at his command; as nothing but a complete revolution in the circumstances of some can produce a reformation.

In walking through the poorer districts of this city, as well as in visiting and conversing with the poor, my mind has been much exercised both on the causes of their degradation, and the means by which they may be improved.

Poverty is one cause of the degradation of a portion of our fellowcreatures; but not the only cause, nor the most general. Periodical loss of employment, and illness in the family of the industrious artizan, frequently operate to produce degradation and misery. I know a mechanic who, when employed, earns £1 per week; but during the past winter I found him in a state of destitution. On my suggesting to him the propriety of laying aside a portion of his wages when he was in work to meet his wants when " idle," he replied, "My wages do not average through the year more than fourteen shillings per week." This man is a mason, and during the past winter was out of employment nearly, if not quite, three months. Then, again, men in his situation are frequently obliged to lose days and half-days throughout the year, owing to the weather, which has been the case with him. Then a death or a birth in the family brings its innumerable little expenses, all tending to impoverish. This going on year after year (which is no improbable case), it is easy to perceive how a man may sink into hopeless poverty, and, through despair of improving his condition, become indifferent to the present and reckless of the future. Again, men who are neither idle nor immoral in their habits, may be frequently thrown out of employment owing to their being indifferent workmen. The frequently recurring depressions of trade will cause these to be oftener out of work than others, as masters regard expertness in workmen rather than moral character. I mention these things to check that sweeping condemnation of the poor, in which some are apt to indulge, who suppose that poverty is entirely the fault of the sufferer.

But though I admit poverty to be the cause of degradation in many instances, I do not in the majority of cases. Improvidence, idleness, and drunkenness have their many victims, and are the bane of the working classes. Let any one go through the poorer districts of this city, and see the beer-shops and public-houses that meet his sight at every turning, and then consider from whom the sums of money to support these are derived, and he will be at no loss to account for a considerable portion of the misery endured by the poor. Drunkenness, which by many, and that not merely amongst the poor, is scarcely thought a vice, is one of the most prolific sources of degradation. More than one with whom I have become acquainted have been led by it to crime, and suffered the punishments of the law. But where it does not carry its victims so far, it is the cause of unspeakable misery. Visiting a family one day, I found the mother making a garment for one of her children. "I am so glad," said she, "that you came to see my husband! I am able now to get a few things for my children. I do hope he will continue to keep away from the public-house." But habits once acquired are not easily broken. The excitement of the late election drew that husband into his old haunts,

to indulge his propensity for drink; and that mother's heart has again been wrung with grief.

Amongst the causes operating for the depravation of the poor, I am compelled to notice the condition of their dwellings. Some of these are dark, confined, dilapidated,―tending to diminish self-respect by creating indifference to cleanliness and domestic comforts, which it is almost impossible to secure in such abodes. Others, indeed, are large and airy-formerly seats of opulence-and might be made by industry comfortable dwellings; yet, from their size admitting a number of tenants (there being a family in each room), you may more easily conceive than I can describe, what effect is produced on their inmates. Some of these rooms are miserably furnished. A bed of shavings contained in some old bags sewed together, on which parents with one, two, or three children will huddle together for the night, with a single covering of some coarse cloth or rug, which in the morning is thrust up in a corner, and an old table, with a chair or two, complete the furniture. Others have broken bedsteads, with scarcely better beds; and in some rooms there are two and three of these for the accommodation of lodgers besides the family.

What can be done to improve and elevate this portion of our fellowcreatures? Preaching will not do it, for they will not come to hear it; and occasionally visiting and talking to them is nearly as useless. Nor will merely supplying them with food and clothing, for this only tends to increase idleness and improvidence. Two things are essentially requisite, -EMPLOYMENT and EDUCATION, and where these cannot be secured, the utmost efforts of charity will fail to improve the poor, if it does not degrade them still more. In confirmation of this view, I would here introduce the words of two individuals, in relation to this subject of relieving the poor without enabling them to provide for themselves. The Rev. J. Johns, of Liverpool, in alluding to the causes of the degradation of the poor of that town, says, I would briefly advert to the influence of over-numerous public charities upon the conduct and happiness of the lower working classes of this town. Having observed their general effects with as much attention as was in my power, I can rest upon no other conclusion than that, though at their first institution they may possibly do more good than evil, they usually issue, in proportion to the scale of their means and operations, in doing far more evil than good." "Nothing, I fear, can take from them their natural tendency to propagate the very evils they were intended to counteract. While they exist, there will always, I think, be one great source of dependency and degradation among the lower classes of the poor." Similar to this is the testimony of the Rev. J. Evans, in his history of Bristol, published in 1816. Speaking of the charities in connection with different churches, he says, Of these and similar charities we think that they create the poverty which they were intended to relieve. They are bounties to indolence and to imprudence. If the wretchedness of poverty be ever annihilated, the poor themselves must combine for its extermination. They will combine for this object when they know that they must depend principally upon themselves; when they have been taught to think and to compare; when they have learned the necessity of foresight, and have

been trained to habits of order, of industry, and economy. When this is accomplished, the wretchedness of poverty will be annihilated, and the benefaction-boards in our churches will become useless; or they will merely be referred to as indubitable proofs of the comparative barbarism of an age that prided itself upon the advances which it had made in civilization." If benevolence would prevent the pains and sorrows which seem inseparable from indigence, it must follow a new direction, and instead of providing for the poor, must enable the poor to provide for themselves."

I have already said, employment and education are essential requisites for improving the poor. Until the former is secured, and that too in a way which does not imply social degradation, every other means will be proportionally ineffectual. How it is to be secured, I leave to the political economist to say: I must content myself with adverting to it. Education must accompany it. Not that stinted boon which is a mere apology for it,-which consists in teaching, or attempting to teach, reading, writing, and arithmetic," and which the child manages to learn as imperfectly as he can, and forget as fast as possible when he leaves school, for want of an opportunity to perfect that knowledge, and to continue to progress. Institutions, similar in kind, but humbler in degree to Mechanics' Institutes, established in those parts where the working classes chiefly reside, would be attended with beneficial results. There are also many youths and men, for whom evening-schools might be provided with good effect. I have succeeded in establishing one in connection with this mission, in which I hope to be able to carry out, in an humble degree, some of those plans I could wish to see carried out on a larger scale. It often happens, however, that persons in employment are obliged to work too late to attend regularly, and some prevented attending at all; but, with these drawbacks, much good may still be done. A Sunday-school, which I hope shortly to connect with the Mission, may in some measure obviate this evil.

Here I would again quote the words of one to whom I have already adverted, the Rev. J. Johns, as well expressing what may be done for the improvement of the poor.

"Let me not omit, in adverting to the causes which appear to me to be active in depressing and depraving those of whom I am speaking, the want of suitable places and means of amusement, which might prevent their having recourse to other places and means but too ready to receive them. The higher orders have no want of amusements suited to their condition; the lower have none but those from which we would restrain and recall them,―without any thought of a substitute or a compensation. We call them from indulgences to privations, but give them nothing for encouragement or reward. Shall the time never be when this injustice will be redeemed, and when public provision will be made for the proper recreation of those classes which are now at once so important and so neglected? It is pleasant to dream of such a time; it is pleasanter still to hope for it. A spirit is at work which bears with it every promise that such a day will break, and carry with it a cheering light into some of the darkest recesses of the poor man's heart and world.

"Could these suggestions, or the greater part of them, be carried into effect, and some others added to them,—such as the exemption of the children of the poor from school expenses of any kind; the formation of Visiting Committees for the express object of procuring and watching over the sending of the children to their schools; opening of our Museum, &c., on certain days to the people; the adoption of the practice by those who have labourers in their service, of paying them their wages on Friday instead of Saturday, with the manifestation, on the part of the employer, of a kindly personal interest in the happiness of the employed; the extension, by clergymen of all denominations, of unproselytizing and purely benevolent visits among the poorest of the poor; the circulation of useful and entertaining periodicals; the loan or donation of larger works by those who have common or duplicate copies to spare; the procurement of public readings and the delivery of gratuitous lectures;-if these things could be (and what one of them is impossible?), I have no doubt that another story would have to be told of the state of the poor, and that generations would grow up, who should be receding farther and farther from the errors, mental and practical, of those who went before them."

During the time I have been engaged, I have visited rather more than two hundred families. I have met with some who have sunk from a state of comparative opulence, and enduring the privations of hopeless poverty and disease. My visits have in most instances been thankfully received; and, though I have met with individuals in what may be considered the lowest state of moral degradation, I have not met with a single instance of rudeness, though in some instances I have refused relief when it has been asked, from a consciousness that it was not needed, or would be abused. If I cannot boast of numbers reclaimed, I can feel that some now regard me as a friend who would aid them to the best of his power, which is no slight advantage, and may be prosecuted to future good. I have in some instances prevailed on parents to send their children to school; in others I have failed, through the indifference of parents, or their want of energy to control the dispositions of their children. Amongst those who can read (and they are not many) I have circulated the "Christian Tracts," which in most cases have been received and read with much pleasure. I have also put into the hands of some, who I thought were likely to be more interested by them, a few numbers of "Chambers' Journal." One woman has repeatedly said to me, respecting the tracts,-"I can't read myself, sir, but I like to hear my children read them, and they are very fond of them. My daughter often reads them to us of an evening." Another observed, "These are very nice books, and if people would only act according to what they teach, they would, I am sure, be very much the better and happier for it." In such cases conversation very commonly ensues on some incident in the stories related.

On the 14th March, a room was opened in Lewin's Mead for religious worship on Sunday evenings. The general attendance is from 15 to 25. On a few occasions we have had from 35 to 40, and we have also had as few as 6. I am not aware of much interference with us by other

parties of religionists. A poor woman told me one day, that a gentleman who occasionally visited her and her neighbours had remonstrated with her, on understanding where she went; but she told him that she believed the minister preached truth, and she should continue to attend.

The number at the Evening School, which was commenced the 30th June, is now 12. This I have designed for those who work through the day. Remarks respecting conduct and attendance would, at this early stage, be premature; but I may observe that those who attend are generally regular, and seem very desirous of improving. We are engaged three evenings in the week from seven to half-past eight o'clock, and I anticipate, in the course of another week, commencing a school for girls, as well as a Sunday-school.

I beg to thank those who have forwarded to me, at different times, articles of clothing, and coal and soup tickets, during the past winter, which I have distributed, as far as I could ascertain, where they were not likely to be abused, and in some instances, I know, with much benefit. I have received and expended, in addition to the money granted from the Poor's Fund, the sum of £7. Nearly £3 of this was collected for one case that occurred to my notice soon after I came here. It was that of a young man and his wife, who had come from a small town in Devonshire 16 months previous, but who, through illness and want of employment, were reduced to a state of destitution. It was only after repeated visits that I was aware of the whole extent of their condition. Various efforts were made, particularly by your respected minister, to procure them employment; but without success. They had pledged every article of wearing apparel, &c., they could spare to procure food, and sometimes had none until I had furnished them from the Poor's Purse with the means of procuring it. This continued for several weeks, when, by the assistance afforded them, they were enabled to redeem the things they had pledged, and return to their native place. Soon after I received a letter from the man, in which he informed me, with expressions of gratitude for the assistance afforded him, that he had succeeded in getting employment. What might have been their condition had it not been for your timely assistance, it is not easy to imagine. To sink into hopeless poverty,-to lose self-respect in the indifference which it usually creates to the common decencies of life,—to learn to depend on the casual charities of the day, and acquire the idle and vicious habits such a state engenders,—might have been their fate.

In closing this Report, I feel that I have to draw on your candour and forbearance. In the work of a Domestic Mission, much may be done which will be unseen even by the Missionary; and much more that must be unseen by you. Coming time, we may hope, will, under the blessing of Divine Providence, be productive of obvious and substantial benefits.

I am, Christian Friends,
Yours respectfully,

JAMES BAYLEY.

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