third-rate military reputation, behind which they shelter themselves, and to expose the ignorance, disposition to arbitrary rule, and unfounded assumption of merit it conceals. The official published records of the yearly amount of crime in Sweden- that documentary proof of the demoralising influence on the Swedish people of the demoralised governing classes could not be got rid of. In vain those classes attempted in controversial pamphlets to delude the public, to divert attention from the true source of the evil, to palliate the undeniable excess of crime in Sweden, by alleging excess of drunkenness and excess of bad legislation, by which simple police transgressions punished and recorded as crimes, swell the criminal record. They only proved what they attempted to deny -the misgovernment of privileged classes, who confounding moral guilt with transgressions against their own conventional regulations in one demoralising code and administration of law, brutalise the habits, and deaden the moral sentiments of the people under them. Swedish diplomacy itself -his Excellency Count Biörnstierna, minister of his Swedish Majesty at the court of St. James'scondescended to satisfy the English public, that the allegations and views of the traveller were, to the fullest extent, correct and incontrovertible; for his Excellency published a pamphlet*, professing to be a refutation of" Mr. Laing's calumnies," and "libels against the Swedish nation," in which, with great success, his Excellency confirms all he attempts to refute, and refutes all he attempts to confirm. The Swedish public with the landmarks of their own published official records of crime from year to year, before their eyes, were not to be misled by their noble party writers. The late Diet appointed a committee to report upon the social economy of the Mr. Laing's Answer to Count Biörnstierna's pamphlet appeared in the Monthly Chronicle for November, 1840, published by Longmans, London. country, and the amendments necessary in the Constitution. Their Report recommends the abolition of the exclusive privileges and political powers of those classes which have in this age so signally betrayed the material interests, and corrupted the moral interests of their country- an answer in full, and from the Swedish people themselves, to their noble diplomatic pamphleteer, who, to uphold the tottering power of his order, attempted, in the face of undeniable facts and official documents, to persuade the world that Sweden is a country eminently moral, particularly well governed by its nobility and their hero-king, and quite contented with its present government. To have contributed in the most insignificant degree towards such beneficial movements of the public mind is a great literary success for such trivial literary productions. In this continuation of the same design of collecting materials which may enable the future historian to form a just estimate of the present political and social economy of some portions of the European people, the Author in these Notes pursues the same plan as in the preceding volumes. Taking historical events, statistical facts, and his own observation in various tours, as a basis, he proceeds from that basis straight forward to his conclusions in political or social economy, regardless of the theories, authorities, or opinions that may be jostled out of the road, or of the establishments, classes, or personages whose assumed merits, or false lustre, may be rubbed off in the collision and shock with truth and just principle. SAMUEL LAING. Edinburgh, January, 1842. CONTENTS. Travel-writing. Holland. The Sublime in Scenery. The Picturesque in Holland, Garden Houses. Decay of Hol- land. Causes of Decay. - Commercial Decline. Manu- facturing Stability. Useful Arts. Fine Arts. - Useful and Fine Arts compared. Useful and Fine Arts. - The Poor in Holland. The Poor in Manufacturing Towns. Poor Colonies. France Face of the Country. — Of England - Old Subdivision of Land in England. - Great Social Experiment in France · Abolition of Primogeniture. - Opinions of Arthur Young Mr. Birbeck Edinburgh Reviewers - Dr. Chalmers, reviewed. Effects of the Division of Land in France examined. → Social Economy - Why not treated as a distinct Science. tocracy replaced by Functionarism in France-In Germany. - Interference of Government with Free Agency. - Amount of Functionarism in a French Department-Indre et Loire Amount in a Scotch County Shire of Ayr. - Effects of Func- tionarism on Industry — On National Character-On Morals — On Civil and Political Liberty.. Change in the State of Pro- Prussia. Not constituting one Nation. Prussian Policy in this Century. Attempt to form National Character. Why not successful. Military Organisation of Prussia. - Liability to Military Service of all Prussians. Service in the Line. - In the Army of Reserve. First Division. Second. Effects of the System on the Political Balance of Europe. - Its Advan- tages. Its Disadvantages compared to a Standing Army. - Its great Pressure on Time and Industry. Its inferiority as a Military Force. Amount of Military Force of Prussia. Defect in the Continental Armies.- Non-commissioned Officers. -- - Men. Too delicately bred in the Prussian Army. - Notes on the Educational System of Prussia continued. Notes on the Prussian Educational System continued. Disjointed State of Prussia as one National Body.- Different Leipsic. Book-trade-Its Effects on the Literature On the Character On the Social Economy of the Germans. |