There! one goes out- a second!- and a third! And two you saw, in mid pursuit, expired. Like bedlamite with thoughts of vengeance fired! And this, my boy, but represents As sought those sparks that shape of wind, Amongst the ashes of the fall. The youth is at the old man's heels- What all affect, but no one feels Till burst the bubble sparks, and leave no trace behind.' LIFE OF SAMUEL CLUGSTON, THE SLUGGARD. CHAPTER XII. Samuel was now in possession of a larger sum of money than he had owned for many years; and it put his mind into something like activity to settle what should be done with it. In the meantime he wrapped it in a number of rags, and tied it about his person. He was full of schemes for a few days, and thought of this and of that, but abandoned each in turn as involving too much trouble. At length he resolved to buy a comfortable hand-barrow with an arm-chair in it, and have himself carried about from place to place as an impotent beggar. To make sure work, however for the wooden leg still haunted him-he turned the matter thoroughly in his mind and viewed it on all sides. So soon as he felt satisfied on the point, he gave the order for the barrow and crutches, representing them as being for his aged mother, who had been taken ill of dumb palsy at a village some miles off. What would Lizzy Proudfoot have said had she heard the order given? In due time Samuel removed the articles, under cloud of night, and travelled on with them, by unfrequented paths, and in the direction of a country where he had not been, till the next morning began to break. He slept in a wood during the day, and started again when evening fell. The second night threatened not to be so fortunate as the first, for two men dogged him a considerable way, evidently supposing he was a robber making off with booty. He got quit of them, however, and slept next day in a cavern beside a waterfall. The following night was to complete the circle of his labour, and bring him to paradise and the use of his palanquin, and so he jogged on with tolerable heart and expedition, encouraging himself with visions of peace and an old age of ease and tranquillity. ability and dumbness, he got on very pleasantly and profitably. His wallet was half filled, and he had taken fourpence in coppers, by the time he reached the other end of the town. But a difficulty now presented itself. The two last houses were occupied by elderly women. A discussion arose as to who should take him to the nearest farmhouse. Each was for putting it off his own shoulders. One had a cold, and another had not time, and a third had carried the last dumbie,' and a fourth had a rheumatic shoulder or was grievously afflicted with corns. Samuel tried to touch their sympathies by clasping his hands, and shaking his head, and moaning dismally. A woman who had a cripple son now spoke up for him, and said some strong things about the overturns of Providence, and what the Saviour did for the dumb and the lame, when two men volunteered their service, and set off amid the cheers of their assembled neighbours. Samuel treated his friends to divers fits of coughing by the road; and, after many rests and breathings, and sundry comparings of their load to a sack of meal and a boll of potatoes, they arrived at their destination. Samuel made signs to the farmer that he wished to go to sleep, and was consequently put into an outhouse. When he felt himself alone, he partook heartily of his miscellaneous gatherings, rejoicing at the success of his scheme, and upbraiding himself for not having had recourse to it sooner, and in the midst of his thoughts and pleasin; anticipations he fell fast asleep. As soon as the farmer i ad two of his hands idle, he broke in upon Samuel's slumbers, and had him conveyed to the next farm-town. This was no great hardship, for Samuel's vehicle was constructed so as to let him sleep by the wayside, as well as in the house; and as drowsing is a natural concomitant of extreme weakness, it was not incompatible with his assumed position to indulge in it to the full—and he was never full. Things went on for some time as well as could be expected, for Samuel really looked the character well. His broad bonnet and long beard gave a picturesqueness to him, and would have been patriarchal, but for something indescribably uncouth and comical in the rest of his person. There was no qualifying of his gander neck, spoky arms, and spindle limbs. Whatever position they were in, they awoke the sense of the ludicrous. But Samuel was not moved by these things; in fact he did not know them, or only very slightly, and would have been comparatively happy, but for that irritation and uneasiness, and those gloomy and undefined apprehensions which accompany a relaxed and disordered state of the nervous system. He wondered why he felt as he did, when he had everything, in a sense, he desired, and the reasonable prospect of its continuance; but he knew not that the evil was within himself, and that it was the fruit of his own doings, and that he was feeding it by the course on which he had entered. How certainly will our ways find us out! Both nature and Providence and the constitution of mind and a thousand avenues. The laws of spirit and matter must first be broken ere we can escape, and this implies the subjugation of the Lawgiver whom the most powerful conspiracy the universe has seen could not overthrow, and whom, if it had overthrown, would have been the overthrowing and destruction of the universe itself. When morning broke Samuel was sitting in his easychair, on a county-road, with his crutches beside him, and himself in the best order he could think of, abiding the up-body, are adjusted to this end. We may be reached through turns of Providence. He felt his position delightful after his late fatigues, and yet he was not without fear, and almost in the thought of relinquishing the experiment, for, do what he would, he could not banish the wooden leg from his remembrance. His uncertainty, however, was dismissed by the sound of voices approaching. He made a last preparation, by putting on as helpless a look as possible, and moaning in a very piteous manner. The voices died away again, and his unpleasant feelings returned. After some time the rattle of carts was heard, and in the course of a few minutes they came up with him. The drivers questioned him as to how he was there, and where he had come from; but Samuel was dumb, and could only answer them by woful groans and shakings of the head, and pointings to his limbs, and sundry gesticulations which they did not understand. They lifted him into one of the carts and drove him into the next village, which stood a few miles off. This was a good beginning, and Samuel inwardly congratulated himself. He was handed from door to door through the village, and, except some grumblings at his weight, and occasionally a suspicion started as to his in Samuel grew more and more unhappy as the apparent means of his happiness increased. In the course of ten months he had saved as many pounds, had eaten abundantly, drowsed and slept two-thirds of the time, and been carried about like a prince from place to place; and yet he felt miserable and stupid when awake, and tormented with horrible dreams when asleep. He began to think it was the curse of God coming upon him, and that it would end in some awful judgment, and he occasionally entertained the question of abandoning his course of hypocrisy and imposition-but the frightful thought of toiling about again on his feet, made him keep his barrow and endure his misery. CHAPTER XIII. About this time (within the year at least) a trick was played him, which threatened to end seriously. Two farm lads had been charged with his transference to the neighbouring town, which stood at a considerable distance. They did not relish the job, and gave vent to their displeasure by speaking very disrespectfully of the muckle lazy dumbie,' as they called him, and by wishing him at the bottom of a coal-pit,' and setting him down occasionally with a thump, which was anything but agreeable to Samuel. They rested long at the foot of a steep hill they had to cross, and in the meanwhile Samuel fell asleep, when they agreed to tumble him out on arriving at the steepest part of it. Now!' cried the foremost, as he gained the spot agreed upon, and away went Samuel rolling, crutches and clouts and all, to the bottom. The roars he uttered in descending were fearful, but it was soon over, and, except a bruise or two, and extreme giddiness, he was otherwise unhurt. He rose perfectly savage, and after staggering a little, gave chase to his tormentors, who were scampering off, and 'guffaing' at the top of their lungs. He soon felt he had no chance with them, and then saw his grievous error, and made back with all speed to his barrow, and got it up and sat down upon it, resolving to describe to the first comers, by as expressive signs as he could muster, the ill-usage he had received, and the fight he had to crawl up the ascent again. In a short time the two lads appeared at some distance, and other two persons with them. Samuel felt at a loss what to do-whether to brave it out, or fight his way through them, or take off to a wood he saw in the distance; but he was relieved from his perplexity by three men approaching in an opposite direction, to whom he explained by a medley of tears, and moans, and gesticulations, how he had been treated. They believed and took pity on him, and cried to the rascals, whom Samuel pointed out, and who were laughing most obstreperously, that their masters should hear of it; and, gathering up his crutches and scattered property, they bore Samuel away to a neighbouring village. The lads cried after the men what Samuel had done, but their statements were not believed, and were only answered by rebukes and threatenings. This was a happy issue for Samuel, and he inwardly rejoiced at it. The story soon got wind, but, as the lads were known to be mischievous and not very scrupulous as to truth, the tide of public opinion turned against them, and completely in Samuel's favour. Fortune was now plainly smiling on Samuel, as if to make amends for past frowns; but her smiles are proverbially capricious, and Samuel soon found them to be so. The tumbling transaction' had the effect in the meantime of filling his wallet and purse, and he passed through the district in which it happened, in a sort of triumphal progress, the object of general interest and commiseration. It had the effect, too, of keeping him more awake out of doors, and especially so when crossing a bridge, or passing over considerable elevations. But he soon met with a sore drawback, and at a time when he least expected it. He had been carried into a country minister's house, who was noted for his quiet waggery and knowledge of the weak points of human nature, who, being informed of the 'dumbie's' arrival, stepped down into the kitchen where Samuel was sitting, and said to him in a low, confidential, sympathising tone, Ay, ay, honest man, and how long have ye been in that dumb state?' Samuel, completely thrown off his guard, made answer, 'Seven years, at ony rate.'-' Ay, ay, that's a long time, honest man,'-and the domestics and the neighbours who had come in with Samuel burst out into a loud fit of laughter, when Samuel, seeing his deplorable mistake, jumped up and banged out at the door, leaving barrow, and crutches, and plaids behind him. He made a strange run, they said, twining and zigzagging like a butterfly on the wing-and no wonder, considering the time his legs had been out of use; but as they did not pursue him farther than a little way for their own diversion, he, of course, got clear off, and, by a prodigious effort, he made into Glasgow that night-a distance of nine miles and better from the place where the disaster occurred. This was a sore calamity, and Samuel never forgave himself for his stupidity. In order to prevent detection, he went straight way to a low broker's shop in the Saltmarket, and bought an old hat, a pair of wide corduroy trousers, a pair of scissors, and a grey duffle big-coat lined with green flannel, and going down into a close, and up into a back stair, he began the work of the toilette. The trousers were drawn on above the rest, and, except being a little too tight, they fitted very well; the bonnet, which had seen twenty-one years' service, and was in a sense entitled to its discharge, was thrown away, but not without compunction, and the hat was put in its place; the greatcoat felt comfortable as he drew it on; and he completed the affair, by clipping his beard down to within an inch of the chin. The transformation was great, but nothing could materially alter the original form and fabric of the man. With much difficulty, for he was fagged and vexed beyond measure, he found his way to a lodging-house in the Bridge-gate. Not without dread, he lay down in the place assigned him, with all his clothes on, and his greatcoat buttoned up to the neck, for he had thirteen pounds and odds concealed about his person-the proceeds of the barrow, the idea and fate of which were tracking and hunting him like a sleuthhound. Notwithstanding his fatigue and love of sleep, he slept none that night, but tossed and tumbled about till morning, and then rose and went off. As the winter was just setting in, and threatened to be severe, he had determined during the night to rent a cheap lodging in the suburbs, and take his ease till the spring returned, and then go into one of the southern counties, and have recourse to the barrow again. After a good deal of wandering, and some shame-for he thought every one was looking at him in his new dress-he found a lodging to his mind in an Irishman's near Barrowfield Toll, who kept an ass and cart, and drove a small trade in rags, and crockery, and old clothes. The wife helped out the concern by keeping lodgers and doing for them. Samuel formed one of four stationary lodgers, but was the only Scotchman among them. In a few days he felt a good deal at home, and began to take his usual rest without fear of being robbed. Things went on well enough for several weeks, and his fellow-inmates became very kind to him, and would now and then treat him to a glass of whisky. The birth-day of one of them was at hand, and he promised to give them all a treat-and he kept his word. A dozen pies, a gallon of porter, and two bottles of whisky were provided, and they began to be merry, and Samuel's spirits got up, and his drone and syncope of speech went considerably off, and he talked and told stories, and at length offered himself for a song, which was received with great enthusiasm. He was applauded to the echo and encored, and his health was drunk in a full bumper, standing, with three times three. Samuel acknowledged the compliment by drinking their healths in return, and matters went on as merrily as heart could wish, till sometime beyond midnight, when Samuel was carried to his shake-down in a state of complete insensibility. The upshot of it was, that Samuel had the house to himself in the morning, with a few old chairs and broken dishes that were not worth the lifting, and every farthing of his money gone. He first thought it was a dream-but it was no dream; and then, that it was a joke-but it was no joke. The whole establishment had decamped during the night, taking everything of value with them. This was a heavy blow, and, to add to its weight, the winter had set in with unusual bitterness. With an aching head, and a heart like to break, he first went about the neighbourhood, in a half-dementit state, making inquiries, and then set out, he knew not well where, in the vague hope of finding them, but not knowing what he should do, if he did. He was forced to beg as he went, for he had not a farthing left. After the first excitement and pang of his calamity were over, and a few miserable weeks had gone by, he settled down into a sullen torpor, and began to wish himself in his grave. He became rapidly weaker, and his health and constitution were fast breaking up. An unexpected noise would make him tremble all over; a harsh word or passing banter from any one would rouse him into the fiercest anger, and he ever, the syrup or sugar contains neither dextrin nor would continue in it for hours. To add to his affliction, gypsum, the detection of the adulteration is more difficult; sleep, his idol and god, began to fail him. This was more for the optical sugar-test by means of the polariscope of than he could bear, and, exasperated beyond endurance, he Biot and Ventzke is not safe enough, and, moreover, the would blaspheme and call on perdition to take him in. apothecary seldom possesses this instrument; also TromAt other times he would be haunted with the most distress- mer's sugar-test, by heating the alkaline solution of sugar ing fears, and gnawed by the most poignant remorse. He with sulphate of copper, is not to be perfectly relied on. would turn self-accuser, and arraign himself for his past misdeeds, and utter anathemas on his own soul; and then he would break out into the most fiendish maledictions against those who had wronged him, from Jenny Airly and Mr Purdie down to the Irishmen who had robbed him. It was clear his mind was giving way, and lapsing into a painful species of insanity. He became more and more restless; and, though the snow was deep and the cold intense, he would move about from place to place, muttering to himself, and utterly heedless of what was going on around him. He began to fancy that every one was against him, and that Satan was at the head of the conspiracy, and that every one had put poison into the food which was offered him. He was now thoroughly deranged, and, strange to say, the passion of his life was dethroned and replaced by a more terrible power. For days and nights in succession he would not close an eye, but wander about all night in woods and desolate places, for he had again betaken himself to the country. He became the terror of every district he visited. Children fled from him, and dogs snarled at him, and farmers kept on the watch all night till he left their neighbourhood. Everything about him was mysterious. He never asked for food, and no one knew how he lived. The wildest conjectures were afloat: he was a conscience-stricken murderer, or some wretch whom the grave would not keep. Few chose to pass him, and those who did, represented him, as indeed he was, the most unearthly being they had ever seen. A better re-agent is concentrated sulphuric acid, which chars cane-sugar, and at the same time forms from it formic acid, whilst it forms with starch-sugar a distinct chemical combination, saccharo-sulphuric acid, discovered by Peligat, which forms with almost all bases soluble combinations, and is, consequently, not precipitated by carbonate of baryta. In order, therefore, to discover the presence of starch-syrup in cane-sugar syrup, the latter must first be exposed in a vapour-bath until it is almost dry, and heated to the melting point of starch-sugar, and then a slight excess of concentrated sulphuric acid is to be added to it by drops, lessening at the same time the too strong beat by cooling. In half-an-hour the mixture is to be dissolved in twenty parts of distilled water and filtered, and carbonate of baryta added to the filtered liquid to saturation, and the liquid again filtered from the sulphate of baryta, and from the surplus of carbonate of baryta. If now sulphuric acid cause in the filtered liquid a precipitate of sulphate of baryta, starch-sugar was present, and saccharo-sulphuric acid has been generated. This method also offers difficulties, and Dr Reich discovered a still better one by testing with bichromate of potash. If a thick, pure, cane-sugar syrup be mixed with à boiling-hot concentrated watery solution of bichromate of potash, and the mixture heated in a test-glass to the boiling point, and the heat then removed, a reciprocal reaction goes on, and the syrup has acquired, from the oxide of chrome which is formed, a deep green colour, which appears particularly beautiful when the liquid is diluted with water. This phenomenon is the result of the oxidation of the syrup and of the generation of an organic acid, which combines with the oxide of chrome, and remains dissolved in the syrup. He happened to wander into a locality where he had been with his barrow, and was instantly recognised. A great clamour got up. It was naturally enough concluded he was only assuming some new character. A number of men went out to catch and punish him. They got him, but came back convinced he was not acting a part. The vivid, All other kinds of sugar remain indifferent to the but cold and serpent-like gleam of the madman's eye can- bichromate of potash. If, therefore, starch-syrups (dexnot be mistaken and cannot be put on. Sometimes, at trin syrup) be treated in the same way, no change takes midnight, he would be heard rushing past the farm-towns, place. If cane-sugar syrup be mixed with the oror as if fleeing for his life; at other times, loud cries of dis-part of the latter, this prevents the bichromate of pottress would issue from the woods and by-places, as of one ash from affecting energetically the cane-sugar syrup, the in despair or in the agonies of death; and at other times mixture froths a little more during boiling, but ceases to he would be seen, in the moonlight nights, wading up to do so as soon as it is removed from the heat, without the the knees in snow, where no one was, and speaking and liquid becoming green; and, even when a small proportion remonstrating with persons whom no one saw. His move- of starch-syrup only is present, a colouration without enerments from place to place became more rapid and desul- getic effect takes place, the colour is never so beautifully tory, and he was fast wearing down to a shadow, but still dark green, so that from the various shades of the colour supernaturally active, and still conflicting and struggling the proportion of the starch-syrup (dextrin syrup) may with his inward tormentors, whom his life had engendered be calculated. The adulterations of solid cane-sugar with and insanity had evoked. starch-sugar, however, cannot be discovered by this reagent, as it does not in the least affect a concentrated watery solution of pure cane-sugar and starch-sugar. For discovering the latter adulteration, Dr Reich found the nitrate of cobalt very appropriate. Its effects are due to the relations of the potash-compounds of the starch-sugar and of the pure cane-sugar. If, for example, a small quantity of fused caustic potash be added to a concentrated watery solution of pure cane-sugar, the mixture heated to a boiling degree, and a solution of nitrate of cobalt dropped in, a beautiful bluish-violet precipitate of hydrate of the oxide of cobalt is formed, even when the solution was much diluted. He disappeared at last; and when the snow went off, he was found lying in a ditch, with a half-eaten turnip in his hand, and an old horse-pistol in his greatcoat-pocket, charged to the muzzle. The lurid fires and volcanic power of madness had altered his ways and looks for a time, but the stamp and impress of the ruling passion was now restored and left indelibly upon his corpse-a sluggard in his last sleep. The way of transgressors is hard.' DETECTION OF STARCH-SUGAR IN CANE-SUGAR. BY DR C. REICH. A concentrated solution of starch-sugar treated with THE adulteration of cane-sugar and its syrups with starch-caustic potash, and diluted with distilled water, gives no sugar and starch-syrup is not unusual. As both starch-precipitate with nitrate of cobalt. If the solution of the syrup and starch-sugar usually contain dextrin, and often potash starch-sugar be somewhat concentrated, a dirtygypsum, when they have been manufactured by sulphuric brown precipitate falls down on the addition of a solution acid, instead of with malt, we have in alcohol an easy and of nitrate of cobalt. A small proportion of starch-sugar safe test, as both dextrin and sulphate of lime are precipi- in cane-sugar prevents the formation of this bluish-violet tated by it. We dilute the syrup with double its quan- precipitate by nitrate of cobalt, so that the latter is a tity of water, and shake it with alcohol of 80 or 90 per safe re-agent for detecting the adulteration of the canecent. when the sugar remains in the solution. If, how- sugar by starch-sugar.-Buchner's Repertorium. PUBLIC CHARITY. machinery has dispensed with certain hands, it has furnished employment for others, and placed a vast variety of 'CHARITY Covereth a multitude of sins,' is a maxim of the necessary articles within the reach of the working classes; so Christian faith; and could the text bear the literal and that in that quarter things appear to be tolerably balanced, limited interpretation given it by the Council of Constance, as might be exemplified by a comparison of the style of when it placed almsgiving second in the list of justifying living habitual to the more respectable artisans and meworks, there were a strong inducement to its general prac- chanics of our times with that of the corresponding class tice, especially as the present times afford more than suffi- in the former century-furniture, apparel, and other applicient scope for every possible effort. History has a thousand ances of daily life included, the advantage will be found such time-protested bills, but charity, like hard times, is a considerably on the side of the present generation. Neither current phrase which does duty on all occasions, and may can the real or attributed evils of the factory system, or be made serviceable for any purpose, yet it designates the the insecurity of commercial confidence, with all the congreatest and most comprehensive of the social virtues. sequent panics that have been so destructively frequent in Never, in the modern history of Britain, were there late years, afford a solution of the perplexing problem. larger demands on public charity than have been urged Ireland is exclusively an agricultural country, yet, indein the course of the past and present year, and never, we pendent of the recent terrible visitation, her pauperism believe, were its responses given on a grander scale. The has pressed on public notice with a pertinacity sufficient, latter fact is certainly one to be rejoiced in as deeply as in old classic phrase, to weary both gods and men; and the former must be deplored; but this state of things na- the working of the poor-law, short as the time has been to turally suggests an inquiry concerning the tendency and test it, does not promise to contribute to the amelioration results of national beneficence as now administered. That of that unfortunate country. The proverbial improvidence our best things are capable of abuse is one of the greatest of the Irish peasantry has grown only more observable imperfections of this imperfect life; yet not only is that under its operation, not alone through the success of poliwoful truth fixed beyond the reach of debate, but the ex- tical agitators, deplorably farcical as their latter proceedperience of mankind in all ages proves that the worst of ings are such is the ordinary fruit of multitudinous adevils arise from the perversions of institutions in them-versity-but even with the horrors of the scarce gone by selves most excellent, and in proportion to the blessing is famine fresh in their recollection, it was generally known the curse of its misapplication. Is it, then, wonderful that that in the districts where out-door relief was administered charity should be perverted also? Like the stateliest trees during the summer of 1847, the inhabitants of hamlets of the forest, the nobler gifts of humanity have each their situated among extensive bogs in the north-west became parasite evil apt to twine round their growing strength so indolent as to neglect cutting and drying the peat-moss, and flourish on their decay. Thus liberty is liable to a precaution till then considered indispensable for the prolicentiousness, religion to hypocrisy, and charity to abuses vision of winter fuel; while the potato-gardens of former whose name is legion, and whose effects are all but un-years were allowed to remain unproductive by the many, limited. There remains no doubt of the good achieved by who could not procure seed in consequence of the general individual and enlightened benevolence, which searches failure of that trusted root, and would not take the trouble out misery in the refuse heaps and corners of society, and of planting them with any other vegetable. In southern labours for its amelioration, whether in the application of districts similarly situated, labourers refused to work in means or the discovery of ways, as exemplified by the harvest time under twice the wages given in preceding celebrated Howard and the no less celebrated Mrs Fry. seasons; and in the east of Ulster, justly esteemed the most independent part of the island, tourists were amused by the frequent spectacle of a tall smoking peasant or his ragged son, like very impersonations of indolence, on a great road, where the west wind swayed the ripened corn as far as the eye could reach, kicking before them a large tin can, and announcing to all whom it might concern that they had got a ticket for soup, and were going to the nearest poorhouse for their rations.' Doubtless much of his recklessness of character may be traceable to the desperation of his fortunes; but the Irish peasant is not alone in this glory, or rather disgrace; the instance of the English mechanics who refused the advantageous offer of a Scottish proprietor desirous of introducing, through their means, a new branch of manufacture to the cities north of the Tweed, because by settling in Scotland they might lose the prospective benefits of their parish (!) would be regarded as neither new nor strange among England's workers in field and factory. Indeed, besides this there is no rational expla nation for the bluntness of both mental and moral perception, pourtrayed by every writer on the subject, from Crabbe to the late Parliamentary Commission, in a country which, with all its defects, is at this moment the centre of European knowledge and civilisation. 'Not only famous, but of that good fame Without which glory's but a tavern song,' may well be said of both these names. Next to the hearts which devised such liberal things is the hand that reaches timely relief to the necessity of the grinding hour; yet the legalised and systematic charity established in most Christian countries, and more largely developed in Britain, lies open to some serious and important questions. First, is it not to be feared that a regular and systematic provision against want, irrespective of any exertion of individual industry or prudence, must, in the present, or indeed in any probable state of the masses, naturally foster a spirit of dependence on external aid, and offer a direct encouragement to idleness and improvidence, with all their attendant causes of moral and physical degradation? Yet such is the provision established by our British poor-laws, which, though presenting different and sometimes scarce less objectionable features in the different provinces composing the United Kingdom, necessarily agree in this fundamental character. Relief, without reference to merit, is the dictate of a most enlightened wisdom, confirmed by the loftiest example within the range of human regard. Absolute necessity in all cases has a claim which demands the first consideration; but a system which supports only destitution, while it opens no path to improvement, may be justly suspected of materially assisting in the perpetuation of poverty. The rapid increase of the poor-rates in every part of the kingdom since their establishment, together with the still wider extension of pauperism, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for, whatever political economists, according to Dr Malthus, may assert, by the multiplication of labourers or the superseding power of machinery. If the labouring population have increased, new fields for industry have been opened, unknown to the preceding generations; for instance, the formation of railways, the extraction of native iron, and various other branches of manufacture and commerce. If The native delineators of humble life in all its varieties unite with the educational reports of Scotland in attesting the moral and intellectual superiority of the northern peasant or artisan. No doubt the spirit of the carrier, who would not have a horse bought him by subscription when the animal by which he lived had been accidentally killed, because, to use his own words, he had eighteenpence at hame, forby the skin,' still survives among the labourers and mechanics of North Britain; and long may it continue their best defence against pauperism, with all its degrading attendants; but even here the abuses of public charity are visible. It is not necessary to search for them in those Highland districts to which the recent famine directed national benevolence; their inhabitants have, indeed, given lamentable proof of their Celtic kindred with the people of the west in the management of their own and the diminution of their neighbours' resources; but the current history of lower life, especially in our commercial and manufacturing towns, illustrated as it has lately been by riots and other tokens of these upstirring times, exhibits some of the worst consequences of that imprudence whose utmost stretch of foresight is the poorrate. Pursuing this view of the subject, Edinburgh itself may be quoted as exemplifying the tares that are apt to spring up where public charity has most beneficently sown. In proportion to its size and population, no city in the world contains more societies for the relief of indigence. From reduced gentlewomen to ragged schools, the benevolence of its wealthier classes has gone forth in every direction where want was to be met, and its liberality in the article of gratuitous education is represented to the stranger's eye by some of the handsomest edifices in Britain. The palace-like front of Heriot's princely foundation, Watson's, the Trades', and Merchant Maiden's Hospitals, only require to be mentioned in confirmation of the statement. But amid so much bountiful benevolence, who can observe the every-day life of its masses, and not perceive how large a share of that self-dependence and honourable pride which made the national character respected throughout the world has perished? The gold has become brass, assumption has taken the place of high spirit, and manoeuvring policy that of industrious providence. The families of artisans and tradesmen imitate, as far as in them lies, the habits of their superiors in fortune, with much superadded thoughtlessness of their own, firmly believing that there is a society' bound to take care of them. Parents who struggle for gentility educate their children by means of charitable institutions, from which scores of halftaught and wholly uncultivated boys and girls are returned to domestic society every year; and, not to enter further on the combined evils of such a system, what honest independence or native industry can be expected from families, two or even three generations of whom have been brought up by public charity? Yet numerous instances of the kind exist in our northern metropolis. The subject also reminds us that few cities, even in England, are more heavily taxed for the legal support of the poor. The Scottish poor-law has, indeed, never been charged with the sanction of needless expenditure; on the contrary, its economy has been ridiculed as a niggardly administration of charity, more consistent with the national aversion to pecuniary loss than the liberality of benevolence; yet its working, from which alone convincing inference can be drawn, proves it to have been more judiciously contrived than that of either England or Ireland. Still it is liable to misapplications, similar in kind though differing in degree, the only difference which ever appears likely to exist between any legalised systems of relief. Under these considerations there arises a question regarding the justice or wisdom of placing on the industrious classes the burdens of compulsory charity. As things are, it is on them that the greater part of those burdens press; and the Frenchman's scheme, promulgated when so many theories were afloat, immediately before the first Revolulution, that the idle rich should support the unemployed poor, appears, in this view of the subject, not without plausibility. His idea was, that all who had inherited estates and revenues from their ancestors, which they neither improved nor increased, were bound to indemnify the state for the uselessness of their lives, by maintaining the entire pauper population, and ought to be taxed for that purpose in proportion to the amount of their fortunes. Those who had realised wealth by their own industry were to be exempted from taxation, on the ground that they were the most profitable servants of the state; and the ingenious contriver concluded his pamphlet by declaring that this plan would make an aristocracy a good thing for any nation!' It is probable that a bill for thus regulating the poorrates of the British empire would have many petitions in its favour from Ireland, though, we apprehend, an ex tremely small minority in the Upper House, and it is also to be feared that some of the worst consequences of our present system, as regards the objects of relief, might remain, if not increase, by means of funds so levied. Every form of law-compelled charity carries within itself the germs of degeneracy and degradation; and to most institutions founded by individual beneficence the words of Lord Bacon are lamentably applicable, 'Likewise, glorious gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt, and but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly.' What, then, is to be done? The declaration of Scripture, verified by the experience of all times and nations, assures us that the poor shall not cease out of the land. Everywhere the majority of mankind have no available property, but live according to the terms of the original sentence-by the sweat of their brows, or at least the labour of their hands; but let it not be forgotten that these are the useful classes, the sinews of society, by whose toil its whole machinery is supported, and its most essential necessaries produced; hewers of wood and drawers of water have they been to their brethren, from the days of the first among men who said, 'I am rich and increased in goods;' and history presents us with a sad comment on human pretensions to reason, in the fact that, for more centuries than it can definitely number, by far the larger portion of the race have been utterly neglected by legislative wisdom, or remembered only as they could serve the interests or caprices of the few. The slavery of the classic world, the still more barbarous and scarce less abject vassalage of the feudal ages, the manorial rights, and the factory system of modern times, all speak with one voice of confirmation to this disgraceful truth. Cobbett asserts that poor-laws were not required till after the Protestant Reformation; certain it is they were not adopted till then; and the above-mentioned writer is loud in praise of the Catholic convents and alms-giving, which, he says, provided for the maintenance of the poor without the evils of workhouses. The Romish church, indeed, professed to do so, and a portion of her tithes was set apart in every country for that object, but that the interests of the labouring classes were much less regarded than at present is evident from the recorded horrors of famines, and pestilences, and the peasant wars, which occurred almost every century; for example, the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England, the devastations of the Jacquerie in France, and the rebellion of the boors in Friesland, who carried a loaf by way of banner, to signify that all their cause of war was bread. Passing over the darker defor mities of those times, the instances we have quoted furnish terrible proof that the poor were, in the emphatic language of inspiration, 'trodden down like the mire of the streets.' It is worthy of remark, that the most dreadful outburst of this description ever known in Germany took place towards the end of Luther's ministrations. Historians agree that it was the result of want and depression of trade, combined with the tyranny of the Catholic nobles and ecclesiastics. These parties were unanimous in ascribing it to the preaching of the reformer; and their statement caught some shadow of truth from the religious fanaticism with which its latter horrors were deepened. Luther preached with his wonted fervour against the rebellion, and his conduct in that respect has been the subject of both commendation and censure. Horrible were the deeds of the infuriated vassals, and still more so the retaliation of their lords, when feudal banner and battleaxe again prevailed; but let the crimes of those ages rest with their ruined towers and rusty armour; we live in times which, with all their errors, reckon the many of some account, and can appreciate the lesson given by the Parisian curé to a nobleman who talked contemptuously of the canaille, Monsieur Le Count forgets that his Saviour was born among the canaille of Bethlehem.' If the count left any descendants, they have probably learned better by this time than to call those canaille, between whom and themselves fortune made the only distinction. Much has been taught the rulers of the earth, authors and orators generally have been loud in their professions of sympathy since 6 |