Blackwood’s Magazine.

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NOTES OF A READER.

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FAMILIAR LAW.

We cordially add our note of commendation to those already bestowed on a little Manual, entitled “Plain Advice to Landlords and Tenants, Lodging-house Keepers, and Lodgers; with a comprehensive Summary of the Law of Distress,” &c.  It is likewise pleasant to see “third edition” in its title-page.  Accompanying we have “A Familiar Summary of the Laws respecting Masters and Servants,” &c.

On looking into these little books we find much of the plain sense of law.  There is no mystification by technicalities, but all the information is practical, all ready to hand, we mean mouth; so that, as Mrs. Fixture says in the farce of A Roland for an Oliver—­“If there be such a thing as la’ in the land,” you may “ha’ it.”  Joking apart, they are sensible books, and of good authority.

Suppose we throw ourselves back in our chair, and for a minute or two think of the good which the spread of common sense by such means as the above must produce among men:  how much bile and bickering they may keep down, which in nine law-suits out of ten arise from want of “a proper understanding.”  The reader may say that in recommending those fire-and-water folks, landlords and tenants, and masters and servants, and those half-agreeable persons, lodging-house keepers and lodgers—­to purchase such books, we advise every man to act with an attorney at his elbow.  We can but reply with Swift:—­

  “The only fault is with mankind.”

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CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

A very laudable work appears quarterly, entitled “The Voice of Humanity:  for the communication and discussion of all subjects relative to the conduct of man towards the inferior animal creation.”  The number (3) before us, contains a paper on the Abolition of Slaughter-houses, and the substitution of Abattoirs, a point to which we adverted and illustrated in vol. xi. of the Mirror.  The Amended Act to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of cattle, follows; and among the other articles is a Table of the Prosecutions of the Society against Cruelty to Animals, from November 1830, to January 1831, drawn up by our occasional correspondent, the benevolent Mr. Lewis Gompertz.

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THE MUSE IN LIVERY.

We have been somewhat amused with the piquancy and humour of the following introduction of a Notice of a volume of Poems, “by John Jones, an old servant,” which has just appeared under the editorship of Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review:—­