market, because the slaves are now all manumitted in Cairo; yet young Biffins, M.N.I. cadet, did—at least, he believed in his own special dragomanand had he not disbursed all sorts of coins for the curious sight? There was a small ball in the later evening, the M.C. and proprietor of which was a wandering Italian, and its company as curious an olla podrida of diverse nationalities as if it had been a minor masquerade. The orchestra was simple, and its strains not over lively, but it may be that there was enough room for justice to be done to the energy of music attempted, the obese violoncello being let into the ceiling because too tall for the ball-room. There were bad English, bad dancing, bad wine, and questionable company, in this imprompturigged salle de danse, I daresay. But I had only eyes for my entrancing partner, oh, fairest (olive-shaded) Araby maid, with the large almond, liquid orbs, and the lithest of forms! MEM.-The ball was but the vestibule to a gambling hole, where you might feast your eyes, if so minded, on tall piles of gold and fat heaps of silver, provocative of envy to behold; and the astute, eager, vigilant, Orientals were playing high stakes with all that silent intensity of cupidity that characterizes them from all time. The last service of our hired equipage was a visit to the palace and gardens of his royal highness the Viceroy at Shoubra, which forms the most pleasant remembrance I have retained of Cairo, and was reached by an interesting drive of a couple of hours, along a road, nearly a perfect avenue of acacia trees, flanked by palm and sycamore trees. Entering the gardens, to our left is the Pasha's harem, and to our escapades of male curiosity, Dragoman is terse in reply, not to say curt. More backsheesh! and we are inside the gardens, luxuriant in native tree, shrub, and flower, with a few exotics added, which are not too healthy. There were signs, as all through the land, of a gloss of European importation over native apathy and neglect, but the abnormal dreariness is still the stronger; yet it is as well to recollect that labour here has no rights, nor even direct payment, for the governmental tasks of these Pharoahs. But ill-kept walks, untended beds, unswept paths, were more than forgotten at the view of the sea of feathery peach-blossom. Past thick groves of orange, lemon, citron, and pomegranate trees, mounting the loose broad marble steps, and we are in the great court of the palace-a square of marble, basement, pillars, and roof, with an inner square marble basin of water the size of a London square's inclosure. At each angle are rooms-reception, drawing, billiard, and council divans-fitted with such costliness that even a ducal Devonshire or Sutherland might envy. Prominent ornaments of the Great Exhibition find a resting place here; the eye is dazzled by blue and white, and pink and amber, and all the chromatic confusion here rampant. The rarest work of cunning fingers in lace, silk, and metal, make the jewel in this toad-land of squalor and poverty; demi-semi-lascivious transparencies, confectioned by skilled Franks, adorn the window spaces, and complete the sensuous richness of these halls of delight for the ruler of the land and his favourites of the hour. THE WORLD IS FULL OF BEAUTY. BY GERALD MASSEY. THERE lives a voice within me, guest angel of my heart; And evermore it singeth, this song of songs to me: And if we did our duty, it might be full of love." Oh! God, what hosts are trampled, amid this crush for gold; What noble hearts are sapped of might-what spirits lose life's hold! And yet, upon this God-blessed earth, there's space for every oneMillions of acres wait the seed, and food rots in the sun. Oh! this world is full of beauty as other world's above! And if we did our duty, it might be full of love! Let the grim halter perish, with curs'd war's gory splendour; For the leaf-tongues of the forest, the flower-lips of the sod- VOL. II. EMIGRANT'S SONG. I Go! I go! my native land Seems like a speck upon the ocean; As pensive on the deck I stand, Ashamed to own my heart's emotion. My brain feels giddy as I watch That shore, where I no more may roam! Only a glimpse of my childhood's home. G. F. B. HH THE ALLEGED DEPRAVITY OF THE WORKING CLASSES. BY CHARLES HARDWICK, P.G.M. THERE is nothing mankind more sincerely esteems, in its inward heart, than sincerity. Nay, let but the orator, the author, or even the mendicant succeed in producing this impression, and dazzling honours, huge rewards, or small donations will speedily demonstrate the truth of this position. I have heretofore expressed an opinion, which I have, as yet, seen no reason to retract, that the chief ingredient in successful eloquence is sincerity, or at least its semblance. Of course I do not mean that sincerity will answer as a substitute for talent, but that sincerity gives an irresistible force to average oratorical power. Liberty of conscience is "tolerated" in this country on account of this innate respect for individual sincerity. Do not imagine that a professional thief feels any real contempt for honesty. He may outwardly affect it. He may clothe himself in the devil's toga, with the view to hide his moral nakedness, but the flimsy fabric is more intended for show, and the deception of others, than for his own substantial comfort. No; he inwardly pays bitter homage to the very principle his practical life ignores. He, however, sometimes most cordially hates the honest man, because his truthful life is a standing and bitter commentary upon the turpitude of his own. But the world is easily, for a time, deceived by appearances. Sham sincerity, with a pious whine, often receives the most respectful consideration; while manly dissent to conventional rule is hustled, kicked, and calumniated. Vice in tatters is a very different thing, in the said world's opinion, to vice in purple and fine linen. It is a very safe affair, to denounce vice in the abstract. It is not quite so safe if you descend to particulars, and especially if you desire to castigate arrogant spiritual pride with a meek and lowly mask upon its face, or expose to the gaze of mankind the dry bones whitening in a gilded charnel-house. In the first place, you will be liable to the unpleasant charge of wilfully wounding the sincere convictions of wellmeaning men. By the bye, it seldom happens that these very thin-skinned individuals are at all squeamish about the sincere convictions of those who happen to belong to an opposite sect or party. They generally prefer to talk very eloquently about the duty of loving one's neighbours as oneself, and leave the bond fidé practical loving to said neighbour, and to very poor people, the latter of whom, somehow or other, often contrive to carry out this doctrine with more truthfulness of heart than "their betters.' Truly "none but God and the poor know what the poor do for each other!" In the other instance it is considered very shocking indeed to use free speech upon the peccadilloes of "respectable" proprietors of well-filled purses. To talk about them and their doings in language appropriate enough to the petty pilferings of a beggar's brat, is to proclaim yourself at once a low fellow, utterly unacquainted with the ways of the world or the usages of polite society ! It has often appeared to me that there is a vast amount of moral cowardice, unworthy of an English heart, in this toadying of wealthy scoundrelism. It is genuine demagogueism, of the first water, and in its most contemptible form. But there is another phase of this class of social turpitude, which is even more reprehensible. It is the practice of trumpeting forth a man's own " virtue, or the virtue of his class, by a course of bullying of the poor, and angrily lecturing them en masse on their ignorance and their vices, real and imaginary, exaggerated or otherwise. It has become quite fashionable, of late for highly respectable people to hold forth very eloquently upon what they call the "vices of the working classes.' A vast amount of virtuous indignation has been of late expended upon this subject, by individuals who appear to have forgotten the divine command which enjoins that the first stone thrown at a sinner comes with better grace from one with clean hands. It is evidently, to some of them, a very pleasant and agreeable occupation-this public expression of horror at the vices of the "inferior classes," and it is so very "respectable" at the same time. "Crime clothed in greatness, holds a wondrous claim On the world's tenderness; 'tis few will dare To call foul conduct by its proper name, When it can prowl and prey in golden lair. Rears a high seat, and vengeance stern must all it. Did GoD so will it?"-ELIZA COOK. It is certainly a singular fact, that after several years of boasting about our glorious national characteristics, our free press, grants for schools, and the great educational progress of the mass of the people, that there should be at the present time so loud an outcry about the depravity of the working olasses." If you ask one of these disciples of the lady who is reputed to be continually crying in the streets, notwithstanding the indifference of mankind to her warnings, what he means by the term "working classes," you need not be surprised if you find the question very vaguely answered. Statists have never yet, to my knowledge, arrived at any satisfactory method of computing the numbers of those so described. Indeed it is a difficult thing to draw the line where working, in some shape or other, ceases to be a part of any man's daily duty; consequently, each speculative philanthropic statist generally adopts such a one as serves best to support some preconceived theory. In a previous article I noticed a computation which assumed that seventy millions of money were annually consumed in this country in intoxicating liquors, forty millions of which "moistened the clay" of working men. Well, supposing, for the sake of argument, we call the working population of Great Britain and Ireland only twenty-five millions; how much is it per head per week? And supposing we say five millions, which is much above the mark, for the middle and upper classes, how much will the rate be per head per week amongst them? According to this very favourable way of putting it, although the working men are five times as numerous, yet it appears they only consume one-third more in value ! But stay; another authority, Mr. John Taylor, in a paper read at the late meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at Bradford, stated that the sum annually spent in intoxicating drinks was £60,000,000, and that £20,000,000 of this was consumed by the working classes! Here is a wide discrepancy indeed. I feel confident, however, it is much nearer the truth than the statement previously referred to, and yet still I am compelled to declare that no data for the construction of such a comparison have yet been obtained that are at all worthy of credit. Certain houses, I suppose, are assumed to be patronized by working men, and certain hotels, &c., by the middle and upper classes. By the aid of the excise returns, some attempt is thus made to guess at the quantities of intoxicating liquors consumed by the two sections. Now, in my own experience, I know that numbers of tradesmen frequent even beer houses, and are the best customers to some of these places, while working men very rarely patronise your fashionable hotel! I, therefore, and from my own practical experience in life, feel no doubt whatever that even some portion of this £20,000,000 must be added to the middle and upper classes' £40,000,000. Of course I wish not to make out a case against my own order, but I am anxious that the truth alone should be told. I deprecate, to the fullest extent, the practice of setting class against class, and have used my best endeavours throughout life-and, I am glad to say, not altogether unsuccessfully-in endeavouring to bring them into still further friendly contact, and in strengthening what bonds of union exist between them. But the zeal of certain well-meaning men, and the rancour of others, have lately done much to create mischief and distrust, nay, even disgust, amongst some of the most upright and intelligent of the operative population. The workers are continually being spoken of, en masse, as if all were the mere outscourings of the jail, or the parish workhouse; and falsehoods, the most ridiculous as well as contemptible, are continually being hurled at them from men in high social position. Nay, one gentleman lately, in the House of Commons, spoke of the upper section of the working men of England as a people whom "the criminal returns showed to be ignorant, vicious, and irreligious!" It would be as well if such gentlemen were to remember that the working men of this country are a distinct class from the idle pariah tribes, whose crimes swell the calendars of our quarter sessions and assizes, and whose profession is not honest labour but habitual mendicancy or crime. It would likewise be well, as it is but just, that they should endeavour to arrive at a knowledge of the per-centage of crime amongst the middle and upper classes, as illustrated by such names as Palmer, Dove, Rush, Sadlier, Redpath, Robson, Strahan, Paul, Pullinger, and other bank directors, and especially not to neglect to make due allowance for the chances of wealthy rogues escaping detection. Perhaps their language would be a little more courteous than it is sometimes, after such an investigation had been honestly achieved. At least, such reckless falsehood as that published by the leading journal a few months back, would be received with general disgust and abhorrence by a thoroughly enlightened public on the subject. It is certainly a most singular fact, that the vast amount of provident effort made by the best section of the operative population of Great Britain, an effort unparalleled in the history of humanity, one which has already saved millions to the pockets of the ratepayers of the country, has preserved an honourable independence in the hearts and homes of thousands of noble but unfortunate working men striken by the breath of sickness; an effort, indeed, which has practically done more to elevate them in the scale of manhood, than hundreds of praise-bespattered but impotent efforts to drill free men into a kind of docile, social militia; it is certainly astonishing that so much ignorance should obtain, in the nineteenth century, respecting the true character of, and the difficulties inherent in, such a mighty enterprise, as is evidenced in the following from the Times of the 7th October last: "There is no greater puzzle in this country than its Friendly Societies. They are at variance with sound principles of morality and prudence; they belie the boasted honour and good sense of the Englishman; they prove him incapable of self-government; not a word can be said in their defence." And all this simply because this Times writer understands from some one (for he is evidently pitifully ignorant of the question himself) that the true laws which recent experience has demonstrated regulate the average of sickness and mortality, have not yet been made the basis of the financial calculations in many of these clubs! He utterly ignores the great facts that the experiments of these very clubs were absolutely necessary to the obtain |