ing, roof-tiles, ridge-tiles, and ordinary quarries, building bricks, stable bricks, fire bricks, coping bricks, channel bricks, sloope bricks, canted bricks, and white, blue, and brown bricks, and other goods of the same class, wherein water, sand, iron, or coal dust is used to keep the clay from atlhering to the moulds during the making, come under the provisions of the Act of 1871-72, seeing that in their manufacture children of both sexes have hitherto been employed at and under eight years of age, with all the sad results so fully described by me. He was also bound to notice the utter inadequacy of the inspection of the brickyards and brickfields under this Act. The number of inspectors is miserably insufficient. For one now employed there must be five, at least, if the Act is to be a reality, and not a sham. So with the factory Act proper. For example, in the Bolton and Blackburn district, to nearly 3000 factories and workshops to be visited, there is one solitary inspector. So with the brickyards and brickfields. Within the last few weeks he had seen dots of children employed in brick-making precisely as before the Act. He contended that the class of men who had been appointed to the inspection of the brickyards and brickfields were not of the stamp demanded for such work; they are mere theorists, and really did not know the kind of men or the kind of work they had to inspect; and, above all, were so sadfully ignorant of the kind of evils against which they have to watch, and the wrongs from which child-labour must be protected. It needs full knowledge, keen insight, quick penetrativeness, sagacious vigilance, and practical experience of the ways and tricks, and usages of trade in the Potteries, effectively to carry out this law, or any law that, like it, takes to do with long-rooted evils. To carry out the Act of 1871-2 in its integrity, there must be in certain great centres inspectors who practically know the brickyards and brickfields, and the things to be suspected, and the classes to be dealt with-men who, while respectful to employers of labour, will neither be their toadies, their tools, nor their dupes-men whose supreme endeavour and end will be, not to make things pleasant, but to right an enormous wrong, and to place the shield of the law between the little children and those who would misuse them.

Mr. FULLER read a paper on "The Improved Utilization of the land," of which the purport was to show how poor rates could be reduced to a minimum; our native food supplies multiplied; the foreign importations, amounting to 40,000,000l. or 50,000,000l. a year, dispensed with; and all the people abundantly fed, instead of vast numbers being, as now, in a state of chronic semi-starvation. Mr. Fuller adduced some interesting examples of the wonderful productiveness imparted to the land by efficient cultivation, accompanied by judicious management and the liberal employment of labour. He earnestly advocated the policy of assisting every agricultural labourer to procure a good home and a small holding, with a secured interest in it; also of granting leases and definite tenures to farmers; pointed

out many grievances arising from the insecurity now existing, and argued that it was unreasonable to suppose that men would devote time, industry, and money, to the proper development of their farms, unless they possessed some assurance that they would enjoy the fruits of their exertions and outlay. Upon no point was Mr. Fuller more energetic than when insisting that employment in connection with the land was by far the best, indeed, the only really eligible and trustworthy description of industrial training for the young. This proposition he enforced by reference to various facts, and dwelt upon the error of confining industrial training to over-handed callings, such as tailoring, shoemaking, mat-making, needlework, etc., all more or less unhealthy and precarious, when it is in our power to rear up our young people healthy, vigorous, independent, and capable of holding their own, and making their way in whatever part of the world they might find themselves. Mr. Fuller made an emphatic appeal, not only to the humanity, but to the prudent self-interest, of the landowning class to do greater justice both to tenants and labourers, and illustrated his arguments by quotations from Government reports on the examination of forty parishes, in which 753 cottages had amongst them 1194 cows, besides pigs and poultry. Not one of those families who keep cows require parish relief. In twelve parishes where most cows are kept, the poor rates are only ninepence-farthing in the pound. In ten parishes, where the proportion of those who keep cows is less, the rates are 1s. 8d. in the pound. In seven other parishes, where the proportion of cows is again less, the poor rates are 4s. 3d. in the pound. In thirteen parishes, where few or none have cows, the rates are 5s. 11d. in the pound. By way of illustrating the effects of leases on property, Mr. Fuller called attention to the disreputable class and condition of the houses in this delightfully-situated town of Devonport, and said that in a few years, with encouraging and equitable leases, the now rotting houses would be replaced with fine, handsome residences and shops, and Devonport would become, as it ought to be, one of the most beautiful towns in the kingdom.

A paper was read by Mr. J. N. BENNETT, of Plymouth, on "The Elberfeld Poor Law System." Premising that his paper was mainly an abstract of a report made by Mr. Doyle, poor law inspector, who had been sent to Saxony by direction of Mr. Stansfeld, the writer proceeded to describe the administration of poor relief in Elberfeld and such of the neighbouring municipalities as had adopted its system. In 1852 the population of Elberfeld was, in round numbers, 50,400, and the number of paupers of that town relieved at the public expense was 4000, at the cost of 7000l. In 1857 the population had increased to 52,500; the number of paupers had decreased from 4000 to 1500, at a diminished cost of about 2600l., instead of 70007., as in 1852. This striking change was effected by the application of a system of management adopted mainly at the instance of Mr. Vonden Heyett, a leading citizen of that town, not as a sudden and happy invention, but after some years of fruitless and disappointed

effort on the part of the municipality. In 1850 a poor law was enacted by the governing municipal body; a kind of poor law board was constituted and the administration of the law committed to it. This board bears some resemblance to our boards of guardians of the poor. It consists of a president, four members of the town council, and four citizens chosen by popular election. Subordinate to this body are the overseers and the visitors. The general administration of the poor law, therefore, is committed by the supreme municipal authority of the town to the guardians, and the administration of out-door relief is intrusted to-1. The overseers. 2. The visitors. The Elberfeld system applies exclusively to out-door relief. There is no workhouse test in the German system. To this body is committed the whole administration of the poor law of the municipality, including the system of medical relief, the government of the poor or almshouse which receives the old and infirm, the town hospital, and the orphan school. The town is mapped out into 252 sections; the overseers are eighteen in number. Each overseer has fourteen sections under his charge, and one visitor is allowed to each section; the number of the visitors and the number of the sections are the same. Each section contains, at the most, four pauper cases. Each overseer has the oversight, therefore, of fourteen visitors, and cach visitor has care of four pauper cases, whether consisting of families or individuals. The overseers and visitors are elected for three years, subject to the retirement annually of a fixed proportion. They are selected from the superior class of the citizens, and without reference to politics or religion. Their offices are entirely unpaid, and are also in the last resort compulsory, although, by means of friendly communication, previous consent to serve is commonly obtained. The overseers and visitors meet together fortnightly, the sectional overseer presiding. Every application for relief is made to the visitor of the section, and he alone personally investigates and relieves the case. Every new case relieved between the fortnightly sittings is brought before their meetings for consideration. At these sittings each visitor receives out of the appointed fund the estimated amounts of the coming fortnight's expenses, for which an account is returned every fortnight to the committee of guardians appointed to watch and examine it. These amounts and the whole expenses and proceedings of the visitors are regularly scrutinized, and the outlay of every groschen must be found to be in conformity with the strict rules laid down in the instructions. The visitor has under his care never more than four cases, sometimes less. His fortnightly round of visits therefore falls comparatively light upon him, and he is able, and by the instructions in his hand is bound, so to investigate the circumstances as to become acquainted with all the particulars of the past and present condition and prospects of each individual pauper, his connections and habits, in fact, his whole past life and present state and relations; and after he has, by a process perfectly inquisitorial, succeeded in laying open before him the entire life and being of the pauper, his family and relations, he is sternly forbidden by a

prohibitory order from affording relief beyond the absolute necessaries of life, contributed generally in food and clothing, according to a paid. and definite scale, from which no deviation is permitted, except in cases of extreme and urgent pressure. The pauper is then kept under the watchful and personal observation of the visitor, who constantly looks up each of his four cases, so that every change, however minute, in himself and his family is noted and reported, and labour is provided for him if he cannot get it himself. To waste the money granted, or to sell clothing or furniture found for him is a penal offence. The system has been adopted with equally beneficial results by two or three other important municipalities in the district. The visitor is enjoined, in the words of the instructions, to hear and weigh the prayers of the poor, to be his friend and adviser in the difficulties in which he may be placed, to interest himself in the cares of the poor, in helping him to obtain work, in the education of his children, in the hour of sickness, and in the trials of life. The cities of Boston, Pennsylvania, New York, Brooklyn, and other American towns and districts have adopted a precisely similar method of visitation and of dispensing relief; hundreds of voluntary and unpaid visitors in communication with the State and town authorities cover the area occupied by the poor of the large American cities, and by a process of persevering and minute inquiry, akin to that which we have been already considering, keep down pauperism whilst they relieve the extremities of distress, and furnish the inhabitants at large with a means of knowing what, at any season, or under any change of circumstances (want of labour, dearness of provisions, or any other of the ordinary causes of local distress), may be the subsisting condition of the suffering poor, not as with us through uncertain and imperfect channels, nor through the report of scantily-placed and overworked officials. The presence of working visitors, such as are engaged in German and American towns, would be found to be a nucleus for a much-needed organization of charity in our great centres of population, and an effective means for relieving clergymen and ministers from much of that laborious serving at tables under which they at present groan.

A paper by the Rev. R. HOвHOUSE, on Rating of Tithe RentCharge," is devoted to showing that the amount paid by the tithe owner is excessive, and inquiring into its cause. This he finds to be, that the tithe-owner pays rates upon nearly the whole of his income, which no one else is called upon to do. No other professional man or placeholder pays rates upon his income or any part of it. Nor are the other profits of the land (after the tithe rentcharge has been subtracted from them) rated in the same proportion. The principal remedies proposed are either, (a) a different application of the Parochial Assessment Act (1839), by which "the expense necessary to keep the property in a condition to command such rent" would be held to include payment for the personal labour and professional services of the clergyman; or, more simply, (b) an

allowance made for professional services in calculating the "rateable value," such allowance to be according to the scale laid down in the Pluralities Act (1838), for the payment of curates by non-resident incumbents.

Dr. THOMAS LITTLETON, of Plymouth, late assistant-surgeon, R.N., read a paper on "A New Method of Constructing Ships with a Self-regulating Power as to their Specific Gravity, so as to enable them to secure the Advantages enjoyed by Fish." He remarked that the numerous and disastrous accidents which have happened of late to several of our ironclad fleet must have occasioned the greatest public anxiety, and it becomes a question of the deepest interest to discover whether any means can be devised to secure ourselves from such fearful calamities as attended the loss of H.M.S. Captain, as well as to save us from such expensive experiments as were realized in the grounding of H.M.S. Agincourt and Magara. The delay occasioned by running on the banks and groundings in the passage of the Suez Canal, the habitual practice of loading and unloading cargoes of corn at the Sulina mouth of the Danube, and the hindrance of four days occasioned at the Paumben Straits to ships of a greater draught of water than twelve feet, must suffice as instances of the urgent want of some improved plans of navigation adapted for such classes of circumstances. In the attempt, he said, to overcome some of those difficulties he did not pretend to furnish a complete solution of the whole question, or a perfect answer to any part. Neither was it possible for him in the compass of a small model to exhibit the full extent of what he proposed, but he would endeavour to show what he believed to be attainable by the modelto diminish the specific gravity of the whole bulk of a ship and her cargo by the temporary inflation of collapsible air cavities fitted on the outside of the ship, so as to enable her to float in a less draught of water for an occasion whereby she might enter a bar-harbour, disengage herself when run aground, or be of great assistance to her pumps in preventing her sinking whenever she might spring a leak. In addition to fittings of this kind on the outside of the ship, the same intention would be fulfilled by air cavities within. These should be of two kinds-incompressible air tubes, which might be made subservient to an accessory purpose, that of ventilation; and others compressible, which might be constructed on the principle of Lever's air-proof flexible tubing, now extensively used in the ventilation of collieries and other mines. With such an arrangement, it would be possible to meet every contingency before named, and he believed the pumping in of air would be found a much readier method than the one now in use, the pumping out of water when a ship springs a leak. In order to give an increased safety over and beyond this pumping in of air by machinery, it would be easy to fit a self-acting apparatus to open a communication between a vessel containing diluted sulphuric acid and another partly filled with fragments of zinc or iron, so as to generate a supply of hydrogen gas to