in their own bands. It is therefore earnestly requested of members to consider the following questions : 1. Whether it be not contrary to the law of the land to pafs this bill before the court of Chancery have decided the case? 2: Shall the vast surplus, likely to arise from the Harpur estate, as before explained, be allowed still to pafs through the hands of the corporation of Bedford, to enable them to execute certain improper purposes? or shall such regulations be made relative to this surplus, as shall enable the real poor to receive the full benefits of this charity according to the donor's indenture. * RECIEPT FOR FATTENING POULTRY, from one of the first Poulterers in THE WORLD: COMMUNICATED BY AN OLD CORRESPONDENT. VE For the Bee. ERY fhort time is necessary. If a chicken, is not fat in a week it is distempered. Poultry should be fattened in coops kept very clean. They should be furnished with gravel, but with no water.. Their only food barley meal mixed so thin with water as to serve them for drink. Their thirst makes them eat more than they would, in order to extract the water that is among the food. This fhould not be put in troughs, but laid upon a board, which should be clean washed every time fresh food is put upon it. It is foul and heated water which is the sole cause of the pip. The remedy is obvious. *To fhow how little the real poor are thought of in the distti bution of the 3000l. a-year, it is a fact, that the poor's rates of Bedford amount to eight fhillings in the pound. SIR, NOTICES OF MR ANDREW CROSBIE. To the Editor of the Bee. AMONG other excellent purposes to be obtained by your excellent literary Miscellany, I conceive the recording and thereby preserving fugitive memorials of eminent men to be of no small consideration: It is by useful discoveries or writings of extraordinary merit or importance, that posthumous fame can be carried beyond the oral report of a few generations; and even that of a Poulteny or a Pitt, without them, will, in the course of sixty or seventy years, be totally lost in the splendor of more recent reputation. It is, therefore, that I desire, through the medium of the Bee, to communicate a very classical and authentic character of Andrew Crosbie, advocate, which is inscribed on his portrait preserved in the port folio of the Obituary of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland: Mr Crosbie was a man of singular force of genius and very eminent in his profefsion at the bar; the lofs of whose talents to his country will be more particularly remembered and felt at this time, when the public has had the misfortune to lose that acute and indefatigable constitutional lawyer, Alexander Wight, late sollicitor general of Scotland, a man, whose merit, though not more conspicuous, is much more safe, from his standard book on the election laws, than is the fame of Mr Crofbie: I am, Sir, yours, A. B. ANDREAS CROSBIE. Causarum patronus disertifsimus, Qui hanc institutionem promovebat *, Effigies ejus in tabulis publicis afservatur Si de variis rebus, apte, distincté ornateque Si influere in sensus audientium, Et insinuare se penitus in causam, Talis erat ille, quem eheu! amisimus ;- In annalibus Scotorum et in historia Legum et libertatis patriæ, In utroque strenuus afsertor et vindex.- Obiit multum desideratus Anno Etat. xlix, die 25°. mensis Feb. M,DCC,LXXXV. INDEX INDICATORIUS. Continued from vol. xiv. p. 260. PHILAGATHUS thinks the following sentence which occurs in one of the papers of a much respected correspondent, Senex, is reprehensible: *His weaknesses he feels; the accidental deviations from purity which the frailties of mortality have induced, he sincerely deplores; but while his intentions were upright, he cannot doubt of these lesser errors * William Tytler. Allan M'Connochie. John Donaldson, James Cummying. John Balfour. Charles Hay. John Williams. William Creech. Thomas Philipe. being forgiven." This correspondent alleges, that under the Jewish dispensation, before any hope of forgiveness could be indulged, there was " an absolute necefsity of having recourse to sacrifice ;" and he thinks "the case is the same under the Christian dispensation ;" and quotes several texts of Scripture in support of this opinion. The observations are evidently dictated by a sincere spirit of candour, and as such, have been respected by the Editor; but as it would be altogether improper to enter upon points of controversy of such a nature in this Miscellany, he conceives he has fully discharged his duty by thus candidly and briefly stating this objection.. The following epitaph has been sent to the Editor verbatim from three or four places; all of the writers saying it is inserted on a stone in the churchyard belonging to each. It is given entire, as it seems to have attracted much attention. Epitaph on the grave stone of Marjory Scott, who died at Dunkeld 26. Feb. 1728. Stop passenger until my life you read; The living may get knowledge from the dead. I have an end of all perfection seen! T. S. G. says he was in a company in which a dispute arose about the meaning of the phrase common sense, an accurate definition of which he wishes to see in the Bee. The Editor, however, wishes to avoid such discussions, unless very neatly stated indeed. A sympathetic observer, laments the pitiable situation of the poor people in the Highlands of Scotland; attributes the misery they experience to the ill judged severity, as he calls, it of the landlords, who let their lands for the purpose of breeding sheep instead of continuing them in the occupation of the old tenants. Yet "doubtless (he says,) the gra sing of sheep is lucrative to the proprietor; but when he reflects, that the 77 benefit of such, does not extend farther than himself, ought he not to to appropriate his land to such purposes as might eventually lead to the good of the inhabitants and the benefit of the community at large?" We fear, however, that unless the profit of the proprietor can be made to concur with the benefit of the occupier, it will be in vain to try to establish any permanent system of improvement. The first duty of every individual is to provide for the welfare of himself and his family; and St Paul has said that he who neglects to do this, is worse than an infidel. Instead of invectives, therefore, against those who do so, our business, or at least the business of our legislators, ought to be to discover some mode of reconciling these two duties together, which seems to be by no means impofsible. This writer proceeds to remark, that "the Highlands seem as if laid -out by nature for commerce, as all the mainland is divided in peninsulas by the Western Ocean; consequently an easy intercourse may be had with every part of the kingdom." This will be readily admitted by every one who knows that country. He goes on. "How sincerely would every patriotic heart rejoice at the establishment of manufactures in the Highland! Then an opportunity would be afforded to many a poor individual, at present labouring under the baneful effects of poverty, and all its concomitants, of providing himself more comfortably with the means of subsistence." This also will be readily afsented to; but who can agree with the writer when he adds, "The effectual methods that are taken by the landed gentlemen of the Highlands for the decrease of population, fully evince that they are averse to every incentive to commerce and manufacure." This is surely gratis dic um; and is it not rather assuming too much when the writer takes it uphim to accuse a great body of men, who seem not in other respects destitute of common sense, of being in the situation thus described. "How blind (proceeds he,) they are in this respect to their own interest, is evidently seen. Commerce and manufactures, the parent of population and national wealth would be more conducive to the acquisition of fortune, (what their souls hanker after,) than any measure they have yet adopted." Who doubts of this? Does the writer of these stric⚫ tures believe there is a single proprietor in the Highlands who would not rejoice to see manufactures and commerce introduced into his estate? But how are commerce and manufactures to be introduced? If the writer cannot solve this question, let him be more sparing of his in vectives in future. It is an easy matter to say be ye clothed, and be ye warmed, but it is a very different thing to provide clothing and fuel |