stride into the new system was more prejudicial than continuance in the old. Mr. Smith's book will save the reader from this danger.

Our practical correspondent, N. S., suggests that a Vegetarian Cookery Book-adapted to the use of the millions, at a price not exceeding sixpence should be prepared, as it would be of great public use and some private profit.' There are some such books, but we have had no opportunity of judging how far they are adapted to the 'million.' We know that there are great numbers of persons who do not want arguments upon the subject so much as opportunity of testing the question. Were we Dietists, we should agitate the bakers, and endeavour to reform them. If you send a dish of Indian meal (a delicious dish, properly done) to a metropolitan baker, he will be sure to spoil it. If you send for brown bread (the only bread suitable to health in cities), he is sure not to sell it, or if he does sell it, it is some inexplicable compound-not your true unbolted flour, such as you used to get at Ham Common before the closing of the Concordium. And when this apology for brown bread comes home, it is dearer-though cheaper in preparation--than the white. Also, we would multiply ordinaries of proper diet. At a recent Vegetarian Banquet' (by the way, these fine names of the gourmands are very inconsistent with the philosophy of the Dietists) at the Whittington Club, there were many dishes far more pernicious than mutton chop or beef steak, as we remember to have heard Mr. Lane remarking. Among the vegetarian literature forwarded to our office, we find a Letter to a Friend, in reply to the qustion-What is Vegetarianism?" Though half religious and half intimidating, as is the wont of many of these pamphlets, it nevertheless contains two or three passages worth the price of the pamphlet. Cholera Prevented, by a Vegetarian Diet,' is from the pen of the indefatigable Mr. Horsell, the Hydropathist, who also urges this treatment as a remedy for the inscrutable epidemic of the day. When the cholera raged in New York, in 1832, the medical men there, as here, recommended an animal diet as a preventive. Dr. Graham, the American Dietist, advised abstinence from this kind of food, and a well considered diet of the opposite kind. Then the medical men said, 'Now for the Grahamites,' naturally and consistently expecting their speedy death. But it turned out that they enjoyed a remarkable immunity from the disease. A medical gentleman, whose attention I had drawn to this fact, remarked to me the other day, that the care bestowed by Vegetarians to general health might have been the cause of their safety. They attended to the cleanliness of the skin-to exercise— fresh air-were temperate and moderate. But this is an insufficient explanation, since they lived on a proscribed and a said-to-be fatal diet. Possibly the homogeneous nature of their food, combined with the excellent and indispensable habits named, was a cause. Mr. Horsell makes use of this fact, as he has a right to do and he might have made a more energetic use of it. There is a wholesale antagonism in this pamphlet against the medical profession like that which formerly found a place in infidelity against the priesthood. Vegetarianism, like infidelity, can stand without it. Free-thinking is none the less able for being fairthinking and so it might be with Dietism. But on this occasion we need not allude further to these publications, as Mr. Horsell, editor of

the Vegetarian Advocate, has taken up quarters at the Aldine Chambers, where the Advocate, in numbers and parts, can be had for circulation over the country-and in which these questions are debated, sometimes with the enthusiasm, without the sectarianism, of sect.

The Radicals, under which name may be included several classes of politicians who go to the root of political evil, deserve an inclusive consideration. Mr. Fox, the Member for Oldham, has given notice of motions for the next Session of Parliament, of inquiries into National Education, and the Connection of the Church with the State. The judgment, no less than the ability, with which Mr. Fox has spoken hitherto in the House, is a guarantee to the country that he will advance these questions -a gratifying hope, which we could not entertain of every Member of the House, quite equal to Mr. Fox in excellency of intention.

The Taxation agitation will be sure to lead to an improvement in the wages of the working classes, the moment those in high places are put upon the defence of their salaries for doing nothing. Parliamentary reform is inevitable, if the understanding between the middle and working classes can be established. Such speeches as those which Mr. Lushington and Lord Nugent made recently at Drury Lane are not exactly the things to effect a sound union, because such overtures are sure to be retracted. But we despair not of seeing a moderate and sensible, and therefore a sound, alliance effected. Though as yet little public notice is commanded by the movement for the reduction of the Taxes on Knowledge-at the head of which is the people's most practical friend, Francis Place-we expect it will speedily equal any existing agitation in public interest, as it unquestionably exceeds them all in intrinsic importance.

But, if we may say it without presumption or offence, we hold that something yet is wanting to make Radicalism a moving power, which it appears not to possess. The friends of progress have enthusiasm, courage, and, we trust, patience, but they want a well-considering spirit of method. People do not ask how shall they fight: so that they do fight it is, they think, sufficient. But something more is comprised within our programme of duty as publicists. A body of progress always exists a sort of store of improvement exists. This we should aim to augment, not to ignore. We should contribute to this store, and inquire how we shall do it best. We have to see, not only that what we do advances some public good, but that our acts do not neutralise the efforts of others. To this end we should take a survey of the whole field of publicism, and ascertain what approvable objects are sought by others, and what is going on, the tendency or probable result of which will be good-that we may keep ourselves from opposition, or seeming opposition, to efforts on behalf of the people. G. J. HOLYOAKE.

FREE-INQUIRIERS' ANNIVERSARY.

On Sunday week the Free-Inquirers' Society made inquiries into the sanitary and refreshing effects of fresh air, rural scenery, and fraternal intercourse, by taking an excursion up the Paddington Rhine,' to Brabsden Green, and Harrow. Mr. Holyoake (who is President of the Society), Messrs. Kemp, Mills, Sturges, and others, were of the party.

A CURIOUS INTERLUDE, FROM THE FOUR P's,

(How a Woman was fetched out of Hell.)

OF A PALMER, A PARDONER, A POTICARY, AND A PEDLAR: BY JOHN HEYWOOD.

A PALMER and a Pardoner (a hawker of relics and pardons for sin) meet and debate on the relative efficacy for salvation of pilgrimages and relics. The Palmer has been over the world;

On the hills of Armeny, where (he) saw Noak's ark;
With holy Job and Saint George in Southwark;

punishing his frail body for his soul's sake: and is twitted for his folly by the Pardoner, who tells him that he (the Pardoner) could have saved his soul with far less trouble, through the virtue of his pardons. He tells him

Give me but a penny or two pence,

And as soon as the soul departeth hence,

In half an hour, or three quarters at the most,
The soul is in heaven with the Holy Ghost.

The Poticary here enters, and asks

Send ye any souls to heaven by water?
Pardoner. If we do so, Sir! what is the matter?
By God, I have a dry soul should thither.
He considers himself the best man of the thrce: for

Poticary.

Whom have ye known die honestly
Without help of the Poticary?

Unable to settle their dispute for precedence, they agree to refer it to a Pedlar, who recommends them to devise some manner of thing in which they are all equally cunning, and he who does it best shall be deemed master of the others. And thereupon he bids all three to try for the mastery in lying, since all the

Three can lie as well

As can the falsest devil in hell.

After various endeavours without advantage to either, it is decided that each one a tale shall tell,' and whichever tells most marvel and most unlikely to be true' shall be the winner.

The Poticary begins: but out of a company of medical students there is no repeating him. Then follows

THE PARDONER'S TALE.

Well, Sir! mark what I can say.
I've been a pardoner many a day.
And done more cures, too, ghostily
Than ever he did bodily.

Namely this one which ye shall hear,
Of one departed within this seven year,-
A friend of mine, and likewise I
To her again was all as friendly,-
Who fell sick so suddenly,

That dead she was even by and bye,

And never spake with priest or clerk,

Nor had no whit of holy work.

For I was thence, it could not be:
Yet I heard say she ask'd for me.
But when I bethought me how this
chanced,

And that to heaven I have advanced
So many souls to me but strangers,
And could not keep my friend from
dangers;

* This Interlude of How a Woman was fetched out of Hell,' alluded to last week, is from the same remarkable poem from which we made extracts in No. 5, where par ticulars of Heywood are given.

+ An Apothecary.

Bending his brows as broad as a barn- And if thou wouldst have twenty, too,

So ends the Pardoner's tale. It now comes to the Palmer's turn, who remarks that the most marvellous part of the adventure in hell is that women such shrews can be:' for, says he,