to be
not in the least incommodious. In treating of this patent invention,
the _Liverpool Mercury_ says, Mr Lacon has succeeded in 'solving a
problem which has hitherto baffled the ingenuity of scientific and
practical men, and attaining the "_desideratum_ of lowering boats
evenly, and of rapidly disengaging the tackles," by a self-acting
contrivance. Mr Lacon takes as his principle the well-known axiom in
mechanics, that what is gained in power is lost in time; and although
he approves of the method at present in use, as being the best for
hoisting up boats: he (seeing that the hoisting need never be a
hurried operation) substitutes two single ropes or chains, which,
being secured to two broad slings passing round the body of the boat,
are then brought inboard on davits, and carried to two concave barrels
connected together by means of a shaft. The ends of the ropes or
chains are secured to the barrels in such a manner that they will
support any amount of weight until such time as the boat has reached
the water, when they will disconnect and fall away from their
attachment by their own weight, by which means he prevents the
possibility of a ship, in its onward progress through a rough sea,
dragging forward a lowered boat sideways, and capsizing or swamping
it. By means, then, of a friction-strap and pulley round the shaft,
one man is enabled to regulate the descent of the boat, which will go
down by its own weight; and by means of the parallel action of the two
barrels, he lowers both ends uniformly, and insures the boat falling
in a proper position on the water.'

IGNORANCE THE GREAT CAUSE OF POVERTY.

There are, in every fully-peopled country, large numbers of persons
whose lives are passed in hardship and misery, and whose greatest
exertions can do no more for them than procure the barest means of
subsistence. These are greatly to be pitied, and it should be the
study of the government, and of all who possess the means, to remove,
as far as possible, the causes of their misfortune. It cannot,
however, be said that any competition, save only that which they
themselves naturally and necessarily exhibit among their class, for
obtaining the inadequate amount of employment for which they are
fitted, is chargeable with the hardships they endure. It is a
melancholy truth, as concerns the individuals, that we cannot extend
to them any indirect relief without tending to increase the evil by
raising an addition to