12Q THE FISHERIES. 



Again : the calamities of the rural districts reflect 

 themselves upon the towns. Are not all avenues 

 of industry closing up about us — all trades, profes- 

 sions, occupations stagnating? — our resources ne- 

 glected : our commercial and manufacturing interests 

 rivalled, and depressed. All, bow down before the 

 competition of England, with its accumulated powers 

 of credit, capital, and wealth. We s-tand beside a 

 Goliath, and are obscured, and thrown into the shade 

 — Formerly in our capital, our great Institution of 

 learning ; the pubhc departments; the learned profes- 

 sions ; and our great medical schools, the Hospitals, 

 almost sustained the social edifice. But see — they 

 totter, they oscillate to the centre — Let us calmly 

 examine our position and prospects. 



Our law — there was a word ! — " the expectancy 

 and rose of the fair state :" but a devastatino^ simoon 

 has swept around our halls, penetrating to their very 

 innermost recesses. Where is that fabric of feudal 

 origin — that pile of venerable fictions, built up by 

 the learning and the research of so many by-gone 

 sages? Where are now the tortuous and never- 

 ending labyrinths of the equity suit? the huge un- 

 wieldy Bill, the ponderous, reverberating Answer? 

 and last, though least to be regretted, where is that 

 science conversant about the " special plea," with 

 all the fruitless and interminable mazes of its Pene- 

 lopean web ? — All this has passed away : a better 

 jurisprudence opens to our view ; justice again as- 

 sumes her plain and simple dress, and with one ac- 



