the honest labourer outside their walls to a state of pauperism." Now, why should a gaol or a workhouse, if made a productive establishment, like a factory or a farm, compete more injuriously with the labourers outside, because it is carried on by capital raised in the shape of rates or taxes, than if the capital were raised by calls on the shares of a company, or belonged to a private firm? We can understand the small tradesmen or artisans of the viginity believing that they are sufferers from the rivalry of the county or union workshop, and raising an outcry against it. So they may suffer, of course, to some extent, just as the hand-loom weavers suffer from the setting up of a factory, or, indeed, as one rival factory may, at times, by close competition, injure another. But the question is, as you have stated it, whether the aggregate produce of the community at large, and, consequently, its consumable wealth, are not increased by the productive employment of criminals or paupers, and that to the full extent of what is produced by their labour, just in the same degree as if they were free and independent labourers working for a private master, instead of for the county, the union, or the state? How can it be supposed otherwise? No doubt, if a cargo of Manchester goods founder at sea, or a fire destroy a warehouse full of cloth, the diminished supply of cotton or of cloth may give a stimulus to that particular market, by which some of the producers of these articles may profit. But the community at large will have suffered a loss. And a similar loss must be entailed on the community by tying up the hands of a body of men and women in a gaol or a workhouse, and feeding them in idleness, or employing them on useless work, when they might have been made to produce a thousand bales, perhaps, of cotton or of cloth. In either case so much capital has been destroyed. It is quite forgotten by those who see in the industry of the gaol or workhouse only an unfair competition with the poor and honest labourer out of doors, that the whole value of the produce of these establishments is so much saved to the rate or tax-payers, who consequently have so much left in their pockets to spend (as they are sure to spend it) in some way or other, thereby giving employment to the honest and independent labourers out of doors to precisely the same extent as if they had been employed to produce the precise articles fabricated or grown by the inmates of the public establishments. It never can be for the advantage of an industrious community that any number of its members should be kept in idleness, at the expense of the public. France keeps half a million of men in blue uniforms. If they are necessary to maintain the peace of the country, the money they cost may be well laid out. But surely, if in addition to this, they could be made to support themselves by some productive industry, into the bargain, the nation at large would gain enormously by the saving of the whole expense of this large army which is now defrayed by a crushing taxation? Suppose our prisoners and able-bodied paupers together to cost us five millions per annum, and that by their productive employment we could save that large sum out of our rates and taxes, would not the country be so much the richer? and would there be less employment for the honest or independent labourers? It is clear there would be five millions' worth of produce, that is of wealth, more than at present to be consumed. What reason can be given to suppose that there would be one pound the less produced by anyone? On the contrary, it is certain that every increase of produce creates a demand for an equivalent with which to exchange it. The desires of man are insatiable; and with freedom in the application of industry and of exchange, there may be temporary and local congestions of particular products, causing a loss to their producers, but the daily increasing facilities of intercourse and traffic tend rapidly to prevent such congestions by equalising demand and supply over the world. The idea that it can be advan tageous to society that any portion of its members should be maintained as unproductive consumers, lest markets should become overstocked, is but a revival of the old fallacy which led in former times to the burning of spice-ships, and the throwing cargoes of corn into the Thames, with the view of raising the price of the remaining stocks. Such an operation may for the time benefit particular holders or producers, but must be a general loss. I had hoped, and will continue to hope, that sounder views are becoming popular, and every day more widely received. Indeed, to some extent, such views are being by degrees introduced, and acted upon by the authorities. It is in the management of the prisoners in our gaols and convict stations that the improved system has first shewn itself. Industrial and productive employment of a reformatory character is being wisely and largely substituted for the useless and degrading treadmill or chain-dragging, or still more brutifying idleness, whether in solitude or company. The recent Reports of Mr. F. Hill on the Northern and Eastern Prison Districts, and of Colonel Jebb on the Discipline and Construction of Portland Prison, are valuable testimonies to the benefits derivable from this change of system. Mr. Hill remarks, that "work which, instead of being instructive and profitable, is utterly worthless, must tend strongly to confirm rather than to remove that dislike of labour which is one of the chief causes of crimes against pro perty." And another passage in the same report condenses into a few words the argument I have been using against the prejudice respecting the competition of prison labour with the independent labourer. "The single fact," he says, "that at present (unfortunately, as it seems to me) much more produce is taken from the out-door labour market and consumed in prisons, than is brought into the market from prisons, ought to remove all fear of the prisons causing any glut of the market, and thereby a fall of prices." (15th Report, p. 16.) Colonel Jebb's report shews that a system of industrial employment on public works of a productive character is now permanently and generally established in all our convict prisons or depôts. And the results are as satisfactory in a pecuniary point of view as they promise to be in a moral and reformatory one. The value of the labour performed by the convicts at Portland (where they are chiefly employed in the construction of a new harbour of refuge) amounted in 1-49 to £16 per man, and is estimated to reach £18 each in 1851. (Page 34.) So likewise the convicts in Bermuda and Gibraltar perform work which is valued at from £20 to £30 per annum; sums exceeding the cost of their maintenance. Now, if the doctrine I have combatted in the early part of my letter were correct, all this would be wrong. The employment of some thousand convicts on government works at Portland, Bermuda, or Gibraltar, would be an "injury to the honest and independent labourer," the "establishment of national workshops tending to reduce the rate of wages out of doors, and drive the wellconducted labourer into pauperism or crime." Colonel Jebb does not view the matter in that light, neither does the government itself. He takes the broad common-sense view of the question, and says plainly and simply: "There can be no question that if a body of 10,000 or 12,000 men are to be maintained by the government, they ought to be usefully employed." But if this is true and right as respect prisoners, and even the worst class of criminal prisoners, convicts-how much more so it must be in the case of paupers. If our prisons and convict depôts are to be places for the industrial training and productive employment of their inmates, why not, à fortiori, our workhouses? If it is desirable in a moral point of view to accustom a criminal prisoner to habits of useful industry, which may enable him to gain an honest livelihood when he leaves the gaol, is it not equally, nay still more, desirable to teach the same habits of industry to our innocent paupers? If idleness and useless labour are found to degrade and brutalise even the criminal, how much more injuriously must they operate on the unfortunate pauper, who, through no fault of his own, is forced to seek the shelter of the workhouse? And if in an economical point of view it is right and easy to make a profit of the labour of the criminals in gaols and convict depôts, can it be wrong or impossible to make the labour of our workhouse paupers, to some extent, even if not entirely, pay the cost of their maintenance? I am happy to know that attempts to carry out this principle are being here and there made. And I feel confident that they must succeed, and by their example promote its general introduction. I copy from a recent journal a statement of what has been done in one of the Irish unions: "In the labour department of the Dunmanway union, upwards of 100 of the paupers are constantly employed at subsoiling, draining, and planting potatoes, and carrying out the manure from the several manure pits; and about 80 women are constantly at work carding and spinning wool, which is sent out to the poor weavers of the town to be woven into frieze and linsey woolsey for clothing for the inmates. A saving of upwards of £200 was effected to the union last season by the cutting and saving of turf used in the workhouse in place of coals; the unemployed labourers of the union made the hand turf by task-work, and the entire was saved and ricked by the paupers, and the poor carmen of the neighbourhood were employed by task work to draw home the turf. The turf was found to answer admirably for the use of the steaming apparatus, and in place of sending a large sum of money every year to Newport for coals, it was expended in the neighbourhood, giving employment to the poor labourers and carmen of the place." I believe that many similar examples of pauper labour rendered productive are to be met with in Ireland, although the opposite and senseless doctrine, "that the less productive pauper labour is, the better," has been unhappily promulgated by the Commissioners, and some of their inspectors. This, however, is a branch of the subject on which so much requires to be said, that I must not further enter upon it here, especially as the main object of my letter was to meet, as briefly as possible, the argument so often urged against the productive employment of paupers (and to which you seem to give more weight than I can allow to it), namely, that it does not add to the aggregate produce of the community, but only takes the place of the work that would otherwise be done by independent labourers out of doors, and, consequently, throws them out of employment, and perhaps reduces them to pauperism. I hope I have disposed satisfactorily of this common (may I call it VULGAR?) prejudice. It is the Protectionist fallacy, applied in a still moreuntenable fashion than usual. Honest industry'" is to be "protected" against the competition of the workhouse and the gaol, by making "honest industry" pay heavy rates and taxes to keep thousands of able-bodied paupers or criminals in idleness, or uselessly employed, when their productive employment, under judicious arrange. ments, might save to "honest industry" nearly, if not quite, the entire cost of their maintenance! I remain, my dear sir, yours, very faithfully, G. POULETT SCROPE. Dr. W. P. Alison, &c. &c. PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT-OFFICIAL OBSTRUCTIVENESS. The Preston Guardian, in an able article in favour of Productive Labour, gives the following practical illustration:-" We well remember how soon, upon the formation of the Preston union, the looms upon which the poor people had been industriously employed at Preston, Ribchester, and Woodplumpton workhouses, were knocked down beneath the order of the London Commissioners, and became of little more worth than firewood. And we have before us the advertisement of All the valuable stock of wrapperings, bed-tickings, sheetings, towellings, sackings, warping mill, looms, wheels, swifts, and calender for sale, in the Kendal workhouse, and Harden sacking manufactory”—“ pursuant to the order of the poor-law board.” This was a wanton stroke, and showed how desperately men in high stations may sometimes be led away in pursuit of mere theories. The following state ment as to the proceeds of the labour system is five per cent. on the produce sold, allowed as wages to from a gentleman in the Kendal union: The Harden manufactory was first established in 1810. Judge Cambrie in the chair. The gain to the township of Kendal up to the formation of the union in 1836 amounted to upwards of £8,000. Many of the paupers who were admitted into the workhouse found in a short time that they were earning more money than their support or cost in the house, and therefore they would no longer continue, think. ing that the parochial authorities were gainers. Many boys were taught the art of weaving, and were able to earn their own bread when they arrived at the age of 16 or 17 years. I also give you a statement of our mannfactories from the formation of the Kendal union up to the time they were ordered to be discontinued in 1849. Mr. Crewdson, who was chairman of the union at its formation, found the capital for the Harden manufactory, which was repaid to him with interest in 1839 out of the labour proceeds; and the total gain during 11 years amounted to £3,281, 7s. 3 d. The twine manufactory at Milnthorpe workhouse was not established until March, 1840, which realised £519. 188. 101d. making a total of £3.801. 6s. 2d. in favour of the common fund of the union. superintendent, and five per cent. interest on capital "In consequence of the satisfactory result of the experi- "On the conclusion of the experiment in 1846, the committee placed their capital in the bank, where it remained until 1850, when a small farm on Farnley Moor was taken on a permanent tenancy, which is now cultivated by the spade as before. To this farm, as a last resort, men repair to get a little wholesome work when they have nothing else to do. Applicants for parish relief are also disposed of there. By thus giving timely aid and employment in productive labour, the parish rates must be directly and indirectly relieved. The work is generally labour with the spade, fork, or hoe, instruments very easily wielded, and it is chiefly let by the piece at fair prices, and persons are here present who could tell what a benefit employment there has been to them. The farm is managed by Mr. Cornelius Kaye, the assistant-overseer, and to his good husbandry the almost unhoped-for success in this farm is to be attr.buted. It appears to be his study how men may be best Comment is here unnecessary. For Kendal turned aside from the parish purse, and in profitable labour alone the gains up to 1836 had been upwards of be made to contribute, in the broad field of industry, the £8,000; and from 1836 to 1849 the gain to the food they consume, It may be rather a startling assertion, but it is one that from seven years' experience can hardly union had been £3,801. But at last the poor-law be denied, that if this township, with its population of 800 board wearied out the guardians, and all went to persons, was separated from the union, with a forty or fifty destruction. We remember visiting this esta- acre farm, adequate capital, and a careful, experienced blishment when in full employ, and a more grati-manager like Mr. Kaye, the dependent poor might be supe ported with very small, possibly without any aid, from the fying sight in connection with pauper manage- Poor's Rate. ment we never beheld. We hope the idle system will soon receive its doom. THE FARNLEY TYAS (HUDDERSFIELD) "The balance-sheet of the Industrial Farm for the last three years is now presented to this meeting, with an earnest request that it may be thoroughly sifted, carefully examined, and corrected, so that no statement may go before the public but one of the strictest veracity. (Here follow the accounts for the years 1850, 1851 and 1852.) "Comment after this seems quite superfluous, and never let it be contended that there is no self-supporting power in into payers of Poor's Rates." the union house, or that the receivers may not be converted THE POOR - LAW BOARD'S IDEA "PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYMENT." OF Amongst the multiplied testimonies against the present anti-productive theories and practice of Poor-Law Commissioners and Boards of Guardians, none are more satisfactory than those which we have received from spade husbandry and allotment associations. A long and interesting report upon this subject appeared in the columns of the A deputation from the meeting held in ManHuddersfield Chronicle of the 11th December last. chester on the 25th of October, had lately an The credit of having introduced so agreeable and interview with Sir John Trollope, for the purpose remunerative an occupation for the labouring of requesting the total and immediate revocation classes very extensively into that part of York- of the Order issued by the Poor Law Board, on the Sir John, in answer to observashire, is due to the Earl of DARTMOUTH, to his 29th of August. lordship's agent, Mr. F. Thynne, and Mr. John tions as to Article 6 being impracticable, said, "the Nowell, all warm supporters of the National Poor Poor Law Board did not intend the setting up of law Association. At the annual meeting of the pauper labour against independent labour, or that Farnley Tyas Spade Husbandry Association, Mr. the former should in any way be brought into Nowell, as its secretary, read the following report: competition with the latter; and that their opinion "After many years spent in advocating the employment was, that it would be more satisfactory to the poor of the poor in productive labour, 'unaccompanied by man, as well as to the rate-payer, that the former degrading and useless task work, this committee are glad should be employed, and not eat the bread of idleto find that the subject is assuming an importance which ness; and that the most suitable employment they dared not to hope for at the commencement of their would be the sweeping of streets and the preparsolitary labours ten years ago. The Poor-law authorities, guardians of the poor, and the 'Poor-law Association,' suping of materials for repairs of roads." Sir John ported by noblemen and gentlemen of every political party, seems to have been a little alarmed by the bug are beginning to call public attention to the devising of bear of interference with independent labour. If, methods for setting the poor to work, and in various unions of England and Ireland, this in part is already accomplished, however, he be correctly reported, he admits the and it is to be hoped that the efforts here made in assigning entire principle advocated by the National Poor its true value to spade-labour will not have been made in Law Association. cause. * * * TO OUR COMMITTEES AND FRIENDS. If At the commencement of a new year, we shall be pardoned for reminding those who have hitherto assisted us only with their names, of the duty of subscribing as members. That most of the four or five hundred gentlemen throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland, who have thus expressed their approval of the objects of the National Poor Law Association, have other calls upon their pockets, we are fully aware. But the Executive does not call upon them for large contributions. each would subscribe only half-a-crown,-if he would obtain seven other mites of the same convenient denomination,-or if this be too much to expect from the interest felt in the matter by himself and his neighbours, if he would accumulate the same or a smaller amount in shillings or pence, the Committee's means of diffusing facts and correct principles upon this most important pocket question would be appreciably augmented. We hope, therefore, that no friend of Poor Law Reform will be prevented from sending his subscription by the smallness of its amount, as it is by the number, and not the largeness of the sums contributed, that the most successful modern agitations have been carried forward. With these remarks, we have pleasure in reporting the following subscriptions, received since the last published announcements: Samuel Ogden, Esq......... J. M. Ludlow Esq., Chancery Lane C. Bray, Esq., Coventry 500 500 500 500 5 00 500 ... 5 0 0 Thomas Greig, Esq.. John Owens, Esq, Holestone, C. Antrim William Fairbairn, Esq., F.R.S. 3 00 James Bell, Esq., M.P. 330 William Scholefield, Esq., M.P. 220 J. Carmichael, Esq., Cork and Liverpool 220 W. Watson, Esq., Sheriff of Aberdeen....... Henry A. Bruce, Esq., Police Magistrate, Thos. Gillow, Esq., Liverpool..... G. Hurst, Esq., Vice-Chairman of Guardians, Rev. W. Ponsford, Oakhampton Rev. P. P. Carpenter, Warrington WHAT THE NINETEENTH CENTURY vain, and prove hereafter a valuable contribution to the pendent" labour be an evil, then that evil is If competition with "inde"In the time of that frightful panic in 1842, amongst the effected by the employment of the indigent in many thousands of pounds voted to neighbouring townships repairing and sweeping streets and roads, works The nineteenth century has joined many distant for the relief of distressed operatives, this place received a that otherwise would have to be performed by things, united many separate, connected many grant of £40 from the Manufacturers' Relief Committee, for that purpose. It was not charity or parish relief that was labourers hired in the general market. To limit distinct; it has brought together many diversities asked, but work, and the committee felt it to be their duty their labour to materials for repairing roads, may of tongues, of opinions, of nations; many enmities to meet the wishes of the unemployed. For this purpose a be to sanction a nuisance, especially when the it has fraternised, many incongruities reconciled, five acre field of rough land was taken for four years on numbers on the rate books are large, as these maFarnley Moor, and most of you here present know what a many incoherences adjusted. To the omnipotent formidable task the cultivation of that five acres of poor terials may be so accumulated as to be deprived century it has been nothing to join the extremiland was found to be. The farm was divided into portions, of value. But it is obvious that a great public ties of a country by iron roads, or those of party and let to the unemployed at country prices to cultivate by good would be accomplished, by the judicious by the golden cords of interest; to put all the the spade. An accurate account of all expenses was kept, and at the end of the first year, the money realised on the selection of several in-door and out-door occupa- works of human skill under a glass case, with produce, &c., was found to overbalance the outlay. The £40, tions, suitable to times and seasons, and to the all the nations of men that dwell on the face thus given back by the ground during the first year, was again made use of in payment of wages for work done in the sex, age, knowledge and capacity of the poor. If of the earth to inspect; to project travellers same ground for the relief of the same men during the the labour of all the in and out-door recipients of across the ocean in an iron tube, or convey second year, was once more restored, and during the remain-relief, were confined to the sweeping and repairing gossip underneath it by a chain cable; to exhibit ing two years of the tenancy, this money was twice put into tyros in "Free Trade" in the Christian attitude of the ground in the shape of unskilled labour-so calledkissing-with some slightly varying shades of Thus the small capital of £40, which, if given like Poor'saffection-the rod wherewith their seats in Parliarates, would have vanished in the first year, enabled the ment have been rendered so uncomfortable. This, committee to give four years of wholesome labour to such and more, has the nineteenth century done, leaving as required it, to the diminution unquestionably of the undone, the while, certain small things; small for "By referring to the several farm balance sheets which wonder and for glory, but great for happiness and were at each annual meeting laid before you, the keenest welfare. Mountains it has removed, and forgotten scrut ny being courted-it will be found that the outlay of to plant the grain of mustard seed; swallowed each year was invariably re-produced, and that ultimately the original capital of £40 remained undiminished, besides camels, when to have strained at gnats would and twice was as faithfully restored. parish rates. of streets, no doubt our "independent" scavengers have been more profitable. A Jack-pudding century, that bolts hot coals as though he had been fed with a fireshovel from infancy, and returns furlongs as if his abdomen were a smallware manufactory-yet, all the while, finds it very hard to find dry bread for his children. Things incredible are done, things impossible frankly attempted, things incoherent brought into cohesion, while things necessary are unattempted, things easy passed by as impracticable, and things naturally correlate kept as far aloof as parties in a family quarrel. Here is work that consensu omnium wants doing; there are hands freely and ex animo willing to toil; yet the wisdom of our century has not yet elaborated the plan of bringing them together! Speak to a practical man of waste land to be tilled, of bogs to be drained, of corn-fields to be made where as yet the gorse grows, and he will agree in the benefit, but object to the expense of labour. Turn to another practical man, or the same if you please, and speak about the able-bodied paupers that sometimes (not now, thank heaven!) swarm in our poor-houses; of the labourers in the rural counties always too many for employment; of the prisoners in our gaols living in idle comfort, or tortured by profitless toil, at the expense of the society they have injured; of the men in our regiments, with no occupation for their leisure but beer, except pipeclay in its two-fold application to shotbelt and tobacco; and the second practical man will begin, as all practical men do when they are going to contradict you, with "Very true; but where are you to find profitable employment for them?" Here then we stand. On the one side hands idle, in mischief of course-unless that personage of infinite resources in evil should have forgotten to provide work for those whom we do not set to do some good. On the other side abundance of work undone; work that must be done, sooner or later: work that naught but human labour can effect; work that all society suffers and groans, it may be, year by year, because it is not done. And nobody knows how to bring them together! Two wires abundantly charged, whose circle completed would bring forth not a spark, or a shock, but a steady beneficent glow of comfort and prosperity-and our science is as yet helpless to raise the poles! This, then, the nineteenth century has to do: to bring the work to the hands, and the hands to the work. Our journal will strive to help in bringing about this blessed marriage of workers and work, from which will grow up abundance, and comfort, and prosperity. In our AntipodeanColonies work cries out loudly for hands. There Bishops, in the intervals of business, make essays more praiseworthy than successful in the art of blacking their shoes; there judges, gouty or rheumatic, are wheeled into court by filial affection; there maidens, whose sweet - hearts can scratch for them gold-rings and satin-dresses out of gravel-pits, can hardly be expected to wash dishes. At home, the hands cry for work, and thousands are carried over vast oceans to find it. But at home, likewise, work is crying for hands. It is time, then, that practical men confess this much there must be a defect somewhere, a flaw in our wisdom, so long as workers and work stand looking one another in the face. It is time for Political Economists to acknowledge that the system of wasting man's sinews in doing nothing, so long as indefinitely much yet remains to do-at home and abroad-in town and country-in this County and the next,-must absolutely be no Political Economy, but most unwise and reckless prodigality. It is high time for the praisers of the present a class at least as selfish and nearly as stupid as the much derided laudatores temporis acti-to reduce their jubilations by several notes, emphatically to sing small, so long as this flagrant absurdity-if alas! it were not too sad for laughter, because it means privation, famine, pauperism, immorality, disease-this plain fact, yet incredible folly, exists: hands without work, and work without hands; whence come mouths without bread; and with these, minds without training; and so, by no forced conclusion, homes without health, souls without religion, and a world without God. GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY? and we agree with the writers of some able letters copper The Constitutional. SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 1853. ADDRESS TO OUR READERS. IN obedience to a custom hallowed by time and literary project with a few remarks. As when, justified by utility, we desire to introduce our in freeing a new ship from its fastenings, and permitting it to "walk the ocean like a thing of life," we offer wine as a libation to Neptune; so, in launching our little barque upon the sea of public opinion, do we wish to conciliate in its behalf favouring gales and "tides that lead to fortune.” with the belief that the present time is auspi- question of Free Trade, which will no longer who take an interest in educational and social MARCH OF INTELLECT.-It will entertain those progress, not in one country only, but throughout the world, to learn that his Majesty the King of Siam has, within the last few years, introduced forms, founded on English systems, and under in his kingdom various political and other rethe superintendence of Englishmen, whom he has had the good sense to allure into his service. On a not very remote occasion, his coloured Majesty's curiosity was greatly excited by roars of laughter proceeding from a group of new volume that had recently been imported from our countrymen who were deep in the study of a England. Having ascertained that the cause of the merriment was junior, in Martin Chuzzlewit, his Majesty, detera sketch of Mr. Bailey, mined not to be denied a similar enjoyment, commenced the Alpha Beta, and persevered until he became what he is now,-an admirable Eng-tical questions, that formerly engrossed a large II. The indifference with which various polilish scholar. In proof of this fact, we understand share of public attention, are now regarded. that he cultivates a very regular correspondence including Professor Wheatstone and Playfair, with eminent scientific personages in this country, III. The material prosperity of the country. and Mr. Edwin Chadwick. The latter gentleman stances and prospects of the people-to assist in To stimulate investigation into the circumhis works on Pauperism, Sanitary Reform, &c.; the degradation of "the masses"—to seek out has sent his Majesty a Christmas present of all penetrating the causes that create and perpetuate but we fear that he will not find them such plea- the all-important remedies, and urge upon the sant " light reading" as the productions of Boz. public their application-to procure and disseminate facts, and record events, calculated to facilitate these inquiries-and give a safe direction and healthy action to organization in behalf of popular amelioration,-to uphold those rights and privileges of free men which the Constitution of this country has secured and handed down to us from the earliest times,-will be the main purposes of this Journal. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. In consequence of the tedious manner in which business is country. case to which "Justitia" calls our attention, but were Whether the desired changes are to be brought about by legislative enactments, individual exertions, or associated movements, the service which such a publication, conducted with prudence and energy, is capable of rendering, will be readily admitted. If our object be to induce an individual to abandon a favourite vice-to deny himself a present indulgence, for a future and permanent benefit— ception. The moral purpose necessary to the we must address ourselves to his mental peract of self-denial must be evoked and strengthened by an appeal to his reason, and the appeal will be all the more likely to be successful, if illustrated and supported by the testimony of experience. If, for example, we desire to rebuke in the individual the vice of intemperance, or foster habits, domestic and personal, which have Ratepayers call out for a reduction of the rates; and the in a style that show they have, as Shylock says, "bet-despise, impress upon him how surely, sooner or mended by the National Poor Law Association, humanity later, Nature vindicates the righteousness of her towards the poor and public economy would be alike laws, by punishing their violation. secured. Again, if we desire to unite large bodies of men exists in the very bosom of our social system, but the true moralist, Christian and statesman, THE CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND AS DEVELOPED for the promotion of Poor Law Reform, Sanatory UNDER INSTITUTIONS OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT. Regulations, or Educational Progress, we must-We are not among those who venerate the shew them how the evils of Pauperism, Impurity, antique merely because it has descended to us Ignorance, and Crime, re-act upon Society. covered with the dust of ages. Living, as we do, We must tell the dwellers in Belgravia and in an era which is essentially utilitarian, and May Fair that the typhus which has been engen- which refuses to accept anything that has not dered-thanks to our confidence in the laissez- been proved in the crucible of truth, we must be faire system-in St. Giles's, will, as surely as the well assured of the inherent excellence and pracsparks fly upwards, after striking down its prey tical value of institutions and customs that are in this ignoble region, seek higher quarry among sought to be revived or protected. It must be the "perfumed chambers of the great." We remembered, however, that the tendency of the must shew them that our system of treating the times being eminently favourable to novelty and poor as criminals-of drafting "honest poverty" progress, there is danger that that which is new to the workhouse, the stone-yard, the oakum- and worthless, or uncertain, or, at least, untried, picking bench, or the "crank-machine," is not may be received, while that which is old and only repugnant to justice and humanity, but peril- precious, and which has been tested by the experience of centuries, may be rejected. This ous to our self-interest, as it breeds in the very danger is greatly enhanced by another feature in bosom of society the direst enemies of its peace, the period in which we live-the rage for moneywhose disaffection originates in a sense of unmerited wrong. We must make it manifest that making. In this pursuit we neglect or adjourn it is a hopeless beating round and round a circle, the exercise of the rights, and the performance of first to punish criminals, as if in revenge for the the duties, of citizenship. Every hour of every injury their crimes have caused us, and, when day is apportioned beforehand to the worship of Mammon, or to the reward of this devotionthey have expiated their offences, to close up all the avenues by which they might return to the pleasure. There is little or no time left to cherish or jealously watch those privileges which have paths of honesty and at the same time with- been transmitted to us by our forefathers, and hold the means of education, when the calendar many of which have been consecrated by their of every assizes and sessions court in the king- sufferings and their blood. Now and then an RECLAMATION OF CRIMINALS.-Crime is another dom proclaims the close relationship between outrage is perpetrated upon our liberties, which of those maladies which prey upon the body ignorance and vice. shows us the value of the rights we possess, or politic. It is an astounding fact-which has that we have allowed to be filched from us. But, been proclaimed from many a judgment seatafter a brief ebullition of patriotic indignation, that crime has increased in numbers, if not in we join the stream of gold-seekers, exclaiming, flagrancy, in those districts which have expe"What's everybody's business is nobody's." It rienced the greatest amount of material prosis this fatal truism which has done all the mischief. perity. "It has grown with their growth, and Contenting ourselves by giving utterance to it, strengthened with their strength." There is we abandon the duty we owe to ourselves and our another fact better known, but not a whit more country, and the claims of the past and the future. satisfactory,-and that is the almost undeviating Pure and intact as it has reached us should we regularity with which the debut of a criminal in hand down to our descendants every right of the dock is followed by a second and third apcitizenship that is in reality and beyond all doubt pearance there, and his final exit in the transport worthy of possessing! A neglect of this duty ship. The rule seems to be, -once an offender, has smoothed the way to a thousand evils. always an offender. The violators of our laws Among other injuries it has facilitated the inroads never "learn to do well," and never cease to of the pernicious centralising system; it has in- do evil," except while immured within four vited irresponsible boards and commissions, sitting stone walls;-a truth not very flattering to our in London, to usurp the authority heretofore ex-national pride. We are sanguine enough to ercised by popularly-elected bodies; it has called into existence numerous acts of parliament, which have frequently and vexatiously interfered with the rights of individuals; set crown-appointed justices in collision with magistrates chosen by the people; and by the innovations and encroachments of summary jurisdiction, has to an alarming extent set at nought that dearly-bought charter of British liberty, the trial by jury. And, finally, if our object in reference to these vital questions, can be accomplished or assisted by parliamentary enactments, we must collate from various sources, the scattered elements, which, when combined, constitute public opinion, and bring them to bear upon the legislature. All this can be done by the Press. We had almost said that it can only be done by the Press; for any other agency would be powerless without the Press as an auxiliary. We do not wish to justify that miserable imbecility which looks to Government for the initiative in measures of social amelioration. "Aid yourselves and Heaven will aid you" is pregnant with wise counsel and a blessed promise. Why should we "On Heaven and on our Lady call," for hundreds of objects which we could achieve by individual or combined action? To wait for or even submit to Government help in discharging duties which devolve upon ourselves as free and Christian men, is like the folly of the man who invoked a special providence to lift his cart-wheel from the mud. And one great danger is that, in answer to our whining petitions to Parliament, we may be saddled with more arbitrary and irresponsible functionaries, Boards or Commissions, to do that for us which we ought to have done for ourselves. These remarks, however, suggest the qualification-that evils which have been inflicted by bad laws may require to be remedied by Legislation. By repairing evils caused by past, and parti. cularly by very recent, legislation, involving the rights of the subject, Parliament may be of great service in bringing about the social changes we hope to see accomplished. Let us glance at some of the questions which, like the banner of Douglas in the front of the battle, we shall endeavour to keep before the eye of the public : PAUPERISM. To the question of productive employment, a particular part of our journal and the labours of a zealous and philanthropic body of men, are exclusively devoted. Other important topics, (such as the Law of Settlement and the area of Rating, &c.) connected with the management of the Poor, will receive attention. The "Rights of Labour," the Short Time question, Investments for the working classes, and other subjects bearing upon the causes and roots of pauperism, will from time to time engage our notice. Meanwhile, we cannot help expressing our surprise at the peans that are perpetually sung upon the enlightened state and brilliant prospects of the country. The amount of pauperism, ignorance and crime that 66 believe that much may be done not only to remove the causes that lead to crime, but to restore the criminal to society. The means we will not indicate now, as they will be amply discussed in the following pages; but as a ground for hope, and a stimulus to labour in the right direction, if not as a basis of reform, we present the following extract from the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Prison. Discipline : That the Committee concurs, with some of the most experienced witnesses they have examined, in the opinion that a great majority of convicted prisoners are open to the same good motives and impulses which influence other human beings, and therefore that a system of encouragement to good conduct, and endeavours to inspire feelings which have been tried in some of our largest establishments, ought to be adopted, so far as it is practicable, without impairing the penal and deterring character essential to any system of imprisonmeut. of self-respect, self-reliance, and hopefulness for the future, EDUCATION.-Pauperism, Crime, and Ignorance are the three disgraces of our age and country. One fact speaks volumes. In the principal seat of our manufactures, Manchester, the proportion of children who receive instruction is only 1 in 11 of the entire population. We cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, and it is monstrous to expect good citizens from such a generation as is now rising up in these islands. The establishment of a system of popular education cannot be adjourned without committing a national sin and incurring a national danger. It would be too much to expect that all our readers will approve of the manner in which we may discuss each of these and other topics that legitimately come "within our ken;" but we entreat them to forgive the passages that offend them, for the sake of those in which their sentiments are fairly represented. To deny this request will be to render our aspirations vain, and cause our enterprise to "lose the name of action." To grant it, will be to strengthen our weakness, and cheer us in the work we have undertaken. We challenge the suffrages of the good men of all parties, not on any grounds suggested by our ability to discharge our task; but in the name of the object we espouse-to advance the moral and intellectual standard of the human race-to teach man that the "be-all and end-all" of life is not to barter toil and care for sensual gratification that as he has been richly endowed, so he is largely accountable, and that it is only by the exercise and useful application of the "noble faculties" entrusted to him, that he can render himself worthy of being "the image of his Maker," and fitted for the high destiny that an inscrutable Power has assigned to him. presses is, simply, that he dislikes local selfgovernment, and that it annoys him when he is told that centralisation is "unconstitutional." We propose, as a fitting task at the outset of our new journal, to take hold at once of these two points, so that there may be no mistake as to what we ourselves mean, and that we may save others from expressing themselves as our correspondent has done. Our correspondent objects to nothing that he does not think or imagine to be "injurious." This is a term so conveniently vague as to be absolutely intangible. It is too bad that it should be used by one who complains of the use of the word "unconstitutional." But he, further, "holds that government by Parliament is consti tutional; and, therefore, observe the sequitur] that the law of yesterday is just as constitutional as the unrepealed and not obsolete law of 1252." So much vagueness and confusion of ideas is shown in this sentence, a vagueness and confusion shown every day by all those whose per petual resort is to the omnipotence of Parliament. that we cannot wonder that no definite idea is able to be entertained as to what is constitutional, nor as to the possibility of many things remaining "constitutional" or "unconstitutional," totally irrespective of whether or not certain forms may trickery,-have been gone through. This class peradventure by means of misrepresentation or of arguers have yet to learn that there is a wide difference between principle and empiricism or expediency. They have to learn that precisely because any measure is either "un-English, or toryish, whiggish, or radical, or illogical, &c.," it is, therefore, "unconstitutional," inasmuch as it is therein partial; and so, inconsistent with the of and adherence to which alone can the body fundamental principles by the constant recognition politic be maintained in soundness and security. Let us show this more fully. The recognition of some fundamental laws and "CONSTITU-institutions lies at the very root of all civil society TIONAL," AND ITS APPLICATION IN REGARD and of the existence of every body politic. These THE MEANING OF THE WORD TO LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT. fundamental laws and institutions will differ in different countries; but there can be no national If the inquirer would be assured that there is existence without the recognition and admitted no flaw in his reasoning, no defect in the proposi-authority of some leading ideas as the modes of tions he maintains, he must see it submitted to the relations of the difierent individuals and the questionings of those whose interests or pre-classes of society to each other. To the actual judices cause them to take opposite ground. The well-being, prosperity and progress of any state, criticism thus got, and the manner in which it is the permanence of such fundamental laws and given, will be a most valuable test. It will be institutions is the first essential. Anything which thus learned what points in the reasoning require tends to lessen confidence in the permanence of more full illustration, what parts of the proposi- such laws and institutions, anything which extition are most open to specious objection or poses their authority to doubt or disregard, must, misrepresentation. of necessity, tend to the disorganisation of society; and must, thereby, check the development of whatever resources and elements of progress the particular fundamental laws and institutions and conditions of society in any country might, other wise, have protected and afforded. We are led to these observations by a letter we have received from an able correspondent on the subject of this journal. The terms of this communication seem to us to afford an admirable text for illustrating some of the main principles for the advocacy of which this journal has been established. The following extracts will be enough for our purpose. They show, at a glance, the sort of weapons employed, and the manner of using them, by the supporters of the modern nostrums of central boards and crown-appointed commissioners. "I am not at all an admirer of Vestry-lization, or of any kind of local government, unsuperintended. Such government is not really self but clique government.* * * As to a law being constitutional, I hold that government by Parliament is constitutional, and therefore that the law of not obsolete law of 1252. Unconstitutional is one of those yesterday is just as constitutional as the unrepealed and opprobrious epithets applied by those who don't like a law but cannot convince others that it is not wise, just, and beneficial.' Some would call it irreligious, others unEnglish, or toryish, whiggish or radical, or illogical, or in bad taste, or Russian or Prussian. They all mean the same thing-something they don't like, and don't exactly know why. Every great change has been denounced as unconstitutional (whether good or bad). The objection has grown stale. We had better drop it. You may easily find another meaning the same thing. I object to nothing that I do not think or imagine to be injurious either in effect or tendency-either bad in itself or keeping bad company." We may pass over the tone of these remarks, which seems to show that the writer was merely objecting to "something he did not like, and did not exactly know why." What he really ex The importance of permanence in the fundamental laws and institutions of a country cannot, indeed, be exaggerated. It is, however, a matter which certainly does not meet with sufficient thought. Many think they show their liberality by hailing every proposed change, if made under cover of the name of "Reform." Led away by a temper which is, in truth, the child of mere slothfulness, into the path of new experiment, instead of devoting themselves to the unquestionably more effort-needing work of the adaptation of existing institutions and laws to whatever the changed conditions of the times may truly need, they thus prove themselves the greatest enemies to that progress which cannot always be beginning anew, but which, to be real, must be going on upon secure and well-established foundations. It is not sufficiently thought of, indeed generally not thought of at all, that even the commonest rights of property, and therefore of personal action and energy, depend upon the guarantees of established and positive law; that the fact and nature of the possession and control enjoyed by every one in and over that which he calls his own,-that is, that by means of which he has the opportunity of the free scope for fruitful self-energy,-is entirely dependent on, and subject to, the law of the land. If, then, the political quack and experimenter is dangerous to the permanence of national union, the legislative quack and experimenter is fatal to individual security, property, and development of thought and energy. It is clearly necessary to the development of all the resources of industry and skill, that laws and institutions shall exist in whose permanence there shall be a constant felt confidence. Every slackening of that confidence, every doubt raised as to that permanence, is a blow against hitman welfare and progress. Every man, however benevolent may seem his motives, who sneers at, or would recklessly violate, the fundameutal laws and institutions of his country, is, in truth, attacking the elements of social, moral, and national existence, and doing his best towards causing his race to retrograde instead of advance. Before men will put forth energies that look to a future for their result, they must have a guarantee that such result will be insured to those who venture on the enterprise. As the moralist differs from the casuist in the former being always guided by certain broad unalterable rules, which never admit of compromise or tampering, while the latter raises specialities to cover every case, so the statesman differs from the politician. The former sees, principles, of tried and established truth, which clearly and comprehensively, certain fundamental alone, under all and any circumstances, he can recognise as right or safe to guide him. The latter disregards principles altogether, or only purpose; -he heeds only the specialty of the refers to them when it may seem to suit his moment; seeks only how he may deal with it for the convenience of the hour; he is, in short, the omnipotence. Society can only maintain an man of expediency,-the believer in parliamentary elevated and healthy tone, and its permanent rules of the moralist and the principles of the well-being and progress be ensured, when the statesman are alike recognised by all as supreme and never to be tampered with. There never has been any nation of which it may be so truly and happily said as of England, that there are fundamental laws and institutions, clear and unmistakeable, the birthright inheritance of every citizen; appeal to which at any time, and in reference to any project, will necessarily be a far better security for all rights and liberties, and afford a far surer guarantee for scheme that any closet theorist can devise. human progress, than any new experimental As the limits of this journal compel us to be brief, we can only now add that it is the principles thus alluded to,-and the existence of which we hope we have proved to be essential to the very being of a permanent national body,-which afford the test of what is "constitutional." This word may be oftentimes abused,-as every good word is liable to be. The thing and the idea remain a veritable and most important reality, which it should be the aim of every good citizen to get more and more thoroughly and vitally understood and felt as a reality by all. We cannot enter now into any enumeration or examination of the principles thus alluded to. We shall have other opportunities, of which we propose to avail ourselves, of discussing this branch of our subject. We can only now further glance, and that briefly, at the other part in our correspondent's communication. That also is a topic on which we shall enter more in detail on many future occasions. It cannot be necessary to point out, at any length, the logical inconsistency of talking of any "local government" which is "superintended." If it is "superintended" it is necessarily, of course, no local government at all, but mere servile subjection to some self-appointed power, which is sustained only by ignorance on the one hand aud force on the other. The real objection is,-to any opportunity for the action or development of independent thought and progress, or anything else that can thwart the purposes of an individual, or clique that can manage, by any |