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1. Unprotected Females.

N looking over the columns of advertisements in the Times' newspaper day by day, the most unobservant must sometimes be struck by the numerous appeals made by females of all ages and degrees of cultivation, from the decayed gentlewoman to the servant-of-all-work. Some offer their services for board and lodging only; while others of higher pretensions proffer musical lessons, &c., for sixpence an hour. The average of these advertisements for one month, taken by the writer, was from forty to sixty daily. Such an exhibition argues an amount of distress among the female community that is absolutely startling to those who take it for granted that the majority of females are provided for, either by marriage or otherwise, by thoughtful parents or considerate relatives. A reference to the census would dispel such an illusion. Few persons, however, refer to this matterof-fact production merely to obtain materials for reflection; although few compositions are more pregnant with deep meaning, or more suggestive of subjects of the most vital interest.

From the census (of 1851) we learn that there were 1,407,225 unmarried women between the ages of 20 and 40, and that 720,000 of them were dependent on their industry. 55,433 were employed as day-workers-that is, going daily in the morning to work at some place away from their homes, and returning at night. There were 395,969 unmarried women above 40 years of age, and about 10,000 widows, numbers of these with children de

pendent upon their exertions; and 117,815 were dependent upon public charity, and resident in, or receiving aid from our workhouses and charitable institutions; while 11,776 belonged to our nomade population-that is, the homeless and destitute, those who sleep in barns and tents, or under bridges, &c. The last fact we glean from the census is sufficiently startling: there were 80,000 prostitutes. The majority of these working and dependent women, with their unhappy, abandoned sisters, are found in the metropolis, London being a magnet to which all classes of the community direct their attention, more especially those who are called upon to earn their daily bread. There are hundreds, nay, thousands, who form the most extravagant notions of the resources of our vast city, deeming them to be unlimited. The fact is, London is so overstocked with adventurers and necessitous persons of all kinds, that no town in the world contains so much vice, misery, and wretchedness as this splendid emporium of wealth and luxury. In this vast amount of sin and misery the working female portion of society is a painfully prominent feature, In London the females are in the proportion of 113 to 100 males; consequently numbers are without male relatives or protectors. Many causes may be assigned for this state of things by those who study the science of statistics. We will only mention two of them, but they are the chief. It is too much the fashion to 'lecture' and 'address' the humbler classes upon the vices of extravagance and want of prudence, &c. The majority of our humble working

working population are patient and hardworking, thrifty and prudent. Witness the number of sick-clubs and benefit societies supported by them. The persons who require 'lectures' on extravagance and want of forethought are those who belong to what we must call the humbler gradations of the middling class. Time was when the words middling class' conveyed to the understanding a definite idea that there was a class that divided the upper and lower portions of society; but in these days, when such a miserable pride prevails in those classes whose incomes just keep them from poverty, it becomes difficult to say who does, or who does not, belong to the middling class. Of course the rich banker's wife, whose town house is in Russell Square, and whose husband has a 'villa' in one of the suburbs, and whose wealth enables her to load her dinner-table with plate, and welcome those who honour her with their company, only on account of the luxurious style of living to be met with there, belongs to the middling class. A clerk with 3007. a year would be most indignant if classed with any other rank than the one just named. We must therefore designate the class we now address as the " genteel' classes-we mean those whose annual incomes range from 2001. or 300l. to 500l. or 1,000l. These classes of the community are perpetually endeavouring to identify themselves with the ranks just above them. To do this, all sorts of contrivances, many painful private sacrifices are made by the heads of families who have become affected with the absurd mania of vying with those who are better off than themselves. And when every unworthy, mean art has been practised, much private privation undergone, and the desired end is attained, and the man with 5007. a year gains an entrée to the better-appointed house of his neighbour of 1,000l. a year, he deceives no one, but probably excites the secret contempt of the very individual to whose level he thinks he has raised himself by spasmodic, anxious efforts. It is well when this false, miserable pride leads to nothing more serious than the loss of dignity which it necessarily involves. It is well for his family if he does not bring them to beggary, and himself into prison. There are thousands at this very time who are striving in this miserable race.

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These are the classes who fling on the world so many destitute women and children, so many old maids' and poor teachers, dressmakers, &c. It is the distressed females belonging to the genteel classes whose advertisements in the papers create surprise and pain in the minds of those who look beyond their own circle. When parents are straining every nerve, and practising the most pinching private economy to 'keep up appearances,' of course no thought is given as to the future provision of the girls, or it is assumed that they will marry well, they hope in

good society.' Now as 43 out of 100 women never marry, this becomes a vague speculation; while the folly of teaching the poor girls to depend upon a contingency which may not happen cannot be too strongly deprecated. Thus it happens that hundreds of girls and women who have been (we cannot say educated, but) reared in the most useless way it is possible to conceive, are yearly flung upon society to (in the expressive language of the Times') 'stitch, starve, die or do worse.' Unfortunately the so-called education of a young woman of the ordinary ranks of life, such as placemen, respectable tradesmen, clerks, &c., is supposed to be completed when she can play an 'air' or so decently on the piano, dance a quadrille, crochet collars or anti-macassars, and work a d'oyley or slipper in Berlin wool. If, in addition to these 'accomplishments,' she can add a sum in simple addition, or has any recollection of the multiplication table, she is fortunate. And it will ever be thus, while so many men are content to marry empty-headed women, fit only for household pets, and without the slightest notion of their responsibilities either to God or man. As the supply of an article generally meets the demand, so young girls would be more rationally trained, if it was found that by being so they went off better in the matrimonial market.

It is believed, rather too hastily, that the ranks of abandoned women are recruited wholly from the lower orders. But it is a fact well known to those benevolent individuals who take note of this part of our social system, that numbers of this wretched class have been the offspring of most respectable parents. Many a young girl falls a prey to the tempter by means of the very advertisement she inserts to obtain employment. We will suppose the case

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of a man with 3007, or 4007. a year and a large family, and who is infected with the prevailing insane desire to appear as if in possession of twice that income. Of course every pound is spent that can possibly be spared from necessary household expenses (and in numberless cases more than can be spared) to obtain those outward appliances which place himself and family apparently on a par with Mr. Johnson, or Mr. White, or Mr. Any-one-else, with a few hundreds more per annum. Of course, a parent whose whole thoughts and energies are engaged in appearing what he is not, is not likely to train his family in a sensible, useful way. The sons imbibe their father's ideas, and will not marry unless they can meet a girl with money. They consequently become, in too many cases, dissipated members of society. The girls are secluded as much as possible from all useful knowledge, their minds contracted into as narrow a circle as circumstances will allow, and for fear of vulgar associations they are not allowed to acquire a practical knowledge of domestic duties. They are taught, however, to lay themselves out for husbands, and altogether rendered as weak minded and useless as it is possible to conceive. If these girls get married, they are lucky; and as long as their fathers live to provide for their support they do not feel the necessity for a better state of things. But when the head of the family dies, and the pecuniary supply stops, and they are left still expecting husbandsthen comes the tug of life. Not having been taught to work in any useful branch of industry, they are perfectly unable to compete with the skilled workers of their own sex; and having been delicately nurtured, they are unable to perform the duties of domestics, and fly to the advertising columns of the Times;' some offering their services as 'teachers' and 'governesses,' being alike mentally and physically incapable of either; while others, as a forlorn hope, undertake the care of widowers' houses. How can women brought up in such a foolish way hope to stem the torrent of adversity? A thousand channels are open to men, but very few branches of industry are open to females, who, without the elegance, and refinement, and good sense of the educated gentlewoman, have yet been surrounded by refined associations, and are, therefore,

incapable of contending in the stern arena of life-a battle-field from which men do not always come out successful.

It has been calculated that when one thousand heads of families die without having made some provision for them, that four thousand destitute children and women are bequeathed as an unwelcome legacy to the community. What can, what does become of these? The union workhouses and hospitals afford the melancholy response to this question. Certain numbers of them, no doubt, struggle into some honest way of support; but too many of those whom the selfishness and thoughtlessness of parents and others thus fling on the world, it is to be feared, become-the sons adventurers, the girls prostitutes.

Daily experience teaches those who at all observe what is going on around them that it is not the labouring, nor even the mechanical portion of our working population that are thus improvident; but that this want of forethought exists where we least expect to find it, and where it ought not to be found: among the more intelligent classes, among those whose incomes range within a few hundreds, and end with their lives. We do not wish to include the whole of this large class under one sweeping censure of carelessness and extravagance; for we know that hundreds of worthy men take a pride and a pleasure in undergoing much privation, and really experience no small amount of mental torture in making provision for a family. Nevertheless, we may safely add that every reader of these lines, whose pecuniary circumstances allow him to minister to the distresses of others, can give almost daily instances of appeals to his pocket on behalf of widows and orphans. This would not be the case were the valuable system of Life Assurance more fully appreciated and more extensively practised. were difficult to select a subject more intimately connected with the stern realities of life, or a principle capable of more universal application than this, which, if considered only in a restricted sense, as a means of provision for families, is of the highest importance to every class of the community; for although its nature is such that it may be rendered subservient to nearly all the arrangements of business and the contingencies of life, yet the chief feature

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