the temporal well-being of his progeny; and to have them right and keep them right, pelican-like, he consumed his own flesh and blood in endeavouring to accomplish, but never after all fairly managing it. He doctored them, drugged them, fed them, led them, washed them, and trimmed them, but to little avail. They were always sickly and pining, always having a variety of puzzling complaints, and always the more physic they got requiring the more. In vain the father studied Buchan, Combe, and Southwood Smith; in vain he tried homoeopathy, cold water, and warm water; in vain he ransacked the whole pharmacopoeia of medicine, to find cures for complaints entirely apocryphal; and in vain he watched them in-doors and out-doorsnursed them, clothed them, and cooked for them-they wouldn't be right, and when right they wouldn't keep so. His wife's health suffered in consequence, as may be well supposed. What woman, indeed, could bear the fatigue, the care, the sleepless vigils, she endured, without suffering? But of this Galen was less observant and less regardful than of the manifold complaints, actual or assumed, of his offspring. So much for the outline of our characters. Up stairs, Galen found the list properly fixed, and the wire-fence round the fire-place properly secure, and nothing to mar the harmony of his parental feelings. He next proceeded to his laboratory, and compounded, from a variety of glass bottles and packages, the powders, washed his bands, and descended to dinner. As in duty, if not in etiquette, bound, Galen sat at the head of his own table; but he filled a double office, inasmuch as he generally pertrued the part of waiter to the children, who clustered on hside, the eldest next the father, and the younger gradating down towards the mother, at the foot. And what sky, exotic-looking plants they were not lean and ruck by any means, but fat unhealthy creatures, totally date of the rosy hue of youth, or the glistening eye of sturdy childhood. After a grace, more like a weary yawn than an expression of grateful sincerity, he uncovered the Soup. Fat, fat, my love,' said he, glancing over to his wife, and I feel the smell of onions in it, too,' sniffling above it at the same time. Ring that bell, John.' The maid appeared in answer to the summons, and stood, rounding the corner of her apron. Betty, did you make that soup with onions, after what I said to you, eh?"

Te didna speak aboot ingins the day, sir. Aweel a rat, I ne'er thocht o't, sir; or, sure's I'm leevin', sir, I wadna wi' ma gude will. But there was jist ane, chappit vera ma'; an' Mrs Glasse says, sir, in the buik-ye pointit it oot till me-add pepper an' flavour, wi' ingins, till taste.' But it's my taste not to have it flavoured-remember that in future.'

John,' pursued the father, 'have you taken your quinine today? if not, you'd better have it in your soup. And Mary, you remembered the barks before lunch, I hope? That soup's too fat, Louise; you can't get any.'

I think a little drop would do no harm,' interposed his wife. It might

'Really, woman, you're quite vexatious. Don't I know how to manage them best? Give a child afflicted with heart-burn soup! Monstrous! Magnesia alba thrice a-day, and a light diet, always in such cases. Robert don't drink Fater-cold water and anything oily on the stomach, combited, are indigestible; get it warmed.'

'But I'm thirsty, papa.'

Whether tickled by pepper, or a too hasty disposal of a mouthful, or from some other gastronomic error, one of the children gave a cough. The parent looked hastily up with an anxious eye, dropped his fork, uttering, There, don't smother it. I see it, Agnes, quite plainly. Where was you during the shower to-day?' Nowhere, papa.'

Bless me, what a flushed face you have! Put down that tumbler, sir, and come here. Show me your tongue. Ha! the face turns pale, and pulse rather high. Here's some disorder. It can't be measles, as there's no loss of petite; the tongue is not white, and no running at the Flushed face,' pursued he, soliloquising. Do you hungry, Robert?'

I should like a bit of pie very much.'
And pale by turns. Do you feel very hungry, child?'
Yes-no-yes! I don't want any medicine, papa.'
It must be ascarides. My love, you'll please take him
to-night, and observe if his teeth grind while

'Come, I insist. Martha, love, was that child out today? Could you be so foolish? Poor little lamb, will that careless mother of yours never learn-the influenza raging too, and yet, notwithstanding all my precautions

She wasn't in the shower, I'm sure,' murmured the meek helpmate.

'Don't tell me so. That child's as sure caught the epidemic as I'm sitting here. Bless me! we'll all have it too now; our house will be an absolute hospital! Agnes, you'll bathe your feet in hot water to-night; take a nice little powder that I shall make up, and sleep alone.'

After dinner, this paragon of fathers devoted an hour or two to study, eschewing all light and unprofitable treatises, and confining himself entirely to the utile. But it was neither the currency, politics, moral philosophy, nor mathematics, that formed the subject of his inquiry. He was not a politician in any sense-a philosopher in its widest sense far less a literary man in its lowest sense, being nothing less and strictly nothing more than a family man, and hence his books were of a peculiar cast. And, by the way, it is remarkable that the books often possessing the fewest literary merits are the books we cherish most-they have attained the highest popularity, and possess the deepest interest. All the store of our juvenile library, from the Babes in the Wood' up to the imperishable Thousand and One Nights,' what mere literary merit had they? what fine writing-what elegant diction-what truthfulness of description or character did they possess? Yet where in after years have we found aught more intensely interesting; and where, amid the glittering galaxy of names spangling the history of our literature, will you find productions more popular than that store of our boyhood's leisure study, written when, where, or by whom, alike unknown? Again, what a melancholy idea of literature does an old Post-office Directory' suggest? yet where, in any bibliopolist's store, will you find a work of more unwearying interest? Every line has a story of its own, beginning with John Adams, who married your cousin, emigrated to the far west, and now figures in the republican senate, down to Will Young, who was transported for forgery; each name is replete with the story of a life. The true book-life' is within its boards. Give us an old Directory' during a dull hour, and we undertake to extract more amusement and instruction from it than from a whole bevy of Bentley or Colburn's last issues. But the Directory' was not Galen's study. Such a luxury he never knew. His, we said, was a family taste. One might suppose from that, Soyer and Ude would have refreshed his mental appetite as well as his bodily; but Galen did not aspire to the first-class books. Mrs Glasse, Meg Dods, Buchan, the Manual of Domestic Medicine, and a small duodecimo treatise on the diseases of infants, formed the staple of his study, with Combe, Clark, and Southwood Smith, as the lighter reliefs. From one of these he rose each afternoon, if not the happier, at least, as he thought, the wiser man.

Then, after tea was finished, it was quite a study to watch him compounding his drugs, making up pills, opening stoppers of phials with filthy smells, and measuring out small quantities of their contents into small receptacles, and sometimes pounding them all up together, as a remedy for something very dreadful. And when the distribution of these came, before bedtime, it was quite a treat to witness it. There were little noses to hold, while repugnant mixtures were being poured down little throats: there was coaxing, wheedling, and threatening in operation, to sway infantile minds; tempting promises of tremendous generosity, to break juvenile stubbornness; and dark hints at bodily pain and sickness, to influence the swallowing of nauseous doses; and pots of jelly temptingly ranged, to seduce natural dislike into compliance, when

little boluses and whitey grey mixtures were coated over with it, and gulped down; and there were little feet to lave in hot water, and little limbs to swathe in flannel, and large woolly nightcaps and cumbrous woolly coats to tie down and fasten on little heads and bodies-warm drinks to take away complaints of queer tastes in them, and sometimes an assent that it was very nice from those who didn't share in it. But above all, there was the gloating, gratified eye of the father, who did all this, and more, with his own hands, and the sometimes anxious, sometimes submissive gaze of the wife, who sat and witnessed the process, and who was privileged with exemption from duty and doses of all kinds.

But why need we trace the disposal of the olive Pestles, after being 'cribb'd, cabined, and confined' in their dormitories till gentle slumber visited their eyelids, or note the watchings of the father, and the compulsory vigils kept over them by the mother, to ascertain whether their teeth ground, or the nightmare visited them, or restlessness or flushings marred their little countenances? And why need we follow the father into the kitchen in the morning, bent on overloooking, in the fullness of his parental care, the cooking of their breakfast, to the annoyance and contempt of the maid, or listen to his multifarious orders for their guidance during the day in his absence? Let us limit our observations to what more immediately may be conceived as the proper matter for our sketch.

As we have already stated, Mrs Pestle's health and spirits gradually sunk under the load of troubles she was compelled to bear, and that self-pride so necessary to woman's nature necessary to maintain the direction of her household and training of her children-was being fast crushed. In fact, she was little more than a cipher in her family. Her authority was a dead letter over her husband's better rule, ber influence rendered nugatory; and it was with pain that she saw her children did not thrive under the system pursued by Galen. But what to do to regain her position as a wife and a mother she knew not; and even though many expedients suggested themselves, her meek retiring nature shrunk from executing these, in the first instance. But what will a mother's heart not attempt, when fairly tested, for the wellbeing of her offspring-let history, let daily life bear witness! Galen, never peculiarly sweet, became, as time waxed older, irritable and sour. His views and his precepts must be wholly coincided in, and not one hairbreadth interfered with. Neither wife nor domestic dare infringe or modify his rules, and indeed the latter came to have a sorry enough time of it. One was turned away for allowing a child to run out on damp streets-another for supplying sweetmeats by stealth a third for not travelling up stairs behind thema fourth for giving them food too hot-and a fifth because she would not take new medicines by way of experiment; and during all this time Mrs Pestle's struggles and duties were multiplied, and thanklessly so. But even the meekest spirit, saith some proverb, will turn upon oppression; and what woman ever formed the exception to it?

Mr Pestle came home one day in a peculiarly acrid frame of mind. It was washing-day, and the juveniles were having much their own way of matters, to his great horror and dismay.

I tell you what, woman,' said he, in a boiling rage, "these children might as well want a mother as call you one. What interest do you take in them-what care over them? None! I get the whole work to do, and were it not for me, it would have been a miracle had one of these lived till to-day.' Mrs Pestle thought the miracle consisted in their being still alive under the fostering influences, but waived stating this opinion. Yet you're always complaining, madam, notwithstanding; and though I've offered you advice and powders, cordials and tonics, you have stubbornly refused them. Ay, you needn't 'phoo, phoo.' That's all the thanks, is it? Very well; just suffer the consequences, and rightly served, too.'

That's scarcely language to a wife, Mr Pestle. You well know if I have complained I have had good cause, and the cause is in you.'

'I suppose you think you'd do better wanting me, Galen?' You needn't suppose it, madam, you know it.'

The wife and mother felt stung. Quickly she retorted. 'Since that's the case, you shall have a trial, I'm determined. For the sake of my health and your comfort, I shall go off to Margate to-morrow with my sister-proceed I shall.'

Very well, madam; and, pray, don't return till your body and mind are both cured.'

Little more was said that night, but next morning, true to her threat, Mrs Pestle packed up a small trunk, and, bidding good-bye to her family, set out, to the surprise of her children, and gloomy disregard of her husband.

The family man was now alone, and certainly he did feel a little queer at entering his novitiate. A cipher does bear often an important relationship to adjacent figures, and Mr Pestle very soon found his wife had really something to do among the nine children, but what remained a puzzler. The first day, however, was got over tolerably well, and not much went agog in his management. He saw them all at length physicked and sent to bed as usual, and then his trials began. About two o'clock in the morning he was awakened by a fearful squalling in the nursery. Instinctively he bade his wife rise and go to these children, but a moment's waking reflection impressed on him the fact that he must do it himself. Shivering, in his shirt, Galen groped and stumbled along up stairs. A little one had fallen out of his crib, and his cries had become epidemical among the others.

'I want mamma! I want mamma!' shrieked the unfortunate.

Hush-hush-a-bay !' &c., began Galen, trying to soothe it in his arms, nursery fashion.

'No! no!-Mamma! mamma!' squalled the urchin vehemently, and the others re-echoed the cry.

In vain Galen walked up and down the floor, shivering with cold, humming, coaxing, and wheedling; the child wouldn't pacify. A full half-hour was thus spent before it fairly cried itself asleep, and the father was again en route to his own dormitory. Stiff, frigid, and with teeth chattering, he tumbled in, and attempted to restore warmth. It just came at length, bringing the dreadful suggestion that he had forgot to shut the nursery-door. The awful idea of colds, sore throats, or something worse, pervading the inmates next day, left him no room for pause. Perspiring with terror, he jumped up, rushed up stairs again, and found-the door shut. Back again he came, taking the skin off his shins on a chair by the way, and after the enjoyment of a few hours' uncomfortable slumber, he started up, on feeling some object crawling across his body, and pulling at his nose. He looked up: two children were saddled a-top of him, one with his nightcap in hand, and the other dragging off the clothes. The father rubbed his eyes.

Oh, where's mamma?' exclaimed the juveniles. We want to get dressed; it's so cold.'

'Papa, you'll dress us: here's my clothes,' shouted one. Papa looked around. Other throats in the nursery piped a shrill treble for him and mother. It was barely five o'clock yet, but the children had been put earlier to bed last night than usual. Galen rose. He felt queerish; an awful pang suddenly shot up one side of his head-he had got the toothache. Uttering a dismal groan, he clapped his hand on the spot.

Put on my clothes first, papa,' said one, pushing a diminutive petticoat and pair of stockings into his hands. No! mine first-mine first!' urged another, trying to supplant his sister.

A tremendous shout arose in the nursery. Galen, almost yelling with pain and vexation, pulled at the bell, like a madman, for Betty. She came, half-dressed and half-awake. Go up stairs to these children! Are you deaf, that you don't hear them crying?' shouted he.

After some bungling attempts, he managed to get the clothes of the two applicants clumsily fastened on, and

then rushed up stairs to superintend the others. After rendering what assistance he could, and getting them tolerably pacified, he was assailed with cries of 'Oh, papa, I'm so hungry!'-Papa, I want a piece!'-'Papa, when will breakfast be ready?'

You'll have breakfast in a little, my dears; meantime, John, you'll take your bitters; and, Agnes, you must come and get a nice little dose of turpentine and molasses. Let me feel your pulse this morning, Tommy. Ah! yes; fever abated; I thought it would-but you'll continue your powders to-night.'

Breakfast was got through without any serious accident or incident other than the father's inability to eat with the raging pain in his jaw; thereafter calling on Betty, he proceeded to instruct her preparatory to going out.

You'll be particular in watching these children when I'm absent to-day, girl.'

'Yes, sir.'

*Tommy and Agnes don't go out at all; nor the others unless you're with them; and take care of carts on the read. Don't let them speak to any other children; smallpox is prevalent just now, keep them by your side.' Yes, sir; by my side, sir.'

You'll give these powders to Jane at twelve-mind at twelve; and that pill to Tommy at one, in a little jelly. Observe they don't fall down stairs; and remember to keep them back from the fire.'

"Yes, sir; the fire, sir.'

"Now, notice, they are not to have anything to eat till I come home; and watch if the pavements are damp before you go out to walk. Be sure to put a shawl on Mary, and see that John has his greatcoat on.'

'Yes, sir; nothing to eat, a shawl, and a greatcoat, sir.' 'Have some chicken soup and salad for dinner, and a little bit of roast; and go to the apothecary's and give him this note for some new medicine I want.' 'Yes, sir.'

There is nothing else I remember of." 'Nothing else, sir."

When Galen returned home, he was in no enviable humour with the unabated toothache. But what a scene here presented itself to his view. Betty sitting wringing her hands; Tommy rolling on the floor groaning, and rubbing his diaphragm; Agnes, with a foot rolled in fannel, slowly sobbing; and the rest of the younger branches doing much as they pleased, sitting on their haunches around some pots of jelly, with which their countenances were liberally smeared.

Oh, what'll I do? Oh, maister, maister, dinna kill me! Och, och hone! Mercy, maister, I couldna help it! Vanished, clean gaed aff like a shadow, and never set my een on him mair. Oh, maister, dinna hang me! The precious lamb-the dear creature-whisk'd awa' frae my verra hauns!"

Incoherently, Betty, on her knees, roared and wrung her hands together; Tommy rolled on the floor; and Agnes resumed the bleat she had nigh ceased from on the appearance of Galen.

In the name of wonder, woman, what have you done? What does all this mean?' stuttered Galen, with his eyes staring almost out in intense anxiety, clutching the prostrate domestic by the arms. Speak, huzzy, can't you Speak?'

Oh, it was a' my faut! But, mercy, maister! Ane stown awa', anither pushioned, an' me at the bottom o't! Oh, gudeness, I'll be hang't for it! Mercy, maister, spare me: Dinna gie me up yet!'

Hag, jade, wretch! Can't you tell me what you've done, or what's gone wrong? Can nobody tell me-will nobody speak to me?' screamed the father.

Oh, winna ye kill me when ye come to ken?' gasped the domestic.

"Confound you, speak; speak, I command you; I entreat you. Do you hear?'

Betty recounted her story of disasters. While walking in the forenoon, she had lost John suddenly at a fruitshop window. She came home, left the others, and set out alone

in search of him. On returning, half distracted and unsuccessful, she found Tommy, allured by its taste, had swallowed nearly the whole of the new medicine, inadvertently left on the table; Agnes had scalded her foot in the pursuit of knowledge, by overturning a pot on the fire; and the youngest lot had secured the liberty of the press, and, like all others in the early possession of a hitherto denied privilege, had abused it.

The father gave a fearful groan as the summary of his miseries was recapitulated; he sank on a seat, and gazed a moment at the scene. Tommy's yells brought him round, however, to a sense of duty. Clutching that unfortunate up in his arms, he roared to Betty to run for a doctor.

Betty ran, and speedily returned, dragging after her a pale-visaged adjacent apothecary, who, after being brought to understand the case, and examining the contents of the phial, yet unconsumed, delivered an opinion to the effect that the dose would be more inconvenient than deadly, and its worst effects would be entirely counteracted by a nice little prescription he would make up and send. Tommy soon got the nice prescription, and felt his pangs considerably allayed. The next matter was the recovery of the missing one, and this was found rather more difficult of accomplishment. Informations were lodged with the police, and parties set on his track, but for a time to no purpose. Night set dismally in on the family. Everything had gone wrong, and was rapidly going worse. Betty was almost stupid-Tommy moaning in bed because he got no dinner-Agnes performing the same feat by the fire-the more juvenile, ill with too much sweets, undergoing a physicking-and the father distracted with anxiety and a swoln face. About ten o'clock a rap came to the door, and a gruff policeman carried in poor Johnny rolled up in a greatcoat. He had been found crying on a deserted stairhead, whither some one had enticed him and disencumbered him of any loose articles of clothing-these being everything save his shirt and a bit of flannel round his throat, put there by his father to prevent him catching cold. The charley was rewarded and dismissed, and John plunged into a hot bath, preparatory to being nigh smothered in bed and comforted with scalding gruel. By and by all were got safely stowed away, and the father left alone in his misery; what his reflections particularly were we know not, but the conclusion of them was, I wish Martha were here!'

Next day the unhappy parent was again dragged at an untimely hour out of bed to dress his family, or such of them as could get up, for John was in a fever, and Tommy and Agnes unable to rise, or unwilling. These, of course, had to be seen to and prescribed for, as well as the residue who were sick from yesterday's enjoyment and unable to eat breakfast. There are few things more annoying in life than a houseful of really sick children. They form a domestic misery sufficient to test the patience and fortitude of the most philosophic mind. Galen experienced the truth of this. Previously, he had experimented a little in medicine, and believed hard in his own sufficiency, but now that the trial was fairly come, his philosophy and experience both completely forsook him; and, besides, the toothache had fairly prostrated all moral energy. He had tied a bag of hot sand up his cheek, burned his throat with brandy, half-suffocated himself with tarred cotton, sickened himself with smoking, tied on a stocking dipped in cold water, applied a hot iron, which had blackened the outside, now swoln and disfigured, but all in vain. Absolutely miserable, he went out that day, and, a martyr to the most dismal forebodings, grumbled away the hours till the time of his return home.

'Bless me, what's all this uproar about?' exclaimed he, rushing up stairs to ascertain the cause of a fearful hubbub that greeted his ears on entering the house.

The room-door opened with a fearful crash of falling chairs, as he pushed his way in. On the floor the table lay inverted, and part of the youngsters playing with some ornaments inside of it; the chairs were strewn on their backs, doing the duty of hobby-horses; the contents of an inkstand improving the pattern of the carpet; and some

books, with illuminated bindings, converted into the foundation of a house built with chips of coal and cinder. To add to the confusion, two of the hopefuls had been fighting, and now sat apart, the one holding a bloody nose and the other blubbering at intervals.

So the letter ran Mrs Pestle received next day. The natural impulse of the wife and mother was to hasten home, but she was better advised by her sister, and the result of that counsel was, that Galen received an answer thus:

Hold your jabbering tongues, and be silent, will you, or I'll drub the life out of you,' shouted the parent. Confound it, but I'll see what the meaning of all this is. Betty, come here!'

Was ye wantin' me, sir?' said the maid, popping in immediately.

What do you mean, girl, by allowing such goings on while I'm absent? Do you think I can for a moment tolerate them, or will allow any person, got for the very purpose of taking charge over these children, to remain here, who doesn't seem to care a straw about doing their duty?'

Really, sir, I canna'

'I tell you what; you needn't try to put me off. It's all a pretence you're going to forge for your own remissBut you'll walk out of this. I'm not going to be imposed upon Get your things packed then, and set off. You don't stay here longer.'

ness.

Much obleeged t'ye sir. Hope ye may be lang able to guide your ain. I'll be ready to gang in an hour or twa.' The maid was gone by the appointed time, and Galen left master of all he surveyed. He scowled, fumed, and fretted, ill pleased now with himself, and worse satisfied with every other body. By dint of some perseverance, and considerable ingenuity, he managed to get an impromptu dinner, and saw it administered properly, for his ruling passion was still unsubdued; and, with an equally creditable degree of skill, contrived to have tea prepared by the proper time, and saw it also safely disposed of. But a chill smote through his heart at night, as, sitting alone, he reflected he must now wash up all the dishes, scrub the knives, and brush nearly a dozen pair of shoes, for children whom he must get up to dress shortly after daylight. Secretly, he cursed his own imprudence in dispatching Betty so summarily, and as he looked at the waning fire, which he knew he must kindle next morning, he half involuntarily muttered, Martha must come back.' Tremendous, next day, were the struggles of Pestle to do his duty. He found himself completely in that state popularly termed a 'mess.' Everything went wrong that he did, and a score of things required to be done which he could not. He put wrong dresses on wrong bodies, and made them worse trying to right them; he administered physic by mistake, and upset a dozen boxes of different kinds of pills on the floor; he brushed shoes with blacklead; could not get the fire kindled at first, and when it did kindle, could not find coals to burn; broke the dishes in trying to clean them; cut his fingers with the knives; spoiled his clothes with grease; upset pails of water, and mopped himself in mopping it up; cooked a breakfast, and brought up hot water instead of tea; cuffed the children, and coaxed them into silence; sent for an elderly female to keep the house, whom he found drunk on his return, and the house nearly on fire by her management; gave her in charge to a policeman, and sent for another. By night the cup of his misery was nigh full, and his nerves completely shaken. He could have wished himself at the bottom of the Thames or the Serpentine, but had not courage requisite to secure such a lodging. His good genius came to his aid, and he ruefully resolved, I'll write Martha this very night.'

'Forgive me for anything harsh I have said to you; I was very wrong. Do return, if you have any love for me or your children. I am heartily ashamed of my conduct. Unless you return I shall take leave of absence, and bring them all down to Margate to you.'

This was a bitter pill for Galen, worse than any new or old medicine he ever read of, or tasted, or administered. But it was the only efficacious one, and its result, after a little more misery and conscious helplessness, was—

'MY DEAR WIFE,-I agree to your terms. You are quite right. The laboratory is all destroyed. I am coming down to-morrow with the children.-GALEN PESTLE.'

Martha's sister and her husband saw Galen tied down fairly to the terms of reconciliation that night, and Martha herself, with tearful eyes and a glad heart, welcomed her spouse and little ones. In Galen, for a while, there was a hard struggle to overcome his old propensities of physicking, coddling, and administering to his successors, and a strong instinct to be overcome in the way of poking himself into the kitchen and interfering with the maids. But time and resolution conquered all; and were you, dear sister or brother, to know the Pestles as we once knew them, and to know them now, you would hardly believe that the half plethoric gentleman, who carries the big stick and wears a flower in his button-hole, is the once lean and anxious father; and these children, some of whom are starting into man and womanhood, but all so fresh and healthy, made up the group of once sickly exotic-like humanities.

What moral then, reader, may you deduce-you who think that every story should have one. Just this, if you read it aright. As in nature there are providential laws, by which no part of its machinery can supply another section, so in the social relations of life are the same happy and wise principles of adjustment existing, by which man and woman have their own spheres of duty, and when the one interferes with the other, that interference must be a violation of a true position, unhappy in its workings and mischievous in its results.

OUR OCCUPATIONS. How are we occupied? what are our employments? from what sources do we derive our means of subsistence? are interesting and important questions-interesting to all who are engaged in producing, and important as forming the basis of sound legislation. An excellent analysis of the population returns has lately been published by Mr Spackman, which gives the answers to the above questions in a clearer and more satisfactory manner than has yet come under our notice. As was to have been expected, it is found that considerably the largest portion of the inhabitants of this country are engaged in the production of FOOD-the raw material of life and labour. These are the most numerous class, inasmuch as they are the root from which all others derive their origin and are maintained; and also because, having no mechanical aids such as are employed in the production of cotton, woollen, and other fabrics, they must mainly depend upon individual manual labour and industry. These have still, in an especial sense, to fulfil the condition assigned by Providence, that man should cultivate the soil by the sweat of his brow.

* An Analysis of the Occupations of the People, &c. By W. F.

SPACKMAN.