look into and reflect on the mode of admission of candidates to the benefits of the institution, there was great need to pause, to inquire, to candidly consider, and boldly to reform. English justice, honesty, and charity protested against the system as it was now worked, and loudly demanded either its abolition or thorough reform. The paper then described the case of a poor widow whose child had to be got into' an institution, and the painful, lingering, and expensive process through which she was compelled to pass, either to success or failure, and suggested the following inquiries:-1. Is the case, investigated thoroughly, proved a fit one? 2. If it be a fit one, why should the poor widow be thus fined and worried? 3. What good has the money spent on canvassing done? If the case is an unfit one, then it has done an injustice to others. If a fit one, why thus taxed? 4. Why should the widow and her family have their sorrows thus exposed to public gaze? 5. Why should she be put to such serious expenses as 107., 207., 307., or 407., at such a time? All this came under the sacred name of 'Charity.' He maintained that the present system with its abuses tended to lower the standard of Christian charity, to promote wordliness, pride, and self-interest, to aggravate unnecessarily mental and bodily suffering, to cause a most needless and extravagant expenditure, to foster the prosperity of jobbers and begging-letter writers, to extinguish English self-reliance and independence, and promote pauperism, suggesting that to beg nobody need be ashamed, to make election of candidates the result of interested favouritism, mercenary calculation, or half-hazard speculation, to take no note of comparative claims, and to render the name of charity ludicrous and repulsive by the scenes on polling days. He suggested one of two remedies-either to abolish the vote and substitute a 'committee at box,' ballotted out from a certain number of the subscribers, to investigate and elect; or to thoroughly reform the system by doing away with polling days, canvassing by cards and circulars, by sending back proxy papers direct to the secretary filled up by the subscribers, and by making the number of candidates bear a reasonable proportion to the number of vacancies.

Dr. SIGMUND ENGLANDER read a Paper on 'A new system. of Dwelling for the Working Classes.' The author asks why could not the interest of the lodgers in one and the same house be made the same, just as are the interest of municipal burgesses in the same town? There is no doubt that association is one of the great means of human progress, but only

when the principle is not allowed to swallow up all individual customs; and the house for the poor, should be constructed on a principle which shall reconcile co-operation with individuality. The reason why it has not hitherto been tried to apply this principle to dwellings is that it seemed always almost impossible to do so without establishing a taint of communism, or of destroying the privacy of the home. It is necessary to find out all the wants which are common to the lodger of one and the same house. There are common wants which can be made the starting-point for the association of their interests, and which must be taken into consideration ; for the mere fact that all lodgers of the same house are seeking the same description of employment, and are following the same trade, ought to facilitate the earning of their living. The solution of the question of dwellings of the poor can only be proved if we not only provide lodging for them, but also enable them to pay their rent. The principle, in short, is the association of persons in a given trade who agree to unite their common interests as tenants and consumers, but to preserve their individual right as producers; and by co-operation with the public to pay a remunerative rental for dwellings, whilst they supply the public with articles of use and consumption very much better than can now be done by competition. We can only construct houses for the poor if the co-operative principle, without infringing on individual independence and the privacy of the home, be applied to the question of dwellings, and if we not only give dwellings to the poor, but enable them at the same time to pay the rent for them.

A Paper on 'The Social Condition of this Country and India, with some suggestions for their improvement,' by Mr. W. H. VILLIERS SANKEY, C.E., corresponding member of the Royal Dublin Society, was read. Mr. Sankey pointed out the difficulty of getting occupation sufficiently remunerative to enable persons to live in the sphere they have been brought up to now that the cost of everything is so immensely augmented and taxes are so heavy. Also the want of practical and religious education by which men and women could earnestly acquire some special calling that would generally command a market. He proposed supplying useful information by lectures in the laboratory, museum, aquarium, botanical and zoological gardens, galleries of art, &c., and to change the half holiday of workmen from Saturday to Monday. He also advocated a plan of paying off the National debt and buying up all the railways in ninety-eight years, with a sum of only 10,750,000 pounds

sterling, by which the taxation of the country would be reduced to the extent of about fifty-five millions per annum in 1976; also plan of a direct railway from London to Calcutta, entirely on land.

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Mr. FRANCIS FULLER read a Paper on How to Elevate the People-physically, socially, and morally; avert Social Dangers, and strengthen the ties of Society, Law, and Order, by encouraging and enabling the masses to pass their leisure hours beneficially.' He contended that momentous issues depended upon the direction taken by the relaxation or amusement of the leisure hour, taking an example from the long leisure of Sunday. At many places of public resort called gardens,' of which in reality not a vestige existed, bar accommodation was enormous, and was by no means thinly occupied by men, women, youths, and girls, without the slightest pretence to decent restraint, far less reverence for the day. For this there were more causes than one. First, the people had to go for amusement and relaxation; and amusement and relaxation, salutary or injurious, they must and will have, and if the good was not offered they would fly to the evil. Second, through our cruel, foolish, and dangerous neglect in not recognising the necessity of facilitating the means of legitimate enjoyment, popular taste had become to a lamentable extent so vitiated, and the habit of enjoying the frivolous, the meretricious, and degrading become so inveterate that until special arrangements were made to attract, and, as it were, to educate the masses to a liking for pure and wholesome amusement, their relish and preference would be given to the foul and pestilential. It is a point of self-interest and self-protection for us to exert ourselves to improve the tone of popular amusements, to induce men to cultivate the leisure hour' for the good of mind and body. Our safety, the security of society, of our homes and families, in the long run, are concerned with the form in which they take their recreation. We want to create new tastes and facilities for recreation and enjoyment which will aid in the great national object of producing and perpetuating a healthy, happy, long-lived race of men and women. What was wanted was means of escape-cheerful, joyous, attractive means of escape from the snares to soul and body with which their path was beset. There should be amusements and enjoyment, not only improving and elevating, but enticing amusements, which

1 See Transactions, 1874, p. 745. This paper has been printed in full by the Author.

would deprive rude, brutal indulgence of its power of temptation, and change it into an object of disgust, and this could be provided by having in each town an institution which should assert its own existence, and be a familiar every-day part of life. Every town could have such an institute by the creation of a limited company with a share capital in small shares. Such a company could be made self-supporting, with special privileges reserved for shareholders.

A Paper on The Sunday Societies' Claims and Objects,' was read by Miss ANNA SWANWICK. The writer stated that the examples of Jesus and the teachings of St. Paul are opposed to the views of the Sabbatarians. There are many who require on the day of rest to be brought under healing and elevating influences from which they are excluded by present legislation. The Jewish Sabbath, it was argued, was abrogated by Christianity. Miss Swanwick would recommend nothing which could imperil a general cessation of labour on the Sunday; and it was right that the public should be satisfied on this point. To the wealthier classes the sources of intellectual culture are opened freely on the Sunday; they have in their own homes libraries and picture galleries and other means of refined enjoyment. By the opening of art galleries and similar institutions. on the Sunday similar advantages would be conferred on the poor-a privilege which in their case would be enhanced by the fact that Sunday is their one leisure day. The writer had visited the Museum at Neuchâtel, and observed groups of young men attentively studying the various objects of interest in the different departments, and thoroughly interested in their occupation. The objects proposed by the Sunday Society are, it was contended, calculated to promote the highest interests of humanity, a consideration which the spread of education renders peculiarly imperative at the present time. The deplorable practical results of the present restrictive system of legislation with reference to Sunday impresses upon the mind the terrible responsibility incurred by those who persist in opposing all measures of reform. The great principle of civil and religious liberty demands that the people shall have free access to libraries, where they may hold communion with the wise and good of every age, and also Museums, Aquariums, and Gardens, where they may consider the lilies, how they grow,' and have the opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with the one supreme reality of the Universe.

A Paper on Municipal Institutions,' was read by Mr.

WILLIAM BOTLEY.-Mr. Botley cited authorities to show that many institutions exist where they probably originated thousands of years ago; drew conclusions of their utility from the long period of the existence of those countries, particularly Egypt, where Municipal Institutions were cherished. He urged the acceptance of municipal offices and advocated a greatly extended area under the Municipality of London, and the uniting of the many Boards and authorities; and, considering the success of the Highway Act, in amalgamating many parishes into one district for the better management of the roads, he suggested that at some future period other authorities. and trusts in the provinces should be united in some such way with equal advantage.

The Rev. DAWSON BURNS, read a Paper on The Legal Status of the Liquor Traffic and the necessity of amended Legislation.'1 Mr. Burns said one grave and fundamental defect in the present system lies in the absence of all legal responsibility on the part of those by whom the licensing authority is exercised. Magistrates are entrusted with extensive powers, even to to a prohibitory degree, in regard to public-house and new beershop licenses; but for the actual use of these powers they are not held accountable, whatever the results may be in the increase of drunkenness, pauperism, crime, taxation, insanity, disease, and death. The office of the Licensing Magistrates has been generally performed in a mechanical and perfunctory manner, and with no adequate sense of the moral accountability attached thereto. Closely connected with this primary defect is the absence of any efficient inspection of liquor shops, or method of testing and tracing the connection of drink-selling with the consequences deplored. Men of all parties are agreed that provision should be made for the people's intervention in a matter relating so definitely to their own affairs. Magistrates already prohibit the liquor traffic in some rural districts, especially where they themselves reside; and in two thousand places in the United Kingdom owners of property do the same with results of a highly beneficial character. He would strenuously insist upon the vital point that, be the licensing authority what it may, it ought to consider itself accountable for the social results of the system it administers, and ought to take active and efficient measures to withhold licenses from houses which assist in producing a national intemperance.

1 See Transactions, 1874, p. 922.