-and is liable every day to be carried off by a thousand accidents *—and who will wonder that he is destitute of education, of reflection, and of provident habits,-ignorant of the relation betwixt wages and capital-despotic in his control over the free labour of his fellow-workmen easily duped into combinations and strikes,—and the creature of sensuality and intoxication!

It makes one shudder to contemplate a manufacturing population composed of such individuals. Their underground occupation removes them from all association and sympathy with other classes of labourers. They constitute a separate class of their own; and the frequent disturbances in the mining districts show, that unless great improvements take place, we have a volcano in our social system, which, did its full force break out,

labour, some hundreds of men in the act of washing; the backs of every one of them were quite black, and every one gave the same reason, in the same words, for not washing his back, namely, that it would weaken it.'"-TREMENHEERE'S Report, 1844.

* The accidents in the mines of Great Britain occasion about 2500 deaths in a year. At every explosion from 1743 to 1845, there have been, on an average, 13 lives lost. The Mining Journal keeps a weekly record of these accidents; and the following is its catalogue for a week, taken at random, in February last :—

"MINE ACCIDENTS.

"Bent Grange, Oldham.-H. Stochley was killed from injuries of the spine, caused by an unnecessarily rapid winding of a carriage, which was pulled over him. At the same colliery, (belonging to T. Butterworth, Esq.,) J. Spurr got into so narrow a passage, that a waggon in passing, crushed him to death.

"Ilkeston, Derbyshire.-P. Bostock was killed by part of the workings falling on him in a colliery in which he was employed.

"Coltness Iron Company, near Shotts.-As three men and a boy were descending one of this Company's pits, the belt chain caught hold of the bucket, and upset it, precipitating them all to the bottom. The men were killed, but the boy was miraculously saved.

66 Longton, Staffordshire.-As W. Hannaby (eleven years of age) was pushing a corfe to the mouth of the pit, to be lowered into the mine, it got beyond his control, when both fell down the shaft, ninety yards deep. The boy was killed.

"Balleswodden Mine.-A large scale' of ground fell on and seriously injured T. Leggo, while at work.

"Wyndham Pit, Cleator Moor.-D. Lash and J. Wilkinson have died from the effects of injuries received by an explosion at this pit.

Plean Colliery, Stirling.—As D. Forsyth and his son were undermining a large piece of coal, it suddenly parted from the roof, and falling upon the son, killed him in the presence of his father.

"Woodhad Lead Mines.-A poor boy, named Murray, fell down a sump, thirty-six feet deep, and was seriously injured.

"Thistleyfield, Butterworth, Lancashire. Two young men were killed while employed in a coal-pit.

Firgrove Colliery, Middleton.-As three brothers were descending Messrs. Knowles's pit, Milnmo, in consequence of the head stocks giving way, they came in contact with an ascending tub, and were thrown out, two being killed.

"Margam Colliery, near Pyle.-An explosion of fire-damp took place here yesterday week, but the men, with one exception, fortunately escaped, by throwing themselves upon their faces into the water running through the works. J. Jones, being more exposed than the rest, was much burned by the ignited damp."

could be restrained neither by reason nor law, and might materially disturb the framework of society.

These improvements the Legislature are wisely encouraging. But it is with the capitalists-the employers-that the responsibility must rest of carrying them fully out. Were the capitalists joint-stock companies, we would expect to meet with difficulties in doing this; but it should be different with private individuals, who can devise and carry out their plans unfettered; and almost the whole mining works of the country are in the hands of private individuals.

The improvements necessary will be seen from a perusal of the Commissioners' Reports, and the evidence appended. We have no space at present to analyze these valuable documents; but the following occur to our recollection as some of the most useful suggestions:

(1.) The masters should abolish the truck system, and give fair effect to the Act which prohibits it. It is well known that in few instances have they done so; and although the reasons given for its continuance are plausible (such as the distance of works from markets, &c.) it is a sufficient answer that the Legislature, after due investigation, considered the system bad as a whole, and passed a law prohibiting it. Any evasion of that statute leads the miners to suppose that, while laws can be enforced to the letter where he is concerned, it is otherwise with the rich. Such an idea will be removed from his mind by the master carrying out the provisions of the Truck Act.

(2). The iron furnace should not be blown upon Sundays, except in so far as absolutely necessary. This has been successfully tried at many works, and the change has been beneficial in the district around.

(3). The schools and churches which many of the iron-masters are establishing in their districts, should have teachers and clergymen not merely of high attainments, but of enthusiastic dispositions, whose ardour will lead them to leave no effort untried for the amelioration and improvement of the population;and the masters or their managers should personally take an interest in the schools, by visiting them statedly, and in other ways.

(4). The construction, ventilation, and cleanliness of the dwellings of the miners is the next important point; and its beneficial effect will best be seen by reference to the state of matters, in that respect, at a colliery in Ayrshire.

"The colliery in question is that of the Duke of Portland, about a mile and a-half from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. It has been in exist ence many years, and has, for the last forty years, been under one management that of Mr. Guthrie of Mount, his Grace's agent. It

employs about 120 families of colliers. These, instead of being crowded together in long rows of cottages, of fifty or sixty each (where the contamination of bad example quickly spreads to the whole, and the difficulties of the well disposed in keeping their homes neat, and their children clean and well behaved, are increased), are separated in groups of five or six houses at a distance of three or four hundred yards from each other, each with its plot of garden-ground. No dogs or poultry are allowed to be kept, and other arrangements are made for comfort, propriety, and cleanliness, around the houses. Where so few are collected together, there is obviously a better chance of order and harmony, and a mutual regard for each other's convenience and comfort. Things offensive to the feelings and habits of the best among them are more easily kept down, and what is reasonable and judicious is more readily established by the force of a sound public opinion. Substantial comfort, order and cleanliness, prevailed within and around these cottages.'

Such neatness and tidiness in the cottages of the workmen will aid also in promoting habits of personal cleanliness, which should be encouraged by providing abundant supplies of water conveniently situated.

(5.) Another great point would be, to extend the contracts with the workmen, and the period of occupation of their dwellings, beyond a fortnight or a month, which is the general period, to six months or a twelvemonth. At present, the workman is liable to be turned adrift, without work or house, upon fourteen days' or a month's warning. He is, therefore, constantly unsettled. But, by engaging him for a longer period, his habits would become more settled, and he would be more open to suggestions for his improvement.

(6.) Every thing should be done to prevent accidents in mines, and to take away the notion from the workman that nobody cares for him-a notion that is not without foundation, when a coal-master could say, without emotion, that it was of no consequence how many workmen were killed, as he could get plenty of others.

(7.) No exertion should be spared to introduce and encourage savings' banks, benefit societies, libraries, reading-rooms, and other such institutions, into the mining districts, so as to foster habits of providence and intelligence.

And, finally, the spirit in which all of these improvements would require to be set agoing or carried on, should, in Mr. Tremenheere's words, be a "course of kind, forbearing, paternal, and generous treatment," on the part of the masters, "thus uniting their people to themselves in the bonds of mutual confidence and good will."

* TANCRED'S Report, 1845.

ART. VI.-Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain, and Readers at Home. By RICHARD FORD. London, 1845.

MADRID, as Mr. Ford informs us, may now be reached in six days from London. But although political events occurring in Spain are rapidly transmitted to our Journals, and we have long had frequent intercourse with the principal Spanish seaports, it will surprise any reader of the interesting work before us to perceive, how very little is really understood in Britain of the true condition of the interior of the kingdom. "Spain is a terra incognita to naturalists, geologists, and every other branch of ists and ologists," says Mr. Ford (p. 77); and it may be added, that the actual state of the country has hitherto remained too much unknown, except in the most superficial manner, to the public of this kingdom.

Some of the causes which have produced this result are sufficiently obvious, and will be hereafter adverted to; but, assuredly, the absence of attractive interest cannot be ranked among these causes. There are few, if any, countries which more deserve attention than Spain, whether in respect to her past history, her present state of transition, or her future career. Possessed, in a remarkable degree, of the elements of national strength and greatness, Spain rose, after many struggles and much noble effort, to be for a time the arbitress among the nations both of the Old World and the New. But, speedily passing her zenith, she has now been descending, through successive centuries, with brief respite, from one stage of decline to another, until little else remains for the present but the Shade of a mighty Name. Decay is within her cities, and the desert among her plains her highways are unfrequented and lonely-those great ports and naval arsenals, which furnished forth magnificent fleets from the days of the Armada to those of Trafalgar, are now almost, or altogether, without one solitary ship of war-and those soldiers who conquered at the Garigliano, and Pavia, and St. Quintin, or won kingdoms under Cortes and Pizarro, have been succeeded by the modern armies which fled before the French invaders of their country, with a facility that stripped even victory of its renown.

So melancholy a change in the fate of a great nation, it is profoundly affecting to contemplate; and all the more so, as it is borne with an apparent patience and resignation, which, had they been free from the taint of a too submissive indolence, would have lent something like dignity even to decline.

The true cause of the flow and ebb of Spanish greatness is

written, in obvious characters, in her history; it is fraught with instruction, and may be expressed in few words. Spain arose in the day of her freedom; from the hour when her civil and religious liberties were subverted, she has decayed: and her regeneration will only be assured from the date when those liberties shall once again be restored.

Under the consecutive reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V., and Philip II., the outward grandeur of Spain was at its height. But it was in the same period that the seeds were surely sown of all her after decline. It was then that the powers of the nobility were broken, and the liberties of the people undermined. It was then that religious freedom was destroyed, and the modern Inquisition struck its roots deep into the heart of Spain. Of these two great evils, civil and religious despotism, acting with redoubled energy when combined, it is perhaps to the latter, working through the Inquisition, that the greater share of the modern decline of Spain may justly be ascribed. It was not the impious or the criminal, who was the object of hostility to the Inquisition. The great enemy which, with the instinct of self-preservation, it knew and hunted down, was the man who dared to assert the sacred right of freedom of conscience. With all its extensive organization for tracing and securing whomsoever was denounced as suspect-with its nefarious and stealthy procedure, basely contrived to take an unseen aim, and strike when least suspectedappealing to abject superstition, or to craven fear, as the human passions on which it had to work, and sapping the very foundations of society by sowing distrust between spouses, or infusing treachery into the breast of parent and child-the Inquisition spread its poison through the veins of the social system. And thus at length, working along with civil tyranny, it produced an utter prostration in the minds of all classes of the people, who found their only safety to consist in the abject surrender of freedom of thought and conscience to the Holy Office, as they had surrendered their whole temporal freedom to the king. It has been well observed, that the Inquisition presented "the most effectual barrier, probably, that was ever opposed to the progress of knowledge;" and that "the moral influence of this tribunal, eating like a pestilent canker into the heart of the monarchy, at the very time when it was exhibiting a most goodly promise, left it at length a bare and sapless trunk.” *

It would have been interesting, had our limits permitted, to trace in some detail the present degenerate state of Spain, both

Prescott's Ferd. and Isab. i., 332, 333. See also Dunlop's Mem. of Spain, i., 12, and ii., 337.