sited £8,888; and there are 50 clothing clubs, to which the scholars and their friends have subscribed £592. These figures speak for themselves. They are facts that require no comment. Equally creditable to the noble and good man at the head of this great social movement, and to those united with him in raising the large sums required to carry out the gigantic work of teaching so vast a number of human beings, as they are also, to the scholars themselves.

One word as to the title of these schools, which admirably conveys the idea intended. But, it engenders in the minds of the scholars feelings of degradation. It keeps continually before their eyes their destitute and forlorn condition. It subdues those sentiments of self-respect and selfreliance which it is so essential to cultivate amongst the poor. It tends to make them discontented with their station, and induces them to believe that the finger of scorn is pointed at them as mere outcasts of society. It encourages those ideas that are familiar to all those who remember the old charity schools, which, in consequence, were dignified with the highsounding appellation of "parochial." The same ideas that now cause the widowed mother to hesitate before she accepts a presentation for her boy or girl to a school where they will be marked by the dress of an old-fashioned cap and fustian gown, will prevent children, so distinguished, from entering familiarly into the play and amusements of their fellows. The true mode of doing charity is to avoid hurting the feelings, or, it may be, the prejudices of the recipient. And can we say that the feelings or prejudices of the poor honest boy or girl, whose clothing is no index to the workings of their little hearts, are not wounded, when meeting their playfellows on the way to the dignified "national" or "parochial" school, they recollect that they are the scholars of a Ragged School." Lord Brougham, in his inaugural address at the last meeting of the Society for Promoting Social Science, suggested an appropriate name for them. The idea is of a practical nature. His lordship says that "education, to be beneficial, should be combined with practical industry." If this element is imported into the Ragged Schools-if the scholars are taught practically the elements or first principles of the trades or occupations they are to follow, the Ragged Schools may very appropriately be denominated "Industrial Schools." Indeed, we find, on looking over the summary of the London Ragged Schools, that this element has been imported into some of them, and that the classes are very well attended, particularly by girls.

Let us now see what has been done to meet the spiritual requirements of the age, independently of what must form part of all sound education.

The Incorporated Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building, and Repairing of Churches and Chapels increases church accommodation in England and Wales for the poorer members of the Church. Its grants have reference mainly to population and the inadequacy of church room. It has made 4,323 grants, and expended £615,181, and has provided

additional church accommodation for 1,118,934 persons, 873,035 sittings being reserved free for the poor for ever. But this gives the reader no idea of the number of churches built by all denominations of Christians from private resources, the result of subscription or individual benevolence, examples of which we hear of daily—such, for instance, as the church built and so munificently endowed by Miss Burdett Coutts, in Rochester Row, Westminster; and others to which it would be tedious to refer.

The British and Foreign Bible Society circulates the Scriptures at home and abroad. There are laymen, foreigners resident in London, and all denominations of Christians on the committee. There are 9,002 societies in connection with it; the Bible is translated, printed, and distributed into 158 languages or dialects; the number of versions is 188; the society has circulated 37,527,828 Bibles, and assisted other socie ties in the distribution of 26,000,000 more, making upwards of 64,000,000 copies. It calculates that, through its instrumentality, the records of Inspired Truth have been rendered accessible, within the present century, to six hundred millions of the human family. The receipts for last year were £164,136, and the expenditure £179,365. These are great and mighty results. Central Europe is receiving 400,000 copies, Northern Europe over 100,000, and France another 100,000: amongst the superstitious and degraded populations of South America 40,000 copies have been circulated. The system of female colportage originated in connection with this society, and is an extensive and deeply interesting domestic mission to the demoralized and degraded populations of the metropolis. There are sixty-four Bible women thus employed, who have, during the last year, sold 5,500 copies. There are six foreign missions connected with the Church of England, possessing an aggregate income of about £125,000; a Jewish, with an income of £26,000; and six Dissenting societies for a like purpose, with an annual income of about £210,000. The Religious Tract Society annually circulates 41,710,203 tracts. Its total circulation up to the present time is 865,000,000. It has granted, since 1832, 13,314 libraries, exclusive of those sent to foreign lands; the reduced prices gratuitously voted being £31,645-namely, for Sunday and day schools 7,680, for destitute districts 5007, for union poor-houses 302, national and other school teachers 301, lunatic asylums 32. Total receipts for the year, £99,173. Total grants for the year, £12,568. Total amount of subscriptions, donations, and auxiliary grants, £9,128. There are other Tract Societies, one connected with the Wesleyan Methodists, which has an annual circulation of 169,000 periodicals; another, the Wesleyan Reformers, who circulated 471,144 works; another is the New Jerusalem Tract Society, which last year issued 54,528 tracts. We make no special reference here to the influence of the daily press, which circulates a large amount of spiritual instruction; nor of those numerous societies, asylums, and schools, which devote a great deal of attention to this subject; nor of the several missions existing in various parishes in

the kingdom. The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge also, administers to the spiritual instruction of the people. It is strictly a Church of England and Ireland Institution. It has establishments in all parts of the world, and assists in the building of churches in foreign parts. In 1859-60 it issued 133,974 Bibles, New Testaments 64,994, Common Prayers 316,237, bound books 1,700,489, tracts 3,904,947, making a total of 6,120,641. Its income, mainly derived from subscriptions and the sale of books, amounts to £31,000 a year, and its expenditure a little exceeds the income.

Let us take a glance at the improvements in the social condition of the people. The Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes embraces objects of vast importance to their moral and social position. It erects model buildings, renovates old and ill-arranged houses in the worst localities, and cleanses and ventilates whole courts and alleys; arranges and executes plans as models for the improvement of the dwellings of the labouring classes in the metropolis, and in agricultural and manufacturing districts, by the formation of county, parochial, and district associations; and it corresponds with clergymen, magistrates, landed proprietors, and others disposed to engage in the good work of providing for the poor comfortable dwellings. The ordinary lodging-houses of the poor in the metropolis and provincial towns exhibited a state of moral and physical degradation which it is difficult for those who have not observed it to realize. They were the hot-beds of vice and crime, a disgrace to humanity, and a reproach to Christianity. In them, both sexes were huddled together more like pigs than human beings, the young and the old, the married and single. In small rooms not fourteen feet square, nor eight feet high, some twenty human beings of all ages, sexes, and sizes, were pent up without ventilation for eight or nine hours, breathing the same air, listening to the most obscene language, and engaged in the grossest indecencies. This society was established to remedy these evils. It took three lodging-houses in the worst neighbourhood of London, viz., Charles Street, Drury Lane. These they removed and converted into one house, which was fitted up with clean and wholesome beds, and all other appurtenances requisite to the health and comfort of eighty-two working men, who pay at the same rate as for the wretched accommodation offered in ordinary lodging-houses, viz., 4d. per night, or 2s. per week. The committee afterwards purchased a freehold site in George Street, Bloomsbury, surrounded by other lodging-houses, and built on it a model lodging-house for 104 working men, where they have complete ventilation and drainage, an ample supply of water, separation and retirement in the sleeping apartments, with all those conveniences which, whilst conducing to the health and physical comforts of the inmates, tend to increase their selfrespect, and to elevate them in the scale of moral and intellectual beings. The kitchen and wash-house are furnished with every requisite and appropriate convenience; the bath is supplied with hot and cold water; the

pantry hatch provides a secure and separate well-ventilated safe for the food of each inmate. In the pay-office, under the care of the superintendent, is a small well-selected library for the use of the lodgers. The coffee or common room is 33 by 23 feet, and 10 feet 9 inches high, and is paved with white tiles laid on brick arches, and on each side are two rows of elm tables with seats. There is a constant supply of hot water. The dormitories are 10 feet high, and are subdivided by movable wood partitions 6 feet 9 in height. Each compartment, inclosed by its own door, is fitted up with a bed, chair, and clothes-box. In addition to the ventilation secured by a thorough draught, a shaft is carried up at the end of every room, the ventilation through it being assisted by the introduction of gas which lights the apartments. A ventilating shaft is also carried up the staircase, for the supply of fresh air to the dormitories, with a provision for warming them if required. The washing-closets on each floor are fitted up with slate paving, japanned iron basons, and water is laid on. The lodgers pay 2s. 4d. per week. These details raise our respect for those good men who have undertaken such a work, and accomplished so much? His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, in his address at Freemason's Hall, in May, 1848, said, "I have just come from the model lodging-house, the opening of which we celebrate this day, and I feel convinced that its existence will by degrees cause a complete change in the domestic comforts of the labouring classes, as it will exhibit to them that with real economy can be combined advantages with which few of them have hitherto been acquainted." This society has also shown that the interests and comforts of the married are equally dear to it. The dwellings in which a great majority of the families of the labouring classes were lodged were ill-arranged and overcrowded, regardless of the due separation of the sexes, and devoid of proper ventilation, efficient drainage, and had no supply of water; the amount of rent paid fully justifying a claim for those essential requisites. Nor is it in a physical point of view alone that the subject must be regarded as one of the utmost importance to the well-being of the labouring classes; for "a clean, fresh, and well-ordered house exercises over its inmates a moral, no less than, a physical influence, and has a direct tendency to make the members of the family sober, peaceable, and considerate for the feelings and happiness of each other." It was an undertaking of no ordinary nature, to provide accommodation for forty-eight families in one building. This has been accomplished between New Oxford Street and Great Russell Street, with a strict regard to the domestic privacy and independence of each distinct family, and so disconnecting their apartments as to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Each set of apartments comprises all the conveniences requisite for a well-ordered family. A wash-house and bath are provided for the common use of the tenants, and coal is retailed to the families at the same rate as charged wholesale to the society. Previous to the day appointed for the National Thanksgiving in 1849,

the Bishop of London recommended that the alms then collected should be applied to the promotion of some well-considered plan for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes; and the liberal response made to that appeal enabled the society to purchase a freehold site in Portpool Lane, Gray's Inn Lane, and to build thereon model dwellings capable of containing 20 families and 128 single women, with a spacious wash-house for the use of the inmates and the surrounding neighbourhood. The 128 single women—many of whom are poor needle-women-occupy 64 apartments, fitted up with two iron beds, a table, chairs, and a washstand. The charge is one shilling per week for each person. This building meets the peculiar and difficult circumstances of a class of persons on whose behalf much public sympathy has been justly excited. The washhouse accommodates 34 persons, the ironing-tables 12, 3 wringingmachines, and 34 drying-horses, heated by hot air. The applications are so numerous that the society is about to increase the accommodation. There is a similar society in Moorgate Street, but more of a commercial character than the old society; it, too, has, by its operations, largely contributed to the abatement of the demoralization of lodging-houses, and to the improvement of the condition of a large number of the labouring class. It would be beyond the scope of this paper to do more than refer to the progress that has been made in this direction in all the large and many of the small towns throughout the kingdom, and the extensive operations for improving the dwellings of the poor that have been carried on by the clergy, landed proprietors, and manufacturers, in every part of the country. One lady at Hull has contributed the munificent sum of £5,000 for building a model lodging-house there; and another lady has presented an adjoining lot of land to be appropriated to a wash-house, laundry-ground, and play-ground.

The establishment of Savings' Banks forms another of the most remarkable features of the present age. The most eminent home and foreign political economists admit their importance. They are designed for the benefit of the working and industrious classes, and it is a benevolent object to induce them to provide against the vicissitudes of life by accumulating their savings; and they are encouraged in the discharge of this paramount duty by affording them safe depositories for their savings, increased by a fair interest. Mr. Scratchley, in his able work on Savings' Banks, says, "The importance of these institutions will be manifest, if we consider the smallness of the amount of the individual deposits, and the difficulty each depositor experiences in dealing with his yearly, not to speak of his weekly savings, or in making them usefully available towards forming a fund for the future. These banks step in between him and this difficulty, and, by offering a safe place of deposit, and interest, withdraw the temptation to apply his savings in satisfying some seemingly pressing want"--perhaps of fluids, in that bane of English society, the public-house, the great cause of the wretchedness and sufferings of the