degree of scholarship; nor are they anxious to provide better opportunities of acquiring knowlege for their children, than they themselves have enjoyed: hence they have either no schools at all, or such as are in the most lamentable state.

This ignorance must necessarily be attended with gross and wretched superstition; of which the author mentions a striking instance. Parents, when their children are taken ill, seldom seek medical assistance, but have masses read for the purpose of obtaining from heaven their speedy dissolution. Thus, many children, who might easily have recovered, lose their lives; and this unnatural wish is engendered by the firm belief that children, as innocent beings, go directly to heaven; an idea which is deeply rooted in their minds, and fostered by the priests. There have even been among them Mothers who conceived the murder of their children to be a meritorious action, and which they would actually have committed but for their dread of the law; as afterward has appeared from the confession made by them to their priests. They are inconsolable on the loss of a stillborn child, from the supposition that, not having been baptized, it goes immediately to hell. On the death of little children, tears are scarcely ever shed: on the contrary, the parents are joyful, and their friends say to them by way of congratulation: "Now you have an angel in heaven."

Though many travellers, and even Professor Meiners, (who is rather severely treated in this publication,) have been indignant at the freedom enjoyed by young females in this canton, both by day and night, it is manifest to every unbiassed observer that the natural simplicity of manners, for which they are remarkable, does not expose their innocence to those dangers by which they would be surrounded in any other country, where public opinion is a less powerful guardian of virtue than in the canton of Appenzell. The punishment inflicted on incontinence, indeed, is not very severe; the transgressing parties only paying a fine of five gilders each, provided that both be unmarried: but if any female commits the same fault three times, she is sentenced to be publicly whipped. Yet popular opinion requires that he who violates a virgin shall make her his lawful wife; and if they be not joined in marriage, both of them, especially the ravisher, are branded with indelible shame. The girl, in such a case, is prohibited from wearing the badge of virginity, which is a metal pin stuck into the braided hair, and is obliged to cover her head with a black or brown hood. The male offender is virtually divested of those privileges which belong in common to all citizens; an humiliation, than which there is none more grievous in democratical

mocratical states; for the man so stigmatized is civilly dead in his own country, -having lost what is most dear to him, the advantages of a free man.

The remarks which we have extracted principally relate to Innerooden, the inhabitants of which are Roman catholics: we shall now take notice of the author's observations on Ausserooden, or the outer parts of the canton of Appenzell, where the reformed religion has been established since the middle of the 16th century. From that period, the manufacture of linen, muslin, and cotton cloth, has constituted the chief branch of industry among the reformed Appenzellers. From the first establishment of those manufactures, he who, in the course of the year, had produced the finest piece of linen cloth, was greeted with the distinguishing title of king, and would carry his workmanship about the principal parts of the outer canton, attended by his fellow-manufacturers: a custom which has not yet entirely ceased. Such a piece of linen cloth, esteemed to be the finest of those made within the year, has sometimes fetched from two to three hundred gilders. The manufacturers of Appenzell have now attained to such a degree of skill, as to be able to spin, out of half an ounce of flax, a thread measuring from nine to ten thousand feet in length: whence the cambricks are in great demand on the continent, especially in France: but, since the revolution, this trade has suffered several checks and interruptions, and the manufacturers have been obliged to seek a market for their commodities in remoter parts of the world. The muslin manufactories, established some years since in Ireland and Scotland, cause considerable uneasiness to the Swiss; as the machines used in those countries for spinning cotton considerably lessen the expence, and consequently enable the Scotch and Irish to under-sell the Swiss. The latter already draw a great deal of cotton yarn from Scotland and Ireland; and the author thinks it not improbable that, whenever a general peace shall have given full scope to industry and trade, the Swiss muslin manufac tories, being then no longer able to cope with those of Scotland and Ireland, will entirely be superseded by them. The Appenzellers, anticipating such an event, and desirous, if possible, of preventing its destructive operation, have lately begun to introduce machines for spinning and carding wool, invented by an inhabitant of Rebetobel.

Since the increase of industry and population, pasturage on a larger scale, such as is practised in the interior parts of the canton, has greatly diminished in Ausserooden; the pasture grounds, which formerly were very extensive, being now frittered

L14

tered away into small meadows, each sufficient only for two or three cows.

The people of Appenzell are industrious and persevering, in common with other Swiss: but their distinguishing feature is quickness of apprehension. They manifest particular inge nuity in inventing, imitating, and improving machines, as well as other branches of mechanics, without any assistance, instruction, or books. Besides some exceedingly skilful weavers, several among them have acquired reputation by the manufacture of watches, clocks, and fire-engines. We have already observed that an inhabitant of Rehetobel has invented machines for spinning and carding wool, to which the British cotton manufactures in a great degree owe their eminence: but the village of Teufen especially boasts the honour of having given birth to an excellent mechanical genius. The wooden bridges of Ulrich Grubenmann are very generally known on the continent. That which is thrown across the Rhine near Schaffhausen is a fabric contemplated with astonishment by every traveller; and it is extolled in all modern works which treat of Switzerland, as one of the first of the curiosities which deserve to be visited in that country. Indeed, the boldness and beautiful simplicity, as well as the apparent simplicity and intrinsic strength of the wooden bridges constructed by Grubenmann, cannot be sufficiently admired. Consisting only of one arch, they stretch and bend as if suspended by huge cables; they rock and tremble even under the feet of the passenger; and when loaded waggons pass over them, the shaking of the bridge increases to such an alarming violence, that those who are unacquainted with the principle of its construction dread every moment that it will give way, and plunge them in the waves. This sort of bridge, aptly styled banging work, was first brought to per fection by Ulrich Grubenmann. All the wooden and stone bridge, which had been laid across the Rhine near to and at the expence of the city of Schaffhausen, being washed away by the impetuosity of that river, it became necessary in the year 1754 to erect a new one; when, among the architects who delivered in their plans, Grubenmann, then a common carpenter of Teuffen, presented himself with a proposal for building a bridge which, resting on no pillars in the bed of the Rhine, should be supported only by the river's opposite banks. On producing his model for the first time to the committee appointed to examine the plans which might be offered, he was asked, with a scornful smile, whether he really thought that a bridge, built on the proposed principle, would not break down as soon as any considerable burdens were brought in contact

45

contact with it. Instead of making any answer, he with both feet stept on his little model, which bore him (though a tall and stout man) exceedingly well. Impressed by this circumstance, the committee more attentively considered the model, and at last appointed him architect of the new bridge. It was completed at the close of the year 1758, and stood without receiving any injury till 1789, when a few decayed beams were replaced by new wood: since which trifling repair, the bridge is as sound as ever.

The same ingenious artist, with the assistance of his brother John, has erected several other bridges and some churches, all of which are admired for solidity and boldness of construction. Ulrich offered to build a similar onearched bridge across the river Derry in Ireland, which is 600 feet wide: but his plan was rejected.

In foreign lands, the Swiss are known to be frequently seized with so violent a longing after their own country, that, unless permitted to return to it immediately, they will pine away and die. This phenomenon, known to physicians by the name of patridalgia, is much more frequent among the natives of the canton of Appenzell, than among those of the other cantons; which may be considered as an additional proof of the happiness enjoyed by these people.

How far the melancholy events, which have recently taken place in Switzerland, will influence the constitution and manners of Appenzell, as described by our author, is not easy to be determined. Yet we should presume that so much originality can be destroyed only by the most violent and lasting revolutions.

The style of this work is at once lively and easy. We shall be happy to hear of its continuation.

ART. II. Zusatze zur theoretisch-praktischen Darstellung der Handlung. i. e. Additions to the theoretical and practical Delineation of Commerce. By J. G. BUSCH. 8vo. 2 Vols. pp. 320 in each, Hamburgh. 1798.

Two pamphlets by Professor Busch were noticed in the Appendix to our last vol. p. 564 and 565; and we have now to mention two volumes of intercalary matter, which he offers to the purchasers of his Theoretical and Practical Delineation of Commerce printed in 1792, and which he proposes to incorporate in a future edition of that work. It will thus acquire a doubly enlarged, a wholly altered, and a very improved form. The Professor, like many of his countrymen, excels rather in the completeness of his information than in the originality of his views. He compiles fatiguing details with inexhaustible industry, but does not always select his facts with judgment, judgment, nor appreciate their relative value with sagacity. Writers who, in their own country, escape quotation by their obscurity, are not less familiar to him than the leading autho. rities. From Alonzo Barba to M. Cantillon, every name which is connected with commercial literature is pressed into the support of some unimportant position, or stuck with book-worm assiduity on the full file of his quotations.

In vol. 1., on the theory of the bill of exchange, at p. 81, many good observations occur. After due consultation of Sigel's Corpus juris cambialis and other similar authorities, it is shewn that the law ought not to consider the bill of exchange as a deposit belonging to the drawer, and successively confided to the remittees, but as a transferable property at all times absolutely vested in the holder; whose neglect, therefore, when it vitiates the value, falls wholly on himself. This theory is then applied to the difficult and still unsettled case of the holder of a bill having many indorsements, where the drawer, drawee, and early indorsers, have all failed. It is evident that, if the holder proves under each bankruptcy the whole amount of the bill, he will receive much more than his due. May he make his election where to prove the whole demand, and where to prove the residue? Or ought he not (which seems most equitable) to be compelled to prove his debt against his immediate predecessor only?-the assignees of that predecessor proving, in their turn, in like manner, (each party once only,) back to the drawer. This is a case of great importance to discounters, and is in our opinion unjustly regulated by the usage of London.

The intended interpolation, which begins at p. 204, contains the following analysis of the Professor's own theory brought forwards in his work on the circulation of money.

• Be it allowed me here concisely to bring together the leading truths which my work contains; and in the statement of which I had no predecessor. In the first book, I sought to delineate the march of things in civil society, in as much as they depend on circulation in general. I shewed how this occasions men to furnish subsistence one to another, which, without the medium of money, is very difficult, and has principally been effected by beneficence and by servitude. Money abolishes insulation among men, and occasions each to provide for more than his own subsistence merely. This is effected by means of the reciprocal exchange of services and wants, which without money is extremely difficult, and would leave every one in want whose art or science is not of daily recurring utility.

In the second book, I inquired into the causes which limit the worth of money. Here I detected the insufficiency of the usual theories, and especially of that which considers money as one species of wares or merchandize, which sinks when it is plentiful and rises