The first matter to which we ask attention, as furnishing a field for improvement, is the SOCIAL COMFORT of working people; and we begin with this, not because it is the most important, but because it is the least. Still, in its place, it is not to be overlooked. We think they are entitled and bound to seek a more comfortable and civilized mode of life than many of them enjoy. We should like, for example, that the industrious workman, in indifferent health, should never be compelled to drag himself from a sick-bed, and return to toil for which he is unfit, and what in the end must aggravate his disease, and shorten his life. We should like that the working man's wife did not require to toil, as she often does, to a degree that breaks down her health, and crushes the elastic spring of her mind, and that, too, at seasons when it is specially desirable that she should be in vigorous health. We should like that the working man's child did not require to be put out to labour at an age at which, even though he may have been unusually diligent at school, he can have acquired nothing beyond the mere rudiments of education. To secure all such results, many agencies are required. In considering to what the prevailing discomfort is due, it must not be forgotten that in very many cases the blame must be laid on the thoughtlessness, the wastefulness, and the

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flagrant vice of the persons themselves. Foremost in the list of the working man's curses is intemperance, and the utter break-down of the whole machinery of his moral nature which it commonly brings. The indispensable remedy here is of course sobriety, steadiness, economy, forethought. Without these, any attempts at improved comfort would be as sure to be thrown away as the cartloads of wholesome instruction that were emptied into the Slough of Despond. Probably some of our readers have seen a document showing what might be purchased with the fifty or sixty millions sterling that are spent annually upon stimulants by the working classes in this country. Besides churches, and schools, and missions far beyond the present number, the list shows no end of houses that might be built, and suits of clothes provided, and beds, and blankets, and books, and bibles, and everything of the kind that helps to make a comfortable home. How often have we heard the wife of the unsteady workman. declare, with streaming eyes—perhaps with a little of the exaggeration natural in the circumstances-that if they only had all that he earned, no family need be more comfortable in all the town!

Still, we are quite ready to admit that individual effort of this sort, however much good it may accomplish in thousands of cases, will not altogether

solve the problem.

There is need for united effort too. The masses of this country have discovered the great value of union, but as yet they are only groping in the dark for the best way to exercise it and use it. As for the method to which recourse has so often been had, and on which so much reliance has been placed for this end-trades' unions and combinations-we shall only say at present that, apart from the moral bearings of the subject, the tendency of this system appears to us to be one of the most difficult questions in social economy, and that there is much to be said on both sides of it; but that even the warmest friends of this method will probably admit that as yet they are but feeling their way towards the best plan of securing for labour the strength that is derived from union. The working classes, we believe, have caught sight of something far more productive of palpable and immediate benefit in the principle of co-operation, which has achieved such marvellous results at Rochdale, and other towns in England. We would not counsel the abandonment of the one, because we conceive, that with modifications, trades' unions may work for good; but we would counsel the effective prosecution of the other-we mean the method of co-operation. It calls into activity many valuable qualities and many excellent habits; and where these qualities

and habits are found, it gives fair promise of guiding the families of the people, under God's blessing, if not to a land flowing with milk and honey, at least a good way towards its borders.

In considering how best the earnings, and with them the social comfort of working men may be increased, the subject of health demands a passing notice. On this subject, popular ideas may be said to be undergoing a sort of revolution. Health has long been looked on as a blessing over which people themselves have little or no control. Disease has been regarded as a capricious visitant that floats and flutters where she will, and whose attacks, when unhappily they are inflicted, can only be met by a due application of doctors' drugs. Light is breaking in on our notions on these subjects. To a very large extent we begin to find that disease is not so capricious as we thought, and that we possess, if we choose, a great power of holding her down. By means that are very simple, and within the reach of all, it is now found, that with God's blessing, many maladies may be wholly averted, and the attacks of others greatly lightened. The plentiful use of fresh air and water and light, simple and wholesome diet, regular exercise, and refreshing rest, are found to be far more efficient weapons in the conflict with disease than all the drugs that have ever been

manufactured.

These measures are like the Volunteers they tend to keep off the enemy; drugs are like the regular army- needful for the actual conflict. It needs not to be said of what benefit to the man who earns his bread in the sweat of his brow a state of vigorous health must be. Not only may the days and weeks of sickness be saved, but all through other days there will be a fulness of strength and an elasticity of spirit which will go far to lighten the burden, as well as to increase the gains of toil. It may seem to some that the effects of this element, will be hardly appreciable in any plan of raising the condition of the masses; our conviction is quite the opposite its influence, we believe, will ultimately be found to be very great.

When the social condition of workmen is discussed in general society, one often hears the opinion expressed, that if they had higher wages they would only become more dissipated, and that if they had a higher social position, it would only make them insolent. A degree of plausibility is given to this argument by the fact, that in many cases where very high wages are earned, pay-day brings with it a sort of Pandemonium, and that the comfort at home seems to be in the inverse ratio to the amount of the wages. In the mining and coal districts, families in which there are several workers often