to secure their nests of young. As he was skilful at the task, and of great activity, it was not long before he became tolerably successful: he climbed from tree to tree, and seldom returned without his cage being well stored with chaffinches, linnets, blackbirds, wrens, ring-doves, and pigeons. Every week Francesco and his sisters carried their little favourites to the market of Sussari, and generally disposed of those which were most attractive and beautiful.

The object of their desires was to be able to support their helpless parent; but still, all the assistance they were able to procure for her was far from being adequate to supply her numerous wants. In this dilemma Francesco conceived a new and original method of increasing his gains; necessity is the mother of invention, and he meditated no less a project than to train a young Angora cat to live harmlessly in the midst of his favourite songsters. Such is the force of habit, such the power of education, that, by slow degrees, he taught the mortal enemy of his winged pets to live, to drink, to eat, and to sleep in the midst of his little charges, without once attempting to devour or injure them. The cat, whom he called Bianca, suffered the little birds to play all manner of tricks with her; and never did she extend her talons, or offer to hurt her companions.

He went even farther; for, not content with teaching them merely to live in peace and happiness together, he instructed the cat and the little birds to play a kind of game, in which each had to learn its own part; and after some little trouble in training, each performed with readiness the particular duty assigned to it. Puss was instructed to curl herself into a circle, with her head between her paws, and appear buried in sleep: the cage was then opened, and the little tricksy birds rushed out upon her, and endeavoured to awaken her by repeated strokes of their beaks; then dividing into two parties, they attacked her head and her whiskers, without the gentle animal once appearing to take the least notice of their gambols. At other times she would seat herself in the middle of the cage, and begin to smooth her fur, and purr with great gentleness and satisfaction; the birds would sometimes even settle on her back, or sit like a crown upon her head, chirruping and singing as if in all the security of a shady wood.

The sight of a sleek and beautiful cat seated calmly in the midst of a cage of birds, was so new and unexpected, that when Francesco produced them at the fair of Sussari, he was surrounded instantly by a crowd of admiring spectators. Their astonishment scarcely knew any bound when they heard him call each feathered favourite by its name, and saw it fly towards him with alacrity, till all were perched contentedly on his head, his arms, and his fingers.

Delighted with his ingenuity, the spectators rewarded him liberally; and Francesco returned in the evening with his little

heart swelling with joy, to lay before his mother a sum of money which would suffice to support her for many months.

This ingenious boy next trained some young partridges, one of which became exceedingly attached to him. This partridge, which he called Rosoletta, on one occasion brought back to him a beautiful goldfinch, that had escaped from its cage, and was lost in an adjoining garden. Francesco was in despair at the loss, because it was a good performer, and he had promised him to the daughter of a lady from whom he had received much kindness. On the sixth morning after the goldfinch had escaped, Rosoletta, the tame and intelligent partridge, was seen chasing the truant bird before her, along the top of the linden trees towards home. Rosoletta led the way by little and little before him, and at length getting him home, seated him in apparent disgrace in a corner of the aviary, whilst she flew from side to side in triumph for her success.

Francesco was now happy and contented, since by his own industry and exertions he was enabled to support his mother and sisters. Unfortunately, however, in the midst of all his happiness, he was suddenly torn from them by a very grievous accident. He was one evening engaged in gathering a species of mushroom very common in the southern countries of Europe; but not having sufficient discrimination to separate those which are nutritious from those that are poisonous, he ate of them to excess, and died in a few days, along with his youngest sister, in spite of every remedy which skill could apply. During the three days of Francesco's illness, his birds flew incessantly round and round his bed! some lying sadly upon his pillow, others flitting backwards and forwards above his head, a few uttering brief but plaintive cries, and all taking scarcely any nourishment.

The death of Francesco showed in a remarkable manner what affections may be excited in animals by a course of gentle treatment. Francesco's birds appeared to be sensible of the loss of a benefactor; but none of his feathered favourites manifested on his decease such real and disconsolate grief as Rosoletta. When poor Francesco was placed in his coffin, she flew round and round it, and at last perched upon the lid. In vain they several times removed her; she still returned, and even persisted in accompanying the funeral procession to the place of graves. During his interment she sat upon an adjoining cypress, to watch where they laid the remains of her friend; and when the crowd had departed, she forsook the spot no more, except to return to the cottage of his mother for her accustomed food. While she lived, she came daily to perch and to sleep upon the turret of an adjoining chapel which looked upon his grave; and here she lived, and here she died, about four months after the death of her beloved master.

16

THE EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYED.

A FAMILIAR DIALOGUE.

SPEAKERS. MR JAMES SMITH, a factory mill-owner, and MR RICHARD JACKSON, a cotton-spinner.

Smith. I am glad to see you, Mr Jackson; step in to my house, and let us have a little conversation on the present unhappy differences on the subject of wages. Perhaps I may show you that the ideas entertained respecting employers are not, by any means, just. At all events, let us hear what each has got to say-you on the part of the operative class generally, and I on the part of the mill-owners, and others, who are in the habit of giving employment.

Jackson. Thank you, sir; I am a plain-spoken man, and have no objections to say what I and others think about our condition as workmen, so I very willingly accept your invitation.

Smith. Now, Mr Jackson, sit down; and if you please, begin by telling me exactly what the workmen want.

Jackson. Why, sir, the great matter is this-our condition is much less comfortable than we think, in justice, it should be. We are poor, and not getting any richer. Few among us can get more than 22s. a-week for our labour. The average wage is about 14s. or 15s., and we do think it a hard case that a man, with a wife and family, should have to live on any sum of that kind, when we see the masters so well off, and they, as one may say, living by our hard and continued labour. What we want is "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work."

Smith. The statement apparently is that the employers give lower wages generally than they ought to give. Is not that the substance of your charge?

Jackson.-Yes; we think you should give at least 25 per cent. more. If a man now gets 20s., he should get 25s., and so on. Smith.-Very well. Now, be so good as tell me on what ground you rest this demand.

Jackson. Because you are making large profits, and can afford to pay more than you do. The profits should be more equally divided.

I

Smith.-Now, I believe, we understand each other. like your candour; and I think I shall answer you. You claim more wages on the score of your contributing to the production of profits. Let us take my own establishment as an example, and let us suppose you are a workman in it. I wish to know how much you put into the concern.

Jackson. Me! why, I give you my labour from Monday morning till Saturday night.

Smith. This labour, then, is your contribution of means. You receive 20s. for the week's labour; and therefore it is just the same thing as if you were to give me 20s. every week, so that I might lay it out in hiring somebody to do your work.

Jackson.-I think much the same thing.

Smith.—It is then allowed that you contribute to the extent of 20s. weekly to my concern. May I now ask if you think every one should be paid according to the extent of his input and

risk?

Jackson.―That certainly would be fair.

Smith.—I shall then explain to you what I have put in, and how I have been enabled to do so. The cost of the buildings, the ground, the machinery, and other things required to begin the manufactory, was £80,000; and the money necessary for buying raw material, and giving credit till sales could be effected, and also for paying wages, came to £10,000 more. You understand I did not start till I had £90,000 ready to be laid out and risked on the undertaking. If I had begun with less, the concern would have been unsuccessful. It could not have gone on. To raise this large sum of £90,000 was a very serious matter. My father was a working-man, like yourself. His wages were never above 18s. a-week. On this sum he brought up his family, for my mother was very economical. I got a little schooling; was taught to read, write, and cipher. At fourteen years of age I was sent into a cotton factory, where for several years I had no higher wage than 5s. a-week. I afterwards, by dint of some degree of skill and perseverance, rose to be a spinner, and received 25s. a-week; but off this I had to pay a boy-assistant 5s.; and therefore my real wage was only 20s. a-week. I was at this employment four years and a half, during which time I saved £30, which I deposited in a bank for security. One day, when I was at work, a party of foreigners visited the factory; they were in want of a few steady and skilful hands to go to St Petersburg, to work in a factory there. I volunteered for one, and being chosen, I went to that distant city, which you know is in Russia, and there I received for a time about double my former wages. In three years the overseer died; I was promoted to his situation, and now received as much as £250 yearly. I still made a point of economising my gains; and on reckoning up, found that when I was twenty-eight years of age I had saved £700. At the recommendation of a friend, I laid out this money on a mercantile speculation-in short, I risked its entire loss. I was successful, and made my £700 as much as £1000. Again I risked this sum, for it seemed a sure trade; and so on I went for several years, increasing my capital both by profits and savings. When I married, which was not till thirty-five years of age, I had realised one way and another £20,000. I now returned to England, was for several years a partner in a concern where I again risked my earnings, and at the end of fifteen years retired with £90,000.

With this large sum I built my present factory, and entered into the hazardous business in which I am now engaged. I ask any man if I did not earn my money by hard industry, by self-denial, by serious risks, by a long course of pains and anxieties. For, having done all this, I consider I am entitled yearly first, to an interest on my money equal to what I could have obtained by lending it; second, to a profit that will cover any losses which I may incur by bad debts; third, a per-centage to pay the tear and wear of machinery and deterioration of property; and, fourth, to a salary for my personal trouble-in other words, my wages; and all this over and above the ordinary expenses of the concern. You, Richard Jackson, as a straightforward man, answer me, if I, by these risks and obligations and personal attentions, be not justly entitled to take a vast deal more out of the business than you, who put in only 20s. in the shape of weekly labour?

Jackson.- Why, nobody doubts that, sir. But still it seems somehow as if the working-classes did not get their due. You and others, no doubt, risk your money; but we give our time, health, strength, our all, to assist in your undertakings. We may not be the bees who build the hive, but we have some reason to say that we are the bees who make the honey. And the great question is, do we get our fair share of the proceeds?

Smith. My friend, you appear to be labouring under some kind of delusion. You speak of dividing proceeds as if manufacturers had entered into a partnership with their men. Now, they have done no such thing. The employer is the individual who plans, risks, manages. If his plans do not succeed, he alone is accountable, and alone pays the penalty of his miscalculations. To carry out his intentions, he offers a wage to this one, and a wage to that one, and it is voluntary on his part to do so or not. This wage is the equivalent for which the operative sells his labour; and when he gets the full value of the commodity he has disposed of, he has surely no farther claim. To admit that he is to be a sharer of his master's profits, would be to constitute him a partner of a very extraordinary kind; because, without risking anything himself, he would be entitled to participate in the gains, and yet be exempt from the losses, of trade. This is a principle of partnership that neither law nor reason recognises; in fact, is at variance with common sense. Besides, the workman is really better off with having nothing to do with his master's risks. In all circumstances, he is certain to receive his wages. When ruin follows the speculations of the employer, the operative is unscathed, and has only to carry his services to a new and more fortunate master. Are you now satisfied that the workman receives his full dues in the mutual arrangements of employer and employed?

Jackson. I cannot exactly say that I am. I may admit that the workman has no claim of partnership in his employer's con