cuts, and sudden results. Amidst the increased risks of human life, seven years is a great portion of the human span. Another trait of our national character is a dislike to all rule, just or unjust. It is natural for a boy to prefer variety to sameness of occupation; and when regular service is no longer compulsory, we must expect to see our youth flying from the severe work of shops to those chance jobs which give bread to so many thousands in our streets.

The effects of this condition of things are manifestly bad. We are falling between two systems. We are slipping away from the old plan of former ages, and have not yet alighted upon a betterone more suited to modern improvements. If boys and youth may serve one year or six years at their own option, if they may run from one employer to another, upon every whim; if they may even exchange their trade two or three times before they come of age,-is it not as plain as day, that the proportion of really accomplished workmen must lessen from year to year? And this being the case, several evils must necessarily ensue, which are too obvious to need recital.

But the nature of things does not alter: skilled labour, like other commodities, will find a market, and will bring the highest price. This is beginning to show itself in certain kinds of manufacture, in which foreign artisans are coming in, to the exclusion of our own countrymen. It is as vain as it is unrighteous, for us to fold our arms and

raise an outcry against foreign labour, and form associations of native Americans. If we do not secure the thorough trade-education of our own youth, we must expect to see all the finer and more difficult branches taken out of our hands. As a general thing, I am glad to know that this is far from being the case: I speak only of tendencies, and I do not think it can be denied that the tendency of the change I have mentioned is to evil.

But there are moral consequences of this relaxation of the old system, which are still more to be deplored. As the tie between the employer and the apprentice becomes slight, there is a lessening of authority on the one side and of duty on the other, as well as of affection on both. We often talk of the advantages of domestic influence, the bonds of the fireside, the charm of home: and on this point it would be hard for us to speak too much, or too enthusiastically. But where is the apprentice's home? It is not in his father's house in the greater number of cases, this is not within reach. It is not his employer's house; at least under the prevailing system, and in our cities and large towns. For this there are various reasons. In great manufactories, where there are at least a dozen boys-these of course cannot be allowed to overrun the employer's house: they are often put out to board elsewhere. In neither case have they a home.-Even where there is only an ordinary number, as the master is no longer a parent, the apprentice feels no longer like a son,

Where can he spend his evenings? Not in the garret or loft where he sleeps: in winter it is cold; in summer it is suffocating.-Not in the kitchen: he would be in the way. Not in the sitting-room: that would be too familiar.-Where can he spend the long hours of his Sunday? Let us look the truth in the face: The apprentice has no home. Is it any wonder that at night we hear the heavy tramp of their feet upon our pavements as they career along by scores? Is it any wonder that they crowd our oyster-houses, porter-cellars, barrooms, shows, and wait for checks about the doors of our theatres ?

The moral consequences of this I need not dwell upon they are open to the day. I am not so chimerical as to propose a return to old ways, or to hang on the wheels of modern improvement. I only urge, that the old system of master and apprentice, when carried out in practice, had certain advantages, which are not provided for in our present methods. If we do not wish our young mechanics to become an easy prey to vice, we must set about some preventive measures. The apprentice must have some agreeable place in which to spend his leisure moments. I am accustomed to see some of the best youth I know, passing their Sundays in the street or the fields. Vice opens many doors to the less scrupulous: surely virtue ought to do as much. For a number of years, it has been my deliberate and unchanged opinion, that no man could bestow a greater benefit

on our working-classes, than he who should devise and offer to apprentices a pleasing, popular, and ever-open resort for their leisure hours, where they might not only feel at home, but be out of the reach of temptation, and in the way of mental improvement. It is worthy of consideration in our Lyceums and Mechanics' Institutes. And if this volume should fall into the hands of any friends of the young mechanic, in such towns or villages as are without Lyceums or Mechanics' Institutions, I would urge on them a new and strenuous effort to procure the establishment of such truly useful associations. The attempt will cost some pains; it will be opposed by some, and sneered at by others, and some will stand aloof and recount the history of similar enterprises, and their failure. But, nevertheless, the thing has been done, and can be done again; and there is no good reason why every town in America should not be adorned by a graceful edifice devoted to the mental improvement of the young artisan.

XIX.

TRADES' UNIONS.

"Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for assistance call,

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all."

POPE.

UPON the question, What shall be the wages of labour? the world of enterprise is naturally divided into two parties. For it is obvious, that the employer will desire to give as little as he can, and the workman to receive as much as he can. And in the great majority of instances, the advantage in this contest has been on the side of the master-workmen, as being able to combine more easily, and to subsist longer without new receipts. This state of things, however, has received a very important disturbance from the expansion of the credit system; which, so far as this controversy is concerned, has brought the two parties more nearly upon a level.

In order to place themselves upon terms of some equality in the contest, it was necessary that operatives should in some way or other combine for mutual support; and in the case of those who are