ample evidence; and there is perhaps no social reform for which the time is so ripe, or which English men and women would so eagerly carry out, as any reasonable plan for getting rid of this particular form of destitution, arising in great measure from the overcrowding of the Profession of the Teacher. To the attainment of this end two distinct modes of action are available, with a heavy penalty on the neglect of either. We must relieve existing needs, and if possible prevent their recurrence;-the one course demands the best sympathies of the heart, the other the best exertions of the intellect.

Towards the first object, that of meeting facts as they are, a vast effort has been made during the course of the last fifteen years. The story is told in the series of reports which we have placed at the head of this article, and it is evident that in rallying, so to speak, the members of the profession round this group of institu tions, an indirect effect to the great advantage of its general status has also been produced, and a certain esprit de corps infused, which has a strong tendency to raise the rate of attainment and the rate of salary. We will condense the leading facts of this narration, which places in the strongest, the most startling light, the extent of that - and suffering which the institution was designed to relieve; shows, no less remarkably, the power of a few kind hearts and clear heads, when also backed up by unflinching wills for fifteen years.

The germ of the institution dates from the year 1841, but little was done until 1843, when the society was newly organized, many members were added to the committee, and the Rev. David Laing undertook the office of Honorary Secretary. On application to the late Duke of Cambridge, he presided at a public meeting in the month of May of the latter year; the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Cambridge, and the Queen Dowager gave their names; subscriptions were entered, and donations bestowed; and within a month of the public meeting the first practical plan was organized for action, in the form of a ladies' committee, for "affording assistance privately and delicately to ladies in temporary distress." The committee met once a fortnight, and the amount of actual destitution among educated women, which thus came to their ears, is appalling to imagine. Many who would have shrunk from appealing to private charity "hailed the establishment of the institution as a message from Providence to save them from despair;" and from the month of June 1843 until the following March, the ladies committee received and examined a hundred and two cases, and assisted fifty-six; of the remainder the greater number were "reluctantly declined for want of sufficient funds." The report gives a sad classification of some of the cases relieved in this first year's work; one woman had "saved nothing during twentysix years of exertion, having supported her mother, three younger sisters, and a brother, and educated the four." Three were entirely

empoverished by attempts to uphold their fathers' efforts in business. Six were burdened by the support of invalid sisters who had no other props in life; and three were incapable of taking another situation from extreme nervous excitement, caused by over exertion and anxiety. In short, says the Report, "the inquiries made into these cases may be briefly stated to show how many governesses spend the early part of their lives in working for others." Her time of exertion comprising "twenty-five years at the utmost, at a salary commencing at 251., and seldom exceeding 80l. per annum, if domestic ties take part of her savings, or if ill health come, attended by that worst of all pains, compulsory rest—not only stopping the accumulation of her little fund, but instantly preying on it -how shall the governess provide for herself in her old age?"

As some slight solution of this fearful question-fearful when the sex, the years, and the probable physical delicacy of the class referred to are considered-the general committee set themselves to work to found annuities for aged governesses. In this first year 5001. was got together and invested to create a perpetual annuity of 15.; and for this small yearly sum there at once appeared about thirty candidates, many of them entirely destitute.

was

By 1850 the number of annuitants at 15. per annum seventeen, for which annuities a proportionate capital had been raised, while twenty-five received 201., and one annuity amounted to 30%. These annuities were all permanent, and upon the death of any recipient another is elected.

In like manner, 1852 saw the Ladies' Committee distributing temporary assistance to the amount of 1000l. a year.

The third branch of exertion consisted in the formation of provident annuities, paid for by the teachers themselves. Contracts were made at the National Debt Office, on better terms than the Life Assurance offices would afford; and between March 1843 and March 1844, the Honorary Secretary received 2351l. 9s. 9d. from ladies towards the purchase of annuities for themselves. In 1856 the amount received was 87581.; and two hundred and seventy-four ladies had secured their annuities,—" an amount of permanent usefulness to the society's credit, which is often overlooked by those of its friends who think more of the relief of distress than of its prevention." The total amount received for provident annuities during the working of this branch had reached in 1858 to the enormous sum of 164,000.

The general principle of assurance is so little applied or understood by the female sex, that no greater kindness can be done to working women than to put them in the way of such safe and profitable investments of their earnings, thus helping them to modes of self help which they have neither the knowledge nor the courage to attempt alone.

In 1844 another branch of usefulness was planned, namely, a

temporary home for Governesses out of situations, where they could be more cheaply and respectably lodged than elsewhere; and in connexion with this Home, a system of free registration. The latter plan was first carried into operation at the office in 1845, and in 1846 was transferred to the Home, which received, during the first six months of its existence, fifty-two governesses as inmates.

Finally, in 1849, an aged asylum was completed and inhabited, and in 1856 its inmates numbered twenty-two.

Our readers will perhaps be tired of all these dates and figures, but only by their aid can we present even the slightest outline of what has been done by this long series of labours. We will now gladly turn to some of the many beautiful anecdotes of tender Christian feeling among these numbers of women, both among those who gave and those who received ;--nay, in some cases, the poorest were also the givers. We find in one of the earliest reports that, particulars having reached the ladies' committee of a young governess who was dying at Cheltenham, a request was forwarded to a friend in that distant town, who adopted the duty of the metropolitan institution, and watched her to the last. In May of the same year a lady sent 157. to be divided among the unsuccessful candidates for annuities; another sent 77. for the same purpose; and in November an anonymous friend sent through Messrs. Hoare the noble donation of 100'., to be divided amongst ten of the unsuccessful candidates, at the discretion of the Committee." This friend afterwards proved to be Dr. Thackeray, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, who on his decease in 1851 bequeathed an annuity to the Society.

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Here is a short story of a more delicate and tender kindness than humanity can often bring forward. The following letter was received from a former successful annuitant, whose whole income was 401.

"I am quite happy here, and rather useful to my fellow creatures. I purposed writing next month to Mr. Laing, to do me a very great favour next polling-day.

"I want him to be so good as to take the trouble to select from the poorest, the most friendless, the shabbiest dressed of my sister governesses, who may the next polling-day present themselves, and necessarily retire disappointed; ask him to invite such an one to spend a month with me. I shall give the heartiest welcome, and try to warm and cheer her the December time, whoever she may be, agreeable or the reverse. I shall try to live nicely during her sojourn. The mercies I at this moment enjoy ought for a few weeks to be shared with the disappointed!" Meeting this invitation as it deserved, a lady was sent to whom change of air and kindness were deemed most valuable, and the visitor remained "nine weeks under her peaceful roof," remarking of her hostess, in a letter, "Often have I seen her, aged as she is, making up, in a suitable way, garments for the poor, that she had begged for the pur pose from her richer neighbours. It is astonishing to see how

much she contrives to do for her fellow creatures with an amount per annum that would by many be deemed too small to procure

bread and cheese for herself."

With regard to the great age which occasionally marks the candidates, we find that in 1851 Miss Maurice, an unwearied friend to the institution, collected enough money to entitle herself to a presentation to the asylum, which was given to an aged lady, eighty-one years old; a period of human existence at which it is somewhat painful not to know "where to lay one's head.”

The eighth annuity founded (in 1845) was at the suggestion of the Bishop of Durham, who offered to give 501., if nine other parties would contribute the same amount, towards the necessary 500l. Six other names were received in a fortnight.

One more extract and we have done. It is a sort of cornice to all the preceding ones. The latest report states that “ on a recent occasion there were one hundred and twenty candidates for three annuities of 201. each. One hundred and twenty ladies, many reared in affluence, and all accustomed to the comforts and luxuries of at least our middle ranks-all seeking an annuity of 201.! Of these, ninety-nine were unmarried; and out of this number fourteen had incomes of, or above, 201., eleven derived from public institutions or private benevolence, and three from their own savings; twentythree had incomes varying from TWENTY SHILLINGS to 177.; and eighty-three had absolutely NOTHING. It will be recollected that all these ladies are above fifty years of age; and, of the utterly destitute, forty-nine were above sixty."

Here we close our account of one of the most remarkable charities of modern times, which is at this moment pursuing its active career, and which, in drawing attention to an amount of sheer destitution before unsuspected, will create final results far more extensive than the immediate relief to individuals. Yet we may well ask ourselves what would have become of these individuals, but for such timely relief? The more aged recipients of annuities or inmates of the asylum would have lived with relatives, not with children, for a small proportion are married; and in innumerable instances they must have depended on the slender earnings of nieces whom they had brought up to their own profession, thus laying the seed for fresh misery of a like kind. A glance over the many cases wherein teachers have been the only supports of orphans will confirm the truth of this assertion; for when their own aged mother" and "invalid sisters are dead, on whom can they lean in life except upon the children whom they have fed and taught upon their own insufficient means? When even this refuge fails them, they literally come upon the workhouse. Nor is this, O dear tender-hearted reader, an imagination. Go thou into our parish workhouses in dreary London, and investigate the past histories of some of those pale figures lying on the narrow

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couches of the female wards, and thou wilt find there drifted waifs and strays from the " upper and middle classes" who pass long months and years in pauper clothing upon a pauper's fare.

Such a search would convince the brave and honest independence of those who say, "Let us work hard while we have strength, on the terms that society allows; and when we cannot do so any more, let us suffer privation in silence, let us not accept charity as a substitute for sufficient wages," that the wide-spread efforts made for governesses during the last fifteen years have been justified by the occasion. No one who accepts the Christian religion as a rule of life can deny what Turks and Pagans both preach and practise, that the simple direct effort to relieve pain and poverty is one of the primary duties of a human creature. In a highly "civilized" community, where a degraded class exists who live systematically upon the fruits of begging, and whom indiscriminate aid can only corrupt further, there may be cogent reasons against street-giving of halfpence to blind beggars with baskets, and destitute families with six small children of impossible relative ages, walking in a graduated procession at a snail's trot. But while listening to the political economist who warns us that charity is often only another name for self-indulgence in feeling, sowing the seeds of greater misery than it professes to alleviate, we must not forget that the limitations to this doctrine imposed by justice and by religion are sufficient of themselves to constitute a positive code. We must not train up any class to depend on the exertions of others; but we must set ourselves to work to help those who suffer, in such a way as may tend to lessen their present pain and their future need, without counting too closely the money value of the precious ointment bestowed upon that humanity which we share in common.

We very much doubt whether the action of our poor-law, doling out scanty help with a grudging hand, which seems to offer an ill-defined right in the place of honest charity, is not more degrading to our lower classes than almsgiving. We are sure it is more degrading than alms bestowed by those who throw their hearts in with them. But at any rate it is our plainest duty to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked, and to afford shelter to the aged, while striving that benefit to the individual shall not result in injury and degradation to the class.

For, be it observed, life is no such smooth and easy matter that we can say of any one who has fallen into misfortune that it is their fault, or that of any one now living. It has pleased Providence to place us in a moral atmosphere of so many mingled elements that we cannot in many cases assign the particular causes of a particular poverty. There are such things as hereditary diseases and hereditary incapacity;-banks will break and swallow up the fortunes of helpless hundreds, and a commercial crisis drags into its vortex