ought to be paid—and highly paid—for their
daring. We may be told that the individuals
rescued may be poor—may have, in fact, lost
in the wreck their means of paying any such
claim, and that it is impossible to value lives
like market goods. Our answer is ready:—
Affix a premium to each person saved. Let a
trifle extra be charged, upon ordinary
insurance principles, over and above the fixed
fares, so far as passengers go—and let a trifle
be deducted from the wages of seamen, or, if
it be thought better, imposed as a rate upon
every British ship, coasters paying the largest
proportion; and, from the fund thus
accumulated, let there be ample life-boat
accommodation provided, and ample remuneration
bestowed upon any boat's crew instrumental
in saving life." This is, no doubt, a
move in a good direction, though we should
object to any deduction for the purpose being
made from the wages of seamen;—first, because
they are by no means overpaid for the
hardships and perils of their habitual lives; and,
secondly, because such a deduction would
instantly make the whole thing unpopular
throughout the crews of the merchant service.
But that a fund should be raised somehow,
we have never for an instant doubted; and
that the Government should not be allowed to
slink out of all further care, by saddling the
entire burthen upon the men most likely to
need assistance (which would, in fact, be a
grievous tax, in addition to their evil chances),
we think almost equally obvious, and we
believe that the voice of the country will,
before long, be heard in a demand for the
adjustment of this important question of
salvage, so that a man's life should be
considered, at least, as valuable as property in his
portmanteau.

THE HEART OF ENGLAND.

(Suggested by seeing a venerable Oak in Warwickshire, which
is supposed to occupy the exact Centre of England.)

A JOY stirs through thy branches, Ancient Tree,
    Exulting, waving in thy verdant pride;
Free, o'er the mighty heart, whence circles free
     A swift and generous tide!

Rear high the honours of thy leafy spoil!
    O'er the broad Land thy goodly branches wave!
Strike deep thy roots within the kindly soil
    That may not bear a slave!

The heart of England Thou! but not the heart
   Of distant lauds that own her widening sway;
For, as from her, Day's cheering beams depart,
     They flush to meet its ray!

Wave green! fit emblem of the constant mind,
    The patient courage, the enduring will,
That onward, ever, bears her sons to find
     New paths—new homes to fill.

And ere they fill new graves, to leave a trace,
    A land-mark, on the way where they have been;
They toil—the firm, unconquerable race,—
     Sons of the Ocean Queen!

Look o'er the Land, thou Ancient Warder, still!
     What of the night, Old Watcher? Thou canst speak
Of times when first above the dusky hill
     Thou saw'st the morning break;

Of times when Truth, impatient of the gloom,
    Rejoicing like the strong man in his might,
Arose, the darkling nations to illume,
     And run its race of light.

Wave proudly! Thou hast marked the gradual ray,
     From old heroic ages dimly caught,
Expand to Freedom's pure and perfect day
     Of Action and of Thought.

And yet the thoughtful eye may trace where lies
    A cloud, that if no larger than the hand,
In gathering blackness casts through summer skies
    A shadow o'er the land!

When shall some soul arise, in fervent truth,
    To banish from our Heaven its dark presage,
And yearn, in Christian love, o'er untaught Youth,
     And unenlightened Age?

When will they learn to know—our Country's
           Chiefs—
     What works the poor man's woe—the poor man's
           weal;
Look on his homely joys, his lowly griefs,
     And feel what Peasants feel?

Oh! be it ours to put the evil thing
     That lurks within our Israel's camp—away;
Then every year will brighter blessings bring,
     And every coming day

Will break in richer glory o'er our sky,
     When LIBERTY and PEACE their palm-crown
               wreathe,
Where none unpitied live—unsuccoured die,—
     Where all are free, that breathe!

CHIPS.
A ZOOLOGICAL PROBLEM.

ON the third day of October, 1851, and
towards the hour of evening, one of the Boa
Constrictors in the Zoological Gardens of the
Regent's Park received a present of two live
rabbits for his supper. It is a painful thing to
contemplate any process of killing; but the boa
constrictor would not eat rabbits if they were
dead, and then he would die himself of starvation,
so that it comes to a question of serpent's
life or rabbit's life; for if you keep one, you
must sacrifice the other; and no doubt the
serpent thinks, if he thinks at all on the subject,
that since rabbits must be killed by somebody,
he, who is to live by them, has as much right to
kill rabbits as any one else. On the other hand,
however, it is a blessed provision of nature, or
circumstance, that these home-bred rabbits
have no comprehension of their destination, no
sense of what a serpent is. They skip about
in the inside of the great glass case, quite at
their ease; they often approach close to the
serpent's nose, and even touch it with their
own— on which occasion both serpent and
rabbit draw back with a little start. When