ligion among the Senecas at the Buffalo reservation, though he is not as yet a licensed preacher of the gospel. He has nearly completed printing a tract of 100 pages in Seneca and English, comprising select portions of scripture. Mr. James Young teaches a school one mile from Mr. Hyde's, which in the winter is well attended. There is a general disposition among the Christian party, and a goodly number among the pagans also, to have schools multiplied in their villages, and arrangements have been made to this end; so that the next winter the prospect is, that extensive advantages for teaching the rising generation will be offered to these aboriginals in all their principal settlements. The Report adds, It will be perceived, that, at no period, has the Society been presented with greater encourage. ment to attend to the instruction of the Natives, than at the present. The single fact, stated by our worthy missionary and superintendant, That about 150 of them have been taught in our schools the past year, with evident improvement, is enough to excite a holy zeal, and to justify more vigorous efforts, in behalf of these unhappy people.

Mission to the Sandwich Islands.No event in the missionary world has occurred more interesting or more worthy of notice than this mission. The accounts recently received have been so widely circulated in various publications, even the newspapers, that we suppose our readers are already sufficiently acquainted with them. We have therefore made no room for them, and forbear all remark until the progress as well as the promise of the enterprize may be known.

Pauperism in New-York. We have already made a few extracts from the Report of the society for the prevention of pauperism in this city, on the subject of intemperance. It was our design to give an abstract of the remainder of the report; but we confine ourselves to one head, which treats of a subject that at this moment has excited a painful interest in a part of our state, and that is the subject of

"Pardons.The frequent granting of pardons, by the executive of the state, contributes to the repetition of crime, and the extension of pauperism. Uncertainty in the execution of the laws, weakens their preventive influence in restraining offences. If it be conceded, that idleness and crime produce pauperism, it must also be conceded, that whatever tends to diminish the efficacy of safeguards to prevent them, goes to favour their existence. That class of persons who contemn all habits of industry-who have lost all sense of moral obligation, and who sustain themselves by committing depredations on the rights of New Series-vol. III.

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others, will feel but little dread of criminal prosecutions, if they entertain a well-founded hope of pardon, after trial and conviction. This anticipation has a tendency to render the dissolute and abandoned, a public charge in the penitentiary, bridewell, or the state prison, by lessening their respect for industry, virtue and the laws, and leading them to the fresh commission of crimes and misdemeanors. Many of the paupers of this city, and hundreds who are in the way to become such, have been the frequent tenants of our different prisons, and the unworthy objects of executive clemency.

During the administration of the late chief magistrate of the state, and also during the existence of the present state administration, pardons have been numerous. And it is matter of regret, that gentlemen highly respectable in the profession of the law, often permit themselves to be retained as advocates to further the application of convicts, for the exercise of the pardoning power. Nor is this all-jurors, after having convicted offenders under the solemnities of an oath, and in the faithful discharge of their duty, sometimes immediately turn round and sign a petition to pardon the felon whom they have condemned -thus abrogating their own solemn acts, and setting the laws at defiance. This practice is not unfrequent, and deserves severe reprehension.

The standing excuse for the practice of pardoning, has long been, that there is not room in the state prison and penitentiary, to hold all the convicts consigned to those places. This is unquestionably true-but does it not argue great neglect in our public authorities, that for want of proper buildings, the end of criminal jurisprudence should be defeated, and vice and pauperism increased? Far better would it be, to abolish those laws which are found in our statute-book, for the punishment of offences, if trials and convictions are thus to be made a mere mockery of justice, because of some glaring incapacity to inflict the penalty incurred by their violation.

Let prisons be so modified, as to admit of solitary punishment; the criminal code so altered, as to prohibit the association of convicts, and their term of confinement made short, but certain. This would give terror to the idea of punishment in prisons; it would reduce the number convicted, destroy the present excuse for pardoning, and do away all the evils of that system."

[Does not this statement suggest a profitable hint in regard to the discipline of our own penitentiary? May it not be a question, whether too frequent pardons have not done something to injure the efficacy of the institution? We have heard it said upon good authority, that many persons would have earnestly

exerted themselves to procure a commutation of punishment for the unhappy young Clarke, could they have been sure that his imprisonment would be for life; but as experience had taught them that a release from perpetual confinement is obtained without very great difficulty, they preferred that the letter of the law should take its course. Should it not be seriously considered whether the most rigid and unyielding administration is not vitally essential to any success in the penitentiary system? Can we hope to effect the prevention of crimes by confinement and labour, except it be absolutely certain that the punishment will be as severe and as long as is threatened?]

Pauperism in Boston.-The elaborate report of a Committee upon the subject of pauperism, has lately been acted upon and accepted by the Town of Boston. A plan for employing the poor in agriculture was recommended and adopted.

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"It appears, by a report, made by a Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, at their last session, that the experience, both of England and of Massachusetts, concur in establishing the fact that of all modes of maintaining the poor, the most economical, is that of work houses, or houses of industry; in which work is provided for every degree and species of ability in the pauper; and also, that of all modes of employing the labour of the poor, the best, the most healthy and the most certainly profitable is that of agriculture; whereby the poor are enabled always to raise, at least, their own provisions." "

In proof of this opinion the committee make a statement respecting the establishments of this kind in Salem and Marblehead. "The Overseers of the Marblehead Alms House stated, that the expense of the poor of Marblehead, 100 in number, from March 1820, to March 1821, within the Alms House, was only thirteen hundred, and seventy-five dollars, forty seven cents; that, every thing considered, the annual expense, within the Alms House did not exceed nine, or ten dollars per head, per year; without allowing credit for one thousand days labour done upon the highways, by that portion of the able bodied tenants of the Alms House, who were capable of this species of labour. All the highway work of Marblehead being done by the poor of their Alms House.

By the printed report of the Overseers of Salem, dated 1st March, 1821, it appears, that since the erection of their Alms House, in 1815, the expenses of the town of Salem, for the support of their poor, have been reduced from $12,779 21 cents, which it was in 1814, to $4,296 40 cents, which it was in the year, ending the 1st of March last. The poor, supported out of the Alms House, being included in both estimates.

If from this amount be deducted $1,090 87 cents, the estimated value of supplies, furnished poor persons, not inhabitants of the Alms House, the whole net expense of the Salem Alms House, for the last year was only three thousand, two hundred and five dollars, fifty three cents. The average number of poor being about three hundred and twenty, supported within the Alms House during the year, makes the arithmetical result, of the whole expense, averaged upon the tenants about $10 per head per annum! The same as that of Marblehead."

We anticipate great benefit to the town, and very great improvement in the moral condition of the poor, especially do we hope something for the reformation of that large class, so finely noticed in the report," the poor by reason of vice," the victims of "indolence, intemperance and sensuality," from the adoption of this admirable plan. We once prepared for our journal an article strongly recommending such an experiment; and we have no doubt that if managed with vigour and prudence, it may do more than any thing else to diminish the evils and arrest the progress of pauperism.

SLAVE TRADE.-Extract from the Yearly Report of the Society of Friends, in Great Britain, made last November.From France vessels "fit out regularly at Havre, Bordeaux, and other ports. Their chains and handcuffs are put on board in boxes, and entered as if they were other articles. The case of the Rodeur is very striking she sailed from in the early part of last year [1819] for the river Calabar. Having taken in a cargo of slaves, she proceeded with them to Guadaloupe: on the pas sage, the poor negroes were seized with a violent ophthalmia, (a disease of the eyes) which soon afterwards communicated itself to the crew. The disorder had been increased from the captain's finding himself under the necessity of keeping his captives constantly below, for they were so afflicted by their captivity, that when brought on deck, they took every opportunity of throwing themselves overboard. To deter them, some were hanged, and others shot; but this having no effect, they were obliged to be constantly confined between decks. In process of time, under these cruel circumstances, the ophthalmia spread, and affected every individual on board both of the officers, and crew, except one man, who alone was left capable of steering the ship.

It is remarkable, that while the ship Rodeur was on her pas sage, she passed a Spanish slave ship, called the St. Leon, which had left the coast of Africa some little time before her. It appeared, that the crew of this latter vessel had also caught the ophthalmia from their own negroes, and that the complaint

to steer.

had spread until not even one man of the whole crew could see In this dreadful state, the crew of the Spanish vessel implored assistance of the crew of the Rodeur, whose voices they heard as the ships approached each other; but the latter had none to lend, so that the St. Leon passed on just where the wind carried her. This vessel has never been heard of since. It is presumed, that both the oppressors and the oppressed perished on the ocean, either by famine, or by finding a watery grave. When the Rodeur arrived at Guadaloupe, thirty-nine negroes who were totally blind were thrown into the sea as being quite useless; those who had lost only one eye, were sold at a very low price. The crew of the Rodeur consisted of twenty-two men, of whom twelve were completely blind; five of the remaining ten were recovered, and the other five euch of them lost an eye."

Boston Fuel Savings Institution.-The plan of savings banks, which has gone into so wide and happy operation both in England and in this country, has suggested a society on somewhat similar plan for providing fuel for the poor by laying by their summer earnings. We think it promises to be of great utility; and that we may at once express our sense of its merit, and extend as far as possible the knowledge of it, we copy the following from the publication of the society.

"The design of this institution is to furnish a deserving portion of our community with the means of purchasing their own fuel, and afford an opportunity to those who are desirous of saving their money in summer, (when the days are long and the expenses of living are light) to be laid out in the necessary article of wood, against a hard winter.

Deposits of money will be received in as small sums as twentyfive cents, (the aggregate of which, at the credit of any one person shall never exceed the sum of twenty five dollars in any one year,) and certificates, for the amount paid in, will be delivered to the depositors. A record of the names of every purchaser will be kept to guard against the loss or transfer of the certificates. If the person dies who has money in the institution, the wood will be delivered to the widow or children, or the money will be paid over to the legal representative of such holder.

The wood will be purchased in summer, piled on the wharf, and delivered during the winter as it may be called for. Those whose convenience suits them, may receive all their wood at once, while those who rent but one room will take their two or four feet.

Those who take the wood from the wharf themselves will of course save the expense of carting.