less there are to be found among the manufacturing operatives very many virtuous and upright men, and respectable families. Even the failings and vices of a large proportion of the more improvident, are not so much owing to individual inherent depravity, as to want of foresight, and the degrading habit of constant drinking or sensual indulgence. But that habits of improvidence, and an insatiable thirst for immediate enjoyment from the senses, are general among this class of society, has long been known and lamented by every person practically acquainted with their situation, and is now decisively proved by statistical returns pointing to conclusions with unerring certainty. Every person practically acquainted with the operatives in great towns or manufacturing districts of the country, is aware that their habits are, generally speaking, reckless and improvident in the extreme. Their employment, except during periods of commercial distress, is steady; and the too great demand for the labour of children, boys and girls, in the factories and collieries, generally renders a large offspring an advantage rather than a burden, and doubles, often triples, to married persons, the gains of the head of the family. It is no unusual thing for a family of this class, to make from fifty to sixty shillings aweek; and the common gains, even of a single skilled operative, run in general, according to the skill, from eighteen to thirty-six or forty shillings. Yet, with all these advantages, these operatives with their families, are in general the most needy and destitute of the community; a great part of their large earnings is spent in drink. They are almost all in debt to the baker, the butcher, the grocer, and the other tradesmen with whom they deal; their wives have the utmost difficulty in getting money from their husbands even for the necessary support of their families; and it is only by actions at law, and by arresting their wages, that the shopkeepers are able, after long periods, to secure payment of their debts. Paradoxical as it may appear, nothing is more certain than that these classes are, generally speaking, the most destitute of the labouring ranks; and, unfortunately, the most skilful workmen are not seldom the most profligate, and dissolute, as well as needy, characters of the community. The magnitude of the sums which a large proportion of these workmen spend upon drink would exceed belief, if it were not attested by the concurring evidence of every person versant with the habits of the operatives in every manufacturing district of the kingdom. An action was recently brought in the Sheriff-Court of Lanarkshire against a collier, for spirits, porter, ale, and groceries, furnished to himself and his family during three years, amounting to the sum of L.78:7:4; L.72 had been paid by the collier during the three years, being at the rate of L.24 a-year, and the balance of L.6 odds was admitted. It may safely be affirmed that the value of spirits consumed by a large proportion of the skilled operatives in all the manufacturing towns of the kingdom, amounts to eight or ten shillings a-week of their earnings. Incredible as this doubtless will appear to persons who are not practically acquainted with the subject, there is no one, we are persuaded, who is so, that will not admit that we are rather within than without the mark. In fact, on no other principle is it possible to account for the enormous and almost incredible quantity of ardent spirits consumed in the manufacturing districts, more particularly of Scotland. It appears from the Parliamentary Reports, that the proportion of ardent spirits consumed in Scotland amounts to six millions five hundred gallons a-year, being at the rate of two gallons and three quarters annually, to every human being! Unquestionably more than a half of this enormous quantity is drunk in the manufacturing or mining districts; for it is there alone that the working-classes have such high wages as to enable them to drink it in such profusion. Beyond all doubt the average of these manufacturing districts is at least six gallons a-head a-year over the whole population-a higher average, it is believed, than is to be found in any other country of the globe. All the institutions calculated either to accumulate capital, relieve distress, or to provide funds for the future, are maintained by the middle or higher classes, with hardly any assistance from the lower. The operatives and workmen benefit largely by such establishments, but they contribute little or nothing to their support. It has recently been ascertained, from a comparison of returns from the different assurance offices, that the total number of persons holding policies of life insurance is only 80,000-a number so very small in proportion to the population of the empire, as to demonstrate decisively that the provident regard for the future, and selfdenial of the present, which prompts men to belong to these admirable associations, is confined almost entirely to the middle or wealthier classes of society. Who is it that maintains our hospitals, our dispensaries, our charity schools, and a large part of the Voluntary Church? The middle or higher classes, and they alone. Nobody ever heard of such establishments, how essential soever and beneficial to the working-classes, being maintained by their efforts or contributions. Were it not for the Christian charity, the humanity, and unwearied exertions of the middle classes, the operatives, who are now rising in such fearful array against them, would rot in indigence and misery; pestilence, unmitigated by medical skill, would annually desolate their ranks; and the ordinary calamities of life, unrelieved by the humanity and efforts of the better classes of society, would soon reduce the lower to hopeless destitution. But the working-classes, it may perhaps be said by their advocates, are too poor to be able to support such establishments by themselves, and the contributions which the middle classes make to charitable institutions for their behoof, are but a part of the return of the fruits of their labour, which their monopoly of capital have enabled them to wrench from their hands. This argument may possibly appear forcible to many persons of a humane turn of mind, not practically acquainted with the situation and habits of the manufacturing operatives, or the magnitude of the funds which their great numbers put at the disposal of any persons who obtain from them contributions, however small. We never see or hear of any want of funds to enable the operatives to engage in any undertakings, how costly soever, which they have really at heart, such as long and protracted strikes against their masters, in the vain hope of keeping wages up, during periods of adversity, at the level which they had obtained in prior periods of prosperity. It was proved at the Cotton-Spinners' Trial at Edinburgh, in January 1838, that the Cotton-Spinners' Association in Glasgow had raised eleven thousand pounds for the objects of their union in a single year; and it is understood that that association from first to last have had L.200,000 through their hands. It is well known that the strikes in which the operatives were engaged in the preceding year, in the vicinity of that great manufacturing emporium, cost the community from six to eight hundred thousand pounds. Yet the operatives contrived to maintain the struggle against their masters in most of the skilled branches of industry, for three or four months together. Examples of this kind prove, that although doubtless there is often great distress and suffering among the manufacturing classes of the community, yet they do possess within themselves funds to a very great amount; and that it is by their misdirection that so little is contributed from their earnings to purposes either of benevolence or practical utility. But to bring this matter to a more accurate test, we shall take the case of a single city, and calculate from authentic data the sums that are annually spent in it by the workingclasses upon ardent spirits. We shall take Glasgow for the subject of the calculation, and that for several reasons; but chiefly because it is the city in the empire in which the Liberals will find, most completely exemplified, the practical working of their favourite principles of social and political government. Its prosperity has been unprecedented in the old world; its inhabitants, which in 1770 were 30,000, are now 270,000-that is, they have augmented ninefold in seventy years; its customhouse dues, which forty years ago were L. 3000, are now L.400,000 a-year; its harbour, which in the memory of man contained only fifty or sixty boats, now sees flags waving in it from every quarter of the globe. Nowhere, therefore, in the an cient abodes of mankind, can a parallel be found to its extraordinary progress and unbounded prosperity. It is, par excellence, also the spot in which the institutions and the remedies against evil, which the Liberals have so long and so ardently supported, are to be found; and where the alleged abuses on which they have wished to fix the sufferings and vices of society are rare. Society, from its extraordinary rapidity of growth, has entire ly outgrown the dimensions of the national Church establishment; its ancient allowance of six or seven churches was soon lost amidst the circumjacent multitude, and all the ef forts of benevolence in the middle and higher ranks, sunk before the impossibility of providing church accommodation for a population advancing at the rate of eight or ten thousand souls a-year. The Voluntary system therefore, has long, practically speaking, been in operation; the efforts of the Churchmen to enlarge the establishment, were, till within these few years when such noble benefactions have been made, unavailing; and the existence at this moment of eighty thousand human beings, who neither go to church nor can find a place in any place of worship within its bounds, proves, that whatever causes of evil have been operating within its bosom, priestcraft, and the undue ascendency of the clergy, cannot be reckoned among the number. Aristocracy there is none within its limits; its sons and its daughters can neither allege that they have been misled by the example, or seduced by the passions, or depressed by the influence, of the landed proprietors or nobility; the national Church establishment is small; the number of Voluntary meeting-houses considerable; plenty of Catholics among the humbler classes, and unbounded republican prosperity among the higher. Add to this, Glasgow is the place, perhaps, in the island, where the means of secular and intellectual education have long existed on the most extensive scale; and where the grand correctives to evil, provided by Lord Brougham and the other education advocates, have been in the fullest operation. The cost of element. ary education is exceedingly cheap; it requires only half-a-crown or three shillings a quarter, to send a child to the grammar schools, less than the wages of a single day to all the skilled workmen. Numerous scientific and literary establishments of great celebrity exist; the university, long distinguished by its illustrious men, affords tuition so cheap as to be within the reach of the sons, not only of the middle classes in the city, but even of the farmers in the adjoining counties; so that no less than fourteen hundred young men, chiefly from those districts, receive, at a comparatively moderate rate, the elements of a liberal education. Many other institutions, still more important to the working-classes, have long existed and flourished in the city. The Andersonian Institution, established expressly as a rival to the University, has long boasted of professors of reputation and ability, who, at the hours most convenient for the working-classes, every winter give lectures to numerous assemblages of the operatives and working classes: add to this, their professors, though intelligent and able men, are, from the absence of any proper foundation, and the excessive desire to render education cheap, with a view to the benefit of the workingclasses, remunerated in a manner wholly unsuited to their merits or their public services, and in fact kept at very near what Mr Hume would consider the ne plus ultra of perfection in such establishments, viz. the starving point. In addition to this, there are too large and flourishing Mechanics' Institutes, one in the city and one in the suburbs, the former attended by six, and the latter by fourteen, hundred students. Here, then, is a city in all circumstances the most favourable for the exemplification of the working of the boasted antidotes to evil; therefore, let us examine the habits of the people, and judge from that of their qualification and fitness to take the management of public affairs into their own hands, and rule the empire with absolute sway, by the irresistible force of numbers. There are within the city of Glasgow properly so called, technically named "the royalty," one hundred and two thousand inhabitants, and twelve hundred spirit-shops. In the adjoining suburbs, which form part of the city, both in Parliamentary language as to elections, and also in common language, there are one hundred and sixty-eight thousand inhabitants, and at least eighteen hundred spirit-shops. In the whole Parliamentary city of Glasgow there are three thousand spirit-dealers. Of these 3000 spirit-dealers, above 2000 are enrolled as Parliamentary electors; and of course must possess premises affording a rental of L.10 and upwards. It is universally known that a great number of spirit-dealers pay very high rents in Glasgow some from L.80 to L.100 a-year, or even more. Taking a medium, it may fairly be presumed that the average rent of these spirit-shops is L.25. The profits earned by each spiritdealer at an average, may be taken at double the rent, or L.50 a-year. We are aware that many of the respectable dealers, who make thousands a-year in this great and flourishing line of business, will smile at the idea of the average being struck so low, but we wish to be within the mark. It may safely be asserted, that if the average profit of the spirit-dealer, divided between himself and the landlord, is L.75, the gross sales in wholesale and retail which must be effected to produce that profit, must be at least four times that amount, twentyfive per cent being about the average profit of that class of dealers. Thus it may safely be concluded, and in the most moderate estimate, that the calculation will stand thus, viz.Rent of 3000 spirit-dealers, L.25 each on an average, L.75,000 Net profits of 3000 spiritdealers, at L.50 each on an average, • 150,000 L.900,000 What blessings might, at this moment, be obtained by the working. classes, from the surplus funds which they have at their disposal, and which are now, in a great measure, devoted to purposes of debauchery, vice, and degradation! No assessment on the other classes of society; no voluntary or charitable contributions are required to obtain these blessings. All that is needed is, that the working-classes should do justice to themselves. How is it that the middle classes so generally enjoy competence and comfort, and that from their efforts the whole wealth of the state generally takes its rise? Simply because they practise order, regularity, and economy in their dwellings; because they put a bridle on their licentious appetites; because they restrain present desire, from a sense of future benefit; because they sacrifice sensual and selfish gratification on the altar of domestic duty. If the working-classes would acquire such habits, they would soon be as orderly and comfortable as their immediate superiors, and, like them, become fit to be entrusted with public duties and legislative powers. It is in vain to say the operatives have not money to ac complish these ends. The money exists in ample quantity all that is wanted is to alter its direction. The three thousand spirit-shops, and six hundred thousand pounds needlessly wasted every year by the working-classes on ardent spirits in Glasgow, furnish a black monument, alike decisive of the ample amount of means which they have at their disposal, and of the deplorable use which they at present make of them. We have no wish we never had a wish to cast a shade upon the character of the working-classes. We fully and gratefully acknowledge the great number of meritorious persons to be found among them. We admit that their labour is the great source both of national subsistence and wealth; and we do not believe that there exists in the world a class of labourers of more upright and virtuous habits, than those engaged in agricultural employments. If the working-classes even in manufacturing towns will confine themselves to their proper sphere, and direct the vast efforts of which they are capable, to the attainment of practical objects of real reform they will always find us the first to give them Let them direct their our support. exertions to the alleviation of the exhausting labours of the factories, by a ten hours' bill; let them unite with the worthiest of the community in labouring for the extension of an ecclesiastical Establishment-the real church of the poor; let them petition Government for the immediate duplication of the duty on spirits, and the removal of the taxes on soap, paper, and other articles which contribute to their comfort, innocent enjoyment, and recreation; let them contribute a large portion of their earnings to saving banks, life insurances, and other objects of real and permanent benefit to themselves and their families; let them aim at eradicating from the New Poor-Law of England the harsh and unjust features by which it is stained, without seeking to return to the abuses of the old system, which were not less pernicious to themselves than to the classes who bore the assessment; and they will find not only ourselves, but the mas whole Conservative party, anxiously England are formed of very different stuff, and that they will neither fly their country, nor desert their pro=perty at the waving of the Chartist - torch., By continuing in their pre- sent headlong course of iniquity, the - Chartists may ruin themselves and their families; but they will neither break down the Constitution of the country, nor gain, by the aid of conflagration and plunder, one iota of additional power in its Government. A great reform is indeed wanted before they can be entrusted with any share in the administration of affairs; but it is required not in the institutions - of the State, but in their own hearts. Lord John Russell has told us, in his late speech in Parliament, what is the main cause to which the present lamentable condition of the working classes is to be ascribed. "In certain portions of the country the condition of the manufacturing population was not only lamentable, but appalling, (hear, hear,) and unhappily this population existed in those districts without the usual concomitants of a densely peopled regionwithout sufficient means of instruction, without sufficient places of worship, without the presence of a sufficient number of persons of property and influence, and without that subordination of rank usually existing in other conditions of society. The mass of the people there consisted of one great working-class, and of the few individuals by whom they were employed, and who had but little connexion with them of the sort calculated to produce that species of subordination which prevailed in other communities. In those districts of the country there were not sufficient schools or churches, there were not those means of religious and moral instruction which society; hence, then, there was a material were required for knitting men together in difference in their constitution and condition from that which distinguished British society in other parts of the empire, and which even marked those parts of the country in past times." Here, then, is at least one good effect which has resulted from Chartist rebellion-one lasting instruction which has been obtained from the experiment of attempting to improve the people by intellectual education and political agitation, without any regard to their spiritual or moral improvement. bubble of intellectual education has now completely burst; the ruinous effects of political passion have recoiled The upon its authors. The tendency of political excitement to lead the workingclasses into the most ruinous excesses, the utter inefficacy of secular education to check the progress of evil, is now loudly proclaimed both in the Lords and Commons by the leaders of the liberal Administration. Here, then, is at least one great gain effected by the progress of liberal measures. Truth is forced upon the country by the dearbought experience of error-the principles for which we, with the whole Conservative party, have all along strenuously contended, and which the Liberals every where resisted to the death, are now loudly proclaimed from the seats of the liberal Administration. Let us hope that the lessons taught by the flames of Birmingham will not be lost; that Government will act upon the principles which are now extorted from their mouths; and that, laying aside the selfish and perilous pursuit of political excitement, they will at length become sensible that the only secure foundation for either national security or welfare, is to be found in the extension of the means of religious instruction to the great body of the people. To the Conservatives also, recent events afford a lesson of no ordinary |