be owing to any improvement in the article itself. Again, a vender of beer who manufactures the article for himself, at the same time that he can multiply his customers, by being able to sell cheaper than his competitors, who are not brewers, will also have it in his power to reap a great deal more profit upon a given quantity; for he will be able to add the profit which the brewer now has, to the profit of the retailer. His comparatively large returns will give him the power of making a more expensive and, consequently, a better article for consumption, and thus a very large proportion of the community may be turned into brewers for their friends and neighbours, to the great pecuniary aggrandizement of one party, and the great advantage, in point of comfort and health, of all.

But what is the capital required, and what are the expences likely to be incurred by the retailer of beer under the new act, who is resolved also to be his own brewer? Very little indeed ;-a trifle scarcely worth naming; and, upon the supposition of any thing like good custom, the expence of a double license is nothing whatever. We have said that two guineas are the price of a license, authorising the retail of beer. A retailer with such a license, can sell to any amount. If he sell the quantity of 2000 barrels in the year, the profit from that will be enough to afford a competency to any man, in a situation to be benefited by taking to the trade. Then what is the price of the license, allowing a man to brew 2000 barrels of strong beer for sale? Only three pounds; so that for the trifle of five pounds and a couple of shillings, a person may brew and sell 2000 barrels, or 72000 gallons of beer in a twelvemonth. One halfpenny a quart profit on such a trade would yield a free income of 6007. a year.

A great deal of nonsense is circulated about the mystery of beer making. A few weeks' experience will make any man a good brewer. The best beer we ever tasted was manufactured by a man who never read a book through in the whole course of his life, and in truth we may say, that the manufacture of beer is so wholly a process of nature, as to be, in a great measure, beyond the influence of art. At all events, the receipt for making a good, wholesome, delicious beverage from malt, is universally known, or may be easily universally communicated; and such refinements as the process is suceptible of, will be sure to strike the brewer in the progress of his experience.

We are well aware, that to the actual readers of the Monthly Review, a display of the facilities for extending the consumption of Beer is entirely out of place. But those whom we address are persons of influence in their sphere:-they are, no doubt, satisfied before this, of the enormous calamities of spirit consumption amongst the population where they reside, and they will be proportionably active in endeavouring to excite a preference in the popular appetite, for a beverage more innocent and wholesome than that to which the lower orders unfortunately have been latterly

addicted. If only the wealthy and the influential would combine in a well concerted effort, to carry into practical application the principle of good and salutary innovation which the Beer Act has suggested, they would, by thus acting up to the obligations which their condition imposes on them, be really performing more than the tasks which the spirit of benevolence would itself suggest. In the minds of the common people, there exists an unfortunate tendency to distrust those acts of the legislature, which have peculiar reference to their condition. For a long time the less intelligent part of the people imagined that the laws relating to Friendly Societies, which were really meant in the kindest sense by parliament, were intended as a trap, by which the spare pence of their hard earnings were to be embezzled or confiscated for purposes in which they had no interest. The existence of a spirit giving rise to such unjustifiable apprehensions on the part of the people, explains its own source: and it is not too much to expect of those who have it in their power to circulate amongst the mass of the community more just and becoming notions of the classes that are above them, that they will, on an occasion in the right employment of which the state is so much concerned, use their best endeavours in the performance of a duty so sanctioned and recommended. It is not that under the system which has so long prevailed, we have had a scarcity of good beer; it is not that this beer has been too high priced to enable the workman to enjoy it in the quantity that may be necessary for him, under the exhaustion of his daily toils. But we are to consider that in raising the price of beer, and therefore in offering a bounty for its adulteration, we throw the consumer into other channels of indulgence, and force him into the belief, that a small quantity of gin for fourpence, is better than a large quantity of beer of doubtful ingredients, for fivepence. Perhaps every body is not aware, that by laws the most impolitic, by regulations affecting the malt trade so stupid, so bereft of any thing like a rational motive, as to seem as if they were drawn by lottery from a bag into which a parcel of flighty children had thrown the written suggestions of their weak and ignorant fancies-by those laws, the consumption of beer and consequently of malt was kept stationary for many years. Every other sort of commodity belonging to the important categories of eating and drinking, exhibited a reasonable relation, as to the amount of their consumption, to the progress of population, except this prime wholesome necessaryBeer; and upon that, as a strong hold of human health, as a guarantee of long life, or, rather of the temperance that leads to it; on that, the fiend of malicious legislation laid his hand as on a principal adversary, and endeavoured, not without success, to circumscribe its influence. But whilst the drinking of beer was going out of vogue, the drinking of gin was coming into fashion; and it is literally true, that the quantity of the latter liquid drunk in this country every year, for the last few, would form a lake as large as

that of Geneva, and quite sufficient to float some of the largest men of war that were ever launched from the British shore! Twenty four millions of gallons of spirits are the average consumption of the enlightened people of Britain! Let us not blame the propensity which has led to such an excessive enjoyment, if it indeed be one. Bad laws, regulations, ludicrous in their principle, most calamitous in their consequences, have, by the most natural of all operations, brought about this result. Never was the political dogma more true, which says that the condition of a people indicates the character of the government, than in reference to the fact we have been considering.

It is the business, the duty, rather, of every enlightened man in the state to make the most of the acts of repentance by which a compunctious legislature is disposed to repair the faults of its former ignorance and neglect. The time is favourable. Throughout the country there is a most auspicious promise of amelioration. The symptoms of provident and careful anticipation given but of late by bodies of the people, are sure signs of the existence of a condition of mind amongst them, from which a great deal in the way of national improvement may be expected. The number of Friendly Societies and the amount of their united contributions, claim from us the admiration which is due to those who in the contemplation of a time of helpless infirmity for themselves or for their dependent families, sacrifice present comforts and plenty, to lay up a store against the casualties of time and fortune. Then how striking is the expedition with which the grand institution of Temperance Societies, commenced and matured amongst the free and virtuous minds of republican America, has been imitated in this country. Most happy is it that the formation of these clubs expressly for the purpose of limiting, if not "wholly eradicating" the vice of drunkenness in England, is the result of the spontaneous concert, in a great measure, of the people themselves. In the north of Ireland the virtuous crusade against intoxicating liquors, begun on the other side of the Atlantic, has been prosecuted with the most praiseworthy zeal and determination; and delightful it is to reflect that a sympathetic spirit has manifested itself in England, and no where more cordially than in the thickest of our manufacturing towns-Manchester, Leeds, &c., &c., and several places in Scotland containing a large proportion of operatives. Let us not forget also another emanation of the same glorious and independent spirit. We do not mean the Co-operative Association, which, ultimately, we are convinced, will effect a vast deal of good for the mechanical population. But we refer to that very new and original, but not the less to be estimated system of self supporting dispensaries, which, from all we know of its operation will, sooner or later, supersede the present very imperfect practice of eleemosynary medical aid, and will provide for the humble operative a comfortable resort in the season of illness, such as will not remind

him of his dependent condition, or make him remember that for the balm that is poured into his wounds, and the consolation that is administered to his spirit, he is a debtor to the charity of strangers.

The coincidence of all these elements of improvement, is itself a striking circumstance, and if it fail to have its due impression on the noble and educated persons who have thousands at their command, ready to be applied in the furtherance of the plans to which their generous souls have given birth, we can only acknowledge that we have been premature in our calculations of the practical achievements of philanthropy, and our consolation is in the reflection that we have been merely too soon in fixing the date of some great and permanent amelioration of our kind.

ART. III. Substance of a Charge delivered to the Grand Jury, at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, and General Gaol Delivery, for the Colony of Sierra Leone, held at Freetown, on Wednesday, 2nd June, 1830, and subsequent days. By John William Jeffcott, Esq., his Majesty's Chief Justice and Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court, &c. Published at the request of the Lieutenant-Governor and Council.pp. 20. Freetown: printed by M. Tilley. 1830.

A PAMPHLET printed in the capital of Sierra Leone is in itself a literary curiosity that deserves to be recorded in England; and when we contemplate such a production from such a place, and remember that it was only in our last number that we reviewed another work in the English language printed at Philadelphia, we are reminded of the gigantic empire, which not so much the political as the moral influence of our country maintains throughout the universe. But the publication before us demands our attention for the importance of its contents, as giving us an insight into the condition of a Colony, which, for very unfortunate reasons, has become an object of painful interest to Englishmen, and especially as defining the extent to which this colony has been made useful or otherwise, in checking the progress of the slave trade--the express purpose of its maintenance. The charge, of which the substance is before us, was the first which was uttered by the new Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, a gentleman who seems to unite, in very happy combination, the feelings of a benevolent mind, with the moderation and firmness that are such indispensable ingredients in the judicial character. It was to be expected that under his circumstances he would have extended his observations beyond the mere matters of the assize; and accordingly we find him commencing with a bold and rapid view of the sources of disorder which unfortunately existed in too great numbers in the colony. He says—

'You cannot, however, Gentlemen, be ignorant that I have come amongst you under peculiar circumstances-circumstances, such as none

of my predecessors have had to contend with-circumstances, unprecedented in this Colony, and such as, I confidently hope and trust, may never occur again.

You cannot be ignorant that the circumstances to which I allude, have arisen out of the distracted state of the Colony previous to my arrival ; and, while I have every disposition to divest myself of any thing approaching to asperity while speaking of this unfortunate period, I feel that I should be deserting my duty, if I did not from this Bench, and upon this occasion, address the inhabitants of this Colony with reference to what has occurred, in the language of earnest, yet friendly remonstrance: I say the inhabitants of this Colony, because I hope that through you, Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, what I say may go forth to the community at large, and be productive of that which must be the anxious wish of every man who has their real welfare at heart-the prevention of similar occurrences in future.

'I could not have been unaware, upon leaving England, that the affairs of this Colony had been plunged into a state of anarchy and confusion which, if longer persisted in, would require the strong hand of legal authority to coerce and control. I could not have been unaware, that proceedings had taken place which were calculated, if persisted in, to overthrow all the established landmarks of civilized society, and legitimate government.

'I was made aware of this state of things but a very short time before I left England; and although, from my habits and disposition, I could willingly have chosen a more congenial office than one which must necessarily bring me into the midst of a divided community, still, having accepted of the appointment which His Majesty had been graciously pleased to bestow upon me, I came here prepared to do my duty, fairly and impartially, without favour or affection, to the best of my ability, and equally prepared to meet any consequences which might result from the resolute discharges of that duty. I say, I came prepared to meet any such consequences; because I felt that I came armed with that authority to which every English subject bows, conscious that in his implicit obedience to its decrees, he possesses the best security for his own rights,-I mean the authority of the Law.

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Armed with that authority I arrived here, accompanying our new Governor, with whose character, from his long residence upon the Western Coast of Africa, you must, most of you, be yourselves well acquainted, and upon which it is not therefore necessary, nor would it indeed be decorous in me to dwell, further than to say, that from what I both witnessed and heard of his mild, yet efficient administration of the Settlement of the Gambia, I had every hope, in accompanying him here, that we should be enabled, by our united efforts, to restore peace and unanimity to this distracted and divided Colony. In this hope, I trust we shall not be disappointed; but, if we should unfortunately be so, we shall at least have the consolation of reflecting, that, in the first instance, we tried the mildest mode of securing obedience to the laws, and that if strong measures should at length be deemed necessary, they will, as far as the Government is concerned, be the offspring of necessity, not choice, and be as defensible as they will be unavoidable.

Whether the disputes to which I have alluded, have originated with