pair for the money, why did you not say so? On my word of honour I would gladly have paid you another penny to ensure having a really good pair." How many people are there to whom & penny would be of so much importance as, to this poor Irish woman!

One half the world does not know how the other half contrives to live. Were some of those people, who have succeeded to large fortunes and whom chance has, for no merit of their own, placed them in what the world calls a good, enviable position, and who know little of and care less for the struggles and sufferings of many of the poor, now and then to leave their luxurious homes and go into the low courts and alleys, where drink, disease, ignorance, squalor, and vice reign supreme, they would learn something that would shock and sadden them, and see sights that would sicken them of life. III.

CASH PAYMENTS.-Few things would more certainly conduce to independence, honesty, and economy, especially among the working classes, than cash payments.

When a man feels that he is not only out of debt, but that he has money to meet current expenses, how untroubled his mind must be, what ample choice and freedom are his when he goes out to purchase what he needs! What inducement, too, the provident man has to put money away for a rainy day, when he knows that he will be expected to pay cash for what he buys! Every shilling he does not spend, every little gratification he denies himself, adds to the fund he is accumulating. With money in one's pocket one can always buy to the greatest advantage in the cheapest market, and sometimes sell in the dearest. He, who like Longfellow's village blacksmith, can look every one in the face, for he owes no man a cent, fears not the tradesman's call, and can, like a man, enter any shop or warehouse in the town in which he lives, and select and pay for anything he may require.

Debt forces a man into deceit. I will defy any man, whatever his integrity and veracity, to go through a month without being guilty of endless subterfuges and mean shifts, if he is heavily in debt. Daily he will be asked for money, and daily he will have to ask for time, and to tell plausible strings of falsehoods.

When a man, besides being free from debt, has a small store of money on which, in any emergency, he can draw, he can look forward into the troubled and untried future with calmness and hope. In the event of trade being bad, he can keep the wolf from the door for months. In the still more trying event of sickness befalling him or those dependent on him, he can keep his head above water for many weeks. Should favourable openings occur elsewhere, he can, without borrowing from anyone the funds necessary

for a move, avail himself of them at once.

Should remunerative

investments present themselves, how pleasant to turn them to account, and to watch the little nest-egg getting slowly but surely larger!

But freedom from debt has other advantages. When the mind is not weighed down with pecuniary troubles, greater attention can be given to literary and intellectual pursuits, greater interest felt in the enjoyments of life, greater energy displayed in grappling with and overcoming the difficulties daily encountered in commercial or professional life. The thoughts, too, can rise above the cares and pre-occupations of the world, and find pleasure in higher pursuits, more elevating hopes and objects. Sickness is less trying, the

chance of speedy death smaller, the enjoyment of life greater and more unalloyed, when the mountain of debt, the deadly evils of insolvency, do not press out of a man independence, happiness, and peace of mind.

What a blessing, too, to tradesmen, were they generally paid at once! How many thousands of pushing and deserving beginners in trade have, in the last three years, been forced into the bankruptcy-court, simply because they have not had ready money to meet their liabilities; though, perhaps, could they only have got it in, more than enough was owing to them to suffice for everything!

What a drawback to many a man's early career is it that he cannot prudently try to get on in the world, because his savings are too small to enable him to conduct a large business or to give unbounded credit to all who ask for it!

Then think, again, of the loss and expense entailed at the present time, by the system, which society defends and asks for, of immense establishments of clerks, bookkeepers, and collectors of money employed to attend to the accounts, and to keep within something like reasonable bounds the propensity, everywhere displaying itself, of running into debt and asking for credit. There are instances in which ready-money payments would absolutely increase the pur. chasing power of an income from ten to twenty per cent., and this in addition to the benefits I have pointed out in the preceding paragraphs.

For my part, I shall have little hope for the working classes until, instead of living from hand to mouth, and being dependent on everyone and everything except themselves, they are more provident in their habits, and understand, as they do not now, the wisdom, justice, and economy of cash payments.

IV.

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.-How many, I wonder, of the persons who envy the Americans their large wages and high prices

take into consideration the cost of food, house-rent, clothes, and houses in those parts of the world, where the labourers' services appear to be liberally paid, and where the tradesmen's returns seem so large?

The wealth of a nation depends on the industry of its people, not on the amount of money in the country. Wherever people work hard and long, there must be abundance of wealth. The happiness of a nation-a very different matter from its wealthdepends on the proceeds of industry being fairly distributed among all classes, and on a good and wise use being made of them.

Large money wages have little to do with the wealth, prosperity, contentment, and happiness of a community; until this truism is more generally remembered and acted upon social reformers and charitable persons, anxious to improve the condition of the poor, will waste nearly all their time, not clearly knowing how to set to work, nor comprehending the nature of the problem they have taken in hand.

Suppose, that in New England a working man who, in this country, might receive thirty shillings a week, is paid as many dol. lars, does it necessarily follow that his circumstances are improved or that his happiness is greater? If there is the same disparity in fortunes which obtains in this country, if there is a rise in prices proportionate to the higher rate of wages, his position may be, I do not say that it is, practically unaltered. For all I know to the contrary, the labourer is better off in America and in Australia than in this country; but stronger proof of this is needed than that money wages are double, treble, or quadruple as high in the former as in the latter.

All travellers concur in expressing their amazement at the disagreeably high prices in the States. Let me give a few proofs. Mr. W. Forsyth, Q.C., speaks of a surtout coat costing £12, a silk umbrella £2, a pair of gloves six shillings, the hire of a carriage being six shillings per hour, and washing being extravagantly dear. He mentions that skilled labour commands from £3 12s. to £4 10s. per week. If we assume, as we may safely do, that, in England, in the towns at least, skilled labour commands from thirty-three shillings to three pounds and upwards per week, it is more than probable that the high wages of America do not make up for the higher price of food and of manufactured commodities.

Mr. George Dawson, of Birmingham, a keen though rather cynical observer of men I am afraid, and a man whose statements are occasionally loose-as his warmest admirers in England aud America must confess-speaks even more despondingly than Mr. Forsyth. Mr. Dawson thinks that a dollar in the States will purchase no

more than fifteen pence would here; that, too, in spite of the great rise in prices in this country of 1872 and 1873. Assuming that his estimate is correct, it follows that the condition of the labouring classes must, on the whole, be far worse in the States than in Great Britain; for, while wages are little more than double as high, the cost of food and clothes is more than three times as great. But few observers have painted American prices in the gloomy colours Mr. Dawson has used.

Some near relatives of mine, who have settled in Richmond, in Virginia, have, from time to time, favoured me with lists of the prices of things out there, from which I have gathered at least two pieces of information,—that though everything appears dearer there than here, some commodities are only slightly more expensive than in this country, while others are five, ten, or fifteen times as dear; and that, while food is little dearer in Richmond than in Birming ham or London, manufactured goods are many times as dear.

Intending emigrants might do well to ponder these facts. They should find out not only whether they are going to have larger wages, but whether the increase in pay is sufficiently great to make up for the increased cost of everthing. A very important, though more indirect application of the same principle would be, when offers of higher wages are made or apparently greater advantages are presented, in a distant part of this country, to carefully ascer tain, before taking the fatal step of accepting the offer, whether the apparent gain is real, whether, in short, the increased cost of living, the longer hours of work, the heavier responsibility, may not far outweigh the larger wages, or the better social status promised.

V.

A GREAT WRITER'S INFLUENCE.-It would be almost impos sible for us to understand the difficulties which beset investigators and thinkers long centuries ago. They had to wander forth into great unexplored desert, and to write down their impressions, crude and often worthless, of what they saw. This was until recently, the case, as everyone will admit, in scientific investigations, where all was dark and uncertain. It was long the same with inquiries into religion, politics, history, art, and literature. The explorer, for surely he deserved the name, who determined to write a book on something, had to construct his own definitions, mark out his own fieli of labour, find out for himself what was essential and what was not. It was only after tens of thousands of scholars had wandered hither and thither, often losing themselves in objectless and interminavie discussions, and wearying the.nselves and everyone else by conjectures, when knowledge was the only thing admissible, that

method became possible; then, and not till then, did progress become real and rapid.

We, who now live, would find it hard to estimate what we owe to our untiring and accomplished predecessors. It may be true that many things are now known to every young child, which the wisest of our ancestors did not know; but, it is none the less true that we are what we are only because of what they did for us. The value of what they did for the world we can never over-estimate hardly, indeed appreciate.

Those great modern books to which we turn with deep reverence and love, because they embody the wisdom of the past and present, and convey it to us in a concise and readable form, would lose nearly all they have of importance were everything expunged which the author had obtained from his predecessors. So much we may admit. But the influence for good, and alas! sometimes for evil, of a great writer is, perhaps, more durable and far-reaching now than ever before. Everyone turns to books for information and guidance. Everyone knows where to find books which will give him just the knowledge on any topic he needs. Hence, though modern writers owe so much to those who have gone before them, they stand in a peculiar relation to the rest of the world, a position of absolute importance which writers never occupied in darker ages. More depends now on books than ever, because, though the popular admiration for the great and wise of the past, is keener and more intelligent from year to year, it is the most recent work which alone is generally read, and which alone, therefore, helps to mould the opinions and customs of the age. The influence of a great writer is yearly more marvellous, so, too, in a certain sense, is that of a second-rate author. Surely, no right-thinking writer, will dare to waste or abuse his opportunities,-opportunities the importance of which, for good or evil, few can fully appreciate.

VI.

THE VALUE OF GOOD BOOKS. A few days after the death of Sir Arthur Helps a friend of mine, not remarkable for his delicacy or depth of feeling, and not given to over-estimate the value of books, said to me, that when he heard that Kingsley and Helps were dead he felt that he had lost dear and wise friends. He could hardly find words to express his sorrow, and he added, that many persons-not much greater or more ardent admirers of books and authors than himself-had, he felt sure, looked on Kingsley and Helps as friends to whom they could always resort for counsel and sympathy.

My friend was perfectly right. There is something in the writings of these accomplished men, and of many others too, which