affairs, have compelled him to discontinue his assiduous care. The school was opened with thirty or forty children, and in six months increased to a hundred and fifty in regular attendance, which is now its average number, employing three female teachers. About half of these belong literally to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Pease, being supported entirely at the expense of the Mission. Many of the others receive, besides instruction, partial board in the Institution. They were at first very unmanageable, and it was a year before order and discipline began to be satisfactorily established. They were likewise filthy in the extreme, rendering the air of the school-room insupportable, and causing sickness among its occupants. It became necessary to provide a bathing room for each sex, with a man and woman to wash the children in a thorough manner, at frequent intervals. At the present time, it is doubtful, at least, whether any public or charitable school in our city presents an aspect of order or cleanliness surpassing that of the Five Points children in the House of Industry. These children, although inapt to the use of books, are remarkably quick to receive every kind of oral instruction, and on the whole make a highly satisfactory progress. Particularly is their demeanor remarkable for propriety, decency and kindness. Their religious instruction has been scriptural, but carefully unsectarian. To the unceasing exertions of Mrs. Bedell, and the munificent benefactions of the members of Ascension Church, amounting to an average of at least $1000 yearly, these children are mainly indebted, under God, for their inestimable privileges. It is but just to remark that during this fall, of 1850, proposals for an Association to sustain and direct the industrial and reformatory enterprise of Mr. Pease, were seriously canvassed among the members of the Methodist Church in this city. Through lack of concert, or some other cause, the discussion proved fruitless, and was finally dropped. (To be continued.) For Friends' Review. THE PRECIOUS STONES OF SCRIPTURE. knowledge of the precious stones made use of as comparisons. Would it not therefore be interesting to the younger readers of the Review, to be furnished with a short description of them, so far as present knowledge extends? Jasper. This is remarkable for its hardness, and its mild, rich colors; it is composed of quartz, and is variously colored red, brown, yellow, and sometimes striped. These colors are imparted by several per cent. of oxide of iron, and a little alumina. Sapphire-is of a fine blue in color. The sapphire of the ancients is supposed to be the lapis lazuli, a deep blue mineral, composed chemically of earthy ingredients. The modern sapphire is pure alumine-the silex detected by some chemists probably came from the mortar used in reducing it to powder. Red sapphire is sometimes called oriental ruby; when yellow it is topaz-but the topaz of modern mineralogists is a different mineral, being mostly composed of silex and alumine, and some fluoric acid. Green sapphire is called oriental emerald; the true emerald is however a fine variety of beryl. Oriental amethyst is violet sapphire; but the amethyst of the moderns is violet quartz crystal. The coarsest variety of sapphire, in a granular state, is emery, all the finer sorts being equal to this substance in hardness. 1 Chalcedony. A translucent, or slightly translucent, massive quartz. Emerald. Oriental emerald is green sapphire the emerald of mineralogists is a beautiful green variety of beryl. Sardonyx-is composed of alternate layers of red quartz and milk-white chalcedony. Sardins, or Sard. This is quartz, of a deep brownish red, or blood-red by transmitted lightmuch resembling cornelian. Chrysolite. A fine green crystal, composed of silex and magnesia, and some oxide of iron. Beryl. Emerald and beryl are varieties of the same species, distinguished merely by their color, emerald including the rich, green, transparent crystals, and beryl those that are pale green, and sometimes blue or yellow. Topaz. Oriental topaz is yellow sapphire-the topaz of mineralogists is a fluo-silicate of alumine, as already stated, sometimes forming brilliant gems. The ancients appear to have applied the name to several different substances, and among the rest to chrysolite, which some suppose to be the ancient topaz. Chrysoprase. A leek-green, translucent chalcedony-colored by a small quantity of nickel. One of the most deeply interesting portions of the sacred Scriptures, is the distinct description in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, of the New Jerusalem, the celestial and eternal residence of the faithful of all nations, expressed emblematically by the "names of the twelve tribes of Israel,"-none being excluded. In order that we may comprehend in some faint degree the glories of that city, comparisons are made with the most beautiful and durable objects perceived by the external senses. Yet, I have sometimes thought that the intended impression upon the outward perception was often confused and imperfect, from a want of a more distinct' quartz. Jacinth-not known. The modern hyacinth is the finest sort of zircon, composed of zirconia, considerable silex, and sometimes a little oxide of iron-the color often grayish, brownish, yellow, &c. Amethyst. Oriental amethyst is violet sapphire the true amethyst of mineralogists, violet It will be perceived that the prevailing cha- | tler, has occupied all his time and attention. For racteristic of all these precious stones, is durabi- his implements of toil, as well as for his articles. lity and beauty combined, and some of them pos- of clothing, he has been dependent upon the sess surpassing brilliancy. Their emblematic use manufactures of the Eastern cities. It has even in the description alluded to, is evidently for the been with difficulty that sufficient labor and capurpose of conveying the most exalted impres- pital have been turned from agricultural pursuits, sion of the transcendent lustre of the everlasting to the construction of the necessary avenues and residence of the redeemed, capable of being con- channels for conveying these products of the soil veyed by visible things; where also different to the markets of export and consumption. qualities are united, as for instance the beauty of jasper with the transparency of crystal, and the richness and brilliancy of gold, with the transparency of the purest glass. Twelve thousand furlongs, or fifteen hundred miles in extent, the length, breadth, and height being equal, with a light like the most admired jewels, renders such a city a most glorious image-a mere image no doubt of the inexpressible reality, where the least thing "that defileth, worketh abomination, or maketh a lie" is never permitted to enter, but they only "who are written in the Lamb's book of life." T. In the mean time however the wealth and prosperity of our country have been increasing with unparalleled rapidity. Whole States and communities have sprung into a flourishing existence, where fifty years ago the Indian and the buffalo held undisputed sway. Along the banks of our inland rivers and lakes, and on the shores of the far off Pacific, vast cities have been built, which rival in their commerce and their wealth, the old settled towns of the Atlantic coast. This exchange, between the West and the East, of the agricultural productions of the one for the various articles of necessity or luxury manufactured or imported by the other, constitutes the great internal trade of this country. It is this mighty power which has covered the Ohio and the Mississippi with myriads of vessels, from the rudest lumber raft to the stately steamboat; and which fills the harbors of the great lakes, with a tonnage of shipping which rivals the commerce of the maritime cities of the world. It is this trade that has established, in various advantageous localities, such great entrepots as Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago; and peopled them with refined and cultivated communities, who have drawn round them the luxuries and comforts of the highest civilization. These denizens of the city no longer are satisfied with the coarse homespun of their pioneer forefathers; nor with the cheap cotton fabrics which gradually substituted them. They must dress as richly and expensively as their brethren of the Eastern cities. Nay-they do not rest content with this. It is a fact well known to every New York and Philadelphia dealer, that silks whose extravagance of pattern or price would render them perilous to his city store keeper, are freely in demand in St. Louis or Santa Fe. And broadcloths of a quality and cost absolutely unsaleable here, are sold with a ana sportsman or planter. profit of 30 per cent. to the Kentucky or Louisi From the force of circumstances, these Western cities and settlements have, so far as domes- This refinement of taste pervades every detic manufactures are concerned, added to the partment of life, and is particularly evident in consuming rather than to the producing ability their household arrangements. Hence the exof the country. The vast labor requisite to de-traordinary increase in the demand for linen favelop the agricultural resources of the boundless brics, which with the progress of luxury, are lands stretching around and beyond the new set- deemed indispensable in the better class of famiSince the first number of this Essay was written, lies. Rapid as has been the increase in the Bria lecture has been delivered at Saratoga, which will tish production and export of linens, it has hardbe referred to hereafter, entitled "Flax, its Treat-ly kept pace with the progress of demand in this ment agicultural and technical, by John Wilson, Fellow Royal Society of Edinboro, and of the Geological, of spinning machinery, and the power-loom, the Had it not been for the introduction Chemical, and Meteorological Societies of London; late President of the Royal Agricultural College," &c. It may be added, in confirmation of his authority, that he is one of the British Commissioners to this country on occasion of the New York Exhibition, having the Fortunately however, as we have seen, a procharge of the department of raw material; and also occupies the same position in the directorship of the gress in the means of supply was taking place Great Palace at Sydenham. In pursuance of his com- abroad, no less rapid than that which our counmission, he made a tour through the Western States; try was witnessing in the consuming demand. and in this lecture, more than confirms the figures Hence the usual result of an extraordinary ingiven in the first part of this article, as to the quantity of land in flax this year, which he estimates "be-crease of consumption, was not seen, in a rise in tween 200,000 and 300,000 acres." I had stated the the price of the article. Attention therefore former as the probable number. was not drawn to the subject, and we have gone on diminishing from year to year our little home they are. We shall find that, for the ordinary manufacture of linens, till it has become almost linen goods, brown and bleached, which are conextinet; and increasing enormously our importa-sumed so largely in this country, the flax used tions of foreign manufactures, till it has reached really costs very little more now than the average a point well worthy the attention of every phi- price of cotton. lanthropist or statesman. For the truth is, there ought to have been a very considerable fall in the price of linen goods, consequent on the general adaptation of machinery to the various processes of manufacture. It was so in cotton and woolen goods, and would have been so in linens, but for the causes above stated. The regular action of supply and demand have kept up the price, and created an artificial state of things; as well as engendered a false impression in the public mind as to the real cost of linen fabrics. The price has not fallen, because the demand has been great enough to take all the linens manufactured, at the old rates. But the real expense of manufacturing linens has been greatly diminished. The estimate of the English and Scotch spinning mills for the last five years is fifty pounds sterling, or less than two hundred and fifty dollars a ton of flax on their whole production. They use flax finer and more costly, but they also use vast quantities at a lower price, and the average is safely taken at this rate, which it will be seen is not twelve cents a pound. The wholesale value of the goods produced by these mills, reckoned at the average price paid them by the wholesale dealers for export, was twenty-five cents, in the year 1851. These facts are taken from accurate tables, collected by high authority in England, the originals of which have been submitted to the editor of the Review. They did not include the Irish mills, which were on finer numbers, It is a well known axiom of natural philosophy, and produced a much higher article. This price, that there is no discoverable ratio between pres- paid at the mill, would amount, with profits to sure and a blow. A nail, to which you might the English dealer, freight, insurance, duties, and safely suspend a man's weight, may be broken commissions, when laid down in an American by a child with one stroke of a tack hammer. It port, to thirty-seven and a half cents; and since is almost equally impossible to calculate any ratio that date there has been a large advance in the between the facility of producing such an article price of linens. Now cotton has touched a as cotton or linen cloth by the old method of iso-higher point than the flax above quoted, on sevelated hand labor, and by the inconceivably more ral occasions within the last ten years; and has rapid and organized action of steam machinery. even advanced so high as fifteen cents, without There are so many new elements to estimate in very greatly advancing the price of cotton fabthe economy of the processes, and the immenselyrics. increased production, that arithmetic is at fault in the computation. It becomes a new science and a new art, and, rejecting old theories of the expense and the time of manufacture, we must arrive at the cost of production by the plain calculation of the expenses incurred in producing a given quantity of the article. The average wholesale price of cotton goods, yard wide, the past ten years, might safely be taken at eleven cents. At several periods within. that time, the finest cotton fabrics made in this country were sold at eleven and a half to twelve cents per yard. During this period, the average Without at present going into the details of price of linen goods made from flax costing at times even less than cotton, and averaging only this subject, which will be entered upon thoabout three cents a pound more, in the whole roughly in a subsequent article, when accurate tables will be given to substantiate the assertion, the price of cotton goods of similar texture and term of ten years, has been more than three times it may safely be stated that the expense of manu- fineness. Of this difference, a small portion has facturing linen goods is very little more than that been the increased cost of manufacturing linens of cotton fabrics. In every department of the before alluded to; the remainder has been the mill, machinery is employed, and to counterbalance any peculiarity of the fibre, an adjustment vast tribute we have been paying to the Brilance any peculiarity of the fibre, an adjustment tish manufacturer, for attending to a plain, of the machine is made. Occasionally there is a little complexity of arrangement, but if the spindles drive as rapidly, and the loom as truly, it matters little, in a consideration of the vast number of yards turned off, that the first cost of the machinery was rather greater than that for cotton goods. If therefore the raw material-flax-could be procured at the same price as our Southern cotton, it is manifest that we could make linen fabrics nearly as cheap in the market as those of cotton. It will be shown hereafter, that, for various reasons, flax can be afforded much cheaper than cotton. At present, let us look at the facts as simple business on our behalf. The present Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, Lord Clarendon, in an address delivered by him at Belfast, in 1850, thus considers the question of the growth of flax in relation to cotton: land," says he, "cannot in my opinion be over esti"The great and growing importance of Flax in Ire. mated, and the more we consider it in its agricultural, manufacturing,and commercial bearings on our welfare, the more apparent, I think, will become the necessity and advantage of its extended cultivation. The demand for our linen manufactures is rapidly rising, and the supply of cotton is not only deficient, but owing to various circumstances I fear that this supply will not henceforth be equal to our demand; and that we cannot reckon upon the quantity of cotton we require, at the prices which will enable us to extend our manufactures, or even to keep them up to their present amount. But by extending the growth of Flax, we may not only benefit the manufactures of Ireland, by a more abundant supply of raw material, but we may also furnish the manufacturers of cotton-not with a substitute, but with an auxiliary to cotton-with a material which may liberate cotton from some of its present uses." A similar opinion was expressed by Mr. Porter, the Secretary for the Board of Trade, in an able paper read before the British Association, in 1851. These circumstances show that Great Britain is thoroughly awake to the importance of creating a counterpoise to the great cotton interest of this country; an interest of such vast extent to their manufacturers, that no injury which their whole navy could inflict on our maratime cities, in a year's war, would equal the ruin and confusion which would be occasioned to their industry and their commerce, by simply withholding this single commodity from export, for the same term. ALPHA. [To be continued.] answer is, that the comparison which thus discourages them ought never to be made. The good which their efforts can produce may be too minute to bear any sensible proportion to the sum of public happiness; yet, may be, their share may be enough for them. The proper question is not whether the good we aim at be great or little; still less, whether it be great or little in comparison with the whole; but whether it be the most which it is in our power to perform. A single action may be, as it were, nothing to the aggregate of moral good; so also may be the agent. It may still, therefore, be the proportion works by numbers. Her greatest effects are which is required of him. In all things nature achieved by the joint operation of multitudes of it is enough for each that it executes its office. separately considered insignificant individuals; Let our only comparison, therefore, be between our opportunities and the use we make of them. PALEY. THE "CALL" TO DUTY. "The delivery of the talent is the call;" it is the call of Providence, the call of heaven. The supply of the means is the requisition of the duty. When we find ourselves in possession of faculties and opportunities, whether arising from the endowments and qualities of our minds, or from the advantages of fortune or station, we need ask for no futher evidence of the intention of the donor; we ought to see that intention in a demand upon us for the use and application of what has been given. To whatever office of benevolence our faculties are best fitted, our talents turned; whatever our opportunities, our occasions, our fortune, our profession, our rank or station; or whatever our local circumstances, which are capable of no enumeration, put in our power to perform, with the most advantage and effect, that is the office for us; that it is, which upon our principle we are designed, and being designed, are obliged to discharge. The habit and the disposition which we wish to recommend, namely, that of casting about for opportunities of doing good, readily seizing those which accidentally present themselves, and faithfully using those which naturally and regularly belong to our situations, appear to be sometimes checked by a notion very natural to active spirits and flattered talents. They will either attempt mighty matters or do nothing. The small effect which the private endeavors of an individual can produce is so lost and so unperceived in the comparison, that it neither deserves, they think, nor rewards the attention which it requires. The MEETINGS KEPT BY BOYS AND GIRLS. age of Sewel, in his history of the people called Quakers, informs us, that about the year 1682, the Friends of Bristol, who were of mature age, were so generally imprisoned under the persecuting laws of the age, merely for attending their meetings for worship, that there were scarcely any left at liberty except children under sixteen years of age. The conventicle act, under authority of which these prosecutions were carried on, prohibited the meeting of five persons of the sixteen years, for the purpose or under the profession of worship, otherwise than accor ding to the ritual of the church of England. Of course the children under that age did not fall under the provisions of the law. Aud such was the zeal and fortitude of these youths, that when their parents and adult members were mostly incarcerated in the filthy prisons then in use, the meetings were still maintained, though few if any but children could attend them. But so inveterate was the persecuting spirit, then prevalent there, that at one time nineteen of these juvenile worshippers were taken to the house of correction, where they were detained for some time. Although they were threatened with whipping in case they ever went to their meeting again, and, when they went, were shamefully abused by the populace, they disregarded the reproaches and sufferings that assailed them, and still kept up their religious assemblies. How long these youths were left in this condition, is not stated by the historian; he briefly informs us that the persecution continued till the following year. The reader naturally regrets that we have no account of the mature years of these magnanimous youths. THE FLAX FLOWER. O the little flax flower, It groweth on the hill, And be the breeze awake or asleep, It never standeth still. It greweth, and it groweth fast; One day it is a seed, But then out comes the flax flower, And "tis a dainty little thing," Ab 'tis a goodly little thing, It groweth for the poor, And many a peasant blesseth it, He thinketh how these slender stems He thinketh how those tender flowers, And sees in thought, his next year's crop O, the little flax flower! "Go pull the thyme, the heath, the fern, But let the flax flower be! It groweth for the children's sake, There are flowers enough upon the hill, The farmer hath his fields of wheat, Our squire he hath the holt and hill, We only have the flax field, Yet therewith are contert. We watch it morn, we watch it night, For it we wish the sun to shine, Good luck! for who is poor doth make Oh, the goodly flax flower! It groweth on the hill, And be the breeze awake or sleep, It seemeth all astir with life, Then fair befall the flax field, MARY HOWITT. This little poem appears to have been suggested by seeing, about twenty years ago, in the highlands of Scotland, a number of turf covered cottages, without windows or chimneys, surrounded by small patches of cultivated ground; one with potatoes, and perhaps oats or barley, and another with flax. From the former the family were fed, and from the latter. manufactured at home, they were clothed. A GOOD WORK WELL BEGUN. It is stated that a female teaching at Brownsville on the Rio Grande is laboring at her own cost to build up a female school of a high order, for the education of families on both sides of the Rio Grande. She has in charge at present sixteen young ladies from the higher classes of Mexican families, of whose teachable and affectionate spirit she speaks in the highest terms. She has introduced the New Testament into her school, and has found no opposition, except in one single instance, and that soon yielded to kindness. Who knows but a little seed dropped thus from such a solitary hand may be multiplied till the whole Mexican territory shall be filled with nurseries of intelligence and piety?-S. S. Journal. COPPER FACED TYPE. Copper-faced type (by the way an American invention,) is attracting much attention. Messrs. Orchard, Willis & Co., are the owners of the patent, and although it, like everything American, met with violent opposition at first, it is becoming very popular. Punch is printed from it, and so is the London Journal. Fifteen millions of impressions have been taken off a font in the last named office, and the letter is good yet. Any type can be coated with copper by Orchard & Co.'s process, and there is no danger of the coating wearing off soon. Type of this description is a great economy in a printing office, and it must soon supersede all other. Spottiswoode, the famous Bible printer, and Bradbury & Evans, use it entirely. So highly is the process valued that wood cuts and stereotype plates are coated by it. It is taking the place of electrotyping.-English paper. A step has been made in the direction of a decimal system of notation, as regards weights and measures in England. The Bank of England has given notice, that from the first of next month the only weights used in the bullion office of that establishment will be "the troy ounce and its decimal parts"-superseding, by that change, the present system of pounds, ounces, pennyweights, and grains. There are comparatively few who have the means or the opportunity of performing acts which will raise them into notice as benefactors of our race, but there are still fewer who may not afford to others the benefit of a good example. |