-86 Notes for the Month. [SEPT, 



less or furious driving Such a statute would be a salutary check upon 

 the very worthiest conductors of vehicles, who in the* infirmity of 

 human nature are apt to be hasty when they know that they have 

 weight enough "certainly to knock down every thing before them. But, 

 as the law now stands, a man may have an extensive injury done to his 

 carriage or horses or an irreparable one any, short of death to his 

 person; and his only remedy is by an action at law, possibly against a 

 fellow who is not worth a shilling ; or by an information before a magis- 

 trate for furious driving, upon which ten shillings, we believe some very 

 small and inadequate fine certainly is the highest penalty that can be 

 inflicted. 



Danger of Concession. " You look sorry, brother/' said an American 

 general to an Indian chief, who was on a visit to the city of New York : 

 " is there any thing to distress you ?" " I'll tell you, brother,' 1 answered 

 the Indian " I have been looking at your beautiful city, the great water, 

 your fine country, and see how happy you all are. But then I cannot 

 help recollecting that this fine country, and this great water, were once 

 cur's. The white people came here in a great canoe ; they asked us only 

 to let them tie it to a tree, lest the water should carry it away. They 

 then said some of their people were sick, and they asked permission to 

 land them and put them under the shade of the tree. The ice then came, 

 and they could not go away ; they then begged a piece of land to build 

 wig-warns for the winter : we granted it. They then asked for some corn 

 to keep them from starving : we kindly furnished it. They promised to 

 go away when the ice was gone : when this happened, we told them 

 that they must go away with their big canoe ; but they pointed to their 

 big guns round their wig-warns, and said they would stay there, and we 

 could not make them go away : afterwards, more came. They brought 

 spirituous and intoxicating liquors, of which the Indians became very fond. 

 They persuaded us to sell them some land. Finally, they drove us back 

 from time to time into the wilderness, far from the water, the fish, and the 

 oysters. They have destroyed our game ; our people are wasting away ; 

 and we live miserable and wretched, while you are enjoying our fine and 

 beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother, and I cannot help 

 it." West's Mission to the Indians. There certainly is nothing got but 

 ruin by shewing mercy at any time to any human creature ! Whenever 

 any king or usurper or giant, is killed upon the stage, it always happens, 

 our readers may have observed, by his deferring somebody's execution an 

 hour or two hours or perhaps putting it off until a " prayer" is said, 

 when we (the audience) see clearly that it ought to take place upon the 

 spot. Well has the wise man spoken on the subject of such omissions, 

 when he cautions us to " put nothing off until to-morrow, that might as 

 well be done to-day.'' 



The " Narrative of Don Juan Van Halen," published by Colburn in 

 the last month, is a book which will be read with interest : less from the 

 information it professes to give, than from that which, as it were by the 

 way-side, will be gathered from it an insight into the extraordinary state 

 of domestic politics, at the present moment, in Spain. It is curious to 

 observe the condition of a country in which every man above a certain 

 rank must be a political agent, and in which the most honest or cautious 

 man cannot hope to be secure or right. Two parties tear the state, and 

 each other, into pieces ; there is no neutrality ; and, whichever such a 

 man may identify himself with, he finds equal distress and danger. If he 



