similarity of taste, cannot fail to have peculiar success; it makes perfect the union. These snug little parties, I must confess, have very much the air of being confined to bachelor ones, but I think them equally applicable to a mixture of the sexes. Ladies are very apt to suppose that men enjoy themselves the most when they are not present. They are in a great measure right, but for a wrong reason. It is not that men prefer their own to a mixture of female society, but that females delight in a number of observances, and in forms, upon some of which I have already touched, and upon a certain display and undeviating order, which conspire to destroy that enjoyment which they seem to think they are debarred from. The fault is their own. If they will study my doctrines, and fall a little into the herringand-hashed-mutton system, they will soon find a difference in their favour. In their management of dinners, let them think only of what contributes to real enjoyment. Such a system will afford them plenty of scope for the display of their taste in realities, instead of in vanities, which have no charms for men in the article of conviviality. If they wish to witness anything like the enjoyment I have described to have taken place at my dinner in the Temple, they must adopt something of the same course to ensure it. Side-dishes, centre-pieces filled with flowers, and such encumbrances and impediments, are fatal to it. They may make their election, but they cannot have both. I rather believe they think their system necessary to keep up a proper degree of respect to themselves, and that without it men would become too careless and uncivilized; but this I apprehend to be a mistake. There may be well-regulated ease without running into disorder and brutality, and whatever facilitates the social intercourse between the sexes, will of course increase refinement on the part of the men. I think it would be a vast improvement in society if the practice of familiar dining were introduced-parties not exceeding eight, without the trouble of dressing beyond being neat and clean, with simple repasts, costly or otherwise, according to the means or inclinations of the givers, and calculated to please the palate, and to promote sociability and health. I will explain myself further on this head in my next number, till which I must defer the consideration of my remaining topics on the art of dining.

SAILORS (concluded.)

Sailors who are entrapped into these long-rooms, or similar places, are kept in a constant state of reckless excitement, and hey never think of returning to sea till they have got rid of all

their wages; indeed I believe they are not unfrequently glad when their means are gone, as the only chance they have of escaping from the fangs of those who surround them. This forced disposition, as I consider it, I have often heard taken for granted to be the necessary disposition of sailors, and thus it is argued, that the sooner they are deprived of their money, the better both for themselves and their employers. Now it seems to me, that if sailors had fair play, and the maritime part of seaport towns could be reformed, their natural character would rather be that of thought and carefulness, than of recklessness and extravagance. Hardship, and the scenes frequent on the ocean, are not the best calculated to produce levity; and the peculiar ease with which they might accumulate their wages, if it once became the custom amongst them, is much more likely to make them more saving than other men, rather than less so. A habit of accumulation, when once acquired, is the most constant of all habits, and prompts the most forcibly to industry and exertion-so that a sailor, who should reasonably enjoy a portion of his wages and put by the remainder, would be more certain to return to his calling, and to exercise it steadily, than one of the present race. I believe there are now a great many exceptions to what is considered to be the usual character of sailors, and that they are happily increasing from various causes; but unquestionably a great deal remains to be done, and it is quite melancholy to see how many instances there are of noble and generous fellows falling a prey to the most worthless, for want of a little protection. It is a matter of great consequence also to the rest of society on its own account, because the harvest, which the present state of seafaring men affords to the vicious and the criminal, is one great cause of so many depredators, who prey at other times upon the various classes of the public.

During the last war, when so many sailors were wanted both for the navy and the merchant service, every art was used to entrap them, and every species of demoralization encouraged to keep them in a state of dependence. The object on the part of government was to get their services for less than they were willing to take for them, and though the pay was kept down, and the expense of manning the navy was not so great as it would have been if sailors had been fairly dealt with, yet the system in its consequences has cost the nation a great deal more than a just course would have done. The same system is to a degree still pursued in manning merchant vessels, so far as keeping sailors in a state of dependence, though great improvements have taken place, and there is a much more enlightened policy on the part of many ship-owners. Whenever the government or individuals

contrive to purchase labour for less than its real value, the public has to make up the difference, and something more. On this subject, which is a very important one, I will extract a few sentences from my pamphlet on pauperism.

* * *

"There is a certain price for everything, and any attempt to force it below produces a contrary effect, though it may cause a division of the payment. Individuals may contrive to lower wages, and may throw the difference, with the increased cost of labour, upon the public-the State may inadequately remunerate those it employs, and thereby keep down the amount of taxation; but the means of paying the taxation will be inevitably diminished in a greater proportion. It is beyond a doubt that an armed force, raised by conscription or impressment, by ballot, or by the seductions of enlistment, costs a nation more than the necessary price, though it may cost the government less. The general rule for obtaining labour, of whatever kind, at the cheapest rate, seems to be, first to render the service as agreeable and respectable as its duties will permit, and then to offer in open market the lowest direct remuneration, which will induce the best qualified spontaneously to engage themselves, and willingly to continue. I believe if the subject were closely pursued, it would appear that by rendering the various offices of labour as little irksome as may be practicable, and by approximating by all possible means the direct wages of labour to the cost of labour, pauperism and crime might be very considerably reduced.

* *

him.

* The hope of an immediate and adequate reward, and the certainty of the secure enjoyment of it, are indispensably neces sary to obtain labour at the lowest price, and however high that price may be still it is the lowest possible. By a law of nature the slave is the dearest of labourers, and the man whose heart is in his work the cheapest-nay, even the brute, who is going home in the hope of eating his corn in comfort, is able to accomplish more than by any urging that can be inflicted upon Heart, kept constant by prudence, constitutes the perfection of a labourer.' It is to be observed, that the immense quantity of crime and pauperism that springs directly and indirectly from the present want of moral cultivation amongst sailors, is to be paid for by the public in addition to their wages; and that if they were prudent, though their wages might be somewhat higher, those wages would constitute the whole cost of their labour, instead of, as now, being only one part. If any labourer by his improvidence becomes a pauper, or causes any of those who ought to be dependent upon him to become of the paupers, expense that pauperism is to be added to his wages, to make up the whole cost of his labour; and, in the same manner, if he is guilty of

crime, or tempts others to be guilty, the expense incident to that crime is likewise to be reckoned part of the cost of his labour, though it is not paid by his employers but by the public. I believe there are now in the maritime districts of this metropolis a great many respectable lodging-houses for seafaring men, and a great many prudent characters amongst them; but there is a vast number who are quite the reverse, and who are the cause of great public detriment. It is very desirable that there should be some systematic provision for the protection of sailors, so as to give them a fair chance of becoming prudent, by having facilities afforded them for escaping bad company, and for placing in safety such part of their wages as they would not wish to spend. It seems to me that it would answer extremely well as a speculation for respectable persons, acquainted with the habits of seamen, to establish comfortable places for their reception, and to manage their affairs for them from their arrival till their departure. There could be no risk with proper caution; and the sailors, the public, and, I doubt not, the shipping interest, would be great gainers by the consequent improvement in morals.

PRINCIPLE OF POOR LAWS.

per

The principle of Poor Laws, however modified, is this-that the number of persons, incapable of maintaining themselves, necessarily exceeds the means of duly providing for them, except by a compulsory tax. If it is not true that the number of sons does so exceed, then the principle is false, and its operation, like that of every other false principle, must be pernicious. The proposition must be taken in its fullest sense; the number of persons incapable of maintaining themselves must not only actually, but necessarily, exceed the means of duly providing for them, except by a compulsory tax. This supposes government, both general and local, to be of the best form, and in the most efficient order, and that, after all, prudence aided by charity is insufficient for individual support, and therefore that the addition of a compulsory tax is necessary. If all these suppositions are not real, then Poor Laws are not founded on sound principle, but are in the nature of an expedient to bolster up some defect or defects, which ought to be sought out and thoroughly remedied. Their tendency would be only to cover and perpetuate abuse, whether that abuse existed in the general or the local government, in a deficiency of prudence, or in a want of charity. Till government, both general and local, should be put into the most efficient order, till every encouragement should be given to prudence, and till charity should be excited by all possible

means, it would be too much to say that any other resources would be necessary; and recurring to any other resources prematurely would be to retard improvement in the right quarters. Expedients are easy modes of supplying defects, and they often look specious, and for a time produce apparent benefit, but it is only on the slow operation of sound principles that reliance can safely be placed. Those who maintain the principle of Poor Laws maintain it as a permanent principle, to be kept in operation under all circumstances, because they say all property in civilized countries being appropriated, they who are born into the world, and have not the means of providing for themselves, have a right to a maintenance from the property of others. This position is maintained chiefly on the assumption that any one born into the world, where all property is appropriated, has greater difficulty in providing for himself than in a savage state; but the direct contrary is the fact. In any given country, a man capable of labour can more easily command the necessaries of life, when it is civilized, than he could have done when it was in a savage state; but it will be objected that he cannot, under all circumstances, obtain employment.. I will consider that objection by-and-by.

With respect to persons incapable of labour, whether from infancy or age, or from inability, physical or mental, their natural rights cannot be greater in a civilized than in an uncivilized state, though in the former their chances of provision, independently of any compulsory maintenance, are much better than the latter. The advocates for the principle of Poor Laws assert, that children, whose parents are unable to maintain them, have a natural right to a maintenance from the property of others. If by a natural right is meant the right they would have had in a state of nature, of what value is it, or how is it to be enforced? Being destitute, how are they in a worse condition where property is appropriated than where it is not? and in the latter case parents are exposed to inability to maintain their children. If then those children are not in a worse condition, they are not entitled to any new right by way of compensation. They could have had no advantages in a state of nature, which give them a right to compulsory provision in a state of civilization. The truth is, their claims are of a higher nature than any that laws can enforce, and in a well-ordered society are sure to be attended to without compulsion. The same reasoning applies to the destitute aged and impotent. In a state of nature, where property is not appropriated, there can be no compulsory proision for them, and their chances of voluntary provision are uch less than in a state of civilization. Now as to those who