Appendix to The City

Yt t in these different kingdoms Ac. — P. 56.

In Paris, we saw two persons who were drunk, one a soldier, the other an ouvrier; we also saw one soldier ‘Jrunk in Brussels, and these three were all we saw drunk during a seven weeks’ tour spent in various of the kingdoms, and large as well as small towns, of the Continent. We never saw a woman drunk, either during these seven weeks passed last summer on the Continent, nor during five months we spent many years ago in Paris. In none of these Continental towns, save in the Jewish quarter in Frankfort on the Maine, did we see anything like the foulness which in their closes, courts, and alleys, disgrace our large cities, and is enough to degrade their inhabitants. Save in the Canton of the Yalais, a very poor and Popish district of Switzerland, we saw no rags, nor any such foul wretchedness, as is found in the low districts of all our large towns. We saw poverty sometimes, but it was decent poverty; and the worst clad children had none of that air of misery and sadness, worn by hundreds at home, who are the unhappy offspring of debauched and brutal parents. Public amusements and social enjoyments of an innocent 1$ kind are too little encouraged among us; and here the upper classes of society stand separated by too wide a gulph from the great mass of the people. There peer and peasant, king and subject, rub shoulders with each other in the same public gardens, and the humbler classes behave well because they are treated well.

In the charges of the English Judges. — P. 58.

Judge Coleridge: “There is scarcely a crime comes before me that is not, directly or indirectly, caused by strong drinks

Judge Gurney:” Every crime has its origin, more or less, in drunhennessy

Judge Pattison: “If it were not for this drinking, you (the jury) and I would have nothing to do.”

Judge AJderson: “Drunkenness is the most fertile source of crime; and if it could be removed, the assizes of the country would be rendered mere nullities.”

Judge Wight man: “I find, in every calendar that comes before me, one unfailing source, directly or indirectly, of most of the crimes that are committed — mtemperance.’^

Judge Williams: “Experience has proved tha-i almost all crime into which juries have had to inquire, may be traced, in one way or other, to the habit of drunkenness.’’

There is a dig in England <&c. — P. 58.

During the Session of 1852, Mr. Hume, M.P., moved for a return of the number of persons taken into custody for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in Great Altain and Ireland each year, from 1841 to 1851. From these returns it was found, that while in Liverpool, with a population of 400,000, 18,522 persons, and in Glasgow, with a population of 360,000, 14,870 persons were taken into custody by the police for the above offence; Manchester, with a population of 316,000, presented only 787 cases. It must be borne in mind, that while in Scotland the instructions of the police are most stringent, in Manchester no notice is taken of drunkenness unless in case of assault or breach of the peace, and not always then. Convinced from their own experience that so great a discrepancy as these returns exhibit arose from these and other circumstances, rather than from a real prevalence of sobriety among the population of our city, the committee of the Manchester and Salford Temperance Society determined to submit the question of the drinking habits of the people, at least so far as Sunday it concerned, to a rigid investigation. They resolved to watch all the houses in which intoxicating drinks are usually sold, and to keep an exact record of the number of visits paid to each during a certain time. It would be impossible to enumerate each separate district; a few, therefore, must suffice: —

St. Michael’s Ward. — Inhabited principally by the operative class; a great portion by thieves, beggars, and prostitutes. Angel Street, Dych Street, Charter Street, Ludgate Hill, and adjoining streets, at two o’clock, on Sunday, May 28th, were crowded with men, women, and children, in rags and filth, some drinking .n the streets others gambling; in fact this district can only be described as a very hell upon earth. Most of the men taking thig ward had to be changed every half aour, or hour- some were driven off by mobs, and others stoned. Number of houses taken, 162; visits, 13,738 men, 7862 women, 2905 children; total, 24,505, being 43 more than an average of 151.

District bounded by Great Jackson Street, Stretford Road, and Chester Road. — Several fights were reported, at which no police appeared; also one house filled with pigeon flyera, who were flying their birds the whole afternoon and evening from the front of the house; another house filled with dog-fighters, with their dogs, during the evening. There were one dog-fight, and two fights among the men frequenting the house, at none of which any policemen interfered. Number of houses, 96; visits, 6331 men, 4116 women, 1219 children; total, 11,666, being an average of 127 to a house.

Deansgate and Chester Road, including a beer-house on Victoria Bridge. — Swan Inn: 996 men, 590 women, 146 children; total, 1732. No. 274: 777 men, 676 women, 65 children; total, 1518. Farmers’ Arms: 591 men, 582 women, 28 children; total, 1281. Crown Inn: 671 men, 360 women, 69 children; total, 1100. The Parsonage Inn, in the Parsonage: 858 men, 81 women, 6 children; total, 945. The person watching this house went in at one o’clock, being half an hour after it was opened, and counted 80 persons sat drinking. Trafford Arms, Victoria Bridge, a singing room: 549 men, 151 women, 420 y’ouths; total 1120; visitors consist principally of young people. Ten other houses, with from 400 to 800 each. Total number of houses in Deansgate and Chestei Road, 58; visited by 12,387 men, 6342 women, 1314 children; total, 19,845, being an average of 347 4 to a house.

The following is a general summary. It will be seen that while the proceedings of the committee extended over ten Sundays, yet, as no house was taken twice, a fair average of the attendance at each has been arrived at. The Committee are aware of no particular cause which could operate to render the results of one Sunday’s census different from another; and it would have rendered observation much more difficult had not due caution and secresy been observed. The committee have every reason to believe in the perfect accuracy of the fiofures.

General Summary of Visits during Legal Hours.

Date.

Houses.

Men. Women’Child’n.l Total. 1

April 2
936 1 278 429

1,643

“9
2,168 [ 902
3,116

16
9,789 I 5,277
15,917

“23
7,056

3,981
11,729

“30
7,078

6,378
14,891

May 7
’ 6,699

4,088

1,109

11,896

“14
18,2.39

9,566

2,559

80,864

“21
27,684

16,322

6,201

50,207

“?8
25,602

16,299

6,528

48,429

Juno 4
loUl.

14,878

8,518

4,280

27,626

1,437

120,124

71,609

23,585 215,818

Vaults.

Public
house.

Beer-Tola’.

Aver’ge
29,568

17,926

4,147

51,641
... 127

14,880

7,947

2,835

25,662
746 -^46

51,474

27,512

11,544

90.530
Mixed.

281 4tO

24,202

17,726

5,059

47,485

I06f

Tutal.

120,124

71,609

23,585

215,318 Including 5-i policemen on duty, who remained from five minutes to half aa hour. Twenty public house a were found closea.

In closing this b.iwf .^port of their labors, the com- 15* tiiittee beg to express their thanks to the various superintendents and teachers of Sunday-schools, and also to the several members of branch committees, vi’ho assisted in taking these statistics. The committee would earnestly direct the attention of every philanthropist to the fearful state of demoralization thus laid open; they would especially draw attention to the vast number of beerhouses in the city, 1572; to the Hass of persons keeping, as to those who visit, these Dens. It is a fearful fact that many of them are attended, and mainly supported, by mere youths of from 14 to 17 years of age.

With agencies for evil so potent and subtle — with temptations so numerous and so widely spread — and. above all, with a traffic in debauchery and crime protected and encouraged by law — what hope for the triumph of pure religion and virtue among our debased and sensual population? Does not the sin of Britain cry aloud for judgment? How long will Christians and philanthropists hesitate? How long shall paltry custom shield from infamy and disgrace those who profit by this sin? Let one earnest, heartfelt cry be sent forth, which, heard amid the echo of political and party strife, shall tell our legislators that the people of England will no longer groan under this oppressive burden of death; that they will labor and pray until the accursed traffic be swept from their midst forever!

Cause to thank God for that Act of Parliament, — P. QQ. Acts of Parliament cannot make men sober, otherwise than by removing the temptations which foster habits of LQ temperance. Forbes Mackenzie’s Act, which no one can wonder at those attacking who make their fortunes out of the vices of the people, has been attacked by others of whom better things might have been expected. The satisfactory accounts of its working which came from all parts of the country, should long ago have silenced its opponents; but they contrived, with a courage worthy of a better cause, to fight “upon their stumps,” and continued to insist that this has proved a complete failure. It will rejoice every true friend of the people, and right-hearted Christian man, to find by the following report of Mr. Linton how completely that Act has succeeded.

The beneficial effects of it are very distinctly brought out in the following table. By that Act, which came into operation in 1854, no intoxicating liquors can be sold for consumption on the premises, save to “honajide” travellers, before eight o’clock in the morning, and not at all between eleven o’clock on Saturday night and eight o’clock on Monday morning. This Act, which shuts up all drinking shops on the Lord’s day, and also all inns, save to” bona fide’’ travellers, unfortunately appUes only to Scotland.

Nttmbeb on Sundays.

MALES.

FEMALES.

Total.

III

Total.

III

TotaU

S«-r

s i

f

‘6^ — d

s
1,352

ia53
8R4
QM:

It has been alleged by the opponents of this Act (for, strange to say, it has had opponents), that the forced sobriety of the Sabbath-day only led to a greater excess in drinking on the Saturday or Monday. The unfounded nature of that statement is demonstrated by the following table: —

NuMBEE ON Saturdays, Sundats, and Mondays.

185-2.

1853. 1854.

1855.

1856.

‘Saturdays....

1 Sundays

Mondays

1933
1352
1169

1879 1S53
1305 878
1236 1164
769
852

Total
4420 1 8895
It has been alleged that not less than sixty millions
of money. — P. 74.

That this statement is not an exaggeration, and that it is not in fact 30, but the enormous sum of 60 milliona sterling, is spent year by year in Great Britain and Ireland on intoxicating liquors, is proved by the following statistics. They are extracted from the Journal ot the Statistical Society of London, which originally appe-red in a paper read by G. K. Porter, Esq., F.R.S., before tha British Association.

The quantity of spirits of home production:

Paid by the consumers for British and Irish spirits consumed within the kingdom in 1849, £17,381,641

Kum, ditto 3.428,565

Brandy, ditto, 3,2S1,25«

Beer of all kinds, exclusive of that brewed in private fair lies, 25,383,165

£49.474,628

Add to this sum the value of all the beer brewed in private houses, and also the money paid by the con-Bumers for 5,582,385 gallons of foreign wine used in the United Kingdom, and there can be no doubt that at least 60 millions of money are annually spent by the people on what is, at the best a luxury, in most cases a pernicious, in all cases a dangerous, and in many cases a fatal indulgence.

It has been stated that 60,000 lives are annually lost. — V. ’76.

In connection with this, I may state that the number of infant lives destroyed, through the neglect and starvation which they suffer in consequence of the drunken habits of their parents, it is impossible to calculate, but it must be frightful and enormous. Nothing struck us more, when we were accustomed to visit the families of the wretched classes, than to find how large a proportion of the children were cut off in early age; nor, when W6i saw the misery and crime which life would have had iw store for them, could we regret to learn that they were safe in the churchyard.

The destruction of human life, directly caused by drunkenness, is the subject of a paper by F. Gr. P. Nelson, Esq., F.L.S., a distinguished actuary, read before the Statistical Society of Sweden.

He shows that between the ages of 21 and 30 years, the mortality among drunkards is upwards of five times that of the general community. He states that if there be anything in the usages of society calculated to destroy life, the nost powerful is certainly the inordinate use of strong drink. He produces tables whicl: prove that the mortality among this class is frightfully high, and unequalled by the result of any other series of observations made in any class of the population of this country; and adds — “Sanitary agitators have frequently excited alarm about the wholesale havoc in human life going on in the badly-conditioned districts of some of our large cities; but no collection of facts ever brought under attention has shown so appalling a waste of life as exhibited in the above results.”

Referring to tables founded on a broad basis, and wrought out with the nicest accuracy, he states: — “It will thus be seen, that an intemperate person, of age 20, has an equal chance of living fifteen years, while a person of the general population of the country, at the same age, has an equal chance of living 44 years longer. Again, at age 30, the intemperate person has an equal chance of living 13 years, and the other 36 years. Also, at age 40, the chance of the one is 1 1 years, and of the other 28 years.”

The effect of intemperance upon different classes of the people, as given in his tables, is full of warning, and curious, although such as we might expect. The average duration of life, after the commencement of intemperate habits, is —

Among mechanics, laborers, and working men, ... IS year a.

“traders, dealers, and merchants, IT”

“professional men, and gentlemen, 15”

“females, 14”

Let all the kingdom listen to the weighty words of its Prime Minister. Lord Palraerston, in addressing the laborers, at the annual meeting of the Laborers’ Encouragement Society, said: — “It is the duty of all parenta to see that their children are well and properly educated — that they are early instructed, not merely in book learning, in reading and writing, and acquirements of that kind, but instructed in the precepts which indicate the difference between right and wrong, and that they are taught the principles of religion, and their duty towards God and man. Now, the way in which that can be done, is by the father and mother building up their household upon that which is the foundation of all excellence in social life — I mean a happy home (applause). Now, no home can be happy if the husband be not a kind and affectionate husband, and a good father to his children. Bearing this in mind, he must avoid two great rocks on which too many men in the humbler rank? make shipwreck — the tobacco shop and the beer shop. The first ruins his health, and leads to all kinds of disease. If he were a man living on a desert island, and isolated from society, this might be a matter of comparatively little importance, and he might ruin his constitution just as he pleased; but the laboring classes must remember that their health and strength are the support of theii families, and if they ruin the one, and recklessly waste the other, they not only injure themselves, but do irreparable damage to those who are depending upon them. So much for the use of tobacco, which many, to their detriment, indulge in. But the beer shop and public house go further, because the habits there contracted not only lead to the degradation of the individual and the Impoverishment of his family, but they lead to offences and crimes which tend to place the man in the condition of a felon and a convict. No man who indulges in drink can fail to feel degraded when he recovers from his intoxication, and that sense of degradation leads him again to drown his cares in renewed intoxication, and from step to step he falls into the lowest condition that human nature can be degraded to.”

/ charge it with the murder of innumerable souls. — P. 105.

Many illustrations of this charge suggest themselves. Let us select, for example, the case of Sabbath school scholars. Look at the fatal influence which drink has been found to exert in those connected with Sabbath schools, and to what a lamentable and frightful extent it has neutralized all their blessed influences. In a letter which Mr. Logan addressed to the editor of the British Banner he states: —” I have been in the habit of visiting prisons, and conversing with criminals almost weekly, for upwards of twelve years. My observations extend to almost every large prison in the United Kingdom. For the last eight years I have been trying to ascertain what proportion of our prison population have been connected with Sunday schools. When collecting information from prisoners, it has ever been a general rule with me to prevent them, as much as possible, from becoming acquainted with the main object of the visit I record a few facts which refer to different parts of the country. I visited 78 of th6 88 prisoners who were tried at the Glasgow assizes, in September, 1848. Seven of these could neither read nor write: of the remaining 71 not less than 38 males and 24 females — total, 62 — had been connected with Sabbath schools. A number of both sexes had been in attendance at Sunday sclools for three, four, five, six, seven, nine, and even ten years. To prevent anything like deception on this point, I cross-questioned them as to the locality of the schools, the names of the teachers, etc. I likewise spent several days in calling on a number of the parents and relatives, in difierent parts of the city, and the replies given by these parties to my inquiries fully corroborated the statements of the convicts themselves. Fifty-nine of the sixty-two criminals admitted that drinking and public-house company had not only been the chief cause of their leaving the Sunday school, but of violating the laws of their country. The number of prisoners who were tried at the Glasgow assizes in March, 1849, was 27; I visited 25 of them: 20 of the 23 who could read were old Sunday scholars, and 19 acknowledged that they had been injured by strong drink.

“The Governor of the Boys’ House of Refuge, Glasgow, informs me, in a note of the 22d March, 1849, that of the 115 juvenile dehnquents, 7^ had been connected with Sabbath schools. He also states, that 57 of the children’s fathers, and 47 mothers — total, 104 — were intemperate; and 41 of the youths had been in the habit of drinking themselves. The matron of the Females’ House of Refuge states, November, 28, 1848, that of the 126 inmates, including 50 unfortunate women, 105 had been connected with Sabbath schools! The matron adds, that ‘intemperance is a most fruitful source of juvenile delinquency, and also of crime and profligacy in those of riper years.’

“It is scarcely necessary to remark, that these appalling facts are not adduced for the purpose of imder- 16 valuing the benevolent efforts of Sunday school teachers. On the contrary, I feel deeply interested in their disinterested labors, and have been personally identified with them for more than twenty years. My great object is to convince the friends of Sunday schools, that the accursed drinking usages of the present day are annually robbing us of thousands of young people who were once our most hopeful scholars.”

[Pages might be filled with evidence to the same effect, but let the following statements by others suffice]: — The master of a large day school in the vicinity of London, stated, a few years ago, that on examining a roll containing the names of one hundred pupils, he ascertained upon inquiry that ninety-one of them had become drunkards. At Lau7icesion, a similar investigation took place in a well-conducted Sabbath school, and out of one hundred boys, as their names stood on the register, 26 had left the neighborhood and were unknown, but of the remaining seventy-four, forty had been overcome by drunkenness! — Another says: “Of sixty scholars in a Sabbath school, thirty were found to have been ruined through drink.” — Another, the Rev. W. Wight, B. A., says: “Out of a hst of eight Sabbath school Teachers, ieven were found to have been ruined through drink 1” Another, a minister at Ipswich, says: “Out of fifteen young men professing piety and Teachers in the Sabbath school, nine were ruined through drink 1” — Another, a warm friend of Sabbath schools, stated that, “In a town in Lancashire, no fewer than four ’ unfortunate females’ were seen together in the street, every one of whom had been once a Teacher in a Sabbath school 1”

“A few months ago a member of committee visited utie of the singing-saloons in Rochdale, and on a Saturday evening, about eleven o’clock, he observed about sixteen boys and girls, seated at a table in front of the stage; several of the lads had long pipes, each with a glass or jug containing intoxicating Uquor, and no less than fourteen of the number were members of Bible classes in our different Sunday schools. There they sat, hstening to the most obscene songs, witnessing scenes of the most immoral kind, and spending the interval in swallowing liquid fire.” It is added: ■’ These sinks of iniquity are thronged with old Sunday scholars, especially on Sabbath evenings, and not unfrequently until twelve o’clock.” Still further it is said: “The appalling results of the drinking system are not wholly confined to the children in our schools; many a promising teacher has fallen a

victim.”

The Rev. James Sherman, minister of the Surrey Chapel, said : — “The question has been asked, what becomes ‘of the senior scholars of these schools? In the schools belonging to my own church the number of scholars is 3000, with 400 gratuitous teachers; but I am bound to say that few of those children become members of the church after leaving the schools. Where do they go? Many of them would be found, as soon as they arrived at the age of fifteen or sixteen, to become apprentices; and, by the pernicious system which prevailed among the working classes so situate, they grew up, many of them to be drunkards, and to be a disgrace to ‘themselves and the neighborhood. A teacher of a class which was called the vestry-class, had collected the statistics in respert to that class, consisting o forty -six. He was induced to examme what were their habits in regard to Temperance during the preceding seven years, and the result was — drunkards, thirteen; occasional drunkards, nine; steady characters, thirteen; unknown, three,” &c.

These are dreadful facts. They make a strong appeal to the conscience of every Christian man. They loudly call on us to do something, to do everything within our power by precept and by example, by labors and by sacrifices to put an end to an evil that in regard to thousands is turning the blessed gospel, churches, and Sabbath schools, to nought.

Almost all the crime. — P. 106.

The connection between crime and drunkenness ia strikingly illustrated by the following table, which ia extracted from Superintendent Linton’s “Returns.” It appears from this table, that nearly one half of the crimes committed, 40 per cent, of them, were committed by parties when under the influence of intoxication. Add to this percentage the number of crimes committed by those whom drink has brought to poverty — to want; whom drink has driven to desperation; whom drink has deprived of all self-respect, and all those other moral influences that keep men and women from crime; and include in the reckoning the number of crimes committed by those who have been reared in ignorance, sin, and misery, solely and entirely in consequence of the depraved and dissipated habits of their parents, and no man can doubt that drink, through its direct or indirect effects, is the pregnant cause of an overwhelming proportion of the crimes of our country. l?OTIl»»«K INB PkRCKNTAQE OF PERSONS APPRKH«NDED FOB CRIMES Ok Q>.’r,iSOm, WUO WERE DRUNK WHEN TUEY COMMITTW) TUEM.

l!l

Id
ill
1
1

p s s
*tl

1^ 1
HI

1

Hi
4,864! 1,774

86 1

4,496

9,360! 3,400
4,620 12,914

48,

4,918

1,989; 40

9,538 14,008

41.

3,892 1,802
4,076

(1,764 43

7,968 3,566
3,-t4S 1,590
8,711

1,491; 40

7,159 1 3,081
8,240 1,374
3,719

1,392 37

6,959 1 2,766 How is my assertion corroborated by the following statements? They are a voice from the prison. It give a forth no uncertain sound.

The Governor of York Castle (Jno. Noble, Esq.): Nineteen out of every twenty, who come under my care, come, directly or indirectly, through drinking’’’

The Rev. John Beid, Chaplain to the Prisons of Glasgow: “You are desirous to know the cause of crimt in these quarters. One short word embraces the burden of the whole matter — Drink! Drink! Of at least twenty thousand prisoners, including juveniles, with whom I have conversed in private during the last four years, I am certain that the professedly teetotal portion of them have been under the five hundredth part of the whole.”

James Backhouse, Esq. (the celebrated traveller in Africa):” The time of my sojourn in the Australian coU onies was from the beginning of 1832 to 1838, and much of this time was occupied in visiting the prisoner population, consisting of convicts from Great Britain and Ireland. In conversing with viany thousands of these 16*

I was surprised to find the large proportion that had fallen into crimes resulting from intemperance, and who referred to the fines and footings of British work-shops as ile.v first step in this evil course.”

Twelfth Report of the Inspectors of Prisons: “On the question being put to a number of prisoners in Edinburgh gaol, under twenty years of age — ‘What do you assign as the first cause of your falling into error?” Drink’ is almost the invariable answer.”

Kev. George Ilishp, Chaplain to prison oi’ Edinburgh: “I am unable to mark out, with arithmetical precision, the place among the causes of crime which must be assigned to this habit (intemperance); but I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion that it is one of the most active, and, at present, the most prevalent of secondary causes.”

Rev. E. Meeres, Chaplain of Rochester gaol:” I have no hesitation in saying that a very large proportion, possibly nineteen out of every twenty, are imprisoned through the effects of drunkenness.’’

Rev. W. Brown, General Prison, Perth:” Our prisoners in general are, directly or indirectly, the victims of intemperance.’’

Rev. Geo. M’Lear, Chaplain, Bedford gaol: “My experience of eighteen years justifies the conclusion that ninety-nine out of every hundred owe their imprisonment, directly or indirectly, to intemperance.” — “New prisons and new regulations will, humanly speaking, oe of little benefit, so long as intemperance prevails to the extent it now does.”

The legislature may render essential service. — P. 107.

The combined influence of legislative enactments, of the reduction of public houses, of total abstinence pnuciples, and of that elevation of public feeling and m(3rals, vrhich is mainly to be attributed to the attention which temperance si~>cieties have turned to the subject of drunkenness, and to the Ught which they have thrown upon the extent and evils of this vice, appears m the improved habits of the people, as very strikingly brought out in the following tables. They demonstrate that sobriety is on the increase, and drunkenness on the wane. These tables are extracted from ‘’ Returns as to Crimes, Offences, and Contraventions, and to cases of Drunkenness,” prepared for the Magistrates and Council by Mr. Linton, Superintendent of Police.

Number of Persons fouxd Drunk in the Streets, and kept in THE Police Office and Station- Houses till thet were Sober, AND Number who were Drunk when apprehended for Crimss AND Offences.

Total Number taken Charge ofby the Police.

MALES.

FEMALES.

%U
-.r
2 = S

Total.

ite

III

io...,

19f

^%%

Total.

5 °=-.=

■’%.

1 s ==-

’ fa
fei
3,903

1,774

5,677

2,46 1 1 1,626 4,090

6.367 13,400

9,767
3,4(50

2.014

5.474

2.267 ‘1,989 4.256

5,727 14.003

9,730
3.126

1.S02

4,92S

2,057 ,1,764 3,s21

5,1S3 i 3,566 1 8,749
2,993

1.590

4,583

‘2,021 1,491 13,512

5,014 ‘3,081 8,095

j 1856

2,847

1,374

4,221

12,123 1,392 1 3,515

4,970 1 2,766 7,786

It were much to be de?ired that this country, which in the last and ib the beginning of the presert century devoted more than twenty years, all its energies, and many hundred millions of money to wars that have not prevented a Bonaparte from occupying the throne of France, and which I may say devoted other twenty years to fighting the battles of political reform, would now (Providence permitting) devote at least twenty years, and all the millions that might be needed for such a purpose, to the grand object of social reforms — such as sanitary improvements, the universal education of the people, promotion of temperance, and, through many other means, the comforts and elevation of the working classes, and the elevation especially of the sunken classes of society.

In reference to the great social evil of intemperance, a beginning has been made — something has been done — but much yet remains to be done, much — and that the better part also — which the legislators cannot do. Our main hope lies in raising the tone of public feeling and opinion, and that by means of the intellectual, moral, and religious elevation of the people. We would, however, venture to suggest, for the consideration of our legislators, the following measures. They would do much to remove temptation out of the way of the people, and check the growth and progress of intemperance: —

1. Until public-houses, opened for the mere purpose of drinking, are declared illegal, because carrying on a traffic pernicious to the interests of the community, a law should be passed, requiring these to be closed at an early hour in the evening, as they are now by law kept shut to a late hour in the morning. The keeping of them shut till eight in the morning has preserved many a poor man froir temptation when on the road to his work — the closing of them at six o’clock at night would do still more good, by preserving many a working man from temptation when his day’s work was over. They should be made to resemble the ash-tree, which is the last to open up its leaves, and one of the first to close them.

2. All places opened for the mere purpose of drinking intoxicating liquors should be declared illegal, as in most cases the ruin of the poor and a curse to the community. If some will drink, they have wife and children, brothers and sisters, at home, to prevent thek drinking to excess, or becoming slaves to the habit. The interest of the dram-seller, on the other hand, lies in inducing them to become frequent and regular customers of his shop. The more they drink, and the deeper they drink, the worse for their families, but the better for him.

3. The law should regard every man or woman, who can be proved before a jury or any other proper authority, to’ be in habit and repute a drunkard, as a lunatic, and deal with them accordingly. The prospect of a shaven head, a strait jacket (if needful), the high walls of an asylum, and the society of the insane, would strike men with salutary terror. Months of sobriety would, in many instances, so restore the brain and body to health, that the person would acquire the power of resisting temptation, and come out to drink no more — the slave would acquire freedom in the house of bondage. That should be done according to law which is done without law; for it is well known that, within the House of Refoge here, and in other places elsewhere, hundreds of poor drunkards are shut up. Some go to be cured by entire removal fron -emptation, some consent to go during a fit of temporary penitence, when under u.e remorse of delirium tremens; but, however they go, fortunately for their famiUes, society, and themselves, they find it easier to get in than get out I have known many parents disgraced and tormented by a drunken son, many wives maltreated by drunken husbands, whose cruelty they had not only to bear, but whom their industry had to support, and not a few husbands whose life was embittered, and whose property was wasted, and whose children were neglected and ruined, through the dissipated habits of the mother of the house. To all these, what a relief would such a law as I suggest bring? J know a man in a respectable position in this town, who, to prevent his wife selhng his silver spoons and pawning his clothes and furniture, made her a regular allowance of two bottles of whisky per day — and she drank them. In all such cases the law ought to give reUef in justice to a good as against an evil doer. It is strange to seo how society stands by and allows so many to waste their life, their wages, their substance on drink, nd thereby throw the burden of maintaining their families on the sober and industrious part of the community. Virtue with us is taxed to support vice.

4. As the drunkard is held responsible for all that he does in a state oC drunkenness, the law should declare that the keeper oi” the drinkmg-shop within which he got drunk shall share in his responsibility. No man can have a right, for the sake of money, to convert another man into a madman, and, having turned him out on society, to say, of whatever ofFen(ie in his madness he commits, “my hands are clean.”

5, The drunkard who deprives himself of reason, and thereby make3 himself capable of committing any crime should, in all cases, be regarded as a subject of punishment; and the keeper of the drinking-shop, who supplied him, should be punished as equally guilty with himself — in many instances as more so.

6. Our legislators should contrive some means at law whereby those who create the poverty of the country should be made upon their own shoulders to carry the burden of it. For illustration’s sake, take this case : — - I knew a man who left a public-house drunk on a Saturday night, and on Sabbath morning was found smashed, stiff and dead, at the foot of a crag, by the side of which his path homewards lay. The burden of supporting that man’s family ought to have been laid, not upon the public, but upon the publican; and the principles of such a law should be carried out to its fullest possible extent.

Some plead for better lodyings and sanitary measures. — P. 108.

The urgent necessity of these in Edinburgh is powerfully brought out in a letter addressed to the Lord Provost and Magistrates, by Henry Johnston, Esq., H.E.I.C.S., and in a pamphlet which that gentleman has published on the state of our closes and by-streets. He exposes to those whc never turn a foot in the way of these abodes of foul wretchedness and misery a state of matters ruinous to the public health, pernicious to public, morals, and a disgrace to our capital and its inhabitants. Dr. George Bell published some years ago an account of the houses and iihabitants of Blackfriars’ Wynd which presents a most doleful view Df the sin. nisery wretchedness, and foulness of some parts of our city.

But the necessity of sanitary measures could not be better brought out than by the following extracts from a report given last summer by Dr. Letheby, to the City Commissioners of Sowers for London:

“I have also been at much pains during the last three months to ascertain the precise conditions of the dwellings, the habits, and the diseases of the poor. In this way, 2208 rooms have been most circumstantially inspected, and the general result is, that nearly all of them are filthy, or over-crowded, or imperfectly drained, or badly ventilated, or out of repair. In 1989 of these rooms, all, in fact, that are at present inhabited, there are 5791 inmates, belonging to 1576 families; and to say nothing of the too frequent occurrence of what may be regarded as a necessitous over-crowding, where the husband, the wife, and young family of four or five children are cramped into a miserably small and ill-conditioned room, there are numerous instances where adults of both sexes, belonging to difierent famOies, are lodged in the same room, regardless of all the common decencies of life, and where from three to five adults, men and women, besides a train or two ot children, art accustomed to herd together like brute beasts or savages; and where every human instinct of propriety or decency are smothered. Like my predecessor, I have seen grown persons of both sexes sleeping in common with their parents, brothers, and sisters, and cousins, anc even the casual acquaintance of a day’s tramp occupying the same bed of filthy rags or straw; a womaji suffering in travail, in the midst of male’s and females of different families that tenant the same rv jni; where birth and death go hand in hand; where the child but newly bora, the patient cast down with fever, and the corpse waiting for interment, have no separation from eacn other, or from the rest of the inmates. Of the many cases to which I have alluded, there are some that have commanded my attention by reason of their unusual depravity — cases in which from three to foui adults of both sexes, %vith many children, were lodging in the same room, and often sleeping in the same bed. I have note of three or four localities where 48 men, 75 women, and 59 children are Uving in 34 rooms. In one room there are 2 men, 3 women, and 5 children; and in another 1 man, 4 women, and 2 children; and when about a fortnight since, I visited the back room on the ground floor of No. 5, I found it occupied by 1 man, 2 women, and 2 children; and in it was the dead body of a poor girl, who had died in childbirth a few days before. The body was stretched out on the bare floor, without shroud or cofiBn. There it lay in the midst of the Uving, and we may well ask how it can be otherwise than that the human heart should be deadened to all the gentler feelings of our nature, when such sights as these are of common occurrence.

“So close and unwholesome is the atmosphere of some of the rooms, that I have endeavored to ascertain, by chemical means, whether it does not contain some peculiar product of decomposition, that gives to it its foul odor and its rare powers of engendering disease. I find that it is not only deficient in the due proportion of oxygen, but it contains three times the usual amount of carbonic acid, besides a quantity of aqueous vapor 17 charged with alkaUne matter that stinks abominably This is, doubtless the product of putrefaction and of the various foetid and stagnant exhalations that pollute the air of the place. In niany of my former reports, and in those of my predecessor, your attention has been drawn to this pestilential source of disease, and to the consequence of heaping human beings into such contracted locaUties; and I again revert to it because of its great importance, not merely that it perpetuates fever and the allied disorders, but because there stalks side by side with this pestilence a yet deadlier presence, blighting the moral existence of a rising population, rendering their hearts hopeless, their acts ruffianly and incestuous, and scattering, while society averts her eye, the retributive seeds of increase for crime, turbulence, and pauper, ism.”

All who are familiar with the homes of the poorer and the haunts of the wicked and lapsed classes, will be reminded by this report of scenes which they themselves have witnessed in our large cities.

Before the Statistical Society at Liverpool, in September, 1837, Mr. Langton read a paper on the inhabited courts and cellars in Liverpool. The courts were 2271, and the cellars 7493; dark, damp, confined, and tenanted by nea-ly 30,000 souls.

In 1838, Mr. James Hey wood read a paper before the Statistical Society of London, giving an account of a house-to-house visitation, of 176 families in Manchester. 165 houses contained many cellars, and there were 11 separate cellars.

In 1847 a committee of the Statistical Society of London inspected thf dwellings, room by room, and condidon of the inhabitants, of Church Lane, St Giles, Londoa The population examined was 463, the number of families 100, and the number of bedsteads among them 90. There was an average, therefore, of above 5 persons to 1 bed; and many rooms were inhabited by as many as 22 souls. They report that “in these wretched dwellings all ages and both sexes, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, grown-up brothers and sisters, stranger adult males and females, and swarms of children, the sick, the dying, and the dead, are herded together with a proximity and mutual pressure which brutes would resist; where it is physically impossible to preserve the ordinary decencies of life; where all sense of propriety and self-respect must be lost, to be replaced only by a recklessness of demeanor which necessarily results from vitiated minds, and yet with many of the young, brought up in such hot-beds of mental pestilence, the hopeless, but benevolent attempt is making to implant, by means of general education, the seeds of religion, virtue, truth, order, industry, and cleanhness; but which seeds, to fructify advantageously, need, it is to be feared, a soil far less rank than can be found in these wretched abodes. Tender minds, once vitiated, present almost insuperable difficult’es to reformation; bad habits and depraved feelings gather with the growth, and strengthen with the strength.”

1 a what large town in the kingdom are not many of the poorer classes of the people living in circumstances whiv h outrage all decency, destroy every moral feeling, and, of necessity, lead to debasement, dissipation, and crime .* The principle of temperance as I hold it. — P. 118.

For a luminous and powerful exposition of the principle of temperance, as held by the writer of these sermons, he would refer the reader to a lecture delivered i London, by Professor James MiUer of this city, and entitled “Abstinence, its Place, and Power.”

We do nothing to instruct them, So. We first condemn them to crime, and then condemn them tt punishment. — P. 13*7.

The following statistics, like all others of the same description, plainly show how intimately crime is connected with ignorance, and what a total want of education exists amongst the lowest class, which furnish by far the larger number of the criminals of our country.

Extract from the Criminal Statistics and Returns of the Manchester Police,

The following is a table of the age of the persons taken into custody, with the degree of instruction, for tpie nine months ending 30th September, 1856: —

No.

Under 10 years
of age.

10 vears and
under 15.

15 years and
under 20.

Above
20 years of age.

44T0
8079 j
Deoreb op Instruction of these 4470.

Neither able to
read or write.

Read only, or read
and write
imperfectly.

Read and write
well.

Superior
instruction.

Per Centage.

Total.

Of the
uneduoated.

Of the
imperfectly
educated.

Of the

well and superior

educated.

38-99

5S-68 In regard to by far the largest proportion of those entered in the column of the imperfectly educated, so far as all practical purposes and the benefits of education are concerned, they might with propriety be entered under the head of not educated at all; for it has always been found that those who could not read but with difficulty did not read at all, and were as completely shut out from such means of improvement as books afibrded as those who do not know the letters.

Inhere are thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of the children of this land, who are growing up strangers to the benefits and blessings of education Ignorance is their sole, sad inheritance. They are punished for it impoverished for it, imprisoned for it, banished for it, and hanged for it. — P. 139.

For full proof of this statement, we refer to the Government census on education.

The low state of education in Birmingham, where infant labor .8 n.munerative, and where thousands of poor children are found at work who ought to be at school, is strikingly brought out by the fact that fourteen months is the full average time which the working classes of Birmingham spend at school.

In regard to Glasgow, we have been told that Mr. Strang, the great statist of Glasgow, calculates that there are from 6000 to 7000 children in that city, between 5 and 10 years of age, who are not attending any school. Captain Smart, the very intelligent superintendent of police in that city, reckons that the number of these children will exceed 10,000. A remarkably able, and intelligent gentleman, who has given much attention to philanthropic subjects, writes me in reference to Glasgow: — “I have had occasion to observe, since the Ecgistration Act came into operation, that while bastardy is common among mill-workers, the inability to write is equally common. The number of uneducated adults is very great. It is of great importance to observe that the schools are unequally distributed, I find that in twelve districts, containing 12,194 habitually non-churx3h-Qoing families, there are no schools; and these districts include streets teeming with ’ ragged boys.’” Now, these figures, which I believe are correct, square with others upon which I place more reliance. The Tron parish, which may be regarded as a medium example of the parishes which contain the bulk of the poor population, contains 2200 families, and estimating each family at nearly 6 individuals, which I believe is a truer estimate than 4^, the population of this paiish is 13,500. In this arish there are 3 schools, and at these schools there are not more tnan 500 children. But each family can sup ply a child between 5 and 11 years of age, and thus there is only a fraction of the children at school. This district contains many of the city Arab tribe. How credible, Dr. Bell adds, is the remark which Mr. M’Callum, the admirable Superintendent of the Reformatory School, made to me: — “It is a rare thing to meet with an educated juvenile criminal; as a class they are deplorably ignorant.”

That the want of education is far greater in Glasgow than any thing which Mr. Strang or the superintendent of poUce has conjectured — for these gentlemen do not profess to do any thing more than hazard a conjecture — will appear by looking into the state of another large manufacturing town, where the Education question has been keenly discussed for many years, and the truth connected with it thoroughly expiscated. I refer to Manchester; and as ’s Manchester, I have no doubt, so are almost all our larg ’ manufacturing towns. Our demand for Educational leg slation, extension, and improvement, is sometimes met by the statement that we have made such progress with our present means and machinery, that it is best to let things alone, and that in the course of years the evil will be completely met. In many parts of the country, no doubt, much progress in a right direction has been made, but apart altogether from the case, of the thousands and hundreds of thousands whom the let-alone system consigns to ruin, until it grows adequate to the wants of the country, on the very improbable supposition that it would ever do so, it is not the fact that the state of matters is getting better in our large towns under the present system. The fact is, that not with. standing all the exertions made mder the present plan to meet the evil and make headway, with all the steam up, we are going astern in our large manufacturing towns; the evil is growing worse and worse That appears from the following table, extracted from the Manchester and Salford Statistical Society’s Reports: —

Year.

In Manchester, Salford, Broughton, and Pendleton.

Proportion.

Day School Attendance.
Total, public and private.

Population.

One In

! 1884-5 1 24,365

1 1

250,373

10,27

’ 1851 1 29,145

307,816

13,30

It appears, therefore, in respect to day-school attendance, at the present time, it is worse than it was 17 years ago; inasmuch as from 1834-5 tr 1851, day-school attendance, considered in relation to ne population, has decreased from 1 in every 10 to 1 ii 13 odds.

The following Table gives us th«^ educational wants ot Manchester, as ascertained in 1851; and taking that town as a standard by which to judge of our great centres of manufacture, it is dreadful to think of the total number of children in this kingdom whom our present system leaves parents, in so many instances, to bring up to the curses, and miseries, and crimes of ignorance — a disgrace, a danger, and a burden to the community.

Estimated number of Chtldeen of thb “Working Classes, between 3 AND 15, NEITHER “AT SCHOOL,” NOR “AT WORK.”

PRIVATE INQUIRY,

CENSUS RETURNS.

INCLUDING CHILDREN NOT IN THB

(Evidence, p. 470.)

CENSUS RETURNS.

(Evidence, pp. 359, 361.)

Total No. of Chil- ) .„f. p.. J

“under 8 32,11B

Total No. of Children between 3 and 15

99,193!

Total Number of Children’

Children of all classes

between 3 and 15

98,490

attending school... 34,073

Total No. re-Children not at school.

ceiving ani/

but suppo-sed to be kind of daily

. long to tJie middle

instruction.. 44,598

! and upper classes.

Under 3 634

, at home, in employment, or receiving

Total receivinff any

private education,. 10,450

kind of daily in-

(Assume four fifths of

! st)’wc’tiopi, between

children “in em-

3 and 15 43,964

ployment” (Census
Table) to belong to

iChildreu of all classes

in employment

the working class-

(same age) 14,660

‘’ Children receiving instruces) 11,T28

Children “a< schooV ortion,” or “at work“”

58,624

“at work!’’

56,251

Children not described as

i “receiving instruction”

Children of the workir.g

j either “at home” or “at

classes not “at school” nor

1 school,” or “in employment”

“at work”

42,942

39,866

Remarks on the Census Returns.

1. These returns include all children whom the different parties that made the returns considered to he receiving any kind of daily instruction, either “under a master or governess at home,” or by attending school.

2. The better educated classes of society would generally make such returns pretty correctly; and, therefore comparatively few of the children of these classes will be found among such, as in tlit above table, are “undescribed.”

3. The less educated and many of the working classes are known to have very lax notions respecting school attendance; and, therefore, the returns from those classes may be considered to be much exaggerated.

4. And consequently it is probable that the number of children “undescribed” will fall short of the whole number of children of the ivorJcing classes alone, who, though not prevented by “work,” are not “attending day school.”

Remarks on the Private Inquiry.

1. The number of “children attending school” exceeds by 5358 the corresponding returns of the census, Ev. p. 475; although the total number of children in this Table exceeds that with which it is compared by only 703 children; and therefore this Table makes a very liberal representation of the total school attendance.

2. No evidence has been adduced to show that the additional number (22,178) here taken to represent the children of the middle and upper classes “at home” or “in employment,” together with those of the worhing classes “in employment,” is likely to be below the actual number.

3. And, conseciuently, the statements in ths Tablei representing the average number of children of the working classes neither “at school” nor “in employment,” have no less claim for consideration than the Census Table, although it appears to differ in the result.

It has been stated in evidence (pages 360, 391) that about” 54,670 children belonging to the lahorinn classes.

whether employed or not, are not attending day schools, and that no reason has been alleged, that ought to be considered satisfactory, why “one half, at least,” of that number ought not “to be in some school receiving education.” It is indeed highly probable that, at the present time, there are not fewer than 20,000 or 30,000 children of the laboring classes kept from day school, without being in employment or detained at home through sickness, domestic need, or any other sufficient cause, and who ought therefore to be gathered into school

The most extraordinary errors may lurk under general statistics; the public judging by them alone may cherish the delusion that all is right when much is wrong. — P. 143.

How easily statistical facts, unless regarded in all their bearings, may be the means of producing a false impression, is illustrated by the following Table. Looking only at the increase of attendance at the Church of England, British, and Denominational Schools, one would infer a great improvement in the educational state of Manchester; but further inquijy shows, that what one class of schools has gained another has lost; that the scholars lave not increased as they should have done, but only shifted their ground.

From that Table, also, it will be seen, that while the utendance at Church and Denominational Schools has increased since 1834-5, from 5434 to 16,367, the attendance at Private Schools, of all classes, has decreased from 18,465 to 11,713. And hence it appears that the increased attendance at Public Schools is to be attributed in a nmch greater degree to the withdrawing of children from Private Schools, than to the bringing of additional children under the influence of education.

This circumstance is the more important when taken m connection with the fact, that the increase of school attendance during the last 17 years has fallen short considerably of the increase of the population.

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WTiile it is the duty of the state to ) rovide ihi means of education, it is no less her duty to see that they are used. — P. 144.

It appears to us plain that society should charge itself with the duty of promptly meeting the educational wants of our country. The very existence of Britain’s power and position, the interests of religion, the welfare of the nation, are involved in this subject. The question of a complete religious education belongs to the churches; the question of such an education as shall make men useful members of society belongs to the state; and while we would strongly deprecate a secular system of education, excluding the leading principles of a common Christianity from our common schools; unless the different denominations will so agree to make that practicable they will drive men into the secular system; for surely better that these poor children should get some instruction than that they be left without any knowledge — to live, and sin, and die uninstructed as the brutes that perish.

It is a scandal to the churches that there should be any difficulty found in agreeing on a system of religious instruction suitable to little children. We are sure that that difficulty has no foundation in the Word of God. What have these infants to do with those ecclesiastical and doctrinal questions which unhappily divido good men among us? If we that are adults can always join in private worship with each other, and on occasions in pubUc worship, and even sit down at the Lord’s table with each other, recognising amid all our differences a common brotherhood and a common faith, it were a 18 melancholy thing indeed if we cannot agree al*out the simple elements of religion that are to be taught to little children; and that this wretched diflaculty should be an obstruction in the way of that national system of education which the state is bound to estabhsh, and without which no voluntary efforts will ever meet the wants of the country.

It should encourage Government and the ParUament to know that the people belonging to the different denominations do not sympathise with the extremer views of their ministers, and that they would heartily rejoice in the establishment of a system of education which would meet the wants of the country, although it did not meet the views and demands of those ecclesiastics who would perversely sacrifice the interests of the people to their own crotchets, love of power, or denominational peculiarities.

So long as this is — what, no doubt, it will ever be — a Protestant countiy, the Protestant religion should be that of national schools; but communicated in such a way as to give complete freedom to the consciences of Roman Catholics, or any other party declining to receive the religious instruction provided in the public schools. The children of Roman Catholic parents may be allowed to leave the school at the time of religious instruction; or whenever, if such a system should be preferred, there were a sufficient number of Roman Cathohcs as to furnish children for a school supported out of the public funds, let these be applied to giving secular instruction only — the religious education of the Roman Catholic Church beiijg left to parents or priests. Thus the country would sec ire that all these children receive a good secular education, and the country would not be employing the public funds in the propagation of what th.3 Protestant kingdom regards as dangerous errors.

Whatever arrangement the state may make as to these matters, one thing she is entitled and bound to do, and that is this, to require that every child within her bounds shall be educated. If the parents are able but unwilling to do that, they should be compelled to do it — punished if they don’t do it. If they are not able to do that, then it should be done at the public expense lo make sure that this is done, a system of inspection should be established. Such a system would not be found to interfere in the least degree with the rights and liberties of those who do their duty to their children and to th(. state; Uke other arrangements and laws for the preserving of honesty and order, that system would only be i teLr, and a check, and a yoke to “evil-doers.” Peopk might send their children to public schools or pnvat, schools, national or denominational schools; but the state is entitled to see that they are receiving at least a plain education at some school

The state is called on to extend the law to all manufactures, work, and service, which applies at present to the flax and cotton mills. Why should the children laboring in these manufactories enjoy a protection demed to others? what is good for them is good for others; what was needed by them is needed by thousands and tens of thousands of the children whose education 19 a^crlected, and whose best interests are sacrificed to the nrofits of their masters and the cupidity of their parents. The state should require, as it does in other countries, that no child be allowed to engage in any kind of remunerative labor until it has received a plain education, oi unless arrangements are made, while it is engaged in service or in manufacture, to conduct and complete its education by so many hours a-day being set apart to that purpose.

It is a most interesting fact that John Knox — in whose eye education bulked so large, that at the Reformation he proposed that one-fourth and more of the whole of the immense revenues of the Roman Catholic Church (the greater part of which were devoured by the Crown and nobles) should be sacredly devoted to the purpose of educating the children of the nation — three hundred years ago laid down the very principle which we advocate, and which is carried into practical effect with so much advantage in some parts of the Continent. It re-, fleets immortal honor on the memory of that great man, that the education of the people was with him a first object; one to be striven for most resolutely, and paid for most liberally; and that he had the far-seeing eye to discern the great principle on which the working of the system should be based, — viz., the right and duty of the state to require that every child within its bounds shall receive such an education as to make it a useful member of society. He has embodied that in these words, extracted from the First Book of DiscipHne, which was laid before the Great Council of Scotland in 1560: —” This must be carefully provided, that no father, of what state or condition that ever he be, use his children at his own fantasie, especially in their youth-head; but all must be compelled to bring up their children in learning and rirtue.’’

In the United States of America by one cf their last reports J complaints appear to come from every pari of the country that parents neglect to send their children to school. — P. 144.

See the Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of Education, published at Boston, 1857.

What an appaling picture of irreligion do our large towns present! — P. 151.

Edinburgh. — The Report of the Royal Commissioners on Religious Instruction proclaimed the fact, that one-third of the entire population of Edinburgh, or 50,000 people, had no fixed connection with any Christian Church.

Glasgow. — In this city the proportion of its inhabitants which should be found attending church is, at the lowest computation, above 200,000. The whole amount of church accommodation there is for 140,000. So that if all the churches were filled to overflowing, there would still be more than 60,000 in that city who were attending no house of Grod. But one of the most benevolent and intelligent and Christian merchants of Glasgow informed me that many of the churches are not more than naif filled; so that we may consider ourselves as making a very moderate calculation in concluding that more than 100,000 people in the city of Glasgow are living in a state of practical heathenism in this Christian land.

These calculations are corroborated by the statistics of the City Missicn, published in February, 1856. It ap- 18* pears from this document that they have divided the city into 54 districts, and that in these districts there are 25,5’IG families who are on the whole non-ehurch-going, and 15,675 families who never enter a church. These are nominally Protestants. It is estimated by them that each family consists of 4i individuals; and thus there are 110,699 individuals who are on the whole non-church-going, and 67,925 who never enter a church.

An admirable Report, entitled ‘• Mission Churches of the United Presbyterian Church in Glasgow,” fully bears out the preceding statements. From a thorough examination of the state of the city, and careful calculations, they arrive at this conclusion, that in Glasgow there are “in addition to the Roman CathoHcs, 100,204 persons living in open contempt of the ordinances of religion. The astounding fact is thus reached, that we are living in the midst of 180,000 fellow-citizens, popish and heathen, that is, one-half of our entire population who stand in pressing need of our missionary exertions.”

London and its. Districts some years ago contained a population of 2,434,868. The city was increasing annually at the rate of 25,000. The accommodation provided in the churches of all denominations would not accommodate one-third of the whole population; and although these were all full to overflowing, London would contain 649,297 living in a state of practical heathenism. But it is a notorious fact that a great many of the churches in the metropolis are miserably thin; and there can be 00 doubt of the ti’uth of the terrible statement, that more than One Million of the people of London are living in the hal’it of neglectiog the worship and house of God.

We have had already fruit of our labors. — P. 154,

The following statement regarding the Pleasance Territorial Mission was published by my colleague, the Rev. Dr. Hanna, to whose zeal and labors under God, thia interesting and important work owes much of its existence and success.

Pleasance Territorial Mission.

“This mission has now been in operation for about four years. During that time we have succeeded in getting almost evey child of proper age within the district marked out for our operations, to attend our schools-There were nearly 200 children in that position when we began our work. There are not now more than half a dozen. Our success in this department has been complete. To realize it, we had to buy a site and build a school-house, at a cost of upwards of £600, and we had to give good salaries to our schoolmaster and schoolmistress. But it was not the building of the school-house, nor the providing of a good education for all who chose to seek it, which accomplished the great object we had in view, namely, the bringing those children to school who otherwise would have grown up uneducated. It was the repeated visits of the missionary, and of the lady agents to the homes of the people, explammg to them the benefits which the school erected in their neighborhood was fitted to confer upon their families, and urging those who had children of the right age to seed them there to be tano-ht, which realized that end; and it is by such means alone that the m <»ducated children of the lowest class of our population can ever be gathered into the school-house.

“But it is far easier, within any district, to bring every child to school than every adult to church, especially where neglect of divine ordinances has been of long continuance, and is the prevailing habit of the stair, or close, or street, in which such forsakers of the sanctuary are congregated; To reclaim such to habits of church-going is the most difficult thing to which Christian benevolence can put its hands. Concentrated and sustained effort, much patience and many prayers, are all required. But our labors in this department also have not been without good fruit. A small congregation, composed almost entirely of those who had been living in entire neglect of divine ordinances, has been gathering. For the lasi three years the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper has been regularly dispensed. One hundred and twelve individuals have been admitted to the fellowship of the Church. Fifty of these had never been in connection with any Cburch; so many as thirty-three of whom were far advanced in life. There were forty-seven, with some of whom it had been ten, with some twenty, with some thirty years since they had sat down at the table of the Lord; leaving only fifteen out of the hundred and twelve who were in full communion when they joined our little congregation. The ordinary attendance at puplic worship, which began with about a dozen, now averages from eighty to a hundred in the forenoon, and from a hundred to a hundred and sixty in the afternoon.

“The school-room in which the services have been aeld is now quite full. le have arrived at that stage when, unless a church and a minister be provided, but little further progress can be made. We are as far on — we have as many communicants and as large an attendance, as any of those territorial missions in whose steps we are following had, whea churches and ministers were provided for them. It is our intention to apply to the Church Courts to have Mr. Cochrane, our present missionary, licensed and ordained as the minister of that little flock which he has gathered in from the wilderness. At a meeting lately, held with them, the communicants expressed this to be their unanimous and most earnest desire. It remains only that we provide a suitable place of worship. It has been resolved that upon this building there shall be no debt, and that beyond the present there shall be no second application made. Whatever be the sum put into the hands of the Committee appointed by the Session, they are resolved not to go a farthing beyond it in their expenditure. We have, however, not only a church to build, we must either enlarge our infant school-room or erect a more commodious one. The Government Inspector of Schools has imposed upon us the condition either of doing this, or of dismissing a number of the children, which we cannot make up our minds to do. Without venturing to assign any scale of giving, it is our earnest hope that, by one effort of generosity, we may be enabled to perfect the external apparatus of this mission, and so put it in condition for making that further and still greater progress which we can have no doubt that, when so furnished, it will, with the divine blessing, speedily realize.”

We are now about to build a regular place of worship in this locality and to form the people into a regular congregation under an ordained minister; and as wa must raise £1000 at least to meet the expenses of the building, the public are earnestly soHcited to lend us a helping hand. Any money sent to the Kev. Dr. Hanna, Ciistle Terrace, or the Rev. Dr. Guthrie, Salisbury Road, Edinburgh, will be gratefully received. We need sympathy and support, and we hope for them.

The work would he found to he perfectly practicable — Pp. 166, 157.

On this subject the Rev. Mr. Bonar, one of the ministers of the Canongate, in a pamphlet full of startling facts and earnest pleading, which he has just pubUshed, makes the following statement in reference to the case of the West-Port Territorial Church, which is all the more valuable not only as given by a clergyman who is thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the lower classes, but who belongs to a different church from those who have so successfully cultivated that distri<;t of our city: — “So far from being Utopian, the plan indicated has been justified by actual results. In one of the very worst localities of Edinburgh, to which, only a few years before, an infamous notoriety attached, in which, upon survty, it was found that in the main streets and adjoining wynds, out of 411 families, only 45 were attached to any Christian communion, 70 were Roman Catholics, and 296 were entirely unconnected with any church; wherein, out of a gross population of 2000, 1500 were Uving strangers to the observance of religion, and in which 290 children were growing up wholly untaught; a district in which the mora and p -ysical condition of the community was most deplorable, one fourth being paupers and another fourth street-beggars, thieves, and prostitutes; — in this locality a wonderful change has been brought about. The West-Port was divided into twenty districts, each containing twenty families. A school was opened — not on the system of gratuitous instruction — first of all, at the end of the close where the atrocities of Burke and Hare had been committed, in an old deserted tannery, approached by a flight of wooden steps. At the outset appearances were abundantly unpromising, and on the first occasion, after the advices, requests, and entreaties which had for many previous weeks been brought to bear upon those whose highest good was contemplated and desired, only about a dozen adults, and these chiefly old women, were present. Now there is a substantial church, well attended, a,id not long since enlarged by the addition of a gallery; schools, week-day and evening, largely attended likewise, with the other desiderata of a hbrary and a savings-bank, a washing-house, and a female industrial school The problem has been solved. An instance was afibrded, to adopt the words of Dr. Chalmers’ biographer, * in which the depths of city ignorance and vice have been sounded to the very bottom; nor can the possibility of cleansing the foul basement storey of our social edifice be doubted any longer.’ Nor do we wonder that the great Christian philanthropist — for so he must be regarded by all unprejudiced minds — hailed what he was spared to see as ’ the streaks and dawnings of a better day,’ and was willing, ’ after the struggles and discomfitures of thirty years,’ to ’ depart in peace, and leave the further prosecution with comfort and calmness in the hands of another generation.’”