I believe that one half of the forlornness, discomfort, and apparent destitution of the poor around us, arises, not so much from absolute want of means, as from the absence of all knowledge of this kind. They are unfortunately but too ready to imitate us in our love of finery, our extravagance, and self-indulgence; and it is a serious question whether they discover any thing else in us which they can imitate; but let them see our economy, our industry, our contrivance, and our solicitude to turn every thing to the best account, and I believe they would not be slow to imitate these habits as well as the others.

The art of mending, for instance, though most important to the poor, is one in which they are lamentably deficient; and so much waste, disorder, and slovenliness, are the consequence of not being able to mend skilfully, that this department of neatness and economy is one in which all young servants should be carefully instructed; more especially as the making-up of new clothes is a much easier, as well as generally more agreeable task, than that of mending old ones, so that they look respectable to the last.

By this kind of oversight of her servants' wardrobe, a kind-hearted and judicious mistress may easily obtain some direction in the expenditure of their money, and in nothing is assistance to the poorer classes more necessary than in this. Servants generally are pleased to have the approbation of a beloved and respected mistress in those cases over which she does not assume any direct authority; and they would be equally mortified to find they had incurred her disapprobation by the purchase of what was worthless, or unbefitting their situation. By this means, too, mistresses would generally be better able than they are, to understand what is sufficient, and consequently what is just, with regard to wages; for while, on the one hand, some require their servants always to look respectable without allowing them the means to do so, others are induced by fashion or custom

benefit to the receiver.

But the variety of instances are too numerous to specify, in which the Christian care and oversight of a good mistress may be invaluable to a young servant. I will mention but one more, and that of greater importance than any which have yet fallen under our consideration. I mean the preservation of young servants from circumstances of exposure or temptation.

Those who have never lived in large towns, and especially in London, would scarcely give credit to the facts, were they told the number of instances in which servants are brought from the country, and being obliged, from illness or some other cause, to leave their employers, are allowed to be cast upon the mercy of the public, friendless and destitue, and too often a prey to the cruel deceptions which are practised upon young females thus situated. Some of the most painful among the many distressing circumstances which come under the notice of those Christian ladies who have the oversight of female penitentiaries, are cases in which country servants have been brought to town, and having lost their health, or suffered from accident, have been placed in hospitals, and left there without regard to their future destiny; when, on coming out, they have found that all clue was lost to their foriner masters or mistresses, and that they were consequently alone in the streets of London, without money, without friends, and without the knowledge of any respectable place in which they might find shelter.

It may be said that these are extreme cases, but it is lamentably true that these, and others of similar neglect, are not so rare as persons would suppose who are unacquainted with the practices of our large

towns.

Another evil against which mistresses ought to be especially on their guard, is the introduction of unprincipled char-women, or other assistants, into their families. In the country it is comparatively easy to ascertain what is the general moral character

of those around us; but in large towns this knowledge is more difficult to acquire, and incalculable mischief has often been the consequence of associating young servants with persons of this description.

The practice of sending out young female servants late at night, to bring home any members of the family who may be out visiting, or placing them in any other manner unnecessarily in circumstances of exposure, are considerations to which we ought not to be indifferent; and the mistress who allows her servant to be thus circumstanced, would do well to ask herself how she would like a young sister, or a daughter, to be placed in a similar situation. Can it be that youth has not as strong a claim to our protection in the lower as in the higher walks of life? Can it be that innocence is not as precious to the poor as to the rich? Did the case admit of any degree of comparison, I should say that it was more so; for what has a poor girl but her character to depend upon? Or when once the stigma of having deviated from the strict line of propriety attaches to her name, who is there to defend her from the consequences? Her future lot will in all probability be to become the wife of some poor and hard-working man, whose whole amount of worldly wealth will be comprised in the respectability of his humble home. Who then, through indifference or neglect, would allow a shadow to steal in, still less a blight to fall, where, in spite of poverty, in spite of trial, in spite of all those hardships which are the inevitable portion of the man who earns his bread by the labor of his hands, his home might still be an earthly paradise to him?

Young women of a higher grade in society, or those who are more properly called ladies, being all taught in the great school of polished society, acquire the same habits of decorum, and even of modesty, to a certain extent; and the restrictions of society rendering it more painful to deviate from such habits, than to maintain them through life, we come, very naturally, to look upon them rather as a matter of course than as a merit.

But in the modesty of a poor young girl there is inexpressible beauty, because we know that it must arise from the right feelings of her heart; and none who are capable of truly estimating this charm, would for the wealth of worlds be the cause of its being lost.

It is a common saying with servants, that they do not fear work if well treated; and I believe such little acts of consideration as the heart of a kind mistress will naturally suggest, may be made to go much further in stimulating them to a right performance of their duty, than either high wages or great personal indulgence. A little consideration shown for their wishes, where the matter is one of little moment to their employers, is felt by them as a real kindness, and often abundantly rewarded by their willingness and alacrity in doing whatever is required of them.

An instance was once brought painfully under my notice, where the mistress of a house and some of her family were consulting about whether a servant should be sent to a neighboring town before, or after, dinner. They themselves appearing to have no choice, it was suggested by another party, that the servant would prefer going in the afternoon. "He prefer it, indeed!" exclaimed the lady of the house; "then for that reason he shall go in the morning." When it is added, that the lady was a most kind, and in many respects, truly excellent character, this fact is difficult to believe; and I am only induced to state it as a striking proof to what an extent benevolent feeling may be restrained in its exercise, by the habit of thinking that servants are merely passive instruments upon which authority ought to be exercised; and that, consequently, all pretension on their part to an equality of feeling with ourselves, as regards what is agreeable or otherwise, ought to be put down by the most prompt and decided measures.

After all, however, it must be allowed, that there are some servants, and perhaps not a few, who cannot, by the best and most judicious treatment, be moulded to our wishes; and with regard to these, if the case is a de

England are called upon to assist each other, not only in making a strong determination, but in acting upon it, so far as to break through a popular and long-established practice, by speaking of servants, when asked for their character, in such terms as they really deserve; without reference to their worldly interests, or indeed to any thing but the simple truth. If by such means a few of them should be longer than they now are in obtaining situations, a great many would be more careful to fill their places to the satisfaction of the families by whom they are employed; and thus honesty would be found in the end, as it always is, to be the best policy.

In addition to household servants, many married women have devolving upon them the serious responsibility of caring for apprentices, or other assistants in the way of business; and in the discharge of these duties, it is most important for all who are thus circumstanced to ask themselves, whether they are acting upon the golden rule of doing to others what they would that others should do to them, or to those in whom they are most warmly interested. If they are, their merit is great, and there can be no doubt but their reward will be so too; for we must all allow, that it requires no ordinary share of kind feeling, or of Christian principle, to do all which a high sense of duty requires in this respect.

There are many reasons why the task is difficult-almost too difficult for mere human nature to perform; and it is not the least of these, that most young men who begin to learn a business, enter as strangers into a family at an age when they have little to recommend them as companions, except to their own associates, or to a partial parent; yet at that precise time of their lives, when the formation of their habits and character requires the strictest care. It is easy to imagine that few women would prefer spending much of their time with youths of fifteen, or eighteen years of age, in connection with whom they have no family tie, or strong connecting interest; but why, on the other hand,

the wife of a man who is engaged in business, to the successful pursuit of which she owes all her pecuniary advantages, should hold herself above her husband's clerks or apprentices, I never could distinctly see; more especially as time was when her own husband was thus situated, and most probably time will be, when her sons will be the

same.

Is it possible, then, that a mother thus circumstanced can look with indifference to the future, when the happy boy who plays beside her, the joy of her own heart, and the pride of his father's-the spirited handsome fellow who carries away the prizes at his school, and lords it over his playmates, and only softens into tenderness when he sees his mother's tears-is it possible that she can think with indifference of the time when he shall be old enough to go out into a stranger's family-nay, actually be bound there for a term of years, and thus inwrought as it were with the entire fabric of a new order of domestic arrangements, yet notwithstanding all this, made to sit apart, and to feel that he is not only an alien but an absolute intruder, as regards the mistress of that family and her friends? Could the fond mother follow her boy when thus circumstanced up to his own bedroom in the attic, and see how often, for want of a welcome at the household hearth, he sits there upon his box, and reads the books he brought from home, at the risk of being chidden for the light he has kept burning;—could she see the far-off way in which he sits at the family board, satisfying his hunger according to necessity, not choice;could she see the manner in which, from the very overflow of the life of his young spirit he is driven down and compelled to make merry with associates unfitted to himself, at least to that self with which he was identified in his father's home, but which he has almost ceased to remember now;-could she hear when he speaks how his voice is becoming gradually habituated to the utterance of low thoughts and words which never formed a part of the language of his home; but beyond all this-could she see his Sabbaths

his days of rest-those happy days, when the members of his father's family used all to be united in equality of feeling, and solicitous only to give precedence to each other, could she behold him walking the streets of some great town, and for want of home-attractions, for want of cordiality and welcome at his master's fireside, familiarizing himself with the sinful practices of others similarly circumstanced ;-could the mother, beholding all this, trace out its fearful and degrading consequences upon the future destiny of her boy, she would be ready to exclaim to the mistress of that household-"Save my child!" Should any such appeal be made, the mistress of that family would in all probability reply with indignation-"The young men employed in my husband's business enjoy the very best of food, they are not required to work beyond the hours agreed upon, and their sleeping-rooms are healthy and well furnished." And all this may be strictly true, yet the mother's heart may be unsatisfied, for she knows, and we all know, that it is possible to be well cared for as regards the body, and yet be made to feel most destitute. We all know that there is a kind of treatment which elevates the moral feelings, and another which degrades them, rendering the spirit upon which it operates, grovelling, servile, mean. And if this powerful influence should be made to weigh upon, and bear down the buoyant mind of youth, what must we expect, after such treatment, will be the downward tendency of old age?

But is it possible, we ask again, that the mother whose natural instinct renders her so keenly alive to all these feelings as regards her own child, can be insensible to the claims of others?—can be induced by her own pride or her own selfishness to trample under foot the high moral obligation laid upon her, to be as a mother to her own household, but especially to the young, remembering that they will go forth into the world bearing the seal upon their foreheads of her maternal care, or of her most culpable neglect? Nor is this all. She must remember, too, that these very youths are to constitute in after

life that strong phalanx of respectability, in whose moral power are vested the interests of the people, and the welfare of the state. Is it right then-is it just-is it politic-that during five or seven long years of the lives of such men-years in which the most lasting impressions they ever will receive, are made upon their minds-is it right, or in any way to be reconciled to English women, that for this portion of their lives they should be subjected to a system of moral discipline, calculated, in almost every way, to lower them as future citizens of the world?

But it is not always thus. There are noble and beautiful instances of women who absolutely could not live upon such terms; warm-hearted, patriotic women, who cannot sit down to their own tables without a cordial welcome for every one entitled to a place at the same board-who, putting aside all personal feeling, can even make friends of such associates, remembering that to their parents and their country they are in a great measure responsible for the high or low position such men may take in after life. Yes, we are happy in believing there are those who would willingly bear all the annoyance or restraint of such society, were it tenfold greater than it is, rather than be the cause of one young man being drawn out from home to seek enjoyment, or down into a lower grade of social fellowship, for a freedom and a cordiality which he could not find with her.

Contemptuously as young men will often speak of the influence and the habits of women in general, I believe there are few who may not in the early part of their lives, be more easily influenced by women than by men-by judicious women, I mean, for, notwithstanding the absurdities of which some youths are guilty themselves, they appear to be instinctively quick-sighted to the absurdities of others, and especially to those of woman. In fact, they seem glad to lay hold of any excuse for despising them, and, even where they feel the greatest respect, will seldom acknowledge it openly or directly. But for all this, the cautious and well-ordered treatment of women tells upon their charac