no dead body fhould be permitted yesterday, which are retained under to be depofited in a vault, unless the deep piazzas for want of free inclosed in a leaden coffin, well ventilation. foldered down. From the increase of trade in this metropolis, and the larger and more frequent affemblies of people at public markets, coffee-houfes, and other places of business and amufement, it is probable that many perfons fultain confiderable injury in their health. The Royal-Exchange affords a ftriking inftance to this purpose. The 'change hours, a few years ago, feldom exceeded two o'clock, and now, three is confidered as the time of high change. The crouds of people that ufually remain at this place for upwards of an hour, muft certainly be pernicious, of which every one may be convinced who enters upon full 'change immediately from the fresher atmosphere of the treet; he feels the former not only much hotter, but also fo offenfive as to render refpiration, at first, fome what difficult. Before the company retire all the gates are fhut, leaving only one fmall outlet; and thus the air, tainted, and rendered noxious, is pent up and confined against the evening, when the gates are again opened; and valetudinarians, who have not leifure to go into the country, under a notion of purchafing a mouthful of fresh air, rush into an atmosphere loaded with human effluvia, which of all others, when become vitiated, is the most dangerous to health and life. To this place, likewife, many children are conducted, particularly in the early part of the day, to breathe the aurora matutina but inflead of that falutary regale, they infpire chiefly the fæcule of ; It is not expected that, by thefe fuggeftions, perfons engaged in bufinefs will be induced to avoid the Exchange, neither do I think the danger exceedingly imminent, as the pepper vaults under this edifice, and the regale gentlemen partake of in the neighbouring coffeehouses, muft mutually tend to obviate infection; but, certainly, in the place of the present close wooden gates, open iron gates might be fubftituted, by which a freer circulation of air would be promoted. It cannot, however, at any time, be advifeable to frequent this place for the fake of falubrity of air. The transfer offices, at the Bank, are infalubrious, not only from the multitudes of people who daily croud them, but alfo from their peculiar conftruction, which not having fide windows and common chimniés, like all regular and wife buildings, cannot poffibly admit that free circulation of air, which the health of the people who are ftatedly employed there indifpenfably requires. The air, alfo, that iffues from the fuperb ftoves, inftead of compenfating for the want of vital air, which feems to have been defignedly excluded from those coftly apartments, ferves only to increase the general infalubrity, by diffufing the pernicious particles with which it is impregnated. Among various other fources of putridity, may be included levees, play-houses, public exhibitions, kitchens under ground, night cellars, routs, masquerades, and nocturnal revels of all kinds. Meeting-houses, alfo, being usually built with low roofs, muft prove perni cious to the health of many individuals, as every thing that deftroys the purity of the air debilitates the body, and conduces to the production of putrid and other difeafes. Illuminations, and the vaft increase in the use of lamps and candles, muft tend to impair the purity of the circumambient air, as all burning bodies have the property of rendering it lefs fit for refpiration, of which we may be convinced by the difficulty of breathing over a charcoal fire. It has been, I know, a general received opinion, that fires check the progrefs of plagues, and peftiferous winds; but experience in London affords a ftrong proof to the contrary; great fires were made during the ravages of the plague in this city, which were fo far from abating it, that the week after the general conflagration the deaths were almoft doubly augmented: there is reason, therefore, to conclude, that, as burning bodies emit a mephitic matter, large fires tend to destroy the purity of the air. In this city, where coal fires are principally ufed, with the inflammable, mephitic, and other matters thrown out, probably an acid is decompofed, and exhaled from the fulphur in the coal; and thereby certain miafmata, of a putrid tendency, may be neutralized; fo contrived as to be peculiarly adapted to generate contagion. From twenty to forty perfons are generally configned to one room, and were they all in health, it might reasonably be fufpected, that the breath and effluvia from fuch a number of people would foon ren. der the air unfit for refpiration, and at length give rife to diseases of the putrid kind: what then can be expected, when as many patients, under various diseases, breathe day and night in one confined apartment? I have now, Mr. Editor, curforily mentioned a few fources of injury to the health of my fellowcreatures. I am forry that want of leifure will not permit a more minute detail of these and other causes of difeafe; but fhould the hints I have given preferve one ufeful member of the community, it will afford an ample compenfation to HYGEIA. [Gentleman's Magazine.] UT the oddest and moft fur but, from the inftances in the plague B prizing fight we ever beheld abovementioned, there is reafon to prefume that the injury introduced into the atmosphere overbalances the good effects arifing from the acid decompofition. One of the moft univerfal and dangerous channels of infection, has its fource in the state of the hofpitals in this city, which are usually was at the Capuchins, about fome half a mile out of the gate that leads to Monreal, where one of thofe fathers conducted us down into a long cross vault under their church and convent. Here we faw an abundance of Capuchins ftanding in a row one by another against men, 1 the refemblance of what they had been formerly when alive. the wall, feemingly in a devout pedure; when coming near to them, we and they were fo many dead all dry'd up, but with all the fleth and skin on their hands and faces entire, nor were the nerves rofted. This wonderful way of preferving their dead bodies they perform with the greatest eafe imaginale, nly by extending their dead on four or five crofs fticks, over a receptacle or fmall place built up of brick, hollow, and in form of a coffins and fo the dead body continuing to lye thus extended or at length over this, hollow, fupported by the crofs flicks, vents all it's corruption away, and in a year's time the fkin and flesh remain dry on the bones: and we saw feveral ftanding up that had been but a year, with an infcription on the bodies who they were; for, notwithstanding the bodies were all clothed in Capuchins habits, yet an abundance of them had been laymen and perfons of the best quality in Palermo; and that which is almoft incredible, the faces retained fome refemblance of the perfons to whom they did belong; for not only Mr. Gifford at first fight called them by their names, faying, This was a very honeft fellow and my broker, this fuch a one, and fo of the reft, but the father who led us down did in particular point to one of the dead bodies, who had been a Capuchin, faying, This father was a very handfome comely man ; and, indeed, it appeared fo, not only below, in refpect of the other dead, but alfo above stairs, where he fhowed us the picture of that dead father, which he did to convince us that the dead had not loft Among thefe dead bodies there were many of an hundred years ftanding, which were as entire as the newest, and you might handle their faces and hands without damaging them. This way of preferving the dead among the living is eafy, I imagine, to be practifed in any country; but in my mind it is but a very melancholy renewing of an acquaintance with our friends to fee them in this pofture; tho' in Catholic countries it ferves to put those who come to fee them in mind of praying for their fouls. Mr. Gifford told us, that he had already taken a place for himself to ftand in among the dead of this vault. The posture of two among thofe dead bodies was very remarkable; the one on it's knees, with it's arms extended, and hands closed, as at prayers; the other with it's arms quite out at full ftretch, ftanding upright in pofture of one crucified. The account the fathers gave of thefe two was, that they had both been very devout in their life-time; and that the body of that perfon which is in the pofture of a crucifix could by no means be altered by the fathers, who had tied down the arms more than once when the corps was fresh, and still found it foon returned to that pofture, which therefore they judged to be the will of God that it fhould fo remain, fince it was known that perfon had been a great and devout contemplator of our Bleffed Saviour's paffion: the fame kind of an account they gave of the other body in the kneeling posture, aver ring that they found it raised of itfelf in that fashion, going in to vifit the bodies that lay aventing in the clofe vault, which they open only for that end, or to put in a fresh body. Some Account of Mr. Braidwood's Academy in Edinburgh, for the teaching of Perfons, born deaf and dumb, to speak, write, and read, with understanding. From Mr. Pennant's four into Scotland. R Braidwood, profeffor of the found myfelf furrounded with numbers of human forms fo oddly circumftanced, I felt a fort of anxiety, fuch as I might be fuppofed to feel had I been environed by another order of beings. I was foon relieved, by being introduced to a moft angelic young creature, of about the age of thirteen. She honoured me with her new-acquired converfation; but I may truly fay, that I could scarcely bear the power of her piercing eyes: fhe looked me through and through. She foon fatisfied me that he was an apt fcholar. She readily apprehended Macademy a and deaf, all I faid, and returned has under his care a number of young perfons, who have received the Promethian heat, the divine inflatus; but from the unhappy conftruction of their organs, were ('till they had received his inftructions) denied the power of utterance. Every idea was locked up, or appeared but in their eyes, or at their fingers ends, till their master inftructed them in arts unknown to us, who have the faculty of hearing. Apprehenfion reaches us by the groffer fenfe. They see our words, and our uttered thoughts become to them vifible. Our ideas expreffed in fpeech ftrike their ears in vain Their eyes receive them as they part from our lips. They conceive by intuition, and fpeak by imitation. Mr. Braidwood first teaches them the letters and their powers; and the ideas of words written, beginning with the most fimple. The art of fpeaking is taken from the motion of his lips; his words being uttered flowly and diftinctly. Their anfwers are flow, and fomewhat harsh. When I entered the room, and with the utmoft facility. She read; the wrote well. Her reading was not by rote. She could cloath the fame thoughts in a new fet of words, and never vary from the original fenfe. I have forgot the book she took up, or the fentences fhe madè a new verfion of; but the effect was as follows: Original paffage. Lord Bacon has divided the whole of human knowledge into history, poetry, and philofophy, which are referred to the three powers of the mind, memory, imagination, and reafon. Verfion. A nobleman has parted the total or all of man's ftudy, or underftanding, into an account of the life, manners, religion, and cuftoms of any people or country, verfe or metre, moral or natural knowledge, which are pointed to the three faculties of the foul or fpirit; the faculty of remembering what is paft, thought or conception, and right judgment. pupils with the fatisfaction which muft refult from a reflection on the utility of his art, and the merit of his labours: Who, after receiving under his care a Being that feemed to be merely endowed with a human form, could produce the divina particula aura, latent, and, but for his skill, condemned to be ever latent in it; and who could restore a child to its glad parents with a capacity of exerting its rational powers, by expreffive founds of duty, love, and affection. I left Mr. Braidwood and his to be cultivated for the support of life. They have no parks or extenfive forefts, which are not near fo ferviceable to mankind by the wood they furnish, as prejudicial by preventing agriculture; and while they contribute to the pleafure of the great by the beasts that range in them, prove a real misfortune to the husbandman. In China, the beauty of a countryfeat confifts in its being happily fituated, furrounded with an agreeable variety of cultivated fields, and interfperfed with trees planted irregularly, and with fome heaps of a porous ftone, which at a diftance have the appearance of rocks or mountains. The rural Industry and Oeconomy of the Chinese propofed as an Example to all the other Nations of the Univerfe, by the Abbé Raynal-From that Gentleman's Philofophical and Political Hiftory, &c. IN Na country where the government is fo ancient, we may every where expect to find deep traces of the continued force of induftry. Its roads have been levelled with the exactest care; and, in general, have no greater declivity than is neceffary to facilitate the watering of the land, which they confider, with reafon, as one of the greatest helps in agriculture. They have but few, even of the moft ufeful trees, as their fruits would rob the corn of its nourishment. There are gardens, it is true, interfperfed with flowers, fine turf, fhrubberies, and fountains; but however agreeable thefe fcenes might be to an idle fpectator, they feem to be concealed and removed from the public eye, as if the owners were afraid of fhewing how much their amufements had encroached upon the foil that ought The hills are generally cut into terraces, fupported by dry walls. Here there are refervoirs, conftructed with ingenuity, for the reception of rain and spring water. It is not uncommon to fee the bottom, fummit, and declivity of a hill watered by the fame canal, by means of a number of engines of a fimple conftruction, which fave manual labour, and perform with two men what could not be done with a thousand in the ordinary way. Thefe heights commonly yield three crops in a year. They are first fown with a kind of radish, which produces an oil; then with cotton, and after that with potatoes. This is the common method of culture; but the rule is not without exception. Upon most of the mountains which are incapable of being cultivated for the fubfiftence of man, proper trees are planted for building houfes or fhips. Many of them contain iron, tin and copper mines, fufficient to fupply the empire. The gold mines have been neglec |