of ground were induced to cover them with those buildings.  On this subject Mr. Hodges, the gentleman already referred to, remarks:  ’I cannot forbear urging again that any measure having for its object the relief of the parishes from their over population, must of necessity become perfectly useless, unless the act of parliament contains some regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of cottages.  I am quite satisfied that the erecting of cottages has been a most serious evil throughout the country.  The getting of the cottage tempts young people of seventeen and eighteen years of age, and even younger, to marry.  It is notorious that almost numberless cottages have been built by persons speculating on the parish rates for their rents.’

The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1831-2.  That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the grievances of which the nation complained were ‘proved abuses.’  The reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things, in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to the money disbursed in poor-rates, or in voluntary charities; in which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice—­the able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence—­the aged and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling in such society as that of a large workhouse without discipline or classification—­the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who contributed to their support.  The farmer paid 10 s. in the pound in poor-rates, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary labourers not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 l. to 250 l. a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all the slave’s security for support, without the slave’s liability to punishment.  The parish paid parents for nursing their little children, and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of Christian duty.

I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own, these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire of corruption.  Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to rot away the foundations of society.  On this subject I am glad to find a complete corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the Rev. Dr. Rigg.  He says:—­