animal oxides, it belongs to that genus. Its peculiar and specific distinguishing properties are, imputrescibility, facility of crystallization, insolubility in cold water, and, that most remarkable property of all others, producing a pink or red matter, on evaporation of its solution in nitric acid.'

In his fruitless endeavours to acidify this animal oxide, the author made a discovery of the change of the most common basis of urinary concretions, (the animal oxide,) into ammoniac and carbonic acid, by the oxygen of the above acids; which discovery is curious and important, as it enables us to interpret many phænomena in a variety of cases besides the present. The 300 grains of urinary concretions, examined by the Doctor, appeared to contain 175 grains of peculiar animal oxide, 96 grains of phosphate of lime, and 29 grains of ammoniac, (and most probably phosphoric acid united to the ammoniac,) water, and common mucilage of urine. From other experiments related by Dr. Pearson, which were made in order to obtain the acid sublimate of Scheele, or lithic acid of the new system of chemistry, he infers that there is a wide difference between this acid sublimate and the animal oxide. Accordingly, he gives to it the name, not of the lithic oxide, (agreeably to the principles of the new chemical nomenclature,) but that of ouric or uric oxide; which he conceives to be more perfectly appropriate.

For other experiments on the urinary concretions of a dog, horse, and rabbit, we must refer to the paper; and we shall conclude with observing, that the author has not found the uric oxide in the urinary concretions of any phytivorous animal.

An Analysis of the earthy Substance from New South Wales, called Sydneia, or Terra Australis. By Charles Hatchett, Esq. F.R.S.

In consequence of the experiments of the late Mr.Wedgwood and others, this substance has been considered as a primitive earth, and has been arranged as a distinct genus in all the systematical works in mineralogy. M. Klaproth, however, in a memoir on this subject, gives his opinion that the existence of this primitive earth may be much doubted; and he apprehends that siliceous earth, alumine, and iron, are the only ingredients of which it consists. Mr. Hatchett infers, from the experiments recited in this paper, that it is composed of siliceous earth, alumine, oxide of iron, and black lead or graphite; and he does not hesitate to assert that it does not contain any primitive earth, nor any substance possessing the properties ascribed to it, and consequently that the Sydneian genus, in future, must

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be omitted in the mineral system. Mr. H. imagines that Mr. Wedgwood was led into an erroneous opinion of some of its properties by analysing it with impure acids.

ART. IX. Dissertation on the best Means of Maintaining and Employing the Poor in Parish Work-Houses. Published at the Request of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce: having obtained the Premium offered by the Society for the best Treatise on this Subject. By John Mason Good, Author of "The Prize Dissertation on the Diseases of Prisons and PoorHouses;" published at the Request of the Medical Society of London; and of "The History of Medicine, &c." published at the Request of the General Pharmaceutic Association of Great Britain. 12mo. pp. 151. 3s. Boards. Morton, HolywellStreet, Strand.

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1 country in which millions of money are annually levied on the community for the support of its poor, an inquiry into the best means of maintaining and employing paupers becomes extremely important. It is interesting indeed in a double view; for improvement in the system of employing and supporting them not only immediately reduces the expence, which falls so heavily on the public, but does that at which humanity feels more gratified, it meliorates the condition of the poor themselves, and tends to render poverty less productive of vice and wretchedness. For these reasons, the dissertation before us claims a considerable share of attention; - and it is not less entitled to notice on its own account, since it treats this very important subject in a sensible, plain, and practical manner.

In the first section of his work, the author takes a general view of the origin of parochial establishments for the support of the poor. After having glanced at the different modes adopted by the nations of antiquity, in order to provide for the indigent, he mentions the first institutions of this kind which were known in England, and which he supposes to have been the three royal hospitals founded by Edward VI. in and about the metropolis, viz. Christ's and Thomas's for the relief of the old and impotent, and Bridewell for the punishment and employment of the idle and vigorous. These being found insufficient for the care of the poor throughout the kingdom, the statute of the 43 Eliz. c. 2. was enacted, which appointed overseers of the poor in every parish. - From this statute, has arisen the present system of poor laws.

Mr. Good is not one of those who think that the existing poor laws are in themselves impolitic and mischievous; it is rather the manner in which those laws are executed that he conceives

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conceives to be chargeable with the evils so frequently reprobated. His observations on this subject deserve attention:

• It has been said that, as the present system of laws will not permit any one to be starved, be his conduct what it may, a spirit of idleness is hereby engendered; and the man who will work is burdened with the expence and maintenance of the man who will not. That this is too frequently a fact I well know: but I know likewise that it is not the fault of the law, but of the administrators of the law. So far as relates to parochial assistance the law is addressed to the impotent alone; and it authorises the overseer to compel those who are indisposed to work to labour for their own subsistence: And were this authority exercised as it ought to be; were the means of labour regularly sought after and enforced, and the impotent alone allowed relief without labour, one quarter of the two millions and half of pounds sterling, which are, at present, expended annually in support of the poor throughout this kingdom, would be amply adequate to every demand, and the poor themselves would be as much benefited as the public. But to produce this salutary alteration requires the regular attention, and unremitted assistance of the wellinformed inhabitants in every parish. It requires that vestry meetings should be frequently held, and numerously attended: that the overseers, for the time being, should be selected from the most active, and the most able: that the industrious should be encouraged, the idle punished; and that one third of the public houses now existing throughout the kingdom should be prohibited.

• Were exertions like these to be made in every parish, and upon the basis of the poor laws as they at present stand, we should not be perpetually hearing of their numerous defects and general irrelevancy. But while, in every parish, the present torpid conduct is exhibited by those whom it chiefly concerns, for their own interest, to be active and vigilant; while some are too rich, and some are too idle, and some are too busy to engage in parochial offices and the important duty is hereby devolved upon the hands of those who have neither comprehension nor discrimination to perform it-it is not to be wondered at, that every species of profusion, imposition, and error, should daily take place, and be daily suffered to pass without notice. It matters not what laws, or what systems of laws are invented in a case of this kind; if those to whom the execution of those laws is entrusted, and who are deeply interested in that execution, are thus remiss, and inattentive on their part.'

Though the writer allows that the present system of poor laws is adequate to its object if rightly administered, yet he much doubts whether the prevailing mode of collecting the poor together in parish work-houses tends to any good purpose. Whenever it can be avoided, he deems the establishment of them impolitic; and therefore in villages consisting entirely of farms, and where the only inhabitants are the occupiers of those farms and their husbandmen, he believes it to be geneTally better that the overseers should attend to the poor in their separate

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separate habitations. In large cities, however, where the poor are extremely numerous, he allows that it would not be so easy to dispense with work-houses: but even here he thinks it possible that the poor might be more beneficially relieved than by the alms of a work-house. The mode adopted in Vienna, Munich, and many other cities of Germany, for preventing mendicity by the establishment of public work-shops, in which all persons who want employment may be daily ac commodated with labour, he thinks, might be introduced with the best effects into our larger manufacturing towns. establishment for the impotent, he grants, would be necessary along with a public work-shop: but the expence of both, compared with the burden of the present institution, would be inconsiderable.

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Section 2d, treats of the general construction of a Parish Work-house, its offices, furniture, and regulations. The wretched substitutes, too commonly used for this purpose in the country parts of England, are justly reprobated by the author. Frequently, he says, two or three contiguous hovels are united together in the most aukward and unworkman-like manner; with a clay floor and thatched roof, pervious in many places; the windows broken, and blocked up with old ballads or other papers pasted together, &c. In larger towns, some old ruinous and desolate mansion-house is generally appropriated to the same purpose, and forms a still more extensive theatre of wretchedness. From this ill-judged parsimony, the worst evils result. The benevolent are deterred from entering to inspect scenes like these. The business relating to the establishment is transacted at a distance, and with the most imprudent extravagance; and even many who are conscious of the various evils endured, and are able to alleviate them, think them too numerous and complicated for any attempt of the kind to be successful. In many parts of the country, however, there occur honourable exceptions to this general description: among these, the work-houses of Leeds, Nantwich, and Shrewsbury, rank in the first place.

The general directions given in this section, for buildings of this kind, contain little else than common-place matter:for instance, that a healthful site should be chosen, on elevated ground, and where water is abundant and pure;-that there should be a large garden annexed to the house;-that the rooms should be lofty, and the windows large and opposite to each other; &c. -There is something more appropriate in the advice to form the elevation of the building in a straight line, without the projection of wings, which, as is too common, make the building constitute three sides of a square court; by which means the free current of air is prevented; and that its height should be limited to a ground and chamber floor. : The important article of Diet occupies the third section.After some general observations on this subject, the author gives the dietary of the Leeds work-house, that of the convicts at Portsmouth, of the French and English prisoners during the last war, that of the house of industry at Shrewsbury, and that projected by Mr. Howard for prisoners in houses of correction. -They are calculated for twenty persons. - That of Leeds is lowest in point of expence, amounting weekly to 21. 10s. 6d.; that of the French and English prisoners is highest, rising to 41. 4s. 3 d. Of these various plans of diet, Mr. G. recom. mends that of Leeds. It labours, however, in common with the rest (except that of Shrewsbury) under the disadvantage of not containing fresh vegetables:-a defect which prompts the -author to suggest a new plan of diet, differing from all the former, as well by the plentiful introduction of vegetables, as by that of baked meat pies instead of stewed or boiled meat. This plan he introduces with the following remarks:

• I don't think, therefore, that the potatoe forms, by any means, a sufficient part of the diet in any of the tables I have drawn out, and animadverted upon above. In several of them it is not at all introduced; and in none of them as a substantial part of the regimen, but only as a wholesome and antiputrescent vegetable. I shall take the liberty, therefore, of exhibiting a new dietary formed upon the doctrine I have thus endeavoured to establish respecting the low price, and substantial nutriment of the potatoe, and interspersed with other alterations which appear to me to be of equal necessity, as constituting both a cheaper and more commodious arrangement. Among these alterations, one of the principal will be found to consist in the frequent use of meat baked in pies, instead of being constantly given either boiled or stewed. Every domestic economist knows how much smaller a quantity of this diet will satisfy the most voracious appetite, than of any other dish whatever." Four pounds of mutton," says an ingenious writer, "were made into a pie with one pound and a half of wheat flour, this pie, with eight ounces and a quarter of bread, dined eight persons fully; whilst three pounds three quarters of mutton roasted, with two pounds one ounce of bread, dined only five of the same persons*."

• In the following table, meat pics are, therefore, introduced twice a week; as Sunday, and Wednesday, for example, and the crust is made of potatoes entirely, being first boiled and meshed up with milk; from which kind of dish I have frequently dined myself with no small luxury.

• The breakfast consists of milk porridge formed from oatmeal; and the supper alternately of potatoes meshed with milk, and of broth and bread, with due allowance of beer when necessary.

** Lettsom's Hints concerning the Distresses of the Poor."

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BREAK.