Elizabeth-Town gazette. [volume] (Elizabeth-Town, N.J.) 1818-1821, 1819-01-05
MISCELLANY.
From the Connecticut Courant.
THE BRIEF REMARKER.

he dusnofHy vi CuslOU3 Oh ancient
custom aud usage, has 10 great many
instances been found to be paramount to
The authority OF law. The Doors of
Russia readily allowed Peter the Great
| to be sole master of their lives but his
meddiing with their boards and with the
manner of their. dress, threw them into a
furious rebellion.
g The excessive veneration the Chinese
have for the customs aud usages Of their
ancestors, utterly prevents improvement !;
Tor all improvement is change, and the
least change in regard to ancient usages
startles them, as If it were an act Of dar-
ing impiety.'
!" What could I do i? II is the custom
was the answer OF Hiudoo young man
to Christian missionary, who reproved
him for setting fire to the pile on which
his mother was placed, 10 be burnt alive.
Neither could learned Bramin have
sigen better reason. 1t was the custom
Of the country to burn women, along with
the corpses of their husbands; a custom
handed down from remote progenitors !:
aud that was enough not only TO satisfy
an immense popuistion, Of its prepriety !,
but 10 inflame them with a furious zeal in
its behalf.
The oldest race upon the face of the
earth, has retained lis customs, usages
and manners, unaltered to the present day.
The Arab now, has the same customs, and
usages, and the same distinct features OF
character that the Arab had four thousand
years ago.
IT. China, blows are felt in so far as
they are painful, and no further. Fifty
blows of tie bamboo, inflicted on the
naked body, is no disgrace because there
it has been time out of mind a standing
custom to fog, not Only the common sort,
but even magistrates and the highest Off
GERS of the realm; stripping them, for
that purpose, OF al! but natures robe
Accordingly, the Chinese are nation
without honour they have not particle
of what Europeans and their American de-
scendants, cal! honour.
And what makes the difference Gus
tom. The Europeans, and we their de-
scendants, are of Gothic ancestry. The
Cloths, who overrun aud conquered west
ern Europe, and incorporated 10 its whole
system their own feelings, usages and
manners, was one of the most ferocious
races of savage men that was ever known.
They had rather die the cruellest of
deaths, than receive an nnrevenged blow.
Tie chronicle Of the Cid, translated
from the Spanish by Robert Souhey,
gives strong instance. In the eleventh
century-at a period when the feelings
and the customs Of the Spaniards were al
together Gcthic-Diego Lauez, chief of a
noble house, received blow from the
Count Don Gomez the consequences
are described ii the Cid as follows,
g Now Diego was a man in years, and
his strength passed from him, so that he
could not take vengeance, and he retired
10 his home to dwell there and lament
over his dishonour. And he took no
pleasure in his food, neither could he
sleep by night, nor would he lift up his
eyes from the ground, nor stir out of his
house, nor commune with his friends, but
turned from them in silence as if the breath
Of his shame would faint them.'' Diego
continued, year after year 10 this sulen
melancholy mood, till his son Rodrigo,
coming of aye, went out and defed Don
Gomez, aud slew him, and smote off his
head and carried it TO his father. Z" The
old man was sitting at table, the food lying
before him untasted, when Rodrigo re-
turned, and pointing 10 the head which
hung from the horses collar, dropping
blood, he babe him look up, for there was
the herb that should restore him to appe-
tite the tongue, quoth he, which insulted
you, is no longer tongue, and the hand
which wronged you, is no longer hand.
And the old man arose aud embraced him,
and placed bin above him at the table,
saying that he who had brought home thai
head should be the head Of the house Of
Layn Calvo."
From the period Of the general conquest
Of Western, Europe by the Goths TO the
period of the Reformation, that portion
Of the world was in condition Of horrible
barbarism for though the nations inhab-
ting it were called by the Christian
name, their christianity was mere MUM
merry ofritual and ceremony, that scarcely
at all affected the heart or the life. The
Reformation, aided by the newly invented
art Of printing, spread rapidly abroad the
knowledge of the doctrines and precepts of
the Divine Redeemer aud about the
same time literature and the arts revived,
and robbery and piracy gave place to fair
and peaceful commerce, which bound TO-
sether the nations in her golden chain.
Glorious were the consequences Of these
oov,h;,ad co,,ees Manv of the harharous