A PLEA FOR THE ENGLISH OPERATIVES: BEING A COMPETING ESSAY FOR THE PRIZE OFFERED BY JOHN CASSELL, ESQ., MINISTER OF NEW WINDSOR INDEPENDENT CHAPEL. 21216 LONDON; SIMPKIN & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. MANCHESTER: ABEL HEYWOOD, 58, OLDHAM STREET. DEDICATION. ΤΟ ARCHIBALD PRENTICE, Esa., OF MANCHESTER. MY DEAR FRIEND, I TAKE the liberty of dedicating this small volume to you as a token of the high estimation I hold of your qualifications as an author, your fearlessness while editor, your enlightened views of national policy, your candour as a friend, and your intense desire to promote the principles of total abstinence and genuine Christianity. Your being for upwards of twenty years the Editor of The Manchester Times—in which every form of fiscal policy, and commercial restriction, and religious intolerance, which you thought calculated to impede the upward course of England's masses, have been denounced -points to you as a proper person to whom this humble effort to serve the same cause should be inscribed. Your being a Vice-President of the Total Abstinence Society connected with our chapel; your having stood by me--and otherwise encouraged me-in my efforts to preach Jesus in the open streets; your having filled an office, the object of which was to serve me in a way delicacy forbids further notice; your being a member of that church whose confiding love to its pastor has had no common tests to endure; and the hope that in a world of unsullied joy you and I shall spend an eternity in the service of Him who has united us on earth; combine to render this token of regard to you a source of more than ordinary gratification to me. While I am not vain enough to suppose you will approve all this volume contains, I believe you will view with charity the failings of the writer, who subscribes himself, Ever your's in the best of bonds, Pendleton, August 20th, 1850. THOMAS G. LEE. PREFACE. IN the latter end of March, or the beginning of April, 1849, an intimate friend advised me to become a competitor for the prize of fifty pounds, offered by Mr. Cassell, for the best essay on the Improvement of the social, intellectual, and moral condition of the working classes." Although the manuscript had to be in London on or before the first of July," I addressed myself to the taskamidst circumstances painful and peculiar-and was enabled to forward my parcel in due time. I mention these things to show the reader that some allowance is due to the many imperfections of this little volume; and also to explain why some of those things—which might have been considered more suitable to the public taste in 1849, than they are in the wasting year of 1850-are brought before his notice. Owing to circumstances over which I had no control, the manuscript did not reach me from the adjudicators until April in this year; that, together with those casualties incident to this life, must be my apology for a seeming delay in the publication. While I am not about to confess that any of the thoughts or principles, thus brought before the public, have been hastily assumed or are loosely held, much improvement might have been introduced into the style but for a desire to present the volume to the reader without any material alteration in a single paragraph; so that it may be really what it pretends to be, a competing essay' y". 66 I have had the pleasure of perusing the "Prize Essay", and think Mr. Green has conferred on the British public a lasting favour; but as this little, and unsuccessful effort, takes a different route while aiming at the same goal, I hope it will not be considered unnecessarily intrusive. If any persons should suppose that some parts of the following pages are too severe, they will please to bear in mind that the specification required hinderances to, and means of, elevation, to be |