riding for hours on horseback, often in bad weather, at the risk of life and limb, and returning in a state of fatigue greater than that of any ordinary mechanic. Idleness is so unendurable, that kings have been known to work hard in private at mechanical operations. Louis XVI. of France occupied himself as a maker of locks, and preferred this to the listless enjoyments of a court. A late Scottish nobleman was never so happy as when he got a few razors to sharpen. Many gentlemen voluntarily occupy themselves with turning-lathes. How many persons in toler ably easy circumstances emigrate to wild regions of the globe, and go to work with axes on the massive trees which encumber the soil? The condition of the operative is not perhaps what it may be rendered in a more enlightened state of society; nevertheless, he commits an error when he thinks he is the only hardwrought man. His duties are plain before him; and when these are performed, he is at his ease. The employer, on the other hand, is consumed with cankering cares and anxieties. He has to contrive what will be most answerable-how his capital or hard-won earnings may be risked with the least chance of loss. Nor are persons belonging to the higher professions free from the most grinding harassments. Their minds are worn down with thought, and they often sink beneath the burden of their labours. I mention such things for the purpose of reconciling you to labour -to show you that, in moderation, it is a blessing; and that at all events others work as painfully as those who, by use and wont, are called the working-classes. Labour, I say, is only to be condemned in excess, when it injures health, and leaves no time for a fair share of enjoyments. Every individual ought to possess at least two or three hours daily, independently of the hours for meals and for sleep, to be used in recreative, mental, or out-door exercises. At present I am glad to see there is a general impression that the hours of labour in many businesses are too long, and are likely to be shortened.

We now come to the plans which should be adopted by the state. I will not plunge into the great sea of politics to discuss projects affecting the position of the working-classes; neither will I mix up with the present question any inquiry as to how far improvements in the commercial and fiscal policy of the country would tend to meliorate their condition. I shall confine myself to measures which, not being the subject of any party differences, might easily be carried into effect.

FIRST, I would mention emigration as a means of relieving the labour market. I am not one of those who consider it a panacea for all our ills; but I think it a good thing in itself, since it tends to spread population into the waste places of the earth, and so far extends human happiness; and I believe that when it so happens that a man finds himself at a loss for employment here, he may, if a suitable person for the purpose, go elsewhere with advantage to himself, and also to the benefit of those who stay behind.

Jackson.-We generally regard it as a hardship for the working man to have to emigrate for the sake of a livelihood.

Smith. A hardship it may certainly be considered; and so it is a hardship for him to have to shift from his birthplace to a town thirty miles off in search of work. Are there not many such hardships and trials incidental to this sphere of existence? We have all to encounter hardships occasionally, for the sake of ultimate advantages. I tell you, however, I do not press emigration as a remedy of wide and gracious promise. I only say that many persons might do better as emigrants in new fields than they can do here; and it is one of the resources which present themselves to men in certain circumstances of difficulty, and may be advantageously embraced by them. I may, however, remark to those who condemn emigration totally, that if there never had been any such thing, we should not have been here; for Great Britain was originally peopled by emigrants from the continent of Europe, and we are their descendants. Allow me now to proceed to the next means of improvement.

SECOND. A measure for establishing a universal system of education, gratuitous, or at least suitable to the means of the poorest families, and which would insure that every individual shall grow up an instructed being instructed not only in the principles of religion and morality, but in such departments of science as will give him a proper idea of external nature, and of what is most conducive to his own health and happiness. Along with this species of instruction, it would be of the utmost importance to teach females many useful arts; in particular, those which bear on domestic economy-cookery, cleanliness, needlework, and the rearing of children. To bring up children with good habits is in itself a matter demanding the most careful attention of parents.

THIRD. As a prevention of much disease, family distress, and mortality; as a means of assuaging intemperance, and of arresting the progress of moral deterioration, I would advocate an effective law for enforcing at the public expense proper sanitary regulations, especially in large towns and manufacturing districts: for example, ventilation, sewerage, drainage, and a plenteous supply of pure water. The advantages of some such law would be immense. All would to a certain extent benefit by it; but none so much as the working-man. I am afraid, however, you scarcely see how this can be.

Jackson.-No; but I will listen to your explanations.

Smith. I have not time now to enter into a regular explanation of the principles of ventilation, but shall confine myself to the remark, that, for want of it, as well as from the want of cleanliness, many thousands of deaths occur every year. It is calculated that as many persons die annually in Great Britain from fevers and other diseases which could be prevented by prudent foresight, as were killed at the battle of Waterloo. The poor are the principal

sufferers. Keeping their windows shut, they breathe impure air in their dwellings, and by the over-crowding of close workshops, they may be said to be constantly drawing an invisible poison into the lungs. Want of drainage produces equally hideous ravages. Husbands and fathers of families, mothers, and children, are carried off, without knowing what it is that kills them. The deaths in themselves are lamentable, but not less so is the misery caused among the surviving families. Wives become widows, and cannot support their young children. They struggle on amidst poverty and privations, and perhaps at length sink under their complicated affliction. And to think that all this misery might have been averted by an attention to certain wellknown rules for preserving health! The thought is most distressing.

Jackson.-No doubt it is, but the poor are not alone to blame. They must generally rent any house they can get, and they must labour in any workshop where they can find employment. Smith. There is much truth in your remark; but it is not all the truth. Many possess no means of procuring better houses than they now have; but a vast number who are more fortunate might combine to build comfortable and cheap dwellings-why do the working-classes not become their own capitalists?

Jackson. Their own capitalists! You mean that they should lay out money on building's?

Smith. Yes.

Jackson. You must excuse my laughing at such an idea. Where is the money to come from?

At

Smith.-From savings, to be sure. Instead of constantly throwing away money on intoxicating drinks, let every sixpence be saved for what is absolutely useful. The operatives of Manchester or Glasgow could find little difficulty in saving £20,000 annually in this way, and under proper direction, they might soon have an enormous capital at disposal. I have already noticed what immense sums are now thrown away in strikes, without doing the least good; all which sums at least might be saved. Had we time to spare, I could perhaps show you how the working-classes, by economising their ordinary means, might in no long period of time rise prodigiously in the social scale. present they have too little consideration of what accumulated savings might amount to at the end of a year. They look only at their wage as a weekly small sum, instead of what it would amount to yearly. They will speak of having only 25s. weekly; whereas, if this be regularly paid, they should consider that they command a salary of £65 a-year, and save from it accordingly. Thus, taking it by the year, many workmen enjoy a salary of from £75 to £100, this last being as large as that of many gentlemen who contrive to maintain a highly creditable appearance, and give their families an excellent education. But whether workmen speak of wages as a weekly or yearly remuneration for

labour, the amount, if at all reasonable, is of inferior moment. I mean, that whether a man has a shilling more or a shilling less per week, is positively of no consequence in comparison to the proper disposal of his wages, or in comparison to the preservation of life or health. We hear of strikes from differences with employers as to shillings and pence, but I cannot remember of any general remonstrance from workmen against being killed by the foulness of the atmosphere in which they are put to labour. Jackson. That may be true; but are not employers much more blameable for not taking a little more care of their men?

Smith. Too often blameable, I allow. Employers are, generally speaking, too little regardful of either the health or lives, not to speak of the morals, of those to whom they give employment; and there, I own with sorrow, a great sin may be said to lie at their door. But I begin, I think, to see the dawn of a better state of things. Employers have been roused by example to do more for the comfort of their men than formerly. There is a spirit of improvement abroad, likely to lead to the best results. It is gratifying to know that, on a late occasion, a movement was made by a handful of working-men in Edinburgh to procure cheap public baths. It struck everybody with surprise, for it seemed the first time that operatives had directed attention to practicable melioration; the promoters of the scheme were warmly applauded and assisted, and their example has been followed by workmen elsewhere. More recently there have been movements in some large towns in England to procure open grounds for public recreation; and the corporation of Manchester, greatly to its honour, has resolved to devote a portion of its funds to open up and ventilate the confined streets of that populous burgh. All such movements are cheering; they are in the right direction. I consider them the turning-point for the working-classes. Carried out in their fullest extent, they would soon put a new face on society. Thousands of valuable lives would be saved annually: with an airy and clean dwelling, home would become more attractive-the physical energies, no longer depressed by contact with impurity, would not require the stimulus of intoxication, and temperance would be the result. Attracted to open playgrounds and rural scenes at leisure hours, the general health would be improved, and the growth of mean habits and indulgences materially prevented.

Jackson.-I am glad to hear you speak so cheeringly of what may be done for our class. I thank you, sir, for your good wishes, and will think of what you have mentioned.* [They shake hands, and Jackson retires.]

* In the present series will appear tracts on Ventilation, Bathing, Temperance, Recreation, and other subjects likely to be generally interesting, and in an especial manner useful to the working-classes.-ED.

ONE of the most amusing and acute persons I remember-and in my very early days I knew him well-was a white-headed lame old man, known in the neighbourhood of Kilbaggin by the name of BURNT EAGLE, or, as the Irish peasants called him, "Burnt Aigle." His accent proclaimed him an Irishman, but some of his habits were not characteristic of the country, for he understood the value of money, and that which makes moneyTIME. He certainly was not of the neighbourhood in which he resided, for he had no 66 people," no uncles, aunts, or cousins. What his real name was I never heard; but I remember him since I was a very little girl, just old enough to be placed by my nurse on the back of Burnt Eagle's donkey. At that time he lived in a neat pretty little cottage, about a mile from our house: it contained two rooms; they were not only clean but well furnished; that is to say, well furnished for an Irish cottage. During the latter years of his life, these rooms were kept in order by two sisters; what relationship they bore to my old friend, I will tell at the conclusion of my tale. They, too, always called him Burnt Aigle; all his neighbours knew about them -and the old man would not be questioned-was, that he once left home suddenly, and, after a prolonged absence, returned, sitting as usual between the panniers on a gray pony, which was young then, and, instead of his usual merchandise, the panniers contained these two little girls, one of whom could walk, the other could not he called them Bess and Bell; and till they