movement from the extreme verge of the manufactures it was precipitated upon an unwilling people : it sought a definite, though most lawless, purpose: amidst the most easy opportunities of plunder, it resolutely adhered to that purpose: after a few days, for all the wreck it left behind, it might not have been. Never did faction more utterly fail, and that through the sound sense and Christian principle of the people on whom it so vainly sought to practise.

It is well known that this irruption gradually diminished in its progress through Yorkshire. An irregular sally might be expected to lose strength in proportion to the distance. But it never repaired the loss. The people felt that it was fatuous and self-destructive. They never breathed wish as to its success. Leeds,marked out for ignorance and cruelty by none who know it, was the formidable pass most dreaded by this bandit- multitude. "We have nothing to hope for there," cried the leaders," there are too many Sunday Schools!"*

* And why should the Author suppress this anecdote, now that his beaver is up? A town more upright in its character, more noble in its race, does not exist. His lot, when little more than a penniless boy, his independence had made him this, though other were his accidents of birth and inheritance!-was to be cast among this community. It was far from home and kindred. He entered it amidst every adversity and depression. It received him. It has sustained him. It still encourages him. God do so to him, and more also, ere he will join the rank of its satirists and calumniators! Esto perpetua!

E

The proper education of the people ought to be pursued in no party spirit. It excited no surprise, that the children of the manufacturer were often neglected. It was made matter of enquiry, but it was known and allowed before. It was for a lamentation. Vicious habits destroy self-respect, and corrupt the sense of relative responsibility. The focal knowledge of great communities supposes not the illumination of each constituent. But surprise was felt, sudden and indignant, when the pitch and extent of education among the rural districts were absolutely rated higher than in the great emporiums of cunning device and production. It startled all. The bravado overreached itself. It is outrageously untrue. It is characterised by that hardihood of assertion which is commonly adopted to appease a misgiving conscience and to bolster a defenceless cause. In what manufacturing district could a parish be found abutting on a city with its noblest cathedral, containing the baronial residence of one who is a true pillar of the State, with two church- wardens, two surveyors, two guardians, the only functionaries in it, and two cannot read, two cannot write, and only two can both read and write? Of what county, the seat of mechanical art, could a bold rebuker declare, and his charge be for a moment undenied, that half of its inhabitants could not read?

In the Fifth Report (1843) of the Registrar General, we observe one of those facts which are very

conclusive as to the ignorance which prevails in particular portions of the country. The signature of the parties who are married must be by mark, if they cannot write their names. The general fact is lamentable, that 33 in 100 men, and 49 in 100 women, should have so subscribed themselves. But let us mark the difference between municipal and agricultural districts. In the Metropolitan divisions only 11 men in the 100 were thus compelled to sign: in Suffolk, Essex, and Cambridgeshire, there were 47; in Bedfordshire, 49; and in Herts, 50.

The question of the larger or smaller mortality among the inhabitants of town and country has, of late years, been urgently discussed. When it is recollected that there is no population in any part of the world so shut up in large communities, the enquiry becomes most interesting. Civic residence is our peculiarity. But the distribution is very unequal. The county of Lincoln, (we proceed on the Population Returns of the year 1831) contains more acres than any other, save Yorkshire, which is always considered as three counties under different Lords Lieutenant. Next to Lincoln is Devonshire in its extent: the former comprising 1,671,040 acres ; the latter, 1,654,400. Now being great agricultural districts, what is the number of their inhabitants? Lincoln only counts 317,465. Devon only comprehends 494,478. Let us now take two manufacturing regions. Lancashire

* M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire.

consists of fewer acres, than either of the foregoing, namely 1,130,240,- that is, less by no inferior measurement than above half a million. But what is its population? 1,336,854: that is, a million and nearly twenty thousand of inhabitants more than Lincoln: and eight hundred and forty-two thousand three hundred and seventy-six above Devon. The West-Riding of Yorkshire contains 1,648,640 acres. Its population is 976,350. This space is less by 22,400 acres than Lincoln, and 5760 than Devon; but it exceeds the population of the first by six hundred and fifty-eight thousand, eighty hundred and eighty-five; and that of the second by four hundred and eighty-one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-two. This calculation will make it obvious that, in Lancashire and the West-Riding, there is a very great density of population. Now this is not generally favourable to health. Land being very valuable, streets are confined and houses are huddled together. The Sanitary Report of large towns is, therefore, in general unpromising. This is considered, however, unfairly. It is employed prove the unhealthiness of manufactures. But the closeness of residences is only an accident.

to

Is em

ployment in the factory detrimental to health and life? We have not yet seen it proved. If there be excess of labour in the mill or in the field, it must be injurious, and there are no terms sufficiently strong to denounce it. If children should be so oppressed, if they be overworked to deformity, these

lines are intended for no apology,-The Lord look upon it and require it! If casualties arise in the use of machinery from gross neglect, not one word shall pass us to extenuate such reckless barbarity. But are these employments mischievous? The attention. should, in justice, be restricted to this. The town of Leeds has been thus put forth to an unhappy prominence. It may not be salubrious: but are its mechanical employments the cause of so low a figure as indicates its mortality? Now, in the first place, the labourers of every kind, in every town, are deemed most likely victims of early death. The Poor Law Commissioners have made their Report upon the comparative chances of life in different places, but the average ages are always in this order,-gentlemen and professional men and their families the highest, -tradesmen and their families the next,-and labourers, artizans, and others similarly employed, and their families, are placed at the lowest point of the scale. And this is found not only in the Whitechapel and the Strand Unions, London,-in Kensington Union, perhaps its most healthy suburb,-but in counties such as Rutland, Wiltshire, and Westmoreland. It seems the law. We are not called to explain it. But is it not alike the law? It is so in Leeds, a thorough manufacturing town, covered with a dim canopy of smoke, ill-built and ill-drained, whose water, until very lately, imbibed the deposits of all its feculence, all its manufacturing and dyeing lees. And