moral condition; and, in spite of increased education, to supply the place of the old check now removed, have swelled the calendars of crime with a fearful accession of juvenile depravity?

I before appealed to contemporary writers in proof of the great alteration that has taken place in country life; but the change is marked upon the very face of the rural districts. The geologist infers, from the remains of various animals deposited in certain strata, adapted by their organization to a different physical state of external nature, that the earth, at the period when they were living upon it, must have been under a condition of temperature widely removed from the present. We have evidence of a similar nature in proof of the great social revolution under review. There are the manor-houses, scattered here and there in all parts of the country. It is evident from their size, their internal arrangement, and architectural decorations, that they were once the dwellings of country gentlemen, the lords of the surrounding lands, and the heads of the several communities of farmers in that by-gone age. Some of these are to be discovered in districts almost unfrequented at the present day; some are in ruins ; many, no doubt, have been pulled down, and every vestige cleared; others are converted into farm-houses; but wherever they are standing, there is universally an air of gloom around them; they point back to a past stage in our history; they linger on in silent dreariness, the monuments of an old-fashioned period,—land-marks, which attest where the tide of civilization and periodical mirth once flowed, and flows no longer.

The consolidation of property is a badge of the present times. It is stated, that about the year 1770, the lands of England were divided among no fewer than 250,000 families; but at the close of the revolutionary war, in 1815, they were found to be concentrated in the hands of only 32,000. Property and wealth naturally draw more property and more wealth to them. A large snow-ball, if rolled along the whitened ground, will collect much more snow, every turn it makes, than a smaller one. That property should gather in large masses, is according to the natural tendency of things; and every obstruction and hindrance to the operation of natural causes has in recent times been removed. Not only, therefore, is the small farmer extinct, but the small landed proprietor belongs to an order which is rapidly vanishing, and has in a great degree already disappeared. The tradesman, moreover, who has little capital, is now contending at a ruinous disadvantage with outbidding rivals. The trade which prospers most in villages and small towns in these times, is, it may well be feared, the publican's. All classes are merging in one of two, the indigent and the opulent; the chasm between rich and poor has widened, and is widening. England's greatest splendour, and England's most abject poverty, are admirably adapted as subjects for the display of the artist's skill in painting contrasts; and two such pictures well executed, would present a powerful practical illustration of the poet's

"First and last-the immensely distant two." The labourer's hope of rising in the world is a forlorn

one.

There is no graduated ascent, up which the hardy

aspirant may toil step by step with patient drudgery. Several rounds in the ladder are broken away and gone. A farm of some hundred acres, requiring for their due cultivation a large capital, would be a day-dream too gaudy ever to mix itself with the visions of the most ambitious labourer, earning on an average, probably less than nine shillings a week. The agricultural workman's horizon is bounded by the high red-brick walls of the Union-house; his virtual marriage settlement can only point to such a refuge, if troubles arise: his old age may there have to seek its last shelter. None can starve in England, thanks to the benevolence of our laws: but would we could indulge some hope of the poor labourer rising to comparative independence by thrift, industry, and a proper regard to the moral duties of his station. As his case now stands, his choice vacillates between the Union and the Prison.

"It should ever be borne in mind," observes Dr. Arnold, "that history looks generally at the political state of a nation; its social state, which is infinitely more important, and in which lie the seeds of all the greatest revolutions, is too commonly neglected or unknown."*

I proceed to the statistical proof of the influence of a body of resident gentry upon the morals and respectability of the labouring class. Wherever the proportion of resident gentry is great, there crime is less frequent; in other words, the amount of crime can be proved to be in inverse ratio to the number of residents of independent means. Wherever the influences of the more enlightened classes are permitted to descend upon their humbler *Arnold's History of Rome, vol. ii, c. 34.

neighbours, there the moral condition of the people is less depraved; and on the contrary, the absence of the more humanized and better educated portion of society is generally marked by a correspondent augmentation of crime. Greater proportion of resident gentry, more advanced education, less crime, these are found together; and their opposites are united, as will be seen by the accompanying table.

Southern Agricul

tural and Maritime Counties.. Two Metropolitan Counties.............. North Midland & North Eastern Agricultural

Counties; i. e., Hereford, Salop, Lincoln, &c.

Northern Agricul

Counties..............

1,877,2477-66-147-33.8 +388 +126+12.7

7.6

857,108 +12.8

2.5-27-3 +55·2 +0.9 +28·1-15.9

1,387,237-27.70 8.3 -30.9-27.6 - 8-8-519-45.2

8.87-252-149 +289 +146 +112--17.9

5,531,747

9,653,339

6.49-18-7-21·0 +255 + 9·840-196

2,159,314 +22-64 +66·6 +58′1 -62.5 48.5 +113+55.6

936,058 +29-88-16.5 9.5 10 10.2 4.38.7

3.0887 +382-26.9 +11.3-42.8 0.9

tural & Mining 1,246,433

Total

6,253,402 +10.02 +28.9 +32.5-399- -16.3

6.1 +30.3

The mark + denotes above, and - below the average of all England and

Wales.

Savings.

The degree of education is tested by the proportionate number of those who sign the marriage register, i. e. are able to write. The table is headed with this

remark:

"It will be seen that the favourable symptoms accompany rather the greater number of realized properties than the greater amount of real property in the several districts; and considering the influx of persons of vagrant character from the poorer and more ignorant into the wealthier and more instructed districts, the testimony afforded by this table in favour of the former is very marked."

The district which is the most destitute of inhabitants of independent means, is comprised within the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire. The real destitution of those counties is not distinctly seen in the general table, because Somersetshire is united to them. I shall therefore give the statistics of those three counties separately in a table extracted from the same report.

107,936-11.12-431-530 +1478 +15.1 +21·4-23.0 1.60-29.5-30-2+690 + 88+200-43 157,2070-21-16·1-538 +112·5 +46 +14.2

Buckinghamshire .155,983

-46.2

421,126 3.36-28 0-459 +109.5 + 90 +18.2-39.1

* Minutes of Council on Education, 1846, p. 272.