The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-14 00:00:00

course, or cordiality of common feeling, subsists
between them. This is owing very much to the
railroad system of travelling, in which men are
separated into three classes by three classes of
carriages, and very seldom intermix, or confront
each other, or have interchange of words, as
when the master and servants all travelled toge-
ther on the old family coach. The effect of this
separation must be to alienate them in feeling,
and to cause them to regard themselves as diffe-
rent in kind, or as having totally different
interests. Means should be taken to counteract
this by our country gentlemen, if they would not
suffer the consequences of it in its bearing upon
their own social well-being.

One very manifest evil arising out of this
state of things is, that the labouring and middle
class of people are rapidly imbibing radical and
revolutionary notions. Their jealousy is excited
of those in whose pursuits they have no share—
whom they see only as elevated out of speaking
distance above them, and know only as wide-
acred lords. Formerly a large number of persons'
as stewards, gamekeepers, coachmen, grooms, asso-
ciated with their masters in shooting, hunting, and
other country pastimes, and by associating with
them on these occasions they acquired a respect for
them, and viewed their masters' interests as in
every way their own. Now, it is to be feared,
their disposition would be to go against them ;
and if any political crisis were to arise, would
join in despoiling those who had been their
paymasters, but had ceased to show themselves
their kind protectors.

The three principal things to be attended to,
we think, in order to counteract or remedy these
evils, are,—the dwellings of the poor, their do-
mestic habits, and their amusements.

The dwellings of the poor in many parts of
the country admit of much improvement. It is
not sufficient to say that the grandfathers of the
present families lived in them, and suffered no
sensible harm. What is perfectly harmless in
one age, when gross habits prevailed generally,
may be full of moral mischief in another, when
greater refinement has acted as a stimulus upon
the imagination. ➢len may become insensible by
habit of certain moral conditions as they may be
of certain physical conditions of their being. But
when education begins to act upon a people (and
where does it not extend in the present day ?),
and their mental powers become excited, certain
safeguards are immediately required over their
morals in a more restricted intermixture of the
sexes in the same house. For this reason, more
even than on the score of health, every labourer's
cottage ought to have separate sleeping apart-
ments for the male and the female members of
the family. The low state of morals that so
generally prevails among the poor arises, there
cannot be a doubt, in a great measure, from the
social condition in which they are too often

obliged to live in their own homes, with very
little more of separation between the sexes than
there is between the brutes in the farm-
yard. It is this that destroys all reverence
for parents, all pure affection for brothers
and sisters, all proper self-respect. Improved
cottage dwellings is what is required. For this
we must look to the large landholders of our
country. And, to their credit, many of them
have already done much to adapt the dwellings
of their labourers to their altered social c3ndi-
tions. The Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND, we are
told, has laid out many thousands in this way ;
so has the Duke of BEDFORD ; so have many
lesser proprietors. Let the country gentlemen
follow their example, and we shall see England
adorned with what is as much a beauty in its way

as the nobleman's lordly mansion—neat, well-
built, commodious cottages, embosomed in honey-
suckles and roses.

The domestic habits of the poor are very
closely connected with the character of thei
dwellings. If there is any one thing more than
another which marks the families of the poor in
the present day, it is the dying out of the do-
mestic affections. How little love of home—how
little intelligent attachment to their parents—do
we find among the grown-up girls and boys of
the lower classes ! By the time they are twelve
or fourteen years of age they have no more re-
gard for their parents, no more care for them,
than a colt has for its dam. This arises in some
measure from the miserable character of the
houses which they call their homes—from the
mere animal regard exhibited for them by their
parents, which ceases altogether as soon as they
get above the dependence of childhood or youth
—and from the little they find to make home
either lovely or beloved. How, then, are they
to be trained to a healthier exercise of the affec-
tions—to more home-loving habits ? First, by
making the home itself a more comfortable place ;
and next, by making the village school a model
building and a training-place for the future duties
of after life. The parents, in too many cases,
are regardless of their children after they reach
a certain age, because they have never been in-
structed themselves in their own moral responsi-
bilities towards their offspring, or because their
dwellings are such miserable pent-up places that
they can have no comfort themselves but by
driving their children out of doors. Improve the
comfort of their homes, and the poor, both
parents and children, will love their home more.
One thing which acts back powerfully on the
home is the school. Provide the children in
every parish with a well-built,
school-house—a building with
taste about it ; let it ;be seen to
always in a clean, orderly, tid:,
they will soon imbibe a disgust
orderly home : they will carry
neatness and order, which they

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