556 
which instrument he is a most astonishing 
performer. 
‘Mr. Bucke’s Tragedy of The Italians, 
which made so curious an impression four 
or five years since, having been some time 
out of print, and the author having. several 
times declared his resolution never to re- 
publish the prefaces, a copy of that tragedy, 
with its several prefaces, was sold, the 
other day, at an obscure sale-shop near 
Covent-Garden market, for £2. 17s. 6d. 
Amongst the Paving and Road Quacke- 
ries of the present day, a Mr. Deykes pro- 
poses that a floor of planking should be 
formed under our streets, and fine grayel 
strewed thereon, on whith to bed the gra- 
nite paving-stones! between each of which 
stones he proposes to drive wooden wedges, 
for fastening the pavement into one mass! 
This projector seems to have left out of 
view the necessity which exists, of frequent- 
ly taking up the paving-stones, to lay, re- 
pair, or alter the water and gas-pipes, and 
sometimes the sewers, coal-cellars, bakers’ 
ovens, pastry-cooks’ ice-houses, &c. :—and 
that, provided, after each of such disturb- 
ance of the paving, the same be twice or 
three times relaid with care, for which 
relayings the Water and Gas Companies, 
Commissioners of Sewers, and builders, &c. 
are legally compellable to pay, the pave- 
ment should afterwards be nothing what- 
ever the worse for such local taking up. 
The chief evils prevalent in our street- 
pavement system, until lately, were, the un- 
equal size and depth of the paving-stones ; 
and,.also, the almost pointed or wedge-shape 
of them downwards, instead of the stones 
being nearly as broad and Jong, and equal- 
ly flat, at bottom as at top, to prevent 
their unequally pressing down into -the 
gravel and soil beneath; and the using, 
under the stones, of clayey mixtures, in- 
stead of the sand and very small stones in 
the ‘siftings of gravel, called hoggins, which 
will not soften by being wetted, like clay. 
As to the paving-stones being liable, at 
present, to constant motion, amongst them- 
selves, when carriages pass over them, by 
which the dirt from beneath works up 
through their joints, on which Mr. Deykes 
so much insists, and proposes to remedy by 
his wedges, except in extreme cases of clay 
beneath the stones, and wet weather, he is 
wholly in error: the stones have no such 
motion; nor is this the usual origin of the 
dirt and mud which so quickly accumulate 
in our busy streets—a great part of this dirt 
being swept out of the shops and passages 
of the inhabitants, or illegally and privately 
thrown out into the carriage-way. 
Astonishing Increase of Brighton.—It ap- 
pears from the overseers’ accounts of the 
parish of Brighthelmstone, for the year 
ending at Easter 1'744, that there were then 
but nine short streets or places in the town, 
and no more than 120 houses, rated to the 
poor, valued at only £184, and the lands 
in the parish at £423; on which rental 
Domestic and Foreign Varielies. 
[July 1, 
four levies were made, amounting to five 
shillings in the pound ; the earnings of the 
poor in:the workhouse was £57, and the 
total expense of maintaining the poor that 
year £205. 10s. ‘7d: 
City of London Institutton.—Myr. Mace- 
Culloch has delivered his three promised 
lectures at the London Coffee-house ; 
which have been numerously attended, and 
received with the applause merited, at once, 
by their utility and importance, and by the 
liberality with which they were gratuitously 
tendered; and although, perhaps, the in- 
augural discourses of an institution pro- 
fessing objects of such general and exten- 
sive utility ought to have taken a wider 
glance at the various departments of literary 
-and scientific instruction, rather than to 
have been almost. specifically, confined to 
the individual topic of political economy, 
yet we are happy to hear that they have 
answered, in a considerable degree, the 
purpose for which they were designed. 
The establishment of- the institution is, we 
understand, no longer doubtful—more than 
500 subscribers being already obtained. 
Committals, Convictions, &c. of offenders. 
It appears, from the official returns lately 
printed, that in the five years ending with 
1823, there were committed to prison, for 
various offences, in England and Wales, 
the gross number of 71,730 persons! every 
1,000 of which, on the average, have: been 
disposed of as follows, viz, 
Convicted’: Weert. tesco ale 
Acquittedlt; cnet Reds beecetss 174 
Bills found and not prosecuted... 127 
Sentenced to death.....ccsecceseeee 19 
Executed....../..0+. Se 7 
1,000 
FOREIGN. £ 
FRANCE. 
The beautiful column, in the Place Ven- 
déme, Paris, is covered with 378 distinct 
a of bronze, cast from Egyptian cannon: 
hey are fixed by about 3,400 tenons, 
cranks and iron pins. 
A French writer on the “ Regal Office 
in a Representative Monarchy”—(M. C. 
Hiss)—takes considerable pains to prove 
that Gentleman (“‘ Gentilhomme’’) is derived 
from Gentis homo (a man of the people), 
and not Gentilis homo, as generally under- 
stood. 
Paris has its Navigation Bubbles as well 
as London: a M. Montgery has lately 
published a treatise on rendering Paris a 
seaport !—“ Only let,”’ says he, ‘‘the Seine 
~ be deepened to twelve feet water through- 
out its whole length below Paris, and then 
sea-vessels of burthen can come up to that 
city.” + This savant not appearing to be 
aware, that no degree of deepening, through- 
out the whole length.of the inclined plane 
which the bed of the Seine forms, can add 
to 
