quently by Fustian-jacket as by Broad-cloth: the rich require to be taught that whatever raises the standard of comfort in the class below will raise the standard of enjoyment in the class above; and the poor have to learn that a depreciation of the latter will at once lower the former

Destitution being relative, misery, which is the moral perception of destitution, must be relative likewise; but it is so in a double sense, since it has to be measured not merely by the amount of existing wants, but by the acuteness with which these wants are felt. It would be very amusing to make a collection of the physiological facts, of which many who pass for wise men are ignorant: one of them is " that the poor have hearts as well as stomachs." The philanthropy which would measure its exertions purely by physical wants, deserves to be stigmatised as the worst form of inhumanity.

Take, as an example, the remarkable man whose conversation I have been recording, and he is not an isolated wonder, but rather a representative of his class, differing from his fellows chiefly in the faculty of being able to think aloud; would any man say that to him the moral degradation of pauperism, to which indeed he is not as yet exposed, would not be a greater source of misery than the severest sufferings of physical destitution? I find on my notes a sentence which I believe to be his, and a reply to some remark I made on his extraordinary powers and great

versatility in conversation: "every improved faculty of the mind is new strength of muscle to help us forward when times are prosperous, but in such seasons as this each improved 'faculty is a new raw on which the whip descends more painfully and bitterly."

We remained in conversation until a very late hour, and I parted with some regret from a man who had worked out for himself, and from his own observation, those principles of economic science which seem to be unknown to many who have had the advantage of a university education.

LETTER X.

The Oaks, Turton, near Bolton,

1842.

As I had to return to Manchester this day I devoted the morning to a further examination of the social economy of a country mill, and I am confirmed in my conviction that in no place does labour exist under such favourable conditions. The interest of the proprietor in the health, morals, and prosperity of those he employs is obvious and immediate; most are connected with him in the double relation of workmen and of tenants, two divisions of his capital are invested in each family, and any injustice committed in the mill would soon show its effects on the rent of the cottages. These circumstances also compel many country manufacturers to go on working their mills at a disadvantage in seasons of commercial distress; because, if they stopped they would have to endure a double loss :-there would be no return from the capital invested in their factory and machinery;—the value of their cottage property would be deteriorated and ultimately destroyed. As a necessary consequence, there is a more patriarchal relation between master

and man in the country than can possibly exist in large towns. I repeat what I have already stated, that the geographical limits of non-intercourse established in Manchester are the greatest of the special evils connected with that town.

The isolation of classes in England has gone far to divide us into nations as distinct as the Normans and the Saxons in our wisdom we have improved on the proverb, "One half of the world does not know how the other half lives," changing it into "One half of the world does not care how the other half lives." Ardwick knows less about Ancoats than it does about China, and feels more interested in the condition of New Zealand than of Little Ireland. Now I hold it to be an undeniable truth that a reduction of sympathy is not less severely felt, and is in itself not less injurious to the operative, than a reduction of wages. Away with that material philosophy which looks upon man as a mere machine, compounded of thews and sinews! He has affections, sympathies, and aspirations, which his superiors have no more right to crush than they have to drive their chariot wheels over his body, or trample his limbs beneath the hoofs of their horses. Every outward sign of contempt or suspicion which they display is an injury and a wrong it degrades man in his moral being, and such is the mysterious sympathy between mind and matter that it even deteriorates his physical condition.

I love the men of Manchester, but I will not flatter

them; and I tell them that they have done much to alienate from them the affections of the working classes. I would say to them, You have public places of recreation, Zoological and Botanical Gardens, but have you rendered them accessible to the operative? Have you not, on the contrary, availed yourself of the most flimsy excuses to shut every door of rational recreation against him? Does the working-man believe your excuses? Ask him, and he will laugh in your face. He will point to the boarded palings which hide your gardens, to the high walls which conceal your parks, to the precautions taken in all your places of recreation that Fustian-jacket should not come between the wind and your nobility; with a curse on his lips and bitterness in his heart, he will turn away, regarding the excuse for shutting him out as an addition to insult and an aggravation of injury.

Nowhere can a more perfect contrast to this isolation be found than in Turton, Egerton, Hyde, and most indeed of the country mills which I have visited : there the employer knows the employed and is known by them; an affectionate sense of mutual dependence and mutual interest is created equally advantageous to both parties; the factory displays to a great extent the relations of a family, and the operatives regard themselves as members of one common household. Some inquiries which I made as to the means em ployed for securing a regular supply of water for the

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