From the Examiner, 9 Dec.
UNITED STATES' CANARDS.

Brights and Sturges at home to censure, and so long as the United States' government pursues, with the approbation of the great majority of the Union, its present honorable policy of strict neutrality, we have nothing to complain of-nay, much to be thankful for, seeing the price Russia would pay for co-operation and aid from that quarter. In peace, or in war, let us remain friends. Let us, above all things, be careful so to conduct ourselves, from the court to the newspaper, as shall avoid giving offence.

THE public have been informed during the past week, (on the authority chiefly of the New York Herald, to be sure,) of several startling resolutions and recommendations purporting to proceed from the congress of the United States' ministers recently held at Ostend. Now, certainly, it is not our business to explain or defend the transactions of that unusual diplomatic assembly; it may very possibly have come to opinThe same New York journalist speaks of Mr. ions and determinations that the English people Buchanan's retirement from his mission at this can little approve of; but that men of capacity Court early next spring, and of certain contemand reputation, like Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Ma-plated changes at Washington, which will reson, ever agreed to the nonsense which the New place him by Mr. Marcy, the present Secretary York Herald tells us they have recommended to of State. But the truth of the case in relation their government, is quite out of the question. to Mr. Buchanan, as we have from the beginAccording to that journal the assembled min-ning understood it, is, that, in accepting the apisters have recommended to the Washington pointment he now holds, he expressly limited its Cabinet to offer to purchase Cuba: and at the duration to two years; and on their expiration, same time to intimate to the Court of Madrid an not in the spring, but in the autumn of 1855, it intention to take the island by force, should its is, we presume, probable that he will resign.sale be refused. There is, we feel quite sure, we The grounds of his retirement will, it is obvious, may assert, not the slightest foundation for this be American considerations, not European disstatement. Its absurdity is, indeed, patent on appointments. its very face; for the expression of a desire to buy, accompanied by a threat to take, would, it is obvious, not only most effectually prevent any negotiations for purchase, but would arm all Europe against a felony so audaciously unnounced.

From the Examiner, 9 Dec. THE RIFLE.

Again, it is announced that the Ostend ConIn answer to many inquiries we have had gress recorded its opinion, that the time had as to our reasons for suggesting a smaller ball now come for the United States actively to in- than is usually supplied to this weapon, and a terfere in European politics. This announcement is, we believe, equally untrue. Any such Swiss or American stock, we cannot do better interference would be opposed to the whole cur- than print what we have received from a valrent of United States' policy; and though there ued correspondent, well acquainted with the may be young Americans who, to influence an subject, and entering minutely into the pracelection at home, talk of reversing and disregard- tical details of it. ing, on this point, the wisdom of Washington, and the established practice of the Republic, there is no rational man in the Union, who seriously entertains or expresses such a wish. At all events, it never can have entered into the minds of the Ostend assemblage. That is quite certain.

THESE two points are, in truth, of essential importance, and this cannot be understood except by those who have brought attentive reflection to a practical knowledge of the use of the weapon in various circumstances. The best shot will never be able to fire well a rifle that kicks, and As we have never hesitated to censure American for two reasons, the first, because the deviation diplomacy when trespassing out of its proper of the barrel, in its recoil, from the line in which limits, or disregarding the ordinary comities of the shooter holds it, takes place before the ball nations, by so much more, in the interests of leaves the mouth of it; and the second, because truth and peace, are we bound to correct popu- there is no shooter who can disengage his mind lar rumors, and mischievously intended reports from the apprehension of the recoil at the very affecting it, for which there is no ground. The moment when he decides to press the trigger, true policy of this country is to cultivate, on just and at that moment his mind ought not to be and honorable bases, the closest alliance with the subject to any disturbing influence of any sort. Great Republic across the Atlantic; and just as, This apprehension, when he knows by expebetween people in private life, gossip and tittle-rience the weapon will recoil, induces him to tattle frequently produce alienation and ill will, so it is between England and the United States. They are a little too sensitive and credulous, we perhaps a little too jealous and critical; and the cultivation of these faults on either side is likely to produce incalculable evils to both, and to the world. Public sentiment in the States may occasionally grate on our minds, when discussing the events of a war, which is there only seen from a distance; but while we have exceptional

provide against it by making a particular contraction of the muscles of both his arms, which deranges his aim.

There is no way of obviating this evil, but by making the barrel very thick, and consequently very heavy, and employing a small ball and a small charge of powder. To prevent the recoil of a barrel capable of carrying an ounce ball, fired by two and a half drachms of powder, its thickness must be so great that its weight would

be overwhelming to the soldier; but if you re- with unerring certainty, those instruments must duce the weight of the lead to half an ounce, and be such as we have now described. No others give it, moreover, a conical shape, employing can be used so as to do it. They may be rifles only one and a half drachms of powder, you may most certainly, and good enough when fired from obtain the thickness of barrel requisite for pre-a rest, but they never will and never can have an venting recoil without making the weight incon- absolutely certain effect when fired from the arm. veniently great. The shooter will then never, That is out of the question. And if the public at the critical moment give a disturbing contrac- should insist on this, it must lay its account with tion to his muscles to prepare for the recoil, for even stronger than usual opposition from our there will be none. To smallness of bore attach" military authorities;" for the proper position two other great advantages, in the reduction of the space occupied by sixty rounds of ammunition to one half, and the weight of this in the same proportion. The soldier will only have forty ounce weight in ammunition to carry instead of seventy-five-a matter to the overloaded man of no slight consequence.

The stocking of the gun is even of greater importance. The stocks of ours are sucli in length and bend that the shooter must extend his left arm as far under the barrel as he can reach, in order to support it. The muscles of the strongest arm in this position, deprived of all auxiliary support from the side of the body, cannot be constrained to perfect quiescence during the three or four seconds thereafter necessary for adjusting the aim and holding in the breath to prevent pulsation of the blood. The consequence is, that the track of the ball from a rifle thus stocked can never be absolutely relied upon; and we do not believe that there is a rifle-shooter in existence who would succeed in placing twelve balls upon one another, at a distance of one hundred yards, from such an instrument as ours; whereas with an American stock the feat would be nothing very uncommon. In order to secure good and certain shooting, the stock ought to be very short and very much bent, so that the left arm may be fixed as closely as possible to the left side and rest on the left hip, the left hand supporting the gun just under the trigger-guard without grasping it. In this position, the muscles of the left arm can be immovably fixed during the necessary moments; and the but of the gun being pressed against the upper part of the arm (instead of upon the shoulder, as with ours), and a fitting scroll-guard being adapted to the clutch and to the support of the three fingers, and under part of the right hand, the fore-finger can then be brought upon the trigger at the critical moment, without a muscle of the rest of the hand being moved.

of a man who is to fire a properly-stocked rifle is very different from what they enforce in the drillyard, and will be most unsightly to their eyes. The base of the body must be enlarged as much as possible by widening the legs to give stability; and the body must not be drawn up straight, but the left side of it forced over to the right, and the whole upper part, as it were, huddled together an appearance very repugnant to the "military eye," accustomed to see the men" set up like posts. Nevertheless, men with proper rifles, and permitted to place themselves in the proper position for using them effectually, will kill five of the enemy for one they will kill with the instrument they are likely to have, and forced to use in the inconvenient manner imposed by the present drill. And they will, moreover, lose of their own number an incalculably smaller proportion. For if, of two bodies of 1,000 men each, engaging at 300 yards, the one shall destroy 200 of the other in the first five minutes, the risk which each man runs of being hit in the sixth minute is reduced from ten to eight, and in the twelfth minute from eight to six; and when it is considered how very valuable a being, in every sense of the word, an English soldier is — that he not only is, morally, an honor to human nature, as is shown by the beautiful letters which these noble souls write to their wives, and parents, and friends; but that he, and every one of his comrades, has cost at the least £300 before he raises his weapon in our defence, it does seem worse than preposterous, it seems even criminal, to refuse him a weapon that would double and treble his chance of returning to gladden those fond hearts at home for which his own is beating so faithfully and so warmly, all the time he is exposing his own life to protect ours.

The Russians are now getting up sixty battalions of rifles, and as the model of the stock we here propose is that already used, as we know, by some of their hunting-tribes, we conclude it is the one they will adopt for their army. If they do, and if we adhere to our present inodel, their efficiency will be, cæteris paribus, much greater than ours, which means, when such an instrument as the rifle is spoken of, that they will destroy many more of our men than we shall of theirs. God

When a man has a rifle stocked in this manner, and of which the thickness of the barrel is sufficiently great to prevent recoil, and consequently the intrusion on his mind of the very idea of it, he soon finds that he can rely upon it with almost absolute certainty. He then, and then only, can adapt the sight to the peculiarity of his own eye; and whenever, after the few trials forbid. necessary for ascertaining this adaptation, he subsequently shall find, on any day, that he is not NO MORE RANCID BUTTER. - Wild recomshooting well, he is able to attribute with cer-mends that the butter should be kneaded with tainty the fault to his eye itself on that day; and, after a few shots, to make the necessary allow ance for correcting his shooting.

If the public desires that instruments shall be put into the hands of its defenders which will enable nine out of ten of them to put ball after ball into a mark the size of a hat, at 250 yards

fresh milk, and then with pure water. He states that by this treatment, the butter is rendered as fresh and pure in flavor as when recently made. He ascribes this result to the fact, that butyric acid, to which the rancid odor and taste are owing, is readily soluble in fresh milk, and is then removed.-Journal of Industrial Progress.

From The Spectator, 9 Dec.
REPORTERS FOR THE ENEMY.

tries, was in confidential intercourse with Democratic sympathizers here, was seen simultaneously in our own Foreign Office, and could with GRAVE objection has been made to the impunity and ease traverse the dominions of publicity which the press has given to the Austria? Which party had the exclusive conmovements of our forces in the East, as supply-fidences of such a man? Such cases, and they ing information to the enemy; and in reply are not singular, prove the direct intercourse two excuses are advanced,—the effect which the between society in different countries. exposure has had in quickening reinforcements;

Take another example. Not long since, a forand the probability that the same information, eigner came to London, and exchanged visits transmitted to this country in thousands of with other foreigners, all of them professedprivate letters, would ultimately reach the ene-ly democratic in opinions, most of them refumy though the press were silent. Nor is this gees, in somewhat different grades of society, last supposition so unsubstantial as to the unin- but certainly none of the poorer orders. Every formed it might look. We do not hesitate to visit thus exchanged was known in a continenexpress our firm belief that a direct communica- tal city within a few hours; and the circumstantion does exist between the private society of ces compel us to connect that fact with another, this country and the Emperor Nicholas. Although the capital to which we have just rethough the spy plays a part in melodrama, he is ferred was neither St. Petersburg nor Moscow. a person also of real life. You may meet him in society, and most probably you have met with him. He belongs to all classes. There is not in this respect much distinction between Govern ments; our own, for anything that we know, employs spies; indeed, our strongest suspicions on that point are not of very antiquated date, although they do not relate to the Aberdeen Cabinet. The spy, however, is a dangerous tool; he is not unfrequently the servant of both sides, betraying both-sometimes the servant of all sides. betraying all. We do not speak from à priori guessing, or from dramatic propriety, but from some knowledge of facts; although it is a subject in which it is absolutely impossible to handle the truth satisfactorily in a newspaper. It may, however, be illustrated by a few incidents.

Some time since, we have heard it reported, there was at the court of the Emperor Nicholas a man remarkable for the utterance of extreme democratic opinions. Now Nicholas has always been a monster fancier, and his affabilities are exhaustless for a capricious Italian singer, a fast and reckless-tongued French horn-player, or a stray native American judge. The democrat we have in our eye, however, was nothing else than a real Russian. He was favored by the Emperor, though disliked by others; but so substantial was the protection shown, that once when the democrat and a Russian Prince fell out, it was the Prince that found himself in prison-not the democrat. So far we speak only on report, and at this point we lose sight of that Russian democrat. But the man was not singular in his genus. Russian democrats are to be found from Tobolsk English readers have heard of Powell the to Cincinnati. There is scarcely a capital in Chartist spy, with his predecessors Oliver and Europe where democrats are to be found-and Edwards. There are Powells in other countries. we know of no exception to the remark-in Not long since, two gentlemen were visiting a which Russia is not represented. But, we say, foreign city, and one of them, looking through there are different classes of refugees, and coma glass at the back of the carriage in which they fortably feathered must be the nest of that demowere driving, saw sitting at the back a man who crat who never wants a friend, or a bottle of had previously dogged their steps. On dischargchampagne to give him; who mixes in the most ing the driver, they reproached him with wink-liberal parties, and is hand in glove with ciring at the espionnage to which they had been cles in the best society-ami de la maison-recomsubjected; and the man excused himself by say-mended by all the graces of a romantic position, ing that he could not help it-he was under police orders. The spy, who had heard the travellers talking such sentiments as are most usually uttered in English, afterwards came to them, confessed that he was a spy, but averred with tears and passionate exclamations that he was really of the Democratic party, and that he compensated for his odious service in the pay of an Imperial Government by rendering the same service gratuitously for his own party! Here was a Continental Powell in the service at once of the Home Office and of the Chartist Commit tee of those parts! He is a low specimen of the domestic spy; let us look higher.

In 1848. there were for a time more than one Revolutionary Government, more than one depôt of distinguished refugees who sought refuge in neutral territories. At that time spies of a higher order were active; but to what cause was that man attached who bore messages between Revolutionary leaders in the most distant coun

the frankest profession of picturesque opinions, familiarity with bienséance, and that which lends vitality to all companionable qualities, a purse that removes every difficulty.

We have not exhausted our facts, but we have, perhaps, said enough to establish the possibility of direct communication between the very heart of private society and any imperial government whatsoever; Russia, however, notoriously enjoying that pre-eminence in the development of the spy and secret agency system which the wealth, the activity, and the duplicity of her Autocrat command.

A pregnant fact has been mentioned in the Melbourne Council-10,000 acres of land have been brought into cultivation around the Diggings in one year.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE-No. 558.-3 FEB., 1855.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S MONUMENT.

FROM THE QUINCY (MASS.) PATRIOT.

Living through many vicissitudes and under
high responsibilities,

As a Daughter, Wife and Mother,
She proved equal to all.

Dying she left to her family and her sex
The blessed remembrance

Of a

66

woman that feareth the Lord."

"HEREIN IS THAT SAYING TRUE, ONE SOWETH AND
ANOTHER REAPETH. I SENT YOU TO REAP
THAT WHEREON YE BESTOWED NO
LABOR. OTHER MEN LA-

BORED, AND YE ARE
ENTERED INTO THEIR
LABORS."

A MONUMENT has just been placed in the Unitarian Church in this town to the memory of John Quincy Adams, by his son, Hon. C. F. Adams. It is composed of highly polished Italian marble, and in size and form very nearly resembles the one erected to the Ex-President John Adams, with the exception of the upper part, where the bust rests, which is enclosed on both sides by the upper members of the cornish, that sweeps upwards in graceful lines towards it. It was designed and executed at the Quincy Marble Works by McGrath, Mitchell and Co., and is beautiful and perfect in all its parts, and cannot fail to add much to the already wide extended reputation of the manufacturers for ability and faithfulness of executing their work. The bust, which rests upon the top, was executed in Italy by the great American sculptor, Hiram Powers, and is very perfect and life-like in its resem- Maud Muller, on a summer's day, blance of the venerated statesman to whose Raked the meadow sweet with hay. memory its is erected. Immediately under the bust is a Latin sentence composed of two words, "Alteri Seculo," separated by an oak branch with two leaves and one acorn. The following is the inscription on the monument:

Near this place
Reposes all that could die of
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
Son of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams,
Sixth President of the United States.
Born 11 July, 1767.

Amidst the storms of civil commotion
He nursed the vigor

Which nerves a Statesman and a Patriot,
And the faith

Which inspires a Christian.
For more than half a century,
Whenever his country called for his labors
In either hemisphere or in any capacity,
He never spared them in her cause.
On the twenty-fourth of December, 1814,
He signed the second Treaty with Great Britain,
Which restored peace within her borders;
On the twenty-third of February, 1848,
He closed sixteen years of eloquent defence
Of the lessons of his youth.
By dying at his post
In her great National Council.
A son, worthy of his father;

A citizen, shedding glory on his country;
A scholar, ambitious to advance mankind,
This Christian sought to walk humbly
In the sight of his God.

From the National Era

MAUD MULLER.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from every tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast-
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees';

Then talked of the haying, and wondered
whether

The cloud in the west would bring foul weather