Mr. Johnson's man is only too like. Still, it is curious that, undoubtedly, as we read in one of the Indian mails, Feroze Shah, the great Delhi rebel, died at Bokhara, in August, 1866, having long received a pension of four rupees a day from the king. If one was at Bokhara, why may not the other be at Khotan?

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

WE continue our efforts to supplement our history with the latest news; and begin with the state of education, regarding which such wonderful progress had been made in Lord Palmerston's time.

Now that so much attention is being paid to the great work of education, the proportion of men and women, in different parts of Great Britain, who were able to sign their names to the marriage register, merits attention, seeing that it points out the localities where educational effort should be more particularly directed. The reports of the registrar-general show that the value of this test has been misunderstood. It has been suggested that young women are nervous in the presence of the clergyman, and so make marks when they are able to write their names. But, supposing this to be the case, the test is still available for purposes of comparison, as the timidity which prevents some men and women from writing their names, or the vanity which prompts others to try who can scarcely put letters together, must be almost equally powerful in different counties. But against any women deducted from the ranks of ignorance on the ground of nervousness, must be set a large number who write their names so badly as to prove that they have no command over writing for any useful purpose. The value of this test has also been questioned upon the ground that it is in itself no proof of education; and no doubt many of the men and women who cannot write may possess great intelligence, and have acquired many useful arts; but thousands, on the other hand, who read and write, are otherwise indifferently educated. In the absence of an examination of the adult population of Great Britain, the proportion of persons able to sign their names in writing may be safely employed as a test of elementary education. Turning to the Scottish registrar-general's report (1866), the advantages of the Scotch system of education over those of England become strikingly apparent. It is impossible to say how much Scotland owes to her system of schools and to the universities, which are accessible to the youth of the kingdom. One in nine of the men, and one in five of the women, signed with marks in Scotland; while the report of the registrar-general for England shows that one in four of the men, and one in three of the women of England and Wales, could not write their names in the marriage register; or, in other words, 89 per cent. of the men who married, and 78 per cent. of the women who married in Scotland, signed their names in writing; whereas, in England and Wales, the proportions per cent. who signed in writing, were 77 for men, and 68 for women. All the men of the counties of Kinross, Peebles, and Selkirk, who married, wrote their names in the registers; the proportions per cent. for the women, in each of the same counties, were 96, 98, and 98. The proportions were also 97 in Orkney, 96 in Berwick, and 95 in Roxburgh. The Scottish counties, in which the proportions per cent. of women who signed in writing was lowest, were-Inverness, 50; Ross and Cromarty, 52; Renfrew, 66; Dumbarton, 68; and Lanark, 68. In Dumbarton fully a third of the population is either Irish, or the descendants of Irish; and in Renfrew and Wigton the Irish element assumes a high proportion.

Dr. Stark states, as a notable proof of the generally successful working of the parochial school system in Scotland, and in the mainland-rural districts, that 91.7 per cent. of the men, and 83.2 per cent. of the women, were able to sign their names; while all the additional private efforts lavished on the towns, only brought up the proportions of those who could sign their names in writing, to 87.6 per cent. of men, and 73.6 per cent. women. In England, the proportions per cent. of women who wrote their names in the marriage registers were highest in the following counties:-Sussex, 84; Surrey, 83; Rutland, 83; Hants, 82; Middlesex, 81; Westmoreland, 76; Kent, 79; Oxford, 78; Berks, 78; Dorset, 77; Devon, 76; North Riding of York, 76; Lincoln, 76; and Wilts, 76. The proportion per cent. of women who wrote their names was lowest in South Wales-44; Monmouth, 48; Stafford, 52; North Wales, 51; Lancaster, 53; Bedford, 55; West Riding of York, 57; Cornwall, 60; Chester, 62; and Durham, 62. The great body of the people of England are many degrees below the people of Scotland in common education.

Time has also witnessed satisfactory results from the introduction of the Factory Acts, which, according to the latest reports of the inspectors, are approved alike by masters and men. Their first object, of course, is to protect the health of those employed in factories, and to insure that dangerous machinery should be properly guarded. The next, and perhaps most prominent feature of the acts, is a limitation of the hours of labour. In the case of women and children, the hours of work are restricted to ten and a-half; and, as far as possible, are confined to between six in the morning and six in the evening. The benefits of this regulation, where it is practicable, are described as immense. To all it affords time for out-door recreation; to the young it gives the opportunity of attending evening schools; and, above all, it enables women and girls to devote some time to the cares of their homes, and to the cultivation of domestic happiness. Especially amongst the young are the good effects of these acts most conspicuous. Formerly these poor children were physically exhausted and stunted by premature toil, and were denied any adequate opportunities of education. Their labour became valuable at an early age, and they were at once sent off to the factories, where, in their tenderest years, they were kept at work all day, and often far into the night. The system introduced by the Factory Acts is that of half-time. No child may be put to work before noon and after 1 P.M. on the same day. The children accordingly are organised into two sets, the one relieving the other at mid-day; and for the half of the day during which they are not at work they are sent to school. The result is extraordinary. These half-time children, who have spent half the day in manual labour, are actually quicker, more intelligent, more industrious, and more successful at their lessons than those who spend all their time at school. In the first place, it seems that study and work mutually refresh each other; but it is probably of more importance that the industrious habits acquired in work are transferred to study. Any one who has observed or taught a school of young children must know the listless way in which they generally learn. They have no conception whatever of giving all their attention to what is before them; and even without the evidence now afforded by experience, any good master would have pronounced that his scholars waste half their time. Now, it is this habit of listlessness and inattention which is effectually cured by manual labour in a factory. As Lord Shaftesbury (to whom Mr. Walpole paid a handsome tribute) represented it, "The character of their toil demands accuracy, precision, constant, unwavering attention, and prompt obedience; everything must be seized at the moment, because nothing can be recovered." And thus, he added, "the discipline of pots and pans is found nobly instrumental to the acquisition of letters and learning." It is even stated that, on one occasion, in an examination, "the half-timers of the several schools distanced the whole-timers, and, in almost every instance, carried off the prizes." This result really amounts to something like a discovery in the art of teaching, and ought to suggest some very instructive con

siderations to schoolmasters. Moreover, the children have improved in manners and morals as much as in intelligence and learning.

The half-yearly joint report of the inspectors of factories, dated the 6th of February, 1867, thus remarks upon the want of uniformity in the existing regulations:-"We have referred, in our separate reports, to various matters which we deem of interest, in connection with our duties. In this our joint report we have the pleasure of reporting to you, that upon a review of our proceedings in our respective districts, they appear to be 'as uniform as is expedient and practicable.' We beg to call your attention to the anomalies which now exist in the regulation of several trades under legislative restrictions. We have, at various times, and at some length, urged, in our separate reports, the abolition of the differences now existing in the hours of work in several of these trades; and we recur to the subject now, in the earnest hope that it may receive your consideration. We briefly recapitulate the more prominent defects which call for amendment. By the Factory Acts, and by the acts which extend those provisions to other trades, the hours of work are uniform throughout the country; and they have always given, and continue to give, the greatest satisfaction. These hours are, for children, young persons, and women, between 6 A.M. and 6 P.M., with an interval of 1 hours for meals; and, on Saturdays, from 6 A.M. to 2 P.M. But, in print-works, children of eight years of age, and under thirteen, and females above thirteen, may be, and sometimes are, employed from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M.; and, if so required, without any interval; and boys above thirteen may be employed for twenty-four hours without any interval. In bleaching, dyeing, and finishing-works, the hours of ordinary work are the same as in factories; but there is, in these works, the power to recover time lost by reason of any cause,' the accuracy of which loss it is almost impossible to check. The Bleach-works Amendment Act excludes from the operation of the act all warehouses in which the persons employed are males above fourteen years of age. Consequently, if in a warehouse a few females are employed, lads of fourteen years of age are restricted to sixty hours per week; but if no females be employed, the labour of these same lads is altogether unrestricted. The above are not all the anomalies we could point out; but each is the cause of great dissatisfaction in several localities: and in urging the adoption of uniformity of time in all establishments subject to legislative restrictions, we are satisfied that the alteration would serve the best interests of the manufacturers and of the operatives."

6

It becomes us also to say a few words about that great city of London, of which Lord Palmerston had, for more than half a century, been one of the leading personages. London, writes the registrar-general, in his annual report, is growing greater every day; and within its present bounds, extending over 122 square miles of territory, the population amounts, by computation, to 3,037,991 souls. In its midst is the ancient city of London, within and without the walls, inhabited at night by about 100,000 people; while around it, as far as a radius of fifteen miles stretches from Charing-cross, an ever-thickening ring of people extends within the area which the metropolitan police watches over; making the whole number, on an area of 687 square miles around St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, 3,521,267 souls.

This population has many interests in common as regards water, air, sewage, lighting, streets, railways, poor, government, as well as police; and many of its members residing in the outer zones at night, transact business by day in offices, shops, markets, courts, clustered in the centre of the metropolis. Thus there are daily currents inwards and outwards; and the people are blended together in a thousand ways, so as to form a natural community.

The national census is taken in England to show, in each place, the numbers found during the census night, as they represent the population with which the deaths and other important statistical elements can be compared. The corporation of the city of London, however, very naturally struck by the significance of the fact that the population returned at the census within the ancient limits under

the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor was only 113,387, and was constantly declining, so that in a few years he might appear to be left, by night, the lord of an empty realm (inania regna), determined to take a census to catch the throng of people in the city during the day. This has been done with considerable labour; and the results are published in an interesting report by Mr. Lawley, and by Mr. Scott, the chamberlain. They show by their day census, in April, 1866, that 283,520 persons reside during the active hours of the day in the city of London, where only 113,387 persons were found by the national census on April 8th, 1861, and where, at the rate of decrease observed between 1851 and 1861, there could have been no more than about 102,887 in the middle of 1866. The classes that come and go, they say, "comprise some of the most influential, wealthy, and enterprising of our fellow-countrymen-bankers, merchant princes, brokers, and wholesale traders-carrying on business which has no parallel in the world, and contributing, in the aggregate, a larger share of the public revenues than any, and even than all similar classes in other parts of the empire." This is true enough; but the reporters probably underrate the residents when they go on to say "The night population of the city consists, to a great extent, of the caretakers of city premises and their families, and of tradesmen and others too inconsiderable to possess a suburban or other residence." For the census shows, among the night population, a number of clergymen, lawyers, physicians, surgeons, merchants, and respectable tradesmen, who, it is to be presumed, form a chief part of the constituency of the wards by which the 232 common councilmen and aldermen are elected. The reporters enumerate 679,744 passengers into the city in the sixteen hours between 5 A.M. and 9 P.M.—a number necessarily greater than the number of persons entering, as the same person often enters and is counted more than once. A similar, but less extensive movement of the people to and from Westminster and the other central districts of the metropolis is going on. In Manchester, Liverpool, and all the large cities of the kingdom, the same thing is met with. The great boroughs overflow on all sides.

While the other towns of the kingdom are mainly governed under the Municipal Act, by councils elected by open voting (5th and 6th William IV., c. 76), the city of London is left in the enjoyment of its ancient privileges, and the rest of the metropolis is governed by thirty-eight parish vestries or boards, under the provisions of the Metropolitan Management Act (18th and 19th Victoria, c. 120). The government in the thirty-eight bodies consists of 2,279 vestrymen, elected by ballot. The city of London has a common council of 232 members, including the Lord Mayor and twenty-five aldermen. The metropolis has thus, in the aggregate, 2,511 members in its thirty-nine parliaments. Each district, as well as the city, sends one or two members to the Metropolitan Board of Works, consisting of a chairman and five representatives. Every district is bound, under the act of parliament, to appoint one or more health-officers; and St. George, Hanover Square, has appointed two; Poplar, two; Wandsworth, five; Plumstead, four; and each of thirty-four districts, one-making, in the aggregate, forty-seven medical officers, who have rendered the people of London excellent service. Woolwich has some pretence for not appointing a medical health-officer, and has availed itself of the privilege.

The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works extends over the whole area of the London registration division, except Mottingham: it also takes in the hamlet of Penge, which is in the Croydon registration district, and contained, around the Crystal Palace, 5,015 people in 1861, on an area of 840 acres. The rateable annual value of property by the county rate assessment for 1867, is £15,261,999; the amount required by the Metropolitan Board for that year, from the several parishes, is £222,167, including £26,380 from the city of London, which enjoys an annual income, from all sources, of about £200,000.

The mortality of London, it appears, is much affected by the sanitary measures taken by the Metropolitan Board of Works. Furthermore, the health of the

VOL. II.

2 Y

681

inhabitants is seriously dependent on the water supplied. The violent outbreak of cholera in 1866, in the east district, took place entirely among those who drank the water of the East London Water Company. In that year, 13,054 of the 80,129 deaths in London took place in public institutions: 7,088 of them in the forty-six workhouses under the control of the vestries and boards of guardians; 4,980 in the London, general, and special hospitals; ninety-five in prisons.

The registrar-general writes-"The main drainage sewers, with the exception of the northern low level, are now in active operation. They were commenced in January, 1859, and formally opened on the 4th of April, 1865. The length of these main sewers is eighty-two miles; and, with the pumping stations and other works, cost about £4,200,000. They carry off the drainage of about 117 square miles, having a population estimated by the Board at 2,800,000. The sewage intercepted daily amounts to 14,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to 396,406 cubic metres, or to about as many tons by weight; the quantity discharged at Barking from the sewers north of the Thames, being, to the quantity discharged from the southern sewers at Crossness, in the proportion of 10 to 4. The report of the Board justly refers to the necessity of a constant and abundant water-supply for London, both for domestic use and for the purification of the sewers; but it does not refer to the defect in that part of the present drainage system which is under the control of the vestry boards, and still deprives the people of the full advantages that the main drainage is destined to bestow."

A great effort had been made by the church party to raise money by voluntary subscriptions, for the purpose of overtaking the growing population of the metropolis, and supplying their spiritual needs. The money for this purpose was known as the Bishop of London's fund. From the third annual report we gather the following particulars. It, after giving details in illustration of the working of mission districts for the twelve months, stated that the income during the year had been £41,089 19s. 5d., of which £16,000 was on account of instalments previously promised. Of the total amount received, £7,735 68. 6d. had been remitted by local associations, and £6,159 68. 3d. was the result of church collections. During the same period, the grants voted by the committee of the fund were as follows:-Schools, £6,110; mission buildings, £1,792; churches, £19,100; thirty-seven sites-viz., thirteen for schools, five for parsonages, nineteen for churches-£29,753 10s: total, £56,755 10s. The total income of the fund from June, 1863, to 31st December, 1866, was £189,795 78. 11d. As against this income the following votes were stated to be in force, namely sixty-seven missionary clergy, £11,500; thirty-two parochial clergy, £2,630; thirty-six Scripture readers, £1,951; 123 parochial mission women, £800; total annual charge for agents, £16,581. Votes had also been passed for nine parsonage houses, £1,700; twenty-five schools, £13,450; enlargement or fitting of schools in five cases, £960; Board of Education for small grants to schools, £1,000; thirty mission buildings, which were also generally used as schools, £13,258; forty-seven new permanent churches, £47,365; fittings and expenses of missions in thirty-one cases, £1,695; seventy-one sites-viz., twenty-eight for churches, twenty-four for schools, five for mission buildings, fourteen for parsonages, £45,514; annual rent for rooms in ten cases, £423; total charge for single grants, £124,942, of which £67,926, remained to be claimed. The number of clergy cited to the visitation in 1866, was 1,127, which, as compared with 980 in 1862, gave an increase of 147. Many of these, however, were missionary clergy, and could not be considered as permanent additions to the staff of the diocese unless means were found to maintain them until they secured the endowment of their districts. During the same period of four years, moreover, there had been consecrated fiftytwo churches, towards sixteen of which the fund had contributed £16,500. Even after making full allowance for all that was done by other religious bodies without the church, they still needed 325 new clergy, with a proportionate staff of Scripture readers, and 194 new churches, before London was brought to the scale