The skipper, (fays Dr. Franklin,) of a fhallop employed between Cape May and Philadelphia, had done us fome fmall fervice, for which he refused to be paid. My wife, understanding that he had a daughter, fent her a prefent of a new-fafhioned cap Three years after, this skipper, being at my houfe, with an old farmer of Cape May his paffenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleafed with it. But, faid he, it proved a dear cap to our congregation.--How fo?-When my daughter appeared with it at meeting, it was fo much admired that all the girls refolved to get fuch caps from Philadelphia, and my wife and I computed that the whole could not have coft less than an hundred pounds. True, faid the farmer, but you don't tell all the ftory. I think the cap was, nevertheless, an advantage to us; for it was the first thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for fale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there. And you know that that induftry has continued, and is likely to continue, and encrease to a much greater value, and answer better purposes.' Dr. C. takes occafion, in the course of this inquiry, to mention the establishment of poor-rates; and he does not hesitate to call it a premium to idleness, which fupplies with food, clothing, and medicine, the indolent wretch who will not work at all, and which levies fuch fupplies on the industry of his laborious neighbours.' He ftrengthens his opinion on this head by that of Dr. Davenant; who afferted "that the poor-rates of England will ultimately ruin her manufactures;" and who calculated that thofe who fubfifted on those rates in his time amounted to one million two hundred thoufand, of whom at least one half would have purfued the paths of industry and labour, if not feduced from them by the profpect of indolent fubfiftence on parifh charity." This is undoubtedly an immense weight on the country; and it well becomes the government feriously to confider, whether it be morally neceffary that almoft a fixth part of the whole population of England fhould live in idleness, and be fupported by a rent-charge on the induftry of the remainder. The blind, the aged, the infirm, and the difabled, muft neceffarily be maintained: but might not means be devised for making them contribute, during the period of their health and ftrength, to a fund on which they fhould afterward depend for fupport? In that cafe, they could not be faid, in the days of their infirmity, to be eating the bread of idleness, nor to be a dead weight on induftry, but to be living on the ftore which they had faved out of their earnings. The infantpoor would then be the only real burden on the public; and a virtuous education would enable them to repay, with intereft, whatever might have been expended on them during their tender years. This is a very important fubject, which we may earnestly recommend to the ferious confideration of country gentlemen, gentlemen, and of all who are more immediately interested in the profperity of trade, of manufactures, and of fociety. It has often been remarked that, when a man can earn as much in one day as may fuffice for his fupport for two days, he becomes proportionably indolent, and is not difpofed to work two days fucceffively. The truth of this remark is controverted by Dr. C., who maintains that, where the wages of labour are high, the labourer will always be found more industrious than when they are fo low as to be barely equal to the daily fubfiftence of an indiviual. He fupports his opinion by adverting to the ftate of England, Holland, France, and Ireland; in the two former of thefe countries the price of labour is high, and in the two latter very low; yet the English and Dutch are beyond all comparifon more induftrious than the French and Irish. Hence he deduces the reafon why manufactures will not fly to thofe countries where the price of labour is low,' and fhews that the fears of individuals in this country are illfounded, when they think that, becaufe men work for lower wages in Ireland than in England, the capital manufacturers of the latter might be induced to carry their business with them to the former, and there establish manufactures that would rival thofe of England. Those who are poorly paid will always work with languor; while those who receive high wages go on with alacrity-the truth of this doctrine is fupported by an appeal to inftances and facts. Dr. C. obferves that every nation, as well as every individual, has a peculiar character,-which, when once formed, is not eafily changed; if it happens to be marked by indolence, or by diffipation, &c. the legislature cannot poffibly reform it at once; it cannot force its fubjects to induftry: but it may indirectly encourage them to it, by checking fuch practices as are detrimental to its progrefs, and by removing as many temptations to idleness as may be practicable. Idlenefs leads to drunkenness, and drunkenness to every fpecies of vice. To counteract them, Dr. C. would have the legislature lower the duty on malt, increase that on fpirits, and establish a good fyftem of national education for training up youth in habits of industry, and for giving to the public mind fuch a bias as it has received in Holland, where it is unfafhionable for a man not to be employed in fome fpecies of bufinefs. To do this, he fays it is neceffary that all impediments to induftry should be removed; and among these he enumerates injudicious taxes, corporations, and exclufive trading companies. To each of thefe heads he gives a feparate confideration; treating the fubject with ability equalled only by the boldnefs with which he attacks the formidable bodies interested in maintaining, as he contends, fo many obftructions to industry, Under Under the head of injudicious taxes, he places tithes; which, he fays, muft always operate as a clog to induftry, and an impediment to agricultural improvement. He inftances their bad effects in regard to the fingle article of madder; the cultivation of which, he fays, while the tithe of it was exacted in kind, was confined to Holland, where no fuch tax is known; and whither the English dyers were obliged to refort for the neceffary fupplies of that useful plant. A ftatute was at length paffed, enacting that five fhillings per acre fhould be received as a modus for all tithe of madder: fince which time its cultivation has been introduced into England, and is rapidly increafing. Speaking of corporations, he admits that the principle on I which they were formed, amid the barbarous diffipation of the middle ages, was good; and that corporate bodies moft certainly did fofter induftry after its birth: but he contends that they now impede it in two ways; 1ft, by forming exclufive companies, the freedom of which is neceffary to the exercifing of their particular trades; and, 2dly, by exacting taxes, tolls, and impofitions for the fupport of an ufelefs and indolent magiftracy. The law of fettlement in England, though not immediately connected with corporations, is noticed under the fame head, as breathing the fame fpirit, and equally injurious to induftry: by this law, the labourer is confined to his native spot; and, though employment fhould be overstocked in one parish, and understocked in another, he is prevented from migrating to it; -the free circulation of labour being thus obftructed, the inequality continues, to the general detriment both of the employer and the employed. Treating of exclusive mercantile companies, he thus expreffes himself: Unfortunate, indeed, has been the general fate of all exclufive mercantile monopolies fuch has been the thort-fightedness, avarice, and anifmanagement of their members, that by far the greater number have at length failed; and thofe that remain are more indebted for the prolongation of their existence to the affiftance and interference of their respective governments than to their own prudence and refources: witness the East India company of England. The Abbé Morellet has given a lift of fifty-five exclufive companies for foreign trade, which have been formed in different parts of Europe fince the year 1600; every one of which have failed, notwithstanding their particular privileges. The only pretext, therefore, which can be offered for their formation and continuance, viz. that they are neceflary for conducting a trade with many countries, from the inability of individuals to effect it, falls to the ground. On the contrary, they have always injured and ruined the commerce committed to them: they have checked the industry and employment of many individuals, who would otherwife have fuccesfully engaged in it: and we may, therefore, fafely conclude, in the words of Smith, "that all exclufive companies are nuifances in every refpect." [To be concluded in our next number.] ART. ART. XI. Surgical and Phyfiological Effays. Part II. By John Abernethy, Affiftant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hofpital; and Lecturer in Anatomy and Surgery. 8vo. pp. 205. 3s. 6d. Boards. J. Evans. 1793. WE E had lately occafion to speak of this author in favourable terms, and we think his prefent work not lefs entitled to commendation. This fecond publication, like the preceding part, contains two Effays; of which the firft is entitled, An Efay on the Nature of the Matter perfpired and abforbed from the Skin: it includes a number of experiments conducted with patience, and very happily illuftrative of the functions of the skin. It had been difcovered, feveral years ago, that the furface of the leaves of plants is perpetually emitting and inhaling elastic fluids, though the laws which regulate this curious operation have been by no means fatisfactorily afcertained. Certain philofophers, having conceived that the fkin in animals might perform a fimilar tafk, undertook fome experiments on this fubject but they were not carried to any certain conclufion; indeed the refults were contradictory; and, in confequence of Dr. Priestley's experiments, it seems to have been generally be lieved that Mr. Cruikshank and the Count de Milly, (whose paper, though long fince published in the Paris Memoirs+, Mr. Abernethy feems not to have seen,) were mistaken in concluding that the skin either emits air, or alters the quality of air in contact with it. From the prefent investigation, however, it clearly appears that the fkin, except perhaps during profufe perspiration, is conftantly receiving and difcharging elastic fluids in confiderable quantity; and thus Mr. Abernethy has the merit of having extended a very curious and important branch of fcience,-chemical phyfiology. The fubject is too interefting to be thus briefly difmified; and we must lay before our readers a fummary of the facts contained in this effay. These experiments were made by introducing the hand into a glafs veffel filled with quickfilver, and fixed obliquely in a refervoir of quickfilver, or with water, or elfe partly with air, confined by quickfilver or water. In the two former methods, the whole or part of the air perfpired rose to the top of the veffel; in the third, the abforptions became evident. The quantity of air collected under quickfilver, and under water, was exceedingly variable. When the perfpiration is in its ordinary infenfible ftate, and the thermometer at 60°, the hand under mercury yielded rather lefs air in an hour than the measure of a scruple of water. The air thrown out by the * Rev. New Series, vol. xii. p. 48. + Sée the zd vol. of our General Index, art. Milly. skin seems to have been in all cafes about two-thirds carbonic acid, and the remainder azote. The precaution of moving the hand in the quickfilver or water for ten minutes, and the quality of the air produced, feem to obviate all fufpicion of error, from air either introduced by the hand, or pre-existing in the fluids employed. When the hand was confined in atmospheric air, part of its oxygene was abforbed; while, at the fame time, more carbonic acid gas was thrown out than under quickfilver. When the hand was kept in azotic, hydrogene, or nitrous air, part of these were abforbed, and carbonic acid air was thrown out; and, when holden in this laft, part was absorbed, and azote was thrown out. The following paffage will convey a distinct idea of some of thefe curious refults: I filled and inverted a jar in water, and put up into it twentyfour ounces by measure, of atmospheric air; to this the hand was expofed for twelve hours; the fame precautions were used to avoid adding to, or taking from the air contained in the jar. The water had risen in the veffel, and about two ounces and a half of the air were removed; that which remained was examined in the eudiometer, when two measures of it, and one of nitrous gas, filled the space of nearly two measures, and one-third of another; it therefore follows, that about one-half of the ufual quantity of oxygenous gas was removed from the other part of the atmosphere. That there could be no addition of nitrogenous gas capable of fo greatly altering the proportions of these gafes muft, I think, be too evident, to need argument for its proof. Similar experiments were afterwards made with correfponding events. In the experiments made under quick filver, the abstraction of oxygene was equally evident, and confiderable; it therefore appears, that the animal body is capable of taking away the oxygene, when in intimate mixture with a much greater quantity of nitrogene. The avidity with which oxygene is abforbed, will be made ftill more confpicuously evident, by the following comparative experiment. I filled and inverted two jars in water; into one I put twentyfour ounces by measure of nitrogenous gas, into the other, the like quantity of oxygenous. The hand was put into thefe airs alternately, and retained there for an hour each time: after it had been expofed to each, for eight hours, the water rofe one-eighth of an inch in the bottle, containing the nitrogenous gas, and nearly a whole inch in that containing the oxygene. On eftimating the quantity removed, by weighing the water which filled the bottles to the different marks, it appeared that one-twentieth part only of the nitrogenous gas was removed, but one-third of the oxygenous gas was gone. The remaining oxygenous gas was found to contain one-eighth more of nitrogenous gas, than before the experiment. I next examined the degree of celerity with which other gafes would be imbibed. Having filled and inverted a jar in water. and put into it thirteen ounces of nitrous gas, I retained my hand in this air, at different |