cal education on account of certain passages in anatomical books or anatomical drawings. He must say, too, that he thought that these passages would have remained in darkness and obscurity had they not been raked up for particular purposes. He believed He believed that no people were characterized by greater purity of morals than the people who dwelt in those districts where the priests were in the habit of instituting those inquiries, to which an honourable Gentleman had taken such exception.

After a few words from Mr. O'Connell and some sharp personal altercation, the grant was affirmed by 95 to 48.

The powers of the Poor-law Commissioners, which in the last Session had been provisionally continued for one year, required now to be again renewed by Act of Parliament, and a measure had been announced in the early part of the Session by Sir James Graham which, besides effecting this object, comprised also several other practical alterations in the system; among others, the abolition of the Gilbert Unions, the formation of districts for the purposes of education, and various minor matters. Want of time, however, owing to the pressure of the great financial questions, and opposition, which

on

this fertile subject usually assumed a seriously procrastinating form, compelled the Government to content themselves with carrying out the more urgent portion of their measure, leaving the rest to follow in another Session. The first clause of the Bill, re-enacting the Commission for a period of five years, after considerable objection, was carried, as were clauses defining the number of the Assis

tant Commissioners, the powers of the Commissioners with respect to the issuing of general orders, the regulations under which rules and orders should be issued in cases of urgency, and a few other points affecting the practical working of the law. Sir James Graham explained that, these clauses being passed, Government would consider during the recess the remaining provisions on which legislation was required, and at the commencement of the next Session would re-introduce them in a new Bill. He pressed the House not to interpose further obstacles to the measure as now limited. The hostility entertained to the principle of the law, however, by some Members was too strong to allow of a tacit acquiescence in the proposals of the Government. the bringing up of the Report, Mr. Escott made a protest against the rigid exclusion of out-door relief. He proposed a clause providing, "That it shall be lawful for all Boards of Guardians of the poor in England and Wales to grant such relief as in their judgment shall be necessary to poor persons at their own homes, any order, rule, or regulation of the Poor-law Commissioners notwithstanding." He made some general remarks against the Poor-law; disputing the right of Parliament to establish a Commission and delegate to it legislative powers. In the agricultural district in which he lived, the prohibitory order had been productive of the very worst consequences.

On

He admitted that his amendment would lead to the payment of wages out of the rates: but which was the greater evil, to pay a small sum to keep the labourer out of the workhouse, or a larger sum

to maintain him in it? in many cases, where it would take 25s. to maintain a family in the house, assistance to the amount of 2s. 6d. or 3s. would keep them out.

Sir James Graham declared the clause equivalent to a repeal of the statute of 1834, and totally inconsistent with the Bill on which it was proposed to engraft it: nor was it true that the Guardians were without a discretionary

power.

There was a general order, which gave to the Board of Guardians the largest possible discretion; and even the prohibitory order also gave a large discretionary power with respect to affording relief to the able-bodied. They were empowered to give relief either in or out of the workhouse, in money or food, in clothes or in medicine, to all able-bodied paupers in the case of sickness, either of the head of the family, or of any member of it, or in any case in which the necessity of relief was certain and urgent.

He defined the principle of the Poor-law to be, the local administration of relief controlled by the authority of a central administration. Mr. Escott seemed to think that the work house system was rigidly enforced: how stood the facts?

was

lieved out of it were 1,108,000. Then with respect to the relative expense of those relieved in the workhouse and those relieved out of it, the total sum paid for the maintenance of the poor in 1840, in England and Wales, 3,739,000l.; 808,000l. was expended for relief within the workhouse, and no less than 2,931,000l. was given to the poor at their own homes. So again in the year 1841 the gross sum expended was 3,884,600.; of this sum 892,000%. was expended for relief in the work house, and no less a sum than 2,992,000l. was distributed in England and Wales among the poor, not in the workhouses, but at their own homes.

Mr. Escott had admitted that his clause would bring about a return to the payment of wages out of the Poor-rates: "What was that system of paying wages out of the rates, but the exaction of a sum of money from the ratepayers by the employers of labourers, to pay for labour from which the rate-payers derived no benefit? He could not conceive a system, if they viewed it only in the light of abstract justice, more iniquitous, more intolerable, or more indefensible, as related to the rate-payers; while as it related to the labourers themselves, he knew of nothing more calculated to injure them in their character for independence and moral bearing."

The motion was supported by Mr. Fielden, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Aglionby, Mr. S. Crawford, and General Johnson; it was opposed by Mr. Ward and Mr. Hume.

Mr. Escott's motion was negatived by 90 to 55, and the Bill passed.

The proceedings in Parliament

were wound up by one of those retrospective reviews of the operations of the session, not uncommon of late years, wherein all the omissions and misdeeds of the Government during its progress are summed up, with taunting recapitulation, by some leading speaker of the Opposition, against whom the assailed Ministerialists retort, by selecting the most vulnerable points in the conduct of their rivals, as a contrast to their own policy.

On the present occasion, the two great parties were represented by two able champions, whose skill in this species of intellectual gladiatorship, if it served no more important end, at least afforded satisfaction to the admirers of controversial dexterity, and to those who can relish the collision of acute reasoning, raillery, and sarcasm.

A motion was made by Viscount Palmerston, on one of the last nights of the session, for a return of "The names and titles of all the public Bills that had been brought into the House of Commons during the present session of Parliament, the date at which the order for bringing in each Bill was made; and also the dates at which the said Bills passed through their several stages."

He embraced the occasion to make some observations on the state of public affairs at home and abroad; and on the close of the first Parliamentary session of that party, who had been ten years in active opposition, and twelve months in power. He went back for some of the causes which are still in operation, to the long war which was closed by the peace of 1815: "In that war, all the passions, all the feelings, and all the energies of the nations of Europe, were roused into action; and it

was vain to think that men who had been so long discussing their rights and their wrongs, could at once go back to the same state of comparative political slumber to which they were accustomed at the breaking out of hostilities. Nevertheless, there were persons who indulged in that dream; but the delusion was soon dispelled. Italy, Spain, and Portugal made frequent, though unsuccessful, efforts to wrest from their governments free institutions; which at length Spain and Portugal, under the auspices of England, obtained. After the peace, the public mind of this country directed itself with great intensity to our own domestic concerns-to civil and religious disabilities under which the people laboured; and in 1829, Catholic Emancipation was carried, mainly through the energy, the wisdom, and the firmness of three men, the right honourable Baronet opposite, now at the head of Her Majesty's Government; the Duke of Wellington; and a person whose name is not often associated with theirs, the right honourable and learned Member for Cork. (Cheers and a laugh.) Lord Palmerston hoped that the Duke of Wellington would add another wreath to the laurels that grace his brow, and attain commercial emancipation for his country. The events of 1830 in France, produced a crisis in this country. The interval since 1829 was too brief to allow the resentments which Catholic Emancipation had produced among the supporters of Ministers to subside; and by resigning on a subordinate question, they expressed their conviction that a time was come when a complete measure of Parliamentary Reform must take place, although they could not

undertake it. Lord Palmerston's colleagues succeeded to power, and brought forward a measure more extensive than had been believed possible. The present state of the House, however, proved how groundless were the fears of annihilation entertained by Sir Robert Peel and his party."

There was this difference between Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation-the one was complete in itself, the redress of a specific grievance; the other was a means to a further end :

"It was idle to suppose, when you admitted into this House a due proportion of direct Representatives of a great manufacturing and commercial community, that those Representatives would not state so effectually and with such force the various evils under which that community laboured by reason of your prohibitory and restrictive system, that in the course of a short period of time, Parliament would be induced to make great and important changes in that system. But there were many who did not look deep enough into the course of things to be convinced of that. The large party who honestly and conscientiously-for I will not attribute improper motives to them-think that the system, which we call monopoly and restriction, is not only calculated for their own benefit, but for that of the country, believed that these great stages of social improvement depended not upon the action of great and wide-spreading causes, but on the accidental opinions of particular men, who happen from time to time to be in possession of power. They thought, therefore, when from time to time we announced improvements of one sort and another, that if they could

only contrive to dispossess us of the power which we held, and place it in the hands of the leaders of their party, they would be safe, and that the system which they had cherished for so long a period, would be maintained. They had a majority, a large majority, in the House of Lords; all they wanted was a majority in this House. They set to work, steadily and systematically labouring in the Registration Courts; and gradually they rose upon us, until it became obvious, from session to session, that their numbers were increasing, and that the time would probably come, when they would have the command of this House as well as the other House of Pariament. The last session of the late Parliament brought matters to a crisis. Their numbers were, at all events, equal to, if not greater than ours; and the measures which we announced, those great measures of Commercial Reform-some of which we actually brought forward, showed that the time had at length arrived when they must give us battle, and they prepared vigorously for the fight. They fought the battle in this House and in the country. Their victory was, undoubtedly, complete; and our defeat, I am ready to acknowledge, amounted almost to a rout. (Laughter.) Great was the triumph, loud was the note of exultation. But, alas! how vain is human wisdom--how short the foresight of even the wisest men! when a few months passed over their heads, the songs of triumph were changed into cries of lamentation. The very parties whom they had selected to be their chosen champions—the very guardians whom they had armed with power for their defence-turned

their weapons upon them, and most inhumanly, and with unrelenting cruelty, struck blows, which, if they have not already proved fatal, must in all probability, lead sooner or later to their utter extinction."

The triumphant party had been deceived; but by whom? by them selves. It was not to be supposed that the late Ministers had so impregnated the air of Downing Street with Free-trade principles, that their successors caught the infection, as they would an epidemic; still less that those recently propounded doctrines and opinions were the result of studies since the present Ministers had entered upon office, when it was known that every hour of a Minister's day must be devoted to the current business of his office:

"It is not to be supposed, that Her Majesty's Ministers applied themselves between the 3d of Sep tember, when they entered office, and the 3d of February, when Parliament met, to the study of Adam Smith, Ricardo, M'Culloch, Mill, Senior, and other writers of the same kind. (Laughter.) No; it is clear that the opinions which they have so well expounded in the present session, must be the result of long meditation-of studies deliberately pursued during the ten years of comparative leisure, which even the most active opposition affords; and that they must have come into power fully imbued with all those sound principles, the enunciation of which has excited so much admiration on this side of the House. In one respect, the conduct of right honourable Gentlemen opposite, before they entered office, is open to animadversion. The right honourable Baronet opposite accused me, upon

a former occasion, of too much assurance: now I am going, not to retort that charge, but to complain of his over-modesty. I complain of the over-modesty of the right honourable Baronet and his colleagues, in this, that upon many occasions when, they being out of power, matters came under discussion in this House, to which the principles they have lately avowed were fully and plainly applicable, their modesty-for it was that, no doubt-prevented them from doing themselves full justice, inasmuch as, by practising an over-scrupulous reserve, they really concealed from the public the progress they had made in their studies. (Laughter and cheering.) For instance, when we proposed a moderate reduction of the Timber-duties, they objected to the measure upon mere grounds of technical form. It is true that they did not enter much into the question; but they did injustice to themselves; for they left people to imagine that their objection to the measure was, that it diminished too much the protection to British timber, whereas we now know from subsequent experience, that their objection was, that the measure did not go half far enough. (Laughter.) When we announced our intention of making a material reduction of the Cornduty, they took an objection; not, indeed, because they disliked the introduction of foreign corn at a duty of 8s., provided that duty were arrived at by means of a sliding-scale, but because, as we supposed, the duty was to be fixed and unvarying. They did not let us into the secret, but confined their objection to that point; and every one supposed them to be acting on the old country gentleman's adage of down corn down