that we have lost some portion of the manly virtues by which our ancestors were characterised; that in our daily intercourse we have swerved from the road of honesty and truthfulness into the paths of expediency and conventionalism; that in our individual strivings after riches and position, the feeling of patriotism has been deadened, until our whole existence has become so tainted by selfishness that we suffer ourselves to view the interests of our country only as they may affect our individual ease or progress.

It would be foreign to the object of these pages to pursue the subject in this direction, but it would occasion deep regret if, in exhibiting the favourable side of the picture, and in giving utterance to hopes for the future, grounded upon the efforts for moral and intellectual improvements which now are happily in action around us, it could be held that there were implied any approval of national crime, or any feelings save those of shame and humiliation, at our departure from that course of rectitude which was wont to make this favoured land more honoured for its justice than it was respected for its power.

The demoralizing tendency of riches has ever been a favourite theme for declamation with poets and moralists:

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates,"

is a sentiment which has been repeated until it has gained at least the nominal assent of many seriously-disposed but imperfectly-informed persons among us. They have not stopped to consider how far the evils which they deplore have their origin in, or any connection with, increasing wealth, but have taken it for granted that, as the evils and the wealth have increased together, they must necessarily be considered as cause and effect.

It must be owned that our multiplied abodes of want, of wretchedness, and of crime; our town populations huddled together in ill-ventilated and undrained courts and cellars; our numerous workhouses, filled to overflowing with the children of want; and our prisons (scarcely less numerous) overloaded with the votaries of crime, do, indeed, but too sadly and too strongly attest that all is not as it should be with us as regards this most important branch of human progress. If we refer to our criminal returns, it will be found that in England and Wales, the number of persons committed for trial is now more than five times as great as it was at the beginning of the century; while in Ireland the proportionate increase has been even more appalling, there having been in 1849 twelvefold the number of committals that were made in 1805; the earliest year for which our records are avail

maintain those who are engaged in the business of production, as well as of the machinery, tools, materials, &c., devoted to that business. In short, capital may be defined to be, that portion of the produce of previous labour which is devoted to the business of future production. The inhabitants of every country that has made much progress in civilization have felt the importance of accumulating capital. While capital is small they have seen that the population must be small and scattered, that there be but little division of labour, little power of cooperation they have also seen that, to create this capital, this result of saving and self-denial, there must be security of possession. Hence laws, guaranteeing to every man a property in the produce of his labour, are universal throughout civilized society. In fact, security of property is essential not only to capital, to power, to skill, to combination and division of labour, but also to self-preservation.

In what manner the capital of a country will be distributed among its inhabitants depends upon a variety of circumstances. Some are more skilful, some more industrious, some more enterprising, some more saving and provident than others. The arrangements of society may be more or less happily contrived for encouraging the most beneficial distribution of capital; but individual character must have great influence in determining the share of each. It is to be expected, therefore, that some will possess more than their proportional share of the general capital of the country, and will consequently have a command over a proportionally larger share of the forthcoming produce of capital and labour.

What is to be lamented, however, is, that there should be some who possess no capital-who depend entirely for present maintenance upon the capital of others. Such persons, in order to obtain a maintenance out of the produce of the labour that has been performed, are obliged to sell the labour that they are willing to perform. These are the mere labourers of society. They who possess the capital are called capitalists.

It must be self-evident that the more advanced any community is in civilization, the smaller will be the number of those who are mere labourers living upon the capital of others, and of those who are mere capitalists living free from the necessity of labour; the larger will be the number of those who are entitled to be classed as both capitalists and labourers.

To be civilized, a people must be possessed of capital. For capital to abound, there must be a prevalence of industry, knowledge, and economy; and those qualities can only flourish where person and property are in security. But with security of property

comes inequality of possession. How is inequality of possession to be made compatible with such a distribution of property as that destitution may nowhere be found?-as that barbarism may not continue to dwell in the midst of civilization? This is a question which not only deserves consideration, but admits, as will be seen, of being satisfactorily answered.-ELLIS'S Outlines of Social Economy.'

THE Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1835 to inquire into the state of the education of the people in England and Wales, contains an amount of information concerning the increased and increasing decency of deportment within the present age, which is of the highest value. Among the many witnesses examined was Mr. Francis Place, who for more than half a century has been an attentive observer of the condition and conduct of the working people in London, and to a considerable extent throughout the kingdom generally. Scenes and events which he relates as being of common everyday occurrence when he was an apprentice, are such as would be unbearable now and have wholly ceased.

Speaking of the habits of tradesmen and masters, he says,— "The conduct of such persons was exceedingly gross as compared with the same class of the present time. Decency was a very different thing from what it is now; their manners were such as scarcely to be credited. I remember, when a boy of ten years of age, being at a party of twenty, entertained at a respectable tradesman's, who kept a good house in the Strand, where songs were sung which cannot now be more than generally described from their nastiness, such as no meeting of journeymen in London would allow to be sung in the presence of their families."

"There were then few rational employments at home; the men were seldom at home in the evening, except there were card-playing and drinking; they spent their time in a very useless and but too generally a mischievous manner. I made inquiries a few years ago, and found that between Temple-bar and Fleet-market there were many houses in each of which there were more books than all the tradesmen's houses in the

street contained when I was a youth. The ballads sung about the streets and the books openly sold, cannot be adequately described. All that time the songs were of the most indecent kind; no one would mention them in any society now; they were publicly sung and sold in the streets and markets. Books were openly sold in shops of booksellers in leading streets which can only be procured clandestinely now. I have seen the Prayer Book, the Racing Calendar, and these books, bound alike, side by side in very respectable shop windows in the leading streets."

"Between Blackfriars and Westminster-hall there were fourteen clubs under the name of Cock-and-hen clubs. I attended several of them when I was an apprentice. There was one in the Savoy, the amusements were smoking, drinking, swearing, and singing obscene songs. I do not believe there has been a club of the sort for many years past within the same space. There are a few of them still in London, but very few they are held in very obscure places, and frequented by the very worst of the community. The places of public resort, the tea-gardens, were formerly as notorious as they were infamous; the Dog and Duck, for instance. I have been there when almost a mere boy, and seen the idle women come out to take leave of the thieves at dusk and wish them success. The Apollo-gardens was another of these infamous places; it was opened under the pretence of musical entertainments; and there was the Temple of Flora; it was a long gallery fitted up in a superb manner, and when lighted was a very fascinating place; there were boxes where boys and girls and men and women assembled."

"Another of these places was the Bull-in-the-Pound in Spafields, frequented by thieves and dissolute people. In Gray's Inn-lane was the Blue Lion, commonly called the Blue Cat: I have seen the landlord of this place come into the long room with a lump of silver in his hand, which he had melted for the thieves, and pay them for it. There was no disguise about it; it was done openly; there is no such place now. The amusements of the people were all of a gross nature. We hear much talk of the desecration of the Sabbath, but it was much more desecrated formerly. At the time I am speaking of there was scarcely any houses on the eastern side of the Tottenham Courtroad; there and in the Long-fields were several large ponds; the amusements here were duck-hunting and badger-baiting; they would throw a cat into the water and set dogs at her; great cruelty was constantly practised, and the most abominable scenes used to take place. It is almost impossible for any person to believe the atrocities of low life at that time, which

were not, as now, confined to the worst paid and most ignorant of the populace. I am not aware of any new vice having sprung up among the people: there has been a decrease of vice in every respect, and a great increase of decency and respectability." The foregoing passages, which for the sake of brevity have been put into the narrative form, are faithfully extracted from the answers made by Mr. Place when under examination by the committee. The only liberty that has been taken is the suppres sion of some of the more revolting circumstances brought forward by Mr. Place in illustration of his opinions.

When asked, "To what do you principally attribute those improvements?" Mr. Place answered-" To information! you will find, as the working people get more information they get better habits." He added, "Every class above another teaches that below it; the journeyman tradesman is above the common labourer, and manners descend from class to class."

The whole of the evidence given by Mr. Place on this occasion is of the deepest interest to all who wish to study with the aim of remedying the moral evils of society by rational and therefore by practicable means.- PORTER'S Progress of the Nation."

1. As Mr. Porter took some liberties with the document he was transcribing, so we have omitted one or two things

6

that he retained. The object of our work required as much.

SCHOOLMASTERS and teachers should raise no difficulties to their scholars; but, on the contrary, should smooth their way, and readily help them forwards, where they find them stop. Children's minds are narrow and weak, and usually susceptible but of one thought at once. Whatever is in a child's head fills it for a time, especially if set on with any passion. It should therefore be the skill and art of the teacher to clear their heads of all other thoughts whilst they are learning of anything, the better to make room for what he would instil into them, that it may be received with attention and application, without which it leaves no impression. The natural temper of children disposes their minds to wander. Novelty alone takes them; whatever that presents, they are presently eager to have a taste of, and are as soon satisfied with it. They quickly grow weary of the same