Cornwall Correspondent.

On Monday a party of Black Shots, 16 in number, after scouring the woods for 18 days, returned with ten of the runaway negroes; namely, three men, five women, and two children. They also found in the town six muskets, gun barrels, cutlasses, and among the former, the fowling-piece of the late Mr. Sutherland. One woman, the famous Hill-top, was found lying with a musquet at her bed-side, but, being taken by surprise, she was deprived of an opportunity of using it.

Howling at Funerals. This custom, so prevalent among savage nations, and so common among the lower class of the Irish, seems to have been both ancient and general. It was called by the Greeks Sternotupia, and was in use among several nations of old. Dr. Clarke, in his travels in Asia, describes it as very general among the Arabs; and we find, from the Narrative of the Congo Expedition, published in 1818, that it is of common use at Embomma, in Africa. The Romans had their preficia, whose particular duty it was to superintend the mode of lamentation at funerals. But wherever the light of knowledge spreads her golden beams, these shadows, or remnants of the ages of darkness, immediately disappear. Among the negroes of this country we have witnessed most abhorrent ceremonies in their funeral rites, and howling is not one of the least of them. It is a great nuisance in that neighbourhood wherever it occurs, though the strong hand of the law is not the means by which it ever will be eradicated. Nothing but religions enlightenment, derived from Holy Writ, will ever chase away these monstrous night-mares of the superstitions imagination.

Out of the frying-pan into the fire.-A gentleman a few days since, ridiculing the idea of his being mistaken for a flat, was asked by a lady if he ever had been taken for a sharp: "No, replied he, (intending to display his characteristic sharpness) every body allows me to be a natural.

Self-denial.-Sir Walter Scott very justly says, " that there never did, and never will, exist any thing perma nently noble and excellent in a character, which was a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial."

Falmouth :

PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR, BY A. HOLMES.

No. 7.]

"A CHIEL'S AMONG YE TAKIN' NOTES,
AN' FAITH HE'LL PRENT IT."

MR. EDWARD SHUFFLE.

"And, as with age his body uglier grows,
So bis mind cankers."

PERHAPS the most consummate of all gossips is that man who, by dint of fortune, or interest, has been elevated to a public situation much above the measure of his intellect or his education, and who, from bodily imbecility, never was intended for any other employment than that of a man-milliner, or the marker at a billiard-table. Of such description of character is Mr. Edward Shuffle, who to great bodily, adds twice as much mental imbecility. This gentleman, to add to his personal beauty, wears a surtout and a quaint country-made hat, and looks as smart as a runner of Bow-street office, especially when he has his bludgeon about him. But the place to see this oddity is in his capacity of a public speaker, wherein the King's English is most fellenlessly cut and maimed by him; but whether with intent to kill must depend on a judicium pariam, aut leges terræ."

This quaint-looking gentleman, whose ancient beginning here was so well marked by himself is not to be easily forgotten. His hatching was under a man of the law, though no lawyer; and, getting, by laudable sagacity, pen-feathered, the most extraordinary circumstance attending his career is that of nestling in an office which should be filled by talent, learning, and integrity. There is but one step between the sublime and the ridiculous, but there are in all cases but this, a wide distance between learning and ignorance. The figure this hero cuts will strike the conception better without the aid of description, when the reader is informed, that his judgment and learning are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: : you shall seek all day ere you find them, and. when you have them, they are not worth the search." Our hero vaunts that he is fond of a bit of law,' and he has had enough to satiate any man with a grain of common sense under his caxton; but a litigious spirit is the blood relation of folly and knavery. In fact they are a complete kindred. The adage of He is a greater rogue than fool' is an absurdity. A knave may disguise his wickedness under a greater portion of folly, but, in so doing, his knavery, as well as his folly, is more manifest. That man must be debased indeed, who, under the pretence of some personal offence, withholds a just debt, and will rather ruin his opponent in the tortuous intricacies of the law than yield to reason, to justice, and to truth. Such, howaver, is the disposition of the renowned Ned Shuffle, upon his favourite principle of being partial to 'a bit of law. But this principle in the end defeats itself; for no man ever long followed the law, without being in turn followed by it; and let us not be surprised to find this litigious dabbler an outlaw at last. When in company, our friend Ned has been known to fix his eye intently on a particular button of his opposite neighbour's coat, and, as if big with the fate of nations, would seize it, and pull the individual, out of the circle, to the far end of the room, and exhibit such a scene of grimacery and dumb-shew, as is only surpassed by the jactitation of Tattle, who has a face as intricate as the most winding canse," Hough equally blest with the same parchment skin,

and exquisite beauty of expression. This farce is played off with as much bustle and speculation, as if an enemy were in possession of a certain fort, and its redoubted governor had lost that portion of his carcass, which, though it might deteriorate the quantity of the body, would leave the quality unimpaired. It usually ends like Tattle's, in froth and smoke. Behold

"These brainless brothers of a kindred race,

Air in each sconce, and nonsense in each face." Shuffle has been so much accustomed to see the games of life played, and so careful in marking them, that it has become natural for him to take advantage of the least weakness of his adversary, instead of acting with honour or disinterestedness in the most trivial affair.

To sum up his character, Mr. Shuffle seems to have invented a new system of morals, which discards virtue as a superfluity, and rejects integrity as an incumbrance. His conscience is no great troubler of his selfishness, and, when the term of life is going out," for doomsday he is secure; for he hopes he has a trick to reverse judgment." His adventures will form a subject for a future number.

Biography.

ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS.

The Celebrated Edmond Burke.

It is possible, that men in their sympathy for the fate of genius, as they will phrase it, may lament over the sight of a man like Mr. Burke, thus feeling the ordinary inconvenience of straitened circumstances. We do not allow of any feeling of this caste, unless they be the very same which the spectacle of imprudence and its result excites towards other men. Genius, so far from having any claim or favour when it neglects the ordinary precautions or exertions for securing independence, is, in truth, inexcusable, and far less deserving of pity than of blame. Mr. Burke ought to have earned his income in an honest calling. Every man of right feeling prefers this to the degrading obligations of private friendship, or the precarious supplies, to virtue so perilous, of public munifi

cencé It is certain that he chose rather to eat the bitter bread of both these bakings, than to taste the comely-the sweet-the exquisite fruit, however bard' to pluck, of regular industry. He was a politician by trade; a professional statesman. There is no such craft recognized in this state; all our institutions are ignorant of it-all our habits averse to it; nor is there one of a British statesman's functions which may not be conjoined with the cares of an industrious life.

This old lady lived at No. 9, Elbury-square, Pimlico, where she occupied apartments on the first floor, and passed the last three years of her life, during which period no human being, save herself, ever entered her apartments; and nothing seemed to annoy or ruffle her temper more, than that any person should knock at her room-door. The landlady having once unintentionally fallen into this error, scarcely ever afterwards got into the good graces of the old lady. She was generally in the habit of going out once or twice a week to purchase the few necessaries she made use of; and, in the event of being prevented from doing so by ill health, would frequently, by means of a small cord suspended from the windows of her apartment, take in her beer, &c. Lately she was supplied by a newsman in the neighbourhood with a newspaper, to receive which she now and then opened as much of her room-door as would barely admit of its passage, and, when done with, she invariably threw it out of the window to whoever came for it. On Thursday morning, about eleven o'clock, in conse. quence of the non-observance of her usual formalities, suspicion was entertained that all was not right, and a ladder was procured to look in at the window, but not being able to discover any thing by this means, one of the windows was raised up, through which a man, named Jarvis, entered, and on opening the door that led to her bed-room, he saw her dead on the floor by the side of her bed. No mark of violence was observed on her person, nor any thing found in her room that could lead to the slightest suspicion of her having destroyed herself. Mr. Chapman, constable of Chelsea, was immediately sent for, and took posession of the keys of the different drawers and apart