number of children attending Sunday schools was, in 1833, only little over 1,500,000, while in 1838 it was just 2,500,000, assisted by over 318,000 unpaid teachers, and it is computed that one-third of these teachers are householders, of a class under £10 rental; the Sunday schools likewise support periodicals for their special use, with a united circulation of 200,000; in the last forty years the population has increased sixty-eight per cent., but the increase of day scholars has been 275 per cent., and Sunday scholars 405 per cent.; besides this there are over 1,200 institutions of an educating character (such as mechanics' institutes, etc.) attended by over 200,000 pupils. Dr. Hudson also writes as follows:-"I consider our examination in Lancashire and Cheshire as strong evidence in favour of the superior intelligence of the working classes in Lancashire; perhaps you are hardly prepared for this statement, that the working classes in Lancashire offer from their ranks, competitors who invariably excel the middle classes. In mathematics, in French, in chemistry-nay, even in history and geography, the clerks and book-keepers of Manchester are far inferior to the weavers of Oldham, and small towns; seventy-eight clerks competed in our last year's examination, and yet, who were the men who excelled them and carried off the prizes? In geometry, a shoemaker from Oldham ; history, a mechanic from Crewe; colonial history, a weaver from Blackburn; chemistry, a packer from Bollington; algebra, a plasterer from Blackburn; social economy, an engraver in calicoprints from Crawshaw booth; trigonometry, a weaver from Oldham ; arithmetic, a mill warehouseman from Eardstown; decimal currency, two joiners and one clerk."

In 1831 the number of newspapers published in England and Wales was slightly under 300, the number now is slightly over 1,300; cheap periodical literature may be summed up as follows: -works of an educating tendency, (monthly circulation) 8,000,000; works of an exciting nature, but not immoral, such as romances of mystery, etc., (monthly sale) 1,500,000; works immoral and opposed to the religion of the country, (monthly sale) under 80,000; the annual issue of Bibles is 4,000,000, or as many as existed in the whole world before the present century. In 1831 the Religious Tract Society issued 11,000,000 tracts and books, in 1860 its issue was over 41,000,000, an increase of 276 per cent. In 1839 the number of letters sent through the post was 82,000,000, in 1859 it was 544,000,000, an increase in twenty years of 560 per cent. In 1831 the depositors in saving banks were 429,000, amount invested £13,000,000; in 1859, depositors, 1,500,000, amount £39,000,000, increase, depositors, 250 per cent., amount £134 per cent. There are at the present time 4,000 temperance societies, and 3,000,000 teetotalers in the United Kingdom; thirteen of these employ forty. paid lecturers, and have an annual united income of £22,000; they sustain four weekly papers with a united circulation of 280,000 weekly, and six monthly magazines.

(To be continued.)

PASSING along Shoreditch, eastward, and turning away to the right through Church Street, we enter one of those vast, filthy, densely-populated, and demoralized districts, which render London no less remarkable for its abject poverty and degradation, than it is for its boundless wealth and civilization. We are in the midst of a labyrinth of streets, lanes, and alleys, deep in mud, grimed, blackened, and disfigured with accumulated filth; the houses old and dilapidated, with battered windows and broken casements; the atmosphere heavy and damp, charged with intolerable odours, from reeking drains and gutters loaded with every species of decaying and offensive matter. We are in the district of fever and of gin, of everything most inimical to health, physical and moral-we are in Bethnal Green!

Judging from external appearances, a stranger would conclude that none but the vilest and most depraved of the community would herd together in the midst of such abominations. It seems impossible to believe that honest, toiling industry can be doomed to gasp out a miserable existence amid such utter and hopeless wretchedness.

"I must be mistaken; surely none of my father's workpeople can live here!" said a tall, fair girl, elegantly dressed, as she referred, with a saddened and perplexed look, to a letter which she took from her reticule, but in which, though the handwriting gave evidence of a sadly defective education, the address was still clear enough. "Mary Millicent, Street, Bethnal

Green."

"Who b' ye lookin' for, marm ?" exclaimed something more like a bundle of rags than a human being, squatting beside a door-step, with a few boxes of lucifer matches in her lap. "We don't often see the likes of you in these parts; but, maybe, you're a wantin' some 'un as I knows."

The woman spoke roughly, but not disrespectfully, for the poor have often an intuitive perception of character; and there was something in the gentle, loving countenance of Helen Angus, that seemed as a sure index of a warm and generous heart.

66

"I am trying to find a family of the name of Millicent," said Helen, kindly; they live, I believe, somewhere in this street; but I am a stranger here, and cannot make out exactly how the numbers run."

"Millicent! Millicent !" said the woman. "There was a young chap, Tom Millicent, as the p'lice grabbed t'other day in Bonner's Fields. He cum from somewhere here abouts; his father's a weaver, and 's been down in the fever."

"That's the family," said Helen; "there is a daughter, I believe, who is employed as a needlewoman. Can you show me where they live?"

"You will find them over the way, marm-somewhere near where them children's a playin' in the gutter."

As the woman extended her hand to point out the direction she had given, Helen slipped into it a piece of money, and passed quickly on.

"God bless you for a dear, good lady!" exclaimed the poor creature, to whom a silver coin, however small, was a treasure of rare occurrence "Would that there was more like ye in the land! Ye little know what ye could do in a place like this; and the kind look does a poor body's heart good."

With a little assistance from one of the children, tempted from the gutter by the prospect of earning a penny, Helen soon found herself in a small court turning out of the street, containing about a dozen wretched houses, the upper rooms of which were lighted from long casements of diamond-shaped glass, from which issued the monotonous burr of the silk-weavers' looms. Her ragged little guide conducted her into the passage of one of these houses, and, shouting at the foot of the stairs, "Here's a lady wants Mr. Millicent!" darted away, to exhibit, with boisterous exultation, the penny which he had so easily earned.

Helen's heart quailed as she found herself for the first time in the presence of such fearful indications of want and wretchedness; not that it was a new task to her to visit the poor; but residing, as she did, out of London, she had found even the poorest hovels generally surrounded at least by an external atmosphere that was pure and healthy compared with the dark, oppressive gloom and faint sickly air which pervaded all around her here. The staircase up which she ascended was narrow, the banister broken, and half the rails gone; the combined influence of damp and smoke had stencilled the walls with black, mildewy streaks, and the stairs were in many places broken away, so that Helen felt her footing by no means secure. As she reached the first landing she heard a door above opened, and a child's voice exclaimed, "Who's that want's father?"

Helen again ascended, and ascertaining from the child, a little boy about seven years of age, that his name was Millicent, she entered the room. Close to the window stood the weaver's loom; between it and the small fire-place stood an old high-backed deal chair, in which was propped up a sickly, pallidlooking man somewhat past the middle age of life, so thin and hollow-cheeked, and with his eye so deeply sunken, that he seemed to be trembling, as indeed he had been, on the very brink of the grave. He had, however, survived a wasting attack of fever, and had been pronounced by the parish doctor out of immediate danger.

"You must feed him up as well as you can, and get him out in the fresh air when he can bear it," said the man of physic to Mary Millicent, as he took his leave of her on the previous Monday. Poor Mary wept bitterly as he turned his back, for his prescriptions sounded little better than hollow mockery in her father's ears. The loss of her father's earnings and the scanty pittance she could gain by her needle had reduced them to the lowest ebb of want. Bread, with now and then a little tea, had been their only food for weeks, and even this in quantities insufficient for their daily necessities.

Mary was seated near her father, busily engaged with her needle, a pile of shirts standing on the little round table beside her. She was finishing the last of a dozen, which had occupied her five days, working thirteen hours a day, and for this she would receive three shillings on the following morning, and out of this wretched pittance she had expended sixpence for thread and candles. She turned as Helen entered, and, rising, coloured deeply as she hastened to pour out her thanks and apologies. "Oh! Miss Angus," said she, "I was so afraid you would be angry with me for writing to you; but indeed I would not have done it for myself, only father has been so very ill,

and it was so very, very hard to have nothing to give him that would do him good. I have worked as hard as I could; but wages are very low, and I could'nt earn enough to get half that the doctor ordered. Once when I was at the warehouse, you stopped with your mamma in the carriage at the door, and I heard you speak so kindly to a poor little lame girl that had brought some work from her mother, and happened to stand near the carriage. It is not often that we get spoken to like that; and often after, when I watched my father in the fever, and the little ones cried for food, I thought I could hear the sound of your voice and the word of pity you spoke to the poor lame child, and I thought that perhaps you wouldn't be angry if I told you how bad we were off; so I asked one of the young women at the warehouse, and they told me where you lived; so I wrote, but indeed I never thought of bringing you here. Pray forgive me if I was too bold."

(To be continued.)

MEANS TO ENDS.

"Examine all things, and hold fast that which is good."

"The future of mankind can repose only on principles,"-KOSSUTH.

BEWARE of proverbs. Certain sayings, originating, some in ignorance, superstition, or accident, and some in wisdom, have been oft repeated by generations to generations; some of them are indeed admirable maxims containing useful lessons in very few words; and it is the supposing them all to possess this merit which makes the caution necessary.

For instance, it has passed into a proverb of supposed wisdom that "Knowledge is power.' ." Now, it requires but little thought or examination to perceive that knowledge and power are two different things, which never were, and never can become, one and the same. Knowledge may sometimes give power, but this shows them to be different-one the giver, the other the receiver. 1 may give you knowledge, but still you and I are not the same. 1 may know the proper use of certain instruments, but it does not follow that 1 have the power to use them. Nobody knows better than working men, that knowing the use of tools and the power of using them are two different things. And so of all things, whether physical, intellectual, or moral.

In like manner it has become a vulgar proverb of assumed wisdom that "Unity is strength." This notion probably originated with the Roman Consulate; and it is true that unity may give strength to a bundle of sticks or other inanimate things. But men are not sticks; and in almost all human affairs it will be found that unity causes weakness rather than strength. Let an army unite only so little as by taking hold of hands, what would be their strength Unite their feet also, what then? the more union the more weakness. No, no, they must be separate and free, free from all shackles or entanglement, if they would possess physical strength or human power. We continually hear reformers complain of the want of unity among men. It is not unity that they want, or that they mean; the word unity is used when it is only co-operation that is required, and co operation is hardly possible if men are tied together or forced into union. All must be free and disenthralled that each may work out the end of his being.

And remember that there are no two things alike. All persons, animals, and things are unlike each other. God hath not made any two things precisely alike, not even two blades of grass; and from the minutest atom to the mightiest aggregate all are unlike each other-there is to each an individuality peculiarly its own. Every human being has his or her own personality, his or her own selfhood unlike every other individual. Every animal has its own peculiar character-every thing its proper constitution, and every word its proper meaning. And all the beauties and harmonies of

nature-all the eloquence of thought, the fascinations of poetry, the enchantments of music, all that elevate or adorn, all are founded on this wondrous, this infinite diversity! comprehended in the one word, the one first principle of individuality!

Hence the necessity of discrimination, so that men and women may understand so much regarding themselves and the things with which they are surrounded, that they be not deceived nor deceive others. And in order to the attainment of this discriminating habit, I call their attention to the two quotations at the head of this article; the first will put them in the right path, the second points directly to that glorious consummation which we have to bring about!

For the world has hitherto been governed by force and fraud, by injustice and wrong. Henceforth it must be governed by principles, such as justice and truth, harmony and love. And I would that every act of our lives should have a tendency to this end-this " consummation so devoutly to be wished." This is the one thing needful, and indeed the only thing worth living for. And, moreover, it is not hard, but easy of accomplishment, because it is a work so pleasing and so exalting, that in its process it will give a vigour of action which will sweep away all obstacles, eradicate error, extinguish animosities, and harmonize all things with itself. A. C. C.

N.B.-We find a postscript to this article, in which our correspondent "A. C. C. " makes the just remark that when we reproduced from the Co-operator the article signed "J. N." we ought to have referred our readers to No. 17 of the Working Man, in which they will find the rejoinder of "A. C. C." to Mr. Commissioner Hill, and judge whether or no there was anything like "virulent abuse," and they will also judge whether "J. N.," ignoring this letter, and having seen only the statement of the Co-operator that it contained virulent abuse," was justified, before he had made himself aware of the truth of the statement, in opening his article by the following words :-"I am always glad to see a little controversy in our periodical, if conducted in a proper spirit and good feeling. But I am sorry to say your correspondent A. C. C.' has departed from this standard in his reply to Mr. Hill." "A. C. C." further says: "By-the-bye, Sir, in your last number, in my note to J. N.,' where I ask him to trouble himself to read my statement in the number of the Working Man, instead of the word 'trouble' you have printed the word 'humble.' Now, I really had no idea of humbling this gentleman, but rather of exalting him, by inducing him in future to make himself acquainted with a case before venturing to pronounce or give advice upon it."-[We trust this will be the last we hear of this.-ED.]

CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor of the "Working Man.")

SIR, For the last six weeks the people have been in painful excitement in consequence of a supposed outrage committed on the honour of the British flag by Commodore Wilkes, an officer of the United States navy, and commander of the San Jacinto, who arrested the progress of an English mail packet (the Trent) and forcibly took therefrom Messrs. Mason and Slidell and their two secretaries, Captain Wilkes knowing them to be coming to England and France as envoys of the Southern Confederacy. Was Captain Wilkes justified in his proceedings? was the flag of England outraged thereby? or was it an insult to the honour of the British nation? If an outrage or an insult, by whom was it committed? These are questions that every working man in the Bristish nation ought to ask himself:-Question No. 1. Was Captain Wilkes justified? Most assuredly he was, for these men were sent on an expedition by a rebel President to get the co-operation and support of the Governments of England and France. In despotic countries liberty can only be reconquered by revolution, and conse-. crated by the blood of those who know it is better to die in the cause of liberty than to live under the hoof of despotism.

But in America they have a constitution in which the white population can be heard and decide all questions which affect that constitution. They ought, then, to abide by the constitution, so long as it has the majority on its side. But