the Government. In them lie the whole gist of the matter. The chief was the transfer of the government funds into a hundred different banks, thereby enabling those banks to make excessive issues and exessive discounts. This is slurred over and hidden under a general reference to " antecedent causes;" though in other parts of the Message there seems to be a general admission that no small portion of the trouble grew out of the Local Deposite Banks. The increase of banking capital, complained of, commenced with the success of the party war against the United States Bank; which, injurious as might have been its influence, and inexpedient as would be, in our opinion, its re-charter, was far preferable to the irresponsible institutions taken into favor by the government.

The other causes, which the President would probably call "subsequent causes," summed up in a short paragraph as the sources of the present distresses, are not, in any philosophical view, chargeable with the evils brought upon the country by the ruinous policy of the last Administration. The sudden contraction, and not the "antecedent” regular expansion of credit, was the origin of the commercial distress. Had the price of cotton continued the same, as it naturally would if trade had been left" free from the influence of political agitation," the debt of thirty millions to Great Britain could have been easily liquidated. But, in consequence of the contraction of its issues by the Bank of England to prevent the exportation of specie into the United States, whither it was attracted by the magnetic influence of Government policy, and the rejection by the same Bank and its dependencies of all American paper, money became scarce, and cotton fell to a very low price. Add to this the shortness of the crops, and we have the reason of the non-payment of our debt to England. This debt, which is now by the way considerably lessened, without evincing by its diminution any visible relief to our merchants, undoubtededly occasioned immense embarrassment and distress, and a total loss of credit-that credit to which Mr. Van Buren and his disciples are prone to attribute the calamities of trade. Had credit continued equally free, would the crisis have occurred? Certainly not. The destruction, and not the existence of credit brought ruin upon us. And how was that credit destroyed? By our own Government; which, by forcing the precious metals into the country and then burying them in the West, took them out of circulation, and removed the very basis of all credit.

Mr. Van Buren instances the distresses of a similar character prevailing in foreign countries, as proofs that our own are not attributable to the policy of the Government. He must be wilfully ignorant not to perceive that all the commercial misfortunes which have pervaded in Great Britain, and some other of the European States, emanated from our own misfortunes. An accredited author of the Administration party has wisely confessed, that the smallest derangement of commercial enterprise in New-York may be felt in China; so subtle and so entire are the connexions of trade. The chain of Nature herself is not more intimately woven than that of Credit-as well as in "Nature's," so

"In Credit's chain, whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth breaks the chain alike."

"It was evident," says a late eloquent writer in Blackwood's Magazine, in speaking of the commercial crisis which had occurred in England, "it was evident that the root of the evil lay in this drain of the precious metals to the United States; and to such a length had it gone, and so gigantic were the transactions of the great houses engaged in this traffic, that the affair assumed a national aspect; it was a struggle for life or death between the two countries. The ruling party in America openly gave out that they had got the gold, and they would hold it; that the Bank of England would be brought down to its marrow-bones;

and that in the commercial confusion and ruin which must ensue in the British Islands, a revolution was inevitable, and the greatness of England would be at once destroyed. The drain upon the Bank, and the exportation of the precious metals to the United States, had assumed a systematic, gigantic form, to which there is nothing to be found comparable in the whole previous history of mer cantile enterprise."

The writer in Blackwood converts the insane acts of our Government into arguments against Democracy, but his premises are all false. The policy of the Government with regard to the currency was not that of the people. We quote a remark, however, to show that the crisis was in England attributed to a cause emphatically denied by the Administration journals.

"What was the hidden cause, then, which in America brought about this terrible convulsion: and produced a pressure for gold, so eminently threatening to this country, that the Bank of England was driven, as a means of self-preservation, into defensive measures, which were obviously the immediate cause of the disaster? We shall find the cause in the insanity of the American democracy, in the violent struggle between the Conservative and levelling principles of which, for four years, that country has been the theatre; in the monstrous absurdity of the masses, who, by long-continued clamor and violence, in opposition to the united opinion of all the wealth, respectability, and intelligence of the country, engaged the executive in a struggle for life and death with the commercial and intellectual aristocracy, and at length carried their democratic jealousy so far as, during a period of unexampled commercial enterprise, to attempt to force upon the country an EXCLUSIVELY METALLIC CURRENCY,"

Mr. Van Buren, in assigning to the late commercial calamities of Great Britain an origin similar to those of the United States-the increase of paper circulation-seems strangely to have overlooked the present relative condition of the two countries. When we have, after a year of contraction of credit and extreme frugality of living, not recovered in the slightest degree our natural commercial health, Great Britain is entirely convalescent. The blood courses as freely as ever through the veins and arteries of her commerce-the heart of trade has become equal in its beatings-and she rises with unimpaired vigor from shocks similar to those which seem to have undermined our whole constitution. The last accounts show that money has become plentiful, and is now seeking in vain for easy channels of proper investment. Why is this? This much-abused credit has been again fully restored. We are still cramped in all our energies. Confidence and Credit are the physicians who could effect our cure, but our nurses blindly persist in administering quack remedies, which will sooner or later destroy the vitals of our system. General Jackson was a Dr. Sangrado, (we claim a part of the honor won by Harvard University in conferring the Doctorate, since we have added a name,) who insisted upon bleeding and hot water till the poor patient was like to expire from depletion. Now that the sufferer has passed into the hands of another professor of the same college, a new course is recommended in the consultation of the learned faculty assembled at Washington. All that we can rely upon is, that our long-tried and wellapproved Credit and Confidence will be again called in. They would effect a more thorough cure in a month than all our political charlatans could bring about in another eight years of experiments. Dr. Van Buren, however, made one important discovery in the course of his observations. "The most material differences," he quietly observes, "between the results in the two countries has only been, that with us there has also occurred an extensive derangement in the fiscal affairs of the federal and state governments, occasioned by the suspension of specie payments by the banks." Or, in other words, our government is bankrupt, and that of Great Britain is not.

We Te pass by the other consequences enumerated by the President as flowing from the redundancy of credit, with the remark that speculations and overtrading among ourselves could only have produced individual distress. The passage of money from the hands of one man into those of another can have no effect on the nation at large. Such transactions could not have interfered in the slightest degree with the monetary concerns of the government.

METAL CURRENCY.—During the reading of the President's Message, Mr. Benton was observed to jingle gold pieces in his hand.-Daily Paper.

When first the Senate in their chamber met,

Obedient to their ruler's proclamation,

To put to rights the currency, and set

In order all the business of the nation,-
With ears attent they listened to the scroll
"Full of wise saws and modern instances,”
Wherein the Great Magician did enroll

His quack prescriptions for the dire distress;
And "solitary" there, the visage shone

Of one whose presence would be sadly missed-
Who "set this ball in motion all alone,"

And then was rattling gold within his fist;
And wore a look of such peculiar grace,

That all, who heard the jingle in his hand,
Thought that the metal which illumed his face
Was quite as manifest to understand-

For that the first was yellow, gleaming gold

No one could doubt but N****, or some such ass,
And R. M. J****** hardly need be told

The latter was indubitably brass!

COPYRIGHT.-The article on Copyright, from the pen of an esteemed correspondent, inadvertently omitted in our last number, is written in rather too indignant a spirit of rebuke toward the booksellers. The blame of publishing miserable editions is more justly chargeable upon the public, whom the writer addresses, than the publishers whom he condemns. If brown paper books were not encouraged, they would not be printed. It is asking too much of a bookseller to require him to alter and amend the popular taste. Will the attention of Congress be called to this question of copyright ?

THE EXPERIMENT.-The following will serve for a series of toasts on the next grand Administration festival.

1. OUR UNITED COUNTRY." This is the house that Jack built!"

2. OFFICES, EMOLUMENTS, AMBASSADORSHIPS.-"This is the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

3. MARTIN VAN BUREN.-"This is the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

4. THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES." This is the cat, that caught the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

5. THOMAS H. BENTON, THE EXPUNGER." This is the dog, that worried the cat, that caught the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built." 6. The United States Bank.—“This is cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that caught the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

7. THE PET BANK SYSTEM.—“ This is the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that caught the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

8. GENERAL JACKSON." This is the priest all shaven and shorn, that kissed the maiden all forlorn, that milked the cow with the crumpled horn, that tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that caught the rat, that eat the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built."

ELECTION OF PRINTER.-In May last, His Excellency, Martin Van Buren, President of the United States, issued his proclamation, calling upon Congress to convene on the first of September, to take into consideration great and weighty matters. Immediately the whole country was marshalled into a train of prepa ration for the important event. Special elections, to fill vacancies, were held in various parts of the Union. All was in busy, active, stirring motion. The people, like the Israelites of old, looked upon the day of their deliverance as at hand. The care-worn merchant anticipated a speedy relief. Congress will immediately set all things right," was in every body's mouth. Congress did assemble on the first of September, and how did the representatives of that people, which had cried aloud for relief, employ their precious time? They spent THREE DAYS in the election of their printer! Can any thing be more preposterous? Some of the journals have applauded, and others disapproved of the election of Mr. Thomas Allen, of the Madisonian. Without expressing our opinion about this matter, which seems to have been deemed of greater importance than the national distresses, we shall simply remark, that better than to have lavished the time and money of their constituents so regardlessly, these representatives ought to have elected Mr. F. P. Blair, of the Globe, by acclamation.

Mr. Grenville Mellen's poem, in the present number, is one of the most beautiful pieces we remember to have seen for many a day. The construction of the verse is peculiarly happy. There is an ease and grace about it which rarely characterize the fugitive poetry of our periodicals. Mr. Mellen has already published a large volume, of which the principal production was "The Martyr's Triumph." If, to selections of the best effusions of that volume, he would add those later efforts by which the former are excelled, and give the whole to the public in a neat form-he would make a most acceptable present to the admirers of true poetic genius.

WILSON'S MOWING MACHINE, OR GRASS AND GRAIN CUTTER.-The machine consists of a carriage on two wheels, propelled by one or two horses or oxen, travelling in the rear and pushing it forward. In the front, at the bottom, is a horizontal wheel upon an upright shaft, which shaft and wheel receive a rotary motion, communicated by gear from the main axle, which revolves with its

wheels as the machine goes forward. The diameter of this horizontal wheel, with the addition of the knives projecting from its edge, measures the width of the swathe, which is cut with the knives as the wheel goes forward, revolving rapidly and lying close to the ground. The apparatus which sustains the cutting wheel, is so constructed as to accommodate its height to any irregularities in the ground, and to give it any inclination required. The knives are sharpened by their own operation, without stopping the machine. There is also attached to the cutting wheel, wings, which gather the grass or grain as it is cut, and lays it in a swathe more regular than can be done with a scythe.

The machine is so constructed as to be guided with ease in any direction, and may be used in an orchard, as it can be turned in twice its length, and cut the swathe clean. With common industry, a man, with a pair of horses, can cut from twelve to fifteen acres per day; and, as it supersedes the necessity of spreading, must at least accomplish the labor of that number of hands.

THE LATE ELECTIONS.-The changes, which were anticipated to take place in the character of parties, have been more rapid and more effectual than the friends of good government had even dared to hope. Events, prognosticated by the most sanguine, but despaired of by the cautious, have so suddenly transpired, that they hardly seem more real than the phantasms of a dream. We can scarce believe that two New England states, set down as the inveterate adherents of the Administration, have been revolutionized. In spite of a system of the most complete organization in Maine-an organization made perfect by repeated exercise-the Opposition, with a force and spirit adequate to the crisis-though frequently conquered, yet never despairing-went bravely to the contest. Their noble exertions were rewarded in the election of their candidate, Edward Kent for governor, over the approved and indorsed favorite of the Administration, Gorham Parks, by a fair majority. In the State Legislature they boast a triumphant majority. In Rhode Island the Opposition candidates, Tillinghast and Cranstoun, were elected by a cheering majority. We particularly rejoiced at this result, since it excluded from the seat he disgraced, a creature known as Dutee J. Pearce-one capable of the most grovelling acts of servility, a political toad-eater-one whom, to call a man, were to malign humanity. So confident was this individual of his reelection, that his travelling paraphernalia had been prepared for his accustomed journey to Washington; but the knell of his political existence had been sounded by the people. He is too faithful a servant, however, to be deserted by his masters, and we may soon expect to see him in the cabinet or on a foreign embassy. If there is no minister to Owhyhee, we hope that Mr. Pearce's prominent claims to the situation may not be forgotten.

With regard to the Maine election, we have been amused in reading the excuses of the Administration journals. It has been designated as an election of minor importance—(simply for a Governor!)—as an election in which the real strength of the parties was not tested. To striking truths like these was superadded the hitherto unknown fact, that the Opposition had gained no more in Maine (a gain of over 10,000 votes!) than we had lost in Vermont-in which state our last majority for Governor is 4000 votes. But if the election for Governor be of minor importance, why instance the Vermont election at all? The Evening Post, (in our estimation, by far the most respectable journal which supports the Administration,) condescends not only to argument like the above, but implies that the loss of the Governor was of but little consequence, since they-the Administration party-were sure of two senators? Indeed! What then has