sive luxuries for her to enjoy in this land of political economy and Christian civilisation); but even of the better paid class of milliners, dressmakers, &c., twenty thousand of whom we are told, die annually of consumption, and other pulmonary complaints, engendered by insufficient nourishment and protracted labour, carried on in crowded, ill-ventilated workrooms; besides the thousands more who are driven to a living death of infamy and shame : will they not stretch forth a hand to snatch them from this fearful pit of perdition? can they remain indifferent? have they no feeling of sympathy for their oppressed brethren? no drop of pity for their suffering sisters? can all manliness have thus died out of them? have they become so dehumanised by sensual indulgence, or worse than brutish apathy, retaining only the outward appearance of humanity?

I am aware this may to some appear harsh language to address to Working Men. Would that there were no occasion to employ it. I speak strongly, because I feel earnestly. The time has come when we must learn to speak harsh truths, ay, and bear them too: "rose water" language would be fearfully out of place upon such a subject. Is it well, loudmouthed brawler, to denounce the selfishness of the rich and the oppression of the powerful, while you, within your own sphere, commit the evils of which you complain, and are guilty of the sins you thus denounce? We must smite our own follies, our own vices, ere we can consistently condemn those of others. Competition, with its merciless heart and strong hand, is smiting down its thousands and its tens of thousands; and we look on with folded arms, and go about our daily business or pleasures as though we had nothing to do with it, as if it were no concern of ours. Brothers, it does concern us: we have something, everything, to do with it. To whom should they appeal for encouragement and assistance, if not to those among their own class who are capable of affording it? Independently of that stronger claim which they have upon us, as upon all men by virtue of our common humanity. Those who still remain unaffected by every appeal addressed to their feelings of humanity, will at least do well to be mindful of the pleadings of self-interest. If they fancy themselves secure in their more favourable position, they may discover their error too late to rectify the fatal consequences of their mistake. All who live by the exercise of their industry have a common cause. The interests of labour are indissolubly bound together. If they will not recognise this truth, if they will stand aloof in selfish isolation while their brother-workers are struggling and perishing around them, they will do so at their own peril: they are but accelerating their own ruin their time of adversity and suffering will most assuredly come: perhaps 'tis already near at hand. Competition is a very fearfully levelling principle, as they may one day find to their cost, by bitter experience. Association is now their only security: let them look to it in time! The ranks of labour, well organised and disciplined, constitute a powerful and effective Army; but they may be easily beaten in detail, if unorganised, undisciplined, with no unity of purpose, or collective action.

I shall resume the subject in a future communication.

THOMAS SHORTER.

STATE OF THE NATION.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I thank you for calling my attention to the letter of Doctor Smiles in the Leader of September 7, and also to the remarks of the Editor thereon. Nothing is more common than to cite comparisons between the past and present condition of the Working Classes. Such discussions are of value no doubt; but they not unfrequently lead to serious mistakes, and sometimes to a complete oversight of the main question. Any one acquainted with the history and progress of civilisation knows that the labourers have been serfs, and as such have received good or ill treatment, depending upon the usages of the time and the instincts of their masters; that mail-coaches have been robbed by highwaymen; that corn riots and meal mobs have been of frequent occurence; that toll-bar riots, and machinery riots and motions in parliament "to enquire into the causes of the present discontent," are no novelties in the history of this country. Improvements in railway travelling, printing, and lighting, and paving, &c., are facts patent to the understanding of every reflecting man. But the real question to be discussed is not a comparison between the barbarities and ignorance of the past and the knowledge and improvements of the present, as opposed to each other. The vital question is one of broader import than even that. It is neither more nor less than the whole question of human civilisation. Must man for ever be the slave of his fellow-man ? Is it an inevitable law in the organisation of society, that one class must be the slave of another? I suppose the Editor of the Leader and his correspondent would agree in answering those questions in the negative. The question between Doctor Smiles and the Editor of the Leader ought then to be stated thus:-"Has the physical, mental, and moral condition of the people improved, proportionately to the increase of the material wealth of the nation ?"

I know not what would be the reply of Dr. Smiles to the question so stated; but I assure you that I could with no difficulty prove to Dr. Smiles, or even Mr. Macaulay—that the physical comforts of the labourers have not kept pace with the national increase of property. Sir Charles Wood, in his speech on introducing the Budget made special reference to a speech addressed to Parliament in 1830 by the late Mr. Huskisson; in which speech, Mr. Huskisson admitted that within these past twenty years the increase of the wealth of the country had been great; but regretted to be compelled to say that the comforts of the labouring population had not increased in a similar ratio. Sir Charles Wood, after referring to the unprecedented develop. ment of material wealth, between 1830 and 1850, and pointing to a long array of figures in proof of his assertion, regretted to be forced to use the words of Mr. Huskisson, and to say that the comforts of the labourers had not increased proportionately to the increase of the wealth of the nation, and the comforts of the rich consumers. I have not a copy of Sir Charles Wood's speech at hand, but I know that I have stated its meaning correctly.

I observe that you have marked Dr. Smiles' statement about the earnings of the Working Classes in Bradford, Leeds and Manchester." At Bradford, a family, consisting of a workman with a grown-up daughter, and boy and girl, can make from 32s. to 36s. a week. About the same amount can be made by an operative family at Manchester. In the flax and cotton trades, men make from 15s. to 20s. and young women from 8s. to 10s. When there is a large family, their united gains will sometimes amount to as much as £130 to £150, per annum, an income considerably higher than the average salaries of our working clergy, the curate and dissenting ministers." Such is the condition of the manufacturing districts in 1850. Two years ago I visited all the towns referred to. The Working Classes were chiefly idle; the factories closed; the people clamouring for bread; the warehouses filled; and Bradford and Manchester under military surveillance. No just idea of the general condition of the factory population can be formed by a reference to wages in a time of high prosperity. The times of good and bad trade must be taken together, or the inference drawn must be partial and unsatisfactory.

Let us, however, profit by the figures of the Doctor so far as they go. At Bradford, fout persons can earn from 32s. to 36s. per week; or, an average of 9s. each. Two of the said persons are adults, two youths, probably from thirteen to sixteen years of age. What, I ask, will remain for their sustenance throughout a protracted period of bad trade, after satisfying their immediate wants, supposing they live on plain wholesome food and be decently lodged? The curate in all probability, can count on his income for a permanence. The case is just the reverse with the Bradford wool-comber. He is overworked at one period, idle and starved at another. This very alternation between excessive work and extreme idleness, is one of the contributing causes of the moral evils which the good doctor so sincerely deplores in a subsequent paragraph. The Doctor's figures refer to the condition of the wool-comber in a time of prosperity. In a time of adversity be can choose between the grave, the workhouse, and the gaol.

The following table of mortality for the different classes of Bradford, will better illnstrate the condition of the Working Classes than anything to be found in the letter of Docter Smiles :

Bradford, be it remembered, is a town of rapid and modern growth. Have the comforts of the labouring population increased proportionately to the opulence of the merchants and manufacturers, and the growth of the material wealth and prosperity of the borough? That must be a very partial kind of "progress" which gives to the rich on an average twenty-three years' longer lease of life than it yields to their poorer brethren. It may not be what the Leader calls "progress backwards." It is certainly not a straightforward progress, and is more crablike than godlike. What I have here said of Bradford will refer, with but a trifling variation, to all the manufacturing districts of the Empire.

You may well express surprise that Dr. Smiles or any other person acquainted with the condition of the people should quote as a proof of prosperity, the drinking customs of our country. The doctor avers that the Working Classes spend about fifty millions a year on tobacco and intoxicating drinks; and that the average amount expended on drink alone by the family of each Working Man in England, is not less than £15. I know not on whose authority this estimate is made; but I think it exaggerated. On the usual calculation of five persons to a family, this would give £3 per head to each person,-man, woman, and child indiscriminately. In ignorance of the data on which the estimate is made, I may say

I think it extravagant. For the sake of the argument, grant for the moment its correctness. That a man spends money on drink is no proof that he is prosperous, or has a surplus. How often do the very poorest of the poor waste their means? Miserable wretches with scarcely a rag on their backs will often pass the door of the baker, and enter the gin-shop to spend the last penny. Such an act does not prove their prosperity: on the contrary it proves their adversity. Excessive aud irregular toil, badly ventilated workshops, and low wages, are predisposing causes to intemperance. I have studied the life of the Working Classes closely, and say it truthfully, but with regret, that the hardest worked, and worst paid operatives are generally the most intemperate. If I were asked what was the great antidote for low habits and drunkenness; I should answer-ordinary and regular labour and high wages. It may be said, that more money is expended in drink in times of good trade than is so expended in times of bad trade. This does not injure my position in the least. I contend that what is called good trade is only an unnatural and unregulated activity: what is called bad trade is an exhausted prostration of energy. Both states are intemperate and unnatural and lead to intemperate aud unnatural results. You will not, I am sure, understand me to mean that low wages, badly ventilated workshops, and irregular employmeut, are the sole causes of drunkenness. Ignorance is a leading cause; and I think with Dr. Smiles, that as education spreads, we may expect to overcome the evil. Such an education, however, will not be a mere inculcatiou of negative doctrines, fitted to the existence of a laissez faire and breechespocket philosophy. The schoolmaster who hopes to eradicate moral evils, must also teach how social evils shall be overcome: he must show us the way out of those depths of wretchedness and woe, that make timid men tremble and cause even philosophers to stand aghast. And to such an education both the Editor of the Leader and Dr. Smiles may contribute in no small degree.

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In direct corroboration of my views on the connection between steady and remunerative employment and the moral condition of the labourers, 1 call your attention to the following extract from the second volume of Porter's "Progress of the Nation."-" This work, under the name of the Ulster canal, is in progress of execution, according to the plan of the late Mr. Telford During its progress, this work has proved a great blessing to the district through which it passess; it has given constant employment, at fair wages, to a great number of labourers; and has been the means of reclaiming many amongst them from those habits of reckless indifference, and that passion for ardent spirits, which are so fatal to the happiness of the Working Classes in Ireland. With the power of saving out of their wages, the habit has arisen. The whiskey-shop has been abandoned, and several of those who were first employed have laid by sufficient money to enable them to emigrate to the United States and to Canada, where they have constituted themselves proprietors, and have before them the certainty of future comfort and independence."

The figures you quote from the article in the Leader on the cost of pauperism are correct. I examined the Poor Law returns some weeks since, and used the same figures for a similar purpose, in Reynolds' Newspaper. The cost of pauperism in 1839, was £4,406,907, in 1849, £5,792,963; being an increase in the cost of pauperism of £1,386,056; though the increase of the national wealth, in the ten years clapsing between 1839 and 1849, must have been very great. These figures, however, very inadequately represent the real condition of the nation. They are only corner marks in the great outline: the picture must be filled up by your own acquaintance with society as a whole: and your ability to appreciate the feelings and wants of your fellow beings. The condition of the dumb toiling millions is not a question which can be settled by a few smart sentences written with a view to cleverness and effect. And I heartily agree with you in thinking that "earnestness and wisdom are indispensible in any discussion likely to prove of value." I will answer your other enquiries on another day. Meantime, accept of this long epistle as a very tolerable instalment.

September 20th 1850.

I am, as ever,

Yours faithfully,

SAMUEL M. KYDD.

A PRINCE'S BEST GUARDS.-Princes by hearkening to cruel counsels, become in time obnoxious to the authors, their flatterers, and ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not change; they must go on and defend cruelty, with cruelty: they cannot alter the habit. It is then grown necessary, they must be as ill as those who have made them : and in the end, they will grow more hateful to themselves, than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the merciful Prince is safe in love, not fear. He needs no emissaries, spies, intelligencers, to intrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no treasons. His people speak what they think; and talk openly what they do in secret. They have nothing in their breasts, that they need a cypher for. He is guarded with his own benefits.-Ben Jonson.

THE WORKER'

I lay me down in mournful mood,
For mankind in despair;
When, by my side, a spirit stood,
A spirit bright and fair,

And said, "Arise! the Future see-
"I thee with power endow-
"Learn what the world one day will be!
"Thou knowest what 'tis now."

He paused a moment-waved his hand,
And lo! on every side,
I saw a bright and smiling land,

With corn-fields waving wide.

Here peace and joy for ever reigned,
Without a shade of woe;
Nor competition fell, remained

To make each man a foe.

Here man still toiled, but not for gain;
Here noble minds were cast;
Here kings, with all their fickle train,
Were shadows of the past.

Here, in truth, each man is brother,
No one slave to pelf;

VISION.

Here, in working for each other,
Each worketh for himself.

And here the fabled golden age,
Is realised at last ;

And men turn wondering from the par
Of war and horrors past.

To see such wonders round me spread,
Great my amazement grew :
I, turning to the spirit said,

"Is this the world I knew!''

The spirit said, "In isolation

Man is a feeble thing,
"But, behold! from combination,
"Wondrous good will spring!
"Trust the Future! men are growing
Wiser with each circling sun;
"Seeds of love and truth are sowing.
"Germinating one by one."-

He fled, and left me in amaze,

But, with an altered mind;-
For now I've hope in future days,
And faith in human kind.
H.R. NICHOLLS.

Notices to Correspondents,

Correspondents will please address "Thomas Cooper, 5, Park-row, Knightsbridge,

London."

H. R., Northampton.-I am not the author of "The Infidel's Text Book ;"' nor have I ever seen such a book. This is the third letter I have received, making this inquiry. R. F., Pontypool; 'Pelopidas;' and J. White.-Their poetry is most respectfully de clined.

'Worker's Vision' and several other pieces.-Unavoidably delayed till next number.

1

I

Lectures in London, during the Month of October; 1850.

THINKINGS FROM ZIMMERMAN.

PRIDE AND VANITY.-No two qualities in the human mind are more essentially ifferent, though often confounded, than pride and vanity: the proud man enterins the higliest opinion of himself; the vain man only strives to infuse such an pinion into the minds of others; the proud man thinks admiration his due; the ain man is satisfied if he can but obtain it: pride, by stateliness, demands respect; anity, by little artifices, solicits applause: pride, therefore, makes men disagreeble, and vanity ridiculous.

THE PASSIONS.-To subdue the passions of creatures who are all passion, is aburd, impossible; to regulate them appears to be absolutely necessary; and what re those passions that make such havoc, causing striking differences, exalting and lepressing spirits, leading to ecstatic enjoyment, or plunging us in the severest fflictions; what are they more than the development of our sensibility?

MENDICANTS.-Mendicants have great comforts; they require a good address, hough they can dispense with a good dress; this dispensation is exclusively theirs: hey have little to care for, and their expectations are great: of them nothing is equired; and what forms their calamity, forms likewise a fund for its own emergencies.

GOOD QUALITIES.-Many good qualities are not sufficent to balance a single want-the want of money.

FRIENDS.-There are a sort of friends, who in your poverty do nothing but torment and taunt you with accounts of what you might have been, had you followed their advice: and this privilege comes from the comparative state of their finances and yours.

INDUSTRY. If industry is no more than habit, 'tis at least an excellent one. "If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism?-No; I shall say indolence. Who conqners indolence, will conquer all the rest." Indeed all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.

UNDERTAKINGS.-'Tis easier to undertake than to retract, especially in momentous affairs. Good, excellent, is the advice, of the poet Shenstone: "Whatever situation in life you ever wish or propose for yourself, acquire a clear and lucid idea of the inconveniences attending it."

OPINION. Opinion is when the assent of the understanding is so far gained by 1 evidence of probability, that it rather inclines to one persuasion than to another, yet not altogether without a mixture of uncertainty and doubting.

THINKING. To little minds those productions are highly agreeable, that entertain without reducing them to the necessity of thinking.

TRUTH-lies in a small compass! The Aristotelians say, all truth is contained in Aristotle in one place or another; Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shows the absurdity of that speech by answering, all truth is contained in a lesser compass: viz. in the Alphabet!

SCHOLARS. Scholars are frequently to be met with, who are ignorant of nothing -saving their own ignorance.

GAUDY ATTIRE.-Beauty gains little, and homeliness and deformity lose much, by gaudy attire. Lysander knew this was in part true, and refused the rich garments that the tyrant Dionysius proffered to his daughters, saying,-they were only fit to make unhappy faces more remarkable.

YOUTH.-A Youth introduced suddenly into life, feels as awkwardly as one immersed for the first time in water; and the chances are that he sinks as soon.

TOPICS OF DISCOURSE.-The weather is not a safe topic of discourse; your company may be hippish: nor is health; your associate may be a malade imagi naire: nor is money; you may be suspected as a borrower.