and curses from the next room fell upon the ear. The missionary, strong in faith, knelt down-the first words of prayer brought a number of fierce, half-drunken men and women into the room, who, as soon as they recognized him, fell back, whispering "'tis the minister-'tis Mr. Luckey," and as his voice rose in pleading prayer to God for the sick and the wretched around, every sound was hushed, and they retreated to their own dens in perfect stillness. When Mr. Luckey was about leaving the room, the family clung around him, beseeching him not to leave them, but to take them hence; and their fear and importunity were so excessive, that Mr. Luckey despatched a messenger to Mr. Pease, to know if he could accommodate them for the night. Receiving an affirmative answer, they took him in their arms, and, followed by the wife and daughter, descended. The man lay with clasped hands and eyes upraised, praying incessantly, and when laid down in a quiet place exclaimed, "Now Christ can save me!" In a few days he was removed to the City Hospital, where Mr. Luckey visited him, and although he sunk and died within a week, yet apparently he learned to trust in Christ and rest on Him as his Saviour. The wife (who became such by Mr. Luckey's performing the ceremony of marriage in the Hospital) survived but a short time, and the daughter is now residing with a respectable family on Staten Island. We could multiply such scenes if we had room, but deem it best to give a few in the condensed form in which they were prepared to be sung at a late public meeting. THE "OLD BREWERY." BY T. F. R. MERCEIN. God knows it's time thy walls were going! Long years a darker cup distilling From wither'd hearts that fall! One sobbing child, beside a mother, Poor lamb thy moan awakes no other, One gentle girl that grew in gladness, Jeers met her dying shriek of madness, Sweet babe! that tried to meet life smiling, Foul sin, a mother's breast defiling, Blighted the young heart's core ! Law crush'd the virtue want had broken, Everywhere they roam; God! hast thou never call'd the weary? Foul haunt a glorious resurrection Praising the "Strong to save!" Till every lip hath this evangel, "Christ pleadeth for us all!" O! this world is stern and dreary, Everywhere they roam; Praise God! a voice hath call'd the weary! In thee is found a home! The last verse is prophetic, but will, we hope, soon be realized-for in the middle of December, 1852, the demolition of the "Old Brewery" commenced, and in a week's time not one stone was left upon another. We cannot dwell upon the scene of its illumination, nor upon the crowds who visited it to explore its dens and alleys, (the daily papers reported fifteen thousand,) nor upon the rumors of found treasures, &c. We hope in a future number to refer more fully to the first communion Sabbath at the "Five Points" -a pic-nic to which the children were taken the Thanksgiving dinner, at which one thousand were fed, and the children of the "Five Points" in various aspects. During the past year, though much hindered by want of room, and misjudged by many who did not understand the reasons which actuated the Ladies' Society in many of their actions, the Mission has nevertheless strengthened its stakes and enlarged its borders, and, judging from the results of the last great public meeting, obtained an increasing interest in the public mind. Mr. W. E. Harding renewed his offer of Metropolitan Hall for a public demonstration, free of expense; on the 17th of December, a concert was held in the afternoon, and in the evening Mr. J. B. Gough addressed a crowded audience, after which $4,000 was again subscribed for the building to be erected on the site of the "Old Brewery." This house is to be four stories high, and seventy-five feet by forty. The foundation is now completed, and ere this meets the eye of our readers, the corner-stone will have been laid with thanksgiving. The Ragged School is in vigorous operation, containing already one hundred and fifty scholars, and in our next number we will dwell upon this most interesting part of our missionary operations. The Common Council not only granted $1,000 to the Society, but also the privilege of erecting a temporary building in the little park, in which to hold the day-school until the Mission Room is completed. The general interest thus manifested in this enterprise has led the Society to believe that the public regard this Mission as a great public good; therefore, while they return their warmest thanks for the liberal aid already given, which has enabled them to commence the work, they plead in confidence and hope for its contin uance. The "Old Brewery" is demolished, but the new building is not completed, and many thousands of dollars are needed to enable them to reach that consummation. The Mission earnestly pleads for donations from its friends who have not yet aided it, and the continued interest of those to whom the Society is already so deeply indebted; and then call upon all to unite in the anticipation of that hour when the name of the "Five Points" shall no longer be a blot upon the proud escutcheon of our city, and the name of the "Old Brewery" be only a remembrance of "What Christian faith can dare, The slaves of hell!" There are opulent and generous men all around us, whose interests as well as their sympathies are concerned in a popular reform like this. To them we look. Now, in the outset of the measure, their help is all-important. Will they not extend it to us? Will they not do so liberally and immediately? Donations will be received by Francis Hall, Esq., at the office of the Commercial Advertiser, 46 Pine-street. ENGLISH MORALS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST CENTURY. IN BEAU NASH. N the first book of the Peloponnesian war it is stated by Thucydides that "the people of the continent exercised robberies upon one another; and to this very day," he adds, " many people of Greece are supported by the same practices." The great historian especially names the Ozolian Locrians, Ætolians, and Acarnanians, and their neighbors on the continent, among whom, as he informs his readers, the custom of wearing their swords or other weapons required by their old life of rapine was still retained. "This custom," continues the writer, "of wearing weapons once prevailed throughout Greece, as the houses had no manner of defense, as traveling was full of hazard, and the whole lives of the people were passed in armor, like barbarians. A proof of this," says the civilized Thucydides, "is the continuance still in some parts of Greece of those manners which were once with uniformity general to all. The Athenians were the first who discontinued the custom of wearing their swords, and who passed from the dissolute life into more polite and elegant manners." What the Athenians did so long ago was not accomplished in our own metropolis until the end of the first quarter, or rather the beginning of the second half, of the last century. The example set by London was soon enforced at Bath—I say enforced, because there was a pleasant despot there who ruled so supreme that the very "Baths of Bath" seemed only to flow at his permission. In presence of Nash fell the swords and top-boots of the squires, and the aprons of the ladies. The results thereof, at least of the putting aside the sword, at Bath and in London, and throughout the country generally, where gallants submitted to be disarmed in obedience to law or to custom, may be described in the language of Thucydides as applied to the Athenians, when they abandoned ruffianism and adopted refinement,-men "passed from the dissolute life into more polite and elegant manners." Any one who will take the trouble to go carefully through the columns of the "Daily Post" or "Journal," of the years 1724, 5, 6, and 7, will find therein scattered ample proofs that dissoluteness and the sword were inseparable, drink lending fierceness to both. We find an illustration of this earlier than either of the periods named above. In 1716, for instance, Lord Mohun and Captain Hall forcibly carried off Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress, at the point of the sword. They were obliged, however, to surrender their prey; but they lay in wait for Will Montford, the player, who was supposed to be an admirer of the lady's, and of whom Hall was jealous, and barbarously murdered him in the streets. The "watch" had timidly offered to interfere, but the peer and his companions had driven them away, and then gayly proceeded to the consummation of a deed for which a triply-blind justice subsequently refused to exact retribution. It was this Mohun who afterward fought the butchering duel in Hyde Park with the Duke of Hamilton. He spent the previous night "at the bagnio," with his second, Major-General M'Carthy; and he left it, as the "Postboy" remarks, "seized with fear and trembling." "The dog Mohun," says Swift, "was killed on the spot; but while the duke was over him Mohun shortened his sword, and stabbed him in the shoulder to the heart." M'Carthy, like Hall, was a species of “bully" in the lord's pay, and the mortal wound given to the duke was believed to have been delivered by his hand. The parties lay on the ground rolling over and hacking at each other like savages. These antagonists fought for a poor reason some miserable question of law; but the general gallants of the day were well content to fight for no reason at all. Thus Fulwood, the lawyer, in 1720, while standing, as was the custom of the pit, to see Mrs. Oldfield's "Scornful Lady," remonstrated with Beau Fielding for pushing against him. "Orlando the Fair" straightway clapped his hand to his sword, and the pugnacious lawyer, determined not to be behindhand, drew his blade and passed it into the body of the beau. While the latter, who was a mature gentleman of some half-century old, was exhibiting his wound in order to excite the sympathy which he did not get from the laughing ladies, Fulwood, flushed by victory, hastened to the playhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he picked a quarrel with a Captain Cusack, who was a better swordsman than Orlando, and who stopped the lawyer's triumphs by straightway slaying him. Night was made hideous by the encounters of these amateur swordsmen on the darkened highways. In one of the numbers of the "Daily Post," for 1726, I find it recorded that a bevy of drunken gallants having descended from a hackneycoach in Piccadilly, of course quarreled with the coachman, whom they bilked, and, because he remonstrated, stabbed his poor, patient horses. The courageous young gentlemen then entered a public house for the entertainment of very equivocal company, wherein they not only assaulted with their swords the other gallants whom they found therein, but also the "ladies." In the midst of the fray the honest mistress of the mansion flings herself at the feet of the assailants, beseeching them not to ruin her reputation, and bring discredit upon an establishment noted for its "safety and secrecy!" The paragraph which succeeds that of which the above is the substance, announces to the public that, on Sunday next, the Lord Bishop of London will preach at Bow Church, Cheapside, on the necessity for a reformation of manners. It must be confessed that the sermon was very much needed, and it is to be deplored that it was not followed by the desired results. The "wits" were desperadoes who assumed that name, who formed themselves into "sword-clubs," and who took possession of the town in the dead hours of night, to the peril of life and limb of every human being whom at that season they found crossing their path. The peculiar names under which these clubs maintained continual terror through the town, were as fanciful as those more learn- ⚫ ed but somewhat pugnacious associations which in Tasso's time did the office of reviewers, and were the aversion of authors. The "Bold Bucks" and the "Hell Fires" divided the metropolis between them. The latter were content to kill watchmen and simple citizens. Such killing was with them but an act of "justifiable homicide," and the inclination for it one of those amiable weaknesses which the young gentlemen of the day looked upon as the most natural thing possible. The "Bold Bucks," under their significantly devilish device of "Blind and Bold Love," were, however, steeped in deeper infamy than their rivals. The beasts that perish were more decent than they, and their very sisters gazed at them with trembling apprehension. All the Bold Bucks" were necessarily atheists. Atheism was one of the indispensable qualifications for admission. Had the Bishop of London preached his sermon on the necessary reformation of manners, at St. Mary-le-Strand, his lordship would doubtless have been treated to a running commentary on his discourse; the " Bold Bucks" being accustomed to assemble every Sunday at a tavern adjacent to that locality, where during divine service they kept a loud band of music continually at work; and after service seated themselves at a banquet, the chief dish whereof was one blasphemously named a "Holy-Ghost Pie!" The sword-clubs were suppressed by royal proclamation in 1724. Some say that they had been denounced as unlawful three years previously. However this may be, the object of the proclamation was to banish from civilized society the presence of the sword itself, in order thereby to check the practice of dueling, which was at that period exercised exclusively by means of the sword. The law became stringent and judges merciless upon this point. This was made sufficiently clear in 1726, when Major Oneby killed Mr. Gower in a duel with swords, fought in a tavern, after a dispute over a game at hazard. The parties had fought in a room alone. The Major, who had been both the aggressor and challenger, mortally wounded Mr. Gower, who, however, declared that he had fallen in fair combat. A jury, nevertheless, found Oneby guilty of murder; the judges acquiesced in the verdict, and the Major only escaped execution by committing suicide. The law had not long to wait before other offenders were summoned for too freely using the sword. On a night in November, 1727, Savage, the poet, with two companions, named Gregory and Merchant, entered a coffee-house near Charing Cross. Merchant insulted the company, a quarrel ensued, swords were drawn, and a Mr. Sinclair was slain, by a thrust it is said (but not proved) from the sword of Savage. The result of the trial that followed is well known. The verdict of guilty of murder against Savage and Gregory, and of manslaughter against Merchant, (who was the most culpable party,) was exacted by the judge, evidently VOL. II, No. 3.—V under pressure of the proclamation against swords. Merchant was at once burned in the hand in open court, fined, compelled to give security for future good behavior, and discharged. His associates had a narrow escape from the ignominious death for which they were assiduously prepared by Dr. Young, who was not then as yet known for his "Night Thoughts;" but who was at the time establishing a reputation by the publication of those Satires which so faithfully portray the social crimes and errors of the day. Johnson's Life of Savage does not state Merchant's sentence, nor does it notice upon what terms Savage and Gregory obtained their liberty. They were liberated upon condition of their withdrawing to the colonies for the space of three years, and giving security to keep the peace. The conditions appear to have been evaded. Gregory, indeed, did proceed to Antigua, where he obtained an appointment in the Customs; but the wayward Savage sat down as a pensioner at the hearth of Lord Tyrconnell, whose benevolence, it is hardly necessary to add, he most shamefully abused. What the law, even with the power of inflicting death, had so much difficulty in accomplishing in the metropolis,* was effected at the "Baths of Bath," by Beau Nash, with that potentate's usual facility and success. It has been customary to look upon this renowned arbiter elegantiarum as the first of the dynasty of the Bath Masters of the Ceremonies. The true founder of that highly august dynasty, however, was the Duke of Beaufort himself. At the latter end of the seventeenth century Bath was in no better a condition for cleanliness and accommodation than it was when its unsavoriness elicited some stringent remarks from Queen Elizabeth, and a contribution from the royal purse for constructing a common sewer. For the Nearly the last, if not the last duel fought with swords, was that fatal one between Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth, (January, 1762.) They had quarreled at the Star and Garter, Pall Mall, upon a question touching manors and game-preserves. They fought in a closed slain. The circumstances of the killing looked room of the tavern, and Mr. Chaworth was much more like murder than in the case of Major Oneby and Gower. The peers, however, acquitted Lord Byron of murder, but found claimed the benefit of the statute of Edward him guilty of manslaughter. His lordship VI., and was discharged on paying his fees. A bitter mockery of justice! invalids who resorted to the healing springs there were but two houses fitted for the reception of a "respectable," that is, a moneyed, class of visitors; namely, the Abbey-House and Westgate-House. It was not til long after that there was either a ball-room or any place of public amusement in the city. Sometimes a convivial party of invalids or their friends got up a dance on the open bowling-green; but such inconveniences attended this, that the Duke of Beaufort gave up the townhall for both the dancers and gamblers, and ultimately placed the conduct of the amusements under the superintendence of Captain Webster, of whom Nash was the immediate successor. The passion for play was long the ruling passion here among the sick as well as the sound. The passion is well illustrated in the epigram, written when subscriptionbooks were opened for providing for the expenses of Church service and for opening new card-rooms,— The books were open'd t'other day At all the shops, for Church and play; The Church got six, Hoyle sixty-seven ; How great the odds for Hell 'gainst Heaven! The disputes at play were too often settled by the sword; but this weapon Nash peremptorily banished from the rooms over which he ruled with unquestioned authority. That authority he soon afterward extended to the city itself. When the two gamesters, Clarke and Taylor, fought their duel by torch-light in the Grove, Nash immediately issued a decree "that no swords should on any account be worn in Bath;" and the decree was implicitly obeyed. In 1739, Savage, who had suffered so much from too freely handling this weapon in town, appeared within the territory of Beau Nash, in such destitution, that the generous "M. C." gave to the luckless swordsman and hapless poet a present of five guineas. This year was remarkable for a "hard winter." During the misery that attended it the polished enemy of the sword not only relieved the starving poor, by contributing himself, and by collecting contributions from others, but it was his custom to seek out those whom he knew to be too proud to beg, and to relieve them unasked. His own great enemy was to be found in the medical profession. The doctors disliked him for helping to cure invalids too quickly by the general cheer fulness and gayety which he essayed to establish in the city; and they bore him little love for his abolition of the sword, a general and not too deadly use of which was wont to procure for them endless patients and continual profit. PRESENCE OF MIND. PRESENCE of mind is often shown in quick conception of some device or expedient, such as we usually suppose to be an emanation of superior intellect. This has been repeatedly exemplified in rencontres with the insane. A lady was one evening sitting in her drawing-room alone, when the only inmate of the house, a brother, who for a time had been betraying a tendency to unsoundness of mind, entered with a carving knife in his hand, and, shutting the door, came up to her and said, " Margaret, an odd idea has occurred to me. I wish to paint the head of John the Baptist, and I think yours might make an excellent study for it. So if you please I will cut off your head." The lady looked at her brother's eye, and seeing in it no token of jest, concluded that he meant to do as he said. There was an open window and a balcony by her side, with a street in front; but a moment satisfied her that safety did not lie that way. So, putting on a smiling countenance, she said, with the greatest apparent cordiality, "That is a strange idea, George; but would it not be a pity to spoil this pretty lace tippet I have got? I'll just step to my room to put it off, and be with you in half a minute." Without waiting to give him time to consider, she stepped lightly across the floor, and passed out. In another moment she was safe in her own room, whence she easily gave the alarm, and the madman was secure. A lady one day saw two of her children, one about five and the other about four years old, outside the garret window, which they were busily employed in rubbing with their handkerchiefs, in imitation of a person whom they had seen a few days before cleaning the windows. They had clambered over the bars which had been intended to secure them from danger. The lady stood a little apart, and called gently to them, and bade them come in. They saw no appearance of hurry in their mamma; so they took their time, climbed the bars, and landed safely in the room. |