comforts of his station, and who had no luxuries and conveniences at all. This man had no lower wages than his fellow workmen ; he did not work fewer hours than was the custom of his trade; but, somehow, he never got on. He seemed to feel that he could not get on. He spent his evenings always at the ale-house; he had no comforts at home, and he did not appear to wish that his home should be comfortable. When there came a slackness of work in the trade, this man was the first to be sent off. There appeared to be no strong natural bond between him and his employers; it was snapt in a minute when the day of adversity came. Was not this man the most timid and slavish of you all? Was he not the first to break forth in complaints when there was plenty of work and few to do it; and the first to submit to any act of oppression when there was little work and a great many striving to do it?

What constituted the great difference in the character of these two men? The difference was this. The standard of enjoyment in the one man was high; the standard of enjoyment in the other was low. The one man was determined, early in life, not to be satisfied with poverty if he could get wealth,—not to be satisfied with discomforts, if he could get comforts. But he knew that it was as necessary for him to make himself secure, as far as human beings can obtain security, that what he acquired should not be taken away from him. The power by which he accomplish

He

ed this the barrier which he set up against ill-fortune was frugality. He first learnt to prefer real comforts to low dissipation; and, by avoiding the expense of that low dissipation, he not only got more real comforts, but he elevated his mind to desire, whilst he saved the means of procuring, those luxuries and conveniences which were somewhat above the ordinary possessions of his station. In one word, he was an intelligent man, and he was a prudent man. saw what was good, and he applied himself to obtain it, and to preserve it when it was obtained. He saw, for instance, that it was good to marry; but he also that if he married before he had saved something against an evil day, he should not only put his own happiness in peril, but he should endanger the happiness of other beings. He would not marry to lower his standard of enjoyment; he did not marry, till he had taken care that the wants of a family did not lower him in the scale of respectability. It is not necessary for us to follow up the comparison between the one man and the other, to whom we directed your attention. He acted upon entirely different principles; and his condition through life was entirely different.

saw,

What is the lesson which we ask you the working men of this country-to draw from the exhibition of these familiar examples? We ask you, as a body, to strive with all your power to raise the standard of your enjoyment. You have within your reach, through the

progress of invention, an infinitely greater share of the comforts and conveniences of life than your forefathers enjoyed. When you set out in the world, determine to have your full share of these comforts and accommodations. Your cannot make the determination without perceiving how the end is to be obtained. Knowledge, industry, and prudence, are the tools by which you must work out this good. "This," says the reverend author whom we have just quoted, "is one of those felicitous cases, in which the desire of good things is at length followed up by the power of obtaining them. It is thus that workmen can enforce their demand for

higher wages. Those distempered outbreakings which approach to the character of rebellion will retard instead of forwarding their cause. But nothing can arrest the march of light among the people; and when this light is conjoined with virtue, it will guide their ascending way to a vantage-ground, where they will make good the precise condition to which their worth shall entitle them."

*

Appendix.

**As references are constantly made in the preceding work to Parliamentary Returns, and other Tables, we select a few of the more important.

I.-POPULATION.

The United Kingdom contains, according to the returns for Great Britain made in 1821, and the best returns for Ireland, 117 county towns, and 13,885 parishes, and possesses a population of 21,238,580 souls, constituting 4,253,416 families employed as follows:

III.-LAND IN THE UNITED Kingdom.

In the third report of the Emigration Committee, the following Table for Great Britain is given :

General Statement of the Cultivated, Uncultivated, and Unprofitable Land of the United Kingdom.

46,522,970 15,000,000 | 15,871,463 | 77,394,433

Of the cultivated land in Great Britain, it has been estimated that 14 millions of acres are arable, and 20 millions meadow and pasture.

IV.-COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF THE AMOUNT OF ANIMATE AND INANIMATE FORCE APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE AND THE ARTS, IN FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN.

(Abridged from M. Charles Dupin, and published in the Companion to the Almanac for 1829.)

The 31,800,000 inhabitants, which now constitute the population of France, are equivalent to a power of 12,609,057 individuals of the male sex, at the age of full vigor. It is a position generally admitted in France, that two thirds of the population are employed in agriculture, and that a third only is occupied in