The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-06 00:00:00

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r ARY 6, 1855•

retail merchants, and ninety-three per cent. of
wholesale merchants, fail annually in this
" cute" country ?
" Honesty is the best policy after all," and
Barnum may live to find that out. He is in
his prime at present, the meridian of his
glory. We shall be curious to see bow it will all
end There is little else to be said. The book is
vulgarly written, hut the anecdotes are good,
and the personal reminiscences amusing from
their very roguery. Barnum is the great im-
postor of the nineteenth century. Let us
add that he is also the most successful one;
and with Americans, success in life, and
hard dollars in cash, are the main points of
existence.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
lilacktcood opens the year with a vigorous article
as the conduct of the war ; the two great measures
of the ten days' session are analysed, and shown to
be wholly unequal to the emergency of the time.
The War Department is severely criticised, but our
northern contemporary can scarcely appreciate the
utter contempt which the Duke of Newcastle's de-
plorable inaptitude is regarded in London. A paper
on "Civilisation" acutely notices the most material
results of the last census. The " Romance of
Zaidee " we, for the present, refrain from expressing
an opinion on, as it has only reached its second part.
M. de Lavergne's work on " Rural Economy" supplies
a most ingenious and readable paper. The reviewer,
having occasion to notice Arthur Young, extracts a
.curious passage from his journal, showing that he
:actually saw the electric telegraph in use in Paris in
his day. Here is the passage :
In the evening to Mons. Lomond, a very ingenious and
'inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement of the
jenny for spinning cotton. Common machines are said to
make too hard a thread for certain fabrics, but this forms
it loose and spongy. In electricity he has made a remark-
able discovery. You write two or three words on a paper:
be takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine en-
closed in a cylindrical case. at the top of which is an elec-
trometer, a small, fine pith-ball ; a wire connects with a
similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment ;
and his wife, by marking the corresponding motions of the
ball, writes down the words they indicate, from which it
appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As
tie length of the wire makes no difference iu the effect, a
•
correspondence might be carried on at any distance—
within &nil without a besieged town, for instance or for
a purpose murk more worthy, ant a thousand times more
harmless, between two lovers prohibited or prevented from
Any better commeetion.
This, perhaps, in the most singular instance on
record of a great practical invention having so long
remained neglected. We must quote from this able
paper another paragraph, no less remarkable for
truth and sound philosophy than for original re-
flection :

Shall we startle the admirers of royal academicians—
the lovers of the arts, and more especially the flattering
admirers of Sir Edwin Landseer—if we 'my, and some
what boldly, too, that in the best sense and feeling of na-
eare his pictures are not natural ? Nature seems ever to
is to take especial care to keep out of sight the necessary
cruelty (we say cruelty as not seeing, yet not doubting,
the benevolence of the law) by which animal preys upon
ennui. Rarely, as we walk the fields or the woods, does
'the perpetration of this destruction become visible ; rarely
,does the death or agony of the creatures present itself.
Most animals prey in the night, when man's eyes are
,closed ; and those that perish by day, and are devoured,
:are covered in the secrecy of lone places. Nature loves to
'exhibit the cheerful side of life ; the singing-birds come
mearest-to human habitations; creatures are mostly seen in
enieyment of their life. Nature, kind nature, is fearful
to &dent wan too much into the visible operation of the
awful secret of death—is cautious not to familiarise him
with the general slaughter going on around him, lest he
become more cruel than ho is. Now, nature wishes to be
painted with this expression of her forbearance. Painters
who disobey this injunction deserve not to be called na-
ture's painters. She will have all cruelty kept out of sight.
Sir Edwin Landseer makes the cruelty his subject. We
itearcely know a picture from his pencil that is not utterly
'cruel. His works are in defiance of kindliness and
'humanity And is this year's picture better? It is
-worse for it must misrepresent royal personages. Our
amiable Queen never could have been seen by human eye,
smiling as she is about to tread upon the bleeding faces
end glazed eyes of the slaughtered creatures heaped upon
each other. We ever shall, with the indignation of
•oseuded humanity, protest against Finch employment of art.
We fully agree in the critics condemnation of the
last picture. But in regard to Landseer's general
works, we think his censure unjust, though his prin-
ciple is excellent. It is surely no objection to Land-
seer that he chooses the tragic side of nature for
representation, especially as by so doing he almost
humanises purely animal suffering. Even the
"Otter Hunt," to which the critic alludes in another
passage, is a ca nine epic, and most surely as admi-
rable iu its way as the chase of Hector by Achilles
round the walls of Troy. Mr. Thackeray's merits
as a novelist met with discriminating appreciation.
•° Peace and Patriotism " is somewhat "slow " in its