in our judgment, even such inability of parents to pay the weekly pence as may be thus indicated is but a very equivocal proof of their poverty. In a large number of instances it might with much greater probability be traced to habits of extravagance or intemperance, and in many more to a momentary pressure, from sickness or other causes, widely different from a state of general poverty.

CHAPTER XI.

POVERTY IN MANCHESTER, CONTINUED.

The following important evidence on this subject was given by Mr. Baines.

1606. Mr. Bright (to Mr. Baines).—You have already observed, that Mr. Richson stated a strong opinion with regard to the want of education arising from the poverty of the population : is it your opinion that, at present and in past times, the working classes of Manchester, and the population generally, have been in the habit of wasting some considerable portion of their income I allude particularly to habits of intemperance, which are observable among many; and do you think that, on that point, there is an improvement taking place, and that the working population have, therefore, more means at their disposal for educating their children ?

Ans.—I cannot doubt that there is a very great waste of the means of the working classes of Manchester in intemperance, and that that waste is to such an extent as clearly to prove that it is not poverty that prevents them from educating their children. Mr. Stephen Neale, the chief constable of Salford, published a report in 1851, in which he estimated that, in the 2,037 publichouses and beer-houses of the two boroughs, £4,074 was spent every Saturday night, which would amount to £211,848 a year. He supposes that each frequenter of those houses may spend 25. on the average on the Saturday night in liquor. If we take for granted that even this amount were thus squandered during the whole week, how vain is it to argue that the working classes are too poor to pay 2d. 4d. or 6d. a week for the education of their children.

1607. If so large a sum is expended, is not that one main cause of the poverty on which Mr. Richson so much dwelt in his evidence ?

Ans.-It must be so.

1608. And does not that afford some ground for his statement, that the means for educating children are not forthcoming, and that it might be desirable to adopt some other mode of helping them ?

Ans.—I do not see how the latter conclusion follows, that it is desirable to adopt some other mode of helping them. I see that, as long as the habits of intemperance last, they will stand in the way of education.

1609. Mr. W. Miles.—Looking at the number of children that, from the intemperate habits of their fathers, must naturally be left without education, what would you do with those children ?

Ans.—I cannot answer that question as to what I would do with those children. Nature teaches us that children must, and do everywhere, suffer for the vices of their parents. It is the foundation of Bishop Butler's great argument in his “Analogy,” that children do suffer for the vices of their parents, and must inevitably.

1610. If, as is stated in the report a part of which you have read, so many children must be left without education owing to the vices of their parents, their parents not undertaking those natural duties which belong to them, is it,

a

or not, the duty of the state or the community to step in, and rescue those children from that poverty and want of education which the vices of their parents engender ?

Ans.-No, I do not think it is.

1611. Mr. Bright.—The question of the Honourable Member for Somersetshire referred to what the state is to do, or to what the community is to do through the state ; in your answer, did you mean to say that you think it is nobody's duty to take any care of the unhappy children who are found neglected by their parents ?

Ans.-On the contrary, I believe it is everybody's duty. 1612. Mr. Brotherton.-Do they perform that duty ?

Ans.—Many do. There are Temperance Societies; there are City Missions, Scripture Readers, and all sorts of societies and efforts, religious, moral, and social, that can be conceived, at this time at work in the city of Manchester.

1613. Mr. Bright.—Are the Committee merely to understand that you do not think it the duty of the community, acting as the state, by means of the law, to undertake all the duties which the rents neglect ?

Ans.—That is what I mean.

1614. At the same time you would enjoin upon all persons having the welfare of their fellow-creatures at heart, to take such means by their own organization as they can to remedy the misfortunes to which these children are liable ?

Ans.—That fully expresses my meaning.

1615. Mr. W. Miles.-Would you recommend that this should be done by individual effort, or by persons forming themselves into a society for the rescue of these unfortunate children ?

Ans.—Both ; as it is at present. There are very many benevolent individuals who exert themselves in that way now, and many organizations of a benevolent kind, and of a moralizing kind, now in existence, such as those I have referred to; such as temperance societies and town missions.

1616. Still, all those societies which you have referred to in your answers to the Honourable Member for Manchester, have regard to ameliorating the condition of the parents, and instilling into them better views and better morals : but, according to my understanding of the matter, they do not touch the state of their children, and until you have greatly rectified the condition of the parents, of course, you can have no kind of influence upon their children?

Ans.—Except indirectly. The direct influence is upon the parents, but the case of the children also is contemplated distinctly by several of these societies. For example, with regard to the Town Mission, and the Scripture Readers which are connected with the Church of England and with other religious bodies, it is one of their distinct objects to draw the children, both to the day schools and to the Sunday schools. The last report of the City Mission presents an account of the vast number of children, actually taken to day schools and Sunday schools by the City Missionaries. There are 72 of these, independently of the organization of the Church of England, which is also a very powerful one. There are 72 city missionaries continually traversing the worst parts of the city of Manchester, and they are not only paying attention to the parents by reading the scriptures to them, and addressing to them religious observations, but they are also endeavouring, wherever they find the children do not attend a day school or a Sunday school, to induce the parents to send them.

1617. From what funds are the payments made for these children, if the parents are stimulated to send them?

Ans. From the parents ; it is not that the parents are unable to do it, but they neglect it.

1618. Still, I suppose there must be a great number of parents, when you have done alí, either by visits, or through moral influence, who still refuse to send their children to school, and to pay their pence or twopence a week, as the case may be ?

Ans. I am not aware to what extent that is so. I presume there must be some ; I hope the number is very rapidly diminishing.

1619. Chairman.—As to temperance societies, your argument, I presume, is this : that if they prevail upon a man not to spend his money in drinking, he will have so much more to pay for his children, and it may end in his sending the children to school ?

Ans. Yes.

1620. Marquis of Blandford.—Is it not your opinion, that, if a rate were levied in order to give free education to the children of the poor, the possible effect of that might be to relieve the parents' minds of a sense of duty to provide for their children themselves, and so far, perhaps, to confirm them in this wasteful expenditure of money to which you have just alluded in the public-houses?

Ans. I think that that is not an improbable effect.

As to this allegation of poverty, however, Mr. Richson may be confronted with his own testimony. A question was skilfully put by Mr. Bright, with a view to ascertain whether the proportion of children not at school was greater among the Irish part of the population of Manchester, than among the other portions of it; and to this Mr. Richson answered as follows:

250. In little Ireland, almost a Roman Catholic colony, after a careful investigation of that district, we found a very much larger proportion of children at school than in almost any other district of the same size.

251. Mr. Cobden.-In Sunday schools ? Ans. In week-day schools.

252. Mr. Bright.—Is it not the fact, that that portion of the working population of Manchester which is Irish and Roman Catholic is generally supposed to be, in outward circumstances, as to employment and wages, in an inferior position to the rest of the working population ?

Ans. The proportion of out-door paupers to the population, which is a pretty good criterion, is rather greater, as I understood, among the Irish than the English.

252. Would not it lead to the conclusion, that, if amongst the Irish population of Manchester, quite as large a number are at school on the week days as among any other portion of the population, (and the Irish are poorer than the other classes,) it is not poverty which is the main reason why so large a number of children do not attend school ?

Ans.—There may be another way besides this of dealing with the question. The children may be received in schools without paying the same amount of pence ; besides which report says, I do not know whether correctly or not, that the Roman Catholics are making much greater efforts to support their schools than any other body of Christians.

Why, then, we beg to ask, should not other bodies of Christians imitate them? With all their poverty, they have not, it seems, (254) had recourse to Mr. Richson's nostrum of free schools.

The allegation of poverty as a characteristic of the working classes of Manchester was by Mr. Adshead, an unquestionable authority on this point, directly denied. Speaking of self-supporting schools, he was asked the following question :

2103. Mr. W. Miles (to Mr. Adshead).—There may be districts in which it would not be worth while for an independent schoolmaster to settle down?

Ans. In the densely populated districts, I am not aware that the state of our population in Manchester is such that they cannot pay for the education of their children at a low rate.

2104. That observation, 1 presume, you apply to the poor districts ? Ans.-I make it as a general remark.

A considerable portion of Mr. Adshead's evidence has an immediate relation to this subject. He introduced it with the following general observation.

2252. I have ventured to think, that with the question of the education of the operative classes, their social condition is very intimately connected ; forming, as it should, a very important element in the consideration of those who would promote education by legislative enactment, the necessity for which is maintained by them on the ground of the inability of the operative classes to pay for education-a principle (which is] not sustained, and I venture to think cannot be shown (sustained], by the present condition of the operatives of Manchester.

Mr. Adshead then made statements showing, 1, a considerable increase in the rate of wages ; 2, a considerable decrease in the price of provisions ; 3, a large accumulation of deposits in the Manchester Savings Bank; 4, a large diminution in the amount of out-door relief ; 5, a great decrease of crime: and after the presentation of this mass of information, for the details of which we must refer to the evidence itself, the following question is put to him :

2254. Mr. W. Miles.-Do you conceive, looking at the good condition of the people of Manchester, from the tables that have been produced to the Committee, that this is the time for the state to step in in loco parentis, and take from the parents themselves that duty which they owe to themselves and their offspring, of finding them education

Ans.- I consider that it is not the time for the state to step in.

Mr. Richson, in his second examination—he was particularly fortunate in having a second examination-said he did not think much of Mr. Adshead's argument, which is very probable, and he made objections to some of Mr. Adshead's statements, which, we dare say, had partial justice in them ; but he did not attempt to show, in opposition to Mr. Adshead, that the present condition of the operative classes in Manchester was one of peculiar depression and difficulty. He knew that “the better part of valour is discretion.”

Manchester is, in truth, the very last place in England in which poverty should be pleaded as a bar to education, as some members of the Committee seemed to be perfectly aware.

1469. Mr. Ker Seymer (to Mr. Baines).—The wages of able-bodied operatives in the manufacturing districts are higher than the wages of agricultural labourers, are they not?

Ans.- Very much higher. 1470. Then supposing it to be the duty of the parents to afford those children

of obtaining a good education, those parents, being so well paid, have a better opportunity of performing that duty ? Ans.-Yes.

Why, then, should either the legislature, or the philanthropists, force charity upon them?

the means

CHAPTER XII.

MR. RICHSON'S SYSTEM OF POOR RELIEF.

It has become sufficiently evident, we trust, that Mr. Richson has no less egregiously failed in substantiating a case for charity, than he did in making out å deficiency of education ; but we are willing to give up even this position, and to contest the matter with him on the next ground which may be taken. For the sake of argument, we will grant him all the poverty in the school district, the existence of which he has endeavoured to show; and then we ask him, what is his remedy? His answer is, a grand educational charity.

Now, in the first place, we do not think that a mere educational charity would meet the case.

A suggestion was made by a member of the Committee on this subject, the force of which Mr. Richson evidently felt.

324. Mr. Bright (to Mr. Richson) – If those children are really kept away by the poverty of their parents, it may be presumed that their condition in other respects, that their clothing, for instance, would be in very bad order ; and from such a circumstance as that, is it not likely, even if you offered to pay for the schooling of all those children, that still a large number of them would be prevented from attending?

Ans. Very likely some would be so prevented.

325. Then the substitution of the plan which you propose, of rates instead of the present scheme, would only very partially fill up the void where there is really a deficiency?

Ans.—I think anything that increases school-attendance—for instance, the improved quality of the education-will act as a lever upon the whole mass, and eventually bring them in greater numbers to school than they come now. The object that we have in view, however, is not merely to offer free education ; but I allude to these circumstances to show that the parents of the children state that poverty is the occasion of their children not attending school.

If we understand this rightly, Mr. Richson here not only gives up, to a great extent, the attractive influence of gratuitous education upon the

poor, but actually throws overboard the allegation of poverty itself. We have hitherto had the strongest assertions that the non-attendance at school was mainly owing to poverty, and that a vast system of charitable education was demanded, and would be effectual : now, we are informed that the allegation of poverty was brought forward, not to prove that the parties were really poor, but to show what the parents of non-attendant children said ; and it is admitted that the real attractiveness of the new system is to be, not in its charity, but in “the improved quality of the education," and other things not specified.

In the second place, whatever might be the efficacy of charity, the plan advocated by Mr. Richson shows none of it. He talks, indeed, of supplying education without charge, and harps upon the phrase "Free schools,' as though it were a talisman, adapted as by magic to disarm all opposition. Alas! it is but a cheat. Free schools ? Who then pays the rate? The poor. Aye, THE POOR! For, although, as to houses rated under £10, the landlord is the party assessed, he always charges it to the tenant in the