case even with the scribbler. The question with me always is, who will, or how many will, consume (read) what I write.

In London, there is a sort of class, or society or connection of persons, composed of Physicians, Literati, Political Economists, Members of Parliament, with men and women of the first rank in point of fortunes and titles, so convinced of a redundancy of population, as to recommend a means of preventing conception on copulation! The practice, though new to England, they say, is not new to Europe; it has been imported from France; and much is said about the good effect of regulating the number of a family, according to the income of the parents. The foundation of this recommendation is declared to be the greatest happiness of the greatest number; that this and this alone is the motive. In applying the principle to the labouring class, it is argued, that it is to their advantage, to have work plenty and workmen scarce, so that the masters shall be induced to bid one against the other, as to the price of labour, until they give the highest that their profits will admit. And further, this scheme of lessening population is defended upon the humane principle, that it is better to have one thousand in number and all happy, than ten thousand and all miserable, from the competion as to the price of labour being on the side of the workmen, each seeking a situation by offering to work for less than another. They make their calculations of human labour, as of every other property and commodity, comparing or contrasting the supply with the demand, the quantity in the market with the means of consumption; and say, that, whatever may be the exceptions, this is the general rule, and the proper guide both for statesmen and philanthropists upon which to make their culculations.

This anti-conception scheme was communicated to me above two years since. My first impressions of it were those of abhorrence, and such as I have witnessed from every person to whom I have seen or known the subject mentioned, as a first impression. The friend, who made the communication to me, who has furnished me with much information since I have been a prisoner and who had passed his first impressions of the matter, by deep cogitation, wished me to think of it and to say all that I could say against it to him, and he would engage to have it answered and refuted. I wrote away fluently about its being calculated to undermine the last prop of chastity with the young, and to make conjugal fidelity or infidelity a joke. In short I felt and

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wrote like a prude upon the subject; for I always was a bit of a prude, and whatever I did or thought, I could never bear to write or speak upon what I then considered obcsene matters. Now, I see, that the word obscenity cannot apply as an obnoxious word to any matters that are either natural or useful and that immense mischief arises from the practice of encouraging an ignorance upon topics, which are considered a human secret, and which every one is left to find out by instinct. This is a species of barbarity, or barbarous civilization, that will wear away, as we grow wiser; and topics now apparently forbidden become matters of ordinary conversation and philosophical discussion. We cannot know too much of any thing that concerns us. I recollect well, that, after I had received answers to all my objections, and when I was in that state of mind, that I could hardly say whether I felt refuted or not, I thought to put a clinching question, by saying: "But after all that can be said between ourselves, as friends, who is the man that dares to broach this subject to the public? I confess, that I dare not, bold as I have been in attacking their prejudices upon subjects equally or more obnoxious,' My friend answered, that he dared to do it! aye, and now tells me that he is doing it to good purpose: I am sure, that, if he had said to me in 1822, that in September, 1824, I should venture to hint such a thing to the public in a delicate manner, I should have put some very haughty and indignant questions as to what he thought of my character and disposition! Such a strange thing is prejudice that "spider of the mind!" But simple and innocent as is this matter, much as I have since thought about it, and much as my prejudices have been shaken on the point, I am not prepared to advocate it: I introduce it here, as an illustration of what is thought and said about redundant population.

It is supposed, that the very Cabinet is acquainted with, and favourable to, this anti-conception scheme; from the quality and connections of the persons who are its advocates. But with me, a prior question, is what can be done for existing and thriving conceptions, by removing all those impediments to happiness which arise from bad government and bad habits, bad social and bad self-government. I am not for waiting another generation, to remove that which is wrong in the present. Let us go at it at once and not leave it for our more scanty posterity to do. The present evils arise from present wrongs, and the straight forward and proper No. 16, Vol. X.

course for manly action, appears to me to be, to strike at once at the source of existing evils, and not to calculate upon an absence of individuals to suffer in another generaration. They may be Christians, who advocate this anticonception scheme; but I neither know nor think of hereafter, I live, and think, and act for the present, or immediate future, that will be to me present. I wish happiness to my children, after my body has been on the funeral pile; but I also wish to see them happy.

Mr. Cobbett asserts, that the population of this island has not increased, and his arguments do not want solidity, when 'he refers to so many once populous districts that are now comparatively depopulated. Nor have I ever felt the disposition to make that excuse for bad government, in saying, that the growing misery of the multitude grows from a redundancy or an increase of population. It is an abstruse question, a question to be cavilled upon, but not to be decided; therefore, I prefer to attack known, real, and visible evils, rather than to waste my fire upon a shadow, or a question as abstruse as the one immaculate conception! Conception keeps occuring; there seems to be three sorts-conception real-conception prevented, or anti-conceptionand conception immaculate. This is enough about conception; is it not reader? I begin to think so; though I feel a a sort of Jewish inspiration upon the subject. The Christians never were inspired, save he who wrote the Apocalypse; and Judge Bailey says, that that was conceived (conception again!) in a dream. Perhaps, written in a dream! The Christian Judge says, that to be in the spirit, is to be in a trance or vision, which is a dream! Here I have conceived as much as ever the Marchioness of Newcastle did in one night. That first English female Materialist! She made a man servant sleep in the same room with her, not in the same bed, and when a new thought occurred, she would say get up, John, and strike a light, I conceive, or have conceived. So, John, had to get a light, and hold it whilst she noted down her conceptions, and some of them were really and wonderfully immaculate! Then John had to put out the light and lay down, until his lady conceived again! It is this conception that makes man a riddle to himself-and such a riddle as no one has yet solved. He knows every thing but himself!

The remedy for this supposed redundant population, I take to be, to educate them well, and to give them good government as a consequence. With this I'll warrant, that this

Island will support ten times the number of its present inhabitants, with all the wholesome necessaries of life-with all that can make life happy. Knock away the corrupt pillars of church and state-of religion established by law, and of law established by religion-get rid of a profuse monarchy, of a vile priesthood, and of a pensioned aristocracy as a legislature, and you will find no redundant population. You will find no superabundance and a famine existing at the same time, and the former the declared, the astonishing, though here well explained, cause of the latter. Strike at the root of the evil, and not at the evil which grows from the root, and still grows if smitten. Be wise! Be Atheists! Be honest!

CONTINUATION OF AN ANALYSIS OF DUPUIS.

TO RICHARD CARLILE, DORCHESTER GAOL. FELLOW CITIZEN, Monday, August 3, 1824. OUR author now proceedeth to explain astronomically a famous monument of the Mithriac Religion. The epoch to which this monument referreth must be very remote, as we find the vernal and autumnal Equinoxes indicated by two Signs of the Zodiac which ceased to correspond with them more than 2400 years before the reign of Augustus. When the Bull and the Scorpion were superseded by the Ram (or Lamb) and the Balance, it was natural that a parallel change should take place with regard to the objects of Solar worship. The Hindus, whose religion is far more ancient than ours, have, to the present day, no greater consolation, at the last moment of their existence, that to lay hold of the tail of a cow, and to have themselves religiously sprinkled with its dung and urine. But when, among us, the believer in a more modern superstition prepareth for a future life, the body and blood of the Lamb is brought to him. In such ancient monuments as that which Dupuis describeth the blood of the Bull runneth down upon the ground; and according to Casali, the blood of the Lamb, which reclineth at the foot of the cross, used to be represented as received in chalice.

It is asserted by Boulanger, as well as by Dupuis, that Mithra (like Christ) was born at the winter Solstice. Mithra

was born out of a rock; and Christ, after being born in a stable, was, according to St. Justinus, sheltered in a grotto. Who are the persons that come to pay homage to the infant Jesus? The Magi, who were no doubt priests of Zoroaster and adorers of Mithra. What do they offer him? Gold, myrrh, and frankincense, all which things, according to Kircher, are consecrated to the Sun. It is Astrology, which informeth the Magi that the expected God is born. They declare that they saw his star in the East. This is the very point of the horoscope; when indeed they must have seen the Celestial Virgin suckling her child.

Now one of the names of Virgo is Ceres; and Ceres, according to Hesychius, calleth herself a "holy Virgin," though we know that Ceres was the mother of the youthful Bacchus of the mysteries. In the Persian Sphere described by Scaliger, we read, in the first decan of Virgo (a decan affected to the Sun)" Here is a beautiful Virgin, with flowing hair, carrying two ears of corn in her hand. She is seated on a throne, and is bringing up a little child whom she suckleth and feedeth." Again, in an Arabic MS. preserved in the French National Library, Virgo is represented with a child at her side, very much in the same manner, as the Mother of God is represented in Roman Catholic Temples. The Arabian Astronomer Abulmâsher hath given us the very name of this child. "In the first decan of the Sign Virgo (according to the most ancient traditions of the Persians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and of Hermas and Esculapius) there is a damsel, whose Persian name is "Seclenidos de Darzama" which in Arabic is translated "Adrenedefa" that is a virgin; a chaste damsel, I say, an immaculate virgin, of good heighth and the handsome countenance, in a modest dress, with long hair, holding two Ears of Corn in her hand, sitting on a throne, nourishing, and giving suck, in a place called "Hebræa," to a Boy, called by some nations "Jesus" (by which they mean EZA*) and whom in Greek we call "Christ." This passage is cited by Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and a variety of other authors; and I cannot help thinking, that, notwithstanding Abulmâsher died so late as A. D. 805, or according to others A. D. 885, yet still this testimony, said to be founded " on most ancient traditions,' is absolutely unanswerable. It is, I suppose, in allusion to this passage, that Albertus Magnus saith: "We know that our Lord Jesus Christ was born at the rising of the Virgin ;"

* Probably the same as "Issa."