. 
388 
mitted under the most enlightened of 
the race, what have they to expect 
from his still more bigotted succéssors? 
Crimes, Suicide, §c. 
Every crime of any magnitude com- 
mitted in England immediately finds 
its way to the Newspapers. This is 
by no means the case in France; and 
on this account a Frenchman, who 
reads our daily journals, is astonished 
at the number of our atrocities, and 
forms a comparison, as false as it is 
favorable, to his own country. The 
proneness of the English to commit 
suicide is a charge frequently urged 
against us to prove the gloominess of 
our dispositions. ‘To confute this ac- 
cusation, there needs nothing more 
than an occasional visit to La Morgue, 
where you can scarcely ever enter 
without seeing two or three bodies 
waiting to be owned by their relatives. 
As drunkenness is the parent of so 
many vices, and the French are more 
temperate than ourselves, in addition 
to which they live under less sangui- 
nary laws, another great incentive to 
crime; we must cencede to them the 
possession of more virtue as a nation. 
But, comparing the crimes committed 
in the two capitals, we must arrive at 
@ very opposite conclusion. Notwith- 
standing the boasted vigilance’ of the 
police, the comparison would be asto- 
nishingly in favour of London, as far 
as regards crimes of magnitude, and 
leaving out of view petty delinquen- 
cies, I was in Paris at the time our 
Newspapers were filled with the ac- 
count of the murder of Mrs. Donatty ; 
‘and I recollect being particularly 
struck with observing, in the French 
‘papers, a short paragraph to this effect: 
—The body of Mont, a respectable 
“shopkeeper residing in the Rue de la 
Seine, was yesterday recognised by 
his relatives at La Morgue: the body, 
on which were discovered several 
- stabs, was observed floating in the 
Seine. Mont had been missing a 
fortnight. I looked in vain in the 
“succeeding journals for any thing 
more relating to this horrible assassi- 
nation; nothing more was said of the 
unfortunate shopkeeper. Had ‘such 
an event occurred in England, every 
provincial paper would have repeated 
the murder, and every public-house 
and barber’s shop throughout the king- 
dom have canvassed the intelligence. 
Thus, by giving greater publicity to 
our crimes, we are unjustly taunted. 
“with the number of our murders and 
suicides; whilst there are more of the 
Origin and carly Progress of the Art of Printing. 
[Dee. 1, 
latter committed in Paris, owing to 
the ‘government gambling-tables, in 
one year, than‘throughout England in 
double that period. 
The Useful and the Ornamental. 
In almost all the conveniences of 
life, we are centuries’ in advance ‘of 
our neighbours. \Perhaps the best 
idea of the French character may be 
formed by considering in what they 
excel us.—trinkets, China, artificial 
flowers, obscene snuff-boxes, and, in 
the humble opinion of the writer of 
these observations, in musie, painting, 
and statuary. In the Palais’ Royal, 
you see steel most delicately wrought 
for the adornments of the’person; 
whilst their knives, locks, working- 
tools, and surgical instruments, in- 
deed every thing really useful of that 
material, is miserably inferior. * 
V Cleanliness. 
Since the days of Smollet there ‘has 
been no revolution in this particular. 
The number of inhabitants in every 
house, and the common - staircase, 
contribute very much to’ their conti- 
nuance in filth. The absence of the 
plague is among the greatest wonders 
of Paris; as you vainly seek for clean- 
liness in their palaces or their tem- 
ples, those only excepted which are 
dedicated to Cloacina, which are pu- 
rified by perpetual ablutions, and are 
to be found, for the convenience of 
both sexes, in the most public parts of 
the city. 
faa 
For the Monthly Magazine: 
NOTIcES relative to the ORIGIN and 
PROGRESS of the ART of PRINTING, én- 
cluding some B10G RAPHICAL SKETCHES 
of JOUN GUTENBERG. 
NUMBER of works have -ap- 
peared on the subject of typo- 
graphy, treating of its history, both 
general and particular; a bare list of 
the writers would be sufficient to form 
a volume. But, few of these works 
being now to be had of the booksellers, 
and there ‘being no little diversity of 
opinions among the authors, correct 
information on thisinteresting part: of 
literary history appears desirable and 
necessary. Some critics would depre- 
ciate the value, sometimes, indeed, ex- 
cessive, attached ‘to certain ancient 
editions; but, it is not the°less) true, 
that very excellent various readings 
are found in them, different passages 
having been mutilated or disfigured in 
later editions. M.de Sallengre disco- 
vered, in the first edition of Pliny, 
printed at Venice in the year bi? by 
ean 
