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selves. It is easy to turn them out of the factory, but then comes the question-What is to be done with them? Are they to be turned as vagrants into the streets, in order to keep up a regular supply of delinquents? Or, are they to be sent, as is not unusual, to work in the mine until they are old enough to work in the factory? These are questions of no easy solution; and they are, therefore, usually omitted in all discussions of the subject. It is truly desirable that government should take the guardianship of these helpless beings, virtually deprived of parental care; their state-protectors might beneficially interfere to regulate the nature and duration of their labours, but to deprive them of work altogether, aggravates their poverty, exposes them to temptation, and leads them to crime. We have selected a few of the most prominent evils developed in the new state of society; for new our manufacturing population indisputably is,—and we have seen that these evils are not so much attributable to the influence of machinery, or the factory system which is based on machinery, as to the inconsistency between that system and the ancient established institutions. A system of adaptation and adjustment might therefore be expected to remedy much of the evil, which want of harmony between the facts and the rules of society has produced. It would be easy to multiply examples of this inconsistency, and trace its results in corresponding evils; but such a discussion would be of inconvenient length, and would, besides, involve controversial topics which might awake angry passions in some, and painful feelings in others.

But, notwithstanding the drawbacks just mentioned,

it requires very little attention to discover that the factory system tends to the advancement of civilization, and will be more and more effective in the improvement of society as it gradually bends and forces institutions into harmony with its exigences. We do not speak of the vast amount of physical comforts that may be commanded by a small quantity of capital, nor of the facilities afforded to industrial activity in accumulating and realizing capital-though these are of vast importance, inasmuch as the moral state of every community must, to a great extent, depend on its physical condition; but in the factory system, viewed solely in reference to employers and operatives, there are elements of moral greatness and moral goodness, whose influence has increased and is increasing.

One of the most striking of these elements is Confidence it is impossible to travel through a manufacturing district without being astounded at beholding the millions of property that remain at the mercy of the ashes of a tobacco-pipe. Were there any danger of such an insurrection as the Jacquerie, or Jack Cade rebellion among the operatives, all the military force of England could not defend the property accumulated in the single county of Lancaster. If Swing and Rock took cotton instead of corn for the subject of their experiments, the mischief, which could by no possibility be prevented, would be incalculable. But capitalists invest their money in mills and machinery without any dread of the incendiary, and operatives behold the structures rise without ever anticipating that they will become their prisons. When a foreigner, some time since, asked a party of operatives, if they did not regard

the mills of Manchester as a kind of Bastilles, they not only laughed him to scorn, but were thoroughly persuaded of his insanity.

This feeling of general confidence and security extends into individual relations. There may be avaricious and tyrannical mill-owners, but it is so obviously their interest to disguise avarice and tyranny, that they must assume the appearance at least of the contrary virtues. The peculiarity of the connexion between the employer and the operatives forces their relation to be equitable, and the fact of equity being established, the feeling naturally follows. This relation is, indeed, no way similar to that between a vassal and a feudal lord, for the operative is as destitute of the dependence of the one, as the employer is of the power of the other ;-it is a moral tie, derived from a sense of reciprocal benefits, and cemented by a sense of mutual justice.

An anecdote recorded by Mr. Villerme, in his recent work on the Physical and Moral Condition of the French Operatives, is too remarkable an illustration of this important truth to be omitted. "After the first insurrection of the workmen of Lyons in 1831, the founder of the beautiful factory La Sauvagère, in the vicinity of that city, was quite astonished on going out of his house on the morning of the second day of the riots to find a man posted as sentinel on his gate whom he recognised as a workman that he had dismissed for improper conduct. "What are you doing there?" he inquired. "I am mounting guard over you." "Mounting guard over me! Why?" "Because all your workmen have entered into an association for your defence: there are twelve of them posted in the factory, and we will relieve

with equal wit and wisdom, "Madam, if you do not teach them the devil will." In the absence of proper educators, depravity supplies a host of active teachers, whose capabilities are proved by the hosts of promising pupils that surround us. The pickpocket, the thief, the poacher, are all highly educated; and the new class of juvenile delinquents, the robbers of shop-tills and counters, are educated not only intellectually but physically, for they glide along the ground noiselessly as snakes, and exhibiting the same lubricity and elasticity, while, if caught, they can mimic the cries of starvation and disease so admirably, that they are often rescued from the hands of justice by the false compassion of the multitude.

Without entering at all into the question of National Education, it may be stated, without offence to any party, that some system of juvenile instruction and restraint is absolutely necessary in the manufacturing districts, as a simple measure of police, to supply the absence of parental control; and if facts are required to illustrate a truth sufficiently obvious from the nature of the case, they may be found in the Constabulary Reports, where we find that the palm of skill, ingenuity, and hardihood, is conceded to the juvenile delinquents of Manchester by the unanimous consent of the thieves of Great Britain.

The anxiety of parents in these districts to obtain employment for their children at an early age, must not always be attributed to avarice; a much more common motive is the anxiety "to keep them out of harm's way." Hence any absolute prohibition of juvenile labour may be seriously injurious to the children them

selves. It is easy to turn them out of the factory, but then comes the question-What is to be done with them? Are they to be turned as vagrants into the streets, in order to keep up a regular supply of delinquents? Or, are they to be sent, as is not unusual, to work in the mine until they are old enough to work in the factory? These are questions of no easy solution; and they are, therefore, usually omitted in all discussions of the subject. It is truly desirable that government should take the guardianship of these helpless beings, virtually deprived of parental care; their state-protectors might beneficially interfere to regulate the nature and duration of their labours, but to deprive them of work altogether, aggravates their poverty, exposes them to temptation, and leads them to crime. We have selected a few of the most prominent evils developed in the new state of society; for new our manufacturing population indisputably is,—and we have seen that these evils are not so much attributable to the influence of machinery, or the factory system which is based on machinery, as to the inconsistency between that system and the ancient established institutions. A system of adaptation and adjustment might therefore be expected to remedy much of the evil, which want of harmony between the facts and the rules of society has produced. It would be easy to multiply examples of this inconsistency, and trace its results in corresponding evils; but such a discussion would be of inconvenient. length, and would, besides, involve controversial topics which might awake angry passions in some, and painful feelings in others.

But, notwithstanding the drawbacks just mentioned,

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