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FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

ANSWER TO REMARKS ON INSTINCTIVE IMPULSES.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

YOUR correspondent's second criticism of my last pamphlet on Instinctive Impulses is written with an asperity, which I could not have anticipated when I made the extract of one or two paragraphs from the pen of a lawyer in the Edinburgh Review.

As laws have not been enacted by inspired men, and were many of them introduced at a less enlightened period than the present, without a development of inconveniences by experience, the English writer with propriety, recommends the abolition of absurd formalities, of which individuals, (not the expounders of the law) too frequently avail themselves, to defeat equitable claims, or to set aside just titles.

Your correspondent in his first criticism, accused me of a trick of the most glaring and disingenuous kind, in endeavouring to prepossess the female portion of my readers in my favour, and now charges me with ungenerous and absurd accusations of the gentlemen of the bar, throughout the United States: surely I have not displayed much policy in this selection of my objects for a combat; for who would not prefer a controversy with Ladies to one with Lawyers in truth, I neither intended to flatter the former nor to offend the latter, and it was with equal surprise and regret, that I found myself suspected with thinking that the gentlemen of the bar one and all deserved the gallows. Fortunately for me your correspondent, appealing to my candour, asks whether I have not found as much information, refinement, and private worth amongst them as in Europe, and I thank him for the opportunity thus afforded of expressing with sincerity, my high estimation of their learning, eloquence, and integrity, combined with polished manners and cordial hospitality: I could with pleasure say more, but must restrain the Impulse, lest the language of truth should be misconstrued into flattery to avert further acrimony.

If a government were to prescribe a particular mode to build houses, I should not expect architects or builders to relinquish their professions, because they could not prevail upon the government to introduce more convenient plans; neither can I condemn lawyers for adhering to preceding incongruities, because legislators have not established perfection in jurisprudence.

The author of the paragraphs quoted by me from the Edinburgh Review, after "unfolding the sources of that superstitious veneration, which veils the head indiscriminately to whatever has long stood in the place of worship, and which considers precedent and usage, as at least equal in authority to equity and common sense," laments with lord Hale, that," sages are afraid to reform the laws," and concludes with expressing his astonishment," at the singular adherence of the American States to the common law of England, a system in many points equally repugnant to their government and their circumstances."

Can it be denied that there are different forms of proceedings in the several states, and that there are different rates of interest for money? In short, must not every candid man allow the propriety of gradual improvements, for simplicity and uniformity?-Your correspondent indeed, gives an instance of speedy process in Pennsylvania for the recovery of a claim, but does not the law's delay, of which Shakspeare complained, exist in other states? Having mentioned interest, let me ask whether the ancient law is founded in justice which prohibits compound interest? Suppose a mortgagee after postponement from lenity and after the delays of foreclosure proceedings in chancery, obtains payment after the expiration of fifteen years, will not his debtor have gained about 8,000 dollars on the retention of 10,000 dollars so long?-Does not the law in this case encourage the borrower to withhold payment of his loan, and is it equitable that a debtor should be tempted by the law itself to a breach of punctuality, and an act of injustice?-A thief may purloin a small sum, but here a defendant may keep your money for several years with the law to support him, and even when the chancellor gives his decree, how does the mortgagee's account stand? viz.

Loss by not receiving compound interest,

$8,000

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After this the mortgager appeals to gain further delay, and a similar result takes place after the mortgagee perhaps has lost his health or his life.

I acknowledge with satisfaction, that I have enjoyed the hilarity of the firesides of gentlemen of the bar, and partaken of their hospitality, with, "the feast of reason and the flow of soul;" but I never retired with ingratitude and malignity, to pen a sentence of invective and reproach; of this heavy accusation, my conscience acquits me, and I trust that your correspondent will eraze this count from his declaration. He will never find me one of those, who, "having visited this country for my own gratification, afterwards abuse it for the amusement of friends abroad"-The natural desire to see perfection in those we love, makes us solicitous to have little defects removed, and a similar impulse prompted me cursorily to intimate that the laws were capable of improvement-Law I admit is the security of life and property, and expenditures on courts and jurists are the price we pay for liberty; but may not useless forms and unnecessary circumlocution, render protection more burthensome than is requisite? I have seen fortifications strengthened, by the removal of superfluous and endangering outworksI have perceived religion purified by the abolition of frivolous rituals, and I imagine that laws may be simplified by expunging some useless formalities.

Upon reconsideration of your correspondent's remarks, I am induced to hope that he is a friend in disguise, who deeming my essay calculated to do good, has adopted this apparently unkind mode to bring it into notice, and to draw me into the field of argument, where he says, he will be happy to break a lance with me on some future day.

As my disposition is to avoid controversy, and as I perceive that my formidable antagonist has the power to "make the worse appear the better cause," I must decline his challenge-Should I have the happiness to become acquainted with him, I will apply to him the anecdote related of the king of Prussia, who seeing general Laudon modestly stationed at the bottom of his table, exclaimed, “ come up general, I had rather have you on my side than opposed to me."

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It will require time to particularise evil, and to suggest remedies in compliance with your correspondent's request; for I am convinced that he would not wish me to be precipitate in reformation. If, however, he will kindly cooperate, I think we may diminish litigation about one-third, and thereby add much tranquillity, if even we shall not augment the security of the community. I can fancy him to exclaim," a consummation devoutly to be wished." ASIATICUS.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

We have just glanced with great satisfaction through the last number of the "Emporium of Arts and Sciences," conducted by professor Cooper, of Dickinson college, and published by Kimber and Richardson, of this city. In the estimation of those acquainted with the vast and varied resources of the editor, conjoined with his attention and never-tiring industry, his name alone must stamp a value on every work in which he is concerned. In furnishing materials for that which we are now considering, he appears to move peculiarly within his own province. For the extent and correctness of his knowledge of the principles and processes of the arts and manufactures, in Great Britain, France, and elsewhere, perhaps Mr. Cooper is inferior to no man of the present or of any former period. His sources of information appear to have been books, correspondence by letter, and personal observation; and he has evidently profited most amply of them all. His business now is merely to empty on paper a part of the rich and multifarious storehouse of his mind, and a volume is formed.

Into the last number, in particular, the editor has contrived to throw a great variety of matter, all of it important, and some of it not a little curious and amusing. As a specimen of the latter, we extract the following "Remarks" from his own pen, warmly recommending the entire work to public attention.

The preceding series of papers on isinglass, glue, rope-making, and tea trays, suggest methods of saving scraps and fragments that would otherwise be thrown away as useless. The parings of leather might be further applied,

as in England, to the making of snuff boxes, pocket inkstands, segar boxes, &c. The articles are reduced to shavings, macerated in warm water, and pressed in moulds of the required shape and size. They are then dried and varnished, the black with black japan, the brown with amber varnish.

In the hot summer of the year 1780 (the summer of the memorable lord George Gordon Ricts) I attended during the long vacation of the colleges at Oxford, a course of anatomical lectures under Mr. Sheldon (who afterward published on the anatomy of the lymphatic system.) After that course, I, with several other anatomical students, attended veterinary dissections at a repository for dead horses in St. John's, Clerkenwell. I there was taught how usefully the meanest and most trifling articles might be employed under the direction of scientific skill: and I have from that time ceased to wonder at the pre-eminence in manufactures which the English have obtained, who so well know the value of saving and of using, what the negligent ignorance of foreign artists would abandon as worthless. We have a tolerably good poem on the life and death of a blood horse, "The high mettled racer," tracing his progress from being the favourite of the turf, through all the grades of hardships, till he is worn out with hunger, labour and blows, in the cart of the scavenger; I fear, a faithful account, not much to the credit of British humanity, I will now trace the progress of a dead horse through all the stages of his posthumous utility, greatly to the credit of the skill and frugality of that most ingenious people, as economical manufacturers.

A gentleman's horse dies. The routine of disposing of the dead animal, is this.

He is sent to the saddler, who gives credit for him at a guinea. The saddler gives notice to the currier, who has the horse conveyed to some repository for dead horses; where he is skinned, and the currier takes away the skin, leaving the carcase. The skin, is depiled by lime, dressed and tanned in the usual way: the offal of the skin cut off by the currier is sold to the glue maker: the offal of the leather during the process or after tanning, is laid by and sold to the makers of snuff-boxes, &c.

The dead horse is a subject for dissection to young students in comparative anatomy, who pay for the licence of going to the repository, a guinea a quarter. The flesh is then cut off, boiled, and sold to people who hawk it about the streets of London in wheelbarrows, as cat's meat and dog's meat, at 1 1-2d. per lb.

The hoofs, are sold to the makers of Prussian blue. The bones, are sold to two descriptions of manufacturers: 1st, to the makers of cart-grease, who reside at the outskirts of London, and boil the bones for the sake of the fat and marrow; which, when cold, is skimmed off, and mixed with an equal quantity of tar to make the composition necessary to grease carriage wheels. Or, secondly, they are sold to the manufacturers of volatile alkali, who make spirit

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