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little retrospection and with due reflection, the gradual improvement in the condition even of the lowest of all the classes of which society is composed. They have partaken of those advantages which have been universally diffused, in an eminent degree. Increased cleanliness and health, and consequent longevity, are among the most characteristic blessings of the present day-in all these the poor have shared perhaps in more than equal proportion with the rich. Their food also has gradually become of a better kiud than formerly. Without entering on the question of the healthiness of different kinds of aliment, it is sufficient for our present purpose to show that the food now used by the labouring ranks in this country is of a more expensive description than could be afforded by them in past periods. Wheaten bread, which is now almost universally eaten, and even fastidiously selected by the labouring poor, has been gradually introduced with the gradual accumulation of the general wealth of the community.

At the commencement of the reign of the late king, barley, rye, or oaten bread, was the universal food of the working population. As late as the year 1764, the quantity of barley grown in England was equal to that of wheat; it is now not more than one-third of it, though the proportion converted into malt has been increased. Sir Frederick Morton Eden says, about fifty years ago so little was the quantity of wheat used in the county of Cumberland, that it was only a rich family that used a peck of wheat in the course of the year, and that was used at Christmas.' Not much more than fifty years ago barley-bread was the universal food in the western counties, not merely of the labourers in husbandry, but of those small farmers, then more numerous than at the present time, who tilled with their own hands the scanty portions of land which they occupied. In the counties nearer to the metropolis the use of wheaten bread spread at an earlier period, and as wealth circulated from that central point to the extremities, the use of it gradually extended. At present, we believe, even in Lancashire, in Wales, and in Cornwall, the use of wheat has become almost universal.

The increased consumption of butchers'-meat beyond the rate of increase of population is a clear indication that the use of it must have descended lower in the ranks of society than formerly. It appeared, in 1793, from the first report of the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to take into consideration the means of improving the waste lands of the kingdom, that the beasts sold in London were of the following average weights:

In 1732 . . cattle, 370 lbs.
In 1794.. cattle, 462 lbs.

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sheep, 28 lbs.
sheep, 35 lbs.

At the present period, as far as can be collected from various

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXI.

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sources of information, the average weight of cattle is 800 lbs. and of sheep 80; but the increase in the numbers annually slaughtered has been greater than the increase of weight. It appears that, whilst the population, from 1764 to 1824, has been augmented at the rate of seventy-eight per cent. the consumption of butchers'meat has increased at the rate of 115 per cent. Besides this, there has been a correspondent increase in the consumption of bacon and salt pork, butter and cheese. The introduction and the general diffusion of tea and sugar, those admirable substitutes for fermented liquors, have assisted in improving the condition of the poor by supplying a beverage, the adoption of which has tended to diminish intoxication, one of the chief causes of the indolence, wastefulness, and rudeness, which once disgraced the lower ranks of this country. Whilst the numbers of our people have increased, the consumption of these wholesome articles has increased still more. That of both has been more than doubled, in a space of time in which the number of consumers has only increased one half.

The dwellings of the poor have been no less improved than their food. It is not necessary to go back to those early periods of our history when the great mass of the people lived in wooden booths, without glass windows or chimnies. We speak of a period within our own recollection. It is not many years ago that the cottages in the country had no flooring but that which nature furnished, and that a composition of lime and sand was beheld by the neighbours of him who enjoyed such a refinement, as a luxury to be envied. The mud walls were rarely covered with any coat of plastering; there was no ceiling under the straw roof, and when any chamber was in the house, it was accessible only by a ladder or by a post with notches indented to receive the foot in climbing to it. The doors and windows did not close sufficiently to exclude the rain or the snow, and in wet weather puddles were scattered over the inequalities in the mud floor. It is now rare in the country to see a cottage without a brick or stone or wood floor, without stairs to its chambers, without plastering on the walls, and without doors and windows tolerably weather-tight. The furniture and domestic utensils are increased and improved with the houses. The paucity and the homeliness which appeared forty or fifty years ago present to the recollection of those who can remember the state of that day, a striking contrast with the comparative abundance and convenience which are now exhibited. Instead of straw beds, and a single rug for a covering, are substituted feather or flock beds, several blankets, sheets, and often a cotton quilt. Chairs and tables occupy the place of benches and joint stools. Wooden trenchers have given way to earthenware

plates

plates and dishes, and to the iron pot is now commonly added the gridiron, frying-pan, and saucepans. The enumeration of these articles may seem trifling-but let any one, who smiles at it, follow an English traveller through less advanced countries, he will find how true it is that these little things are great to little men. The clothing of our poor has advanced with the progress of their other enjoyments. The linsey-woolsey garments which formerly served as a harbour for dirt, both to males and females, have been thrown aside, and their place occupied by others more flexible and oftener renewed. This may be the cause in part of the immense increase in the quantity of soap for which the duty is paid. Within the last forty years it has gradually increased from thirty-five to ninety-five million pounds.

The most important and, we may add, the most pleasing part of the duty imposed on us in this division of our extensive subject is to show-not that poverty does not exist—not that it is no evilnot that it is a condition to which neither sympathy nor aid is to be extended; but, that in this country the evil has been gradually diminishing, both in the number of the persons who are the objects of it and in the degree of privation to which they are subjected.

In Mr. Chalmers's Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, we find some facts and calculations which elucidate the relative numbers of the poor and the rest of the community in the reign of King William. It appears that the number of families, of all descriptions, from that of the king down to those of the gipsies and beggars, then a numerous class, was 1,349,586, and those of the labourers, out-servants, cottagers, and paupers, was 764,000, or somewhat more than one-half. According to an estimate of what would be the produce of a tax on windows in 1696, when the hearth-tax was to be abolished and one on windows substituted, it appears that of the houses calculated, but perhaps erroneously, at 1,300,000; those inhabited by persons receiving alms amounted to 330,000; those by persons not paying to church and poor to $80,000; and those by defaulters from distress or fraud to 40,000, leaving only 550,000 capable of paying the tax. By an account made up at the tax-office in 1708, the number of houses actually paying the tax was 508,516, whilst that of those inhabited by the poor and incapable of paying it, was estimated at 710,000. We do not place implicit confidence in these early estimates or statements, nor adduce them as precise data to be relied on. We give them merely to show what, in the apprehension of the best-informed persons at those periods, and according to the best calculations, was the proportion borne by those whom poverty rendered untaxable, to those who were capable of contributing to the public exigencies.

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There can be no doubt but that at each of those periods the numbers who escaped taxation were more than those who actually contributed; and that the same state of things continued to a later day, though, from the want of exact data, we find it impossible to trace the precise period at which it ceased. The houses charged to the window tax in 1801 were 924,164, and those not charged 651,759, thus showing the payers of the tax to be nearly as three to two of those beneath its reach. But it is not to be inferred that all houses with less than seven windows are occupied by those who have no other property than the labour of their hands. The contrary is notoriously the fact; and if of the persons living in houses of less than seven windows, one fourth should be found to be possessed of some property besides their labour, the proportion of the rich and intermediate classes to the absolute poor, would appear as two to one, a proportion that never existed in this country in any former age, and to which none of the other countries of Europe nearly approach.

The attention of scientific men at the present period is actively alive to the discovery of new powers, or new means for increasing the utility of those already known, and applying them to mechanical purposes, to lessen the expenditure of the strength of men and animals. Though many of the projects afloat may utterly fail, there is reason to hope that the spirit abroad may in its effects diminish yet farther the necessity for the more degrading and disgusting occupations of mankind, and thus continue gradually to elevate every class of the community. In this view, also, we cannot too highly applaud the general disposition now manifested for the education of the poor. Its tendency, especially under the direction of the National Institution, the most comprehensive plan of the whole, is to further the progress of society, by qualifying the poorest to rise in the scale, and by impressing upon their minds at an early period the importance of order, the taste for as well as the faculty of reading, and the value of the civil and religious institutions of their country.

Although we have not alluded, in this review of our progressive condition, to the opinions of our abstract politicians, we have not been unmindful of their theories, nor neglected to inquire what part of our present condition has been owing to the great discoveries in political science which they affirm to have been made. We cannot discover that those great reforms, which they have advocated and represented as indispensable pre-requisites, have had any share in guiding us to our national prosperity. Our monarch enjoys still the prerogatives of his high dignity, and retains all the power requisite to put the laws in force. The peerage still continues hereditary, and still executes judicial as well as legisla

tive functions. The House of Commons has never been purified according to the new inventions, nor have any of the electors been deprived of their ancient franchises, except in two or three instances, where they notoriously abused them. The estates of the larger proprietors have not been divided; nor have the titheholders been made to relinquish the property which they possess by indisputable titles. Our courts of law are still regulated by those ancient, and as philosophers affirm, barbarous rules, which form the common law; and an unpaid body of magistrates continues to execute the subordinate duties of justices of the peace without the assistance of any system of codification, according to the new pattern, either compendious or expanded. Our universities are still devoted to the education of youth, their revenues are not seized, nor are the colleges converted into receptacles for invalided soldiers and sailors. The pulpits and the reading desks in our churches are filled by well educated and full grown men, and not yet appropriated to the biggest boys of the parish charityschools under the direction of the churchwardens. Neither the creed nor the catechisms, which are said to be only means of teaching mendacity, have yet been banished from our numerous schools. Our distant possessions have not been abandoned-nor any part of the funds confiscated.

If the state to which we have arrived without the aid of the reformers be such as to satisfy the public that theirs was not the kind of reform which we needed, it may possibly induce the reformers themselves to agree to suspend the practical adoption of their schemes till a century or two more shall have given time for a further trial of the constitution under which we have proceeded so far in our auspicious course.

ART. VIII.-Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. pp. 363.

POPULAR Tales recommend themselves to the antiquary by illustrating the origin or connection of different races of men; to the philosopher, as being usually the vehicle of some physical or moral truth, sometimes of some mystery; and to the general reader, as exhibiting specimens of national manners, and affording innocent and not irrational entertainment. On all these grounds, and more especially upon the two last, the little work which is under our review has claims upon our attention. It is indeed a good sample of Irish humour, which is not suffered to evaporate in the telling, though the compiler has cleansed it from what is gross in the process of filtration. This particular commendation we give, because we happen to be acquainted with

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