and upon the poor soils that yield, invariably, the smallest return to labor?

These things would seem almost impossible: yet if we turn to India, we may see the poor Hindoo cultivating the poorest soils, and then laboring almost in vain, to drive through the rich black clay that lies between him and his market, the half-starved cattle that bear his miserable crop. Here we have the same state of things; and both here and there it may be traced to the same cause necessity. In neither can man exercise power over the rich soils, because in neither have men power over themselves; and until they shall have it, they must continue to fly from rich soils capable of yielding tons, by aid of whose manure poor soils might be enriched, to poor soils becoming daily poorer, because to them even the manure yielded by their own little product cannot be returned. They borrow from the earth, and they do not repay and therefore it is that they find an empty exchequer: performing thus the process that farmers are enabled to avoid, when, as in England and New England, the consumer takes his place by the side of the producer. Therefore it is that the average produce of New York is but fourteen bushels of wheat to the acre, while that of Ohio is even less, although acres may readily be made to yield forty or fifty bushels: and therefore it is that the average produce of Indian corn is but twentytive, when it should be a hundred bushels, and that of potatoes but ninety when it might be four hundred bushels.

66

If we desire to understand the cause of these extraordinary facts, we may, perhaps, obtain what we want by taking a bird's-eye view of a farmhouse of western Pennsylvania, near neighbor to the rich meadow-land above described. The farmer is reading the newspaper, anxious to know what are the crops of England, and whether or not the rot has destroyed the potato crop in Ireland. Last year many of the people of Europe starved: but he sold his crop at a good price, and paid off his debts. This year he wishes to purchase a new wagon, and to add to his stock of horses: but unhappily for him, the farmers of England have had a favorable season, and the ot has not appeared in Ireland. Starvation will ot sweep off its thousands, and he will get neiher horses nor wagon.

- His eldest son is preparing to remove to he west, to raise wheat on dry lands in Wisconin or Iowa, and to send to the already overtocked markets increased supplies of food. His aughter is grieving for the approaching loss of er brother; and of her sweetheart, the son of he neighboring wool-grower: who is about to eave for Michigan to raise wool, that he may ompete with his father, who is studying carefully ne newspapers hoping to see that the sheep of ustralia have rotted off and thus diminished the upply of wool. He wants to pay off his debts: ut this he cannot do, unless the price of wool ould rise, and thus increase the difficulty of obining clothing. Why do these sons move off? is because there is no demand for labor. All e land is held in large farms, because the poor ils alone are cultivated; and farmers that ould live at all must farm and fence in a great

deal of land, where a dozen bushels to the acre are considered a good crop. Why does he not clear some of the meadow-land? It is because there is no demand for milk, or for fresh meat: for hay, or turnips, or potatoes: or for any of those things of which the earth yields largely, and which from their bulk will not bear carriage. He knows that when the great machine yields by tons, the product is worth little unless there be mouths on the spot to eat; but that when he restricts it to bushels the product may be transported to the mouths. There is no demand for timber; for all the young men fly to the west, and new houses are not needed. The timber is valueless; and the land is not worth clearing to raise wheat, almost the only product of the earth that will bear carriage. To clear an acre would cost as much as would buy a dozen in Iowa; and the product of four acres, at ten bushels each, would be equal to one of forty. He therefore goes to the west to raise more wheat; and his friend goes to raise more wool; and his sister remains at home unmarried. Why does she not marry, and accompany her lover? It is because she has found no demand for her labor, and has earned no wages to enable her to contribute to the expense of furnishing the house.

"Here, then, we have labor, male and female, superabundant for want of wages with which to buy food, and clothing, and houses: food superabundant, for want of mouths to eat it: clothing material superabundant, for want of people to wear it: tiniber superabundant, for want of people desiring to build houses: fertile land superabundant, for want of people to drink milk and eat butter and veal: and poor land superabundant, for want of the manure that has for ages accumulated in the river bottom; while the men who might eat the veal and drink the milk produced on rich lands, are flying to the west to waste their labor on poor ones; those who should be consumers of food becoming producers of food.

The

Why is this? It is because they want a market at which the labor, male and female, the food and the wool, can be exchanged for each other. They want a woollens mill, and had they this, the sons would stay at home and eat food, instead of going abroad to produce more. daughters would marry, and would want houses. The timber would be cleared, and the fertile lands would be cultivated. The manure would be made, and the poor lands would be made rich The milk would be drunk, and the veal would be eaten, and the swamps would be drained to make meadows. The saw-mill would come, and the sawyer would eat corn. The blacksmith, the tailor, the hatter, and the printer would come, and all would eat corn. The town would grow up, and acres would become lots. The farms would be divided, and the fencing of each diminished. The railroad would be made, and the coal and iron would come: and with each step in this progress, the farmer would obtain a better price for his corn and his wool, enabling him from year to year to appropriate more and more labor to the development of the vast treasures of the earth; to building up the great machine, whose value would increase in the precise ratio of the increase in the return to his labor."

Gowrie; or, the King's Plot. A Whim and its Consequences. By G. P. R. JAMES. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Which of these is the eldest, or whether they be both of twin birth, written (as some learned contrapuntists have had a faculty of writing music,) with both hands at once, we have neither leisure nor curiosity to inquire. To say that we have read either of them would be to confess a capacity for mental subjection, or self-compression, which ought to disqualify us in the opinion of most readers for the office of criticism. We do not feel required to admit anything which would thus criminate ourselves and interfere with our profession; it is enough

to say:

"Gentle Readers, here are two more

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.

ness.

The first of these last two commences:

'On the 15th of August, 1599, a young man was seen standing on one of the little bridges in the town of Padua.'

The second opens thus:

A solitary room at midnight; a close, single wax candle lighted on the table; the stiff, dull, crimson silken curtains of the bed close drawn; half a dozen vials, and two or three glasses."

So far as we have read, our opinion inclines to the first. The title sounds more romantic, and the sentence is short. In the second, when we come to the “stiff, dull, crimson silken,” we feel that the author is going to draw the wire this time to the utmost degree of tenuity. It would require considerable courage to attempt a novel beginning with such a sentence; one need to be sure of several days to allow the mind to recover a healthy tone.

Still, we have all been indebted to Mr. James for many pleasant hours; and while we smile at some of his defects, it would be unbecoming not to speak of him with respect, as a writer who enjoys an unsullied reputation in a department where bad qualities most readily manifest themselves. It is a pity habit or necessity should compel him to write so much, he loses he art of writing well.

ance of Hamlet alone should secure has this pre-eminence. We hope to find room during his visit to speak of his merits more minutely

Maurice Strakosh, a pianist of great salll in the De Meyer school, gave a grand festiva at the Tabernacle, on which occasion tha building was lighted with a thonsard ema candles, much to the inconvenience of the audience, both on account of the glare and the dripping. The great feature of the evening! lovers of good music, was the performance Beethoven's Egmont, by a well-proportiones orchestra, numbering thirty-two violine. Th overture is, perhaps, the greatest piece of a sical tragedy ever written in that form, and performance on this occasion was hig-ve fective.

We have also had concerts by an exrelat band recently arrived, the Germania Socatio is not too much to say t hat this is the chestral playing ever given in the city. A. M Pirsson's, the piano forte maker, they ar some quartets of Beethoven, in a manner few amateurs in this country have entrada chance of hearing. But in public their li are mostly made up of German waltze-l diciously, we think. Such music is not SA” here and ought not to be anywhere. T. exquisite playing in the world could not whole evenings of it attractive tɔ 067

A new young violinist named ikele just arrived from Paris. He is a pupil of Vieuxtemps, and he gives becoming a very great artist. B only occasion when we have had an ora ty of hearing him, the instrument on the so very unpleasant and screaming, « have preferred lending him a br deavoring to form an opinion of it, sim 736