the atrociousness of putting women to such a task, the poor wretches made resistance, in all manner of ways, to working in the mill. If the mill be so essentially obnoxious to prisoners, that they will, from time to time, risk and incur whippings and other forcible measures, the mill is a nuisance and an oppression. This will be our decision, till we are made to believe that whippings are necessary to make them pick oakum, beat flax, and work at common trades or occupations. We suspect that it is not work at which the prisoners kick, but at a task they feel to be revolting to their minds, and trying to their bodies. These whippings, however, will not do for repetition; there is something too summary and severe in them, something smacking of the Inquisition and torture, something that gives one a sensation of arbitrary power, and mock trials with closed doors. Prison discipline must, we grant, correct prison offences—BUT PRISON OFFENCES SHOULD NEVER BE PROVOKED BY PRISON DISCIPLINE. In taking leave of our subject for the present, we must again express our wonder at the executive, for not putting the Alien Act in force on some late occasions; and again congratulate our friends, that the line of argument we have all along adopted, with respect to the POLICE dealings with gamblers, is the line of argument, which it has been found necessary to pursue in practice, though at the cost of a police conviction, the wisdom of certain stipendiary magistrates, and the character for any thing but carelessness and want of discriminatory foresight on the part of the legislature ! [We keep back a great part of our matter upon gambling and the treadmill; as we wish to see, in the first instance, what will be the success of the appeal from the late sentence of Mr. Halls. With regard, generally, to the tread-mill, as a punishment, we shall leave our pages open to all; as we are fully aware that it is a subject on which conscientious men may hold the widest difference of opinion.] THE CONTEMPLATIST. AMONG the persons who have lately assisted the deliberations of our Council, is a gentleman who goes among us by the name of "the Contemplatist." The appellation itself gives a good notion of his character. In all the modes and situations of existence, he has preserved the original features of his mind; and wherever he is placed, he still appears a hermit among crowds, a philosopher among fops, a being wrapped up in meditation and reverie among men of business and men of pleasure. We will not say that he lives altogether in a world of his own; or that, like the witches in Macbeth, "He looks not like an inhabitant o' th' earth, And yet is on it :" although assuredly he does not look upon humanity and its concerns with the common eyes, nor do they move him in the usual manner. Yet there is not a spark of affectation in him, natural or acquired-for is not affectation sometimes natural? He is contemplative, but not absent; silent, but not mysterious. For mercy's sake, let him not be considered as one of the vulgar herd of Byronic characters,—a gentleman who is sad as night Merely from wantonness : who is savage, and sullen, and melancholy with all his might, and cultivates a gloomy desperate for the pleasure of it: who has been a fool through life, and ends in being a misanthrope, as he began by being a villain. On the contrary, he reflects long and deeply; but his reflections spring from a heart "overflowing with the milk of human kindness." He regards both the material and moral universe with a keen but fond perception: he is imbued with that truer and finer philosophy, which Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Nor must we confound him with the wretched animals, who wish to appear thoughtful without the power of thinking: who hold it a grand thing to stand with their arms folded, and look marvellously sentimental. For such lamentable coxcombs our Contemplatist has an utter contempt. Yet he somewhat resembles Jaques, in "All's Well that Ends Well;" or even the fool, whom Jaques describes; and who seems, by the way, to have been at least as rational as many who have acquired among their contemporaries the reputation of wise men. We have even likened him in his more moralizing moods to a man who we can conceive to have died once, and then to have obtained permission to walk a little longer about the scenes of life, after having experienced the last and most convincing proof of its frivolities, its follies, and its ephemeral duration. But we must leave him to develop his character by degress. We only mention him at present for the sake of introducing some of his poetical reflections, applicable to the passing season of the year. POETICAL REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTMAS. It is the day-the consecrated day- That we might know how best to live and died It is the day, which brought the incarnate Son Laughs o'er the board, passing the wassail-bow! And yet these Christmas revels seem no more age, Has dull'd the spirit of such scenes; and robb'd To cheer the worn-out soul.-But there-'tis gone- And yield me to the genius of the hour. And let the liberal host, delighted, broach Yes! Christmas still has pleasures all its own, Which bars us from the field-sport, and the chase, Now, through the Christian world, from the soft sons Of Italy, unto the fur-clad Russ, Or sunless, subterranean Laplander, Enjoyment reigns :-the merry laugh goes round, The song, the tale, the riddle, and the jest. And the bright spirit of departed hopes, As re-embodied, starts again to life, And with expanding warmth comes o'er the soul, Like a spring-day in winter! Uncongeal'd, And forms are half forgotten.-Ah, I see- In exercise an antidote to cold : The school-boy, now at home-and in that word The delicacy never tasted yet, The Christmas present, and the Christmas joy : The infant smiling in the nurse's arms, As knowing this should be a festival, A time for only smiles! Yet one, alas! Is absent from that group, loving and lov'd,- The heart can feel-far more than words can paint. |