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practice. The only question for sane men to decide is, whether there is a possibility of separating the enjoyments from the adjuncts which render it vicious and depraving; whether a cheap temperance assembly and news' room would not thin the ranks of the alehouse; and whether, by affording time and opportunity for calm reflection, it may not become a vestibule to the place of worship.

There are not means for the great bulk of the poor to spend the Sunday innocently within doors, and there is nearly as little for their taking rest in the open air. The progress of bricks and mortar and of inclosures has sadly restricted the spaces on which the English peasantry could take healthful exercise. Around Liverpool they are sadly restricted both in number and space. Respectable people keep away from these crowded spots. The influence of their example is lost, and in its place is substituted the influence of the idle, the dissolute, and the depraved. Were there a park or garden open, where the flowers, those silent preachers to which Christ himself referred his disciples as eloquent witnesses of the bounty of Providence,— would speak lessons of loveliness to the soul, an immediate check would be given to gross vice and foul pollution. We too often forget the humanizing and moral effects of a garden. It was in a garden that our first parents were placed by infinite wisdom; and, unless we deny that attribute of Deity, we cannot evade the conclusion that such a locality is the best suited to inspire reflections on the bounties of that Providence, whose tender mercies are over all his works. "Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." But there are those who say to the poor, 'You shall not consider the lilies of the field; for we are wiser than our master, and deny that they inculcate the lesson which he has pointed out."

Were we even to grant that all recreations on Sunday are evil, which we are far from conceding, still we should say that there is only a choice of evils in the case of a dense and crowded population. Body and soul must suffer equally, if the poor be kept confined in those dens and cellars, compared with which prisons are palaces, and dungeons drawing-rooms. "Which of you having a sheep fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day will not lay hold on it and lift it out? But no pit into which an animal could fall is so noisome, so pernicious, or so replete with peril, as the dens of disease, misery, and vice to which the poorer classes are physically confined on the day designed by Providence for the alleviation of their condition. After a lapse of eighteen hundred years, the question has to be repeated, "How much is a man better than a sheep?"

Juvenile vagrancy is a prolific source of juvenile delinquency; and many circumstances lead a visiter to believe that habits of vagrancy are very early formed among the children of Liverpool. In the course of a walk of about two hours, in the upper part of the town, thirteen children were found wandering about, crying that they had been lost, unable to tell the names of their parents, or the direction of their residences. If there be such neglect in tender years, we may safely conclude that there is not very efficient superintendence in mature years. The difference between the number of boys and girls to be seen in the streets of Liverpool and those seen

in the streets of Manchester is one of the most striking circumstances of contrast between the two towns.

Opportunities for crime create criminality; and, unfortunately, the necessary exposure of valuable property in the crowded docks of Liverpool, during the processes of shipping and unshipping, produces multitudinous temptations, which prove a fatal snare to the young and idle. The police force is numerous and vigilant, indeed it is nowhere better organised; but if each constable had the hundred eyes of Argus, and the hundred hands of Briareus, he would be baffled by the trained dexterity of the "dock-wallopers." Among the educational establishments of Liverpool, those for the instruction of young thieves ought not to be omitted. They appear to be conducted on the monitorial principle, combined with the peripatetic system devised by Aristotle; and they produce more promising pupils than have yet come from the establishments of Bell and Lancaster. The Corporation and National schools are indeed seriously cramping the influence of these predatorial seminaries, and consequently there is no class in the empire more vehement in its opposition to national education than the master-thieves of Liverpool.

For many years the fury and pravity of a Liverpool mob have been proverbial; and it was supposed by those unacquainted with the town, that no great assemblage could take place without mischief. This is a very unjust and groundless supposition. In a period of excitement, it is not improbable that a mob in Liverpool may be just as mischievous as a mob anywhere else; but nowhere could a more orderly multitude he found than that which accompanies the annual procession of the shipwrights. With singular infelicity they have chosen the 29th of May for their anniversary, taking as their patron the monarch who did more to lower the character of the British navy, and injure the interests of British commerce, than all the other sovereigns of England put together. But this pardonable error is their only blunder. They make their anniversary festival an opportunity for furthering the interests of piety and charity, by attending some place of worship, where a sermon is preached, and a collection made for the support of some charitable institution. The procession itself is orderly, and admirably conducted; and there are few customs which seem better calculated to generate and preserve those feelings of self-respect, which are the greatest safeguard of morality in the working population.

The great improvement in the shop-fronts in Liverpool, as in London, is a gratifying and healthy sign of the times. Some years since, it would have been supposed that such expensive decorations would have been a temptation to mischief; that plate-glass would be broken, gilt ornaments wrenched away, and Grecian pillars carved and hacked into some barbarous dis-order. Here, however, undoubted experience has proved the humanising effects of taste, and indisputably shown that there is a close connection between the perceptions of physical and moral beauty. The more beautiful a shop is, the less is it liable to wanton defacement; and there is some evidence to show that it also becomes less liable to depredation. This subject, however, opens too extensive a field to be discussed incidentally. At present it will be sufficient to say, that the moral influences arising from the cultivation and the gratification of taste are

of great importance, and have been too long and too generally neglected.

Though there is much to lament, and something to blame, in the condition of the working classes in Liverpool, especially those of the lowest grade, it is only justice to add, that nowhere are there more ardent aspirations and more zealous efforts for their amelioration. Pity it is that many of these are poisoned by the spirit of party, and that the accomplishment of an acknowledged good is often adjourned until some doubtful question of religion or politics be adjusted, the connection of which with the object in view it would puzzle Edipus himself to determine. It would be a decided improvement to introduce the old rule of controversy in Liverpool,―

"Ere we to further argument advance,

'Tis mighty fit that we should have a dance;"

for a dance is more pleasant and less mischievous than a controversial debate; and it is more pleasant to listen to a fiddle than to a longwinded orator.

Liverpool is peculiarly fortunate in possessing an energetic, intelligent, and enterprising middle class, and it bids fair not merely to perpetuate, but greatly to increase, in all its elements of prosperity. There is not within the seas of Britain an educational establishment better conducted than the schools for the middle and higher classes connected with the Mechanics' Institute; there is nowhere a course of instruction better calculated to form and unite the characters of a man of business, a gentleman, and a Christian. Liverpool must improve; for the foundations of its advancement are securely laid in the hearts and souls of a future generation.

LOVE'S GOOD MORROW.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

SHINE brightly through her casement, sun;
Thou, gale, soft odours bring her;
Ye merry birds, that hail the day,
Your sweetest music sing her;
Smile, Nature, on her, as she wakes,
And hide all sights of sorrow;
And have no sounds but those of joy
To bid my love-good morrow!

Good morrow to those lustrous eyes,
With bright good humour beaming!
Good morrow to those ruddy lips,
Where smiles are ever teeming !
Good morrow to that happy face,
Undimm'd as yet by sorrow!
Long be thy heart as free from care-
Good morrow, love-good morrow!

137

THE COBBLER PHYSICIAN.

BY R. B. PEAKE.

CHAPTER I.

It was on a miserable evening, in a narrow dirty street in Padua, anno 1605, that a vamper of ancient boots and shoes, named Giuseppe Loba, familiarly called Crispino by the neighbours, stepped from the threshold of his humble dwelling. Feeling the pattering of the rain on his scanty garments, he sighed, and exclaimed, "Št. Anthony, what a night! and all things combine to drive me out of doors. I have not a soldo in the world,-there is nothing to drink,-nothing to eat, and my wife, poor creature, has just made me a present of another little cobbler!"

Crispino was already the father of more children than he could contrive to feed, and it was agreed that he should go out and seek a sponsor for the small individual just launched into existence. To the praise of the then constitution of Padua be it recorded, that godfathers and godmothers were considered virtually liable for the support of their godchildren. The poor cobbler made the best of his way towards the market-place. At the door of his shop stood Master Gamba, the mercer. Crispino thought that he would try if the shoe would fit with him, and said,

"Good Master Gamba, if ever I needed a friend, it is at this moment. You and I ought to have a feeling of mutual sympathy, considering that your hose are drawn on the same feet with my boots and shoes. Excellent Master Gamba, my wife has just presented me with a fine little cherub; if you would but become godfather-" "Good night," cried Gamba,—he was a man of few words,-and shut his shop-door.

Crispino crossed the street to a house where dwelt one Signor Sanquirico, by trade a chemist, a great newsmonger, whose shop was the gossiping station of all Padua. The cobbler was aware that he could not depend on the charity of Sanquirico, but thought he might consent out of vanity; so he stepped in cap in hand.

"Signor, the fact is-"

"Fact!" said Sanquirico. "What is it? Out with it. Has the King of France got a fresh mistress?"

"Alack! no," replied the cobbler; replied the cobbler; "but my wife is again in bed, and I throw myself on your benevolence to stand sponsor."

"Why, Crispino," muttered Sanquirico, "you can afford to get drunk twice every day at least. What business have you to drink

so much?"

"When I drink," said the cobbler, thinking to propitiate the chemist with a jest, "it is not business, but pleasure.”

"You do not pay your debts," continued Sanquirico, "and that is not to your credit.'

"Pardon me, Signor," said the cobbler, "it is to my credit. But the boy is as fine a little boy as ever was born."

pers,

"Doubtless," replied Sanquirico; " but I don't like childrer forefondness for them, like that for olives, is quite an acquired tast ented "Will you for once open your heart to the destitute? "Begone!" said the chemist; " you are drunk now.”

VOL. VIII.

in his

:ed at

L

Sanquirico shut the cobbler out. At this moment came up a laundress, with a basket of linen on her head.

"So," she said, "Master Crispino, I hear that you are a father again. I would willingly become godmother, but I am only the wife of a hard-working mason; however, friend, here is a portion of my earnings. Take it home, and Saint Anthony send you comfort! And the good Bianca glided away with the glow that accompanies a charitable action.

Crispino wiped his eyes, and exclaimed, "There's a goddess of a washerwoman! May the sins of all her family be clear-starched! May none of her relations be crimped, collared, or hung on a line!" His rhapsody was put an end to by his accidentally letting the coin slip through his fingers; it dropped into a gullyhole, and disappeared. Poor Crispino sat down on the step of a door, and made up his mind that ill luck had now done its worst. He was arcused by the appearance of a cavalier wrapped in a cloak, who turned the corner of the street, and in a state of great excitement exclaimed aloud, "Malicious Fate! thou hast struck thy bitterest blow. My only love deprived of reason, that innocent mind gone. All my other sufferings vanish when compared to this."

"The gentleman is in trouble, as well as myself," thought Crispino.

"On my return to this fatal city," muttered the cavalier, " I find my commission superseded,- my bond imperatively demanded. Is there such another wretch on earth?

"Good sir," said Crispino.

"

"Away, friend,-away!" cried the stranger, now for the first time seeing the cobbler. "If you are craving alms, I can afford none." "Do you happen to want a godfather for your new-born offspring?" asked Crispino.

"Trifle not, fellow! I am in a state of desperation."

"So am I," said the cobbler. "Here are two of us in a state of desperation. Let us be uncomfortable together."

The cavalier turned from him. "If you are desperate, seek refuge in death, as I shall do. Away, wretch,-away!" and he rushed rapidly down the street.

"Bless my soul!" cogitated the cobbler. "Seek refuge in death! The thought pleases me, and I will follow him. I am proscribed. One calls me a drunkard; another a rogue. I dare not return to my starving home. Yes; I will go and die; creep away from the gaze of my neighbours, and breathe my last, unnoticed. No soul shall see a cobbler's end!"

Poor Crispino stalked mournfully down the street, with an attempt at dignity, which his figure and habiliments converted into the sublime of the ridiculous.

CHAPTER II.

MEANTIME Crispino wandered on, unconscious whither, until he ved in a small square surrounded by dismal uninhabited dwelldepopulated by the plague during its last dreadful visit. In centre was an ancient well, known for ages, though no one could the tradition, by the name of the Well of Death. The scene one of extreme desolation, and the bats flitting across on their

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