USEFUL POETRY, ORIGINAL AND SELECT.

PLEASURES OF EDUCATION. YOUTH of my country, children of my

heart, A father's counsel hear his tongue impart, And let his words upon your mem'ries

press, For they are meant to teach you happiness. Your minds, now form'd by Nature's

bounteous hand, With fertile strength, ieem like your native

land; And whatsoever you inay plant or sow, Grain, root, or flower,-will flourishingly

p grow. Yet, though the land be rich, the season

good, Labour alone gives harvest plenitude: The richest soil, uncultivated, feeds Bat vermin foul, and yields the rankest

• weeds. Plant in your minds my words, and they

will shoot, With lasting, firm, and salutary root: Toil to improve, be constant in your care, And Hear'n will bring the goodly fruit to

Mankind in herds, eacl. herd its feudal

lord, Their bread, their lives depending on his

word; Fated to do, or die, as he thought fit, They felt his power, and they bow'd to it. For him or for his cause, unjust or good, They'd fire their neighbour's home, and

spill his blood. His bugle sounded-'twas the signal note To rise and cat his brother baron's throat; Seize on his cattle, castle, and domain, And then, by greater robbers, lose again ! Each pelty tyrant's fancies were the laws, The people slaves, and ignorance the

cause. At length the glorious light of knowledge

broke The deep, dense gloons, and Liberty awoke, Gazed on the opening prospect with a

smile, And breathed her benediction o'er the isle ! Then native Independence rear'd her head. And bloated Tyranny for ever ned. Fair Science, charm'd, beheld the new

bright scene, And built her temple 'midst her bowers

green: The sister arts, all strength’ning as they

grew, For ever varying, and for ever new, Taught the roagh hand of industry to guide, In plastic maze the country's fleecy pride : Genius arose to consecrate the plan, And patriot love united man to man. 'Twas thus in darkness lay the brightest

isle, And thus her blinded people felt awhile The woes man feels when fetter'd by his

kind, But, loosing with the body's chains the

inind: Twas learning gave her sons a deathless

name, And taught the road to opulence and fame Bade po rude marks of feudal pornpre

main, 3 Her foster'd land, her happy home to stain; Drove from the castle-walls th' emballled

din, And planted Justice' sacred throne within.

bear.

· Spirit of EDUCATION, Lo thy praise

Arise the efforts of my willing lays;
Inspire me as touch the uniried string,
Thy pleasures to the infant heart to sing.
Thrice happy task, to teach the untaught
To love the sounds that tell thy blessings

dear;
To show their beauties to the eye of youth,
In all their bright and captivating truth:
May every infant mind the fire receive,
Which thou, blest spirit, thou alone canst

give. And thus the fogs of ignorance, from earth Shall fiy, nor smother Reason in her birth; Bat light of truth, from one bright arch

shall fall, To show the ways of Heaven and earth to

all. Clouded in barbarism long England lay, And people after people pass'd away Beneath the darkness. Then her woody

plains, Patch'd rude together, forming vast do.

mains, Crouch'd round the spot where the proud

castle stood, And, 'stead of toil, were fertilized with

blood! The humble hind, to Freedom's rights un.

kuown, Crept to the cot he dared not call his own: There slept, supine, beneath the rank dark

shade, Which ignorance had thrown upon his

head. Britons, like oxen, bent beneath the yoke, With patience bore their drivers' galling

stroke.

Spirit of Learning! yes, in thee we find The happy temperer of the human inind; Nurtured by thee, the poet pours his strain, The soldier conquers, sailors brave the

main; . Commerce and agriculture flourish high, And lighter moves the hand of industry.

(To be continued.)

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We earnestly invite our readers to furnish us with hints upon public abuses in either trade, public offices, parish concerns, streets, buildings, travelling inns, coaches, &c. &c., in order that we may by our remarks promote the public good.

some persons, that the dealers in potatoes are so accommodating as to wash them from the dirt, and sell them without any increase of price: it is a secret worth knowing. They suffer them to lay in water for å dozen hours or more before they wash them, during which time they suck up water as a sponge, and the dealer sells the water as well as the vegetable at six shillings per hundred. Never buy washed potatoes; they will not boil well; they will not keep ; and you lose a fourth in quantity. It is not every body who knows how to boil potatoes well; we shall have a word to say upon the subject another time.

place it in the tub, turning it each day with the brine. On Tuesday cut off 4 lb. more from the thick end, and boil it; it will be nicely corned, and will make, with vegetables, good dinners for two days. On the Wednesday evening take your meat out of the pickle, wash it well, hang it up to drain, wipe it with a cloth, take a handful of parsley, a pennyworth of sweet herbs, chopped fine, with a ground nutmeg, a very small quantity of ground mace and cloves, about twenty corns of all-spice powdered, with a tea-spoonful of black pepper; strew the inside of the meat with this mixture, then roll it up tight; cover it with a coarse cloth, wrapt once round it; tie it round with broad tape in three places, and let the tape pass once round it long-wise ; boil it for three hours and a half; let it stand in a press, or under a weight all night; take off the cloth, and you will be tempted to taste it for breakfast ; this cut into thin slices, will be found quite sufficient for the remainder of the week (and enough to supply a piece to a neighbour as a practical lesson in economy), and it will form an elegant dish; or if you prefer only eating it occasionally, you may put it by; it will keep good for a month. Pastrycooks sell it thus prepared for two shillings the pound; the expense does not exceed one halfpenny per pound increase on the cost price, but some will say it is so much trouble; try it, and you will find the trouble is scarce any, and will occupy little more time than the reading this article. Now, pray, which is most profitable, this or mutton-chops, and such like? The same family, if fed upon chops, steaks, sausages, or tripe, would consume twenty-one pounds, at an average of seven-pence per pound, which would amount to upwards of twelve shillings, being an increased expenditure of five shillings per week in meat alone, not to mention the loss of time in marketing, dressing, &c.

Potutoes.—The very best champion potatoes are now sold at six shillings the hundred and twenty pounds, somethmg better than three pounds for two-pence. It may surprise

EVIL PRACTICE OF RENDERING MEAT,

FISH, AND POULTRY, UNWHOLESOME.

The abominable custom daily prace tised of blowing, as it is technically called, or inflating butcher's meat, especially the joints of veal and lamb, with the breath respired from the lungs, to make it appear white and glistening, is a practice which claims the interference of the magistrates.

This detestable custom unques. tionably renders meat not only unfit for keeping, but likewise unwholesome for human food. It is the opinion of physiologists that the meat is capable of communicating the most loathsome diseases; besides, it is such a dirty trick, that the very idea of it is sufficient to disgust one at every thing which comes from a butcher's shop; for who can bear the notion of eating meat, the cellular substance of which has been filled with the air of a dirty fellow, who may at the same time be afflicted with the very worst of diseases ?

But not only butchers' meat, but sea-fish, especially cod, haddock, and whiting, are in a similar measure often blown to make them appear large and plump; a quill, or the stem of a tobacco pipe, being inserted into the orifice at the belly of the fish, and a hole being made under the fin, which is next the gill, the breath is blown in to extend the bulk of the fish. This imposition is detected by cesses of complicated and lengthened cruelty, too horrid to relate, are only for the purpose of whitening the flesh; and with a similar view two calves are often tied together by their hind legs, and thrown across a horse when brought to the butcher's shop, so that they are suffered to be suspended for. hours together, with the head downwards before they are killed.

On the frequent cruelties committed by butchers it is not our business to speak: every person resident in this city must have noticed, that in driving a number of sheep and oxen, if any of them be untractable, the driver often breaks one of the legs of the sheep, or cuts the large tendon on the foot of the ox. This is a cruelty at which the human mind shudders.

placing the thumb on each side of the orifice, and pressing it hard, when the air will be perceived to escape. Meat that has been inflated may at once be recognized by the cellular membranes being distended.

Another pernicious custoin of rendering meat unwholesome is, to throw the beast, previous to its being killed, into a state of disease, by over-driving it; for the fever into which the furious animal is often thrown, by the cruelty of the drover, is frequently raised to madness. No person would choose to eat the flesh of an animal which died in a high fever, yet that is actually the case with all over-driven cattle. The flesh of such animals is at once distinguished at the butcher's shambles, by the cellular membrane being filled with blood, which makes the meat appear of a more florid colour, and adds to its weight. · Another highly blamable custom to render meat unwholesome is, to keep animals without food for four or five days together, to save the lutcher the trouble of clearing the stomach and intestines more readily. Oxen are usually kept without food for four or five days before they are killed. Calves, sheep, and pigs, each of them two or three days. Fasting so long renders the animals unhealthy, and makes them restless, feverish, and diseased. . It is also a common practice in some grazing counties to bring to market the carcases of such animals as die of themselves. Poverty may indeed oblige people to eat such meat, but it would be better for them to eat a smaller quantity of what is sound and wholesome; at least it would afford a better nourishment, with less danger.

The injunction given to the Jews, not to eat of any creature which had died in consequence of a disease, seems to have a strict regard to health, and ought to be observed as a wholesome lesson by Christians as well as Jews.

The editor of the Literary Miscellany states, that it is a practice among many butchers to suspend calves by the hind legs with the head downwards, for hours, and to bleed them to death slowly. Such pro

REMARKS ON THE ADULTERATION OF

FOOD. The object of all unprincipled modern manufacturers seems to be

sparing of their time and labour, as much as possible, and to increase the quantity of the articles they produce, without much regard to their quality. The ingenuity and perseverance of self-interest is proof against prohibitions, and contrives to elude the vigilance of the most active government.

The eager and insatiable thirst for gain, which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention ; and when lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of even a fellow-creature's life is a secondary consideration. In reference to the deterioration of almost all the necessaries and comforts of existence, it may be justly observed, in a civil as well as a religious sense, that “ in the midst of life we are in death.”

INDIGENCE, AND ITS REMEDIES.

(Continued from p. 9.) In considering the innocent causes of indigence, as exhibited in one collected view in our last Number, it will be seen that those requiring constant and permanent support are few