tinguished. The path to wealth and distinction is open to all who are possessed of the qualities by which greatness is obtained; provided, as I before said, that it pleases God, in His Providence, to favour their advancement. There is no barrier in the laws of this kingdom against talent and good conduct raising any man to the top of his business, or even to some of the highest stations in the realm, if events and circumstances (which are only controlled by Providence) shall happen to assist him. While

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presume, therefore, that all Englishmen have "every thing to gain" in the pursuits of industry, under the government of our laws, and so long as order and peace are preserved, I am very far from thinking that every thing is to be gained by joining in seditions and rebellions against "the powers that be." I believe that no one ever yet gained what was worth having by rising up against the laws of God and man, because there is a power which forcibly prevents the enjoyment of peace by those who unlawfully break the peace enjoyed by others. They are doomed to disappointment and vexation, losing very quickly whatever unrighteous gains they may have made, and having no enjoyment of them while in their possession. If, then, it is agreed between my reader and myself, that it is not the seditious and turbulent who have every thing to gain," but that the industrious and peaceable are alone truly in that situation, we will go on to inquire who are the people that are said to have nothing to lose?" Let every one carefully look around them, and ask whether they are the persons? We need not ask this question of those who have even the smallest amount of property, either in the Savings' Bank or in any other form. They, of course, have got something which they could lose, and which they would pretty certainly lose in a state of disturbance and revolution. The poor Frenchmen could read us a lesson on that subject; who, after having saved their hard-won wages and placed them in the Savings' Banks in France, have lately been paid in paper, whose value is scarcely half the money they themselves paid in. And the present French revolution, as far as it has yet gone, has been attended with far less robbery and pillage than the other revolution

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which went before it. But we may descend now to the more numerous class of persons who have no property of that kind; not a shilling at the Bank, nor a rood of land, nor a house or cottage of their own. Have they "nothing to lose," when they candidly consider the situation in which they are placed? Look at that nice, neat cottage in which they live, with their wife and little ones around them. It is true it is not their own: there is a landlord, whose property it is; but he consents to let it them for a certain rent; and so long as they pay that rent, the house is their own for all the purposes they want it for. They live in it in peace and quietness. Would they enjoy that cottage, with the peaceful quietness which makes them love it so dearly, if the nation was torn in pieces by rebellion, or troubled with civil war, or if property was no longer secure to them that possess it? The security of what we have makes more than half its sweetness; but there could be no security for a single family against a gang of violent men who might take a fancy to disturb it. Without a Government which is strong enough to secure to every man, down to the very weakest and poorest, the enjoyment of his home, how miserable would be the family of every labourer in the land, compared with his condition at the present time! But this labourer has also a kind of property which is his own, if he only rents of another his cottage and his garden. He has his goods, and furniture, and clothing, which are as sacredly protected for him by the laws as the castle of the nobleman and the palace of the Queen. No man dares touch the bed on which he lies, or the scraper at his door, without being liable to a punishment proportioned to the mischief he has done.

But if the laws were overturned, if the government which executes them were destroyed, all that security of possession would be gone, and the strongest would rob the weakest, carrying off whatever they coveted in a perpetual war of might against right. According to our present laws, the labourer has property as well as the nobleman; and if the right was destroyed in the case of the one, it would be without strength in the case of the other too. If the rich man's land could ever be taken from

him by force, so might the labourer's bed, and the cradle of his child. Another blessing which the labourer now enjoys is the right to receive wages for his daily toil. Does any one think this nothing? Well, there are many countries where this right does not exist. In some they work under the customs of slavery, without wages or rights of any kind; and in others, like parts of Ireland, there is no regular system of farming to provide wages for the poor. And if once the tumult of civil war should disturb the quietness of the best cultivated country upon earth, the wages of the labourer would soon fail, labour itself would be discouraged, and one-half the men who earn their daily bread in security would be thrown out of their peaceful employments. The labourer, therefore, has much to lose, if the present state of peace and good government should be disturbed and broken up. He may think himself now but badly off, and accidents happen to all, which sometimes make him so; but he could be very much worse, and this ought not to be forgotten.

The next person I shall visit with my question is the poor widow, who lives alone in her narrow cottage, without a son to work for her, and without strength to work for herself. She has, nevertheless, very much to lose. The laws of her country provide now for her necessities. They require the property of the rich, and the labour of the strong, to pay tax for her support, and to give her the weekly sum which, when frugally spent, provides her with her bread and her home, and forbids her perishing in want. There are few countries in the world which give even this. In some the widow is left to the uncertain affection of her children for her subsistence, and is very often reduced to the extremest sufferings of want. In this a support is provided for her, so long as the laws of property and order are preserved. But the day which should see them assailed and changed, would also very probably see this legal provision withdrawn ; for wherever the eternal rules of justice and honesty are violated in the case of the rich, they are soon disregarded likewise in the case of the poor. The desolate and the helpless would scarcely find much compassion at the hands of the robber and pillager. So that even the poorest of the

land, who live on the out-door relief given them by the parish, have in England "something to lose." They could not witness a violent change in the state with regard to the rights of property, without sinking to a very much lower state of want and wretchedness than they now experience, however low they may esteem it to be at present. Their whole dependence is upon the law of the land; and the same violent men who would destroy one set of laws which are founded on justice, would destroy another which are founded on charity.

The same remark will of course apply in the same manner to the condition of the inmates of the unionhouse. They are the poorest of the poor. Their state is often extremely lamentable; they may have fallen from a better condition of life, and been driven by misfortune to this last refuge of the helpless. They frequently consider their lot the hardest in this life. But they, too, have "something to lose." What would be their sufferings, if they had no such refuge as the union to resort to? They would be homeless and houseless, wanderers and mendicants, living from day to day in the most uncertain and precarious manner; and their immense numbers would entirely overcome the efforts of charity. In a short time they would sink into a state of starvation and nakedness, having "lost" that support which they too often do not sufficiently esteem, but which would appear an invaluable blessing as soon as it was gone. It is the law which provides them this refuge; and it would provide them a richer and better subsistence, if it could. It would raise them to greater comfort and happiness in the union, if it could be done without encouraging idleness and improvidence, by giving a better lot to the inmates of the house than the farmer can afford to give to the industrious labourer at his cottage. If, however, the ignorant and misguided men who wish to govern England were permitted to assume the government into their hands, the destruction they would accomplish in all the laws and institutions of the country would soon render it utterly impossible to support the poor as they are now supported. If the foundations were destroyed, the whole building would fall together. The ruin which

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falls on the great and the rich, would fall as heavily upon the weak and defenceless poor; for they enjoy the benefit of the protection of the law, as well as those who are so much above them.

If, therefore, we are asked what have thousands of the poorest men in this country to lose by the destruction of law and order, we answer, they would lose every thing by losing that law which now expends seven million pounds a year in England and Wales for the help of the poor, and the support of the destitute.

But it may still be said, there are some who have nothing to lose. If there are, it must be only those who, having lost their character for ever, have lost all that an honest man holds dear to him. It can only be the outcasts of society, the murderers, the thieves, the pickpockets, the swindlers. These are the men who might profit by the overturning of all things; they might indeed get something in the scramble, which they could hold possession of for a few days at most. But do the workmen and labourers of England desire the advantage and profit of this unhappy class of men in their particular profession of life? No; they universally detest them; and the more diligently we labour in our lawful business, the more do we dislike those who would live without labour by fraud and theft. No one execrates the robber by profession more earnestly than the industrious labourer.

But, for our own part, we will not even admit that the worst characters in society have "nothing to lose." Before, at least, they come to the gallows, they have this which they could lose the opportunity of amendment, and of restoration to an honest life, which the laws allow them now, and assist them in obtaining. If they had their way without restraint, they would never perhaps amend. But now the punishment they meet with is meant for their improvement. They may suffer for a time, and then repent and change. The very midnight robber may hereafter become an industrious settler in the colonies, and rise to even wealth and plenty in a distant shore. We hail this excellent change in the national mode of punishment as a proof that whoever would exchange the protection of the laws for a state of