This supposed open sea and warmer region to the north and west of Parry Islands are unexplored. Should you succeed in finding any opening there, either after having cleared Wellington Strait, or after having cleared Parry Islands by a northwardly course from Cape Walker, enter as far as in your judgment it may be prudent to enter, and search every headland, promontory and conspicuous point, for signs and records of the missing party. Take particular care to avail yourself of every opportunity for leaving, as you go, records and signs to tell of your welfare, progress, and intentions. For this purpose you will erect flag-staffs, make piles of stones, or other marks in conspicuous places, with a bottle or barrica buried at the base containing your letters. Should the two vessels be separated, you will direct Passed Midshipman Griffin to do likewise. Avail yourself of every opportunity, either by the Esquimaux or otherwise, to let the Department hear from you; and in every communication be full and particular as to your future plans and intended route. If, by any chance, you should penetrate so far beyond the icy barrier as to make it, in your judgment, more prudent to push on than to turn back, you will do so, and put yourself in communication with any of the United States naval forces or officers of the government, serving in the waters of the Pacific or in China, according to your necessities and opportunities. Those officers will be instructed to afford you every facility possible to enable you to reach the Western Coast of the United States in safety. In the event of your falling in with any of the British searching parties, you will offer them any assistance of which they may stand in need, and which it may be in your power to give. Offer, also, to make them acquainted with your intended route and plans, and be ready to afford them every information of which you may have become possessed concerning the object of your search. to make in the fall, far into the unexplored regions, or to discover recent traces of the missing ships and their gallant crews, or unless you should gain a position from which you could commence operations in the season of 1851 with decided advantages, you will endeavor not to be caught in the ice, during the ensuing winter, but after having completed your examinations for the season make your escape, and return to New York in the fall. You are especially enjoined not to spend, if it can be avoided, more than one winter in the Arctic regions. Wishing you and your gallant companions all success in your noble enterprise, and with the trust in God that He will take you and them in His holy keeping, I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant. (Signed,) WM. BALLARD PRESTON. To EDWIN J. DE HAVEN, Lieut. commanding the American Arctic Expedition, &c. &c. &c., New York. From the Daily News, 17 May. COTTON. In one of its features the commercial intelligence from America is such as is calculated to inspire some uneasiness. The state of the cotton market is becoming more and more critical, and the evil of having but one great source of supply more and more apparent. The continued high price of the raw material has, for some time back, led to embarrassments in portions of the manufacturing districts, and the advices, under the head of cotton, received by each mail, are now looked to with the greatest possible anxiety; for on these advices it depends whether mills that are closed shall resume work, or entail upon their owners the expense of adapting their machinery to the manufacture of other fabrics, or whether those which are still open shall suspend their operations. The latest news received from Europe gave an additional stimulus to prices in New York. For some months the upward tendency of prices was regarded by many as exclusively the work of speculators, who, to serve their own purposes, were In case your country should be involved in war, during your absence on this service, you will on no account commit, or suffer any one of the expe-manufacturing reports as to a deficiency of crop. dition to commit, any, the least act of hostility, against the enemy, of whatever nation he may be. Notwithstanding the directions in which you have been recommended to carry your examinations, you may, on arriving out upon the field of operation, find that by departing from them your search would probably be more effectual. By degrees it became apparent that there was a deficiency, but speculations in Charleston, Liverpool and New York, had still as much to do with the state of the market as had the deficiency. Now, however, the case has been altered somewhat, the high prices demanded being chiefly based upon the ascertained deficiency. The demand has been The Department has every confidence in your active on European account in and about New judgment, and relies implicitly upon your discre- Orleans; but there, as elsewhere, holders are tion; and should it appear, during the voyage, that retentive of their stocks, prices being firm, with by directing your attention to points not named in a still upward tendency, owing not only to the this letter, traces of the absent expedition would shortness of the crop of 1849, but also to the probably be found, you will not fail to examine anticipated deficiency of that of the present year. such points. But you will on no account uselessly Up to the latest dates, the deficiency was ascerhazard the safety of the vessels under your com-tained to amount to between 500,000 and 600,000 mand, or unnecessarily expose to danger the officers and men committed to your charge. Unless circumstances should favor you, by enabling you to penetrate, before the young ice begins bales. In the export to England alone, it was upwards of 400,000 bales. Taking the consumption of England, as some have estimated it at 30,000 bales a week, this is equal to the consump tion of a whole quarter. So great a falling off in the supply has necessarily led to a rise in prices, which has proved ruinous to the manufacturer of the coarser fabrics, the value of which is so greatly affected by any fluctuation in the cost of the raw material. To enhance the difficulty, we are informed that the receipts at the ports continue to fall off rapidly. occurrence of it alone has been so sensibly felt, what might we not apprehend from a combination of some or all of them, which is quite possible? We have declined not only to depend upon England alone for our supplies of corn, but to place a dependence for so indispensable a necessary exclusively upon any particular portion of the earth's surface. By throwing our ports open to the whole So far as regards the crop of the past year. world we have rendered ourselves, as regards corn, The prospect of that of the present is stated to be in a measure independent of the uncertainties of of a very gloomy description. Enticed by a brief the seasons, as the deficiencies of one market are episode of favorable weather many planters had likely to be made up by the superabundance of the seed put early into the field; but the season another. An unfavorable harvest the whole world is represented to have been so adverse since their over would be a most serious, but, fortunately, is doing so that the early planters have lost their not a very probable calamity. If cotton is not food, labor-much, if not all of the cotton, which came as corn is, it is the only means of procuring it for up early, having been injured by the cold weather thousands of our fellow-countrymen. It now virtuwhich followed, and which had continued up to ally ranks amongst the necessaries of life, and it the latest dates. The planting season of last year is impossible to over-estimate the importance of was unfavorable, and to that the present deficiency copious and steady supplies of it. A material is partly owing; but not wholly so, for a great deficiency in the supply of cotton is to Lancashire, deal of the cotton, which, during the early part of Yorkshire, and Cheshire, tantamount to a deficiency the year, promised well along the banks of the in the supply of corn. America has a far greater Red river, suffered severely from the deluging hold upon us, as regards cotton, than she has in rains which afterwards fell in that quarter. The respect of corn. Should she fail through accident present season has been, in its commencement, or design to supply us with corn, there are other equally unfavorable; for whilst the crop is repre- sources from which we might provide ourselves. sented as within a few days of being as late as last But, should she fail, from whatever cause, as she year, the ground is so much colder and more un- is now doing, to supply us with abundance of congenial than at the corresponding period of 1849, cotton, at low prices, to what other sources can we that an equal, if not greater, deficiency of crop is at present look? There is literally none to which looked for. When fires are found comfortable in we could at once resort. By the repeal of the Georgia nearly up to the first of May, one need corn laws, we have, to a great extent, exempted not look for any further proof of an unfavorable one of the first necessaries of life from being made planting season. the subject of the most nefarious gambling transactions which were sometimes produced by, and, at other times promoted, the great and frequently forced fluctuations, which occurred in its price. Yet for cotton, which is now as essential an article of import as corn itself, we are contented to remain absolutely dependent upon one source of supply— and that, as it has more than once proved itself, a precarious one; a state of things which, in addition to putting us at the mercy of numerous acci In connection with the experience of the past, the prospect of the present year is by no means a cheering one for us. The stock in the American ports is now less than it was at the same time last year, after upwards of 400,000 bales more had been delivered to us than we have received of the crop of 1849. This state of things will tend greatly to aggravate the evils of a deficient crop in 1850, should such a misfortune be in store for us. What this may lead to, it is not easy to foretell;dents, subjects us to all the inconvenience of for cotton is already about 100 per cent. dearer that it was this time last year. It is true that the price has been universally enhanced, and that the manufacturer of coarse fabrics is everywhere the sufferer; but it is no consolation to us for the distress which such a state of things may entail upon Manchester and its neighborhood, that mills are suspending work and that operatives are unemployed in Lowell. The lesson read to us by all this is an important one, if we are only wise enough to profit by it. It is some time since we had a crisis in the cotton market so strongly indicative of the folly and the danger of trusting almost exclusively to America for our supplies. In doing so, there are many accidents from which we are liable to suffer, the capriciousness of the season being but one of them. It is that one which has just occurred; and if the frequent and considerable fluctuations in price, and of the gambling and speculative transactions to which they give rise. If our present experience will not do it, it is difficult to know what will suffice to arouse us to a sense of our insecurity. MODE OF FINDING BOG-TIMBER IN IRELAND.-The manner of discovering bog-timber is remarkable. As the dew never lies on those places beneath which trees are buried, a man goes out early in the morning, before the dew evaporates, taking with him a long slender spear. Thrusting this down wherever the absence of dew indicates timber, he discovers by the touch of the spear whether it be at his leisure proceeds to dig up his prize; and in decayed or sound; if sound, he marks the spot, and doing so, he may sometimes happen to discover other curious remains of former times.-The Heiress in her Minority. SHORT ARTICLES: New Printing Machine, 44; Mode of finding Bog-Timber in Ireland, 47. PROSPECTUS.--This work is conducted in the spirit of ittell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor- ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chris- tian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag- azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia, and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our con- nections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it TERMS. The LIVING AGE is published every Satur- day, by E. LITTELL & Co., corner of Tremont and Brom- field sts., Boston; Price 12 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. To insure regularity in mailing the work, orders should be addressed to the office of publication, as above. Complete sets, in twenty-four volumes, to the end of March, 1850, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at forty-eight dollars. Any volume may he had separately at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. Any number may be had for 12 cents; and it may be worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete now becomes every inteligent American to be informes of the condition and changes of foreign countries. Ana this not only because of their nearer connection with our. selves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Coloniza (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyat's and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very fully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own. While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Law- yers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and hope to make the work indispensable in every well- informed family. We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff," by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages, and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste. Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangemen in all parts of North America, for increasing the circula- tion of this work-and for doing this a liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves Postage.-When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 4 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (1 cis.) We add the definition alluded to:- A newspaper Is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and Monthly parts.-For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four er five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 321.-13 JULY, 1850. From the New York Albion. Letter to the Hon. Horace Mann. By CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED. New York, 1850. Kernot. THIS pamphlet is well deserving of notice; and we commend it to the earnest attention of readers, such especially as have lighted on Mr. Mann's Lecture delivered in Boston last November, and published under the title of "A few Thoughts for a Young Man." It is intended as a protest against the unbecoming personalities and abundant errors with which that lecture was garnished, Mr. Bristed replying to the former in his character of grandson to the late John Jacob Astor, whose memory Mr. Mann had impertinently reviled, and to the latter on more general grounds. On both points, barring a few trivialities, we think he has been eminently successful, and believe that unprejudiced persons generally, who are not carried away by the brilliancy of the lecturer's style, will agree with us. The purely personal part of Mr. Mann's discourse consisted of an elaborate contrast drawn by him between Mr. Astor and Mr. Stephen Girard-the latter the well-known founder of the Philadelphia College that bears his name-and it is over the respective dispositions of their property that Mr. Mann particularly sits in judgment. We do not propose following him. It is sufficient to say that with the exaggerated tone that pervades this lecture throughout, he asserts that "nothing but absolute insanity" can palliate Mr. Astor's conduct, in bequeathing the bulk of his enormous fortune to his family, and only half a million or so for the foundation of a public library; while he lauds the Philadelphia millionaire, who, having no descendants, left his hoarded gains for the erection of what Mr. Bristed calls a "godless" college, every minister of religion being systematically excluded from it, under any pretext whatever. With singular inappropriateness, Mr. Mann takes a religious view of these transactions, and hails Mr. Girard as a “just and faithful steward," though his philanthropic will gives no evidence whatever of his Christianity, and his eulogist is forgetful or unable to adduce any other proof of it. At the same time, the death-bed of Mr. Astor is made the point for smart antithesis and coarse invective. It would lead us into too great lengths, were we to trace even an outline of Mr. Mann's crusade against rich men, whose injurious power over the best interests of his countrymen he absolutely compares to that of the feudal barons! What a compliment to his own republican institutions is the inference that they can foster in their midst the atrocities of the middle ages! We are not quoting the pamphleteer, but the lecturer, for we have the lecture before us, and in it we find this remarkable passage: CCCXXI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXVI. 4 Vast fortunes are a misfortune to the state. They confer irresponsible power; and human nature, except in the rarest instances, has proved incapable of wielding irresponsible power, without abuse. The feudalism of capital is not a whit less formidable than the feudalism of force. The millionaire is as dangerous to the welfare of the community, in our day, as was the baronial lord of the middle ages. Both supply the means of shelter and of raiment on the same conditions; both hold their retainers in service by the same tenure-their necessity for bread; both use their superiority to keep themselves superior. The power of money is as imperial as the power of the sword; and I may as well depend on another for my head, as for my bread. The day is sure to come when men will look back time, with as severe and as just a condemnation, as upon the prerogatives of capital, at the present we now look back upon the predatory chieftains of the dark ages. Weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, or even in the clumsy scales of human justice, there is no equity in the allotments which assign to one man but a dollar a day, with working, without working. Under the reign of force, or while another has an income of a dollar a minute, under the reign of money, there may be here and there a good man who uses his power for blessing and not for oppressing his race; but all their natural tendencies are exclusively bad. The stanchest advocate of the old régime, the bitterest reviler of democracy, could scarcely be more severe than Mr. Mann himself if his diatribes be founded on truth. There are, however, probably a few misguided individuals in Boston and New York, who will consider that such results of the "feudalism of capital" as Cochituate and Croton aqueducts, Panama rail-roads, inter-oceanic canals, and Atlantic steamers, are not exactly similar, in object and result, to donjon keep and frowning battlement. "A few thoughts for a young man when entering upon life" would appear to the careless reader adapted to inculcate the importance of bodily health, of despising riches per se, and of acquiring as much knowledge as possible. These are excellent objects; but under Mr. Mann's treatment we confess that we find them miserably perverted; nor do we hesitate in asserting that the young man who takes this clever and eloquent oration for his vade mecum, runs the risk of acquiring an audacious reliance on the continuance of his health and strength, of becoming endued with a most unchristian hatred of men more favored in worldly matters than himself, and of cramming himself with such an amount of scientific lore as shall glorify him in his own eyes exceedingly. And first, as to the matter of health, which is more fairly treated and more eloquently urged than any other subject discussed or incidentally introduced; we find even here, on almost every page, proofs of that tendency to exaggeration and that bitterness of spirit which are part and parcel of he. He never hints at reformation—that would be a waste of time; but he works himself up to his highest pitch; anathematizes the vicious individuals, not the vice; and puts the finishing touch Mr. Mann's general views, and which, if unobserved by a listener to powerful language and impassioned manner, become painfully apparent when seen in print. Take an instance or two. How to his portrait of the dissolute man by labelling it coolly would he sweep away plague, pestilence and famine from the list of ills to which mankind are liable ! in capital letters-BEHOLD A BEAST! whilst he pleasantly adds, that "Society is infinitely too tolerant of the roué," Nakedness and famine and pestilence are not in- who, at least, deserves to be treated as travellers say exorable ordinances of nature. Nudity and rags are that wild horses of the prairies treat a vicious felonly human idleness or ignorance out on exhibition. low-the noblest of the herd forming a compact The cholera is but the wrath of God against unclean-circle around him, heads outward, and kicking him ness and intemperance. Famine is only a proof of to death. individual misconduct, or of national misgovernment. In the woes of Ireland, God is proclaiming the wickedness of England, in tones as clear and articulate as those in which he spoke from Sinai; and it needs no Hebraist to translate the thunder. And if famine needs not to be, then other forms of destitution and misery need not to be. Take care, young gentlemen of Boston, who applauded so highly this Christian lecture, take care, we say, if you do chance to trip, that you be clear of the heels of the noblest of the herd. But so highly do we think of the importance of bodily health, that we could have forgiven Mr. That forethought may alleviate distress follow- Mann much of his rhodomontade, if he had coning the loss of means of sustenance, and that cluded this portion of his subject with a good code cleanliness and temperance may mitigate the of sanitary laws for his hearers. But no such Scourge of disease, no reasonable man would thing. His first prescription is temperance, his doubt; but that even under Mr. Mann's tuition second is temperance, and his third is temperance. we can eradicate those fearful and mysterious visi- Fifteen pages are entirely occupied with his extations, we have not the presumption to believe. hortations and denouncings—and very cogent many As for the claptrap about England and Ireland, we of them are-but somehow, all through them we can only say it contains but flimsy consolation for look in vain for the words air and exercise; nor the undoubted sufferer, and a very feeble denun- are we compensated for the omission by the folciation of the reputed cause. Again-the com-lowing practical hint on the "moral and religious bination of health in mind and body is universally obligation of taking care of health." allowed to be desirable in the highest degree; but note how our lecturer strains his point. The work savors of the workman. If the poet sickens, his verse sickens; if black, venous blood flows to an author's brain, it beclouds his pages; and the devotions of a consumptive man scent of his disease as Lord Byron's obscenities smell of gin. Not only lying lips," but a dyspeptic stomach, 66 is an abomination to the Lord. At least in this life, so dependent is mind upon material organization-the functions and manifestations of the soul upon the condition of the body it inhabits-that the materialist hardly states practical results too strongly, when he affirms that thought and passion, wit, imagination, and love, are only emanations from exquisitely organized matter, just as perfume is the effluence of flowers, or music the ethereal product of an Æolian harp. Considering that the triumph of mind over matter is the theme of the latter part of this same lecture, and that instances innumerable might be quoted of the grasp of intellect and the fervor of piety rising altogether superior to the frailties of the body, we cannot but marvel how a clever man can be betrayed into such inconsistency. In this case, also, Mr. Mann's illustration is as ineffective, as it is unseemly and irreverent. There is no defence to be made for the obscenities of Lord Byron; but nobody ever discovered the gin, until he himself or his biographers announced it. The truth is, that something akin to vindictiveness against evil-doers is everywhere apparent in Mr. Mann's discourse. He has no pity for them, not Let no young man attempt to palliate a continued neglect of this high duty, by saying that an imperfect education has left him without the requisite knowledge. There are books and drawings, and anatomical preparations, where this knowledge may be found. Do you say you have not money to buy them? Then, I reply, sweep streets, or sweep chimneys, to earn it! We have tried in vain to cheat ourselves into the belief that the final "it" in this passage alludes to health, and not to money for the purpose of buying books and drawings; but the laws of grammar forbid it. We, therefore, venture to fly directly in the face of the lecturer, and conjure you, young men of Boston, to leave anatomical drawings to the doctors, and to search for health and strength, before breakfast every morning, in the pure air of Dorchester Heights, where you have a much better chance of finding it, than in all the books that ever were penned, or all the lectures that ever were delivered. But we must hurry on, nor dwell upon Mr. Mann's high-flown attack on men of wealth, tempting as the occasion may be. This part of the subject has been particularly well handled by Mr. Bristed; we will only add, that here, as when treating of the habits conducive to health, the lecturer is eminently unsatisfactory in his practical application. Obviously unable in a commercial community to abuse summarily the acquisition of wealth, and equally unable to shirk the question wherein does competence consist, the lecturer thus |