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tending which should pass the first. The strongest threw into the river those who were weaker, and hindered their passage, or unfeelingly trampled under foot all the sick whom they found in their way. Many hundreds were crushed to death by the wheels of the cannon. Others, hoping to save themselves by swimming, were frozen in the middle of the river, or perished by placing themselves on pieces of ice, which sunk to the bottom. Thousands and thousands of victims, deprived of all hope, threw themselves headlong into the Beresina, and were lost in the waves.

The division of Girard made its way, by force of arms, through all the obstacles that retarded its march; and, climbing over that mountain of dead bodies which obstructed the way, gained the other side. Thither the Russians would soon have followed them, if they had not hastened to burn the bridge.

Then the unhappy beings who remained on the other side of the Beresina abandoned themselves to absolute despair. Some of them, however, yet attempted to pass the bridge, enveloped as it was in flames; but, arrested in the midst of their progress, they were compelled to throw themselves into the river, to escape a death yet more horrible. At length, the Russians being masters of the field of battle, our troops retired; the uproar ceased, and a mournful silence succeeded.

ON CLOTHING.

"We take no note of health but by its loss."

NOTHING is more necessary to a comfortable state of existence than that the body should be kept in nearly an uniform temperature; for whenever the heat of the atmosphere is raised so high, or depressed so low, as to be incompatible with the preservation of the necessary standard, a painful degree of heat or cold is felt, which, if not relieved, is speedily productive of disease. The Almighty wisdom, which made the senses prove as instruments of pleasure for our gratification and of pain for our protection, has made the feelings arising from excess.or deficency of heat intolerable in proportion as the danger is urgent. Instinctively, therefore, we seek shelter from the scorching heat and freezing cold. We bathe our limbs in the cool stream, or clothe our bodies with the warm fleece. We court the breeze or carefully avoid it.

But all our efforts would be vain, if nature had not furnished us, in common with other animals, (in the peculiar functions of the skin and lungs,) with a power of preserving the heat of the body uniform, under almost every variety of temperature to which the atmosphere is liable. The skin, by increase of the perspiration, carries off the excess of heat the lungs, by decomposing the atmosphere, supply the loss; so that the internal parts of the body are preserved at a tem

perature of about 98 degrees, under all circumstances. In addition to the important share which the function of perspiration has in regulating the heat of the body, it serves the further purpose of an outlet to the constitution, by which it gets rid of matters that are no longer useful in its economy.

This excretory function of the skin is of such paramount importance to health,that we ought at all times to direct our attention to the means of securing its being duly performed; for if the matters that ought to be thrown out of the body by the pores of the skin are retained, they invariably prove injurious. Any interruption to the discharge of the excrementitious matter from the pores of the skin, is not indeed attended with the sensible inconvenience that is felt when any delay occurs in the evacuation of the grosser matters, which it is the office of the bowels and urinary organs to separate; yet it does not happen on that account that the due performance of this office of the skin is not to the full as necessary to health as regularity in the functions of the kidneys and intestines. When speaking of the excrementitious matter of the skin, I do not mean the sensible moisture which is poured out in hot weather, or when the body is heated by exercise, usually denominated sweat; but a matter which is too subtile for the senses to take cognizance of which is continually passing off from every part of the body, and which has been called the insensible perspiration. This insen sible perspiration is the true excretion of the skin. The office of the sweat or sensible perspiration seems to be only the regulation of the temperature of the body.

A suppression of the insensible perspiration is a prevailing symptom in almost all diseases. It is the sole cause of many fevers. The purgings that occur in hot weather are generally occasioned by it: and not by the fruits of the season, as is commonly supposed. Very many chronic diseases have no other cause. In warm weather, and particularly in hot climates, the functions of the skin being prodigiously increased, all the consequences of interrupting them are pro portionably dangerous.

Besides the function of perspiration, the skin has, in common with every other surface of the body, a process, by means of appropriate vessels, of absorbing or taking up, and conveying into the blood vessels, any thing that may be in contact with it; and it is also the part on which the organ of feeling or touch is distributed.

I must not then omit to notice, that the skin is supplied with glands, which provide an oily matter that renders it impervious to water, and thus secures the evaporation of the sensible perspiration. Were this oily matter deficient, the skin would become sodden, as is the case when it has been removed, a fact to be observed in the hands of washerwomen, when it is destroyed by the solvent powers of the soap. The hair serves as so many syphons to conduct the perspired fluid from the skin.

The three powers of the skin-perspiration, absorption, and feeling, are so dependent on each other, that it is impossible for one to be deranged without the other two being also disordered. For if a man be

exposed to a frosty atmosphere, in a state of inactivity, or without sufficient clothing, till his limbs become stiff and his skin insensible, the vessels that excite the perspiration and the absorbent vessels partake of the torpor that has seized on the nerves of feeling, nor will they regain their lost activity till the sensibility be completely restored. The danger of suddenly attemping to restore sensibility to frozen parts is well known. If the addition of warmth be not very gradual, vitality of the part will be destroyed altogether.

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In Winter, in the colder regions of the earth, all the care man can use is necessary to keep him from actually perishing with cold. There he has nothing to fear from the effects of sudden chills, unless indeed he is so placed as to be able to disperse the unfriendly cold, and to enjoy a temperature equal to that of Summer. In that case he may, by sudden exposure to the cold atmosphere, give such a check to the action of the skin as may greatly endanger the health. The direct effects of heat bring with them no terrors, only inasmuch as by keeping the skin in a state of great activity, they render it extremely liable to be affected by exposure to even the slightest change of temperature. The short sketch I have here given of the functions of the skin will, I hope, be sufficient to make the circumstances by which they are capable of being influenced clearly understood; as well as the important consequences that depend on their being duly performed. In that case I shall have no difficulty in producing a conviction of the necessity of adopting some better system of clothing than that which is now universally pursued ;-some system that will fit us to encounter the vicissitudes of the most fickle climate in the world. Every one's experience must have shown him how extremely capricious the weather is in this country. In the midst of Summer we often experience, in the course of a few hours, all the gradations of temperature, from oppressive heat to an almost freezing cold; and in Winter it as frequently happens that we have several days in succession in which the atmosphere is little inferior in warmth to what is usual in Summer. Our experience of this great inconstancy in the temperature of the air! ought to have instructed us how to secure ourselves from its effects. The inhabitant of the frozen regions of the North, in his dress of skins with the fur next his body, and in his house studiously sunk in the earth, and from which the external air is carefully excluded, finds an effectual protection from the cold. The native of Africa bears the fiercest heat of his burning climate unhurt; his only safeguard that which is derived from well-greasing his skin. But these are men nearly in a state of nature. Luxury has as yet made no inroads on their habits, which have been formed by the accumulated experience of ages.

Our ancestors were content to clothe themselves with woollen; and there is no doubt I believe but that they were an infinitely more robust and healthy race than we their degenerate sons. Cloths of linen and silk were for a very long time esteemed worth their weight in gold; but as the manufacturer improved in skill, and larger quantities were brought into the market, they decreased in price, and luxury led to their being made to constitute almost entirely the dress-first of the

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great and dignified, next of the merely rich, and now even of the more humble.

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After what has been said, I should think there are but very few that would hesitate in deciding on the kind of cloth best calculated to afford protection under every change of temperature. Woollen cloth is so pre-eminently superior to all others, in the readiness with which it allows the escape of the matter of perspiration through its texture— in its power of preserving the sensation of warmth to the skin under all circumstances in the difficulty there is in making it thoroughly wet in the slowness with which it conducts heat-and in the softness, lightness, and pliancy of its texture, it is so well adapted to all the purposes of clothing, that it is certainly to be preferred to all others.

Cotton cloth, though it differs but little from linen, approaches nearer to the nature of woollen, and on that account must be esteemed as the next best substance of which clothing may be made.

Silk is the next in point of excellence, but it is very inferior to cotton in every respect.

Linen possesses the contrary of most of the properties which I have enumerated as excellencies in woollen. It retains the matter of perspiration in its texture, and speedily becomes imbued with it ;-it gives an unpleasant sensation of cold to the skin;-it is very readily saturated with moisture, and it conducts heat too rapidly. It is indeed the worst of all the substances in use, being the least qualified to answer the purposes of clothing.

In a future Number I shall further elucidate the advantages resulting from the use of woollen clothing; and shall make a few observations on the effect of wearing the clothes too tight.

J. C.

THE ENGLISH MONTHS.---SEPTEMBER.

In the southern parts of Great Britain the corn harvest is generally completed by the beginning of this month. In Scotland, and in the border-counties, the grain generally requires a longer period to ripen in;-and sometimes it is not gathered into the barns till the warning snow has apprized the farmer that the season will endure no further delay. The greater part of the harvest in England is indeed completed by the beginning of September. On the first of this month partridge-shooting commences. The law which regulates this implies that the grain is removed from the open grounds.

The liberty to indulge in the sports of the field is confined, in this country, to the possessors of property. This may at first appear an unjust and an unwise regulation. The principle upon which the Game Laws were founded, and upon which they could alone exist is, that the possessors of land are at the expense of maintaining the Game, and that they are therefore entitled to their exclusive enjoyment. He who believes that they are the common property of all, argues from notions that are derived from a different state of society. The pre

server of game is at considerable expense in their maintenance ;→→→→ and they are in strict justice as much his property as his barn-door fowls. It is perhaps to be regretted that our laws are not even more distinct upon this head ;—and that the proprietorship of the game is not in all cases vested in the occupier of the land upon which they are supported. Unhappy are those men who fancy that they are not incurring a moral guilt in the offence against the laws which we call poaching. The habitual poacher is a being whose career of evil can never end with the invasion of his neighbour's parks and covers. His is a life of cunning and of violence ;-and his are the habits which almost invariably lead to bolder schemes of rapine-perhaps of bloodshed. Let the youth who is seduced into a participation of the designs of poachers retreat before it be too late. A large portion of the unhappy men who incur the penalties of the law, at every Assize, have acknowledged that their race of crime commenced with what they thought the trifling guilt of poaching.

The completion of the harvest offers little repose to the labours of the husbandman. The fields are again to be ploughed, and prepared for the winter corn ;-the sowing of which is again commenced. The sagacity of man teaches him to conform to the course of nature, which is ever in a state of perpetual change and activity.

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The vintage of England, cider-making, commences in this month. The orchards of Worcestershire, Somersetshire, and Devonshire, are now stripped of their juicy stores. The fruit, after being laid aside to mellow, is crushed in a mill;-and the juice, after being properly fermented, becomes cider, or apple-wine. Cider, in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, is used only as a luxury;-but it forms the common beverage of the inhabitants of those districts where it is principally produced.

The trees of the forests as yet do not begin to shed their leaves ;but if the season be wet, they become very generally discoloured, and afford to the landscape all the varied and mellow hues of Autumn, The oak now sheds its acorns, and the beech its mast. From the cir cumstance of the greater number of our large forests having fallen into decay, these, the fruits which they produce, have become of little use. But in the New Forest, in Hampshire, an ancient and singular custom still prevails, of affording the tribe of swine the benefit of this bounty of the woods. There, a herd, to the number of five or six hundred, is collected from the neighbouring farmers ;-and, under the guidance of an experienced person, they are driven into the recesses of the forest. The swineherd has previously constructed a wattled fence, which he covers with boughs, and fills with fern. Having driven his herd to their destined habitation, he gives them a plentiful supper of acorns, sounding his horn during the repast. The next day he lets them shift for themselves, till the evening, when he again gives them their meal and their music. In a few days they require no further care; and will wander for several weeks, and return with regularity to their nightly shed. If there should be any stragglers they are quickly recalled by the notes of the swineherd's horn. In six weeks he drives them to their

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