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and of the shape of a carrot, when mixed alternately with those roots upon a dish, it is very ornamental. The following different receipts for dressing them, are by an eminent French cook:

"Take your roots, and wash them very clean with a brush; then scrape them, cutting a thin slice away from the top, and as much from the bot tom as will make them all of equal lengths: boil them in water, with a little salt, till they are tender; then, put them into a stew-pan, with a gill of veal gravy, two tea-spoon fulls of lemon-pickle, one of mushroom ketchup, a little mace, and salt, and let them just simmer, but not boil, for a quarter of an hour; thicken the gravy with flour and butter, and serve them up hot."

Take your roots, and after preparing and boiling them as before, put them into a stew-pan, with a little water, working in as much flour and butter as will make it as thick as cream; let them simmer five minutes, then place the stewpan near the stove, to keep hot; just before you dish them, add two large spoonsfull of cream, mixed with the yolk of an egg, and a little mace beat very fine, shaking the pan over the fire for two or three minutes, but do not let them boil: put white sippets of French bread round the dish."

"Take your largest roots, clean them as before, and cut them in slices as thick as a crown-piece, then fry them till they are of a pale brown colour on both sides: after which, put them into a stew-pan, with as much water as will cover them, to simmer for ten minutes; then add a large spoonfull of Madeira or Ceres wine, the same of browning, a few blades of mace shred, two tea spoonsfull of lemon-pickle; thicken the Liquor with a little flour and butter,

and serve them up with toasted sippets round the dish."

"One great advantage attending the cultivation of this vegetable is, that it requires no manure whatever; any soil that is poor and light, especially if sandy, suits it; where it seldom exceeds the size of one's thumb or middle finger; in rich manured earth it grows much larger, but is not so sweet or good in quality.

The season for sowing the principal crop is any time from the middle of July to the end of August, or even later in this country, where our frost seldom sets in before Christ

mas.

If the season should prove dry, it will be necessary to water the beds rugularly, till the plants have got three or four leaves, otherwise they will be destroyed by the fly; and this crop will supply the table till April. If wanted during the whole year, a little seed may be sown the latter end of October, and these plants, if they do not miscarry, will be fit for use in April and May. The last crop may be sown from the middle of January to the middle of February, which will also come in the end of May and June; but in July and August they will not be very good, and as that season of the year there is an abundance of other vegetables, it is of less consequence: upon a north border, however and in a sandy soil, it is possible to have them sweet and tender during the whole summer.

To save good seeds, you should in February, or the beginning of March, transplant some of the finest roots placing them two feet asunder and keeping the ground repeatedly hoed; when the seed-pods are formed, they should be guarded from birds with nets. As soon as they change colour, cut the heads, and spread them to dry in the sun, after which beat out the seed, and lay it up for use.

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LIST OF NEW PUBLICATONS.

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a Series of Characters from Shakespeare, &c. Es.

Moral Truths, and Studies of Natural History; by Mrs. Cockle, 7s.

Letters from Mrs. Palmerston to her Daughter, inculcating Morality, 2d edition, 15s.

A Popular Treatise on the Structure, Formation, and Management of Teeth, by John Fuller, Surgeon Dentist, 12mo. 68. with 6 4to engravings.

A Winter in Paris; or Memoirs of Ma dame De C****, written by herself. Com prising a view of the present state of society and manners in that capital, 3 vols,

18s.

No. I. of the British Review, and London Critical Journal, 68.

POETRY.

Agnes, the Indian Captive; a Poem in four Cantos; by Rev. John Mitford, 75, Poems, by Miss Holford, Author of "Wallace, or the Fight of Falkirk." 6s.

Notice. Now publishing by Subscription, the History and Antiquities of the County of the Town of Carrickfergus, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time; also a Statistical Survey of said County:-accompanied with an Ancient and Modern Plan of the Town, and se

Amatonda; a Tale from the German of veral other Plates. The work will be Auton Wall, 6s.

The Shipwreck; or Memoirs of an Irish Officer and his Family; in 3 vols. by Theodore Edgeworth.

MISCELLANIES.

Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature; by Thomas Green, esq. £1. Is. boards.

Young Albert, the Roscius. Exhibiting

comprised in about 200 pages, printed on a nice wove paper, with a new type, price to Subscribers, 5s, in boards, to be paid on delivery of the book. Subscribers names shall be printed. Subscriptions are received by the respective Booksellers in Belfast, and by several Gentlemen of Belfast, Carrickfergus, and other towns of Ireland.

MONTHLY RETROSPECT OF POLITICS.

W Ehave to congratulate the country on one instance of late, where the freedom of the press, assailed by an "ex officio" information, has sought and found effectual protection in that asylum of the constitution

the judicature of the people. In • gal decisions relative to property, and affairs of civil life, a perpetual recurrence to precedent, becomes necessary, for the of purpose preserving an unity in the law,

an uniformity in decision, by presenting a ready appeal to known, and pre-established rule. The constancy, or as we may term it, the continuity of the laws is thus preserved for the general advantage. The security of private rights is more assuredly authenticated, and the integrity, or the wholeness of the laws, is placed beyond the danger of capricious or arbitrary determinations. In all such cases, the judge must impart to the jury the benefits of his experience and erudition, They must be instructed by knowledge which is merely professional, the fruit of laborious research, and a replete memory. The jury, without such assistance, would endanger the salutary consistency of the law, by casual and uncertain decisions, and, in reality, would injure their most valuable rights, by their rashness or ignorance,

But in cases, such as those of libel, a jury is, in truth, the judicature appointed by the constitution, to guard the rights of the people, and a free press, the palladium of that constitution; in the same way that the judges, in their tribunal, are bouad to maintain the uniformity and consistency of the law. In such cases, precedent and Profession are not of such importance to the tribunal of the people, in the discharge of their constitutional duty. They have not occasion so much to consult the books, as to consider what lies before them, in daily life, looking only to present effects, and prospective tendencies. Of these they are qualified to judge as well, at least, as those accounted learned in the law, perhaps indeed better, by being less trammelled in professional habits, and having less flexibility to the influence of political power. It is among the worst signs of the times, and one of the most melancholy symptoms of the general apathy,

when the judicature of the people is easily daunted by the dictum of a judge, whose authority gradually accumulates, without a constant vigi lance on the part of juries, into professional assumption, and thence into arbitrary determination. A se. lection from the people, at present, must bear the character, and partake of the qualities of the mass.

Invoking the genius of Alfred, who established juries, crushed corrup tion, and laid the foundations of the British constitution, we should not hesitate to address juries, in the following terms:

Recollect the nature of your office, the extent of its powers, the bonn dary of its duties. You are the Liv ING CHARTER of the public safety! The constitution, which you recal to our memories, made you the grand barrier between the liberties of the people and the prerogative of the crown. You are to check violence and partiality wherever found. are to be actuated by no interested

motives, influenced by no private ends, responsible to God and your country, to arbitrate equally and impartially between the king and the people.

You are chosen from the vicinage, that an acquaintance with the case, and characters concerned, may produce perfect justice from perfect knowledge. Remember that you are, also, in the vicinage, hay the very contact of muh passion and prejudice. You are raised and placed apart in the court of justice, to elevate your minds also, above the foul air of party, and to look down from the height of a clear and serene judgment, and with the sympathies of humanity on the case set before you, considering it, under all its relations of character, of times, and of circumstances. The office of a jury in periods, when men and the times are out of temper, ought not to

resemble the movement of a blind machine, but they are, as men, to pause, and make those allowances for others, which, in similar situations, they should wish made for themselves. Ask your consciences, how far the dislike of particular, political principles; how far the desire to put down a party, how far the temper of the times, and how far other collateral and incidental circumstances have tended to distort the judgement, and to make yourselves—a party. Separate, as you value your souls, separate all such circumstances from your consideration. Look not through the aggravating and monster making mediam of political antipathies, for judges as you are of the present, the FUTURE will judge you. Let not the idea of keeping down what you suppose to be a dangerous faction, induce you to proceed from vague, general, and indiscriminate condemnation of certain principles to the condemnation of human beings, made and moulded, like yourselves, without a calm, and impartial scrutiny of the whole character and conduct of the accused. Look not only to the single act and expression, but to the context of the man's life, and collect the inward, and invisible intention from a fair, we may say, his torical comparison of the coincidence or disagreement, with the subject matter of accusation. Ask your selves if you have not prejudged the case, and if this sacret predecision has not proceeded on sentiments of hatred founded on some opinion foreign to the proper merits of the question. You are to give judgment on others,-judge yourselves.

Your power is great.-You are really and substantially the judges of the whole cause-of the law as well as of the fact. The more awful your responsibility. The accused

are to have "the judgment of their peers, and to be tried by the law of the land." You are to consider, whether in you, the people will find their peers, such as the mercy and justice of the constitution warrant, and if you find reason to suspect that you are not so perfectly the peers of the people you try, in a season of party prejudice and animosity, you ought, on that account, to have a conscientious distrust of yourselves, and to lean towards mercy, as in this instance, partaking of the nature of justice.

You are to judge by the law of the land," by which you are to understand, as we conceive, not so much the tenor of this or that law, as the general spirit, the universal effects and tendencies of the criminal jurisprudence of the country, which, rising above the occasional turbulence of the times, and the agitations of the day, is, or ought to be uniform, permanent, and impartial.

You are not to bumble the whole law of the land to particular laws of rigorous tendency and spirit.You arise out of the people, not as accessory's of the executive power, but as the assertors and vindicators of fixed rules, unaffected by the inclinations of this or that adiuinistration of government. You are not the agents of a system of coercion, but uninfluenced by person, time, or place, to give the dictum of eternal justice, and to temper the occional severity of law, by the mild principles of general legisla

tion.

In some such terms, do we think that juries ought to be addressed, in a time like the present, when we see many persons, but NO PUBLIC, and when the words of a great man may be well applied to the people of Great Britain. Nunc quidem novo quodam morbo civitas moritur: ut cum omnes, ea, quæ sunt

acta, improbent, querantur, doleant rarietas in re nulla sit, aperte que loquentur, et jam clare gemant, tamen medicina nulla efferatur, nec videmus, qui finis cedendi, pæter exitium, futurus sit. CICERO.

The recent verdict of acquittal pronounced by the jury in the case of the Hunts, for a supposed libel republished in the Examiner, will, we trust, operate salutarily in discouraging attempts to bear hard on the press. Lord Holland's motion on informations ex officio, though negatived for the present, will probably contribute to Jessen the number of prosecutions. His for cible observations, if they do not produce amendment, at least caused irritation in a certain quarter, and discovered that the correction was felt. If juries persist in maintaining their independence, the liberty of the press may yet be preserved., But to save our freedom, and preserve our rights, the mass of the people have an important part to act. A virtuous few may for a season keep alive the spark of freedom, but no nation will be long free, except they cherish and assert the qualifications of freemen. THE LIBERTY

OF THE PRESS, THE INDEPENDENCE OF JURIES, AND A REFORMED REPRESEN

TATION OF THE PEOPLE are the essential supports of freedom. Without them, the semblance of liberty only is left. To these must be added, a large portion of PUBLIC SPIRIT, to

animate and inform the mass. Otherwise, they will dwindle into mere forms, without efficacy. Public spirit alone can infuse life and vigour into the whole, and the continued exertions of this vital principle, can only preserve life in the body, for even a change in the manner of choosing representatives, according to the most approved system of parliamentary reform will otherwise be ineffectual. The most beautiful theory will be

BELFAST MAG. NO. XXXI I.

only an illusory dream, "the "baseless fabric of a vision," unless PUBLIC SPIRIT, cherished by the people at large, confer a reality, and introduce practice. A people regardless of their own interests, and sunk into apathy, can never be rescued from destruction, without their own general exertions. The warning voice of disinterested patriotism will be heard in vain, and if the people at large will not help themselves, their fall cannot be at a great distance.

How differently peculation is viewed, when compared with libel, may be seen by the sentence pronounced on Charles Duffin for defrauding the linen-board. He has been sentenced to an imprisonment of only three months. Three years, two years, and 18 months are allotted to punish men accused of libels. Peculators injure the people, and libels affect the government. How different is the scale of punishment.

The clause introduced by the Judge Advocate into the mutiny-bill, allowing court-martials to commute the punishment of soldiers from lashing to imprisonment, will, we trust, lead at nodistant period, to the total abolition of the former mode of punishment. The alteration is a tacit condem

nation of the former practice, and is, abstractedly considered, a very commendable concession to popular feeling. Yet for some strong remarks on this subject of punishing by flogging, Cobbett is now suffering imprisonment, and the proprietors of the Examiner were lately prosecuted, but the jury pronounced their acquittal. Since their trial, such is the anomaly of the law, the proprietor of the Stamford News has been found guilty of publishing the same paper, for which the others were acquitted. It is fashionable to decry exertions to remove abuses, as acts of faction and sedition. We have now an instance of the good ofu b

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