The Welshman

THE LAST FRENCH TRAGEDY. Rarely, even in France, has such a shock been given to I the public sense of security as by the recent trial of Dumollard at Bourg. The facts have probably been before I all our readers, so our recapitulation will be brief. Some eight months ago a girl named Alaric Pichon, in a state of the utmost terror and exhaustion, asked assistance from a villager of Ballin. She had been nearly murdered, she said, and her torn clothes and distracted appearance testi- fied to the truth of her assertion It appeared, on inquiry, that she was a servant-girl, who had been accosted outside Lyons by a countryman who offered her ten pounds a year to look after a few cows. These enormous wages-for such they appear to be in the Department—tempted the girl, who made up her slothes in a bundle, and followeJ the countryman, as she supposed, to bis home. Towards evening the man, eager it would appear to be ready for a crime, laid down her box in a meadow, and the action excited a suspicion whioh was strengthened by seeing him pick up a stake and some stones. At last the man fumbled in his blouse as for a weapon, and draw out a cord, and the girl, distracted with terror, fled through the darkness, closely pursued by the murderer, to the nearest cottage. The village was at once aroused, and the police sot on the track of a man of bad character, known to lead, with his wife, a recluse and peculiar life. Her confused answers led to his arrest, and the moment he was confined other accusers presented themselves, till in a few weeks no less than fifteen capital charges had been received, while as many more demanded inquiry. The wife, tortured by cross- examination, confessed, and then it came out that for at least six years past the peasant Dumollard had lived in the habitual commission of capital crime. His plan was to entice servant-girls from Lyons by the offer of ten pounds a year, and walk with them to spots in the neighbourhood of his own house, where he would attack, ravish, murder, and bury them. Fifteen attempts and six murders were proved against him, one of the latter being attended by circumstances which seem to ordinary human natuie almost incredible. The monster had ravished his victim, and then buried her alive. After committing the double crime, he would return hume, tell his wife of his deeds, and give her the clothes, the only booty, which she retained and wore. The wretcbes, indeed, seem to have had a double object, the man seeking the girl, and the woman the few wretched clothes which might be in her bundle. Dumollard, in spite of an able defence, based on an apparent brutality so utter that hlS counsel argued lie was not a responsible being, a line of defence chiefly upset by the cunning visible in his own account of his motives, was sentenced to death. His wife escaped with twenty years' imprisonment, the judge apparently believing that she acted in some degree under compulsion, and had abstained from actual help at the time of murder. The world is rid of them both, but Lyons is said to be profoundly moved, and it has reason for agitation. Every unusual circum- stance connected with the case-the inadequacy of the motive, the wholesale character of the crimes, the long period of impunity-teiids to increase tho sense of in- security. Lust is, indeed, a sufficiently ordinary motive power, tut it had no influence on the second criaiinal- ought, indeed, on the ordinary calculations of crime, to have embittered her against her husband. Her motive for assisting in crimes unparalleled in Europe since the execu- tion of Sandy Bean, was a share in the few wretched rags torn from the bodies of the servant-girls—to wear not to sell-a fact which, indicating as it does the total absence of remorse, seems to add a new horror even to her foul life. The crime was, as it were, recommitted every hour. Moreover, the incident, while it reveals a new and uii- expected source of danger to the pool, reveals also the uselessness of the ordinary precautions, the helplessness of the police in presence of crimes which outstrip their or- dinary experience. The environs of Lyons are policed" to death, yet these disappearances were reported year after year wtihout officIal suspicion lighting upon the criminal. Nine girls bad told their horrible stories in vain, four bad sought assistance to recover the property abandoned in their | headlong flight to escape murder. One peasant, aided by an old woman, seems, by the very daring, the hellish magnificence, as it were, of his crimes, to have beaten down all the safeguards society or scientific govern meat could devise. j The case is itself probably exceptional, for though every now and then awful cases are revealed in France of con- tinuous and unpunished criaie, which show some defect in the outside framework, as well as in the heart of society, another criminal like Dumollard is hardly to be expected Dumollard is said by the reporters to be hardly a huwan being, but French experience of human nature is always limited to France. Stupid, they say, beyond the average of his class, he displays the sullen malignity frequently seen in the deformed, combined with a cunnin of a very peculiar sort. To us, the strangest feature about the wretch seems the kind of imagination indicated in his defence. He was, he said, the unwilling agent of a gdllg of murderers, who compelled him to do their bidding. That is the defence of an Asiatic rather than of a European, the lie of a man on whose slow yet morbid imagination a state- ment strikes the more strongly because it is at once horrible and enormous. An ordinary French criminal would have rejected such a plea, as asserting a fact which the police could at once disprove but to this man, who had brooded for years over the secret of his own. and his wife's un- punished existence, any crime however monstrous, any league of villany however improbable, seemed within the scope of ordinary experience. The transparent absurdity of his plea never struck him even casually, and he had, probably, provided in his own mind, not against the con- temptuous rejection of his story, but against a cross- examination as to the identity of the gang. The suspicion of insanity is negatived by one remark made by the pri- soner. It was proved that lie regularly attended mass, and he remarked, with a chuckle, that men who attended mass were scarce in that district; his expression and words con- veying the certainty that be triumphed in the canuiug åble. > ■_ u: RO excentionallv resoect- But exceptional as the case may be, it has, like most exceptionalcases.alessonof its own. It shows us what men lose when they cease to rely on the social police, t ?,e myriads of unpaid detectives who, in a healthily organized society, are permanently arrayed against crime. In Eng- land, and more particularly in the country-for in town we are losing our helpfulness—the first girl who escaped from the clutches of Dumollard would have changed the whole village into policemen. The excitement would have b. en all the greater because sne was only a servant-girl," freemen always sympathizing most acutely with their own class. Every suspicious house would have been searched, and every suspicious neighbour watched, probably for years after the event. There are extra-official minds to this hour intent on the discovery of the Poad murder, and the slight- est clue would bring amateur detectives by the dozen into the field. Dumollard's wife could not have worn a frag- ment of print, or paid away sixpence, without anguly keen observation, and 'he neighbourhood would have been searched as it were with a rake. In l'rancc this healthy habit of self-help is rapidly disappearing. The peasantry, always over occupied, and therefore selhsh, have „een taught to rely on the police, until, when they are bafiled, or have reached the tether of their imaginations, the means of securing justice comes to an end, The police is gene- rally—not always-very acute; but what are the eyed of the sharpest gendarme compared with those of a whole community ? In England a murder enlists the nation in the police force, and the murderer who, in a smuggling case for example, would baffle all the officials, I. met at every turn by the undirected vigilance of the police. The vil- lagers of Ballan had suspected Dumollard in a vague way for years but the police not turning their eyes in that direction, he continued his career unpunished, until at last fear broke the chain of habit, and roused the neighbourhood to the duty which ought to have been performed six years before. It was the neutrality of the people, not the sleepiness of the French police, which secured to Dumol- lard his long impunity. -speetator.

J. S. MILL ON THE AMERICAN CONTEST. Of all political thinkers of our day and country, Mr. Iíll is the one whom we most honour and esteem in whom the philosophic instinct is most remarkably developed who sees further and deeper than almost any other man into the great social questions of the age; whose subtle and vigorous intelligence almost always guides him right, and who, when led astray, is led as'ray by the very warmth of his OWII i feelings-by aspirations after human progress which make him over sanguine us to probabilities and over credulous as tomeans-by sensitive sympathy with the suffering and the wronged, and honest indignation against the oppressor and the wrongdoer, which induce him at times to invest the former with imaginary virtues and capacities and to paint the latter in colours unwarrantably black. When he held certain extreme democratic views (since almost wholly cor- rected and abandoned), it was because he had formed an i exaggerated estimate of the claims and the excellencies of the multitude. When he trad on the verge of the dan- I gerous and the unsound in his notions as to socialism ana Trades' Unions, it was because he saw that there was much wrong to be redressed and much evil to be cured, and be- cause he attributed his own intelligence and his own sense to men who participated only in his aims. And whenever he has rushed into mistakes in matters of foreign policy, it has been only when his natuallv acute and steady vision was obscured by the halo which the word Liberty, however misapplied, never fails to spread around it. The views or suon a man on any suojeci arc always enti- tled to the most respectful and attentive hearing, for they will always represent some conception which wi?e and good men may take up and defend. But at the same time, and for the same reason, when such a man goes wrong, his egare- ments are peculiarly mischievous. They confirm the mis- taken in their errors, and they gather round them numbers who trouble themselves little with investigation, but who bow promptly to authority. On this account we have perused with care an article which Mr. Mill has just pub- lished in Frazer's Magazine" and we confess it has filled us with the deepest amazement and regret. The side he takes has been determined by his strong anti-slavery feehngs-hls sincere pity for the slave, his mure vehement abhorrence of the slaveowner ;—and, having taken his side, he goes in for it like a man in earnest. Nothing staggers him. His habitual clearness and fairness seem utterly jogged. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes a parli- san. He treats writers whose love of freedom, white and black, is as warm and as well-proved as his own, but who try to look calmly into the depths of this momentous crisis, az men "whose moral feeling is philosophically indifferent between the apostles of slavery and its enemies." He deprecates peace between the two sections of the Union on any terms except the effectual defeat and virtual subjuga- tion of the South, as a calamity, a humiliation, and a dis- grace to the North. He entertains no doubt either that the North has a right to force the South back into the Union by arms, or that it will be able to do so, or that it will be able when conquered to govern it by free institu- tions." He thinks that the slaves of rebels will be, and (apparently) that they ought to be, set free, and that those belonging to loyal masters will not exceed in pecu- niary value the compensation which the United States wiii btf able and willing to give. He insists upon the admitted truth that to prevent the extension of slavery into new hinds is to secure its immediate amelioration and ultimate ex- tinctionand he couples this with the strange b under that this prevention will be better and sooner and more surely effected by re-annexing the Slave States within that Union which has up to this date always maintained their "peculiar institution" with singular zeal, which has shielded it from the detestation and contempt of the rust of the world, and which has been ever ready to back aud aid its filibusters (diplomatic and amateur) in seizing fresh territo- ries for its arena,—than by hemming them in between two free Republics, both resolute against S!avenr, and of which the most powerful would thenceforth be the assistant and protector of the weaker, in place of being as hitherto its willing and lawless despoiler. At the end of a rhetorical paragraph he works himself up to the point of conc'uding that the South are in rebellion not for simple slavery, but for the light of burning human creatures alive." After this we shall be almost prepared for his wildest flight of all in which he declares that the surrender of the Commissioners in compliance with our demand was a right thing done in the best possible waythat the ground taken by Mr. Se- ward in surrendering them is the most hopeful sign of the moral stlte of the American mind which has appeared for many years;" — that every one "capable of a moral judg- ment or feeling, must avow that his opinion of America and American statesmen has been raised by such an act, done on such grounds" Mr. Lincoln's Government, he assures us, "like honest men, said in direct terms that our demand was right, and that they yielded to it because it was just. The mere transcribing of thesev sentences nearly takes away our breath. Can this be the same wise, fair, calm philosopher, who wrote Representative Government" and A few Words on Non-intervention" ? Can the writer ever have seen anything of Mr. Se ward's despatch beyond the first telegraphic summary by Mr. Reuter's clerk ? Can he have really read that letter, and Mr. Charles Sumner's con- tradicting speech, and Mr. George Sumner's false prece- dents, and Mr. Everett's confirmatory harangue, and the (leci,ii-atio,ii of Judges at the Boston toeeting, and think that American statesmen have covered themselves with any- thing but shame ? Can he be cognizant of the way in which that thing was done, which he pronounces to have been done so well? How can he say that Mr. Seward avowed that he yielded to our demand because it was just, and made ample reparation" when he kept men for six weeks in a dungeon whom he yet admitted had been wrong- fully taken when before liberating them he waited till the very last moment given him for repentance, to see whether we should insist upon their liberation when he maintained that Capt. Wilkes had acted quite properly in firing shot and shell across a British ship to bring her to that he was perfectly warranted in stopping a neutral ship, proceeding from one neutral port to another, and from, Il"t to, the seat of war, and in searching her for contrab-nd that he would have been perfectly right in capturing her and bringing her into port, and that the Admiralty Courts ought then to have condemned her; that in fact the American commander, so far from having exceeded his belligerent right and duty, had falleu short of both and that, by this shortcoming and this alone, he had inadvertently committed an informal ty —-and that on this ground and this only—because our de- mand was technically leyal, and not (as Mr. Mill says) be- cause it was inherently just— did Mr. Lincoln consent to release the prisoner-s who had been deliberately and wrong- fully kept in a dungeon till it beealIe evident that Great Britain would enter into no negotiations and listen to no half-measures till the outrage was redressed ? Mr. Mill most surely be the only Englishman who sincerely regards the conduct of the American Government as creditable in this matter;—and even he cannot surely think so when, on further consideration, he remembers that even in the very act of yielding, they declare that they yielded because it was not worth while to resist, and because the violence of which we complained had not been committed in so complete and regular a manner as it ought to have been, and as they hoped that similar ones would be in future. We demanded i apology and reparation for an outrage and a wrong they justified the outrage and the wrong. and offered reparation merely for the inci lenbl and technical irregularity,—\nt\- mating pretty pia i n I y that the itifurm'iliti/ should not occur again, but that they held themselves at liberty to repeat the substance of the offence to-morrow. Mr. Mill's argument to prove that the North is really fighting against negro slavery, aud that their failure will be the triumph and perpetuation of that heinous system — falla- cious although we ueem it-we cannot deal with at this moment. But his views as to how the South can both be conquered, and be maintained at once in democratic freedom and in actual dependence, call for a few comments. That the Federalists are the strongest, in wealth, in numbers, and in naval resources, 00 one 'doubts for a moment. That, if they resolve to persevere, if they consent to be disciplined and taxed, if they can induce themselves to have an etfi- eicnt army instead of an enonnom one, and to endure cost, confusion, and social danger for a sufficient time, they may inflict tremendous misery on the South, and perhaps induce them to submit and make terms,—is po-sible eii-)ugh;- though, as we do not believe in the postulates, we have 110 expectation of the conclusion. But how is it. to be governed when conquered, "conistently with free institutions," Mr. Mill fails, we think, to show. He assumes that "certain alterations will have to be made in the Federal Constitu- tion,"—such as that no new Slave State shall be admitted into the Union, while the Fre,, States must be suffered to multiply ad libitum; and that the nurnber of Southern RIO. presentatives in Congress ,hall be reduced thirty per cent., (by the abolition of the "three-fifths clause"); and that by this means the South will be reduced to a permanent and hopeless minority in both Houses, Does he really conceive that a conquered and hopeless minority will ever work harmoniously, or work at all in the same Parliament, with a triumphant and secure majority? Does he fancy that a localised minority of eight millions will ever acquiesce in such a despairing inferiority in all the aims and purposes of a common citizenship ? Can he look at the map, and believe that the compact, fertile, and larger geographical area lying between Baltimore and Matatnoras will ever submit to be perpetually outvoted and overpowered by the less fertile and smaller though more populous country stretching from Maine to the Missouri; or that a warlike, irritable, and exasperated people by any contrivance or manipula- tion of free institutions, bo compelled to remain in a forced and unnatural union with another people whom they dis- like and envy, and whose superior numbers inflict upon tLern, under the guise of constitutional forms, a virtual and and his love of freedom tell film that sucU locau'seVan&'cUs ? disfranchisement is all oppression and a wrong of the most, indefensible and intolerable sort ? And, to crown the whole, can he, a philanthropist, a philosopher, a lover of progress and <>f civilisation, look with th0 least complacency on the spectacle of a nati on, constituted on so false a-id so unfair a bisis ? What national purpose could it subserve ? What natiunal worth or dignity could it attain ? And what people, with any of the sentiments, any of the traditions, any of the energies of self-government and liberty, would endure it for all hour.-Ecùnomiat.

COLONIAL EMANCIPATION. The unfortunate letter which Mr. Uoldwin Smith has lately addivsscJ to a contemporary on (J donial Emancipa- tion reflects little credit on the highly honourable position which he (ids in the University of Oxford as Professor of of Modern History. It is a crude, ill-digested performance, devoid of purpose, and marked by an utter absence of prac- tical wisdom and statesmanlike views. It is also disfigured, allholrgh that may be a small matter, hy the sin of i i rati- tude. We belirve Air. Suiish owes the position to which he is entitled for the notice which w > now accord to his ill- considered opinions to the favour of th? preseut Premier. It WaS Lord Paluurston, before he retired from office in Feoruary 1853, who virtu illy appointed the present Pro- fessor of Mndern History at Oxfoi d. And what return does the Professor now make for his lordship's patronage ? Why, he gratuitously tells the world that the Premier has long ago fallen iuto the uuco?seioujues? if h?t the imbecility, of old age that he is old in ideas, and tittHy unaware of the great moral and material changes which havo taken place in Europe since he first entered public life." It is not our business to Jef ud Lord Palmerst >n. Perhaps his lordship will show, during the seasion of Parti-imotit which has just opened, that he is quite as able as ever he was to defend himself from the attacks of such friends as Mr. Goldwin Smith. His extreme opinions and his autt- angularities are still unsmoothed and untamed by the gentle equanimity of age So rash indeed is Mr. Smith in tlte expression of nis opinions that he does not even stop to see whether they be consistent or not. AVhen Mr Smith tells us that we ought to give up our colonies to prevent an imperial collapse, we naturally expect him to urge that we should do so at once. If it be advisable to -lo 3> at ill, why not at pre- sent? If it were done, when 'tis Jme, then 'twere well It were done quickly. But not so, says Mr. Smith. Although he strongly pleads for the necessity of the change, lie is quite unwilling that it should be urged on too hastily. Nor Uoes lie tell us when or how it ouijtit to be elfecte 1 Nothing of that kind entered into his consideration. It was far too practical to find admission there. Then again, although we are told that we ought t,) griyit independence to our colonies, it is a'lmltted th.Ü "the policy of our statesmen towards them has no doubt of late years been liighminded and i fagacious, favourable to salf-government, and therefore theoretically favourable to emancipation." He here acknow- ledgss we are oil the right road, and going steadily along in the right direction he does not wish us to go on more "hastily;" then, what does Mr. Smith want? For what purpose did he write his letter? As to Canada, the con- sideration of whose affairs appears to have induced Mr. Smith to write his ill-considered and veiy inconsistent letter, it is independent already, all but in name, and if it were desirous of perfecting its independence to-morrow, there would be very few dissentient voices heard against such a measure in this country. But surely Mr. Smith would not have us tell the Canadians that they can no longer be British subjects; that their country shall no longer form a part of the British empire; and that they must therefore at once provide for themselves in every respect as an independent nation, or else seek tne protection of another Power ? The rights and, obligations of the mother-country and her colony aro reciprocal and so long as they are faithfully and loyally performed by the latter it would be imposiiule for the former to renounce the duties by which she is bound. As to Malta and the j Ionian Islands, we should like to Know to whom the Oxford Professor of Modern History proposes that they should be made over ? Mr. Seward has lately pointed out that he finds that Island an excellent staiion for one of his consuls it is a central position where a great deal of information is picked up, and where the influence of such n officer is con- siderable. Would Mr. Sllllth have us give up Malta the Federal States ? Be have no need now," says the' Professor, to post ourselves in arm. all over the globe in order to make way for our trade, or to thrust an iron bar into tho jaws of the Mediterranean to keep it open to i our goodii. There is not the same fear which there was at the height of French domination lest the Mediterranean should become a French lake." It is still | the dream of the French, nevertheless, Th"" ir po.ver in Africa is giadually extending itself, and Lamartine's vision may yet be true a hundred years hence. Besides, I has the Professor forgotten the Island of Sardinia, and the secret attempts that have boen made t9 cast its fate into the ballot-box ot universal suffrage ? "Trade has bpcome I its own protection," his it ? Why, then, are the French building docks at Suez,—why are they extending their influence iu the Red Sea, — whv are th"y establishing for- tified P'sts ill the far East? The Ionian Islands may j possibly be some day given up to a powerful and independent Greek empire, to whose keeping they might legitimately be confined as geographically and nationally belonging to the Hellenic mainland. But the day is yet distant when that "exigency" will arrive; and meanwhile, as we do not wish them to fall into the hands of Fran e or Russia, we shall doubtless keep possession of the-n ourselves. We are happy to think that the British people are not quite such demented visionaries as the Professor of Modern H's'ory at Oxford would appeal to wish them to be, and that there is no immediate danger that we are about to hand over to our disinterested friends and neighbours all the foreign possessions which we row hold all over the 'globe. When the British Lion becomes so weak, the innumerable birds of prey hovering around v.ill soon make short work of the noble animal.—Press.

THE HIGH-PRIEST OF SPIRIT-RAPPERS. Perhaps it has not occurred to many of oar readers to ask themselves what is their position on the spiritual plane 2" Mr. William Howitt has just forced the inquiry upon us, and we are sure that many of our readers will share with us the anxiety with which we perceived that wp had hitherto neglected the problem. The L spiritual plans," as far as we understand it, is an inclined plane which has its base at the point where no value whatever is attached to L medium- istic" truths, and its apex among the clouds of tran- scendental spiritualism. But here again we must define — Mediumistic" truths are, according to the great hero of spiritualism, Mr. Harris —who resambles tho great Mrs. Harris, in being a medium" for the intellect of another, but not in the force and vividness of the thoughts conveyed through that medium—truths conveyed bv disembodied spirits through an embodied spirit with the he-Ip of a table, an alphabet, and, apparently, spiritual knuckles. The question has been bronght before us afresh by the perusal of a volume which has just been edited by a gentle- man of a highly transcendental turn, called "Sceptic," from the pagr-s of the Morning Star and Dinl. It is the custom of our sagacious contemporary, at that period of the autumn when the prorogation "f Parliament forcibly suggests to the newspaper press disparaging reflections on its own incessant periodicity, to open its columns to the discussion of the phenomena of the newest phase of what "Sceptic" calls credensiveness," and other people credulity. During the two last autumns the correspondence on tabular demeanour, spirit-hands, and the rest of it, has been actively carried on in the pages of our contemporary, and it is this which Sceptic" has kindly edited and accompanied with a com- mentary, not elucidative, of his own. We have read it and Mr. Dale Owen's simil ar work with care, anxious to discover the secret why respectable and worthy individuals like Mr. Williim Howitt and others look down with such profound pity on all who occupy what they eall a low position, or no position at all, on the "spiritual plane;" —wherein they think that their own advantage consists over those who, trusting in God and Ctirist, the immortality of man, and the divine inspiration, are willing to wait for another world for that fuller intercourse with the dead which our normal faculties here refuse us. Mr. Howitt, indeed, apparently regards it as a kin I of hel-itheniim, at least as bad as the omission of domestic prayers, not to form family circles when the tea-ttiings are removed for communication witbdisuch spirits as are willing to telegraph messages through a me. dium and an alphabet. There are thousands of families," he says, who in their own quiet circles, and in a spirit of reverence and thankfulness, are sitting down in the evening to their table as to a family altar, and there learning daily that the oracles of God which have in all ages spoken to the patriarchs, the apostles, the prophets, the fathers, the saints, have no more ceased than the sun to shine and the earth to yield its harvests. For my own part, spiritualism has been to me, to my whole family, and to a wide circle of relation9 and friends, through whom it has radiated, the most sub- stantial blessing of existence." He warus us, indeed, very solemnly, that these substantial blessings" are apt to be alloyed by corresponding dangers. I solemnly warn them of the dangers as well as of the benefits. Whoever expects to walk through London and not to be eloowed by thieves and prostitutes, is just as simple, and no more so than the in-in who expects to travese the spirit-thronged highways of pneumatology without, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, encountering Apollyon and his snares." It scarcely needed Mr, Ho.witt to tell us this but surely the highway" s of London would not be so.dangerous as they are if they were not also very obviously soit-it-througed,-if they were only body-thronged. And as for the disembodied spirits who throng table-legs and play oil the harmonium (why do they so neglect the piano ?), th'y do not seam to us, as far as Mr. Dale Owen's stories, and those of the believing correspondents of the Star and Dial go, to be more than exceedingly empty-minded Call" bans. Mr. Howitt is really acting unfairly by those whom be condemns in not pointing out sone of th higher ,riiritual advantages which he has receive 1 by tnis peculi ir method. He enumerates some of them, but t'ley d.) not strike us Is remunerative. -lie has seen a pencil stand up of itself an d write on paper, he says but he does not say what the writ" ing was, whether it was a Alene Mvne 'Tekel Uphar III or such a communication as the folllowing, which one of the gentlemen records Mortal Questioner. ',Viii you tell me Mr. Li.,s age? See, Spirit Answer. Somebody has lost a black doir. fl. Who ? A. Fiud out. [Adding] I will give you sutcn a poak, Nor can we say, in spite of lir. Howitt, that the makra- lent disembodied spirits seem quite so dangerous a Itll,,se other embodied evil spirits to which he refers. The m1!5 profoundly evil spirit of which we can find any record is Lite following, who obviously combined malicious views Willi strong desire to hastn tbe process by which the language may eventually lose its diuamma: <1. Do you know Rev. Mr. I, ? 1. Yes, I know him very well. Q. Is he married ? A. -No [We knew this to beyii&c.] (I. Are you sure of that r "?. Yes.Woif-dog ,e "It[thetab?'] then co:nmcllcC'ù ro/Lng aa(lut In" td manner which your-other correspondents have demerit)' > and it Wi,S some time before we could resume the coiivei" tion. We then asked "f2 By what agency do you tell us these things ? A. Deidul Jr' .}' ('1" exatiniiattoVf colli0 'Iil5 u8«atiPl"? .fin?3 Mr. Howitt would of conrs?say,withus,thatthesei 8pirations come fr,,)zi,. a vei-y uti riot to say de- graded, order of spirits. Hutwhenwepreashifnto'-ho? ? the advantages of his high0r position, on "the ?' plane, he answers, like all his fflcnds, 111 vague ge e. ralities talks of mediated poetry, which is dreadfully ferior to the terrestial product, as far as our own sxperis' goes mediated music, which seems limited to the Du„r- monium mediated drawing, of which we have seen ? .0 I- leetion of specimens, exceedingly inferior, lot iiier,l?to bumau art, but, as we believe to the un mediated art 0 clie same individual; and the Baron Goldenstubbe's thousa^ specimens nf direct spirit writing," the alue of which '? pears to cnnsi?t, not in their meaning, but their orlg-I These si?irit autor"ph were obtained by persons S0!'| into the first stationer's shop they came to, buying a P"' it of not-paper, puttiug their <leal on it, ;anduevet'Ifl?"S?i.t pass out of their hands till they had laid it down at  tance from themsejves a!?d the baron in open light all(]t Baron Goldenstubbe ha published a booli s.n hi, sub j ect, B:n'on(Joldeustubbcha pub.ishedn buck :.n thi??"??? and fit(,sirnitics of some communications." ^-es' elJ were these wonderful communications w?,t-tli", nJ they came ? Weha-e seen a good many, p!i?? .?d printed, and can honestly say we never saw one of i. n value yet. Mr. Howitt gives us a story of a plusiciaU^ having Icrt a little country patient ab0ut whom he .tt'.) anxious, inquired by a silent question of his (Mr.ll?????, t?ble-spirithowth<; boy was, and received for ?"\i(;h Jesus Christ has taken little David to his rest,' turned out to be true; bn'sMr.Ho?itthi[nsetfobsc??.?? the same answer might have been obtained as qu'ck!y. ?j perhaps?itumore certainty, by tho iron telegraph, seL?,? that the mendacity of many of the spIrItual agents IS ad- mitted, and evenanxioustyrmint?inedby the 8pir,t ,Ill thewselves. oJ Does, then, the pitiableiv^ss of our condition at the foot of the "spiri:ual consist in our renouncing' th a.d vantage of this rather uritr?ist?vortliy sp-ei,3 i)f11 rue which a false answer seems rather more common than a "g one? Or do these dictated oracles which make niedi.a^v. istic" viaducts of tables and ?lph.mets rc?Hy .i,)pc u' t? P' t.? ticipate in any degree in the nature of tht older kllldhtl- inspiration which fastened its aoid on some hun?" .j? racter before hnding its w.?y iuto 1'ut?u?ge of any '4 ^j11 All Wf can say is, t?i ?t if there be such or,?e,es, Mr. "?itt and his friends do themselves great injustice in withHo them. Mr. )?a!e Owen tells us )f tuc spirit of a RL'J J 0( lover, then no more, who suddenly ?eiz-d on the I,Rtld of the lady who h?i rejected him, and herillit season of grief by w, itin4 from right to left and }.^f, .st-as'nofgriefby w,itin?/?'/M?t't< fo ?/i' ?/!? '?, ?8 sotb?tsheht.Ino n')!, io: what ahe was writing, ? {je giv..sma ficsimile rJet1 Ye are sorrowing as oae without hope. C 1St tby bll on your God and he ?'iH help th?e.—ii G. D."  be But only t.11(i c.?irious (if ?l?pears t)b e due to R. G. n., the other words being a cmipouiid^ 9 sentence in St Paul aa?d a sentence iu the Ps?tos. ?o' other occasion the same spirit telegraphed in the"??a way— « "R.&.D.  To show you that we are thinku? and workin, for voa"<i accompanying the communication by a presen t (dOg fO' through a mortal stranger) of a lar,?o NewfoundlaO .g fct which the lady had Been wi?bin?. This is the Ileirest pro -.Ii t,) a c of spiritual t.e?chin,< and *sf,culrt' beneficence of which we have read. But might _? ti? Bible and the direct influence of Heaven htve ?? '?jady' noC ratb?r fuller spiritual help without R. G. D. ? and :s ? Newfoundland d')?, the spirit's agency is certainly no clearly made out. All we wish to know is, why "? 0 ,1,1, dolo? as Mr. Howitt insists, to expend time in sitting in 3 de*°' tiona! frame of mind in a domestic circle, with the tips Of our fingers on ? t?ble, in order to investigate sp'?"'< ph?' nomena, which, if rea l 'rt t a U ..?re u-!ually quite aa '? ?,?' Ilomena, WlllC,lf real at all. are amaH)' qaite as fri- v, ll,)tl sI and Uot so wn"k8ome a8 a round game at cald.s lad)" Howitt alludes with respecl ful ave to a spiri,u?,list ladyl Mrs. R., in a haunted house at Ramhurst, in 1?" ?ho?' story utoU by Mr. Dile Owen, who had attatn?? do?' hi?h position on the spiritual plane." Find'?S ? of her bedroom blocked up by a phantom suR'? ??be? ? to^e' ir witb Hiurnined letters with Dame Children, ?"'?wit?.g spiritual epitaph on Dame Children earthly ;-rorS. ?y shut her eyes and rushed thtou?h it, pxctai'n? ? ? a.?'? in the drawing-room who was yet higher on t 'J si'?.'s. III the Jr,lIving-oo'1I who \Va.! YEt higher on r' ?gh plane than herself, Laws! my dear, I'?' oUgh/r- Children." Now suppose t hat, bysoticM"us studies, we could so far raise our own po ?? 0" spiritual plane" as to w.dk thro'Jh a ghost ? ?yerY ?p down the it,??ii d liow I tilat  l e,ate ur ,p ■ r jtual c Il- down the Strand, how would that elevate uUr dition? "IS H." does not app.-art)h.?'e"f'gj ?? van?ge, spiritual or otherwbe, by pcne'rating ??a'?"\ t< shadow in Q?en Anna costume. '???'' ?' "? o? ? ft dence that a conscious dive through the bust ?bd??? ghot has any spiritualizing innucnce at F',Il- £ less 3I We arc di.posod to agree ?h the spirits of Lau, )' r)leslltl ton's crystal, as agahMt the alphabetic &n L???n'??' spirits, that the c lass of spirits who are ?? hab' 0f communicating with mortals by, riipl)in,, :all d such P roc' eea, communicating with mortals by rapping an uch proc ings, is l1ch that it behoves all Chnstlan t0 be c?? ings, is such that it behoves all Christian pe inefll) ,Irid we s?'ioul,l quite a?,s??iit to similar A,arnillm, testitIilo"?t,O And we should quite assent to similar warnino t.e-?"°°"? the part ofthe noisy hble-turners against t j- quietjtS in Lady Blessington's crystal, if, as we do lltJt joUbt, ing to the mutual jealousies of tae parties, ?? ws?;?(! tba1 -ry, testimony exists. On the whole, we uius soral iOQUJtb6 Howitt has made no??ay?e? case for '? ?crat '? the That the Emperor ot the French, ????Bn?'?'?' i" Qdeen of Hollaud, the Czar, and Lord ??.?rst b??t ? .bt t?c-se creatures may M true;  s?' are no ?' B? 1 tuese creatures may be true; and 1! so, ? ,ftK' a higher position on L4e spiritual P I ulle tb[Ln oat stand at the bottom vvithout :even a to aBCefl^ < J}tt'