assistance in this affair; and, without professing to throw any blame on the officers in command, we may say that it was unfortunate that the rebellious natives were not better enlightened upon this occasion as to the power and efficiency of our troops. The result was, that they treated us with scanty respect, and the disaffection still spread amongst the various tribes in the northern island. The officer in command at this period did not seem to possess any great amount of energy, and little was attempted by him beyond holding his position. The arrival of Major General Pratt, who held the office of commander of the forces in Australia, with large reinforcements, put it in the power of the British to assume offensive operations; and we are very happy to learn by the last mail that a complete victory had been obtained over

a portion of the rebels on the 6th November, at a place named Mahoetahi, and that their leader Wetini had been slain. The engagement is reported to have been very severe, the Maories fighting, as they generally appear to do, with great courage and resolution, while the conduct of our officers and men was beyond praise. The natives have been accustomed hitherto to undervalue British prowess, and it is to be hoped that they have now received a salutary lesson, which will not fail of restoring our prestige. Our ultimate triumph cannot be doubted, but in the mean time many colonists are suffering severely in consequence of the risks and losses which this disturbance has brought upon them; and it is absolutely necessary that the outbreak should be quelled and peace restored as quickly as possible.

T. McC.

THE distress of the poor in London has been recently brought before the whole world with unusual prominence, through the space devoted by the Times to various attempts to relieve it. There is always a lamentable amount of distress prevailing in London, and especially during the winter season; and the distress has lately been much aggravated by the bitterly cold weather, and the suspension, through the frost, of many kinds of labour. It is not without good reason that hearts have been touched and purses opened in behalf of the poor. But it is important to understand that the Charity columns of the Times furnish no safe criterion of the comparative pressure of distress. "Metropolitan Distress" had already assumed appalling dimensions in the columns of the Times before the hard weather set in; and yet at Christmas time it was shown by the average statistics of all the London workhouses, that there was no unusual degree of suffering amongst the poor. It was perfectly easy to the Times

to create the Distress movement, by opening its columns to appeals and reporting donations, with the occasional stimulus of a thorough-going leading article. It is a striking, and in many respects a hopeful, fact, as a sign of the tendency of the public mind, that this great power should have been applied directly to the help of the needy and miserable; but, unfortunately, the good is not gained without grievous injury to our social order, and without the danger of inflicting permanent damage upon the class it is designed to benefit.

There is one injustice which the Times has itself committed, and encouraged others to commit, which ought not to be left without a protest. We are told that our Poor-Law administration has evidently failed. The proofs of that failure are the appeals in the Times, the crowds at the police-courts, and the parties of "frozen-out" labourers asking relief in the streets. That contributions should be asked for, and should still pour in to the Field Lane Refuge, and

to the fund for Mr. Douglas's District, after the frank announcement that many thousands in each case are being invested for the benefit of posterity, may be surprising, but it proves nothing against any Board of Guardians. It is quite certain, again, that if the magistrates are found willing to distribute crowns and shillings promiscuously, they will have plenty of applicants till their fund is exhausted. That the lowest class of labourers, when thrown out of work, will beg in the streets, if they can get anything by it, is also certain. I have just heard, on good authority, of a large number of labourers having refused work which was offered to them, preferring the chances of relief in the streets. But the existence of such a degree of want as is implied in these applications does not sustain the attacks which have been made on the Metropolitan Boards of Guardians. These attacks have been singularly reckless and unfounded.

The Times, with its usual breadth, assumes that the parishes and unions in London are quite inoperative as regards the relief of the poor, and that the poorrates are paid for nothing. The Saturday Review believes all London guardians to be a set of niggardly shop keepers, privately employed in scraping together small gains, and dealing in a "barbarous" manner with the poor. It is very different, we are told, in the country and in Manchester, where the Poor-Law works admirably. Now, as regards this contrast between London and the country, it will probably be allowed that no place, unless it be Liverpool, presents so many difficulties to Poor-Law administration as London, with its unsettled colluvies gentium. This being considered, it is probable that an average London Board would not be at all behind any country Board either in intelligence or in humanity.

If we take the parish of St. Marylebone as an illustration, it will not be supposed, by Saturday Reviewers at least, to be too favourable a specimen. I speak with a prejudice in favour of a body of which I am a member; but the language I have referred to is manifestly

inapplicable to the St. Marylebone Board. In the first place, the members of it are not all shopkeepers. If the reviewer were to attend any ordinary meeting of the Board, he would find there two baronets, who have justly earned the respect and goodwill of their colleagues and fellow-parishioners; the Rector of St. Marylebone, who devotes a main part of at least two days in every week to the workhouse; gentlemen of inde pendent means, and of the military, the legal, and the medical professions, retired men of business, and tradesmen of all degrees, working together with much zeal and industry. Not one of these would think of taxing any section of the Board with hardness or inhumanity. Nor is the popular or democratic feeling in favour of a harsh parsimony, but decidedly against it. If the Poor-Law Commissioners exercised complete control over the parish, hundreds of pounds would be saved to the rates. The salaries of certain officers would be paid out of national funds, the out-door relief would be contracted, and other reductions secured. But the popular feeling is strongly against the Poor-Law Board, and one reason for it is the belief that, under their rule, there would be less indulgence towards the poor. I may say generally, that no expense is spared which the most humane of the guardians are satisfied would be legal and beneficial.

Every Board of Guardians, moreover, acts under many checks. The reporters know very well that any complaint or scandal makes better reading in their newspapers than the most exemplary freedom from reproach. The Poor-Law Board makes inquiry upon every appeal addressed to it, even from a single poor person. Clergymen and philanthropists are jealously on the watch to protest against any cruel treatment of their neighbours. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the complaints which are brought to the notice of the Board are disposed of by correcting the alleged facts. In any exceptional case, redress is instantly given.

I admit, however, that, notwithstand

ing the good intentions of the Board, the results of their administration are by no means of a kind that would defy criticism. Not to speak of the insuperable difficulties of a constant weary struggle against vice, and idleness, and fraud, the management of so vast a business as that of the St. Marylebone workhouse requires great administrative capacity and constant vigilance; and a board of thirty perfectly equal members, elected every year, does not promise much efficiency in government. The numbers of in-door poor at this moment (January 18th), amounting to 2,039, would people a small town; whilst there are 3,332 "on the books receiving out-door relief; and, in addition to these numbers, 2,851 have had casual relief during the last week. The cost of the relief of the poor during the year has been 53,5007. This does not look as if the guardians of the poor in the metropolis were doing nothing. It is inevitable that, in the execution of so enormous a task, we should be too much in the hands of our paid officers, so long as the power and the responsibility are diffused equally through thirty members. If a salaried chairman were appointed, to give his whole time to the business of the workhouse, he would probably soon save his salary by the economies he might introduce, besides guarding the parish from frequent troubles and scandals.

But even if such blots were more numerous and discreditable than they are, it is obvious-and no well informed person could forget it-that the substantial relief of the poor is, and must be, the work of the guardians, and that the better this work is done the less the public hear of it. At the same time, the public have ample opportunities of knowing what is going on at the workhouse, through the meetings, open to ratepayers and reporters, at the workhouse and the vestry, and through the reports in the local newspapers. But the Poor-Law administration does not exterminate distress, nor pretend to do it. No system of relief, however charitable, could possibly put an end to

distress. The causes of physical misery, whilst they remain, make that misery inevitable. In those instances of undoubted destitution which have been detailed before the magistrates and elsewhere, we do not know how much is due to drunkenness, that plague and curse of our poor. And how can you keep a drunkard out of want? Another cause of distress is scarcely less difficult to cope with the imbecility and want of energy which infects some persons like a disease. Then there is the downright idleness of not a few, which keeps them from seeking work, and throws them out of occupation when they get it. The destitution which arises from sickness and misfortune--the character of the sufferers having been reasonably good-ought to be relieved humanely by the workhouse, if not more indulgently cared for, as one might surely hope it would be, by the kindness of friends and by Christian charity.

Let me add, somewhat abruptly, the following suggestions :

1. It seems to be necessary to revive the old warnings against unguarded and too ambitious almsgiving. Of course, the magistrates who have laboured so generously during the last few days in the summary relief of crowds of applicants, will be compelled to discontinue those unprofitable labours. It is a very inconsiderate benevolence which has imposed so hopeless a task upon them. But there is great fear lest societies, rich in means and eager to help the needy, should be tempted to stimulate mendicancy and vagabondage. No greater harm can be done than this to our labouring population.

2. In dealing directly with distress, the efforts of charitable persons should be based as far as possible upon personal knowledge, and should chiefly aim, I submit, at assisting with judgment and delicacy those whom a temporary gift or a little pension may save from pauperism, and make more comfortable, without encouraging vice or idleness;-not at supplying the wants indiscriminately of the needy or unemployed. Exceptional distress, like that at Coventry, may, of course,

call for an exceptional effort of private charity; but workhouse relief has advantages for dealing with the lowest strata of poverty which private persons do not possess; and there need be no scruple about leaving apparently destitute applicants for help, when we can know nothing of their character or real circumstances, to the relieving-officer.

3. Gentlemen of leisure and public spirit may do much service by obtaining a knowledge of our public relief-system, by watching its administration, and by offering themselves for election as guardians of the poor.

4. By far the best way of battling with destitution and misery is to labour in those efforts which are likely to better the condition of the poor.

MY DEAR SIR,

Whatever

institutions and practices have a tendency to educate and encourage the poor, and to promote their self-respect, are more useful agencies "for the relief of distress," than those which may hold out a delusive hope to the improvident. A sober and industrious working man, even of the poorest class, ought to be able to stand against a fortnight's loss of work without running a risk of starvation. We may all remember, for the spring and the summer, the importance of sound efforts to encourage hope, and knowledge, and self-reliance amongst our poorer neighbours; and so, when the dangerous and' irregular charity-work of this winter is over, we may be labouring beforehand most effectually to mitigate the sufferings of the next.

HITCHAM, IPSWICH, January, 1861.

The manner in which my name is noticed in a review of Mr. Darwin's work in your number for December, is liable to lead to a misapprehension of my view of Mr. Darwin's "Theory on the Origin of Species." Though I have always expressed the greatest respect for my friend's opinions, I have told himself that I cannot assent to his speculations without seeing stronger proofs than he has yet produced. I send you an extract from a letter I have received from my brother-in-law the Rev. L. Jenyns, the well-known author of "British Vertebrata," as it very nearly expresses the views I at present entertain, in regard to Mr. Darwin's theory-or rather hypothesis, as I should prefer calling it. I have heard his book styled "the book of the day," on more than one occasion by a most eminent naturalist; who is himself opposed to and has written against its conclusions; but who considers it ought not to be attacked with

flippant denunciation, as though it were unworthy consideration. If it be faulty in its general conclusions, it is surely a stumble in the right direction, and not to be refuted by arguments which no naturalist will allow to be really adverse to the speculations it contains.

66

Yours faithfully,

J. S. HENSLOW.

EXTRACT.

"I see, in Macmillan's Magazine, you "are arranged with Lyell, Hooker, and "others in the list of those who have espoused Darwin's views. I was not aware you had become a convert to "his theory, and can hardly suppose you have accepted it as a whole, though, like myself, you may go the length of imagining that many of the "smaller groups, both of animals and "plants, may at some remote period "have had a common parentage. I do "not, with some, say that the whole of "his theory cannot be true-but, that it "is very far from proved; and I doubt "its ever being possible to prove it."

CHAPTER I.

In the year of grace 1729, on one of those golden days of the late Italian autumn, the court of Sardinia was gathered in the banqueting hall of the palace, waiting till the chapel bell should ring out its summons to mass. The court was gay, after the fashion of that time and that country, with velvets, plumes, and jewels, though the king, Victor Amadeus, who stood in the embrasure of a window conversing with the French envoy, presented in his own person a somewhat contemptuous contrast to his glittering subjects. A little old man, in his unvarying garb of plain brown cloth; his linen coarse, and untrimmed with lace; the hilt of the sword, which had won him his kingdom, was guarded with leather, that it might not fray his coat. There was a parade of simplicity in his bamboo cane, in the tortoiseshell snuff-box, not even inlaid, from which he was offering the count a pinch. Only one piece of an old man's coxcombry showed out of keeping with the severely plain costume, and this was a magnificent peruke, so full-flowing and ostentatiously curled, as to rival, if not to surpass, that of the Grand Monarque himself. Under that wig, brows, knotted with combinations, bent over an eye still vehement and eager; an eye which had never overlooked a weak point in an enemy, nor a vantage ground for its master. The face was fearless, but not frank; the lines of the thin lips secretive and astute. The old man kept his soldier's bearing; neither the weight of No. 17.-VOL. III.

nearly seventy years, nor the burden of growing ill-health, had dragged down the slight sinewy figure, or robbed it of that royal presence which stamps the man who has wrought out great things in his day. At intervals, as the door opened, and some fresh person joined the group in the back-ground, the king would turn and sigh deeply-as who among us has not marked the old sigh when one has thus sought a beloved presence, forgetful for the moment that it has vanished for ever? And, indeed, the monarch had cause for regret. From that assembly he missed the few whom he had ever really loved-the few of whose affections he could feel secure. Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy, the king's mother, had died in 1723, and his queen, the good Anna of Orleans, who had borne the rough humours and inconstancy of her lord with a patience worthy her blood-she was grand-daughter to our ill-fated Charles-had followed her during the past year; but the deepest wound of this man's heart, a wound which time was powerless to close, had been inflicted when his eldest son, the idol and the image of his father, perished in the promise of his brilliant youth. As the king's glance traversed the assembly, it fell on his son Charles Emmanuel, now heir to his throne; but nothing like affection marked the cold steady gaze, before which the prince quailed and shuffled awkwardly back behind his wife, Polyxena, a princess possessing far greater force of character than her husband. Her Victor greeted respectfully, and after a sharp survey of Charles's