The National Register.
London, England, 1808-03-13 00:00:00

TILE NATIONAL REGISTER.

themselves, and to their circumstances. The inhabitants of the
country are subject to one class of prejudice,, the inhabitants of
the town are subject to another. It is even remarked, that
particular professions have a tendency to engender particular
prejudices. Thus lawyers are considered as subject to one set
of misapprehensions, and clergymen, for PA am ple, to another.
The poor, it is well known, have n►nny prejudices peculiar to
themselves, and the rich, it is equally well known, are subject
to prejudices of a different description. Now the great anti-
dote to these prejudices, among all descriptions of persons. 19
reading. This habituates their minds to general s s hieh
comprehend all classes of men. This engenders reflection,
which loosen the bands that tie then► as it were, into distinct
and separate parcels. The competition of the newspapers,
fatally, and lamentably, counteracts this happy energy.
The rich and the affluent, as we have already s iid, are that
class whom it is the interest of the Morning Papers to please.
Their prejudices and mistakes, therefore, are the objects of per-
petual panegyric in these paper►:; and the intlueuc.•-of their
misapprehensions is thus prodigiously extended. In pub-
lic transactions, for esample. the prejudices of the rich and
alluent, all tend to the encouragement of aristocratical mea-
sures. Towards the rapid growth, accordingly, of aristocrati-
cal power, in t!►is country, t!►ere cannot be a douht, that our
Daily Papers have largely and unfortunately contribute.l.
This mthappy effect of competition among Newspaper, in do.
terinratlng their quality, meets with a curious parallel and illus-
tration in the case of dissenting preaching It has been remark-
ed. that the einct of the interested zeal of Ow e teachers of
religion, whose emoluments depend upon pleasing their hearers,
is not to render the docrine more rational and iatproving, quite
the contrary ; it is to render it absurd and useless. With the
great proportion of such teachers, it is the main enquiry what
opinions Is ill be most palatable to those whom they address.
They study their prejudices. Th••se they flatter, by represent-
ing them as principles of the greatest certainty and importance.
They blow up the fanatical and superstitious fires of their hear-
ers ; and pervert the salutary influence of preacuing, as the
Newspapers that of reading, to the confirmation rather than
the removal of error, to Cu: corruption rather than the in4:rove-
meat of the people.
We bad intended to present our Readers, in this Number,
with a short character of the four principal Morning Papers;
but the general reflections which we have here presented, ap-
peared to us of great importance, and have precluded the exe-
cution of this design, w hich we must, therefore, postpone till
another opportunity.

I¢4

quake of 1783, the half of this fortress, with 100 men, were
thrown into the sea.

The 03i41a1 Journal contains an article, dated Constantinople,
Jan. YB,which state', that General Cardane, Ambassador from
the Emperor Nipoleon to Perrin. arrived on the 8d of Novem-
ber. at Koi, the tir,t town on the Persian territory. In the same
place he met the PerAan Amhx,sodor, on his way to France,
who,e retinue conFi,ts of more than one hundred persons, and
who carries with him elegant and curious presents of sn ords, to
the value of I:reeral millions.

An Imperial Decree of the llth of February, contains regu-
lations to the follow ing effect :—" An embargo shall he laid on
all A lgerine ships in the harbours of our F.mpire. and in those of
our k inl,dotn of Italy ; all Algerine subjects shall he arrested, and
secured in prison ; all goods and nierchandize belonging to the
Dey of Algier., or his subjects, which shall be found in our
Empire, or in the kingdom of Italy, shall be sequestered.
These meacures shall continue to be taken as long as the Dey of
Algiers retains our Genoese subjects as slaves in his prisons."