treaty about the fisheries, proves that our government did not regard our former rights as perfectly secure to us by the treaty of 1814. It is not probable they were sent to merely make a new definition, because Mr. Hale himself admits that "he does not see that language could well be more clear and distinct" than that very old treaty of 1783. What, then, were they sent to do? Why manifestly to modify our claims to former rights; in other words, to make a new treaty by compromise.

I do not say that the American Peace Commissioners' claims were wrong, or that Messrs. Gallatin and Rush were not overreached; but I do say that the latter were authorized, under the circumstances, to modify in some way our ancient fishing rights, and therefore it is only fair to say that, if there has been wrong done to our fishing interest in that way, the Peace Commissioners and the United States Government are more to blame than Messrs. Gallatin and Rush. Respectfully yours,

CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, April, 1852.

W. B. S.

FALSE-PACKED COTTON.

The London Chronicle has an article on the subject of false-packed cotton, from which we extract as follows:

The subject of false-packed cotton has recently attracted considerable attention, and a partial change in the system may be expected, but we think the matter still worthy of further consideration. At present, at any time during twelve months after sale, any cotton may be returned to the merchant, if it is considered to be "false-packed," that is, if the quality of cotton through the bale be shown to be inferior or dissimilar to the sample. It is not, however, returned to the merchant to be replaced by cotton equal to the sample, but is returned absolutely, and the invoice cost must be repaid, with charges. It is material to observe that cotton bought at low rates is seldom, if ever, returned when the markets have risen, and that cotton bought at high prices often comes back when there is some difficulty in proving the "false-packing." This is the natural result of such a system; and while the range of prices extends over twelve months, a considerable amount of injustice is incurred. It is now proposed to limit the time for the return of "false-packed" cotton to three months after sale; but we do not think that even this position entirely meets the justice of the case. We think it would be either more advisable to have no returns made after cotton has once passed the scale, or that, if returned, it be replaced by cotton of similar quality to the original sample, and not by a return of the invoice cost. It is argued that to have no returns of " false-packed" cotton allowed, would lead to confusion, by encouraging a fraudulent system. But on looking closer into the matter, it will be found that this would not be probable. In the first place, the principal cause of "false-packed" cotton is not fraud. Whenever weather is variable, and especially if the alternations of sunshine and rain be sudden and frequent, the cotton picked under these different circumstances passes through the same gins, and is often unavoidably baled without any proper separation of qualities, and in many lists which come to market, hardly a bale can be found that runs the same throughout; but this does not arise from any wish to defraud, but simply from a pressure of adverse circumstances. And yet, under the present system, the whole might be returned twelve months after sale; and instances have occurred recently, where large lots have been so returned at a considerable difference of price, by no means commensurate with the inconsiderable difference in quality.

The system of allowing no returns after the cotton has passed the scale has been tried at Havre, and no inconvenience has resulted from it. But supposing that manufacturers object to buy one quality, and run a risk of receiving portions of another and inferior quality, still the returns may be arranged on a fairer principle. If cotton bought at 8d. is to be returned when the value of the original sample has fallen to 44d., it is evident that a return of the invoice cost is unjust. If the prices had been the reverse; if the so called “false-packed" cotton had cost 44d., and was worth in the market, falsely packed as it was, something over 7d., with all due regard for the tender consciences of our manufacturers, we do not think the cotton would be returned. Under any circumstances it would surely sufficiently meet the justice of the case to give the buyer what he did buy, and take back the inferior bales delivered; the seller would thus only lose the difference between the qualities, and spinners would not be tempted by the bonus occasionally held out to them in a falling market to get rid of as much as they can of an injudicious purchase.

CHEAP OCEAN POSTAGE.

The Hon. CHARLES SUMNER recently made a motion in the Senate of the United States to the effect that the Naval Committee report on the subject of a reduced rate of postage across the ocean. At present the postage is so high as to act in a great measure as a prohibition of correspondence. It is altogether above the point of highest profit to the carriers. Mr. Sumner's remarks were very much to the point. He said:

A letter can be carried three thousand miles in the United States for three cents; but the reasons for cheap postage on land are equally applicable to the ocean. In point of fact, the conveyance of letters by sailing or steam packets may be carried out for less cost than the conveyance by railways. Besides, cheap ocean postage would tend to supersede the clandestine or illicit conveyance of letters, and to draw into the mail all mailable matter, which is now often entrusted to the pockets of passengers, or the boxes and bales of merchants. With every new facility of correspondence, there is naturally a new expansion of human intercourse; and there is reason to believe-indeed, well founded reason to believe-that with the increased number of letters, cheap ocean postage would be self-supported.

Further cheap postal communication with foreign countries would be of incalculable importance to the Commerce of the United States. And again, by promoting the intercourse of families and friends, now separated by the ocean, cheap postage would add to the sum of human happiness. The present high rates of ocean postagenamely, twenty-four cents on a letter weighing half an ounce, forty-eight cents on one weighing an ounce, and ninety-six cents on one weighing a fraction more than an ounce-are a severe tax upon all, burdensome especially upon the poor, amounting in many cases to absolute prohibition of all foreign correspondence. This should not be. It particularly becomes our country, by the removal of all unnecessary restraints upon foreign correspondence, to advance the comfort of European emigrants now making a home among us, and to destroy, as far as practicable, every barrier to free intercourse between the Old World and the New.

And, lastly, cheap postage will be a new bond of peace among nations, and will extend good will among men.

Such, sir, in brief, seem to me to be the reasons for which this measure is commendable. Much as I rejoice in the American steamers, which now vindicate for us a peaceful supremacy of the seas, and help to weave a golden tissue between the two hemispheres, I cannot consider these, with all their unquestionable advantages, an equivalent for cheap ocean postage. But, sir, I do not regard one as inconsistent with the other, and I hope both may happily prosper together. I hope the resolution, which is one simply of inquiry, may be adopted.

ELIHU BURRITT, the learned blacksmith, has been laboring with zeal and energy in Great Britain to secure the boon of ocean penny postage. England, through the influence and efforts of her ROLAND HILL, first gave to the world the idea and the fact of a system of cheap postage on land; and is doubtless ready to co-operate with the United States in the grand project of cheap postage on the ocean.

THE MERCHANT'S CLERK AND THE PLOWBOY.

The young man who leaves the farm-field for the merchant's desk or the lawyer's or doctor's office, thinking to dignify or ennoble his toil, makes a sad mistake. He passes, by that step, from independence to vassalage. He barters a natural for an artificial pursuit, and he must be the slave of the caprice of customers and the chicane of trade, either to support himself or to acquire fortune. The more artificial a man's pursuit, the more debasing is it morally and physically. To test it, contrast the merchant's clerk with the plowboy. The former may have the most exterior polish, but the latter, under his rough outside, possesses the truer stamina. He is the freer, franker, happier, and nobler man. Would that young men might judge of the dignity of labor by its usefulness and manliness, rather than by the superficial glosses it wears. Therefore, we never see a man's nobility in his kid gloves and toilet adornments, but in that sinewy arm, whose outlines, browned by the sun, betoken a hardy, honest toiler, under whose farmer's or mechanic's vest a kingliest heart may beat.

THE MERCHANT PEDDLER, OR BUYING CHEAP.

Perhaps the reader may have a penchant, as a friend of ours has, for buying things cheap. We say perhaps—for it is a weakness with which many are troubled, and it is a most expensive one. There are many who have been tempted to lay up goods where moth and rust doth corrupt, merely because they were obtained cheap, but it is a poor policy, and patronizing peddlers is a still poorer one. One of these wandering Jews stept into a counting room a few days since, and, after warming his hands, turned to the gentleman occupying the seat of authority, just then busily engaged in weighing the evidence regarding the true cause of the recent Whig defeat, so admirably and differently attributed by the Atlas, the Daily Advertiser, and the Courier, and politely inquired if he would like to look at a vest pattern?

66

No, no! Don't bother me. Very busy just now."

"It is the best article and the neatest pattern that you ever saw."

Don't want any vest patterns."

"But just look, sir,"-and the pedler had a piece of vesting unfolded, which was really quite neat, and the cogitator, unable to unravel the political web, determined to unravel the web of the fabric. "All silk, sir; warranted, and sufficient for two doublebreasted vests, or three with rolling collars."

"What do you ask for it?"

"Twelve dollars. I bought it in Liverpool, and brought it over with me, and if you want it you shall have it for just what it cost me-twelve dollars."

“It is too much, sha'nt give any such a price-but will give you six dollars.”

O, my gracious," exclaimed the peddler, as if astonished at such an offer, "I can't think of it" off he walked. In ten minutes the door was opened, and the peddler thrust in his head: "You may have it for ten dollars."

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No," was all the reply he got.

"I will say eight, as the very lowest."

"No, sir," and away went the peddler a second time. The gentleman was about relapsing into his revery upon the disputed question already mentioned, when the peddler re-entered boldly, and laid the vesting on the desk, exclaiming, "Well, give us six dollars, and it is yours." The money was paid, and the peddler was about leaving the door, when he turned round and took from his pocket another roll, and, undoing it, exposed to view a piece of vesting as far preferable to the other as the new building on the corner of State-street exceeds in height all its neighbors.

The gentleman at once made a proposal to exchange. The peddler could'nt think of such a thing; he did'nt mean to sell it on any account; he intended to keep it till he was able to have it made up for himself-but, after considerable trading and talking, he gave it up, received his first piece and $2, and walked off-making eight dollars for his piece of vesting. The gentleman, quite satisfied with the exchange, walked up to his tailor's at noon, threw down the piece, ordering him to cut off sufficient for one

vest.

"How many vests do you expect it will make?" inquired the tailor.

Three, of course," was the reply.

The yard stick went down, and looking up, he informed the purchaser that it would make two, by piecing out the collar with black silk. The idea of measuring the article had not occurred to him before, but at this piece of news, he felt a kind of film spread over his eyes, a lightness of pocket troubling his ribs, while the letters s-o-l-d, by a delusion of his optical nerves, appeared to be written on the outer walls of all adjacent buildings. He then inquired the probable worth, and was informed that such vesting could be purchased at about two and a quarter per yard. This was sufficient. He has resolved never to patronize a pedler, but to extend his patronage to those good tax-paying citizens who have a local habitation and a name.-Evening Gazette.

A CURIOUS COMMERCIAL CUSTOM.

On the 10th of March, 1852, a singular old custom was revived in Hamburg. When the Exchange was thronged at high noon, two of the city drummers appeared in uniform before the entrance and beat a roll ten minutes long. Then over the great door of the Exchange they suspended a black tablet inscribed with the name of a bankrupt merchant who had absconded. When this was done the bell in one of the towers-the bell of shame-rang for two hours. The tablet remains for three months and a day. In many German cities the bankrupt, as a sign of his condition, is compelled to wear a straw hat for a year and a day.

THE LONDON TIMES ON COMMERCIAL AGENCIES.

A late number of the London Times, under the head of " Novel Commercial Inquirer,” has the following remarks on the American system of ascertaining the character and standing of merchants and business men throughout the country:

There appeared recently in the Times, an article giving an account of the steam communication in the United States, of its vast extent, and rapid increase within the last few years. Connected with the subject of commercial enterprise, which steam navigation has tended to develop in an extraordinary degree, we have heard of a novel system of protection, which has arisen out of the peculiar position of the traders in the Union, their go-ahead spirit of speculation, and the wide extent of their commercial transactions. There exists now in New York an office where, by the payment of an annual subscription, any person may obtain correct information as to the character, business habits, respectability, and responsibility of any commercial man in the Union. The establishment employs a manager and a number of clerks. Should a stranger come to New York or any other city for business purposes, and seek to open a credit account with any mercantile house, (as the Yankees do not always come provided with letters of introduction,) the party so applied to send the name and address of the applicant to the office of reference, where he is directly furnished with full particulars respecting him. Should the office not be at the moment in full possession of the necessary facts, the inquirer will be requested to call again in a few hours or the following morning. In the mean time, by the help of the electric telegraph, and their correspondents in all the principal towns of the Union, they are almost in every case enabled to obtain the required information in a few hours. They have books of reference for the several States regularly tabulated and indexed, so that on applying to the clerk of any particular State the required information can be furnished almost instantaneously. The importance of such a system in an extensive country, where commercial transactions must be carried on to a great extent upon the credit and character of the parties concerned, is manifest, and is another remarkable proof of the smartness of Brother Jonathan in accommodating himself to all the exigencies of his situation.

A PROVERB FOR MERCHANTS.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." The extreme caution ridiculed by this proverb is of a kind which one would hardly have expected to be popular in a commercial country. If this were acted upon, there would be an end of trade and Commerce, and all capital would lie dead at the banker's-as a bird who was held safe. The truth is, our whole practice is of a directly opposite kind. We regard a bird in the hand as worth only a bird; and we know there is no chance of making it worth two birds-not to speak of the hope of a dozen-without letting it out of the band. Inasmuch, however, as the proverb also means to exhort us not to give up a good certainty for a tempting uncertainty, we do most fully coincide in its prudence and sound sense. It is identical with the French, “Mieux vaut un 'tiens' que deux 'tu l'auras,' -one take this" is better than two "thou shalt have it;" identical also with the Italian; “E meglio un uovo oggi, che una gallina domani;” an egg to-day is better than a hen to-morrow. It owes its origin to the Arabic-" A thousand cranes in the air, are not worth one sparrow in the fist."

وو

A LADY SHIP-MASTER.

Amongst the fleet lately wind-bound in Lamlash, not the least, but perhaps the greatest wonder, was the good old brig Cleotus, of Saltcoats, which for more than twenty years has been commanded by an heroic and exceedingly clever young lady, Miss Betsy Miller, daughter of the late Mr. W. Miller, ship-owner and wood-merchant of that town. He was concerned with several vessels, both in the American and coasting trade. Miss Betsy, before she went to sea, acted as "ship's husband" to her father, and seeing how the captains in many cases behaved, her romantic and adventurous spirit impelled her to go to sea herself. Her father gratified her caprice, and gave her the command of the Cleotus, which she holds to the present day, and she has weathered the storms of the deep when many commanders of the other sex have been driven on the rocks. The Cleotus is well known in the ports of Belfast, Dublin, Cork, etc.

THE BOOK TRADE.

1.—A Compendium of the Law and Practice of Injunctions and of Interlocutory Orders in the nature of Injunctions. By the Hon. ROBERT HENRY EDEN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister at Law. With copious notes and references to the American and English decisions. Also an Introduction and an Appendix of Practical Forms, by Thomas W. Waterman, Counsellor at Law. Third Edition. 2 vols., 8vo. New York: Banks, Gould, & Co.

That this is the only work of any moment covering the same ground, is accounted for in the fact that the elegant, lucid, and profound treatise of Mr. Eden is so complete as to render any other book on the same subject a work of supererogation. In a style so beautiful for its simplicity, the author of the present work goes over the entire ground of injunctions, so concisely and plainly, and yet so learnedly, that the student and experienced lawyer are alike instructed. The first edition of this work was published by Gould, Banks, & Co., in 1839, since which two large editions of the work have been sold in this country. It is referred to and quoted in the writings of Chancellor Kent and Judge Story, and it is doubted whether there has ever been a law book that commanded more universal and implicit deference in the higher walks of the profession. Mr. Waterman, the American editor, has greatly improved the present edition, by accompanying the English text with American notes and references, so ample as to make a complete American work. The reports of every State in the Union have been carefully and thoroughly examined, and every important decision has not only been cited, but has formed in the hands of the learned editor the subject of elaborate comment. Besides an able introduction, in which are discussed the leading principles of law relative to injunctions, Mr. Waterman has added copious notes, containing full citations from English as well as American cases, an appendix of practical forms, a full index to the notes, and greatly enlarged tables of contents. The publishers deserve great credit for the style in which this, and indeed all the law literature that emanates from their press, is produced.

2.-The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann. Collected and translated by R. E. DUDGEON, M. D. With a preface, by E. E. MARCY, M. D., author of the "Homeopathic Theory of Practice." 8vo., pp. 784. New York: William Radde.

As the present volume comprises many cleverly expressed views of general interest to all classes, it certainly commends itself to the attention of all who feel an interest in the advancement of the healing art. Several of the papers were written while the illustrious founder of Homeopathy belonged to the old school, and several years previous to the discovery of the new principle of cure. The opinions of Hahnemann have stood the test of half a century, and his great law of cure, similia similibus curantur, stands forth before the world, and will, we doubt not, ever continue to stand, an immutable and glorious truth.

Edited by F. Hartman, M. D.,

3.-Dr. Caspari's Homeopathic Domestic Physician. author of The Acute and Chronic Diseases." 4 vols. New York: William Radde. The present edition of this work was translated from the eighth German edition, and is enriched by a treatise on Anatomy and Physiology by Dr. Esrey, an eminent practitioner of the homeopathic school. It contains also a chapter on Mesmerism and Magnetism, together with directions to enable patients living at a distance from a homeopathic physician to describe their symptoms. It is introduced to the American public by a preface from Dr. Herring of Philadelphia, who has made some valuable additions, the result of a large and extensive practice. A copy of this work should find a place in every family adopting the system of Hahnemann, the learned and scientific founder of Homeopathy.

4.-Life of the Apostle Peter, in a Series of Practical Discourses. By ALfred Lee, Bishop of Delaware. 16mo., pp. 351. New York: Stanford & Swords. The contents of this work are composed of a series of discourses prepared by the author in the course of his parochial duty. They contain many allusions to questions of interest at the present day, and are composed in an agreeable style, and with an elevated and devotional spirit.