The heat was usually about 60 degrees in the morning; at noon 75 degrees; and at sunset 65 degrees. This range of temperature would have been very pleasant in an open airy country; but in the stagnation of the woods the closeness was sometimes terrible to bear. Then came the savage accompaniments—'the minute black fly, the constant summer torment; the mosquito, with intolerable singing, the prelude of its sharp probe; the sand-fly, with its hot sting; the horse-fly, which seems to take the bit out of the flesh; and the large moose, or speckled-winged fly. The party were never,' adds Sir James, 'free from flies of some kind or other; and I have seen the five different kinds just enumerated "doing their worst" at the same time in our flesh, and the black pests digging into it, and elevating their hinder end like ducks searching below the surface of a pond.' To avert the attacks of these winged pests, all the members of the expedition wore gauze veils, tucked in carefully round the face and neck; but with this and all other precautions—such as constantly carrying a burning green stick, so as to raise a smoke—proved of comparatively small account. To vary the entertainment, a bear or wolf occasionally looked in upon the camp; but no accident was suffered from their visitations.
The country through which the line was tracked is generally level, of a good soil, and requires only to be cleared to be fit for the settlement of a large population. Several small rivers were forded by the party; and at different places picturesque falls made their appearance. One of the largest rivers reached was the Gaspereau on the 10th of July, which it was not easy to cross with loads. Shortly after this, they entered on the scene of the great Miramichi fire of 1825, a conflagration of the pine-forests over many hundred square miles of country, and which is understood to have burnt to death five hundred people. The blackened stumps of the magnificent trees which were destroyed still remain on the ground, interweaved with a new vegetation, differing, as usual, from that which preceded it. After chaining about ninety miles, and when nearly knocked up with fatigue and privations, the party of explorers came in sight of the limit of their measurements. Here they got well housed, and their hunger was satisfied with the wholesome country fare in Mackay's Inn at Boiestown, on the Miramichi.
It is much matter for regret that the engineering explorations of Sir James Alexander and others on this proposed road should have ended in nothing being done. At an expense of L.60,000, the road, it is said, might have been made; and made it probably would have been, but for the freak of making a railway instead. This new project, started during the railway mania of 1845, and which would have cost that universal paymaster, Great Britain, not more than three or four millions of money(!), did not go on, which need not to be regretted; but it turned attention from the only practicable thing—a good common road; and till this day the road remains a desideratum.
After the pains we have taken to draw attention to the work of Sir James Alexander, it need scarcely be said that we recommend it for perusal. In conclusion, we may be allowed to express a hope that the author, the most competent man for the task perhaps in the Queen's dominions, will do something towards rousing public attention to the vast natural capabilities of New Brunswick—a colony almost at the door, and that might be readily made to receive the whole overplus population of the British islands. To effect such a grand social move as this would not be unworthy of the greatest minds of the age.
[THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.]
An association, as we learn, has sprung up in London with the view of procuring the abolition of all taxes on knowledge—meaning by that phrase the Excise duty on paper, the tax on foreign books, the duty on advertisements, and the penny stamp on newspapers; the whole of which yield a return to the Exchequer of L.1,266,733; but deducting certain expenses to which the government is put, the aggregate clear revenue is calculated to be about L.1,056,000.
We have been requested to give such aid as may be in our power to facilitate the objects of the Anti-tax-on-Knowledge Association, having, as is pretty correctly inferred, no small interest in seeing at least one department of the exaction—the duty on paper—swept away. So frequently, however, have we petitioned parliament on this subject, and with so little practical avail, that we have made up our minds to petition no more. If the public desire to get cheap newspapers, cheap literary journals, and cheap advertisements, they must say so, and take on themselves the trouble of agitating accordingly. This they have never yet done. They seem to have imagined that the question is one exclusively between publishers and papermakers and the government; whereas, in point of fact, it is as much a public question as that of the late taxes on food, and should be dealt with on the same broad considerations. We are, indeed, not quite sure that publishers, papermakers, and other tradesmen intimately concerned in the question are, as a body, favourable to the removal of the stamp, the Excise, and other taxes on their wares. Generally speaking, only a few of the more enterprising, and the least disposed to maintain a monopoly, have ever petitioned for the abolition of these taxes. This will seem curious, yet it can be accounted for. A papermaker, to pay the duty on the goods he manufactures, must have a large command of capital; comparatively few can muster this capital; hence few can enter the trade. London wholesale stationers, who, by advancing capital to the papermakers, acquire a species of thraldom over them, are, according to all accounts, by no means desirous to see the duties abolished; for if they were abolished, their money-lending and thirlage powers would be gone. So is it with the great monopolists of the newspaper press. As things stand, few can compete with them. But remove the existing imposts, and let anybody print a newspaper who likes, and hundreds of competitors in town and country would enter the field. There can be no doubt whatever that the stamp and advertisement-duty, particularly the latter, would long since have been removed but for the want of zeal shown by the London newspaper press. If these, however, be mistaken opinions, let us now see the metropolitan stationers and newspaper proprietors petition vigorously for the removal of the taxes that have been named.
But on the public the great burthen of the agitation must necessarily fall. Never would the legislature have abolished the taxes on bread from the mere complaints of the corn importers; nor will the taxes on knowledge be removed till the tax-payers show something like earnestness in pressing their demands. The modern practice of statesmanship is, to have no mind of its own: it has substituted agitation for intelligence, and only responds to clamour. The public surely can have no difficulty in making a noise! Let it do battle in this cause—cry out lustily—and we shall cheerfully help it. If it wont, why, then, we rather believe the matter must be let alone.
Who will dare to avow that the prize is not worthy of the contest? We do not apprehend that, by any process of cheapening, the newspaper press of Great Britain would ever sink to that pitch of foulness that seems to prevail in America. The tastes and habits of the people are against it; the law, strongly administered, is against it. The only change we would expect by the removal of the stamp-duty, and the substitution of, say, a penny postage, would be the rise of news-sheets in every town in the kingdom. And why not? Why, in these days of electric telegraph, should not every place have its own paper, unburthened with a stamp? Or why should the people of London, who do not post their newspapers, be obliged to pay for stamps which they never use? As to the advertisement-duty—an exaction of 1s. 6d. on every business announcement—its continuance is a scandal to common sense; and the removal of that alone would give an immense impetus to all branches of trade. The taxes which press on our own peculiar sheet we say nothing about, having already in many ways pointed out their effect in lessening the power of the printing-machine, and limiting the sphere of its public usefulness.