwinds, sleep, with folded wing, But west winds blow, from skies serene, A silent, marble sail! Ye gales that breathe, ye founts that gush, Upon that loved and laurelled head Wake with her touch to bounding life Farewell, dear friend; we speak the word For love is strong, and in our breasts The power that guides the wild fowl's flight Will bring thee safe, o'er land and sea, WHITTIER TO COLFAX. -Transcript. JOHN G. WHITTIER. 66 From The Fortnightly Review. of the British Constitution? This question WHEN, after many strange turns of fortune, the Bourbons were borne back to power by the recoil of the revolutionary wave, the astute Talleyrand put into the mouth of his master the reassuring mot: Rien n'est, changé. Il n'y a qu'un Français de plus." So when the tumult of the Reform tempest was abating, one heard, as it were, our modern Talleyrand, with court-Toryism which is so triumphant over a Radly yet superior smiles, "educating" his ical change, and Liberalism which is disparty to repeat, "Rien n'est changé. Il mayed at the fulfilment of its dearest hopes. n'y a qu'un million (i.e. electors, sovereign The men who should be the first to suffer people, &c.,) de plus." by the change are the least alarmed, and those who have got their desires are the most dissatisfied. The performers have all changed parts, so that we hardly recognise our oldest favourites. The position of the author of the Act, which has enabled him to "ruin the country," he originally obtained by the belief that he was the one man who could avert that ruin. Most persons think that the old prophet has been rather slow to recognise his poros, and has done a good deal in his time to bring him into contempt; and it is a quaint conceit of Culture to restore Authority by majestic patronage of the unenlightened “Barbarian." The noble savage has a chance yet, it appears. There is much food for sad mirth when we watch the discord of opinion which the new Reform has stirred amongst the wisest of our public guides. "It is a fleabite," cried the jaunty Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom £800,000,000 sterling of debt or a few millions of electors have no longer any illusions. "We have only made their existing majority a little bigger," growled the heir-apparent of Conservatism, with his incorrigible good sense. "Ah! Middle Class, Middle Class! so good, so great, so unselfish!" wailed out like Cassandra the great soul of Mr. Lowe; "educate, educate this sovereign mob, and at least soften the ferocity of our new masters." "Traitor! God will yet save the Let us try calmly to consider the actual Throne and the Altar!" muttered the Quar-political situation. It will be quite unneterly in its wrath, mingling prayers with cessary to enter into calculations as to the curses. "Niagara! Beales and ragamuf- effect of the new Reform in towns or counfins! Pit of Tophet! and Chaos-come- ties, the mysteries of personal rating, and again!" shrieked forth that old prophet- the minority conundrum. The Coppocks old prophet now grown unpleasingly shrill and Spofforths who work the stage tricks and, indeed, unpleasingly rude-not at all "the politest of men."* And even Culture, like the dying swan, hath sung a gentle dirge, and, smoothing her ruffled plumes with conscious art, awaits the crack of Anarchy and Doom. "See," wails that transcendent bird, "this sad canaille wants to be up and doing. Adieu authority, philosophy, criticism, and art! Farewell the grand manner, the air of distinction great Style is dead!" Which of all these is the truth? Is it nothing, or is it the Deluge? Is it a party manœuvre, or is it the grand climacteric stitutional and out of revolutionary lines. The Few things in this controversy have been more foolish and unjust than the coarse abuse of a truehearted and cultivated gentleman who sympathises with the people, one who has done more than any living man to keep popular excitement within conpeople even in this country have never had a more honourable, a more gentle, and a more educated leader. He is as much above his assailants in knowledge and moderation as he is in chivalry of nature. and sub-scenic trap-doors of the British Constitution are the only people who know anything about it, and even they do not know much, because, after all, electors are not bricks and mortar, and it is more difficult to calculate householders than to calculate houses. It is quite certain that a very large addition has been made to the constituencies, all from the wages-receiving class, which, with those previously on the roll, will give that class a clear numerical majority; or if well-informed persons insist that the small householders will not obtain a place on the register, this is, after all, a question of time and a matter of detail. Whether the new Reform is to give us half a million or a million of new electors, whether it is to come into practical operation in '69 or in '79, is a question of minor importance. The important matter is that, in the political balance, the working classes are legally in possession of a great numerical preponderance. The point to consider is, what does this imply? Because nothing is so certain a test of ignorance as to confound in politics numerical with practical force. In problems of pure mechanics it is usual to eliminate the question of friction; in political and social problems it frequently counts for from 50 to 90 per cent. What must be allowed for friction in the working of the new electoral machine? Let us take the various items of the problem in turn, duly setting down pro and con. There can be no doubt that working men are not likely to arrive instantaneously at the mysteries of the sixty-one clauses and seven schedules of the Act which the House of Commons found it so hard to follow, and crowds of potential electors will not come into the register at all. This, however, is a question of time and of party organisation alone. As soon as the working of the Act is properly understood, and when any adequate object is open as the prize of electioneering energy, the new engine will be exerted to its highest pressure. If the strength of the old ramparts lies only in the chance that the invaders may overlook the breach, the impregnability of the fortress can hardly be looked upon as perma nent. But the real question is, how will the new electors act when they get to the poll, for thither by a short course or a long course they will infallibly come at last? To suppose that the chosen representatives of the new constituencies will be the mechanical reflex of their individual minds would be gratuitous pedantry. It never has been so, and it never will be. Elections are decided, not by numbers, but by forces; they are won like battles by strokes of fortune and energy, not like competitive examinations by the mere summation of marks. trace the modes in which these forces act. Now power, now prestige, discipline, enthusiasm, wealth, loyalty, luck, and stupidity from time to time carry their man under favourable conditions. But of all these, except the last, the most constant influence after all is that form of power which is the necessary attribute of wealth when it has wide ramifications, and holds numbers of men in its grasp. If these forces have always moved the decisions of masses of men, and if the most permanent of these forces be the power of wealth, what earthly cause will prevent their continuing to operate hereafter? The Reform Bill has abolished the famous compounder, but it has not abolished human nature. Wealth and its public influence will always be felt in any society, and it is quite right that it should be so., How much more in a social system so complex and well knit as ours? Every one who has looked attentively into the prospects of at least the forthcoming elections sees how very strong wealth and rank are certain to prove. So long as it is at all fair sailing, the bulk of the men who sit in St. Stephen's will be the same hearty and sensible gentlemen who now give the tone to that distinguished Club. And so long as that is the case, the pit of Tophet and Chaos-comeagain will be adjourned, at any rate, till this day six months. Then there is what in the language of the day is called the residuum. No doubt at all that a large number of the possible new electors are at present much below the intelligence of the average town workman, and may be moved by corruption, coercion, or ostentation. Perhaps for one election or so it will be found that the Bill has rather widened than diminished the area of bribery; and it is far from impossible that by It would be more true to say that members their energy, lavish expenditure, and the are returned by spontaneous and variable personal popularity of many Tories of groups or knots of men, over which the wealth or rank, a Conservative majority constituency, as a whole, has at most the may be seated in '69. Watch the strength right of veto. It is so wherever the opin- of the party even in the great northern ion of a body of men takes shape, whether towns, in Leeds, Liverpool, and Birmingas the audience of a theatre, as the panel ham. Study the history of the last election in a jury-box, or as guests at a dinner-table. at that model people's borough of BradWe see one or two energetic natures or ford. Reflect on that strange partisanship social superiorities modified by accident, of visible power which the untaught poor misconception, or intrigue, determine the result. Men never meet together anywhere, Convocation always excepted, without deciding like an organic whole, and not like an aggregate of atoms. And perhaps no single member of the House of Commons, unless it be Sir W. Heathcote, truly reflects the average mind of those who elect him. It would need a book to so readily put on-half schoolboy, halfmenial, as when a crowd on a racecourse cheers the colours of a popular nobleman. So far pro the theory that things are not much changed by the Bill. There is, however, something to be said per contra. The great fact of the new franchise is this, one which has been too persistently ignored. The class admitted essentially differ in kind |