ation, manners, conduct, and the supply of the
ordinary wants of a civilized being, of the German, Swiss, Dutch,
Belgian and French peasantry over the peasantry and poorer classes not
only of Ireland, but also of England and Scotland. This is the general
and the most decided result with reference to the vital question of the
condition and prospects of the peasantry and poorer classes, neither Mr.
Laing nor Mr. Kay have any doubt whatever that the advantage rests in
the most marked manner with the continental states which they have
examined over Great Britain. According to Mr. Laing and Mr. Kay, the
cause of this most important difference is--_the distribution of the
ownership of land_. On the continent, the people _own_ and _cultivate_
the land. In the British islands the land is held in large masses by a
few persons; the class practically employed in agriculture are either
_tenants_ or _laborers_, who do not act under the stimulus of a personal
interest in the soil they cultivate.

* * * * *

A self-taught artist named Carter has recently died at Coggshall, Essex,
where he had for many years resided. He was originally a farm laborer,
and by accident lost the power of every part of his body but the head
and neck. By the force of perseverance and an active mind, however, he
acquired the power of drawing and painting, by holding the pencil
between his lips and teeth, when placed there by the kind offices of an
affectionate sister. In this manner he had not only whiled away the
greater part of fourteen years of almost utter physical helplessness,
but has actually produced works which have met with high commendation.
His groups and compositions are said to have been "most delicately
worked and highly finished." The poor fellow had contemplated the
preparation of some grand work for the International Exhibition, but the
little of physical life remaining in him was lately extinguished by a
new accident.

* * * * *

CONVERSATION OF LITERARY MEN.--Literary men talk less than they did.
They seldom "lay out" much for conversation. The conversational, like
the epistolary age, is past; and we have come upon the age of periodical
literature. People neither put their best thoughts and their available
knowledge into their letters, nor keep them for evening conversation.
The literary men of 1850 have a keener eye to the value of their
stock-in-trade, and keep it well gar