may go on without your becoming in any way involved. Depend upon it you are involved; and all your zeal, and the zeal of all your class, will fail to bring well constituted minds to any other conviction. In consideration of your birth and education, you are absolved from being the author of this or that evil; but as a man I charge you with being the willing votary of a wicked custom, which entails degradation, torture, and death on those less fortunate than yourself. This is what I would convince you of. I would bring home to you a truth it does appear you will never discover for yourself-that you are standing up, amidst civilisation, the unblushing patron of barbarism.

I will briefly relate the sad story. Fearful that your preserves might be infested by poachers, you, as was your wont, dispatched your old keeper one winter night, armed with authority and a double-barrelled gun, to watch. The next morning at day-break, he was found in a lonely dell barbarously murdered. An hour afterwards, a poor labourer -while breaking stones on the road-was apprehended, charged with the murder, convicted by circumstantial evidence, sentenced, and hung; to the last boldly declaring his innocence, and sympathised with by thousands who were well acquainted with the facts brought forward at the trial, while great numbers of them doubted the victim's guilt.

Sir, you were in attendance at the trial: you should have been present at the execution, to have seen how the assembled crowd waxed pale and trembled with rage and horror as the poor peasant perished by that ignominious death. I can tell you that he died as he had livedfearlessly, unshaken even while the wretch whom you and your friends had paid to strangle him was preparing to fulfil his horrible task. And as the lifeless corpse swung to and fro in the wind, ere it was cut down to be thrown dog-like into a lime-consuming grave, many were the sad hearts among the throng; so that even the most dissolute were moved, and yielded their share to the general grief.

To complete your work, there were the heart-broken widow and unconscious children to be got rid of. You could not brook the idea that a murderer's progeny should ever and anon be crossing your path, and confronting you even at church. No; they could not be tolerated by you, so they were dismissed from the home where, it was too true, they could never more hope for happiness through the sad reminiscences of their parent's end, to vent their sorrows in some stranger place.

To finish all, you caused a large white stone to be placed over the grave of the murdered man, whereon was engraven, in bold characters, a brief account of what had taken place. The rustic beheld with dismay the monument you had set up. From its glaring character and prominent position, you evidently intended it should have a gibbet-like influence; and your design, to a certain extent, was successful. So ended your zeal in the matter, and you again relapsed into your wonted state of selfcomplacent satisfaction. Alas for you! so much that you might have done to prevent the probability of the recurrence of a like dreadful tragedy, you have done nothing. I find, after the lapse of so long a period, there has been no material change on your estate; things are under the same arrangement as they were on the night of the murder. If you retain the temptation, the probability is there will be more murders. Hungry poachers

in quest of their prey are as daring as ravenous wolves, and you know it. A poacher, recognised by a keeper, at once feels certain he will not go unpunished; let his name be pronounced, and he is that moment driven to hopeless desperation. Nothing can save him. If he fly, the whole police force of the county are on his track; if he submit, he is locked up in some out-house till morning, then to be committed to prison to await his trial-his wife and family, if he have any, are consigned to the workhouse. Should he stand his ground, determined not to be captured, the consequences are usually fatal. But, while you are so wickedly remiss in removing the cause which makes men criminals, you are very apt in detecting and bringing them to punishment.

In the case I have narrated, your zeal in the cause of retributive | justice was astounding; the care, the liberality you displayed to ensure the death of the victim would have immortalised you had they been devoted to a noble cause. All your thoughts were directed to one object-it was to have blood for blood; nothing less, I guess, would have given you satisfaction and repose.

Judging from the apathy you evince towards the labourer ere he becomes attainted by crime, and the promtitude with which you pursue him, even to death, when he becomes criminal, one might reasonably conclude that you really own no connection with him till the die is cast which consigns him to degradation, torture, and oblivion; that it is your mission to tempt, goad, entrap, and hunt him down; that you are but his evil genius, the minister of his destruction. For the many long years he toils beneath the load you thrust upon him, you never think him worthy of your earnest consideration; you make no efforts towards improving his condition; you never grant him a moment's cessation from the turmoils and cares which crush him; you never reflect that he possesses feelings akin to yours; you heed him not, but leave him to his intolerable fate, a never-ending slavery, by which he gains a paltry pittance, a mere crust to munch and loathe from day to day, from year to year; as if he were a beast, and possessed not the appetites, the wants, and the necessities common to man. In such moments, when he is out of all patience with this hateful monotony, seeing your hares and pheasants in profusion around him, he is naturally tempted to kill and eat.'

You seem to be aware of this natural consequence of his privation, and so you keep an armed band at great cost, to watch your preserves by day and night. This is ineffectual to deter poachers, who, for the most part, possess more courage and skill (call it cunning, if you please) than the majority of their fellows. The man who perished for the murder of your keeper was, as you knew, the most intelligent labourer on your estate. He had passed his youth among a well-informed class, surrounded by plenty; till an unfortunate mishap compelled him again to seek the shelter of one of your miserable cottages, and to be the recipient for his toil of a worse than pauper's pay. Miserable man! The short gleam of sunlight, which had shed warmth to his youthful heart, but served to make him feel the pangs of want more keenly, and to picture to himself more vividly the utter hopelessness of the state in which he would have to exist under the harsh rule of your ignorant and insolent menials.

Sir, I have but a few more words to say, and they shall be directed

especially to your welfare. Let me implore you to reflect deeply on what you have been doing through your long life. If you do so, I cannot but think you will find much to regret, much to repent of, and conceive the necessity for great reformation. You have but a few years to live, pray employ them in managing your estate more in accordance with rational and economic principles. Reclaim your waste lands, it is a sin to sacrifice such rich soil to so bad a purpose. Let the dismal scene, now devoted only to your pastime, present the prospect of a smiling harvest; and those hills and vales, at present so rugged and neglected, in imitation of your excellent neighbours be grazed by a numerous herd of fine healthy cattle. So may you hope for a cheerful old age, and deserve it. So may your fine property, now so basely prostituted, become a blessing to the industrious and deserving cotter. So may you be amply recompensed for the shares you now hold in the dungeon, the penal settlement, and the gallows. CHRISTOPHER.

THE JENKINS INSTITUTION.

EXTRACT FROM THE WILL OF THE LATE MR. C. J. JENKINS, RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ENDOWMENT OF AN INSTITUTION FOR THE

WORKING CLASSES.

UPON trust that they, my said trustee and trustees, do and shall rent, hire, or acquire, or obtain in some legal way, one or more commodious hall or room or halls, or rooms not less than forty or fifty feet square, with requisite offices, in some good public and central situation or situations in London (preference being given, in the first instance, to Oxford Street and the neighbourhood); and do and shall, by and out of the income of my said residuary estate, make all necessary payments for lighting, repairing, cleaning, and keeping in good order and condition, the said hall or room or halls or rooms, and any others to be at any time hereafter obtained in their place or stead or in addition thereto; and do and shall, in like man er, obtain from time to time any other hall or room or halls or rooms, in lieu of any former ones or in addition thereto, according to circumstances and to the state of funds legally at their and his disposal, so that one or more of such good and commodious halls or rooms as aforesaid may, from time to time and at all times for ever hereafter, be kept up and continued for the purposes hereinafter mentioned. And such halls and rooms shall be designated and known as the 'Jenkins Institution' or Institutions, and shall be appropriated, in manner hereinafter mentioned, for the use and purposes of the working classes and their children that is to say, as a reading-room, library, and place of resort for working men, operatives, and artisans during the evenings, and as a school for the children of such classes during the day-time. And such hall or room or halls or rooms may also be used and appropriated, at convenient times during the day-time and evening, for the purpose of lectures being delivered, and discussions and debates held therein. And such use of the said hall or room or halls or rooms as aforesaid shall not be prohibited or denied to any one or more particular class or sect or classes or sects on account of any peculiarity in their religious, political, or other tenets or doctrines; and in order to keep up a school in the said

halls or rooms as aforesaid, my said trustees and trustee shall appoint a fit and proper person as a schoolmaster at each hall or room, and shall pay him for his services out of the income of the said trust funds a salary of not less than one guinea a-week, and they shall have full power from time to time to remove such schoolmaster and appoint another in his place at discretion. And my said trustees and trustee shall have power to fix some trifling subscription or payment, to be made and taken for all or any of such uses of the said halls or rooms as aforesaid, and to pay and appropriate the sums so to be received in or towards renting, hiring, or otherwise legally acquiring or obtaining other halls or rooms as aforesaid, or otherwise in reference thereto, as they or he may think proper. And, for better and more effectually carrying out my views and intentions with respect to the institution and establishment of the said hall or halls as aforesaid, I direct, authorise, and empower my said trustees and trustee-as soon as practicable after the expiration of the said period of five years from the time of my decease, or before the expiration of that period if they or he shall think proper-to frame a code of rules and regulations for the management of the said hall or halls; and from time to time to make alterations and variations in, and additions to, such code of rules and regulations; and to appoint a governing committee of twelve directors, the majority of whom shall from time to time have the entire control and management of the said hall or halls in accordance with the terms of this my will.

TRUSTEES: Mrs. Martha Jenkins, widow of the deceased; Mr. Joshua Binns, son-in-law of the deceased; Mr. Thomas Whitaker, Treasurer of the John Street Institution.

FIRST COMMITTEE: John Kenny (instead of Henry Hetherington, deceased), James Watson, Henry Ivory, John Cramp, Thomas Cooper, Richard F. Brettingham, Thomas Martin Wheeller (of Heringsgate), George Rogers, and the above-named trustees. One third of the committee to retire annually, and their places filled up; and all future committees appointed by members of the Institution of not less than six months' standing.

The bequest is estimated to be worth upwards of £10,000. The will has been duly proved, and the foundation deed enrolled in the Court of Chancery.

THE BOSJESMANS AND MR. OWEN.

The

OBSERVE the task which government has had to play with the Kaffirs, who rank amongst the boldest and most chivalrous men in the world, the tallest and finest race in the universe, yet, strange as it appears, neighbours and enemies of the most degraded and diminutive race, the Bosjesmans' -creatures forming the connecting link between man and brute. British, it will be remembered, have long waged a war of extermination with the Kaffirs-but they will never become the slaves of white men ; the brave, the free and warlike Kaffir will never, while life continues, yield one yard of land-rich as it is in its variegated beauty-in the hands of the British and Dutch, now gaping for them. Such was my reply to a reverend prelate, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London,

where the Bosjesmans were exhibiting at the time; it was in answer to a question relative to the probability of a child of the Bosjesmans ever attaining the language, manners, and customs, and the intellectuality of Europeans. I stated that my impression was that any future knowledge that the child might imbibe would be entirely attributable to the circumstances it was placed in in early youth. On the right hand of the reverend prelate sat a philanthropic old man-a hat of broad brim, plain brown coat, and waistcoat of the olden time-the eccentricity of whose dress accorded but too well with the manners of the individual himself, who seemed to observe, as his head reclined upon his hands supported by his stick, the Bosjesmans' with an air of the greatest thoughtfulness and concern, as if pondering on the past and future fate of these human savages, or, it might be, he had in some way been concerned in the future welfare of their race. However, on the left of this quiet and pensive old gentleman sat a lady, whose duty, it seemed,was in communicating all that was said concerning the subject of any conversation with the reverend prelate, and explanation concerning the people. The latter part of our discourse seemed much to interest him. I being shortly afterwards called upon to attend to the Africans, the stranger gentleman took up the thread of my discourse; and upon my return, in drawing near them, I heard the following words between the reverend prelate and old philosopher, the latter of whom exclaimed with much vehemence-'That is what I have been endeavouring for the last forty years to prove, both in this and in other countries, that a man is guided in the future by the present circumstances, over which we have no control.' An electric shock could uot so suddenly have altered the reverend prelate's manner. A few more words passed. The one rose to depart-it was the Bishop of Worcester! His companion remained-it was Robert Owen, the Socialist. From S. Tyler's Scrap Book.

MR. TRAVERS'S LECTURES.

Two LECTURES, delivered in Finsbury Chapel, South Place, by Newnham Travers, B.A. (Charles Fox, Paternoster Row.)-The author of these lecures was once a minister of the Established Church. Upon purely conscientious grounds he left that communion, and in the pulpit of South Place-a pulpit consecrated by the genius and eloquence of W. J. Fox-renounced all allegiance to the doginas of episcopal Christianity. This was a bold step to take. It was hurling a noble defiance in the face of ecclesiastical tyranny. There are, we fear, not many clergymen who would have either the honesty or the courage to act thus. The subjects of the above lectures are-1st. The Priesthood and the Ministry'-2nd. 'Inspiration.' From the first we give the following extract:—The true minister waits, as his name implies, upon his age. He respects and honours it too much to live only among old traditions or to suppose that to by-gone generations God has revealed all his truth. He seeks to understand its wants and to minister to them; not rashly affecting to forestall them, and penetrate the future ideas that still enrich the world, but rather leaving to the experience of the past, while ever preferring the present as the latest and best development (spite of all its

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