Among the expenses of the various colleges, which I can refer to, I find University College, Virginia—­the terms of which occupy 44 weeks—­is the most expensive.  The annual charges for a student are the following:—­College expenses, 40l.; board, 22l.; washing, fuel, and lights, 4l.—­in all, 70l.  It is obvious that no provision is here made for champagne suppers, hunters, tandems, and other “necessaries,” of our University students, including a few “auxiliaries,” in the shape of I O U’s, for red coats, top-boots, Hudson’s regalias, and mysterious jewellery bills for articles that men don’t wear.  Doubtless some papas would prefer the Virginian bill of fare; but then, they must remember that the republican lads go to college to learn something, whereas many papas send their first-born hopes to Oxford and Cambridge to save themselves trouble, and to keep the youths out of mischief during the awkward period of life yclept “hobbledehoyhood.”  How they succeed is pretty well known to themselves, and probably their bankers have some idea also; yet, with all these drawbacks, who will deny that those seats of learning turn out annually some of the most manly and high-minded, and some of the best educated and most industrious, young men in the country?

Having entered into some of the details of education at various places during my travels, I shall not trespass on the reader’s patience by dwelling further on the subject, except to call attention to the following important regulation with regard to children in factories; and I most sincerely hope it may reach the eye of Lord Shaftesbury, or some other of his coadjutors in the noble work of the protection and education of helpless youth.  The regulation exists in some shape or other in many States.  I subjoin the wording of it from that of Massachusetts:—­

"No child under the age of fifteen years shall be employed in any manufacturing establishment, unless such child shall have attended some public or private day-school, where instruction is given by a teacher qualified according to law to teach orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, arithmetic, and good behaviour, at least one term of eleven weeks of the twelve months next preceding the time of such employment, and for the same period during any and every twelve months in which such child shall be so employed."

Although my salt-fish friends are probably very familiar with sea-lawyers, the general reader may be astonished to see any allusion to law made by a sea-captain.  I therefore beg to inform him, that the following observations on a most interesting point are furnished me by a friend who is legitimately at home in that complicated business, and who devoted much attention to the study of the method by which land is conveyed in the United States with so much ease and so little expense:—­