religious man myself, but I can respect it in others; and I should be sorry not to look forward to the consolations of religion on my death-bed. In these places the poor live like beasts of burden, and so they must be content to die.'

Richard was inclined to ask him what death-bed consolations a man could expect from religion who took no thought about it during his years of life; but South gave him no time to speak. He entered upon the character of Charles Wright, describing him as the most culpable of all, because he had it in his power fully to contradict the gross untruths of his sister, and to check others younger than himself; 'but here,' he continued, 'is the great evil: they grow up in the mills from childhood to manhood— that is, the very few among them who live to be men or women—and all the change of character they undergo is from bad to worse; from being learners of wickedness to being teachers of it. In other situations you may say of a foolish child, "He will know better when he's older," for children as they grow up look about them and see that good conduct brings credit and profit, while the contrary leads to disgrace and ruin; whereas, in these mills, the child sees nothing of the sort; those about him are all of one class, and they may lie, they may steal, they may drink, they may make themselves no better than the beasts of the earth, so long as they work out their hours of labour, keeping time with the machinery, and don't openly wrong their employer. Indeed, where there is so much wickedness its more for their comfort to be like the rest: any one trying to withstand bad example, and to set a good one, like your poor girl Helen, must expect that if she don't choose to blacken

her mind they'll blacken her name. Such a rookery of crows can't bear a white dove among them.'

'But surely, Mr. South,' said Richard, who began to feel irritated, 'surely there must be some people, out of the thousands you are talking about, not deserving the horrid character you give them. You wouldn't wish me to think all my fellow creatures devils?'

'Not I; its only the mill-people I speak of; and if you think me uncharitable, just ask yourself what you would most likely now be if you had been taken out of your bed every day at early morn, and shut up in a close, hot, dirty, unwholesome building, where you'd never have heard a syllable of good advice, but cursing and swearing, and filthy talk from morning to night: then to go home, so tired you had no thought for any thing but to get to sleep as fast as could be, and up again for the same purpose. This to go on from Monday morning to Saturday night, and Sunday the only play-day you had-the only day when you might, by taking a stroll, satisfy yourself that the world is not made entirely of brick and stone-the only—'

'Oh, say no more?' exclaimed Richard, burying his face in his hands. This appeal had reached his heart, and too well convinced him of what he dreaded to believe. The conviction flashed upon him of how much the scenes in which he had lived and acted had contributed to form his character. Take away the sunny landscape, the broad fields, carpetted with smiling flowers, the shady banks, the towering trees, the high open canopy of heaven, and the sea-the glorious sea, which with thundering lullaby had hushed him to rest, and whose majestic roar had

blended with the skylark's morning salutation—take these away, and Richard could only regard the world as a dreary, joyless spot, compared with what he had found it. He also felt how infinitely more efficacious to his soul had been the pious precepts carefully instilled, because of their practical exemplification in the daily walk of his teachers; and with anguish unspeakable his thoughts reverted to Willy and Mary, as being' actually, perhaps irrecoverably entangled in the snare so vividly depicted. South observed the conflict that flushed the youth's forehead, and oppressed his breathing; and sought a little to qualify what he had said.

'Mind, I don't deny that a well-instructed, virtuous child may even stand against all this, with the help of such a watchful friend at home as your young ones have; but I wanted to prove to you that the wickedness of the factories is not to be charged on the poor labourers so much as on the vile system that makes slaves, not servants, of them. Certainly things have been worse: but with every improvement they are still what I represent, as the scene I saw this morning may prove to you. There the inspector did all that the law allows; he searched out for cases of injustice, brought them to as fair a trial as he could obtain, and as it was impossible he should stop to superintend it, he placed the matter in most respectable, honourable hands, and gave every help in his power; yet you see the result; and I need not remind you how they baffled him, by intimidating one set of witnesses, brow-beating another, influencing a third, slandering a fourth, perplexing the silly children, quibbling about words, shifting the responsibility from party to party, as in the case of the surgeons'

and magistrates' certificates, and finally making sure of a partial decision by putting a near relation on the bench. Self-interest, Green, is a strong feeling in man; and the laws are to be blamed that leave the mill-owners at liberty to go such lengths where it leads them. Many an honourable, kind-hearted man is drawn away insensibly to do, for his own interest, what he would never think of doing if the fact of its being allowed by the laws, and being done by his neighbours, did not make him look on it as a sort of thing of course-a necessary evil-an act of injustice done by so many that his refraining from it would only ruin himself, without taking anything worth mentioning from the amount of public harm.'

'Now that's the way I like to put it, Mr. South,' said Richard. I can't bear to throw the blame so heavily on my fellow-creatures; and I would rather it rested on the laws that are so bad.'

'Yes, but the laws don't make themselves, you know; and we send up members to Parliament on purpose to make good laws for us, or to alter what are bad. This carries the blame beyond the millowners. They have, altogether, submitted very well to some alterations that bore hard upon them; and we can't expect them to throw away what they have always been in the habit of getting, unless obliged by law to do so. I'll tell you what, Green,' he added with a vehemence that surprized his hearer, 'there are those among us that went such lengths as we ought not, to frighten the government into giving us a Reform Bill, because those that were to get into Parliament by it promised the redress of our heavy grievances; and we got it; and these men took their places in the House accordingly; but now, mind me,

young one, while I say—ay, and I'll swear it on all the books that ever were printed-there never was a body of men brought together that thought so little of their pledges, or cared so little for the poor, or trifled so with the liberties that they had always in their mouths, as the reformed House of Commons. A boroughmongering Parliament passed old Sir Robert Peel's bill, which is the only real boon ever bestowed on the poor factory labourers; and a reformed Parliament, a reforming government, undid all the best clauses in that bill.'

'I know no more of politics than the babe unborn,' said Richard.

'Very likely; but the time is coming, when every man, woman, and child must know something of politics. They have given us cheap knowledge, because it is as cheap to them as to us; and because they thought if we saw a little farther we should be more willing to put our shoulder to their wheel, and help them forward; but we are looking beyond the point they marked out, and may shew them yet that we are not to be bamboozled with fine names, when we want the things themselves that those names signify.'

Richard was perplexed. A degree of excitement had taken place of South's quiet manner, generally dull and heavy, but always dissatisfied. He seemed to have thrown aside his reserve, and exhibited the restless impatience of a man who has something to divulge that he is not quite sure he may speak. He looked earnestly at the youth, and asked, 'How long do you stay here?'

'Only four days.'

South shook his head; 'I fear you'll carry back a heavy heart in your bosom.'