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78

THE EX

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paveeients, one upon the other; with remains of burnt |

vegetation, charcoal, and common earth beneath voleanic

deposits. Under one of these dense masses of scoria, dust and, ~ puttice stone, he found large quantities of carbonized timber, locks, and iron work, evidently the remains of habitations, | ' : . which, together with some old keys, and inscriptions, giving | 13th October last, between his Lordship the Karl of the name of the locality, satisfied the learned of the day that | and the Hon. Colonel Swabey, has given great satisfi they belonged to the city of Pompeii. ‘The discovery created | the Petitioners who forwarded a Petition in May last to little excitement at the time ; the Government was indisposed | Karl of Selkirk, praying his Lordship to se to prosecute the research, and no further excavation was

carried on till the year 1794.

nearer = Te

——en LR

Correspondenee.

To rue Kprron or tus Examtyex. Sin.—The cortespondence published in your pape iction

ll his Estate in

‘this Colony to the Government, and thereby eg his ‘tenantry to become frecholders, by purchasing on cand from the Government on the reasonable terms of the Lan

Meanwhile the accidental sinking of a well brought to, Purchase Bill; and as the following extract of a letter, which

hehe such treasures of art as to induce a systematie |

exploration of a more profitable locality. This was. in the

neighborhood of Naples, where, after seventeen centuries, |

ihe city of Herculaneum was once more rescued from oblivion. The circumstances which led to the discovery are briefly these. The Prince D’Kibeuf, of the house of Lorraine, came to Naples, in 1706, and ordered the construction of a marine villa jor himself at Portici, in 1711. He had a Frenchman in his service who possessed the art of niaking a durable

, ! ; « ‘ 4 r » ,

um pu’ verize » and as many fragments of

atin ee : wees ane coe e~ facture | jobbers, or from the Government. antique marble as possible were collected for the manufacture |

One day a countryman presented |

of his composition. himself, asserting that in sinking a well discovered a variety of precious marbles, ' had brought with him as specimens. I he marbles were beautiful and rare that the prince was induced to purchase of the man the right of further excavation, and he immediately commenced a systematic course of explorations upon that spot. ‘The stucco prepared by t an imitation of precious marbles, but to that employed by the ancients. Most of the antique | buildings were so plasterd internally, because it was harder | and more durable than marble in its natural state. The | excavators, therefore, were more delighted when they found | large plain slabs and shafts of columos, when they were dis- | covered elaborately carved futiages and statues, because the |

latter afforded them a smaller quantity of actual material. |

at Resina he had some of which he 80

At the expiration of two days they found a statue of Hercules, | . 4 approbation the communications between his Lordship ‘extract from Lord Stanley’s despateh ; an the Earl of Selkirk and the Tenantry on his Estate in this |

evidently from a Grecian chisel, and they remarked with

astonishment that it had formerly been restored. Some days | after this they came upon a female statue, which was at once | pronounced to be a Cleopatra. They next xtricated a large | square mass of marble, and, upon removing a crust of

bituminous matter, it was found to be the architrave of a| gateway, with letters of bronze inlaid into the surface. Many columns of variegated alabastar were next discovered, | and this led to the exeavation of a circular temple, with twenty- four columns, and statues of Greek marble between them.

The pavement of the building was constructed of that rich

yellow marble called Giailo Antico, and many columns of | the same material lay in the vicinity. Seven of the twelve

figures belonging to the temple were females, executed in a

superior Grecian style. Prince D'Elbeuf despatched them

to Vienna, as a present to Prince Eugene, of Savoy. The} best of these statues were afterwards sold to the King of! Poland for 60,000 seudi; they are now at Dresden. The | prince evidently knew very little of the real value of his | discoveries, and during the next five years continued

disinterring pieces of mosaic alabaster slabs, and a few | statues, some of which decorated his villas, and the rest were sent over to France. Upon the discovery of a beautiful statue of one of the daughters of Balbus, the state interfered, and the Neapolitan Government prohibited any further excavations. In 1736, the King, Charles ILL., resolved to

build a palace at Portici, and the ancient well was once) more resorted to, The excavations were resumed, and very

important events followed.

The Marquis Venuti, keeper of the Farnese library, was appointed superintendant of the excavations at Resini. He commenced operations on the 10th of November, 1738, by carrying on a kind of tunnel, laterally from the old well. | In a short time two bronze equestrian statues were found, | and soon after three full-length marble figures, larger than | iife, of Roman diguitaries, dressed in the toga. The excavators | had now reached the interior of the theatre, which the numerous seats and steps clearly indicated. An inscription, moreover, on the arehitrave, contained part of the word theatre, the name of the person at whose cost the building was erected, and that of the architect. Statues of Drusus avd Antonia, and of the nine muses, were found in other parts of the building. A bronze colossal statue of Titus, filled with lead, was so heavy that twelve men were unable to move it. Many other bronze statues of municipal authorities and beuefaeters were found with their respective inscriptions. ‘The theatre was eapable of eontaining 8,000 persons. Nearly the whole of its surface, as well as the arched walks leading | to the seats, was cased with marble. The area, or pit, was tloored with thick squares of giallo antico, the beautiful | marble of yellowish color. The pedestal of white marble, which supported a chariot and four bronze horses, is stiil to he seen in its place; but the group itself had been crushed and broken in pieces by the immense weight of lava which tell upon it,

The great difficulty of excavating Herculancum, on account ot the soil above being oceupied by crowded habitations, in- duced the Government to turn their attention more particular- ly to Pompeii. The following vivid description of the mar- vellous discoveries made by them is from Bulwer Lytton’s mgnificent novel, * The Last Days of Pompeii :”—

« Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimned hues; its walls fresh as if painted yesterday, not a hue faded on the rich mosiac of its floors ; in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman’s hands ; in its gardens the sacrificial tripod ; in its halls the chest of treasure ; in its baths the strigil ; in its theatres the counter of admission; in its saloons the furniture and the lamp ; in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast ; in its cubicula the perfumes and faded beauty; and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute, yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life.

‘in the house of Dimoed, in subterranean vaults, twen- ty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dast, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the apertures, until it bad filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphorze for a prolongation of agonized life. ‘The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast ; and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom, of young and round proportions.

“ It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor ; the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere.

«Iu the garden was found a skeleton, with a key by its

he Frenchman was not only | cur" also a cement similar | de

| { received from an influential gentleman at Murray Harbour, Lot 64, will show that the tenantry on other Townships | are as anxious to embrace the privileges afforded by the Land -urchase Bill as the people of the Beltast Kstates—I have /to request that you will be pleased to give It, together with, ithe enclosed Petition, a place in your next Number, and ‘thereby give the tenantry in general an opportunity of

hemselves as to the relative advantages of

judging for t purchasing the Proprietors’ lands from speculators and land

j | |

I can assure you, Mr. Editor, that the people of Belfast ‘feel deeply interested in the correspondence between his Lordship the Karl of Selkirk and the Hon. Colonel Swabey ; land as a proof of their desire to comply with the terms of ‘the Land Purchase Bill, they will petition both branches of ‘the Legislature at the approaching session, praying for their ‘co-operation with the Government, fur the purpose of pro- ing for them their Lands on reasonable terms, and thereby liver them from the hands of land agents and land speculators. L remain, Sir, yours truly, Nov. 12, 1896. A BELFASTER,

Murray Harnsour, 27th Octobcr, 1856.

Dean Str,—The tenantry of these adjoining Townships (63 and 64), as wellas myself, observed with much satisfaction

Island, through the kindness of the Hon. William Swabey, as

he

dln rncnruiacorelneeeg RT PET ID III IEE with real disgust, and

r of the power.

Selkirk of others to and mortification of those who sent you—are too well known

the to require a detailed notice at this lapse of time. I shall

your wretched political existence by an unnatural association with the Proprietory faction, who receive your advances who would consign you to well-merited

oblivion the moment that your assistance had aided them to The history of your visits to Hogland, at the expense —to your own pecuniary advantage, but to the shame

A

content myself by exposing the base but fortunately inoperative character of the twaddle to which you have not blushed to affix your name.

Your praise of the alleged objects of the Tories of the Political Alliance, can only be paralelled by the sycophancy of the spaaiel who knows not his master uatil repeated flagellations have rendered the animal an humble licker of the hand that smites him. Think you, for one moment, Sir, that | the men whom you have for years denounced as pirates and | robbers, and whom you unceasingly sought to deprive of their possessions, do not understand your character or remember your antecedents? How long, think you, that the hollow truce which you are attempting to patch up with them will last, after they shall have attained the objects for which they condescend to receive you as an ally? Your own reflection will suggest the answer. i et

Your eulogy on American institutions, if sincere, would, I should have imagined, have induced you to remain in California with your family, after you had left the poor ten- antry to their fate. It may be, however, that you did not leave that golden land before the Committee of Vigilance bad caused you to reflect that there was @ chance of preying on the public of this Island, without incurring the anger of an indignant people. The compliment you have paid to the population of the Island generally, and your own constituents in particular, by comparing them to New Zealand savages, will, I doubt not, be daly appreciated by them, at the first opportunity which may be afforded them of allowing you to withdraw from public life to the elegant retirement of Sailors’ Hope, which, take my word for it, will be felt by you to be a forlorn one.

I am quite willing to admit the pone embodied in the

no man of average intelligence can, at this stage of the Escheat question, deny that the Proprietors have acquired certain legal or equitable

published in the Examiner newspaper, of the 13th instant. We sincerely hope it may end in the purchase of that Fstate

rights to the iands ; and you would be better employed ,in accor- dance with your present sympathies, in endeavouring to obtain

freedom from bondage is so natural a desire of the human) ,; empts to drive from power those men to whose charitable

by our Government, and thereby emancipate a goodly number | compensation for them from the British Government. Such a of our fellow subjects from proprietory bondage. And 48 | sourse, too, would be less to your discredit than your futile

mind, the tenants of these Lots are wre of trying ~ interposition you owe your present seat. That interposition, disposition of their proprietor in a similar way ; 5 | L have reason to belive, was obtained in answer to your earnest believing you to be always a zealous promoter of any good) .)icitations, and was only conceded on your meanly subscrib- measure for the benefit of the country, I am induced to ask | ing a declaration that you would support their views, if

'To the Right Honorable Dunbar James Earl of Selkirk,

if you will be so kind as to take some interest in this matter, | and ask in the name of those tenants, of the Hon. William | Swabey, if he will undertake a similar kind office for the Tenants of Lot 63 and 64, as he did for the Tenants of the Selkirk Estate? And also, that you will obtain for us, as soon as possible, a copy of the Tenants’ Petition to the Karl for our guidance, in pursuit of the above object. In com- plying with the above you will confer a favor on the Tenantry, And oblige your humble servant, To —— —-

PETITION.

Kirkcudbright, Scotland. The humble memorial of the undersigned Tenants on the Estate owned by your Lordship in Prince Edward Island,

May ir pease your Lorpsitr,—

We, your Lordship’s Tenants in Prince Edward Island, on Townships Nos. 57,58, 59 and 62--your Lordship’s Estates-— trust we will he pardoned for addressing your Lordship on a subject in which we are every one of us closely interested.

An Act of the Legislature of this Island, which has become law, was passed in the year 1852, to enable the Government

‘thereof to purchase the property of Proprietors, or grantees

of the Crown, on terms which would enable them to be re-sold

without difficulty to the Tenantry—a fifth or 20 per cent. of | the purchase money being required as a deposit, and the remaining four-fifths to be paid in ten equal anoual instalments.

The highest price which the Act permits the Government to give for Proprietory Estates is five shillings, sterling money of Great Britain, good, bad and wilderness, or uneleared, aud it might be swamp, and entirely unprofitable, included. .

It appears to us that there are agents and land speculators ready enough, by their direct communications with your Lordship and other proprietors, to step in and buy these lands, with a view of retailing them at a high profit to such of the tenantry as could find the means to become purchasers, and to remain proprietory owners as to the remainder with a view of ultimate and contingent advantages, thereby defeating the benevolent intention of the Legislature, and, in most cases, the natural wish that we may entertain of becoming frecholders. On the other hand, were your Lordship’s Estates sold to the Colonial Government, we are convinced that you would realize as good, if not a far better, sale in the entirety than you could expect from the sort of market to which your estates would be otherwise brought, by selling off to land speculators selected portions, whilst, on our part, an obligation would be conferred by your Lordship’s benevolence being exercised towards us, without risk to yourself, which we are perfectly ready to believe would be ‘, accordance with your Lordship’s wishes and kindly feelings. We have been induced to take the liberty of placing this | subject before your Lordship fer your consideration, because your Lordship’s agent, William Douse, Esquire, has effected a purchase of a highly valuable and selected part of your Estates, at a price affording to your Lordship no higher | proportioned remuneration than might be expected from the Government, whilst, as concerns the tenantry, the price asked by him is from 20s, to 30s. sterling, and upwards, whilst the cleared land sold by the Government costs only from 7s. 6d. to 8s. 6d. and the wilderness from 5s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. sterling. Thus from the latter, we might all be able to purchase in the terms of the land Purchase Bill, without exception, which we cannot hope to do at a price to repay a land speculator. Your Lordship may be aware that the late Karl of Selkirk sold the best portions of his property to emigrants, whom he accompanied to this Colony, at no higher price than 5s. sterling. What then can be the average value of lands of all descriptions and unfavorable positions ?

Hoping that your Lordship will be induced to take the premises into your consideration, we have the honor to remain, Your Lordship’s obedient servants,

(Here follow 400 signatures.)

21st April, 1856.

4 =->

To Wituam Coorer, Esquire, M. P. P.

bony hand, and near ita bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house, who had probably sought to eseape by the garden, and had been destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably of a slave.

“The houses of Sallust and Pansa, the temple of [sis, with the juggling concealments behind the statues—the lurking place of its holy oracles—are now bared to the gaze of the curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a hoge skeleton with an axe by the side of it; two walls had been pierced by the axe—the victim could

penetrate no further. In the midst of the city was found |

another skeleton, by the side of which was a heap of coins, and Many of the wystic ornaments of the fune of Isis.”

Sin,—I observed in the Islander, of Friday last, a letter ‘over your signature, which I shall briefly notice—not because I consider the styie or matter are of such a nature as to attract attention or require review, but merely to give you to uaderstand that the motives which actuate you are well known and appreciated by the people, and that some persons ‘begin to think the popular opinion of the old Escheator can be best expressed by the amputation of the first and last syllables of the word.

As one of the dupes who, years ago, contributed, of his hard earnings, to the expense of your mission to England, to advocate the establishment of a Court of Escheat, I have a right to complain of your recent desperate attempt to prolong

elected. How you have redeemed that pledge, your conduct during the last two Sessions, and your exhibitions in the press, amply prove.

Congratulating the Unholy Alliance on the promise of your most influential support, and trusting that the letter [ have noticed may prove to be the last stave with which the bungling old Barrel-maker, of Sailors’ Hope, will trouble the country,

I remain yours,

A SOURIS MAN.

————

Nov. 17, 1856.

Che Examiner.

CHARLOTTETOWN, P. E. 1., NOVEMBER 24, 1856.

We have had occasion several times lately to take public notice of the very obvious and melancholy condition of mind | to which the editor of the Is/ander has been reduced, partly by | lapse of years, but principally by long-continued abuse of his | natural powers. We did not, however—neither could the | public—fully comprehend the extent of the poor man’s mis-| fortune in the respect indicated, until we read what we had | some difficulty in bringing ourselves to believe one of the latest | productions of his pen in theeolunms of the Js/ander of Friday | week. We were, at the first notice of it, inelined to attribute the editorial to which we have reference, to the clumsy hand of some stupid hanger-on of the IJs/ander office, but we found, | on a more than usually careful perusal, such manifest indica-_ tions of Maclean’s peculiar style, that we could no longer | hesitate to ascribe the paternity of the article to that miserable | protege of a party who despise him.

After thus expressing a general opinion regarding the style and character of the editorial headed “* Deputy Sheriff Wil-| liams again,’’ it may be, that the intelligent reader will regard | anything like a lengthy notice of it as inyolving an extravagant waste of our own time and an unjustifiable trespass on his patience. But we are willing to run the risk of receiving this censure, in order to shew, by a mass of testimony selected from his own writings, that what we have written regarding Mac- lean’s waning intellectual light is substantially and literally true—that the wear and tear of his mental. and physical powers haye been such, that he can no longer be regarded as a foeman worthy of any steel, and that every allusion to him should rather call up sentiments of pity and compassion than feelings of a harsher and less Christian kind.

There cannot be a stronger proof of the deeay of Maclean’s reasoning faculties than is furnished by the fact, that he fancies he sees in every article which appears in this paper a per- sonal attack upon himself. If we write upon subjécts of a general character, and wholly free from polemics, the weak old man, always, if not enduring, yet anticipating agony, cries out that the Government press has made an onslaught upon him, and that the defence of the Administration consists in holding up to public ridicule and contempt an individual whose weekly exhibitions of himself are such that no person can presume to compete with him in challenging the public scorn. After indulging his low blackguard propensities in the most copious abuse of the editor of this paper for some fancied offence to his dignity, and which abuse he has inter-

that the Toty Government of 1854 had nothing to do with the sentence of condemnation pronounced against Mr. Williams in the House of Assembly of that year. Now the fact is, that although the Committee on Public Accounts included the names of four Liberals, and four only, the passage of their report in reference to Mr. Williams was introduced while that document was under the consideration of the House, by an active partizan of the then Government, and every member of the Exccutiye Council on the floor of the Assembly not only gave it his support, but clamoured violently to retain it in opposition to those who considered the censure uncalled-for and unjust. But Mr. Williams’s personal and political enemies being the more numerous, they were not to be baulked in the gratification of their amiable intentions towards him ; and so they pronounced him “ unfit to hold any office under the Government,’? which compliment Mr. Williams’s fricnds —the People—shortly after reciprocated by telling ‘hem that they were unfit to legislate fora free country. Still another falsehood we have to notice in this connection is the state: ment, that ‘‘ Whelan assented’’ to that part of the report, as agreed to in Committee of the House, which has reference to Mr. Williams. Mr. Whelan then looked upon the affair in the same light as he does yet, as being a very base and cowardly attack upon a man who was not in a position to de- fend himself, and so he denounced it in his proper place. Maclean again refers to the letter (previously quoted) ad- dressed by Mr. Williams to the Chairman of Publie Accounts, and seems to fancy he has made a wonderful discovery hy means of which he may fasten a charge of peculation on Mr. Williams. Quoting that passage wherein the Commissioner says that ‘‘a full and complete return of’’ his ‘‘ receipts and disbursements for summer roads’’ had been laid before the Government, the dishonest and quibbling old man jumps at the word ‘*summer,’’ and exclaims.that by so express- ing himself, the Commissioner totally ignored ‘ his expen-

99

diture for spring, autumn and winter roads.’’ Now every body knows that the use of the terms ‘‘ summer roads” re- fers to that period of the year when the snow and ice have disappeared until the snow and ice shall again come, just in the same sense as we use such terms, both in and out of Par- liament, as ‘‘ Summer and Winter Mails.”’ Who ever heard of the Legislature making provision in its usual yotes of supply for spring and autumn mails? Alluding to Mr. Cundall’s let- ter, (which we also previously quoted), in reply to the Govern- ment’s gentle hint, that any evidence or shadow of evidence against Mr. Williams would be thankfully received by his enemies, Maclean places in inverted commas a paragraph which he attributes to this paper, but which we positively de- clare has never appeared in it. He says, that ** Whelan” remarked, in reference to Mr. Cundall’s letter, that it was ‘¢ in itself the best and fullest reflection of the impression sought to be produced by the imperceptible old man of New London.” We entirely disclaim the authorship of this sentence, for we could never be induced to write any thing half so stupid. In short, the whole article which we have had under considera- tion, is such a heap of trash, twaddle and blandering, that we feel no small serse of shame in having condescended to bestow upon it so lengthy a notice as the present. We feel certain that before these remarks were penned, the editorial to which they refer had gone the way of all rubbish, and was very pro- perly forgotten by all who had been duped to read it.

—__—___——- + @2ee2 --——

Turret appeared in the Is/ander of the 14th instant another

| article in reference to our Free School system, which Dunean

Maclean knows, to his great mortification, is very popular throughout the Island, and what do you think he does? Why,

-he puts the climax to all impudenee and presumption by elaim-

ing the merit of originating the Free School Bill. There is so

|! mueh sublimity of absurdity—if we may be permitted to use J J " I

a seeming paradox—about this assumption of the doating and imbecile old twaddler, that we think it would be a great pity to destroy the effect of it, hy making the article the subject of any comments. Wo leave it to those who have seen it as a

piece of incontrovertible evidence, to prove that its author must have been, at the time he penned it, either very drunk, very

mad, or most lamentably imbecile and childish. We shall not be at all surprised to find him, in some future No. of the Islander, putting forth his claims to other measures perfected by the Liberal party, such as the One-ninth Bill, the Tenant Compensation Bill, the Franchise Bill, and the new Act for increasing the Representation, as soon as Maclean thinks it is sufficiently popular for his plundering propensities. Persons who accustom themselves to stealing other people’s goods in- variably regard all property as common, and, whenever an opportunity offers, cannot resist practising an ugly trick of appropriating to their own uses whatever articles happen to fall in their way, no matter whether they were or were not conformable to their preconceived notions and inclinations.

+ ss >

Tue leading editorial in the Js/ander of Friday last is such a specimen of low unmitigated ruffianism, that we will not pollute our columns with a detailed notice of an article whick can be read by none but the very scum of society with feelings other than those of extreme disgust for the hired hack who scribbled it, and thorough contempt for the wretched faction which pays the low ribald for the abominations that proceed from his mercenary pen. Tlowever much the trash may please the vitiated tastes of the leading Tories themselves, we trust, for the future morality of the community, that they have the grace to keep the paper from the eyes of their

larded with quotations which either he or his printer did not the mind of a son or daughter to be contaminated by a pe-

| rusal of a paper which would disgrace a brothel. Maclean’s lilly, but him dam oul’? —he proceeds to give his extremely ™ind, ever foul, is now rapidly failing, and like an always

patient and unfortunate readers a rehash of his very stale | dirty stream, the gradual drying up exposes all the original | pollution, and leaves a sediment of undilnted filth which but

understand, since not one of them is rendered correctly, as for example ; ‘‘ youth and beauty, heavenly pain,”’ and ‘‘ him

verbiage negarding Mr. Williams’s conduct as Road Com- missioner in 1854.

Maclean now denies that he ever accused the present Go- vernment with perpetrating a fraud for declining to pay the Tory Road Commissioners appointed by the Holl & Palmer administration twelve months’ salary for nine months’ services. His denial, however, we have no doubt, is deemed to be quite ‘as yeracious as his statement that ‘* the appointment of Road ,Commissioners is annual.’’ We were under the impression, like most other people, that the Commissioners were ap- pointed every three years, and we are strongly inclined to

families. In fact, we can hardly conceive a parent suffering

offends the senses of the passers-by.

* as + >

«< And still he talked, and still the wonder grew,

| That one small head could carry all he knew.” GoLpsMITH.

Nor haying been hired to puff any article for sale, from @ horse to a hand-saw, John Lawson has come out on Saturday last with an editorial, which, when we looked at the length of ‘it, made us feel with Sir Andrew Aguecheek: “If I hed ‘known he had been so eunning of fence, I’d have seen him

think that the Commissioners would be very much disgusted 'd—d ere I had challenged him.’’ Towever, on reading this

with Maclean’s estimate of their time of service, if they were

to get no more than one year’s salary for their whole term of we came to the conclusion that it was p

'<*¢emanation of the all-beauteous mind”’ of the legal edito”, | ‘ robable his brain Was

office. Another assertion equally false as the precading, is put into operation by the same power as the press.

SS 4 62S SS OS ee ae oe oe ee.

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