unmeaning sound, there will be found in the silence of the bed-chamber, although the sun of Italy, or of India, should gleam through its ample casements, forms to scare and to terrify. Leaning, as we do, to sundry old and exploded notions as to what makes life worth the having, and society worth the courting, we shall be chary of our positive opinion on the matter; but still one may hesitate a sort of belief, that our modern maids and matrons, when they are driven from the society of men, to sip their tea alone, as unheeded, as though they were mewed up within the gratings of a nunnery, do sigh to think of the olden time. It is a small comfort to them to hear the loud triumphs of Bacchus thundered from the diningroom, when they themselves are sitting the while in cold neglect.

exquisite comfort ensues. Indeed, we question if fashion can ever invent a more social and moral feast than that where "the cup that cheers, but not inebriates," circles; and we have a reverence in our hearts for those times when the best china and extra gunpowder formed the centre of many a sober, happy, English "tea party."

THE LABOUR OF LONDON LIFE.

LET us glance superficially and cursorily, at the industry of a London twenty-four hours. Towards midnight, and by the time you have attained the luxurious oblivion of your first sleep, your breakfast, nay, your dinner and supper, of the coming day are being prepared; two or three hours before, thousands of your fellow-creatures have been snatching hours from their rest, to cart and pack the vegetables that will form a portion of your principal meal; and if you are wakeful, the ponderous rumbling of waggon-wheels over the rocky pavement, apprise you of their transit to the vast emporium of Covent Garden-than which no garden of ancient or of modern times boasts earlier or riper fruits, or sooner rifles the budding treasures of the spring. From the north, droves of sheep, oxen, and swine, directed by the steady herdsman and the sagacious dog, tread the suburban neighbourhoods on their way to Smithfield, where, long before the dawn, they are safely penned, awaiting the purchase of the salesmen of Leadenhall and Newgate Markets.

Attempts have been made to stigmatize tea-parties as wholesale manufacturers of scandal; but, though there may be instances in which they indulge in that article, yet, one can see no necessary connexion which would warrant the conclusion that tea is a cause and scandal an effect; and there is not the smallest doubt that, if the matter were fully investigated, it would be found that persons who indulge in scandal when drinking tea, would indulge in it just as readily, and as deeply, although they were quaffing the choicest liquor that ever was run from a still, or squeezed from a grape. There is a book whose maxims never fail; and it refers vice, not to meats and drinks, but to its true cause, the pollution of the heart. It is no doubt true, that since those who ride foremost and secure in the race of fortune, abandoned the drinking of tea for thicker potations, the practice has been left to those who have much whereof to complain. Those who have been left to pine and waste away in solitude and neglect, cannot avoid giving a grumble or two at the hardness and helplessness of their own fate, and aiming a dart or two at the more gifted or more fortunate; and as such persons will, for the sake of their bread and butter, if not for their company, always command an auditory of some description or other, it may be possible that something not unlike a manufactory of scandal may be established. But here, again, the fault, if fault there be, is not in the tea, but in the circumstances of the parties; and if envy or disappointment does rankle within, it is always best to give vent the first opportunity, as that is the sure way both of diminishing its quantity, and of blunting its malignity. A bad passion nursed in the bosom in secret gathers strength, taints the whole nature, and brings on that worst of all curses, hypocrisy; but if it be communicated in words, the moment that it is felt, it is given to the winds, blown into the desert, and forgotten. Supposing, therefore, that tea parties were actually scenes for the representation and rehearsal of scandal, one would not quarrel with them on that account. Instead of looking Five o'clock gives some little signs of life in the vicinity upon them as a disease, dangerous to the health of of the hotels and coach-offices; a two-horse stage, or society, one would regard them as being merely little railway "buss," rumbles off to catch the early trains; pimples on the surface; which, though not altogether the street retailers of fish, vegetables, and fruit may be seemly to look upon, are yet salutary in drawing some encountered, bearing on their heads their respective stocks virus away from the vitals. Instead of decrying them as in trade, to that quarter of the town where their cusmarshes whose effluvia tainted the air, one would consider tomers reside; the nocturnal venders of "saloop" are them as cloace for conveying away the moral impurities busy dispensing their penny cups at the corners; and the of the world, and which, though they may be unpleasant gilded ball of St. Paul's, lit up like a beacon by the to enter, are yet highly conducive to the health and clean-earliest rays of the sun, while all below is yet shrouded liness of society.

One knows well, however, that these are but calumnies, and that mankind (and especially womankind) cannot have a more rational repast, than that which they enjoy when assembled round the tea-table. The repast is comparatively a cheap one, and thus it is within the reach of a very large portion of society. It may be banished from high life, and it may be sneered at, and scouted by the votaries of metropolitan dissipation; but woe to the provinces if it shall be altogether put down! It is charming in itself, and it is the prelude to something better. The spirits of all are gently exhilarated; and no sooner do the tray and urn make their retreat, than a scene of the most

The river, in the dead hour of the night, is alive with boats, conveying every variety of the finny tribe to Billingsgate; now are the early breakfast-houses reaping their harvest, the bustling host, in his shirt sleeves, conveying refreshments to his numerous customers; here the shutout sot, and belated debauchee, are compelled to resort in conversation with the unfortunate and degraded of the other sex, to await the re-opening of their customary haunts of dissipation; now the footstep of the policeman, as he tramps slowly over his beat, awakes the slumbering echoes; every house is shrouded in repose, and the City seems a city of the dead. All soon again is noise, bustle, and confusion; the carts of thousands of fishmongers, greengrocers, and victuallers rattle along the streets, taking up their stands in orderly array in the immediate vicinity of the respective markets; loud is the noise of bargaining, chaffering, and contention. In a little while, however, they have completed their cargo for the day, and drive off; the waggons disappear, the markets are swept clean, and no trace remains, save in the books of the salesmen, of the vast business that has been done, as it were, in a moment.

in night, indicates approaching day.

Six o'clock announces the beginning of the working day, by the ringing of the bells of various manufactories. Now is the street crowded with the fustian-coated artisan, his basket of tools in his hand, and the stalwart Irish labourer, his short black pipe scenting the morning air with odours far different to those of Araby the Blest; the newspaper offices, busy during the night, now "let off" their gas; the sub-editors and compositors go home to bed, leaving the pressmen to complete the labour of the night. Now even the smoky City looks bright and clear, its silver stream joining, as it were, in the general repose; the morning air is soft and balmy, and the caged

throstle, lark, and linnet, captives though they be, carol sweet and melancholy lays. There is an interregnum until eight; the shopkeeper then begins his day, the porter taking down the shutters, the boy sweeping out the shop, and the slip-shod 'prentice lounging about the door; the principal comes in from his country-box about nine; the assistants have then breakfasted and dressed; and at ten the real business of the day begins.

At ten, too, the stream of life begins to set in cityways; the rich merchant from Hampstead and Camberwell dashes along in his well-appointed curricle; the cashier, managing director, and principal accountant reaches his place of business comfortably seated in his gig; clerks of all denominations foot it from Hackney, Islington, and Peckham Rye; the "busses" are filled with a motley crew of all descriptions from Paddington, Piccadilly, Elephant and Castle, and Mile End.

AMERICANISMS.

"AMERICANISM is a way of speaking peculiar to the Americans," says Witherspoon; but whoever looks into a clever and amusing volume, lately published by J. B. Bartlett, of the American Ethnological Society, will be surprised to find how many terms and idioms set down as belonging expressly to the Western country, are based upon our own and even Biblical usage. We extract a few specimens:

"The expression 'sharp-set,' in the sense of hungry, is given very properly as in frequent colloquial use both in England and the United States. In support of this, the writer might have referred to one of the best of Charles Lamb's puns. In a letter to his friend Manning, a mathematical tutor at Cambridge, he says, 'Puns I have not made many (nor punch much,) since the date of my last; one I cannot help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me, that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which I remarked, that they must be very sharp-set.'

"Brother Jonathan.-The origin of this term, as applied to the United States, is given in a recent number of the Norwich Courier. The editor says it was communicated by a gentleman, now upwards of eighty years of age, who was an active participator in the scenes of the Revolution. The story is as follows:-When General Washington, after being appointed commander of the army of the revolutionary war, came to Massachusetts to organize it and make preparations for the defence of the country, he found a great want of ammunition and other means necessary to meet the powerful foe he had to contend with, and great difficulty to obtain them. If attacked in such condition, the cause at once might be hopeless. On one occasion, at that anxious period, a consultation of the officers and others was held, when it seemed no way could be devised to make such preparation as was necessary. His Excellency, Jonathan Trumbull, the elder, was then Governor of the State of Connecticut, on whose judgment and aid the General placed the greatest reliance, and remarked, We must consult Brother Jonathan on the subject.' The General did so, and the Governor was successful in supplying many of the wants of the army. When difficulties afterwards arose, and the army was spread over the country, it became a by-word, We must consult Brother Jonathan.' The term Yankee is still applied to a portion, but Brother Jonathan' has now become a designation of the whole country, as John Bull has for England.

From eleven till two the tide of population sets in strongly city-ways; then when the greater part of the business of that quarter has been transacted, the Westend tradesmen begin to open their eyes and look about them; although in Regent Street, business is not at its maximum until four or five o'clock, and soon after, the City is almost deserted. About two, all over London there is a lull; important business, that brooks no delay, must then be transacted-the vital business of dinner; for an hour little or nothing is done, and no sound man of business expects to do anything; the governor is at dinner, the cashier is at dinner, the bookkeeper is at dinner, the senior and junior clerks are at dinner; and behold! perched on a stool, in a dark corner, the office-keeper is also taking a lesson on the "philosophy of living." Dinner over, business recommences with the energy of giants refreshed; the streets, lanes, and passages are blocked up with vehicles and men, pressing forward as if life and death depended on their making way. Now would a foreigner, at the top of Ludgate Hill, imagine that the living mass about him was hastening to some national fête, or important ceremony, instead of going about the ordinary business of every day. About six o'clock, the great business of the City is totally at an end; the tide is then a tide of ebb, setting out through all the avenues of town to the westward and to the suburbs, and the "busses" that came laden to the City, and went empty away, now go out full and return empty. Now eating begins in West-end, and drinking in City taverns; now the coffee-houses fill, and crowds gather round the doors of the theatres, patiently waiting for an hour or more the opening of the doors; Hyde Park is "By the Skin of One's Teeth.-When a man has now (if it be the fashionable season) in its glory; the eye made a narrow escape from any dilemma, it is a common is dazzled with the display of opulence, beauty, and remark to say, that he has saved himself by the skin of fashion more prominently abroad. Nine o'clock and the his teeth.' To put the matter for ever at rest, so far as shops begin to close, save those of the cigar dealers and the propriety of the phrase is concerned, we quote a pasgin-spinners, whose business is now only about to begin; sage from the most splendid of all compositions. In the the streets swarm with young men about town, and loose book of Job, chap. xix. verse 20, it is thus written, My characters of all descriptions issue from their hiding- bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am places, prowling about in search of prey; now the shell-escaped with the skin of my teeth."" fish shops set forth their crustaceous treasures in battle array, fancifully disposing their prawns and lobsters in THE statistics of crime in France have shown that evil concentrical rows; the supper-houses display their nice-passions are elicited in some classes and professions more ties in their windows, assailing the pocket through the than in others. Out of 15,872 persons committed on appetite of the eye.

About midnight, the continuous roll of carriages indicates the breaking up of the theatrical auditories, while the streets are crowded with respectable persons hastening to their houses. One o'clock all is shut up, save the watering-houses opposite the hackney-coach and cabstands, the subterranean singing rooms, the a-la-mode beef houses, lobster taverns, and ham shops; at two the day may be said to end, and the nocturnal industry with which we commenced our diary begins over again.

Such is the routine, varied materially according to the season of the year, of a day of London life; such days, accumulated, number years, and a few such years-we are gone, and are seen no more!-Blackwood's Magazine.

criminal charges, 3,138 were field-labourers; only 31 artists and 24 students appear in this fearful catalogue of offences; and, what is still more singular, only 78 of the most degraded class of women, upon whose conduct the police keep an incessant and vigilant look out. Next to field-labourers, stood domestics of various description, the delinquencies of personal servants amounting to 1198. The crimes of the labourers may be attributed to want, those of domestics to temptation; and yet, amongst the thousands of students and artists that crowd the French metropolis and populous cities, many of them in the most abject necessity, and of humble origin, we find only 55 offenders. Does not this fact speak volumes on the question of education?

No. 6.]

tions, but of the ideas and maxims that govern the world.
nations are gathered; and you cannot have a nation free,
It is out of nurseries, presided over by mothers, that
enlightened, and truly elevated, unless woman be in-
cluded in your arrangements.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS FOR YOUNG WOMEN. We would, thus early in the career of our Journal, say We do not at present propose to develope any plan of a few words in favour of the education of the young women of the working classes. We shall afterwards have much to say on this subject; not, we trust, to the dis- female education; the public attention, we are happy to taste of our readers, but, on the contrary, to their plea- say, is at present being directed anxiously towards the sure and edification. On this subject we must confess question of popular education as a whole, and we do believe that we feel strongly, and we would speak earnestly and trust, that many years will not have passed over our accordingly. Women have strong claims upon the con- heads before we shall find a comprehensive and efficient sideration of society; first, because they constitute one-system of education in existence throughout England, is, merely to direct attention to the claims of growing half of the human race; and, secondly, because the moral available for all classes of the people. Our object at present well-being of the other half mainly depends upon them. The march of civilization is steady and majestic. Be- young women in the densely populated manufacturing ginning with the few-the favoured of birth, of wealth, towns, and also in the rural districts; young women who of intellect-it proceeds grandly onward, the ranks of its have grown up without the benefits of education, whose great army ever swelling as it proceeds along the path of days are now spent in labour, but whose evenings may ages. It emancipates the feudal bondsmen, and they join yet be secured for the purposes of moral culture and its increasing throng; commerce is freed, and the great mental improvement. middle class body, containing in themselves the elements of the highest social activity, and the best practical morality, press on to the front of the movement; religious disabilities are abolished; slaves are freed; recruits are gained at every step, and the triumphant march is still onward. The elevation of the working classes next engages attention; the shortening of their hours of labour, the provision for them of pleasure gardens and parks, the purifying of towns, the erection of mechanics' institutes, the endowment of schools, all directed towards the elevation and improvement of the great body of the people. Such is the march of improvement in our own day. One by one, the depressed classes are emancipated, raised, and admitted members of the grand allied army of civilization-marching across the world, conquering and to conquer.

Women are destined to be among the last to experience the influences of this great movement, at least in a direct and palpable form; but their time, too, is arriving, and their strong claims upon the attention of society cannot much. longer be overlooked. At present, we lament to say it, women are the worst educated part of the community. About half the grown women in England cannot write their names at marriage! This is proved by the Registrar-General's yearly return. Woman, the educator, is not educated! What can we expect of the children, when such is the intellectual condition of the mothers?

To expect that we can have an educated community, while woman is kept ignorant, would be as foolish as to expect to grow wheat from the barren rock. It must universally be admitted, that the best part of the education of every human being is the education of home, and the training which is received at the domestic hearth. The home is the seminary, not only of the social affec

No position can be more appalling to a properly conditioned mind, than that of an uneducated young woman, whose early life has been spent in factory or other labour, becoming suddenly the mistress of a household, a wife, and, in course of time, a mother. Though this be the true field of her exertions, and the highest, how is she fitted to act in it? She has received no education, What no training in household management; can scarcely mend her own clothes, knows nothing of household economy, has not learnt how to prepare food; in short, is altogether a stranger to the duties and functions of home. ensues? Waste, thriftlessness, dirt, unhealthiness. The husband finds no comfort in his dwelling, and he seeks it at the clean fire-side and cheerful blaze of the nearest training worthy of the name. What can their mother do public-house. And the children? Alas! they have no She has her own education yet to begin! for them? Hence they grow up soured in temper, coarse in manner, blighted in intellect, and profligate in habit; and they Tens of thousands fasten like a curse upon the society that has neglected the education of those to whom they owe their being. Nor is this an exaggerated picture. The reader of these lines may know of such mothers and homes there are in this "happy England" of ours. of such in his own street, in his own village, perhaps at Now, what is to be done to remedy this state of things, A few earnest men and his very door. to remove this crying evil? They women in Huddersfield, Keighley, and several other towns in Yorkshire, have already furnished the answer. have seen the young men provided for, to some extent at least, by the mechanics' institutes and young men's mutual improvement societies that have been set on foot of late years for the education of young men, and they have determined to establish similar societies for the

them, what vast numbers of excellent young women, and young men, too, may be found quite sufficiently qualified, and quite willing, too, to take part in this admirable work. What is mainly wanted is an example; every one is alike unwilling to begin. Let there be some volunteering desty be found more out of place, than when standing in the way of this great enterprise. Would that our hint could be taken and acted upon, and that we could see the establishment of female industrial schools effected in all our manufacturing and agricultural districts

education and moral improvement of young women. Several ladics have volunteered their services, and the institutions prosper. The instruction given is intellectual as well as domestic. Reading, writing, and general information, are alternated with knitting, sewing, instruction in cookery, domestic management, and the ways of some forwardness, if you will-for never could momaking a home comfortable. Schools of the same kind have also been established in a rural district, namely, in the county of Ayr, in Scotland, as we learn from Mr. Dunlop's interesting Report to the Lords of Council, in 1847, on the state of education in the west of Scotland. In the Report on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Normal Schools, he says,

"There is a description of schools which is now rapidly increasing in Scotland, and extending to a lower class of the population than had been wont to have, or to consider them at all needful-the Female Schools of Industry. This is mainly the consequence of elementary education in general having taken more of a practical character than formerly, for the male children, somewhat modifying the course of literary instruction, and occasionally attempting a specific preparation for some particular calling or handicraft. The same tendency would have led of itself to an instruction of the other sex in the usual arts of domestic industry; but it was aided by this, that while the period of school attendance was the same for both sexes, it was not requisite for the female to proceed as far in the different literary branches as the other, and so the opportunity arose of attending to those things that form the proper objects of a female school. The promoters of such schools are commonly benevolent ladies, who are no strangers to the cottages of the poor, and who would endeavour, by instruction of this sort, to improve their domestic condition. It is not unusual, too, for the proprietors of public works, manufacturing or mining, to favour the people in their service with institutions of this kind."

THE ORIGIN OF COURT FOOLS,

WITH NOTICES OF CELEBRATED JESTERS.

NOTHING, perhaps, strikes the contemplative mind so forcibly, as the constant change which is ever taking place in the manners and customs of a people. Old institutions, memorable and hoary in their age, beneficial in their influence, and having a good and worthy purpose as their mission, have, sometimes, been swept away without reason, or without the least benefit accruing from their dissolution. Many are they who wonder at all this, and ask in their amazement, why things that are worthy should pass away and wither from the memory of man? But if we may regret this sometimes, and with the enthusiasm of an antiquary, lovingly anticipate their restoration, we have at other times every reason to rejoice and be glad, and on looking back with a curious eye upon the customs and usages of a past age, feel no wish arise, that they were in existence now, so little can the heart sympathize with the tenor of their spirit.

It may be, that the institution of the court and domestic fool is one of the old usages, which we may place among the latter class; for although memorable in its origin, and holy in its primitive intent, it grew into a grave and pernicious evil, and tainted many a noble and generous heart with licentiousness and immorality.

The most active promoters of these schools in the county of Ayr are stated to be, the Marchioness of Hastings, the Countess of Eglinton, Lady Fergusson of Kilkerran, and Lady Minto Blair; and all honour be to them for their admirable example of benevolence It is astounding to observe how often evil has origiand well-doing. Mrs. Hippersley Tuckfield is another rated in good, or rather, how often good has been dislady deserving of honourable mention for her long-torted into evil, and a worthy purpose turned to a bad continued efforts to improve the rising generation. She has long been labouring in this good work among the population on her own estates, in the neighbourhood of Bristol, and with a remarkable degree of success. Lady Byron has also long been a noble and useful labourer in the same field.

Examples such as these should not be without imitation in all districts. Nowhere is there a finer field for the exercise of sympathy, of fellowship, of social cooperation, of real Christian duty. Uneducated woman has claims on educated woman everywhere. Most educated women have spare time enough,- -now that the shuttle and the loom, tended by female artisans, have taken so much of their former occupations from them; and, surely, they could not employ such liberated time better, than by devoting it to the improvement of their humbler sisters. How much more interesting would such an occupation be for most young ladies, in town and country, than their present, for the most part, routine occupations? how much more delightful than the insipid drive, the tedious shopping, the idle gossip, the daily fashionable dinner, or even the last new novel? But it is not the well-to-do classes only who might take part in this work, with pleasure to themselves and advantage to others. Every woman who has leisure time at her disposal-every intelligent working woman even-can do a great deal, if she will co-operate with others in this labour of love and usefulness. As Mrs. Tuckfield says, we do not so much want very accomplished people, as good people, whose hearts are in the work; and she says, it is amazing, when you come carnestly to look out for

account; and the student of antiquarian lore will not be surprised-for it is a fact which his old books have often whispered in his ear-when I say that most of the old English customs, which bore no shadow of piety in their outward form, in which we can find nothing to love or admire, but everything to execrate and abhor, will be found, in tracing them to their primitive origin, to have sprung from some holy ordinance of the Christian Church.

Startling as this may appear, it is what history proves; for in the middle ages, the period to which most of our old usages may be traced, the Church ruled and governed all, if not by positive law, at least by her influence and spirit; and the great mass of the people, venerating her good example, and awed by her spirituality, were ever eager to imitate, in their worldly institutions, so divine a model, and moulded their carnal and human thought into the semblance and shadow of holiness. In the old amusements and sports of the people, we find this strikingly exemplified. The English drama, for instance, may be said to have derived its origin from the Church, and its first roots may be traced to the ecclesiastical shows, and gaudy representations, enacted in the old Papal Church of England. The first theatrical exhibition recorded in the annals of our history, was performed by a monk of St. Alban's; and it was the Dominicans and Franciscans of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, who established it as one of the popular amusements of the English nation. The friars attempted, and honestly so, too, to inculcate a good moral lesson in the minds of the people by this means; but the multitude copied it in their own way, and represented scenes from Scripture