The farm neglected.

The morals of the timber buyer.

In Britain it would be a clear crime.

A specific example.

must be two tables. In the family his food would be scarcely missed; not so what he requires when in camp, to which it is inconvenient to carry potatoes; bread must be the substitute, and meat for fish. The wife too is betrayed into expensive habits; she finds the flavor of store tea more grateful than the hemlock or home-made coffee; her neighbours have straw bonnets, and why not she? The despised homespun gown now gives way to the gayer print, and thus a general habit of expense is induced. Bye and bye comes settling day, the pleasing dream is ended; the high per-centage of the store—keeper, and his own incautious neglect in learning and setting down the cost of every article he buys, bring the astonished man into debt; which, if honest, he feels to be a galling bondage. What shall he do! He is resolved to go to the woods during summer as well as winter to get rid of the balance; the farm is much neglected, the cows come not home; they lose their milk; all things go wrong for want of the master's eye and hand, and his home looks like a desolation. And is not this, Mr. Editor, the too general result? That which is acquired by an indirect way is commonly found to be armed with poison, and to inflict a painful wound, either in possession, or in deprivation.

But is there no responsibility attached to those Gentlemen who encourage this illegal practise by purchasing the timber? men who, in general, in all other respects manifest a high tone of moral feeling, and would do credit to any society, but are seduced by an extensive and long continued practice to relax the firmness of their principles, when brought to bear on this subject. If you ask a purchaser of timber, whether he does not feel that he ought to pay stumpage for what timber he knew was pilfered from the proprietor; or whether he ought to buy from settlers who have none of their own, or leased, farms, neither the means of coming honestly by it otherwise, without questioning them how they came by it, lest he might be deemed a receiver of stolen goods, or come under the accusation of scripture, "when thou sawest a thief then thou consentedst with him,'" he will reply — "I ask no questions. I know nothing about it. It is no business of mine. What is brought to me, that I buy." This sort of plea wou'd not be admitted in a British Court of Justice. Were a man, known to possess no horse, and without the means of purchasing one, to offer such an animal to his neighbour, and he bought without ascertaining how the seller obtained the beast, he would be found guilty as a receiver of stolen goods and sentenced to 14 years of ignominious banishment; and would not the stealing one small tree be visited with 7 years transportation? But when offences rise to a wholesale, an over-whelming magnitude, they seem to be tolerated as legal evils. Were a store-keeper to have a trifle robbed from his premises, would he not visit the offender and receiver, could he trace them, with vindictive rigour especially the latter; and why should not the colonial Proprietor have his timber as duly protected as the British landholder's is; or as is the storekeeper's goods? The sanction of the divine precept, "do as you would be done by" is of universal obligation.

It has been supposed that 20,000 tons of timber have been taken from one half-lot in this Colony without the proprietor's leave, and without his getting one farthing for stumpage, his just right; and thus he was deprived, at 35. 6d. per ton, of the considerable sum of 3500f. ! But if this Gentleman refused leave to cut his timber to persons who would have paid him honorably, some blame may attach to himself, for he could not expect, as an absentee that his property should be spared where the practice was universal. Perhaps it would be prudent in all Proprietors, not themselves engaged in ship-building or freighting, to give permission to the most honorable merchants they could find, to get timber from their land; fixing annually the number of tons, and amount of stumpage for each kind, under their own direction, or that of an active and trusty agent.

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