JAN 2 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
CHARLES DICKENS, THE CELEBRATED AUTHOR 
per, “The Daily News,' 1 of which he was to be the 
editor. The firt number of this paper appeared 
January 21, 1846; and in it he commenced his 
sketches, entitled “ Pictures from Italy.” During 
the first few weeks the paper remained under his 
management, but proving inadequate to the task, it 
passed into other hands. Since then he has pub¬ 
lished “Dombey and Son,” “David Copperfield,” 
“Bleak House,” and “Little Dorrit.” He has also 
written several Christmas books, and established a 
weekly paper, called “Household Words,” to which 
he and other writers have attracted a host of sup¬ 
porters, numbering, it is understood, somewhere 
about sixty thousand per week. Mr. D. has also 
several serials in course of publication in England 
and the United States. 
As may be seen from the foregoing, the literary 
productions of Charles Dickens are quite numer¬ 
ous, and these have won for their author a promi¬ 
nent position in the Department of Letters. The 
work of Mr. D. upon America made Brother Jona¬ 
than “ particularly wrathy” for a brief time, “ it so 
worked onto his feelins;” but all seems to have 
been overlooked, and the announcement of some¬ 
thing new from “Boz,” is hailed with pleasure by 
his many admirers on this side of the Atlantic. 
other to illustrate a book which should exhibit the 
adventures of a party of cockney sportsmen.— 
Hence the appearance of “Pickwick,” a book 
which made the author’s reputation and the pub¬ 
lisher’s fortune. After the work had commenced, 
poor Seymour committed suicide, and Mr. Habi.ot 
K. Browne was selected to continue the illustra¬ 
tions, which he did under the signature of “Phiz.” 
The great success of “ Pickwick” induced the au¬ 
thor to write “Nicholas Nickleby,” to be published 
in monthly parts. “Nicholas Nickleby” was fol¬ 
lowed by “ Oliver Twist,” which originally appear¬ 
ed in “ Bentley’s Miscellany,” which Dickens un¬ 
dertook to edit, and which under his hands rose to 
a very large circulation, but which he subsequently 
abandoned. After “Nickleby”came “MasterHum¬ 
phrey’s Clock.” 
On the completion of “Humphrey’s Clock,” 
Dickens set sail for America, where he accumulated 
materials for his “American Notes for General Cir¬ 
culation,” published on his return, in 1842. In the 
course of the year 1843, he commenced his “Mar¬ 
tin Chuzzlewit,” which appeared, like his earlier 
works, in monthly parts. In the middle of 1844 he 
went to Italy, where he spent about a year. In 
1845 he proposed to found a new morning newspa- 
Charles Dickens, the popular English author, 
whose portrait we present Rural readers this week, 
was born in 1812, at Landport, Portsmouth, Eng. At 
an early age, his father took the preliminary steps for 
making his son an attorney; but the dreariness of 
the occupation fell so heavily upon the mind of the 
future author that he induced his father to permit 
him to resign the law, and join the parliamentary 
corps of a daily newspaper. His first engagement 
was on “ The True Sun,” an ultra-liberal paper, then 
carrying on a fierce struggle for existence, from 
the staff of which he afterward passed into the re¬ 
porting ranks of “ The Morning Chronicle.” On 
that paper he obtained a high reputation, his reports 
being exceedingly rapid and no less correct. In 
the columns of the “Chronicle” he soon gave proofs 
of other talents than those of a reporter; for, in the 
evening edition of that journal appeared the 
“ Sketches of English Life and Character,” after¬ 
ward collected to form the two well-known volumes 
of “Sketches by Boz,” published respectively in 
1836 and 1837. These at once attracted considera¬ 
ble notice, and obtained great success; and the 
publisher of the collected edition gladly came to 
an arrangement with Mr. Dickens and Seymour, 
the comic draughtsman, the one to write and the 
mate, as they had only a lease of exclusive rigni xo 
trade in the northwest region for 21 years. This 
isolated company of British subjects, the remains 
of Lord Selkirk’s colony, have thus been left in 
the power of a trading company who restricted 
their rights in all respects in which their exercise 
would be likely to interfere with the interests of the 
fur trade. The settlers have been supplied with 
goods at the company’s prices which have been 
brought from England to York Factory on the 
Hudson’s Bay, and transported across the great dis¬ 
tance from thence to Lake Winipcg. The old route 
of the Northwest Company to the Red River, by 
the way of Lake Superior and Rainy Lake, has been 
little used, and the Red River colonists have lite¬ 
rally been cut off from their fellow subjects in Can¬ 
ada and from the protection of British or Colonial 
law. Since the settlement of Northern Minnesota 
they have received their supplies in part by ox 
teams, who made long journeys down the Red River 
Valley to Pembina. The young men from the Col¬ 
ony seek employment during the winter in cutting 
lumber in the pine regions of Minnesota, and are 
gradually forming close connections with the States 
of the Northern Mississippi Valley. 
The attention of the Canadian Government has 
been called to this state of things, and as the lease 
which the Hudson’s Bay Company holds of the old 
northwest fur region was about expiring, a vigorous 
effort has been made to secure to Canada the juris¬ 
diction of the lands on the Red River and of those 
immense tracts which form the valleys of the Sas¬ 
katchewan and the Assiniboine, extending from the 
western shores of Lake Winipeg to the Rocky 
Mountains. They have been led to this course by 
their anxiety to furnish abundance of cheap and 
valuable lands to emigrants; to open up an avenue 
of trade through Georgian Bay and Lake Superior 
to the country which may be thus occupied; to 
consolidate the population naturally connected with 
Canada under a compact Government, and lastly, to 
hold control of a region which may at some period 
be necessary as a route for a railroad to the North 
Pacific. In addition to these considerations there 
is a well grounded fear that the Red River popula¬ 
tion may be brought into sympathy with the people 
of the United States unless they have speedily ex¬ 
tended to them the privileges of British subjects. 
I saw a manuscript letter from a Scotch school¬ 
master, who for several years had resided on the 
Red River, urging as a reason for the immediate 
action of the Canadian Government toward extend¬ 
ing its jurisdiction over the Colony, that their 
young men were becoming imbued with American 
ideas, and were naturally looking toward the States 
as their only available career for enterprise and 
honorable distinction. Hon. JosErn Cauchon, 
Commissioner of Crown Lands in Canada, in hi$ 
report on the subject, speaks a3 follows:—“The 
proper course to pursue, therefore, would be to lay 
before the Imperial Government the expediency of 
annexing the Indian Territories to Canada, shewing 
that by this means only can those countries be 
retained long in the possession of Great Britain.— 
For colonized they must and. will be; it is only a 
question of who shall do it. If we do not, the 
Americans will, and that in spite of anything the 
[Hudson’s Bay] Company can do to prevent it,” 
In another place he adds that upon this [annexa¬ 
tion] “depends the question whether this country 
[Canada] shall ultimately become a petty State or 
one of the great Powers of the earth; and not only 
that, but whether or not there shall be a counter¬ 
poise favorable to British interests and modeled 
upon British institutions to counteract the prepon¬ 
derating influence, if not the absolute dominion, to 
which our great neighbor, the United States, must 
otherwise attain upon this continent” 
for maintaining the thin-strewn dusky shrubs which 
so timidly sprinkle its wadys. It has its rainy sea¬ 
sons, during which the clouds pour down a deluge; 
but there is no such regular supply of water as to 
tell even upon its lowest hollows or most sheltered 
plains, save in the way of scooping out water-cour¬ 
ses, or tearing up tamarisks, or cutting away the half 
gravelly, half sandy soil, into what the Bedouin call 
Jurfs, or abrading the more impressible parts of the 
sandstone steeps, or still more rarely helping (along 
with local spring, sometimes hot, sometimes cold,) 
to rear up an oasis of palms and tarfas, such as that 
of Feiran, hard by Mount Serbal, whose praises so 
many travelers have sung, and as many more are 
likely to sing again. For, by all accounts, it is 
quite a gem of desert 5 verdure — a genuine “Pal¬ 
myra,” though without a city and without a queen. 
The rain meant for Egypt seems to be swept aside 
from that level region by the stormy west wind; 
and attracted by the mountains of the Peninsula, it 
turns aside and pours itself down in water spouts 
upon the Sinaitic wastea But it comes in such 
rushes that it brings no blessing to the soil, and is 
so unequally distributed, as to time, that even the 
spring gets no refreshment from the winter floods; 
nay, hardly can remember that they have been. If 
the traveler is bold enough to penetrate the Penin¬ 
sula during the summer months—from April on to 
August—he may with certainty count upon rain¬ 
less skies; and he may pitch his tent anywhere, 
even in the low bed of the torrent; nor will he find 
a drier or safer place of encampment than any one 
of the hundred tarfa-groves in the bed of el-Arish. 
But if he is bent on a winter tour, or travels even 
so early as January or February, he must be on the 
lookout, not for showers merely, but for floods. He 
dare not choose for his encampment that sandy 
hollow where the tarfa and the rittem are so invit¬ 
ingly waving; for though it should be in Wady 
Taiybeh, “the good,” or in Wady el-Markhah, the 
“valley of rest,” he will find himself reckoning 
without his host If the wind shift to the west, 
bright as the sunset might be over the blue of Bahr 
Suweis, or above the brow of Abu Deraj beyond, he 
may find himself, tents, turbans, baggage, provisions, 
camels, fowls, and all, hurrying down a swollen 
river; which, ere the next evening’s shadow have 
come down upon these sands, will have passed into 
the sea, or wholly vanished in the thirsty porous 
ground, leaving no trace of its exuberant flow save 
a few pools in the deeper hollows, or a few drops 
in a hole of yon flat stonej which the thirsty Arab 
or his camel stoops to drink up .—North British 
Review. 
In this report he had reference mainly to that 
vaste range of country fitted for agriculture, 
stretching from Lake Winipeg to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, and as far as seven degrees northward from 
the American boundary. It is well known that 
within the tract of country thus indicated, there 
are immense portions of territory, the climate of 
which is as genial as Canada Wpst, and naturally as 
productive of all cereals except maize. Pursuant 
to this recommendation, Chief Justice Draper was 
sent to England to negotiate for the union of this 
territory to Canada, and an expedition was organ¬ 
ized to explore the country between Fort William, 
on Thunder Bay, Lake Superior and the foot of 
Lake Winipeg, in order to discover the best means 
of water and land communication with the Red 
River settlement The Hudson’s Bay Company were 
charged with exaggerating the difficulties of the 
route by Rainy Lake, in order to discourage the 
Government from annexing the territory to Can¬ 
ada. In proof of this, the fact was alleged that last 
spring the company wishing to transport a battalion 
of troops thither, instead of taking the direct route 
of the old Northwest Company by Fort William, 
sent them by ship to York Factory, on Hudson’s 
Bay, and thence across the country to the streams 
flowing into Lake Winipeg. Happening to be in 
Toronto at the time of the starting of this expedi¬ 
tion, I secured an unoccupied state-room in the 
steamer chartered to carry the expedition to Fort 
William, and accompanied it around the northern 
shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior to the 
mouth of the Kamenistiqua River, where the expe¬ 
dition was to commence its exploration. With 
your permission I may give your readers some few 
jottings of our experience on this route of travel, 
a part of which is so seldom visited. 
A WORD TO YOUNG RURALISTS. 
Our young friends will perceive that we have | 
changed our location, and we like our new quar¬ 
ters very much. Not but the old place was good 
enough, but we were liable to be crowded into an 
uncomfortably small space, and we were sometimes 
unceremoniously pushed out altogether. A press 
of Agricultural matter, often occurring, compelled 
us to stand aside, which we very modestly submit¬ 
ted to without much grumbling. As the large fish 
swallow the little ones, so we were often swallowed, 
sometimes by pieces, and sometimes whole. Now 
we have a place where we are safe from molesta¬ 
tion. No one dare crowd us, or even look with 
longing eyes upon the column we occupy, which is 
sacred to the Youth. This will give us fifty-two 
columns in the year, and as each column contains 
as much reading as three or four common book 
pages, we shall give during the year as much mat¬ 
ter as would be contained in a book of about two 
hundred pages. Now we want to crowd into this 
space as much interesting and useful information 
as possible, and we want all Young Ruhalists to 
help us. We have room enough, but none to waste. 
We shall soon commence a series of short articles 
on Vegetable Physiology. In this number we com¬ 
mence an article in answer to a previous inquiry, 
on the Preservation of Birds, Animals, &c., from a 
gentleman who is an expert Taxidermist: 
Immediately after a bird is killed the throat and | 
nostrils should be stufTed with cotton, and a small \ 
quantity wound around the bill to prevent the ^ 
blood staining the feathers, which should remain 
while skinning or be replaced occasionally with Another m< 
fresh. Should there be any stain from shot wounds winding it on 
it must be wiped off immediately with a damp the required s 
sponge. In proceeding to skin the bird, it should with callipers, 
be laid on the back, and the feathers of the breast possible, intrc 
separated to the right and left, when a broad in- deficiency ths 
terval will be discovered reaching from the top to The wire mm 
the bottom of the breast bone. A pen knife or skull, as in tin 
scalpel must be inserted at the point of the bone, [This subje 
and cutting the outer skin from thence to the vent, when we shall 
taking care not to penetrate so deep as the flesh or j n g the arseni 
the inner skin which covers the intestines. The S ary informat 
skin will then be separated easily from the flesh by the eyes, &c.] 
THE DESERT OF SINAI-RAIN AND FLOODS. 
The peninsular desert is not a land without rain; 
and, speaking generally of the East, we may say 
that there seems to be much more rain than we 
usually give it credit for. In Upper Egypt, cer¬ 
tainly, there is hardly such a thing as rain. That 
region—the region where the wondrous ruins of a 
hundred temples crowd together, embalmed, and so 
preserved by the hot dry air, as effectually as their 
tenants are by spice and odors—may be called rain¬ 
less. It is wholly at the mercy of the Nile. Middle 
Egypt has more rain, though little to boast of.— 
Lower Egypt has considerably more; and in some 
places might do battle with the drouths on its own 
resources. But the Desert has more than all Egypt 
together—only so regulated as to be useless, save 
