appears that a philanthropic gentleman in London had been applied to by two young thieves who had relinquished their evil practices and were obtaining a precarious but honest livelihood by picking up bones and rags in the streets -their loss of character closing against them all other employments. He had just been reading an address of Lord Ashley's in favor of colonial emigration, and he was led to ask one of the young men how he would like to emigrate. "I should jump at the chance!" was the reply. Not long after the gentleman was sent for to visit one of those obscure and ruinous courts of the great metropolis where crime and poverty lie down together — localities which Dickens has pictured with such painful distinctness. Here, to his surprise, he met a number of thieves and outlaws, who declared themselves extremely anxious to know whether any hope could be held out to them of obtaining an honest living, however humble, in the colonies, as their only reason for continuing in their criminal course was the impossibility of extricating themselves. He gave them such advice and encouragement as he was able, and invited them to assemble again, with such of their companions as they could persuade to do so, at the room of the Irish Free School, for the purpose of meeting Lord Ashley. On the 27th of the seventh month last the meeting took place. At the hour appointed, Lord Ashley and five or six other

benevolent gentlemen interested in emigration as a means of relief and reformation to the criminal poor entered the room, which was already well nigh filled. Two hundred and seven professed thieves were present. "Several of the most experienced thieves were stationed at the door to prevent the admission of any but thieves. Some four or five individuals, who were not at first known, were subjected to examination, and only allowed to remain on stating that they were, and being recognized as members of the dishonest fraternity; and before the proceedings of the evening commenced the question was very carefully put, and repeated several times, whether any one was in the room of whom others entertained doubts as to

who he was. The object of this care was, as so many of them were in danger of 'getting into trouble,' or, in other words, of being taken up for their crimes, to ascertain if any who might betray them were present; and another intention of this scrutiny was, to give those assembled, who naturally would feel considerable fear, a fuller confidence in opening their minds."

What a novel conference between the extremes of modern society! All that is beautiful in refinement and education, moral symmetry and Christian grace, contrasting with the squalor, the ignorance, the lifelong depravity of men living "without God in the world" the pariahs of civilization the moral lepers, at the

sight of whom decency covers its face, and cries out, "Unclean!" After a prayer had been offered Lord Ashley spoke at considerable length, making a profound impression on his strange auditory as they listened to his plans of emigration, which offered them an opportunity to escape from their miserable condition and enter upon a respectable course of life. The hard heart melted and the cold and cruel eye moistened. With one accord the wretched felons responded to the language of Christian love and good will and declared their readiness to follow the advice of their true friend. They looked up to him as to an angel of mercy, and felt the malignant spirits which had so long tormented them disarmed of all power of evil in the presence of simple goodness. He stood in that felon audience like Spenser's Una amidst the satyrs; unassailable and secure in the "unresistible might of meekness," and panoplied in that

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noble grace which dashed brute violence

With sudden adoration and mute awe."

Twenty years ago, when Elizabeth Fry ventured to visit those "spirits in prison," the female tenants of Newgate, her temerity was regarded with astonishment, and her hope of effecting a reformation in the miserable objects of her sympathy was held to be wholly visionary. Her personal safety and the blessed fruits of her labors,

nevertheless, confirmed the language of her divine Master to his disciples when he sent them forth as lambs among wolves: "Behold, I give unto you power over all the power of the enemy." The still more unpromising experiment of Lord Ashley, thus far, has been equally successful; and we hail it as the introduction of a new and more humane method of dealing with the victims of sin and ignorance and the temptations growing out of the inequalities and vices of civilization.

1

MIRTH AND MEDICINE.*

IF

any of our readers (and at times we fear it is the case with all) need amusement and the wholesome alterative of a hearty laugh, we commend them, not to Dr. Holmes the physician, but to Dr. Holmes the scholar, the wit, and the humorist; not to the scientific medical professor's barbarous Latin, but to his poetical prescriptions, given in choice old Saxon. We have tried them, and are ready to give the doctor certificates of their efficacy.

Looking at the matter from the point of theory only, we should say that a physician could not be otherwise than melancholy. A merry doctor! Why, one might as well talk of a laughing death's head—the cachinnation of a monk's memento mori. This life of ours is sorrowful

enough at its best estate; the brightest phase of it is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast" of the future or the past. But it is the special vocation of the doctor to look

Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes.