laSl.] The Speculator. 357 



nerveless, and doubtless perpetual motion had not a little assisted in 

 destroying what was never at any period of his life strong or vigorous. 

 He sank gradually under it, and became little better than a driveling 

 idiot ! 



Some kind persons secured him a safe asylum in the house founded 

 by himself. I have seen him twice in his state of hopeless imbecility. 

 The last visit was peculiarly distressing. His poor wife ! She was there, 

 Leslie, with her two helpless children, gazing upon the living wreck of 

 what might have been ! Good God ! is it not dreadful to think how man 

 perverts the benevolence of his INIaker, and how thoughtlessness poisons 

 the cup of life ! And yet the poor idiot was in what would be called 

 rude animal health : while her black and threadbare garments — her 

 pallid cheek, and tottering step, substantiated the truth of what her lips 

 declared—" that the world went coldly with her and hers." She kissed 

 him at parting, and made the children kiss him too. And he cared not 

 for those kisses, but looked upon the group with lustreless eyes and a 

 senseless laugh. She covered her face with her worn hands, and I 

 heard her sobbings as she passed from the narrow apartment. 



So much for the curse of civilized society — the fool's-paradise of 

 speculation. ■"• 



STEAM-PACKET UEGULATIONS. 



A brief debate has taken place in the Commons upon the means of 

 providing for the security of the public in the steam-boats ; in which 

 debate we say, reverentially (as we ought with the fear of the honour- 

 able house before our printer's eyes), we did not discover much sense 

 — the general opinion being, that to make any inspection of those 

 same steam-boats, as to their sea-worthiness, the state of their 

 machinery, or the means of escape in case of danger at sea, was an 

 indelicate distrust of the wisdom, honesty, caution, and so forth, of the 

 proprietors of the said steam-boats. In short, that the passengers 

 should look to the affair for themselves ; and take care to go on board 

 no steam-boats of whose security they had not satisfied themselves. 



Now we confess that all this sounds very like nonsense. How, in the 

 name of common sense, are the passengers to know anything on the 

 subject.? They see the George the Fourth or the William the Fiftieth, 

 all flourishing in green paint and blue, waiters in white aprons, muffins 

 and coffee in the cabin, and three fiddlers and a bassoon in full loyalty of 

 song on the deck. The sun shines, the smoke towers, the bell rings, 

 and off they go, tide and wind with them, at the rate of twenty knots 

 an hour. How are those gay creatures of the element floating along the 

 " liquid blue," as the poets of Almacks pronounce it, to know, that in 

 half an hour every man of them is destined to swim or flounder for his 

 life.? that the boiler is within the millionth part of a square inch of 

 blowing up every second ? that the engine-man is immersed in gm ? that 

 the timbers, however painted they may be, are rotten to the core ? that 

 the captain is an ass, and a savage, and will be dead drunk before the 

 gallant steamer has evaporated her first peck of coals ? 



Let the unfortunate Rothsay Castle tell the tale. Of the hundred and 

 twenty unfortunates who stepped on board tliut ship m the gaiety ot 



