little beneficial result. There seems no reason in principle why we should not also begin at the other end of the scale, and adopt parliamentary measures, which may have the far more important effect of preventing men from lapsing. Our legislation has hitherto been directed too exclusively to one object, and not even to that with much enlightenment. Hence our accumulating public burdens, and the gradual increase of social degradation and immorality. Some comprehensive measures to secure comfortable dwellings to the whole people, and to extend an enlightened system of national education, would do more to elevate the population, at far less expense, than all the cumbrous and unworkable schemes in regard to paupers and criminals, which have burdened the community for the last half century. At all events, the most zealous advocates for such measures must admit that the community owes much more to its honest men than to its thieves, and that if the landlords ought to be forced to provide palaces for the one class, it is no hardship that they should be forced, if necessary, to provide decent houses for the other.

Mr. JAMES GOWANS, Edinburgh, read a paper "On Recent Improvements in the Construction of Dwelling-Houses for the Working Classes in Large Towns," in which, after insisting on the importance of an abundant supply of pure air and light, good drainage, and a good supply of water in dwellings, he said that it was not desirable that the houses occupied by the working classes should be more than two stories in height. The houses he proposed should have each an independent entrance, so as to avoid the ill-feeling and the various nuisances incident to the common-stair. Such houses should be, as far as possible, self-contained. There should be a sufficient amount of surface area in the rooms for each individual of the family; separate entrances to each apartment from the lobby; separate sleeping places for the male and female members of the family; and, in the case of children, separate bed-rooms for both sexes, and distinct from that of the parents; and those sleeping apartments should be large enough to provide a sufficient amount of pure air to the occupants. After describing certain improved draining and other arrangements, Mr. Gowans urged the necessity for cheapness and durability, both of which he held might be obtained by a true and useful proportion of the parts, and a proper use of the material, which would at the same time secure the beauty of simplicity and truthfulness in design.

PROVIDENT INSTITUTIONS.

In addition to the papers of Mr. Strachan and Mr. Scudamore, printed at pp. 663, 669.

Mr. ALEXANDER LAING contributed a paper, "On the Abuse of Yearly Societies or Benefit Clubs," pointing out an abuse which was very silently, but at the same time very surely, under

mining the main object for which these useful institutions were es tablished. The constitutions of these societies gave power to the committees to lend advances for house rent on security being produced. He was startled very recently to find that this power was taken advantage of to such an extent. He was of opinion that at least one-third, if not more, of the members borrowed annually immediately after the society was constituted. This had a most pernicious effect on the population, and these societies, instead of being provident institutions, encouraging forethought and self-denial, were turned into pawning establishments, where not clothes, certainly, but work was pawned. The Legislature had of late years most wisely thrown barriers in the way of recovering debts from working men, for the purpose of producing ready-money dealings; and he (Mr. Laing) thought that it would be worthy of this Association to endeavour to get a barrier thrown in the way of the working men injuring themselves by means of institutions which were otherwise admirable and deserving of every encouragement.

After a short discussion,

Mr. SMITHIES proposed the following resolution :

"That the Council be requested to consider the expediency of endeavouring to secure a Parliamentary inquiry into the existing provident societies for the working classes. That the Department is impressed with the desirableness of Government security being afforded to the industrial classes who desire to provide an annuity in old age, or an allowance in sickness."

Mr. BILLINGS seconded the motion, which was unanimously agreed to.

THE EARLY CLOSING MOVEMENT.

On the reading of the Rev. Dr. Beggs' paper, printed at p. 689, Mr. JOSEPH PITTER, secretary to the Early Closing Association, in London, said it was a fact patent that all those interested in Young Men's Christian Associations that their success depended greatly on the early closing movement. During the last twenty years a marked change for the better had come over the entire class of shopkeepers in London. But the great mass of retail shops in the eastern part of the metropolis were still open till eleven and twelve o'clock on Saturday night, and that was greatly caused by the late hours at which wages were paid. Mr. Pitter concluded by proposing that a resolution to the following effect be transmitted to the Council:

"That in the opinion of the Department there is an intimate connexion between the practical development of the early closing movement and all efforts for elevating the moral and social condition of the industrial classes, the possession of leisure on the part of the employed being necessary in order to their duly sharing in the benefits of the various educational institutions of the age.”

Dr. ANDREW THOMSON Seconded the motion, which was agreed to.

t

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

In addition to the papers printed at pp. 698-707,

Miss EMILY FAITHFULL read a paper on "Unfit Employments in which Women are Engaged," calling attention to the various modes of occupation which, either by their nature or the conditions under which they are carried on, are unsuitable for women, and into which they are driven by the difficulty of obtaining more fit employment. Among out-of-door labours, mining, brickmaking, loading railway trucks, dragging coal waggons, drawing and managing boats, &c., were specified as more appropriate to men than to women, and it was pointed out that in factories generally, not the lighter, but the lower and coarser departments are occupied by women. It was further argued that the wretched expedients to which women of the upper and middle classes resort for the purpose of killing time are scarcely less destructive to the moral health than the grinding toil of the more obviously miserable factory labourers. Miss Faithfull expressed her belief that the habit of treating women as mere machines-hands without heads-lies at the root of the frightful anomalies of which some instances had been given, and urged the importance of apprenticing girls to trades and professions in which more demand is made upon mental power than mere physical force, insisting that, in seeking to open new paths for women, the question should be, not whether any particular kind of work has always been done by men, but whether there is in it anything intrinsically detrimental to distinctive womanhood. In conclusion, Miss Faithfull guarded herself against being supposed to claim professional work for married women. She pointed out that, except in cases of special misfortune, where the wife or widow is compelled to do double duty, the care of a family is generally the only profession needed. But she argued that marriage is an uncertain contingency, and that in all trades and professions apprenticeship must be entered upon early in life. The true solution therefore seemed to be to provide women with such work as shall be a pursuit for life if they do not marry, but which will not disqualify them for marriage if that should be their lot. The worst that can be said of such a course is that it may be useless in a pecuniary point of view. Looking at the question in its moral aspects, it is sufficiently evident that any sort of steady womanly work would be a better preparation for married life than mere dull vacancy. A woman will administer a household the better, not the worse, for having acquired habits of industry and method in some useful calling.

Miss JESSIE BOUCHERETT read a paper "On the Cause of Distress Prevalent among Single Women."* Miss Boucherett proposed to show that the difficulty of providing for our large numbers of single women proceeded from some other causes than the inequality of

* This paper is printed at length in the Englishwoman's Journal for Feb., 1864.

numbers in the sexes, and also that both the difficulty and the inequality, far from being modern evils, were extremely ancient, and were felt in uncivilised as well as in civilised communities. We all laughed at the story of the New Zealander who, on being asked how he had provided for his second wife, from whom he had parted at the recommendation of the missionary, replied, "Me ate her." It was but his way of getting over the difficulty, and solving the common problem of how to provide for superfluous women; unfortunately, his way, like that of many better instructed men than himself, had the objection of being unpleasant to the party chiefly concerned. In the Middle Ages, and in some Roman Catholic countries at the present time, the plan adopted was that of shutting up superfluous women in convents, and supporting them there on lands left by the benevolent for that purpose. In our own country, the difficulty of providing for superfluous women seems to be an old one, for Lady Juliane Berners, an abbess who lived in Edward III.'s reign, and wrote a book, speaks of "a superfluity of nuns," and not long afterwards it seems that a law was passed forbidding men the use of the distaff and spindle, in order that some profitable employment might be left to single women. But though women had always been more numerous than men, and though the difficulty of providing for the former was nothing new, civilisation had increased the evil by increasing the proportion of single men, and consequently that of single women; the employments open to women-teaching, domestic service, and needlework-could not contain the numbers seeking for subsistence; hence arose competition, low wages, and the distress of which they had heard so much. In civilised countries, even where the men exceeded the women, as in the United States and our own colony of Melbourne, the women still found it difficult to live. This showed clearly that the excess of women above the number of men, was not the sole or even chief cause of the existing distress, and that if we could equalise the number of men and women in Great Britain, we should still not be out of our difficulty. Such an equalisation would diminish the distress, but would certainly not put an end to it. The national plan at present adopted in England for providing for superfluous women, was that of shutting them up in workhouses. It was not very unlike the medieval one of convents, and presented many of the same defects, many women requiring relief being excluded, while the condition of those admitted was one of unhappiness and uselessness, and the waste of good working material equally great in both cases. The number of adult women inhabiting workhouses in England and Wales in March, 1851, was 39,073. Thus all the plans for providing for superfluous women hitherto tried, whether by civilised or uncivilised nations, had proved more or less objectionable or inefficient. There remained, however, one other plan-a plan which had never been fully tried, but which, if successful, would have the effect of putting an end to superfluous women altogether by converting them into useful members of society. This plan was to admit women freely into all

employments suitable to their strength. Perhaps this was the plan intended by Providence all along, and it was from failing to fulfil it that we had fallen into such great difficulties. The supposition was probable, because we could scarcely believe that large numbers of women were created to be starved to death or supported by charity. Miss Boucherett showed that the evils which would attend the fair re-adjustment of the labour market would be but temporary, while the benefits arising from it would be permanent. In the course of generations the inconvenience occasioned by the introduction of women to easy trades would be over, while the advantages to society would last for centuries. If the change was not made quickly, the trade in all articles which are capable of importation and can be made by women, would leave us and be established in those countries where women are freely allowed to engage in them. The employment of women in France was rapidly extending in all trades which require neatness, taste, or delicacy of touch. It was evident that, unless we followed the example of our neighbours, and encouraged the employment of women, every trade which could be affected by foreign competition must speedily be taken from us.

Mr. JOSEPH PITTER read a paper, on "The Employed Dressmakers and Milliners." He stated that though in 1842 the sufferings of the overworked dressmakers and milliners were recorded in a Report of a Royal Commission, they still remained to a great extent under the same evils which afflicted them twenty years ago. He referred to the Bill introduced in the House of Lords in 1855, by the Earl of Shaftesbury, for a limitation of the hours of labour. The evidence taken at that time showed that though the evils of 1842 were somewhat mitigated, and Sunday labour almost wholly abandoned, there was a great tendency to lapse into the long hours which formerly prevailed. The death of the milliners' work woman in June, 1863, in a house of business in Regent Street, London, and the verdict of the jury in that case, to the effect, that the "death of the deceased was greatly accelerated by working long hours in a crowded workroom, and sleeping in a close badly ventilated bed-room," was alluded to. After statistics of the excessive hours of labour in several establishments in London, the paper referred to the difficulties which beset any legislative measure limiting the hours of labour in dressmaking establishments. The only kind of legislation which seemed capable of being brought to bear to some extent upon the case of the dressmakers and milliners appeared to be legislation of a sanitary nature. An Act of Parliament to legalise the systematic sanitary inspection of workrooms he strongly advocated. A certain amount of cubic feet for each worker might be required, and the right of entering at all hours for the purpose of inspection would let in the light of public opinion and observation, and check the overwork which would produce suffering and death in spite of the best sanitary arrangements.