DEB 



590 



DEB 



II 

 Flebretzin. 



which are parallel to the coast, and are joined by others 

 smaller and narrower. In the upper part of the town, 

 the streets are broad and spacious, but in the lower part 

 of it, they are narrow and dirty. The houses are chief- 

 ly built of brick, and are very irregular, but those which 

 have been recently erected are more elegant and com- 

 modious. Besides the parish church, which is at a dis- 

 tance from the town, there is a chapel of ease in the 

 lower town, which was erected about the beginning of 

 the last century. It is built of brick, and is 80 feet by 50 

 in the inside. The roof is of timber, curiously framed, 

 and wholly supported on the side walls. The castle, 

 which consists chiefly of a round tower, for the accom- 

 modation of a small garrison, stands to the south of the 

 town, has a drawbridge, and is surrounded by a deep 

 ditch; but Deal is principally defended by the bat- 

 teries and martello towers which were recently built 

 on the adjacent eminences. The other public buildings 

 are a regular custom-house, a naval storehouse, an ex- 

 tensive naval hospital, a public library, and a reading- 

 room. Extensive barracks have also been erected near 

 the castle. 



The inhabitants are principally occupied in maritime 

 operations. There is here a regular establishment of 

 49 pilots, for the safe conveyance of shipping from and 

 to the Downs, and up the rivers Medway and Thames. 

 The charges are regulated by the tonnage ; and it is a 

 privilege of the pilots of the upper book, (or those Avho 

 have been longest on the list,) to pilot all ships that 

 draw more than 1 1 feet 4 inches of water. By their 

 intrepidity, and that of the Hovellers, or sailors who 

 assist them, much valuable property, and many valua- 

 ble lives, have been preserved in cases of shipwreck. 

 Two markets are held here weekly, and two fans an- 

 nually. East Long. 1° 23' 59", and North Lat. 51° 

 13' 5". 



The following is an abstract of the population return 

 in 1811, for the parish. 



Inhabited houses, 1,34-0 



Families that occupy them, 1,582 



Do. employed in agriculture, 25 



Do. in trade and manufacture, . 156 



Do. not included in these classes, 1,401 



Males, 3,382 



Females, 3,969 



Total population in 1811, 7,351 



See Hasted's History of Kent ; and Brayley's Beauties 

 of England and Wales, vol. viii. p. 1019 — 1024. (J) 



DEATH. See Physiology. 



DEBRETZIN, Debrezen, a large and populous 

 town of Austria, in Upper Hungary. This town is of 

 the most wretched description. The streets are not pa- 

 ved, and in those which are most frequented, balks are 

 laid down in the middle for the accommodation of foot 

 passengers. The town is surrounded with a hedge, 

 and the gates, which are like our common field gates, 

 are stuck with thorns and brambles. The houses, 

 which are thatched, have generally only one story, 

 and have their gable ends towards the street. The 

 Calvinists, who form the majority of the inhabitants, 

 have a college, which is numerously attended; but the 

 buddings are old and ruinous. The Togati, who alone 

 live in the college, amount to 400. Eight of them are 

 lodged in one room. The younger scholars, who are 

 nearly one thousand in number, live out of the college. 

 The library is filled with the classics and scholastic di- 

 vinity. 



One of the principal manufactures here is soap, which 

 gives employment to 70 master boilers, and is made 

 from natron, a natural mineral alkali, called szekso. 

 It is an efflorescence, which is found on a sandy soil at 

 a lake near Kismaria, only a few miles from Debretzin. 

 The soap is sent to every part of Hungary. There is 

 likewise a manufactory of woollen stuff resembling a 

 sheep's skin, called guba, and another of pipes. There 

 is an imperial saltpetre manufactory near the town, and 

 also a few vineyards. About 1 000 cwt. of saltpetre is 

 annually sent from Debretzin to the Imperial Magazine 

 at Cashaw ; but only 200 cwt. of it is produced here. 

 The rest is received in the impure state, and is only 

 purified. Horned cattle are reared in great abundance 

 in the neighbourhood. The inhabitants are obliged to 

 go more than a quarter of a mile for water. Population 

 30,000. See Townson's Travels in Hungary, p. 238 — 

 249. (w) 



DEBT, National, is the name for the amount, ac- 

 cumulated in a course of years, of government expence 

 above revenue. In former ages, the extent of the sum 

 hi hand constituted, in a great measure, the limit of the 

 public outlay. Our ancestors, though equally desirous 

 with us of augmenting their expenditure, had little con- 

 ception of the method of obtaining temporary loans,, 

 and none whatever of making permanent ones, by 

 forming their collective amount into a transferable 

 stock. It was to the thought and ingenuity of the Ita- 

 lians, that Europe has to attribute this, along with ma- 

 ny other discoveries. That reflecting people found out, 

 that the way to give a value to a sum of debt, where 

 the security was fair, however slow the progress of pay- 

 ment, was to convert the whole into a disposable pro- 

 perty. The power of transferring shares from one indi- 

 vidual to another, was thus rendered a kind of counter- 

 poise to the want of present solvency on the part of the 

 government ; and it was found to be enough that go- 

 vernment performed punctually the duty of paying the 

 interest. 



It was at the sera of the Revolution that this innovation 

 first took place in our financial system. The public 

 confidence in the new government, the establishment of 

 freedom on a solid basis, and the ardour to repress the 

 endless encroachments of Louis XIV. all combined to 

 give stability to a plan, which would have sunk in a 

 moment to the ground under the arbitrary sway of a 

 James or a Charles. These considerations gave sup- 

 port to the system during the doubtful, and sometimes 

 unsuccessful, contest, which was terminated by the 

 peace of Ryswick. Notwithstanding a considerable re 

 duction in the interval between that treaty and the 

 death of King William, the funded debt of the country 

 amounted, in 1701, to 16,000,000; and many grave 

 politicians considered twenty millions as a ruinous point 

 in the progress of accumulation. 



After the peace of Utrecht, the attempts to discharge 

 the national debt were made very gradually and feebly. 

 A sinking fund, on a plan by no means unlike that of 

 Mr Pitt, was established ; but its operation was so slow, 

 and so frequently interrupted, that the total discharge 

 in the 27 years of peace, preceding the war of 1740, 

 did not exceed L. 7,000,000 sterling. Queen Anne's 

 war had carried the national debt to L. 50,000,000, and 

 ministers finding that the country had been brought to 

 bear the pressure of this load, were in no haste to at- 

 tempt its alleviation : an attempt alone would it have 

 been; for it is vain to talk of relieving the publie 

 from a burden contracted iu the shape of debt, by war 

 expences. The only mode of relief, as we shall 



Debs. 



