been honoured by an interview with his Holiness the Pope, at which he was permitted to explain his plan for ameliorating the condition of the working classes. His Holiness was pleased to express the great interest which he felt in the design, and his approbation of its charitable purpose. He accepted copies of Mr. Morgan's work, the "Christian Commonwealth," in French and English, and a lithographic print illustrative of the proposed village having previously allowed a transparent painting of the same to be placed in his apartment, and having devoted to it considerable attention. The most patient consideration has been given to the design by the different religious bodies of Rome, especially by the Scotch and Irish colleges; by the latter it was recognised as the most likely means, under Providence, of averting the evils which afflict the sister island. We learn, moreover, that the Pope has referred Mr. Morgan's proposal to the examination of the Agricultural Commission, of which the Cardinal Massimo is president; and that it is expected their report will be followed up by the establishment of a model village in the Campagna di Roma. Such a movement on the part of the head of the Catholic Church demands the utmost gratitude from Christians of all denominations; whom we trust it will excite to emulation in a work so noble and excellent, and so highly calculated to relieve the present and prevent the future sufferings of the industrious poor.

Foundation and Progress of Mechanics' Institutes, and Mutual Instruction Societies. We have daily intelligence of the progress of the popular movement in self-education. The Weston-superMare Mechanics' Institute held its first annual meeting on February 24th, and we learn from one of its vice-presidents, the Rev. Joseph Hopkins, that its library already possesses 400 volumes, many of them presented by friends of the people; that it has its selection of cheap and liberal periodicals; its singing as well as other education classes; meetings for public discussion; and that during the past year lectures on various important and scientific topics have been delivered.

Sunderland Mechanics' and Apprentices' Schools and Library, established for the instruction of those that cannot attend day schools, where they are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, four nights in the week, two hours each night. No particular creed is advocated, so that let them be of what persuasion they will, they are made welcome to learn a business education, without interfering with the religious opinions they feel inclined to prefer. The above-named schools are taught by mechanics, and begun by them, who teach without reward. The establishers of these schools have no dependence but what they realize by labour, so their means were sadly stinted at first commencement; but now, after little more than four months, their success has far surpassed their expectations, for by donations received from well-wishers to such undertakings, they have been enabled to purchase a library for the use of the scholars. The library contains many of the most approved works of the day, and numbers about 700 volumes. Being so minute in the account of Sunderland Schools, is from the desire felt, that young men in other towns, seeing the description, may be induced to follow the example, and begin schools of the same kind. If such schools were to become general, then might the working men of England be as notified for their intellectual knowledge as they are for their unwearied industry. The highest praise is due to the young men adopting this mode of instructing the rising generation, and it is to be hoped they will live to see much that is good result from their laudable perseverance in a pursuit that is likely to produce the happiest effect in the advancement of society.

Newcastle and Gateshead Typographical Mutual Improvement Society. This society is an example that is particularly deserving of the attention of other trades. "It has," says one of its members," been in existence about six months. Its small library has been formed partly by purchase and partly by gifts. We hope soon to be able to purchase works more particularly connected with our profession, with the view of professional improvement." The leading employers in the town have become honorary members. Mr. G. Pringle, master printer, Gateshead, gave the first course of lectures, on "The Formation of Languages ;" and Mr. Olive Moore, the president, overseer of the Newcastle Guardian, is at present delivering a series of lectures on "The Rise and Progress of the Art of Printing." We may add, that their Report is a beautiful specimen of their art.

Mutual Improvement Societies. The rapid spread of these admirable institutions throughout Yorkshire, during the last

twelve months, is a noble feature of the working class progress of the age. There is scarcely now a town or village in the West Riding but can boast of one or more Mutual Improvement Societies. They are generally started by one or two active young men who gradually attract around them a few individuals of their class, and, without being dismayed by difficulties or looking to others for help, at once hire a room, start classes for instruction, give lectures, establish a reading room, and set about the formation of a library. Some combine all these objects, others are more limited; but being as yet only in their infancy, have not yet had time fully to develop themselves. We can easily perceive that these Mutual Improvement Societies are yet to prove the true Educational Institutes of the working men. Mechanics' Institutes have from the first failed in acting upon the working class. They commenced with a patronising manner, which was not much relished. They never seized hold of the people, but were almost exclusively supported by the middle class. They were for the aristocracy of the working men, rather than for the mass; and hence they have never been popular. But these Mutual Improvement Societies come amongst the people themselves, grow up amongst them, and are founded by them,-almost exclusively by self-educated men, than whom none relish more keenly the pleasures and the advantages of knowledge. In fact, they may be regarded as the Educational Methodism of our day, and in course of time cannot fail to exercise a most beneficial influence on the development of the great working mind of our country. Such societies, we need scarcely say, shall ever have our best wishes and com

Progress of the Co-operative Cause-By the Herald of Cooperation, the organ of the Leeds Redemption Society, we learn with great gratification that that society is not only in active operation, but that numerous branches are springing up, as at Birstal, eight miles from Leeds, at North Cove near Howden; Monmouthshire, at Cambridge, Barnsley, and Manchester. and that similar branches are in contemplation at Newport, In London, the Bread League has commenced operations very spiritedly, and its doors are besieged with purchasers; and at Elgin, proposals have been issued for the establishment of in shares of 20s. By purchasing for cash in the best markets, a Working Men's Provision Association, the capital to be £1000, the promoters expect to supply meal, wheat, bread, and groceries, included in the proposals. at prices below the current ones. A baking establishment is

The National Alliance for promoting a thorough representation of the people signalized its public birth, by a meeting at the London Tavern, on Wednesday the 31st of March. It was on of the most crowded and spirited political demonstrations which have been witnessed in London for a long time. As the newspapers will inform our readers of its proceedings, we merely record the fact. William Howitt was in the chair, and the meeting was addressed by Thomas Cooper, Henry Vincent, Dr. Epps, Charles Gilpin, Ebenezer Clarke, etc. The speakers appeared all unusually animated by the subject, and the audience to respond enthusiastically. Let the whole country do the

same.

Contents.

PAGE 212 212

The Three Little Roses. A German Folk's Song
Lord Morpeth's Sanitary Bill.
Sights in South Germany. No. II.-Down to Vienna.-
Mölk; its Priests and its Wise Men. By Abel Paynter 213
"Everybody's Duty".

Susan Lee's Birthday Adventure, and what came of it.
Part I. A Tale, by Edward Youl.
Little Viggo. By Hans Christian Andersen
To the People of the United Kingdom, on the State and
Condition of Ireland. By William Lovett.
Farewell to Frederick Douglass. By M. C.
THE CHILD'S CORNER:-

The Joy of Engele. By Mary Howitt
Be patient, Poor Ones of our Land! By Mrs. Valentine
Bartholomew.

THE WEEKLY RECORD of Facts and Opinions connected
with General Interests and Popular Progress

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PRINTED by RICHARD CLAY, of Park Terrace, Highbury, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, at his Printing Office, Nos. 7 and 8, Bread Street Hill, in the Parish of St. Nicholas Olave, in the City of London, and published for the Proprietor by WILLIAM LOVETT, 171, (Corner of Surrey Street,) Strand.-Saturday, April 17, 1847.

materials of their beautiful fabrics; the latter they set free. Now carbonic acid is readily absorbed or sucked in by water; so that when we place our leaves in the flask of water, we did in reality give them a supply of carbon also; and the clear spring water, which was the subject of our first experiment, must have contained, with carbonic acid, the gerns of the humble plants which soon begin to be developed in it. In both these cases, it is under the influence of Light, and of Light alone, that the elements of carbonic acid can be separated by the plant; and that the new compound of carbon and water can be formed, which is the foundation, as it were, of all the more complicated substances that are prepared by the Plant, for its own nutrition or for the support of Animal life.

How true, then, must be that history of Creation, which represents the Divine command "Let light be," -with its immediate realization, "and light was,"as preceding the first production of animated beings. "Without light," said the eminent French chemist, Lavoisier," Nature were without life and without soul, a beneficent God. in shedding light over creation, strewed the surface of the earth with organization, with sensation, and with thought." Withdraw its lovely and benignant influence; and the earth would be again" void." if not now, as once, "without form;" and would float through space a lifeless corpse. Let the fixation of carbon from the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, by the action of light upon plants, be once checked, and all Vegetable life speedily comes to an end; nothing then remains for the support of those Animals which derive their food immediately from the Vegetable kingdom; and their disappearance involves the speedy extinction of all those Carnivorous races which have been accustomed to make them their prey. The whole of our globe would then be reduced to the con dition of those ocean-depths, which have been recently explored by the persevering and laborious researches of Prof. E. Forbes. By means of the dredge, a sort of scoop or scraper with a net attached to it (resembling that by which Oysters are fished-up), the bottom of the sea may be surveyed at any moderate depth, almost as if we could look down upon it with a telescope; and its living inhabitants brought up for examination. Now it has been found that, as we descend below the surface of the water, Plants become fewer and fewer in number; until, at the depth of a hundred fathoms, or six hundred feet, they disappear altogether. Below this a few Animals are found, some of them ranging to the depth of three hundred fathoms; but beneath this level, the waters are altogether destitute of living inhabitants, their solitude being only broken by the occasional visit of a few deep-sea Fishes, straggling beyond their natural haunts, or by the plunging of a Whale which is diving to escape from its pursuers. It is impossible to avoid the idea, that this absence of all Life is due to the absence of Light. It is a fact well known to philosophers, that the rays of the sun, even when shining perpendicularly downwards, lose a great deal of their force as they pass through water; so that even at no greater depth than one hundred fathoms, there is never anything more than a mere twilight glimmering; whilst at double that depth, not even the feeblest ray that human vision could discern would penetrate the unbroken gloom. When we call to mind that a vast portion of our globe is covered by water many times deeper than the known limit of Light and Life, we cannot but be awe-struck with the thought, that by far the greater part of the present bed of the ocean has been for ages hidden in perpetual darkness, its loneliness undisturbed by the presence of any living thing, and only capable of being pictured by the eye of the imagination as a black and desolate expanse, not only uninhabited, but uninhabitable.

There is a beautiful adaptation between the constitu

tions of different Plants, and the varying degrees of Light which the sun imparts in different situations; and this adaptation nay be seen, not merely by comparing the vegetation of tropical and arctic regions, but by observing the situations in which the several plants of our own country respectively flourish best. Thus, generally speaking, we find the succulent thick-leaved Plants growing in exposed situations, where there is nothing to interfere with the full influence of the solar rays; whilst, on the other hand, plants with thinner and more delicate leaves usually find a more congenial home in sheltered situations; and there are some which can only develop themselves in full luxuriance in the deep shades of a plantation or a forest. By a still greater degree of this kind of adaptation, some species of Plants are enabled to live and to acquire a healthy green colour in what would be to our eyes total darkness; thus Humboldt met with Flowering-plants of various species in the depths of the mines at Freyberg; and he found a species of Sea weed, possessing a bright green hue, at the depth of one hundred and ninety feet in the sea, near the Canary islands, at which depth it is computed that it could have received no more than 1-1500th part of the solar rays that fell upon the surface of the ocean. So, too, we may observe that many Ferns, Mosses, and Lichens seem as if they avoided the light, choosing the northern rather than the southern sides of hedges, buildings, etc., for their residence; so that the former often present a luxuriant growth of Cryptogamic vegetation, whilst the latter are comparatively bare. It must not be supposed, however, that such plants avoid the light altogether; they only shun what is to them an excessive degree of it.

Now when any Plant receives a smaller amount of Light than that which is natural to it, an unhealthy change soon takes place in its system. Its leaves no longer present a fresh green hue, but look pale and sickly; the stalk may increase in length, but it diminishes in firmness; its peculiar products, whether remarkable for their smell, their taste, or their colour, are no longer formed in their usual amount; and little or no firm woody tissue is produced, but the texture becomes dropsical, all its cavities being distended with water. Day by day, the weight of the solid matter of the plant diminishes rather than increases, even though it may have appeared to grow; because less carbon is fixed from the air than is given back to it by decay in the form of carbonic acid; and because the increase in the bulk of the plant is due only to the quantity of water which it has imbibed. Some plants are speedily killed by this process; whilst others live until they are quite blanched, and in this state become useful articles of food, although too rank to be eaten in their natural state. Such is the case, for example, with Celery and Sea Kale, which are grown by gardeners under cover, or with earth heaped up around their shoots.

It frequently happens in America, as in our own country, that clouds and rain obscure the light of the sun for many days together; and that during this time the buds of entire forests expand themselves into leaves. These leaves present a pale hue until the sun appears; and then are converted, under the influence of a clear sky and a bright sunshine for a few hours only, to a beautiful green. One writer mentions a forest on which the sun had not shone for twenty days. The leaves were expanded during this period to their full size, but were almost white. "One forenoon the sun began to shine in full brightness; the colour of the forest absolutely changed so fast that we could perceive its progress. By the middle of the afternoon the whole of this extensive forest, many miles in length, presented its usual summer dress."

Such are a few of the facts, which show the direct dependence of Vegetable Life on the Light of day. Although the beneficial influence of Light upon the

healthy growth of Animals is not so obvious as it is upon the various processes of Vegetable Life, yet it is not less real. The most striking proof of its agency is drawn from observation of the processes of early development, as they occur under the two opposite conditions of light and darkness. Thus, if a quantity of Silkworms' eggs be preserved in a dark room, and an equal number be exposed to common daylight, a much larger proportion of worms will be hatched from the latter than from the former. If we put any soft vegetable matter into a glass jar of water, and keep it moderately warm, at the same time exposing it freely to the light, it will be found in a few days crowded with vast numbers of Animalcules (or beings so minute as only to be seen through a powerful microscope) in constant and rapid motion. But if we cover the jar so as to exclude the light, treating it in every other respect in the same manner as before, the Animalcules do not make their appearance for a much longer time, and then in much less abundance. Most of our ponds, ditches, and pools, contain numerous minute insect looking animals, just visible to the eye, and remarkable for their sudden and quick-darting movements, on account of which they are popularly known as Waterfleas. These creatures come forth from their eggs in a very different shape from that which they have when full-grown; and they pass from one to the other by a series of metamorphoses, or changes of form and structure, resembling those by which the grub is converted into a beetle or butterfly. Even when full-grown, they continue to cast off their outer horny casing every two or three days, a new one being formed within, just as a Crab or Lobster casts its shell once a year; and this change seems necessary for the continuance of their health, for if it does not take place their bodies become clothed with minute plants, which attach themselves to the surface, impeding their motions through the water, and preventing them from breathing with freedom. Now it has been found that, if these little animals be kept in the dark, they do not pass through the changes by which they attain their perfect form nearly so rapidly as when they are freely influenced by light; nor, when their growth is complete, are they able to renew their shells so frequently, and thus to free themselves, by casting off the old ones, from their troublesome incumbrances.

The most remarkable proof that has ever been obtained, of the influence of Light upon the growth of Animals, was given a few years since by some experiments which were conducted at Paris by Dr. W. F. Edwards. For the sake of such of our readers as may not be otherwise aware of the fact, we must premise that the Frog, an air-breathing Reptile having four legs but no tail, comes forth from the egg in the condition of a Fish, breathing water by gills which hang like fringes by the sides of the head, and having a long finlike tail, without the least trace of legs. In this state, it is known as the Tadpole. After a time, however, one pair of legs begins to sprout, and then the other; the tail ceases to grow; the lungs come into play; the gills fall into disuse; and by a gradual series of changes, the Tadpole is converted into the Frog. Now it occurred to Dr. Edwards to ascertain if Light had any influence upon this metamorphosis; and to make this out, he enclosed a number of Tadpoles in boxes, and sank them deep in the water of the river Seine. These boxes were perforated by a great number of holes, not large enough to allow the Tadpoles to escape, but capable of allowing a free passage to a current of water, which would constantly renew that which the boxes contained, so as to supply the Tadpoles with the small particles of matter on which they feed, and also to renew that which was exhausted of its air by their breathing. The result of this experiment was, that, instead of being changed from Tadpoles into Frogs at the proper time, they con

tinued to grow as large Tadpoles; but this unnatural condition could not be long kept up; and if kept in the boxes, instead of changing into Frogs, they died.

These facts leave no room for doubt as to the influence of Light upon the processes of Animal growth; and they serve, therefore, to confirm that idea of its healthful agency upon the Human frame, to which we should be led by a variety of circumstances, each of them being capable, it must be admitted, of some other explanation. Thus it has been observed, that an unusual tendency to bodily deformity exists among children reared in cellars or mines, or in dark and narrow streets; the body rarely acquires its full development under such circumstances; and the mind cannot be expected to attain its due vigour. On the other hand, all travellers have noticed that a remarkable freedom from deformity exists among those nations which wear but very little clothing; and where other circumstances are favourable, it is among such that the person most generally acquires its greatest perfection, as it is seen, for instance, among the Marquesan islanders. It is well known that in many of the deep valleys of the Alps, into which but very little sunlight finds its way, there are a large number of strangely-deformed beings, termed Cretins; most of whom are more or less idiotic, some indeed being the most degraded specimens of the human race that it is possible to conceive. Doubtless in this case, as in the preceding, other causes are in action besides the want of light; but there seems quite reason enough to believe that it is one of the chief, and probably (in the case of the Cretins) the most important of all. Again it has been noticed that Epidemic diseases rage with greater violence on the dark side of a street, than on the one whose aspect is sunny.

The most satisfactory proof of the influence of Light upon Human health, is, perhaps, that which is derived from the experience of large buildings, in which the condition of the dwellers in the different parts is on the average very much the same, except in this one particular. Thus it has been stated by Sir Andrew Wylie (who was for a long time at the head of the medical staff in the Russian army), that the cases of disease on the dark side of an extensive barrack at St. Petersburgh have been uniformly, for many years, in the proportion of three to every one of those on the side exposed to strong light. And in one of the London Hospitals, with a long range of frontage looking nearly due north and south, it has been observed that the patients more rapidly recover on the sunny than on the shady side of the building.

A deficiency of Light has probably no slight influence, when combined with imperfect ventilation and other causes, in producing a disease which, in its various forms, is probably the most pernicious and widely-spread of human maladies. We refer to Scrofula. This complaint is well known to be more prevalent in crowded cities than in the open country,-in dark and narrow streets, than in those which are broad and well-ventilated. The condition of the body, in the early stages of this complaint, has such a striking resemblance to that of the plant which is rendered meagre and sickly for want of light, that we can scarcely doubt the action of the same cause in both instances.

Considerations like these ought to be of great weight with every one, who is capable of understanding the simple facts which have been stated. Daylight, like warmth, is not a luxury, but a necessary of Life; for the want of it, though it does not produce consequences as immediately destructive to life, has much share in occasioning those derangements of health, which not only tend to shorten life, but render it miserable whilst it lasts; and which are not confined to the individual, but are transmitted from parent to offspring through successive generations.