filled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunder by a stronger.* They sit there, these many months now; their hope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so named, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundred thousand workers in England alone: their cunning right-hand lamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes, outlooks, share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls. They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may not perish starved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day, through this bounteous realm of England, descries the Union Workhouse on his path. Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn,' says the picturesque Tourist, I saw sitting on 'wooden benches, in front of their Bastille and within their ring'wall and its railings, some half-hundred or more of these men. 'Tall robust figures, young mostly or of middle age; of honest ' countenance, many of them thoughtful and even intelligent-look'ing men. They sat there, near by one another; but in a kind 'of torpor, especially in silence, which was very striking. In 'silence: for, alas, what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come and till me, come and reap me;—yet 'we here sit enchanted! In the eyes and brows of these men 'hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief and 'shame and manifold inarticulate distress and weariness; they 'returned my glance with a glance that seemed to say, "Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, by the governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we are forbidden to obey. It 'is impossible, they tell us!" There was something that re'minded me of Dante's Hell in the look of all this; and I rode 'swiftly away. So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses and other hundred thousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty Scotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their dark lanes, hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare *The return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842, is, 'In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089.—(Official Report.) Benevolence the minister of God, there are scenes of woe and destitution and desolation, such as, one may hope, the Sun never saw before in the most barbarous regions where men dwelt Competent witnesses, the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who speaks what he knows, whose noble Healing Art in his charitable hands becomes once more a truly sacred one, report these things for us: Cthese things are not of this year, or of last year, have no reference to our present state of commercial stagnation, but only to the common state. Not in sharp fever-fits, but a chronic gangrene of this kind is Scotland suffering. A Poor-law, any and every Poor-law, it may be observed, is but a temporary measure; an anodyne, not a remedy Rich and Poor, when once the naked facts of their condition have come into collision, cannot long subsist together on a mere Poor-law.) True enough—and yet, human beings cannot be left to die! Scotland too, till something better come, must have a Poor-law, if Scotland is not to be a byword among the nations. Oh, what a waste is there; of noble and thrice-noble national virtues; peasant Stoicisms, Heroisms; valiant manful habits, soul of a Nation's worth,-which all the metal of Potosi cannot purchase back; to which the metal of Potosi, and all you can buy with it, is dross and dust!) Why dwell on this aspect of the matter? It is too indisputable, not doubtful now to any one. Descend where you will into the lower class, in Town or Country, by what avenue you will, by Factory Inquiries, Agricultural Inquiries, by Revenue Returns, by Mining-Labourer Committees, by opening your own eyes and looking, the same sorrowful result discloses itself (you have to admit that the working body of this rich English Nation has sunk or is fast sinking into a state, to which, all sides of it considered, there was literally never any parallel.) At Stockport Assizes,— and this too has no reference to the present state of trade, being of date prior to that, a Mother and a Father are arraigned and found guilty of poisoning three of their children, to defraud a burial-society' of some 3. 8s. due on the death of each child: they are arraigned, found guilty; and the official authorities, it is whispered, hint that perhaps the case is not solitary, that perhaps you had better not probe farther into that department of things. This is in the autumn of 1841; the crime itself is of the |