keep their bellies half empty. Calculate what you give to the publican, the quack doctor, and the pawnbroker. You and your wife spend in gin and beer at least sixpence a-day, and one shilling on a Sunday; that is four shillings a-week, or ten pounds a-year. In drugs and doctoring you spend two pounds a-year more. The pawnbroker takes every year of your money three pounds. Altogether this comes to fifteen pounds a-year. Now, suppose you earn twenty-four shillings a-week, or sixty pounds a-year, then one-fourth of your earnings are wasted. Yes; six shillings a-week, or fifteen pounds a-year, are thrown awaygiven to others; for nothing in return, save bad habits, bad health, and bad temper.

"Illustrative of my subject is the following anecdote, given on the authority of a respectable employer:-Missing, on a recent occasion, from his work an old servant, Mr inquired where he was, and learning that illness confined him to his home, he went thither, and found his workman on what appeared likely to prove his deathbed, waited on in a dirty apartment by a slatternly wife, who, with all about her, gave evidence of the operation of the gin-palace and pawn-shop. About the same time the same employer was asked by another of his workmen, if he could recommend him a good and safe investment for three hundred pounds. Three hundred pounds!' exclaimed Mr -; why, has any one left you that sum?' 'No,' was the answer. At the end of the first year of my wedded life, my wife asked me what I had saved since we were married. "Nothing, I replied. "Nothing? Why, I have saved twenty pounds." On learning this, I resolved never again to enter a gin-shop. I have kept my word; and am now worth a thousand pounds.'

"These two men, both mechanics, were about the same time apprenticed to the same master, were equally clever, employed in the same branch of their trade, and for years they received the same wages. The only marked difference was, that the sick man occasionally lost a day from idleness. The other had married a prudent, thrifty wife, and rose step by step to the post of confidential overlooker in the large establishment in which he served his time. This is no rare case. The foreman in every room in our factories, and every foreman in other large works, owe their elevation, respectability, and comfort, to being honest, sober, and trustworthy; and many of them are good men, good husbands, good fathers, and good servants in the main, because they are so happy as to have neat, clean, industrious, and striving wives, who would rather suffer anything than visit a gin or a pawn shop."

HEALTH.

A working-man's labour being his stock in trade, it is of the utmost importance that nothing should occur to diminish its amount or its efficacy. Bad health, unfortunately, will do both;

and the preservation of health, therefore, should become not only a pleasure, but a duty. Intemperance in drinking and smoking, as already stated, will impair health. But there are many other causes which will conspire to ruin the health of the workman and his family. These are want of cleanliness, want of proper ventilation in dwellings and work-rooms, undue exposure to cold, and improper diet. Numerous additional causes of disease could be mentioned; but these only need here engage attention.

Although the hands of a working-man may be soiled by his labour, that is no reason for his being not otherwise clean. The best way to insure cleanliness of person, is to make a regular habit of washing and bathing. The hands and face, as a matter of course, require frequent ablution with soap and water; but that is not enough for insuring health. The whole body must be pretty frequently subjected to the warm or tepid bath. Another kind of bathing also found serviceable, and easily accomplished, consists in sponging the whole person with cold water in the morning before going out to work. This simple species of ablution, along with rubbing with a hard towel, not only purifies, but braces the body, and enables it to endure cold and exposure. Many persons who cannot conveniently have baths in their house, resort to this inexpensive kind of bathing.

Latterly, the working-classes have shown a disposition to encourage public baths, where warm bathing can be obtained on a cheap scale. Every one must wish well to this movement, which, if carried out in sincerity of purpose, may prove an important turning-point in the condition of workmen.

Cleanliness of apparel-frequent shifting of the clothing next the skin in particular-is also of great importance. But all efforts at cleanliness will in no small degree be unavailing, if care is also not taken to breathe wholesome air. On this point there prevails the most lamentable ignorance. It does not seem to be known, that by each exhalation we vitiate the air to a certain extent; and that, therefore, if a room be too crowded, or have not a free inlet for the atmosphere, it will soon be full of bad air, which cannot be breathed again without injury. Unless an apartment be large and high in the roof, not more than two or three persons should sleep in it; and even although large, it should have an inlet for fresh air. The letting in of air may be inconvenient from cold, but far better suffer a little cold than breathe a slow poison. Every morning, after all are out of bed, the window and door should be opened, and a good draught made to go through the house, clearing away all aërial impurities in its course. By over-closeness, and the want of this or some other kind of ventilation, few of the houses of the humbler classes are healthful; and the consequence is, that typhus fever, and other fatal disorders, prevail among them at nearly all seasons, slaying thousands of young and old, and producing terrible

misery in families. Want of ventilation has also the effect of depressing the moral and physical energies; and to get relief, men in such circumstances take to stimulants, which only lead to worse results. A clean well-aired house may be considered a safeguard of temperance; but a house dirty, in disorder, overcrowded, and badly ventilated, is almost certain to be the home of the reckless and dissipated.

Most unfortunately for the working-classes, there are few large towns in which houses can be obtained suitable in size and reasonable as to rent; and therefore vast numbers of well-disposed persons, with their families, are compelled to lodge in places detrimental to health and offensive to decency. This is really a serious grievance, almost entitled to be called national, and we should be glad to hear of its abatement. In some towns societies have been established to supply a better class of dwellings; but in general, the bulk of mechanics are confined in their choice of houses to a mean order of buildings, destitute of sewerage, water, and all else that contributes to moral and physical well-being.

Where we have made inquiries as to the apparent unwillingness of capitalists to build houses on speculation for the accommodation of workmen, the invariable answer has been, that houses at a small rent are a bad species of property. It is alleged that among the humbler classes generally, there is a disposition to evade the payment of rent, or at least to be careless of the trouble which they give to proprietors. Windows are broken, and other injuries done to the property, with, it is said, little or no consideration as to the loss which will be sustained by the owner; and that in many cases no rent would be got at all, if it were not rigorously exacted weekly. On account of one or other of these reasons, few houses are erected specially for workingmen, who are therefore obliged to take up their abode in old buildings, which, from change of times, have been abandoned by the middle and higher classes. We are inclined to think, however, that capitalists, in advancing the foregoing reasons, fall into a mistake as to the parties who would become their tenants. They confound a steady and respectable body of men-and that there are such among the miscellaneous order of workmen is undoubted-with the great and unfortunate class of improvidents who form a large section of the population of towns. We cannot, however, doubt that this monstrous grievance of defective dwellings will soon engage serious attention; and few things would give us greater pleasure than to hear of working-men everywhere uniting to carry out some well-considered plan for providing themselves, or of getting capitalists to provide them, with neat, commodious, and healthful dwelling-houses. General sanitary arrangements with respect to large towns, enforced by law, will alone, as we expect, lead to this desirable im

provement.

The chief observation to make respecting diet is this: there may be intemperance in eating as well as drinking; and the one often leads to the other. We would recommend a plain but substantial diet, as good as can be afforded, and taken in moderation. However, change the diet as often as possible. Do not eat the same kind of food day after day. Sameness of diet causes weakness of the system, and at last produces scurvy. Many hospitals throughout the country have been lately crowded with patients affected with scurvy, from no other cause than constantly living on the same kind of diet, without varying it with vegetable substances.

The last advice we have to offer concerning health is, when you find yourself becoming unwell, apply to a respectable medical practitioner. Do not go to a quack; and buy no pills, ointments, or any other trash which you see advertised in the newspapers. Nearly all that is said in advertisements as to the efficacy of these quack medicines is false.

EMIGRATION.

Disposed as we are to approve of emigration in reference to capitalists, agriculturists, and a semi-destitute class of individuals, we would hesitate about recommending skilled workmen to leave the proper field for their labour in this country, in order to seek a new means of subsistence abroad. Only when there is an evident over-crowding of artisans, and where they may be said unduly to compete with each other for employment, should emigration be resorted to. Our belief is, that in no country in the world will a working-man by steadiness, economy, and skill, find so sure a reward as in Great Britain, all the tales told of foreign comforts notwithstanding. And why? Because in this country there is an immense realised and increasing capital wherewith to pay for employment. While, therefore, indisposed to counsel emigration to distant regions, we earnestly advise working-men to remove to whatever place in their own country they hear that there is a demand for their labour. Some may think that such a recommendation is unnecessary; and yet nothing is more remarkable than the obstinacy with which men cling to places long after remunerative employment is gone, instead of removing at once to a perhaps not very distant town, where good wages could be realised. Some families, indeed, seem to hold as if by a blind instinct to the place of their birth, rather than exert themselves manfully in bettering their circumstances by removal. On a late occasion, in passing through a country village in Scotland, it was our fortune to observe what seemed a scene of great distress-the removal of a family with their effects to a town about fifty miles distant, where the means of subsistence awaited them. All commiserated the poor people's fate, while in reality they had reason for rejoicing. Such is one of the weaknesses of human nature.

PROFESSIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.

Allusion is elsewhere made to the superior advantages of skilled over unskilled labour. To attain the highest possible skill in the department of work in which a man is engaged, should be an object of honourable ambition. Be not satisfied with performing any branch of labour in a slovenly or barely tolerable manner; try to make your work excel in point of accuracy and taste; strive to improve on old usages; be anxious to please; for it is by all these means, along with a trustworthy steadiness, that a man gets forward in any profession. The good workman will always command the best price, provided trade is left free, and employers are allowed to exercise a discretion. The arrangement enforced in some trades, that the slow and the indifferent workman shall be paid equally with the clever and zealous, is an ingenious contrivance to keep down ability, and bring the world to a dead level.

But a man should not be satisfied with being merely skilled in his handicraft. He ought, if possible, to make himself acquainted with the principles of the operations in which he is concerned. If, for instance, he be a dyer, he should not rest contented with knowing exactly what ingredients will produce certain tints, but ascertain by inquiry why such is the case. This will cause him to study practical chemistry; and in the course of his investigations, he may perhaps make some discovery valuable to himself and the public. Independently, however, of any chance of making improvements in his profession, much good is gained by investigations into first principles. A man who goes through a routine of labour in order to produce certain results, without knowing why such results are effected, is said to act empirically. He acts just as a machine would act when put in motion. Is there any honour in being likened to an unreasoning machine? We think not; and it is with the view of rousing workmen to a sense of what is becoming in this respect, that we take the liberty of speaking so frankly. Fortunately, there are now few towns in which there are not mechanics' institutions and libraries, through whose aid knowledge the most profitable and agreeable may be acquired.

"The labouring man," says the Rev. H. Mosely in his Report on Education, "may have been taught many things at school; but practically, that which is associated with the earning of his daily bread, is that which will remain in his mind. He has found that task one which, if it did not fill up the full measure of his time, occupied at least all his thoughts. To know, then, the secret that lies hidden in the matter on which he works, associated as the secret is with his craft; to reflect upon it-to understand it -in secular matters; this is the proper sphere of his knowledge. Let it not be said that it is a narrow sphere. On the contrary,