VESTRY CLERKS AND OVERSEERS.

to put it in plain terms, would save money, by aking upon itself the carrying out of such discipline and education.

occasion for six months.

"William Copstick (21), 5 feet 6 inches; native of Dent, Yorkshire; calls himself a hat dealer. He

has been tried for highway robbery, and acquitted." "John Loyd (31 or 32), 54 feet; has been twice apprehended for robbing by force, but discharged for want of sufficient identification."

I do not assert that "a man is to be presumed innocent until he is found guilty,"-for, to all intents and purposes, the utilitarians and centralizers of" these degenerate days" have practically abrogated that ancient constitutional maxim; but, I humbly ask, is it not reasonable that a man, who has been convicted and punished, should consider that he had purged himself, as in the first biography above quoted, from his crime, and that he was, therefore, a free man.

Hoping that you will raise your voice against such illegitimate and unconstitutional measures as these, which are calculated to establish more evil precedents, and pave the way for further inroads upon the rights of the subject, I am, &c. HABEAS CORPUS.

APPOINTMENT OF CONSTABLES:

UNCONSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS RESISTED.

WE learn from a recent number of the Halifax Courier, kindly forwarded by a correspondent, that the following important proceedings have taken place in the township of Stansfield, in Yorkshire, by which, as it will be seen, the constitutional right of the people to appoint the ancient conservators of the peace," has been successfully vindicated ::

A meeting of the ratepayers of the township had been

called, by placard, stating that it was " for the purpose of returning 80 persons, eligible to serve as constables during the ensuing year." From this list, which has usually been

made out as a mere matter of form. it is customary for the

magistrates at Halifax, to choose 10 or 12 persons actually to serve that office. Owing to the recommendations of the ratepayers having been generally disregarded, a strong

feeling has lately arisen among the ratepayers, that their

right of choosing their own constables has been practically set aside; and from this cause, a large number of ratepayers attended to discuss the best means of regaining this privilege. The Chairman read the magistrates' precept to

of Cheetham :—

A vestry meeting was held for the township of Cheetham, on the 24th March, at which were present a great muster of the ratepayers. Mr. Councillor Neill, the senior overseer (who took the chair), stated that a recent decision in the Court of Queen's Bench, upon the Poor-law Amendinent Act (7 and 8 Victoria), depr ved the inhabitants in vestry assembled of the power of appointing any paid officer to carry on parochial business, whenever the guardians had, lector of rates. The overseers having learned, however, under an order from the Poor-law Board, appointed a colthat the act 13 and 14 Vic. cap. 57, when put in force, gave power to the vestry to appoint a vestry clerk, whose duties, township, had called the present meeting to take into con as described in the act, were precisely those required by the sideration the desirability of introducing the powers of the act, and thus retaining in the hands of the vestry a power which would otherwise pass from them. After a short conversation it was unanimously resolved, that the

powers of the act 13 and 14 Vic. cap. 57, be applied and put in force within the township. The meeting then proceeded to discuss the nomination of overseers for the ensuing year, and ultimately selected three gentlemen; and it was agreed, the nomination of overseers had been lett in the hands of the inhabitants, it was very desirable that all future nominations should be made in the same manner.

that as this was the first occasion for a number of years that

THE RIGHTS OF JURIES AT CORONERS'
INQUESTS.

WE are glad to learn from the local papers that
this important constitutional question has again
been under the consideration of the Manchester
Town Council. A memorial presented to that body
by a Jury, representing the difficulty thrown in the
way of their enquiry by-as well as the injustice
attending the enforced absence of the person ac
cused has been referred to the Secretary of State.
The principle of enquiry by peers is even more
important than this particular grievance. It is,
therefore, satisfactory to find a body which has, in
so many respects, shown the value of municipal
institutions under the guidance of intelligence and
public spirit, asserting privileges of the burgesses,
and those rights of local self-government and
criminal enquiry, which are secured to the people

the overseers. A ratepayer then inquired the cause of by the common law of England.

such a large list being demanded, and the power of magistrates to compel the ratepayers to make it.-The Chairman replied that such had been the usual course, and that the ratepayers had no choice in the matter Upon reference, however, to the Act of Parliament, it was found that the overseers have not power to make out the list, except with the assistance of the ratepayers in meeting assembled; that the magistrates cannot choose except out of the list returned by the said meeting of ratepayers; and that there is no penalty for returning a fewer number than required by the precept of the magistrates. Upon that being ascertained, Mr. Samuel Fielden, of Centre Vale, moved: "That

it is the opinion of this meeting that the demand of the magistrates for 80 names to be submitted to them, from which to choose 10 or 12 suitable persons, to serve the

Lem Books.

[Works intended for notice in this journal may be forwarded to Messrs. Saunders & Stanford, 6, Charing Cross, addressed "To the Editor of The Constitutional."]

The Condition and Education of Poor Children in English and in German Towns. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M.A., Barrister-at-Law. 8vo., pp. 80. London: Longman & Co.

WE have before admired the eminently practical character of Mr. Kay's writings. With an absence of all gloss and tinsel, they are pervaded by so much sterling good sense that they cannot fail to command attention. We are extremely

office of parish constable, would practically deprive the glad, therefore, to find him applying himself to ratepayers of their natural and undoubted right to select their own constables-and for that reason, and also because in previous years the magistrates have selected many men

in whom the ratepayers place no confidence, this meeting from whom they desire the constables of the ensuing year

determines to return only 14 names, of qualified persons,

to be chosen." The chairman refusing to put the motion, another gentleman (Mr. Joshua Fielden, of Stansfield Hall)

then took the chair, at the unanimous desire of the meeting. The resolution was then put, and was carried by a majority of more than three to one. A list of 14 names--(as to the fit ness of each of whom it was stated that the following questions had been asked and satisfactorily answered,-"Is he

what is really one of the most important questions of the day, viz.: the improvement of the condition of the poor children of our large towns. It is a question upon which we have had theorizing enough. Never was the education of the people

and reformation of offenders more talked of than at present. Some benevolent persons, more sensible than their fellows, have at length given prominence to the fact that reformation is the really important end of prison discipline; and others, going a step further, seek to enforce extended education ainong the young scions of our labouring population, as the most effectual means of shortening our criminal calendars, and protecting the interests of society. And-for in this

a sober man? is e an honest man? is he respected among his neighbours so as to have influence with them? and, is he one who would try to settle disputes peaceably ?)-was then passed, one by one, by the meeting-unanimously, ex-economising age we must not forget the pocket cept in one case, in which an amendment was proposed. experience proves that society would profit, or,

Strange! that in the nineteenth century, so distinguished for the advantages of learning,strange! that in England, surpassed by no other vantages, it should require so great an array of facts and figures, of books and speeches, to convince men that a child is more likely to become jected to wholesome discipline and mental culture, a useful member of the community when subthan when permitted to grow up untended, and amid scenes of filth and licentious depravity.

induced. There can be no real difficulty in Yet our blindness to the evil is evidently selfascertaining or appreciating its extent, for it is incessantly "crying out against us" in our streets. It is a fearful statement, made by Mr. Kay, that the number of juvenile poor left to follow their own devices in the streets of the less than sixty thousand; and it is further metropolis alone, amounts probably to not much alarming to hear that crime has long been, and is still, increasing among these poor little outcasts, in spite of ragged schools and other reformatory measures. Comparison, too, drawn between the condition of the juvenile classes in England and Germany, both with reference to education and morality, tells sadly against ourselves; but, though a disagreeable truth, it is well that we should have it impressed upon us, for it proves incontestably that education and morality progress in the same ratio.

Mr. Kay's pamphlet opens with a long series of facts, partly the result of personal observation, and partly drawn from the most authentic and trustworthy sources, all which go to establish the extremely degraded condition of poor children in our large towns.

Tables and statistics of crime, carefully compiled by persons most conversant with these matters in our large towns, as Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, &c., all lead to the same result. We have heard Mr. Kav described as an alarmist;" but surely "facts are stubborn things," and such as he adduces are calculated to startle the most apathetic mind.

64

His conclusions as to some of the principal causes of juvenile degradation we subjoin in his

own words:

2. The degraded and drunken character of numbers of parents, &c.

3. The great poverty of many parents, who are unable to pay the fees which are required at most of the schools, t. 4. The want of any local organization, by means of which the municipal bodies might raise funds to assist such poor parents, &c.

5. The fact that neither the police nor the municipal authorities have any power to compel bad parents to do their duty towards their children, or to save those children

who are neglected by their parents; although power is given them to punish the children severely when they have committed crime.

6. The fact that a great proportion of the existing schools children who go to school are often turned out into the in our towns have no play-ground, so that even those streets during the play-time for exercise and amusement, and suffer all the evil which the companions and scenes they come in contact with must exercise upon them.

The last suggestion we think extremely important, and are glad to have an opportunity, through the medium of our own pages, of aiding its circulation. "It is thought in Germany, says Mr. Kay, "so fatal a course to leave young children in the streets without superintendence, that the law expressly provides that every school must have a roomy dry play-ground attached to it," &c.

Mr. Kay then proceeds to compare the state of education in this country with that of Germany and Switzerland, and much, as it appears, to our disadvantage. As regards crime only do we stand at the head of the list.

The pamphlet winds up with some suggestions for the remedy of the evil. The necessary preliminaries are, of course, "sufficient school-room" for the juvenile population of every town, with "suitable salaries for a sufficient number of well

trained teachers." To which must be added, "a play-ground for every school situated in the town; means for the payment of the school fees for the children of indigent parents; and decent and comfortable clothing for the children of poor parents not able to clothe their children properly for school attendance." Means for securing all these are proposed. The first thing Mr. Kay considers nesessary is a school rate for defraying pecuniary expenses; and it is then proposed that every parent in receipt of out-door relief should be compelled "to send his children, under a certain age, daily to some school of his own selection, or, if he would not select, to send them to the secular instruction given in some school near the parent's house." All existing schools may become recipients of pecuniary aid, on certain prescribed terms; and the building of new schools is to be left to private efforts, assisted by the Committee of Council on Education. One important point Mr. Kay seems to have overlooked in his scheme, and it is the association of that portion of our juvenile population which, from neglect and bad example, has already become initiated in the ways of crime, with that whose birthright of poverty alone entitles it to State management and supervision. Will such intercommunication be less dangerous in the school and play-ground than in the street? It appears to us that it must be provided against, or one of the greatest evils sought to be counteracted will still remain in

considerable force.

We should have been glad if our space would have permitted us to analyse Mr. Kay's facts and reasonings at greater length. In conclusion, we tender him our best thanks for his sound and

useful suggestions on a very important question, and we must not omit our acknowledgments to the Council of the Manchester Statistical Society, under whose auspices they have been put into a generally accessible form.

THE STATESMAN.

The Right Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor, and minister of a high department in the state-just below the rank of the cabinet-was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the post, before he walked down to his office In the mean while, he sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and half-disdainful eye with which your practical men in public life is wont to regard the abuse or the eulogium of the Fourth Estate.

We have left ourselves but little space to speak of a book which few, we think, can fail to read with great satisfaction and profit. How "My Novel" came to be written, and what (or something of what) it was intended to depict, are set forth in the "initial chapter"-an original contrivance of our author's for introducing occasional selfcriticism and rather irrelevant pleasantry. The supposed author is thus admonished at a period of deep despondency by his father, Mr. Caxton, senior :

MR. CAXTON.-"There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is-If our thoughts get into a low, nervous, aguish, condition, we should make them change the air; the second is comprised in the proverb, it is good to have two strings to one's bow. Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must do---Write a Book!" "A Book that will sell! A book that will prop up the fall of prices! A book that will distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your affection to your species, and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of sound of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left £1000 broke, one remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a

principles-by the sight of a favourable balance at the end

66

au

SIR E. Bulwer Lytton (as the polyonymous thor of Pelham" has at length elected to call himself) amply sustains his high reputation in these volumes. He has intitled them, by emphasis, his novel, and he has earned the right so to distinguish his favourite, and we think his best work, from all other similar productions. With so many excellencies, we yet could have wished-as a work of art-it had kept clear of the serial plan of publication, now so much in vogue. Marryat and Ainsworth, Dickens and Dumas, were hardly precedents for Bulwer. Even "My Novel" and "The Caxtons" scarce have served to rescue our old friend Christopher from immitigable dulness. Nor is the contrivance of terminating the story in the first number for 1853, however effectual in securing subscribers for a fresh volume of the magazine, quite worthy of so great an opponent of the shall we say, Manchester or Scottish"feelosophy" of pelf.

A preference for Bulwer's novels over those of all other modern writers, Scott not excepted, would, we suppose, be pronounced absolute heresy. Without pleading guilty to so great an enormity, we must yet confess our high admiration for all, and our special obligations to one of these novels Eugene Aram. We disbelieve the guilt of the alleged murderer as much as we admire the ingenuity of his defence at the trial, and reprobate the judge's scandalous forgetfulness of his function as counsel for the prisoner. But that intense thirst for knowledge and intellectual improvement powerfully (in the Novel) urged by the student in self-justification for taking the life of his companion, was so contagious, that former amusements being discarded,-instead of lathe and crucibles and electrical apparatus, we incontinently set to work upon "Edwards on the Will," Malthus's "Political Economy," and Plato in the original Greek. The moral tendency, indeed, of Bulwer's novels, is sometimes impugned; but, excepting an occasional irregularity of expression, his writings may, we think, bear comparison with "Ruth" or "Jane Eyre," the works

persuaded that England was never in so prosperous a condition."

But

MR. SQUILLS, rather sullenly.-"Pooh, Pooh." MR. CAXTON.-"Write a book, my son-write a book. Need I tell you that Money or Moneta. according to Hyginns, was the mother of the Muses? Write a book." PISISTRATUS, flattered, but dubious-"A novel! every subject on which novels can be written is pre-occupied There are novels on low life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical, novels religions, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

"You

You

'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing?'" MR. CAXTON, after a little thought—. can give us the country squire, as you remember him in your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving the old idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. can give us the old-fashioned parson, as in all essentials he may yet be found-but before you had to drag him out of the great Puseyite sectarian bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the kennel to shy at a gentlemen with a good coat on his back, something useful might be done by a few good humoured' sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than their neighbours, whom, however we may dislike them, I take it for long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole, granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, as as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice-box of society how we will."

This, however, is but a meagre catalogue of "the varieties of English life" with which the reader is presented. We have, indeed, the parson and the squire, together with their wives, families, relatives, lineal and collateral, in the ascending and descending line, to the third and fourth generation;-every figure being distinct, and characteristically pourtrayed. But there is also the Italian noble of the old regime, a fugitive, less for his own rebellion than from the treachery of his cousin his daughter Violante, a sweet picture of Italian loveliness and espièglierie: this cousin, one of a trio, by whose varied personification of roguery, the diabolic machinery of the piece is worked throughout. The two most important, if not most finished characters, in the book, are those of the statesman, Audley Egerton, and his friend and (unconscious) rival, Lord

His figure, though the muscles are as firm as iron, has enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of elegance. His dress-his look-his tout ensemble, are those of the London man. In the first, there is more attention to House of Commons; but then Audley Egerton had always been something more than a mere busy member of the in the best society, and one secret of his success in life has House of Commons. He had always been a person of mark. been his high reputation as a gentleman.'

The expression of his face is not open, but it is reserved the physiognomy of a man accustomed to think before he and dignified, and significant of self-control, as should be speaks. When you look at him, you are not surprised to learn that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater-he is a "weighty speaker." He is fairly read, but without any tional lore. He has not much humour; but he has that great range either of ornamental scholarship or constitukind of wit which is essential to grave and serious irony. reasoning; but if he does not dazzle, he does not bore: He has not much imagination, nor remarkable subtlety in he is too much the man of the world for that. He is considered to have sound sense and accurate judgment.

It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took an active part in the business of the House of Commons. He was then at the most advantageous starting-point for the career of ambition. His words on the state of the country took importance from his stake in it. His talents found accessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the dignity of a princely establishment, the respectability of one firmly settled in life, the reputation of a fortune in reality very large, and which was magnified by popular report into the revenues of a Cesus. Audley Egerton succeeded in Parliament beyond the early expectations formed of him. He took, at first, that station in the House which it requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free from the charge of impracticability and crochet, but which, once established, is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence; that is to say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently to a party to obtain its support, but yet is sufficiently disengaged from a party to make his vote and word, on certain questions, matter of anxiety and speculation.

Professing Toryism, (the word Conservative, which would have suited him better, was not then known,) he separated himself from the country party, and always avowed great respect for the opinions of the large towns. The epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was "enlightened." Never too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet never behind its movement, he had that shrewd calculation of odds which a consummate mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon politicians-perceived the chances for and against a certain question being carried within a certain time, and nicked the question between wind and water.

The tie which joined these two men, so different, in more than friendship,-its disruption and final reunion, form, perhaps, the most interesting portions of a complicated plot. The development of the carpenter's son, "the pattern-boy of the village," into poet and man of letters-his temptations and vicissitudes the fortuitous and fraternal companionship of the boy and orphan girl, whose gratitude and self-devotion to her benefactor had so nearly destroyed the happiness of all, --the huge moral ruin of "glorious John Burley," a likeness, we suppose, of Theodore Hook,-all these-with so many other elements of character and incident-artistically interwoven into the general narrative, we cannot, in justice to author or reader, pursue in further detail.

We shall add, however, one more extract, illustrative of the author's knowledge of character and his power of humorous description:

TREATISE ON "DEARS."

But

IT is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is, in gliding indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its much, proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, stand at the close, as in that "Charles dear" of Mrs. Daleit has spilt so much of its natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, "amara lento temperet risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch. Ex. gr. (Plaintive.)

"I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles dear."

"Nay, I am only glad that you amused yourself so much without me, Charles dear."

"Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles

dear," &c.

ble to make the conditions of relief sufficiently undesirable to prevent its acceptance by any who could find private employment. But if the state, or the parish, provides ordinary work at ordinary wages for all the unemployed, the work so provided cannot be made less desirable, and can scarcely be prevented from being more desirable than any other employment. It would, therefore, become necessary either that the state should arbitrarily limit its operations (in which case no material advantage would arise from their having been commenced), or that it should be willing to take the whole productive industry of the country under

the direction of its own officers.

"You will perhaps say that these consequences could only arise if the work required in exchange for public pay were (as it usually has been) merely nominal, and that you rely, for preventing such a consummation, on the principle on which you justly lay so much stress,-that of payment proportionate to the work done. I confess I have no confidence that this principle could be so applied as to have the effect intended. It was tried (as I have understood) in the Irish Relief Works, and in the Ateliers Nationaux at Paris, and with the result which might be expected, viz., that if the rate of payment by the piece was sufficiently liberal not to overtask the feeble and unskilful, it enabled

the strong and experienced workman to earn so much with

perfect ease, that all other employment was rapidly de

serted for that held out by the public.

"My own opinion is, that when productive employment

can be claimed by every one from the public as a right, it can only he rendered undesirable by being made virtually slave labour; and I therefore deprecate the enforcement of such a right, until society is prepared to adopt the other side of the alternative,-that of making the production and distribution of wealth a public concern. I think it

probable that to this, in some form, (though I would not undertake to say in what) the world will come, but not without other great changes certainly not in a society composed like the present, of rich and poor, in which the direction of industry by a public authority would be only substituting a combination of rich men, armed with coercive power, for the competition of individual capitalists. "At present I expect very little from any plans which

aim at improving even the economical state of the people

by purely economical or political means.

We have come,

I think, to a peri d when progress, even of a political

kind, is coming to a halt, by reason of the low intellectual and moral state of all classes; of the rich as much as of the poorer classes. Great improvements in education (among the first of which I reckon, dissevering it from bad religion) are the only things to which I should look for permanent good. For example, the objects of your association, and those of the promoters of emigration, even

if they could be successful in putting an end to indigence, would do no more than push off to another generation the necessity of adopting a sounder morality on the subject of over-population--which sounder morality, even if it were not necessary to prevent the evils of poverty, would eqnally be requisite in order to put an end to the slavery to which the existing state of things condemns women; a greater object, in my estimation, both in itself and its

tendencies, than the mere physical existence either of

women or men.

I am sorry to see, in your circular, the ignorant and immoral doctrine that the "separation' en. forced in the work house is among the sources of "degradation" and diminished "self-respect" for the pauper. I consider it an essential part of the moral training, which, in many ways (but in none more important) the reception of public relief affords an opportunity of administering; and the improvement of which would be a reform in Poor Law management better worth aiming at, I think, than that which you propose. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

"J. S. MILL."

Mr. Mill's last remark relates to a passage in the first draft of the address, which was omitted in deference to his suggestion. In a subsequent communication Mr. Mill says:-"The plan will, I conceive, have no affect at all on the permanent and hereditary paupers who form the great mass of the pauperism of the country. Manufacturing operatives are, as you say, often thrown out of employment in great numbers at once, by the vicissitudes of trade, and to find the means during such intervals of employing them so as to reproduce their subsistence, would be a useful thing doubtless, but I cannot think that it would amount to any social reform; it seems to me more the concern of the rate-payers than of any one else. Of course I make no objection to

considering and discussing the means of doing this, but it is not a thing in which I feel called upon to take a part." We place as little faith as Mr. Mill can do, in economical nostrums, and merely political reforms, by which indeed, attention is too often drawn from the true sources of social evil. Still, we think, a change which would save millions, per annum, from absolute waste, and dry up the most fruitful sources of improvidence and crime is justly to be considered a social reform." The position that "it is better for the unemployed to be idle than usefully employed," absurd as it is, still meets us on every side, in newspapers, in speeches, and in "consolidated orders." There is no excuse for useless task-work, even as a test. Really hard and useful labour has been proved to be a truer test than irritating, illusory, and degrading occupations, which deter alone the industrious and respectable. Public work need never be made desirable to those who can find work elsewhere; it must necessarily be desirable to those who cannot. Ordinary work with ordinary wages it is not proposed to offer. But even Slave labour" is preferable to felons' labour, and the most stringent regulations for enforcing the industrial employment of the able-bodied are surely better for all parties than the total idleness in which the Guardians of Leeds, Manchester, and other large towns, during periods of commercial depression, maintain thousands of able and willing hands. The danger of "overtasking the feeble and unskilful" is one that would easily be provided against by humane and judicious arrangements. The objection, indeed, forcibly applies to the present system. What can be more mischievous and cruel than exposing the factory operative to the destructive manipulations of oakum-picking, or the stone-yard?

Inasmuch as the poor have already the right to be fed, to make them work for what they eat, imposition of a duty. is not so much "the enforcing of a right," as the It would only substitute for the present maxim that every man has a claim upon society, the truer and safer principle that society has a claim upon every man.

As to the ateliers nationaux and the Irish relief works, Mr. Cobden very justly remarked that the English and Irish workhouses (upon the non-productive system) exactly resembled the former. In both cases the circumstances were exceptional and peculiar, and involved difficulties which could not attach to a simple alteration of plans undertaken and carried into effect under existing Poor Law arrangements. We cannot see why this alteration need in any way depend bution of wealth to which Mr. Mill seems to think, upon those changes in the production and distribut we wholly disbelieve, that the world will come. Even "the permanent and hereditary paupers" are surely better dealt with upon the productive principle at home, than upon the present system of idleness with the cruel alternative of enforced emigration, and almost certain death in Canada or New South Wales.

We have replied to Mr. Mill's objection, if not conclusively, we trust with the respect due to so high an authority. But, as one fact is worth a hundred arguments, we would refer to the most convincing of all refutations of opposing theories, afforded by the uniformly successful practice of Irish workhouses and American prisons. To all who are not committed to a theory, the assertion confidently made by some guardians that paupers and criminals (for if the one why not the other) cannot be advantageously set to work to earn their own subsistence, will be as unsatisfactory as the assurance that he could not be put in the stocks, was to the unfortunate gentleman in the story.

A MODEL FOR "NON-PRODUCTIVE"

GUARDIANS.

WE have often wondered whence the Guardians of Manchester and other Unions,-who shrink from useful employment as from a pest and rely entirely upon confinement and degrading "tests" to repress pauperism,-derive their in

spiration. This mystery is perhaps susceptible of explanation by the following extract from Mr. Hepworth Dixon's interesting line of John Howard. "Here, (says the author) a sad spectacle awaited him. The Maison de Force of this city (Ghent) had in former years merited and obtained his highest approbation; it was a model of correctional discipline for all Europe. When Howard waited upon the burgomaster to obtain the usual authority to visit it, he was told that the Emperor had given orders for no one to be admitted. But you, sir,' observed the magistrate, are above all rules; you must not, however, impute to me the unhappy changes which you will notice.' When our countryman entered the building, which not two years before he had seen full of clean, orderly, industrious workmen, all employed and instructed, and thus undergoing preparation for a better return to the world, he found filth where he had left cleanliness, idleness where he had seen industry, sickness where he had known health. The word of one man had done it

all!

"Joseph II., emperor of Germany, was by nature a revolutionnaire. He was fond of changesin a thousand things his dominions much needed them; but he made them without knowledge, and, for the most part, in the wrong quarters. He was an innovator without being a reformer. Unlike almost every other prince of the conservative house of Hapsburg, he had a mania for disturbing things. Scarcely was there an institution in his States which he did not touch. During the early part of his reign, he never dropped the scalpel from his hand; and though his intention may be considered to have been good, he invariably applied it either at the wrong time or in the wrong place; consequently all his efforts to cut away the disorders of the State failed. His management of the Maison de Force at Ghent was a fair specimen of his misgovernment. Under the impression that the works conducted in this famous establishment were injurious to the manufactures of the empire, he ordered them to be discontinued. The prisoners were thrown into idleness, and upon that rapidly supervened disease, disorder, and other gaol vices. More: as if these stupid proceedings could not work their disastrous ends quickly enough, the imperial mandate declared that less care must be taken to keep the rooms clean and healthy, in the ignorant hope that by rendering them more disagreeable he would thereby add to their terrors for evildoers. No mistake could have been greater, as experience soon proved. The intimate connexion of honesty with industry is now universally recognised, and was then; the relation of cleanlithat period as it is now. ness to honesty was not so clearly perceived at The common saying, that cleanliness is a Christian virtue, contains a

profound philosophical truth; for, though apparently a mere physical attribute, and not a moral state, cleanliness exerts a subtle and most powerful influence over the mind. In the whole range of sanitary science, no fact is better established than that a filthy condition of the body, insufficiency of light, or the inspiration of a polluted atmosphere, induces an unnatural craving for strong stimulants; thus creating at once the moral insensibility which makes crime possible, and the material wants and necessities which render it inevitable. And, in brief, such was the history of the changes in the policy pursued in the Maison de Force at Ghent. The looms were all sold, the diet was reduced, and an entire quarter of the building had soon to be fitted up as an infirmary."

It was a maxim with the great prison reformer, "make men diligent and they will be honest." What would he have thought of the counteraphorisms now in vogue-Make men industrious by making labour repulsive; keep them idle, in order to teach them self-dependence?

The expenditure for the relief of the poor in Ireland for the year which ended on the 29th of September, 1852, had only decreased £280,700, compared with the expenditure during the preceding year, when the total sum disbursed was £1,166,954.