1827.] Notes for the Month. 223 



formly trusted, proverb that Mr. Cunningham, in two other places bears 

 witness to the extraordinary freedom of the t( government settlers" from 

 ordinary hazards of bodily harm. " No ship," he says, " was ever yet 

 lost that went out with convicts to New South Wales !" And again 

 " In four voyages," he observes, " that he made, personally, he has car- 

 ried out six hundred convicts, male and female, without ever losing (by 

 sickness] a single individual I" 



A curious admission, and one which, though it was unavoidable, will 

 grate, we suspect, a good deal upon the ears of our scientific countrymen, 

 was made a few days since at a meeting of the United Mexican Mining 

 Company, held at the London Tavern. The Chairman of the Company 

 declared, upon the authority of the last reports received from South Ame- 

 r i ca? that the superiority which we expected our " English knowledge" 

 to give us iu mining affairs over the ignorance of the Mexicans, conld no 

 longer rationally be expected. That, in truth, there was scarcely any 

 part of the business of mining in which we could materially improve 

 upon the old South American system. That the mines of the Company 

 were placed, now, in every case as the best means of making them pro- 

 ductive under the guidance and administration of native Mexicans. 

 And that the chief real advantage which the Company might look to pos- 

 sess over the people of the country, would lie not in the superiority of 

 English skill, but in the employment of English capital. It is something 

 to have any point of advantage at all ; but this is a terrible blow to be 

 convicted of not knowing more about what was fit and suitable in Mex- 

 ico, than the Mexicans themselves ! 



A German newspaper contains a strange account avouched with as 

 much apparent accuracy almost as those which concerned the mermaids 

 lately seen off our own coast, or the sea-serpent that visits the shores of 

 America of a conversion lately worked upon the morals of a famous robber, 

 by a supernatural visitation in the forest of Wildeshausen. The hero of 

 the tale, whose name is Conrad Braunsvelt, but who was better known by 

 the cognomen of " The Woodsman," was drinking one evening at a small 

 inn on the borders of the forest of Wildeshausen, when a traveller, well 

 mounted, and carrying a portmanteau on his horse behind him, came up 

 by the road which runs from the direction of Hanover. The stranger, 

 after inquiring if he could be accommodated with a bed, led his horse 

 away to the stable, and in doing this, left his portmanteau upon a bench 

 within the house which Conrad immediately, as a preliminary measure, 

 tried the weight of. He had just discovered that the valise was unusually 

 heavy, when the return of the traveller compelled him to desist; but 

 his curiosity, without any farther effort, was not long ungratified ; for the 

 stranger soon opened it before him, as it seemed, to take out some articles 

 which were necessary for his use at night; and displayed in the process 

 several largo bags larger almost than the machine would have seemed able 

 to contain which were evidently full of gold or silver money. The cupi- 

 dity of Conrad was excited by this view, and he would gladly have at 

 once secured the prize even at the hazard of a personal struggle with the 

 stranger; but the people of the inn (according to his account afterwards) 

 were such as would have expected a portion of the spoil. For this 

 reason, although unwillingly, and trusting himself to sleep little, lest by 

 any chance the prey should escape him, he abandoned his design of rob- 

 bery, for that night ; and on the next morning, having learned which way 



