there were 50,000 prostitutes in London— increased in the recent prospectus of a public charity to 80,000; whereas they are proved in the late Constabulary Force Report (not very humane inquirers) to be less than 5,500. answer. Unfortunately these estimates and unfavourable opinions have been widely extended and eagerly entertained for a very long period. The topic has become popular, and the opinions have become rooted, and acknowledged as indisputable, for want of a denial and The charitably disposed, and even the clergy, have become possessed with it. The spirit which has dictated these inquiries and estimates has not till now made itself decidedly apparent; and it has not been duly considered that the parties themselves, who are the subjects of the charge, have not had, and cannot have, the opportunity of an answer. I propose to give a more favourable, and, I trust, a truer picture of the lower order of society; and to urge - upon the foundation of my own experience among the poor, and the incontrovertible ground of Christian obligation -some of those claims and rights of the poorer classes, which have been too entirely forgotten by their richer brethren. D CHAPTER II. The Existence of Poverty. DIFFICULT TO GIVE A FAITHFUL PICTURE. ISTENCE OF POVERTY QUESTIONED. THE EXIMPORTANCE OF A CORRECT OPINION. POVERTY CAUSED BY I CANNOT pretend to give a perfect picture of society, even of the lowest class of it. The thing is impossible; and if it were performed, it would be without effect. Society is not a thing with four sides to it; no, nor with four hundred. Four thousand examples of different states and conditions of life would be insufficient to depict the different shades and gradations of circumstances, the different complexities and combinations of events; and, with all their tediousness and wearisomeness, DIFFICULT TO GIVE A FAITHFUL PICTURE. 27 enough almost to defy attention and memory, would, if the picture were perfect, convey very different impressions to the minds of different individuals. The minds and hearts of different persons would retain and rest upon different points and features, according to preconceived opinions, and impressions, and dispositions. But though all the examples were observed and retained, the impression would be imperfect and inadequate. Life is not to be learned by books, any more than dancing. Classifications, and tables, and figures, and statistics, will not more faithfully portray the expression and character of human life, than mechanism will its movements. Let a painter paint a likeness from description; let the physician who has read volumes upon the pulse and symptoms, compare with the one who has walked the wards, and attuned his touch to the varied beat of life, in health and disease, in youth and old age, in joy and grief, at morning, noon, and night, in strength, in languor, and in fever. Yet the pulse and features of social life are finer and more delicate, and fuller of variety, and expression, and character. Human life is to be learned by practice only and personal experience. But no one now is willing to acquaint himself in this way; and least of all-in this country at least -with the classes below that one in which he moves. It is far easier to sit at home, and read returns, and reports, and evidence on oath, and figures, and statistics, and to work out problems of society by a table or a machine, mathematically certain and demonstrable, and squaring all to a fraction, than to pry into dirty courts and lanes, and dismal rooms and cellars, full of vermin, and filth, and infection, and to converse with the lowminded, the vulgar, the dying, the drunken, the discontented, the miserable. This may be the way to very creditable philosophy, but it is not the road to truth. My object, however, is a narrow and a definite one, the existence and nature of poverty, its causes, and the treatment of it. I know that it is very difficult even to put |