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instinct. It has rules, although difficult, founded upon positive principles. We do not partake of the terror felt by some in the present day on the subject of pauperism. We are not alarmed at the increase of population, nor at the flight of industry, nor at the growth of great cities, nor at the inequality of condition; but we think that the new social circumstances begot by the progress of industry, of wealth, of the advance of civilization, have given birth to new necessities, and impose on society new obligations. We are alarmed at dangers more real in our view, and because, perhaps, less known, more dangerous. If our new social duties are neglected, the danger will become more imminent; we need, therefore, a system of public beneficence, worked out with the most liberal and enlightened views, as the greatest of ameliorations in the condition of the suffering. Social ties are now becoming loosened; the spirit of calculation has invaded every thing; individuality feels a conscious triumph; attacks, always imprudent, often culpable, awaken between the different classes of society distrust and discord, if not dreadful hostility. In the very bosom of prosperity, inquietude begins to grow and spread."... "All must concur in the restoration of harmony. We shall insist upon this duty, in all its extent and in all its strictness. The result for the rich, will be the enlightened and benevolent patronage of the poor; for the poor, the spirit of labour, of order, and good conduct; for society in general, measures of protection, of prevention, and of solace for misfortune."

"A great and principal truth springs up here to our view:-to morals belongs the grand privilege of founding, preserving, and perfecting human institutions; to morals belongs eminently the prevention of the causes of indigence, and the solace of sufferings, and, above all, the establishment of such relations between rich and poor as may be equally useful and happy for both. Public morals are the soul of social beneficence, as virtue is the inspiration of private charity. The august alliance of morals and beneficence is, in our view, the thought which comprehends and governs the whole subject; it has guided our labours, animated our zeal, sustained our strength, and is the foundation of our hopes."

"The well-being of the labouring classes is a subject of immense interest for society, and cannot be purchased at a price too high. To ascertain the means of promoting that well-being; to emancipate this numerous and interesting class from the evils which threaten them, or, at least, to mitigate the sufferings which are inevitable, is the ardent desire of all generous minds. We unite with such with all our soul; we are devoted to this effort with all the zeal and all the perseverance of which we are capable. But to serve this great cause the more perfectly, we are, above all, devoted to the truth; we refuse to indulge in illusions which may defeat our progress by carrying us too far. We have not merely kept in view that which is desirable, but that which is practicable."

We have drawn largely from this introductory essay; but those who will read the whole will find that our extracts have failed to furnish

any adequate idea of its merit. It was by far the best statement of the

subject, as it then stood, which had ever appeared. No doubt it contributed not a little to awaken men's minds to the pressing importance of questions the discussion of which could not be much longer delayed. It is true, that great delusions prevail on these topics in France, but there is also a large and enlightened body which clings to the sober but earnest humanity of Degerando. In real knowledge of this subject the French are an age in advance of their English neighbours; and if they are more annoyed by those who hold extravagant and impracticable theories, they have weapons to contend with them which must finally conquer. In England, these extravagant and dangerous doctrines are repressed, not refuted. When they prevail in England to an equal extent as in France, they will be more dangerous, because there only brute force will be opposed to them.

We have yet to point out the arrangement and the special topics of the work before us.

THE FIRST PART.-Book First treats of indigence in its relations with social economy, as being the object of public beneficence. Indigence classified, absolute or relative; its degrees, and herein of wages. The indigent strong and weak, male and female, skilled and unskilled, by their own fault, temporary and permanent; circumstances, prognostics, and effects of indigence. Statistics of poverty in the various countries of Europe and in the United States of America.

Book Second. Of social riches, and herein of the total wealth of a country and its special apportionment, of the inequality of conditions, of the lower classes and of the prospects of the extinction of indigence: of industry in its relations with the causes of indigence, and of the labourer under the double aspect of producer and consumer, and herein of the rewards of labour, the relations of the employers with the employed, the rate of wages, and the prices of articles of consumption; raw materials, great enterprises, influences of commerce, vicissitudes of industry, effect of profuse expenditure or luxury in the higher classes upon the labourer, the labour of children, labour as a means of instruction; of population in its relations with indigence. Questions raised upon this subject, of the increase of population, mortality, births, marriages, manners and morals, vices, crimes, influence of towns, influence of higher classes; of social, institutions and their influence upon poverty, institutions political and social of communities, corporations of arts and trades, laws of property and laws as to persons, penal and fiscal laws, public expenditure, taxes, lotteries, corn-laws, customs, military service; how the errors of beneficence multiply the indigent, distinguishing the true poor from the pretended; the grounds of apprehension from the increase of pauperism.

Third Book. Of the rights of indigence as arising from civilization, their nature and extent, limits, duties of the poor, injuries, distinction between legal charity and public beneficence, of the duties and power of private and public charity.

SECOND PART.-Book First.-Institutions for the education of the poor, aiding mothers, placing them at nurse, schools and asylums for infants, their management and economy; orphans, institutions for their care, ancient and modern, in Europe; orphans in England and the United States, France and Belgium, regulations; foundlings, their treatment anciently and now; foundling hospitals, their history in every country of Europe, questions, doubts, and discussions as to foundlings, abandonment of children.

The subject of foundlings is treated at great length in every aspect of the subject, but with a constant inclination to the propriety and necessity of providing fully for the support and education of all foundlings as well as orphans. There is clearly no infusion of Malthus in the twelve chapters of Degerando's work devoted to the interests of little children. The 11th and 12th of these chapters relate specially to schools for foundlings and orphans, to train their minds in knowledge and their hands to useful employment.

Second Book.-Institutions for loans to the poor throughout Europe, their history and utility; of societies for mutual assistance, their origin in Greece and Rome, history; life insurance; savings' banks, their character and history in Europe.

Third Book-Of the means of preventing indigence by changes in social economy, of measures touching the apportionment of property, of co-operative societies, of the organization of labour, the necessity of it at present, the conditions to be fulfilled, country labour, city labour, the various kinds of trades, large manufactories, public service, special institutions to provide labour, domestic economy of the labourer, public health, instruction of the working classes, prizes for special acts of virtue, the family, contentment of the labouring classes, popular amusements, morals, police, labour as a means of education, houses of refuge for females, temperance societies, morals of criminals in confinement, penitentiary systems, and aid for those who are set at liberty; of religion, as a part of popular education, as the protectress of the suffering, the special power of Christianity for the amelioration of popular morals, the ills of false religious instruction, exterior worship; of the means of strengthening religious influences upon popular manners.

THIRD PART.-Book First.-Of the means of procuring useful occupation for the poor, employment with individuals and for the public, labour at the domicil, Hamburg Institute, shops for sale of products of labour of the poor; workhouses throughout Europe, reform of English poor-laws; discussions which have arisen as to workhouses, of their organization, economy, discipline; of workhouses where the labour is forced, their history; of receptacles for mendicants, and their history in Europe, of their utility, objections and replies; of the labour most suitable for the poor, in respect to their capacity, to their management, or to their working by the piece or job, the effect of their labour on the general interests of industry, of the public works, charity-shops, farm-labour, distribution of lands to the poor; colonization of the poor, their fitness for colo

nists, colonies interior, foreign, various experiments, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, agricultural colonies as a means of beneficence for the poor, objections and replies; of emigration, researches on the subject, various emigrations of Europe, interior and foreign.

Book Second.-Assistance at the domicil, origin and first forms of, and specially in Great Britain, organization, succour to the able-bodied, to the weak, results of such assistance, charitable associations affording the mode of relief in England, assistance at domicil in various countries of Europe, and in the United States, of the best methods of giving this succour, visiting the poor, of giving money; of distributions at reduced prices of food, clothing, fuel, to the aged and incurable, to women and children, casualties, burial, succour extraordinary in great public calamities, as famine, fire, and flood, of aid to those who are so timid as not to make known their wants.

Third Book-Of houses of entertainment for the poor among the ancients, in the middle ages, and at the present day, establishments in France since 1750; of hospitals, their utility, objections answered, their constitution, conditions of admission, a great variety of particulars in relation to administration; hospitals for children, for chronic affections, and lying-in hospitals; of houses for the old and the infirm; of houses for the insane, their constitution, history, and condition in Europe, in the United States, and in the East.

FOURTH PART.-First Book.-Of poor-laws, of the origin of legislation for the poor, legislation of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans-republican and imperial, legislation of Modern Europe for the poor, requisites in legislation for the poor.

Book Second-Of the administration of poor-laws, unity of system, centralization, union of public and religious charity, officers, associations, and of females in the work of charity; ameliorations desirable in the administration of relief.

If Degerando could, with his wide survey of the subject, with his unprejudiced and frank statement of the truth, have carried with him the Christian fervour, experience, and knowledge of Dr. Chalmers, the work we have just noticed would have been one of the most effective and useful which ever came from the press. The student of humanity should therefore carry to the study of Degerando the Christianity and zeal of Chalmers. Whoever reads the "Visiteur du Pauvre" and "De la Bienfaisance Publique," in the strong Christian aspect of the subjects, will find a range of topics open to his vision which will make him lament that at least two-thirds of the volumes which now crowd the shelves of theological libraries had not been devoted to the interests of men, temporal and eternal, instead of being of so little practical value that they might be all destroyed any day without detriment to human welfare. The "Word was made flesh" and dwelt with us in a blended divinity and humanity: let the word of our religious instruction be

ever so continued to us, that while God is always held up to our view, man is never hidden from our sight.

The History of Charity during the First Four Centuries of the Christian Era, by MARTIN DOISY, which appeared immediately after the Revolution of 1848, is well-conceived, exhibits much research, and, although the whole work is from an earnest Catholic, abounds in considerations of great and instructive interest. The subject is regarded as one clearly belonging to Christianity, and the devotion of the Romish Church to its duties is treated as one of her highest titles to favour. But while it is thus viewed, it is apparent that the chief design of the author is to promote the well-being of the suffering classes.

"No one can accuse us of having erred as to the time of bringing forward a work, of which the suffering classes are the subject and charity the foundation. Politics, social economy, the legislative hall, and the periodical press, history and romance, present us, at every turn, with the subject of the masses. At this moment, history is being recast and rewritten for the benefit of the people.". "The object of France is the people-it is the progressive ameli oration of the lot of the suffering multitudes; that is, the present ameliorated by the education of men; the future assured by the education of the children." Quoting from Lamartine, who is addressing a proprietor, he says:"Keep thy property, for in spite of visions of community of goods, property is the sine qua non of society: without it we can have neither family, nor labour, nor civilization."

But he says also:

"Forget not, that property is not instituted for thee merely, but for all humanity: thou shalt possess it, but upon the conditions of justice, social utility, and an open hand: thou shalt furnish to thy brethren, out of thy superfluity, the means and elements of labour necessary for them, that they, in their turn, may become helpers of others: thou shalt recognise a right above the right of property-the right of humanity."

He quotes from Guizot, who speaks thus:

"It is impossible to regard without profound compassion so many human beings bearing from the cradle to the tomb so heavy a burden, and even then scarcely maintaining a miserable existence. That is a grievous thought, and yet it is a thought never to be dismissed; to forget it would be a grave and perilous error."

The work before us is not a mere work of theology: its object is to show how the duties of Christian charity bear upon the condition and prospects of the suffering working-classes. He shows us the advent of charity at the appearing of Christ, and sets forth at large his mission of mercy, his humble ministry of kindness, as that which it should be

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