ment to him to supply goods freely, his agents suffered him to draw as freely upon them. Accepting largely, when they had so many uncertain customers to look to for payment, created perpetual individual embarrassment, and in times of universal commercial difficulties, materially aggravated them. The commission-houses that now remain, for the most part, do business upon a very different footing from those of 1810, and merchants are in the habit of selecting their goods for exportation, particularly those in the West Indian and American trades, at the manufactories themselves.

We have, in conclusion, to notice the state of the exchanges; and upon that intricate subject we would observe, that, from the most extensive enquiries, we do not meet with any circumstances, with regard to them, that at all militate against our general reasoning as to the firmness of the Money Market. The operations in corn are, we believe, in no wise likely to affect them. There are other causes that are creating a trifling demand for the precious metals; but we have every reason to believe that those causes will not go to any extent to cripple the resources of the country. We could enter into a variety of details in support of this assertion if it were necessary.

TRAPS FOR HUMAN BEINGS.*

THE late accident in Hertfordshire has excited a great deal of public attention; and, while we think it the duty of every public journalist to notice, with reprobation, the existence of such engines, furnished with mechanical contrivances to catch human beings, as occasioned it, we are the more induced to give a few pages to the subject, from the circumstance of having received some information on it from peculiar sources of authenticity.

We shall first recapitulate the heads of the occurrence, with some details that will probably be new to most of our readers. On Sunday, the 9th of November, Mr. Thomas Kinder, a farmer, in a very large way of business at Sandridge, near St. Alban's, after he had been to church, took a walk over his farm; and, on his way home, passed across a wood belonging to Lord Spencer, but of which another Mr. Thomas Kinder, a cousin of the first-named, a brewer at St. Alban's, and a magistrate of the county of Hertford, has the care-having the deputation of the manor, or, if not strictly that, at all events the management of the game. Mr. Kinder, (of Sandridge,) in walking through this wood, followed a grass-road, about twenty yards wide, used by the carts which, when the woods are cut, are employed to carry away the cuttings. As he was passing along, of a sudden the earth seemed to give way under him, and, falling over, he pitched headlong downwards, and found himself, to his amazement, in a cavern several feet under

We use this expression, inasmuch as the term man-traps has been appropriated to one particular species of engine, quite different from that of which we are about to speak.

ground. It is necessary that we should describe how this trap is formed, for we think that on its formation very much depends the liability to punishment of the person who caused such things to be set. The words of the Act declare that every person setting, or causing to be set," any spring-gun, man-trap, or other engine, calculated to destroy human life, or inflict grievous bodily harm," shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. Now, it might fairly be argued, that, whatever might be the intention of the Legislature, a mere pit-fall could scarcely be considered an engine; but this one is formed with a degree of mechanical ingenuity and contrivance, which stamps it as an engine beyond all doubt or question. Even with the ground, and covered with grass and leaves, so as to resemble the rest of the walk, are two flaps, each turning upon a swivel near the outer end, while the two extremities meet, totally without support from below. Beneath this is a cavern, nearly circular, of about twelve feet deep, and six in diameter, to receive anything which, by treading upon these treacherous boards, may fall into the receptacle below. The footing failing the passenger on the first flap, he is, as we have been informed, precipitated upon the second, which, of course failing also, lets the unhappy pedestrian through into the pit. We are told that so slight a weight will tilt up these covers, that pheasants often fall in, to say nothing of hares and rabbits; and all that is found there is, it is said, the keeper's perquisite. No wonder, then, that the receptacles should be kept up, though it be at the risk of the lives of his Majesty's lieges.

Mr. Kinder was exceedingly confused by his fall. The first idea that crossed his mind was a very natural one, namely, that those pits were not filled up, as he had believed them to be in consequence of former accidents. On recovering himself, which he did rapidly, he examined himself to see if he had any bones broken: but no, all was sound. He then began to think (it was about half-past three on a November afternoon) that he should pass the night there-and he reflected with pain upon the extreme anxiety of his family. There he was -boxed up like a chicken in an egg, and with about the same chance of escape. The interior of this den was boarded more than three parts round, to the height of about six feet, to prevent, as he supposed, the prisoners from climbing up the side to get out. Some portion of this wainscoting was going to decay, and Mr. Kinder contrived to get footing at its extremity, sufficiently high to raise him up to reach the top with his stick, which he had kept hold of as he fell. By these means he managed to raise the flaps, and thus got a chance that his voice might be heard.

It appears that Mr. Kinder is particularly punctual in his habits; and, upon his not returning at his dinner-hour, his family became exceedingly alarmed on his account. After waiting some time, his son set out in search of him. The young man, at last, met a shepherd who had seen Mr. Kinder go by some time before-and while they were talking together, the son thought he heard a feeble shout. "No," said the shepherd, "I hear nothing."-"There again!" exclaimed young Mr. Kinder" I am certain I hear a voice." At this moment a young lad, whose business it is to watch that no harm is done to the woods, me up too. "Don't you hear a voice?" exclaimed young Mr. Kinder. I do!" said the lad," and now I know where your father is.

He's in the trap!"-" The trap!"—"Yes, I set it this morning." It appears that the trap is, at times, left open-and that closing down the two wings of the door is called setting the trap. They went accordingly to the spot-and sure enough there they found Mr. Kinder

secure.

That this gentleman was not hurt is a very extraordinary fact-for he is a large, full-bodied man, and certainly one would think that a fall of twelve feet would be no trifle to a person of his description of build. But, with the exception of the confinement and the mental annoyance, he was in no degree injured. He never, as we understand, had any serious apprehension-for he concluded that the search his family would make for him would undoubtedly discover him before any serious effects from lack of food could arise. But he thought it highly probable that he might pass the night there-and he was by no means assured of what company he might have in the course of it. A hare or a pheasant would not have much signified-but a fox would have been a nuisance--and, for there were many pigs feeding in the wood, a boar might even be dangerous. Luckily, however, he had the full and undisputed possession of the pit, during the time he was in it.

It appears that in this very pit, in the month of December, 1826, a poor girl passed three-and-twenty hours. The weather was wet, and— probably from the water oozing through the bank-there was water in the pit up to her ancles. "What did you do?" our informant asked of this poor creature. "I cried the whole time," was her answer. And we perfectly believe it. The fair sex, certainly, have the gift of tears to a very extraordinary extent. But in this wretched girl's case it was quite natural, that terror, and cold (the worst cold, toowet cold) and hunger, might so prey upon her as literally to keep her in tears the whole time. Seriously, it must have been very dreadful. Darkness and solitude in such a place, in themselves, would be sufficient to agitate the mind of an uneducated girl to the severest pitch of distress; and then the prospect of a death from hunger! Horrible!And these things are done for the sake of battue-shooting!

Let us suppose an instance-and the supposition is by no means violent of a person falling into one of these pits, and being literally starved to death there! It is scarcely possible for the human mind to conceive a case in which greater agony, both bodily and mental, would be endured. The hope, at first almost amounting to certainty, of speedy relief-the gradual decay of that hope-the first flashes of pain, when hunger begins to amount to an actual evil-and the awful pang of the thought which it must bring with it, that it is possible that no relief may come, and that the dreadful death of starvation may in reality supervene! Then, the mind, sinking by degrees into the anguish of despair, and the body undergoing at the same time all the gradations of torture, which lead, after a long course of agony, to inanition! Let us think of these things, and then ask, whether it is in our own country, and by our own countrymen, that the infliction of these horrors is very narrowly risked, for the sake of a day's shooting?

And in effect, too, these instruments of torture are wholly unavailing as regards their object. There never has been an instance of a poacher

being caught in one of them. And the reason of this is quite obvious. It is their business to find out these things. They require some time, and considerable mechanical skill, to make;-the poacher sees the process, or one of his friends does, and tells him; or the carpenter's boy talks of it at the public-house, and its situation becomes known and remembered by those whose interests are affected by it. One poacher tells it to a dozen, and soon there is no poacher in the country who does not know the situation of the pit-falls as well as the keepers themselves.

The innocent and well-meaning never trouble their heads about such matters,--and they are caught. They are taking an evening walk, or they are making a short cut homeward, and they go through the wood. It may be said, that they have no legal right there, and that there is no public footpath in the wood, in its strictly legal sense. But there is a way, in point of fact-these wide green alleys through pheasant-woods are among the most agreeable of country walks; and, as they are wide and in grass, no damage is done to any human being by persons passing along them, and, in point of fact, people frequently do pass along them in all parts of the country. One poor boy, we hear, was caught, when he was nutting. He certainly had no legal right to pull the hazel-nuts off other people's trees; but a fall of twelve feet at the hazard of neck or limb, and the chance of being starved to death afterwards, are rather severe modes, we think, of uprooting the old English custom of the young people going nutting in the autumn. Surely, these are not very aggravated "trespassers"-trespassers, in the strict construction of law, though they be.

But this matters not in the very smallest degree as to the liability of the setter of these traps to a punishment. The Act forestals this excuse, that the sufferer is a trespasser; and says, that if any person set any engine, of the description we have already given, "with the intent that the same, or whereby the same, may destroy or inflict grievous bodily harm upon a trespasser or other person,' then the person so setting such engine shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. Now, we confess, we very much wish that this law were put into force in the present case. The person alleged to have been the virtual setter of these traps is a magistrate of the county of Hertford ;—and here, for eighteen months, he has, in the teeth of the Act of Parliament, which was passed in May 1827, been endangering the lives and limbs of the public in a manner which seems to us as cruel as it is illegal. The instrument ordinarily called a man-trap is not half so bad as this-it wounds and lacerates the leg, and keeps the person tight whom it catches. But it does not leave him in the bowels of the earth, there to be unheard and forgotten, the surface having closed as calmly over him after his fall as the wave does over a diver. We have seen it stated that, since the accident the other day to Mr. Kinder, the depth of the pit has been diminished from twelve feet to nine. Pooh unless it be diminished the whole twelve, the setter of the trap should be prosecuted for the misdemeanour. Nay, we think he ought to be prosecuted whether or not, for the sake of public example. No fewer than six people, of whom two are women, have fallen into pits of this kind, in that immediate neighbourhood, within

the last two or three years; and one of the men, a labouring man, has, as we are given to understand, lost the use of one hand from the effects of the fall.

Lord Spencer is the proprietor of the estate upon which this accident has happened. Now, we feel confident that his lordship is not at all the man who would countenance such doings as these: we have, in our own minds, no sort of doubt that he never heard of the existence of these pits till the account of Mr. Kinder's accident was published in the newspapers. Of course Lord Spencer will take care that they shall all be filled up forthwith; and we think it would be a proper, as well as a popular measure, if he were to put the deputation of this manor, where he does not reside, into more moderate hands. Nay, we should not be vehemently oppressed with sorrow, if his lordship were himself to institute proceedings against his deputy under Lord Suffield's Act. It would be a very decided mode of shewing his abhorrence of the practice of setting these murderous engines, and it would be the more acceptable, as we fear it is not Mr. Kinder's intention to prosecute. Into family and local reasons and feelings we have no sort of wish to enquire; but we shall really be sorry if the person who could lay such traps should escape, merely because it chances to be his cousin who is the first person affected by them who has wealth sufficient to carry through a prosecution for misdemeanour.

We hope, at all events, to hear of Lord Spencer taking some step in the matter ere long, and we shall not fail to record it when it comes to

our ears.

MONTI.

In the course of one year Italy has lost her two best writers, Foscolo and Monti. The latter died at Milan in October last, at an advanced age. The character, as well as the lives, of these two men of genius, appear strongly contrasted.

Foscolo, endowed with more original powers, rich in imagination and feeling, a good scholar, and an eloquent and impressive writer, had all these qualities marred by the waywardness of his temper and the obliquity of his judgment. Intolerant in literature as well as in politics, he quarrelled with friends and foes; he could not rest under any system; his excessive susceptibility, originally a boon of nature, became his bane; even his voluntary exile to a country of peace and freedom, where he found patronage and friends, did not render him more tractable. He seemed to have wearied out fortune; his constitution and his affairs became impaired, and he died at an early period, and in comparative neglect.

Monti, on the contrary, more prudential, more worldly, checked the natural intemperance of his feelings; steered his bark with adroitness, through the waves of contending factions; kept on good terms with the successive rulers of his country; rose to the pinnacle of Italian literary fame; became comfortably settled in life; enjoyed honours and emoluments, and, having lived to a good old age, died quietly