therefore, the condition of the working classes has decidedly improved.

In a variety of other ways, the situation of working men is better now than it was. Hospitals and dispensaries in our large towns are but of modern origin, and, by universal acknowledgment, are a great boon to working men. The poorer food and poorer clothing of the people in former times exposed them to frightful ravages from epidemic diseases, which sometimes swept multitudes off in a frightful manner, beyond anything known in modern times. A more savage spirit seems to have pervaded social relations; blows and force were the only treatment practised on the insane; schoolmasters had little idea of instilling learning but by the lash; it was not thought very bad in husbands to strike their wives; and employers, when it suited them, were accustomed to beat their workmen. Add to this, that the working classes had far less opportunity of making their grievances known, and from their smaller numbers, their inferior social importance, and their less developed powers, were much less attended to when they did; and it can hardly fail to be seen that the last two centuries have witnessed a great change for the better in the condition of the British workman.

It is no real contradiction to the view now ad

vanced, that there was more merriment, and more merry-making, in the old times than there is now. The May-pole gathered many a group of laughing faces and joyous hearts round it, to greet the advance of summer, and high and low forgot their cares to join in the festivities of Yule. But while, without doubt, there is something or another missing in this respect at the present time; while there is, in our social arrangements, a want of scope for that love of fun and humour which God has planted in our nature, and which, being implanted by God, is a thing to be regulated, not destroyed,—it would be a great mistake to suppose that, because people are now of a more sombre spirit, they have less enjoyment, or less means of enjoyment, than before. Hugh Miller, in referring to the abounding gaiety that prevailed among a gang of masons with whom he once worked, in a miserable Highland barrack, while in their secret hearts the poor fellows were sorely missing the joys of home, remarks: "It has been long known that gaiety is not enjoyment; but that gaiety should indicate little else than the want of solid enjoyment, is a circumstance not always suspected. My experience of barrack-life has enabled me to receive, without hesitation, what has been said of the occasional merriment of slaves in America and elsewhere, and fully to credit the oft-repeated state

ment, that the abject serfs of despotic governments laugh more than the subjects of a free country."1

But notwithstanding the undoubted and manifold change for the better in the condition of the British workman, the improvement is not so great as might have been looked for. The condition of workmen ought to have improved in a double ratio; but it has improved only in a single one. In the first place, it ought to have improved with the increasing wealth and comfort of the nation at large. While landowners were receiving larger rents, lawyers and physicians larger fees, manufacturers and tradesmen more ample profits, it was but just that workmen should have larger wages. But besides this, their condition ought to have improved in proportion to the increased importance of their skill and labour to the nation at large. Two centuries ago, the number of non-agricultural operatives in Britain was but a trifle to the number now, and they did not contribute in any very marked degree to the prosperity of the country. Now, they form, with their families, half the community, and are one of the great springs of its prosperity and wealth. It is within the last two centuries that British workmen have acquired such skill in almost every department; that British manufactures have obtained so high a character, and

1 Schools and Schoolmasters, p. 184.

secured the preference in almost every market; and that British ships, carrying forth our productions to every country in the globe, have poured upon us in return the wealth and merchandise of every clime. Considering these things, it might have been expected that the working classes should have risen to a corresponding place in the social scale. It is an undoubted fact that they have not obtained that place. They have no direct voice as yet in the government of the country; their houses are frequently of a most miserable kind; and it is only within the last few years that attention has been turned to the necessity of so providing for the healthfulness of districts where they cluster, as to prevent their being mowed down in scores and hundreds by the ravages of disease. To ascribe these things to the fault of any one class of the community is neither true in fact nor expedient in policy. When the lower classes rail against the higher as the cause of their sufferings, the higher are tempted to recrimi- } nate, by pointing to the intemperance, the improvidence, the strifes and strikes, which exist among the lower. Amid such railings and recriminations, whoever may be right or wrong, the cause of amendment makes little progress. It is far better policy to try to unite all classes in a general movement towards improvement; and if there be any signs of penitence

among the upper ranks for their long neglect of the lower, good is far more likely to come out of it when the working classes show themselves intent on their own improvement, than if they take up an attitude of fierce and dogged opposition. Every year shows more clearly the spread of an interest among the upper classes in the condition of the lower. The labours of men like the late Prince Consort and Lord Shaftesbury, and of ladies like Miss Marsh or Mrs. Bayly, are a sign of the times. Our very novels, devoted so often to the working classes, show a marvellous contrast to the time when the poet Gray, in his famous elegy, had to make a sort of apology for introducing so humble a subject:—

"Let not ambition mock their useful toils,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short but simple annals of the poor."

May such examples as have already been set be followed by thousands, and may we soon see, in all directions, a due share of regard to the CLAIMS OF LABOUR!

In trying to stimulate our working friends to seek for better days, we will not waste time in inquiring what ought to be done for them by others; our purpose is rather to urge some things which they may do for themselves.