Our attention has been requested to a paper in the
forthcoming number of the Westminster _Review, which has this extraneous interest, that while the article was passing through the press, the writer died, leaving his work unfinished. The paper is a discussion on " the Sphere and Duties of Government," based upon a recent work with the same title by Wil- helm. von Humboldt, who would Puto very strict limitation on the inter- vention of the central authority. It is remarkable to see a proposition of this kind emanating, it may be said, from the Prussian Court, under which Wilhelm von Humboldt had an employment, while hi more cele- brated brother Alexander has long been a member of the Royal Household. The paper in the Westminster Review is something more than a simple notice of the German work ; it is also an original inquiry into the same subject. Although his pen had frequently been employed, the writer Was less known as a literary man than as a man of business ; and if he took any share in politics it was of a strictly practical kind. Mr. John Chapman, who was distantly related to the publisher of the Review, was by profession a civil engineer ; and in that capacity he became connected with some of the earlier railway undertakings in India: There he ob- tained a knowledge of the natives, with some experience in their require- ments, municipal and material; and he turned that experience to good account, both in the consideration of subjects 111ce the present, and in furnishing a very valuable aid to the Indian Reformers. He was, in- deed, a species of agent for the leading Native Reformers of Bombay whose objects he essentially promoted by an incessant but unostentatious activity ; while we have reason to believe that his prudent advice sen- sibly affected their views and course of agitation. Much as the loss of Mr. Chapman will be regretted by friends and coadjutors in this country, it is perhaps in Bombay that it will be found most difficult to supply his
place. •
CRYSTAL Paninz.—Admissions for six days ending 29th September, in- cluding sethon-tickets, 37,089.
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