the stimulant which urges it in supplying mankind with their other wants. If on the contrary, they trust to the good-will and zeal of agents, either paid, or actuated by christian charity, it is incumbent on the good and able men who direct its affairs to satisfy the world that this is a permanently effective means, and that the channel of trade would be imperfect and temporary compared to distribution by their agents. In our small parishes in Britain, zealous agents, well-disposed persons, and the clergy, may undoubtedly effect for a time, and perhaps even permanently, a very wide distribution of the Scriptures, and may outstrip the slow, but sure and ever returning, pace of the trader. In foreign countries, population is scattered over a much larger space. Parishes in the north of Europe approach very often the extent of English counties. The clergy are overwhelmed with duties, which render it impossible that they should be the active agents for the distribution. They can only be the depositaries of the stock to be distributed around them. The scarcity of money, also, is so great, that the peasant, or man of the lower class, is much more able to pay the trader who brings to his door the things he requires, the Bible among others, the very highest price in the way of barter, than to pay in money the lowest price to the minister or Bible Society's agent. Money is not his usual and readiest means of payment. It is scarcely so among a large proportion of our own labouring population. It may be doubted whether there is

any benefit to them, or any real advance towards the object, by a system under which that portion of the people of Europe can only get at a copy of the Bible through a medium which they have not to give for it. It may be doubted also, whether the natural principles of supply and demand on which Providence has placed the wholesome distribution through society of all that is good for man, can, in the case of religious instruction, be safely superseded by the exertions of a society's committee and agents. If there be any truth in these observations, they appear seriously to deserve the consideration of the Society, and of the thousands and tens of thousands who are yearly subscribing their mite to its funds in the purest spirit of Christianity. They are not made with any hostile feeling, but simply to intimate a reasonable, and, to appearance, well-grounded, doubt of the means being suitable to the great and benevolent end they have in view.

April, 1835.-In my evening walk one day this month, I fell in with a Laplander dead drunk, and fast asleep upon the snow. His wife was walking backwards and forwards, watching him; sometimes endeavouring to rouse him, and get him on his legs; sometimes sitting down close to him to warm and prevent the cold from overpowering him; but not appearing in the least impatient or uneasy. It was a curious picture. The Laplanders who come to the markets in the low country, to sell frozen venison, rein-deer skins, and cheese, leave their reindeer twenty or twenty-five miles from hence

in the Fjelde, and lodge in barns and outhouses like our gipsies; but, in the Fjelde, they lodge under tents or wigwams, of a few sticks set up and covered with a piece of coarse woollen cloth or skins, such as one may see at the corner of every wood in the parts of England frequented by gipsies. The Laplander has, certainly, beyond all other Europeans, peculiarities of feature and appearance, not easily described, but which decidedly indicate a separate breed or race. The slit of the eye running obliquely from the temples to the nose; the eyes small and peculiarly brown, and without eyelashes; the forehead low and projecting; the cheekbones high and far apart; the mouth wide, with ill-defined lips; the chin thinly furnished with scattered hairs rather than a beard; the skin decidedly of a yellow hue, as in the cross-breed of a white person with a mulatto,—all these peculiarities strike the eye at once, as distinctive of a separate race. The structure of the body also seems different. The bones are considerably smaller as well as shorter than in other races; and those of the thigh have apparently a greater width between them. They form a curve with the leg bone down to the foot, so that in standing with their feet close together, all above is far apart. They have also that peculiarity of a distinct race, the odour from their bodies being to our sense different from that of ours, and to us raw and wild-if scent can be so described. They are not a handsome race, certainly, but I have seen countenances among the young people of pleasing ex

pression. The pair I found on the snow, at least the lady, could not be called ugly; but, perhaps, her quiet patience, and visible attachment to her husband, made her appear to advantage. There is no want of intelligent expression in their countenances; and they are far from being a stupid people. When driven by necessity to leave their Fjelde life, and betake themselves to the occupation of fishermen in the boats of the people of Nordland and Finmark, they are noted for becoming, in a very short time, expert and bold boatmen. This class of Laplanders are so far advanced in the arts of civilised life, that they are even distinguished as boat-builders in Alten Fiord, Lynger Fiord, and other places. Another class have also exchanged the wandering life for fixed habitations of turf, or even of wood; they keep cattle, goats, and pigs, as well as reindeer; and, like the other inhabitants of the Finland or Quan race, raise hay crops. A third class keep reindeer only, and live in tents, but roam about within a particular district or parish, and consider themselves entitled to the exclusive pasturage of their tract of Fjelde. The number of actually wandering Laplanders who have no home, but lead a true nomadic life, following their reindeer from the North Cape down to the 62d degree of north latitude, is very inconsiderable. There are as many gipsies, tinkers, and strollers in England and Scotland, without any fixed habitation, as all this part of the Lapland nation. In the year 1825, the total number of Laplanders of all ages and sexes

within the Swedish territories, was only 5964; and of these only 931 led a nomadic life with reindeer; and 376 wandered about as fishermen on the lakes and rivers, servants and herdsmen, or beggars, without reindeer flocks. In Norway the numbers are not so distinctly known; as, to avoid paying scat or poll-tax, they remove from the Norwegian into the Russian or Swedish territory, and wander back again, when they find it convenient; but they are not estimated at more than 6000; and the whole of the Lappish people probably does not exceed 12,000.

The language is altogether different from the Norse, or Swedish, or from that spoken by the Quans or Finland race, who have travelled from the east side of the Bothnian Gulf into Finmark and Nordland, and form the greater part of the population of those provinces. The Lappish tongue is apparently very rich in those inflexions or terminations which denote the different relations of objects. There are ten cases of nouns marking various relations of presence, absence, distance, which in other languages are denoted by distinct words or prepositions. The language appears not to have been altogether reduced to a printable state, by the adoption of proper signs for those sounds which our alphabet cannot express. It has been studied, and grammars of it published, by Leem, and by Professor Rask; but their labours were not intended for the Laplander, but for the continental philologist. In the hundred years from 1728 to 1828, all that has been printed for the use of the