Grievous wounds, that under surgery so rude as theirs would quickly kill an European, seldom prove fatal; a remarkable peculiarity, which made the great historian of savage life, Dobrizhoffer, exclaim, that it was scarcely possible to kill an Abipone. "I have often," says the good Jesuit, "beheld many of them wounded with various kinds of weapons, their side pierced, their bones and ribs broken, their breath drawn with difficulty, the blood streaming from their numerous wounds,-themselves, in short, the breathing images of death. When in a few weeks I saw these very Abipones riding or drinking in full health, I could attribute it only to the strength of their constitutions.* Among savages who inhabit salubrious countries the hair and teeth are retained to an advanced age. Travellers who judge only by the physiognomy of the Indians, Humboldt informs us, are tempted to believe that it is rare to see old men among them; which is a mistake, as the head never becomes gray, and they are very little subject to wrinkles. The same is asserted by Mr. James, of the Omawhaws, an Indian race, as yet little removed from their primitive condition. Baldness, he says, appears to be unknown, the hair being always retained, however advanced the age, and decayed teeth are rare.† It is customary, in the present day, to represent savages as possessing much less physical strength than Europeans; and Perom's experiments with his dynamometre are triumphantly adduced as decisive of this question. Doubtless such half-starved savages as the New Hollanders are comparatively feeble; and, in this respect, differ probably as much from their neighbours, the New Zealanders, as from Europeans. But in estimating degrees of strength by such feats as the lifting of heavy weights, we ought to remember that barbarians, when matched with Europeans in contests of this kind, are by no means susceptible of equal emulation with the latter. In order to judge of the vigour of a savage, we must see him at his own congenial pursuits. Probably no European could travel farther, without intermission, than an American Indian, or row a canoe longer against the stream, provided there were an object in view, in its nature, calculated to stimulate his energy. By practice savages attain that rigidity of muscle (and only by practice it is to be attained) which enables them to equal the feats of European strength. The great muscular power of the Indian miners is well ascertained. When our Cornish men a few years since were taken to work the Mexican mines, they expressed the utmost astonishment at the enormous burdens the Indians were in the habit of carrying. Humboldt, speaking of these miners, says, "they will remain continually loaded, for six hours, with a weight of from 250 to 350 pounds, and constantly exposed to a very high temperature, ascending eight or ten times successively, without intermission, stairs of eighteen hundred steps." Their food is dried beef and water. Upon the whole, it seems fair to conclude, that the ruder tribes of mankind, in compensation for the want of intellectual happiness, the refined enjoyments, and the numberless conveniences of civilization, possess a considerable and almost uniform degree of animal vigour; and * Dobrizhoffer, vol. ii. page 36. See also Collins's New South Wales, vol. i. page 444, where facts of an almost incredible kind, illustrative of the unirritable constitutions of the New Hollanders, and their power of recovery from the severest wounds, are furnished by the eminent writer from personal observation. + Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, vol. i. page 238. Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, vol. i. pages 151 and 256. See Captain (now Sir Francis) Head's Rough Notes. that though the duration of life is shorter than it is in Europe, a much smaller portion of their existence is passed in bodily suffering, than is the lot of those who compose our great manufacturing communities. The hitherto increasing duration of life in England is no disproof of this opinion. It is to be accounted for by, among other causes, the extraordinary improvements which have taken place in medicine and all its collateral branches within the last eighty years,-by the gratuitous medical aid now almost universally afforded to our poor, which places them, in this most important particular, on a level with the rich; and, not least, by the increase which has taken place in the means of subsistence, a circumstance greatly favourable to the rearing of healthy children. Indeed, it is probable that the difference in regard to the duration of life in this country, and among barbarians, is owing chiefly to the far greater chance of life in infancy with us than with them. The number of public dispensaries in Manchester, and still more, the amount of patients entered on their registers, demonstrates how high a proportion of our population is annually on the sick-list. The number of inhabitants is probably about 270,000, and, on the average of the three last years, the home and out-patients admitted at the five general dispensaries amounted annually to 24,281.* This was independent of patients admitted at the Eye Institution, the Children's Dispensary, and the Lock-Hospital; of the in-patients of the infirmary and fever-wards of the great multitude of sick connected with the Lying-in-charity; and the numerous poor attended as out-patients by the medical officers of the Manchester and Salford workhouses; amounting in all at least to 12,000 more. If to this sum we were further to add the incomparably greater amount of all ranks visited or advised as private patients by the whole body (not a small one) of professional men, those prescribed for by the chemists and druggists scarcely of inferior pretension, and by herb doctors and quacks; those who habitually swallow patent medicines; and, lastly, the subjects of that ever-flourishing branch, domestic medicine, we should be compelled to admit that not fewer perhaps than threefourths of the inhabitants of Manchester annually are, or fancy that they are, under the necessity of submitting to medical treatment. ON THE RISE AND FALL IN THE PRICE OF WOOL, IN PRUSSIA. [WE have not reduced the dollars and groshes in the following article into corresponding English values; for as the prices are introduced merely for the purpose of comparison, the reasoning will remain the same with money of any denomination. The writer of the article resides at Breslau, and is intimately acquainted with all the Prussian wool marts. Indeed, we believe it may be stated, that every thing from the pen of the author has the sanction of the Prussian government, and that he expresses the prevailing sentiments in Prussia on this interesting subject.] Forty or fifty years ago the price of wool was from 10 to 12 Silesian * I refer to the years 1834, 1835, and 1836; and the five dispensaries are-that belonging to the Infirmary, the Ancoats, the Chorlton-upon-Medlock, the Salford and Pendleton, and the Hulme. The above annual number of patients includes those admitted for "accidents." rix-dollars per stone, and, consequently, from 55 to 66 Silesian rixdollars, that is, from 44 to 52 common rix-dollars per centner, of 5 stone. There were then no complaints of being obliged to part with wool at too low a price; as little was it imagined that a time would come when a sheep would be reared whose fleece might fetch from 120 to 140 rix-dollars per centner. How absurd would any man then have been considered, if he had predicted that the time was not far distant when the farmer would become inconsolable, on account of his getting only from 70 to 100 rix-dollars for a centner of wool. Or what would have been thought if the price had suddenly risen to that height? We last year obtained such prices as an exceedingly flourishing period ensured a period, the recurrence of which then took place for the third time. In the present year, however, the average high prices descended about one-fourth; but it still retains a position, an approach to which scarcely any thing indicated in past times. But wool is not the only article that has fallen in price. Other productions have experienced even a greater depression; and with cotton, for instance, this is notoriously the case. The sheep farmer should take these circumstances into consideration, and derive consolation from them. We shall here take the liberty of presenting a brief commentary for his use. True, indeed, say the Laudatores temporis acti, wool formerly fetched a very low price. But, then, what sort of wool was it? And what would such sell for now? Unquestionably, it would fetch less than it did then. But, this is saying nothing to the purpose. The farmer, like every other man of business, must advance with the times, and accommodate himself to the circumstances of the period in which he exists; if not, he will be outstripped in the race, and when left behind, will only have himself to blame for his fate. Do we pay the same price now for goods and manu factures which we did fifty years ago? From a thousand other objects, let us, for instance, select calicoes. A yard of cotton cloth, for which from 10 to 12 Silesian groshes was formerly paid, may now be purchased for from four to five: and so it is with innumerable other things. The essential question, then, is, and ever will be, this :-At what cost can an article be manufactured? So long as that cost is covered, the figures may assume any form in the account without prejudice to the production of the article. Now, in the application of this question, we must seek the solution by the factors, namely:-1st, the cost of the sheep; 2nd, the feeding; 3rd, the management. With regard to the first-sheep, under the existing circumstances of the times, are not much dearer now, when they bear on their backs wool worth from 70 to 100 dollars the centner, than when their wool brought only from 40 to 50 dollars. The charge for feeding depends on the value of the land, and the use which may be made of it. The value is now very little, if any thing, higher than it was forty or fifty years ago; and if heavier burthens raise that value, a compensation is to be obtained by the more profitable employment of the land. If, indeed, we take the present price of corn as a measure of value, and apply it to past times, we shall find that the value of land has decreased, and, therefore, that we might now produce wool at a lower price. The management includes the expense for pens, for good fodder, and for the attendance of persons charged with the care of sheep. The pens recently erected have been of an expensive kind; but, being a sort of luxury solely introduced by the high price received for wool, such constructions are by no means necessary. Many examples show that these enclosures can be rendered perfectly suitable to their object at a comparatively small cost. But it is urged that an improved breed requires better fodder than the common race of sheep. Easily as this assertion might be controverted, we shall let it pass for what it is worth, only remarking, that the mere production of this better fodder, by giving an increased impulse to the regular progress of agriculture, is an indirect gain to the public, and that the existence of the lamented low price has not discouraged the production of grain. The pay of all the persons employed in the management of sheep is much greater now than formerly. We have, indeed, master shepherds, who receive even higher remuneration than the land-steward of large estates! It must be allowed that such is the fact. But still there are many places in which this cannot be the case; in many others the payment is not higher than in former times; and, indeed, in most instances it is lower. Heretofore, the shepherds received a tenth of the flock, for which the principal sheep were selected. Any breeder may, therefore, make a calculation of the value of this tenth, and compare it with what he now pays to his mastershepherd, and having done so, then let him say whether that item of outlay is at present greater than formerly. Since, then, the result of the calculation on all the three factors shows a diminution of expense, it of course follows that if, heretofore, the breeding of sheep was profitable, it is more profitable now; or, inversely, if it is a losing trade at present, it was more so in former times. The real subject of complaint, to speak plainly, is solely this:-that the fall in the price of wool occurred too rapidly and unexpectedly, and all at once, to too great an extent. Plans and calculations were founded on the basis of preceding years, and the sudden disappointment of the speculators could not fail to produce a severe shock. We have, how ever, more than once survived similar concussions. In 1826-27, the price was lower than it is at present; and yet the conviction was soon again forced on every one, that the breeding of improved races of sheep is a branch of industry which the agriculturist cannot abandon. Experience is, at all times, the best teacher, and the production of wool every where very soon attains its limits; not so the consumption. A growing population and progressive civilization are two causes constantly operating to create a more extensive demand. A failure in wool caused by mortality among the sheep, cannot be so easily compensated as a failure in vegetable productions; for animals cannot be so rapidly reared and extensively multiplied. Cotton, which may be regarded, in some measure, as the rival of wool, increases in thirty years four-fold; whereas, half a century must pass away before an increase of one-half can be added to a given quantity of wool: it is obvious that the former affords a much wider scope for augmentation than the latter. It is, however, on this account that the embarrassment of the present crisis has not affected wool nearly so much as cotton. From these facts we may then confidently infer that we still have a sure market for our produce, and also, that it will soon again command a better price. It cannot, however, be too often repeated, that a price forced up to an extravagant height, cannot fail to prove as injurious to the production as to the consumption of wool. |