brace such a restriction, there are instances enough in the common practice of our courts, which would have justified a more violent strain of its construction. The law which the Society requires for the purpose of protecting the earnings of industrious women from their wasteful husbands, is precisely in the spirit of the Roman law, to which Blackstone objects. The most obvious objection is, that it would occasion domestic discord, and introduce into a family two independent wills where on the one side obedience has been declared a duty;-but this is greatly or wholly invalidated by the circumstances under which alone it would be applicable. Whether the evil be sufficiently frequent to require a correcting law, may perhaps be justly questioned; though few persons can have been conversant with the lower classes without having observed some cruel examples. There is, however, this argument to be urged in its favour, that the legal condition of those women for whom this relief is desired, is at present worse than that of their superiors; and certainly it appears a hard injustice, that while the fortune of a portioned wife is secured by marriage settlement from the husband, the earnings of one whose whole means of support are derived from her own industry, should not have an equivalent protection. On the other hand it is to be remembered that no laws can protect us against our own imprudence; and that they who make an ill choice in marriage, hastily entering into an engagement which is to last till it be dissolved by death, must take the consequence of their election for better for worse, and know that they must do so, for it is in the bond.

But the establishment of Saving Banks will create frugal habits, as well as encourage them. Opportunity may be expected to make economists,-not perhaps as often as it makes a spendthrift,-yet more readily than it makes a thief, though it be proverbially noted for teaching larceny.

'The grand object,' says Mr. Colquhoun in his evidence before the Committee upon Mendicity, is to prop up poverty, and to prevent persons falling into indigence. Indigence is a state wherein a person is unable to maintain himself by his labour: poverty is that state where a man's manual labour supports him, but no more; the other is when there is a surplus from his labour. But I conceive the Provident Banks would give the community at large what would be most invaluable in society, provident habits ;--that the pride of having money in the bank, and the advantage arising from having their interest, would induce many persons to put in small sums, that would otherwise spend them. This has been found to be the practical effect; and a very slight knowledge of human nature will shew, that when a man gets on a little in the world, he is desirous of getting on a little farther. This is an object of the first consideration for ameliorating the condition of the poor.'

So certain indeed is the growth of provident habits, that it has been

G 4

been said, if a journeyman lays by the first five shillings, his fortune is made. Mr. Willian Hale, one of those persons who have bestowed most attention upon the state of the labouring classes, and exerted themselves most for their benefit, declares that he never knew an instance of any one coming to the parish who had ever saved money.

Those individuals,' he says, 'who save money are better workmen : if they do not do the work better, they behave better, and are more respectable; and I would sooner have a hundred men who save money in my trade, than two hundred who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as individuals save a little money, their morals are much better; they husband that little, and there is a superior tone given to their morals, and they behave better from knowing they have a little stake in society.'

In agricultural parishes, where the children of the indigent should be properly educated and instructed in their duties, the publichouses strictly superintended, the dissolute corrected, and the best encouragement given to industry, by affording it ready and safe means of placing its earnings to account, it would seldom happen that those who are able and willing to work would be in want of employment. A remarkable example of the effect that one of these remedial means is by itself capable of producing was stated in evidence to the Committee. A school was established a few years ago at Hoxton, where there were a great number of very depraved poor; since that time, the moral improvement in the neighbourhood has been visible to all the inhabitants, and it is asserted that many instances have been pointed out of the most complete reformation in the morals and conduct of the parents, arising from the circumstance of the children having been introduced into the school ;some of these children have actually taught their parents to read,a fact, which if it be less picturesque than the story of the Grecian' Daughter, is not less affecting. As a branch from this school, another was established at Haggerstone, a place inhabited chiefly by bricklayers of the very lowest class of society, and some of them, it is said, perhaps of the very worst character. So proverbial was this place for depravity, that no man or woman in the dusk of evening would walk across to Hackney that way, though it was the nearer path; and if a thief was pursued and ran to Haggerstone, no constable or runner would go beyond a certain line-so that with reference to ruffians and criminals of every description, it was called the city of refuge.' It is affirmed, that the face of this neighbourhood has been completely changed in the last year or two, and the change is ascribed by all to the establishment of the school there. The benevoleut persons by whom these schools have been instituted have formed societies for visiting children that are sick,

and

and the poor have expressed such surprize at the interest taken in their welfare, and the welfare of their children, that it has had the best possible effect.' These facts are stated to the Committee as' positive proof of the good resulting from such institutions.'If so much has been effected under circumstances the most unfavourable, the good effect may be calculated upon with certainty in places where there is no concentration of wretchedness and guilt.

How much then in this good work of reform, of real radical reform, that reform which beginning in the root of the state would be felt through the trunk and all its limbs even to the minutest ramification, in every leaf and germ, how much might be effected by individuals exerting themselves in their own sphere, for the immediate good of others, and for their own almost equally immediate advantage! And how encouraging is it to perceive that all this may be accomplished so easily, and with so little change in the existing Poor Laws! Lord Falkland used to say, that all great mutations are dangerous, even where what is introduced by the change would have been very profitable upon a primary foundation. The greatest and most beneficial of all changes may be produced gradually and surely with the least possible innovation, and by the easiest and most unobjectionable means. It is for the minister to look well to the religious instruction of all his youthful parishioners, and for the gentry to assist him, as Sir Roger de Coverley aided his chaplain in the performance of this office. It is for the magistrates to enforce the observance of the Sabbath, to diminish the number of alehouses, and to insist upon good hours and orderly conduct in those which are suffered to continue. It is for the more respectable class of inhabitants to establish Saving Banks, and to see that the sums raised for the relief of the aged and helpless poor be not perverted to the support of idle and dissolute persons. It is for parents and masters to perceive the consequences of letting outdoor apprentices live without restraint; and to alter a practice so certainly productive of evil. It is for the benevolent and religious, (and here it may confidently be expected that the higher class of women will not be found wanting,) to form societies for administering to the wants of the sick, and the consolation of the aged. Is there any thing impossible in this?-is there any thing difficult? is there any thing visionary?-Yet wherever these things were done, the poor-rates in a few generations might be farmed for a groat in the pound. And nothing more is required for effecting this in any parish throughout the whole agricultural part of the country, than that one person in the proper sphere of life should lead the way. Only let an impulse be given to this will, and the power will be found surely to follow it. There is benevolence

enough

enough in the world-there is activity enough—there is zeal enough. 'Old impossibilities,' says Burke, are become modern probabilities, and the extent to which evil principles may go when left to their own operation, is beyond the power of calculation.' Twoand-twenty years have added woeful proof in confirmation of this opinion! But although evil principles are, generally speaking, more active than good, because they are in their nature restless, the good are found strongest when they are brought out, and in their nature they are the more enduring;-this is as certain as that there is a God who hath made heaven and earth. And to restrain evil principles, that they may not be left to their own operation; and on the other hand by every means of aid and encouragement, to foster good principles, and bring them fairly into action, is one of the main ends of civilized society, and ought ever to be one of its first objects. In large cities, and more especially in the metropolis, there is much to be done which cannot be accomplished without parliamentary assistance; but throughout the country the means of lessening the quantity of misery by removing some of the causes and most of the occasions of vice, are in our own hands. Hercules will help us, if we put our shoulders to the wheel.

To work the same reformation in the metropolis, indeed, is a task that might dismay Hercules himself,-a huge Augean stable, which whole Thames hath not water enough to cleanse! Yet the greater the evil, the more urgent is the necessity and duty of setting about the great business of removing it as far as we may. The points to be considered are, in what manner we may hope to effect the greatest alleviation of human misery, to mitigate the sufferings of the poor, to amend their morals, and to redress their wrongs. Let no man think the expression is overcharged. If any human creatures, born in the midst of a highly civilized country, are yet, by the circumstances of their birth and breeding, placed in a worse condition both as physical and moral beings, than they would have been had they been born among the savages of America or Australia, the society in which they live has not done its duty towards them they are aggrieved by the established system of things, being made amenable to its laws, and having received none of its benefits: till this be rectified, the scheme of polity is incomplete,—and while it exists to any extent, as it notoriously does exist at this time, in this country, the foundation of social order is insecure. The sagacious Berkeley asked long since, whether the lowest of the people are not to be regarded as the extremities and capillaries of the political body, and whether, although the capillary vessels are small, yet obstructions there do not produce great chronical diseases?'

6

'Give us funds,' said Mr. Walmsley to the Committee on the Education

great

Education of the Lower Orders; Give us funds, and I will undertake to say, that in three years there shall not be a child in the metropolis to whom the benefits of education shall not be offered.' What then may be the amount of the funds necessary for this purpose, taking the number of children who are at present destitute of these benefits, as stated by the committee, at 130,000? One master in the school upon the Madras system is fully competent to the superintendance of one thousand children. Suppose the annual expense of each school to be £200, which is making a liberal allowance for the master or mistress, (persons whom it would be miserable economy to under-pay,) the yearly sum required for educating every poor child in London would amount to £26,000. If it were necessary to raise that sum by a specific tax, is there man or woman throughout England upon whom it might be levied that would not cheerfully pay the assessment for this specific purpose? Against such a grant there would be no dissenting voice, not even from the most rigid economists, not even from the most acrimonious opposers of every ministerial measure. In a few years it might be reasonably expected that a sum equal to the annual charge would be saved in the expenses of criminal justice; it is even more than likely that there might appear a positive saving to the state.

'We spare neither expense nor pains,' says Lord Sheffield, 'to meliorate the bread of our cattle of every sort; surely it would be a nobler object, and worthy of our utmost diligence, to meliorate, by education when young, the character of the most depraved of our own species. At present, a great part of all the rent of the land is employed in rearing the offspring of improvidence and vice;' -it may be added, and in rearing them to be as improvident and as vicious as their parents. But the remedy is obvious-Dr. Bell's discovery for the multiplication of power and division of labour, in the great business of education, has been so timed, that it may hereafter be appealed to as one among the many impressive facts which prove that as new circumstances of society occasion new wants, provision is always made for them in the order of Divine Providence. Schools might be established throughout the whole kingdom upon his system, with the utmost economy. Nor is there any difficulty now in forming arrangements, nor any hazard of delay, and loss from inexperience. The mechanism is ready, tried, proved, and perfect. There exists a society under whose auspices it may immediately be put in action with an absolute certainty of success; and the benevolent inventor, never weary in well doing, yet able to direct the machine, and see the consummation of his long labours,--the reward and final triumph of his most disinterested and honourable life. It has not unfrequently been observed that

is