parts of the United States, agriculture and navigation are suspended during several months of the year by frost; in the cotton growing country, on the contrary, the demand for labour is greatest in the winter, as the cotton has then to be gathered and shipped, and four times as many hands are required on a plantation during the harvest as in the summer. In years when the crop is abundant, much of it is always lost for want of a sufficient supply of labour at the harvest. It seems natural, then, to suppose that, when communication has become sufficiently rapid and cheap, the field labourers of the north, who have nothing to do in their own country during winter, will migrate to the south, where labour at that season is in great demand. We do not say that this cause, alone, will suffice to extinguish slavery; but whatever diminishes the necessity for employing slave labour must tend to its abolition.

There is no doubt that the white race is gaining on the negro. This appears to be in great part the result of immigration from Europe, which causes the numbers of the whites to increase the most rapidly. We have spoken of the substitution of free for slave labour, which is now going on in Maryland and Virginia; and the same is taking place at New Orleans, where the labour of Irishmen has been very extensively sub stituted for that of slaves, in driving waggons-a great trade there-and other city employments. If it is eventually found that the European race can be permanently acclimatized on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, we think it certain that their labour will eventually undersell and supersede that of the slaves; the slaves, thus become valueless, will be emancipated, and will emigrate to the West Indies, to South America, or to their old fatherland, Africa, where the climate will make it impossible for men of the more energetic European race to compete with them. And this is the result that some Americans anticipate.

But we think that the climate of the extreme south of the United States will always enable the negro race to hold its ground there; and in that case it becomes a most important question, how

the slaves are to be transformed into free labourers. Many political economists say, that wages diminish as population increases; and if this be the case, it will be cheaper to employ the negroes as free day-labourers than as slaves, so goon as wages have fallen sufficiently, and no waste land remains where emancipated slaves can settle and live without wages. But in the United States, wages do not fall with the increase of population, except in some districts which are overrun with poor European immigrants; and it is the opinion of Henry Carey, a political economist and an American,* that in a natural state of things, where the government does not interfere with industry, wages are constantly rising, owing to the increase of capital, and the consequent increase in the productiveness of labour; and that in the United States the slave is growing more, and not less valuable to his master, in consequence of the operation of these causes. In this state of things, however, Mr. Carey sees not the perpetuation of slavery, but the prospect of freedom, for the increased value of the slave induces the master to feed, clothe, and educate him better than formerly. Many slaves are educated in spite of the law; and though but a small minority learn to read and write, yet their constant intercourse with the more intellectual white race, and the instruction of religious teachers, is gradually elevating them in intelligence ; and at last-such is Mr. Carey's opinionthey will buy their own liberty and their masters' land; and the southern states will be owned by a race of negro farmers, equal in intelligence and in political privileges to their white fellow-citizens of the north. It was by a similar process that serfage came to an end in England; the labourer was found more valuable as a free tenant than as a serf. And in America, where the possession of land confers no political power, it is probable that the tenant will speedily become a proprietor: the former owner only retaining a mortgage on the land.

There is no doubt that such a spontaneous process of emancipation must be a very slow one; none of the present generation will live to see it. But

it is better that the improvement of the negro race should go on ever so slowly, than that it should be left to the chances of a servile war, which would destroy half the population, and brutalize the other half; or even of a hasty and ill-considered emancipation, which, were it practicable, would ruin the owners of slaves, and leave the negroes in a state of barbarism, from which they would emerge far more slowly than they are doing now.

We know that we shall be called the apologists of slavery. We do not, however, say a word in defence of those who first introduced that great evil into America; or of those who, from political or commercial motives, would extend it into California and Mexico. But an evil is not to be destroyed by denouncing it; and a man is not answerable for a bad system in which he is born. We believe that the inevitable evils of slavery will be best mitigated by leaving the disease to work its own cure. We do not mean that our Parliament did wrong in abolishing slavery in the West Indies; the system there was irredeemably bad, as is proved by the decline of population during the last years of slavery, and could only be cured by an operation. In America, on the contrary, the slave population is increasing rapidly; which fact is a sufficient answer to the common but absurd assertion, that slavery is worse in republican America than in any other part of the world. The contrast is easily accounted for. In the West Indies, the free population was very small, and the proprietors were absentees; in America, on the contrary, the slaves are mixed with a large free population, and the proprietors are resident. An absentee proprietary and a slave peasantry are both great evils; united, they are enough to ruin the finest country in the world, which Jamaica might be in the hands of an energetic people.

We do not mean that the present generation of Americans are without blame. There is much needless cruelty in the working of the system, especially in the separation of families in the slave market a practice which ought to be prohibited by law. And Congress committed a blunder and a crime by tolerating slavery in the State of Missouri,

at its admission into the Union in 1821. It is difficult to deal with slavery where it already exists; it is easy to prohibit its introduction into a new country.

Up to the conquest of California, all the new territories obtained by the United States-Louisiana, Florida, and Texas-were slave countries; and yet the free parts of the Union have gained on the slave-holding ones in population, wealth, and power. This is owing to immigration from Europe, which has been mainly directed towards the free states; and to the more rapid increase of wealth in a country where every one works, than in a country where half the population are occupied in seeing that the other half do their work. And this preponderance of the free states will go on increasing; for Europeans are coming in faster than ever-slavery is dying out in the middle states-and California has been secured for free labour, by the simple circumstance of its being colonised, as soon as the gold mines were heard of, by people from the free states, who forthwith made a law against the introduction of slaves. It was at one time thought that the annexation of Texas and California would lead to a great extension of slavery; and it was even asserted and believed that this was the motive for annexing them. We do not, however, believe this statement. The conquest of Texas, on which so much virtuous indignation was wasted by the conquerors of India, was as inevitable under the circumstances as the conquest of the Punjab ; and though the war against Mexico was not justifiable, it was by no means equal, whether as a crime or as a blunder, to our first invasion of Afghanistan. We now find, however, that California is already a great free state; and Texas is found not to be so well suited to cotton-growing as the more easterly states, for which reason slavery is not making much progress there. The permanent home of the negro race in America will be, according to Mr. Carey, to whose work we have already referred, chiefly in the country on the north of the Gulf of Mexico: the white race is better suited to the other parts of the United States; and in Mexico, native labour will be found cheaper than that of negro slaves. which we have mentioned as the pro

The country

I SIT down to fulfil my promise of writing to you some account of our National Exhibition. I may first mention, that all this country, now that the elections are over, is swarming with tourists. A gentleman whom I met the other day told me, that at Glengariff, where he had lately been, some visiters had to sleep in carriages, and yet there are two hotels there now, where, till lately, there was but one. Such a state of things is very gratifying to those who wish well to their country, but very inconvenient to travellers. Matters are a little better here. I had sleeping accommodation the night I arrived at the Imperial Hotel, that I should have thought firstrate on board a steamer. The ballroom of the hotel has been divided into stalls, like those of a stable, by temporary partitions, and there are four beds in each stall. I had only one chum, however, and he had the kindness not to snore, so I got through the night quite comfortably.

You have probably heard me say that I thought it foolish to hold the Cork Exhibition so soon after the London one, and the sight of our own has not changed my opinion. It is, how ever, very creditable to the country quite as good as any one could reasonably expect; but one cannot avoid making comparisons, and the Cork Exhibition challenges comparison with its predecessor, almost ostentatiously, by the resemblance of its arrangements and plan. Like its prototype, the general outline is that of a cross; and the transept, where the specimens of the fine arts, and the more striking of the ornamental manufactures, are exhibit

CORK, 5th August, 1852. ed, bears an almost ludicrous resemblance to the world-renowned transept of Paxton's palace, having, like it, a semi-cylindrical roof, but of wood instead of glass, and that wood unpainted. It looks like the hull of a ship inverted. It is true, however, that the transept presents a very fine coup d'oeil, if one can only avoid thinking of the London one; and there is this great superiority in the arrangements, that here the sculpture and paintings, and most of the finest works of ornamental art, are placed in the transept, so that you get the best view of them. You recollect how much the effect of the sculpture in the Great Exhibition was spoiled by crowding. There are a few works in that art, of great interest and beauty, especially a group by the late Heffernan, representing a woman with a child, whom she is apparently about to kiss-most beautiful and graceful; and some small medallion-like bas-reliefs by Hanigan, which strike me as presenting a remarkable resemblance to some of Flaxman's works. One is a most lovely representation of Psyche, seated under some kind of bell-flower, and drooping her head in a reverie. There are two others of Night and Morning, each represented by a winged female figure; that of Night is especially beautiful; the wings are expanded, and flight is evidently represented, rapid and silent, like that of Time. The eyes are closed as in sleep, yet you perceive the figure to be in rapid motion.

While I am speaking of sculpture, I may tell you of a beautiful work of art that I saw in a private house a few days ago. It is a marble figure of a

child, with one hand on something that appears to be a serpent; it is said to represent the infant Christ" bruising the serpent's head." Its origin is unknown; it is said to have been found, like truth, at the bottom of a well. I cannot guess to what period it belongs, though I should think it is not very old; it has neither the classical beauty of countenance nor the medieval stiffness of outline. I do not think the face is good, but the arms and legs are most beautifully sculptured, quite soft, plump, and life-like. I ought to be able to form an opinion, for I had a child on my knee within a few yards of it. I inquired whether the Roman Catholic neighbours begrudge this statue of our Lord to its Protestant owner, but I was told that, on the contrary, they greatly respect the family for keeping it so reverentially as they do.

The Cork Exhibition is especially rich in ornamental manufactures, for which the people of our island, particularly the southern part, seem to possess a peculiar genius. It is no disparagement to either, to say that the people of Great Britain excel in the useful, and those of Ireland in the ornamental. Ornament enters into daily life and trade almost as largely as utility, and ought, in fact, to hold as dignified a place in our estimation. Articles of use are those which satisfy one set of our wants, and articles of ornament another. Some of the artificialflowers displayed here are, I should say, quite as well finished and beautiful as any that I saw in the Exhibition of last year; and the display of embroidered muslin from the North, of Dublin tabbinets, and of Limerick lace, are all of them most beautiful: taken altogether, equal to anything that France, Switzerland, or Belgium can produce, though our finest specimens may not be quite equal to their finest. Atkinson, of Dublin, the tabinet-manufacturer, has a loom at work, of peculiar construction, for producing what are called bro ́caded patterns. These have the effect of embroidery. The ground is of one colour, but damasked, like one of the Ardoyne table-cloths, and on this there are groups of flowers in coloured silks woven in. The damasked pattern of the ground is of course produced by the same mechanism as in the common Jacquard loom in which table-cloths are

woven. The coloured groups of flowers are produced by a most ingenious adaptation of the same principle, which, however, it would be useless to attempt to explain without elaborate diagrams. Working at a loom of this sort, or even a much less complicated kind of ornamental weaving, is not the mere mechanical drudgery which weaving is in the North. The figured tabinet-weaver requires skill and application to his work: he is no mere drudge, but an artisan. This is the better for him in many ways. His labour, requiring skill, must, I should suppose, be better paid, and less likely to be superseded by machinery, than the mere mechanical toil of the weaver of plain linen ; and the circumstance of the labour which occupies a man for ten or twelve hours of every working day, being such as to call for some exertion of intellect, must tend to raise him in the scale of intellectual beings above the man who is only a part of a machine, of which his loom is the other part.

I was not much struck by any of the jewellery in the Exhibition, except some imitations of ancient Irish ornaments, which are rich, quaint, and beautiful, and, of course, the various bog-oak ornaments, in which the artisans of this country have attained to so great a degree of excellence. There are many beautiful pieces of furniture made of bog-yew, a wood which, by its dark, dull colour, suggests the notion of being stained with the inky bog-water; its veining, however, is very beautiful, and the furniture made of it has this peculiarity, which I consider an advantage-that it never seems to have any gloss of novelty; at least I should say so, but I never heard any one else make the remark. There is a table from Killarney, made of the arbutus wood. No arbutus in this country is large enough to make a table of one piece; this is of a great many pieces of various colours inlaid-an elaborate and beautiful work.

I will now leave the ornamental manufactures, and go to the other extreme of the barest utility. There is nothing in the Exhibition so suggestive of improvement as the coarse fabrics and clumsy shoes manufactured in various Irish workhouses, by people who, a few months ago, were utterly ignorant of every useful art higher than common field-labour. The introduction of these