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CROWNER'S QUEST LAW IN UTOPIA.

WHILST the kingdom of Utopia was in its infancy, during the transition state of its constitution to the point of absolute perfection, its inhabitants were subject to certain legislative hardships. In particular, poverty was treated as a crime, even in cases where it arose from inability to get a living. The destitute, whether improvident or merely unfortunate, were shut up in workhouses,— where they were placed, indiscriminately, under the same rule of discipline; all being alike systematically made uncomfortable. They were put to the dirtiest drudgery; they were coarsely and scantily fed; their heads were cropped and shorn; and they were forced to wear a garb of ignominy. Man and wife were separated; no recreation was allowed; nor was any kind of solace permitted to these unfortunates. To fortify philosophy by a pinch of snuff, or to stifle hunger with a morsel of tobacco, was a high crime and misdemeanour.

The management of each of these penitentiaries for the poor was conducted by a local board of governors, called Guardians, who were controlled and superintended by certain bashaws termed Commissioners, whose head-quarters lay in a large house or palace situated in the Utopian metropolis. The chief office of these bashaws was to dictate the arrangements for the inconvenience of workhouse prisoners; and they were paid handsomely for taking this trouble.

Now, the Utopians, who were always a good-natured kind of people, did not fail, from the first institution of this system, to exclaim loudly against it as inconsistent with justice and humanity. They being, however, indisposed to riot and sedition, and their government never conceding anything to popular opinion, except under the fear of an absolute insurrection, their exclamations and outcries against the law relative to the poor were for a long time unavailing. At length, however, the overthrow of this barbarous code was effected in consequence of the event following:

A wretched woman, with an infant at the breast, driven by distress, sought and obtained admission into one of the workhouses. She was here placed upon the usual dietary, the skilly

and water of affliction, and arrayed by the inquisitors for the suppression of indigence in the sanbenito of parochial charity. She was also, for the correction of her penury, handed over to the kind attentions of their familiars, the matron and beadle. By their tender mercies she was soon taught to know what it was to be destitute and friendless. This discipline, however, wholesome as it may have been, proved also to be so unpalatable, the rather as she had seen better days, that she found it altogether intolerable. She accordingly determined to withdraw herself from under it, and to seek aid and succour elsewhere in the wide world of Utopia.

It had been enacted by the bashaws or commissioners abovementioned, in order to compel all persons guilty of poverty to submit themselves to the workhouse course of penance, that the extreme of misery should be allowed to press upon them, so long as they remained without the walls of the institution. Cold, as well as hunger, being well calculated to promote this end, they had ordained that not a rag of clothing should be afforded to any one who should have the audacity to leave it. The mother, therefore, and child left the workhouse as they had entered it; the former in tatters, the latter naked, having been, previously to its removal, stripped of every shred of its eleemosynary long-clothes. And so parent and offspring went forth into the frost and snow.

Onward tottered the poor woman with her burden, vainly imploring relief from all she met. At each step she became more faint and footsore; mcre and more deeply the fangs of winter bit into her shivering flesh, whilst her child, in its agonies, screamed louder and louder every moment.

At last she was seen to cross a ford, when suddenly, with a gesture of frantic desperation, she dashed her child into the middle of the stream; and instantly fell, or plunged, after it. Assistance was procured, and both were taken out senseless. The infant never revived.

A coroner's inquest was held on the body. Now the Utopians had been for some time accustoming themselves, to the horror, and notwithstanding the censure, of grave judges and judicial personages, to take the law into their own hands; so that their juries returned the most extraordinary verdicts as singular as the celebrated one," Served her right."

Evidence was given at the inquest of the mother's state of mind on leaving the workhouse, namely, that it amounted to frenzy. Depositions were also made as to the treatment she received whilst

an inmate of it. The stripping of the child upon its removal was likewise duly authenticated. Finally, it was proved that all these proceedings, the last inclusive, were enforced by the board of governors or guardians, at the ordinance of the metropolitan commissioners or bashaws.

The coroner, in summing up, defined the crime of murder as homicide wilfully committed by a sane individual, and as chargeable, in addition, on all who were instigators or accessories to the fact.

The jury, after a few moments' deliberation, acquitted the prisoner on the ground of insanity; and returned a verdict of WILFUL MURDER against the metropolitan bashaws.

In the next session of the Utopian senate, the statute against the poor was repealed.

PERCIVAL LEIGH.

OUR VILLAGE AS IT OUGHT TO BE.

IT would be easy to draw out a sketch of a village in Utopia. Reformation is a pleasant work in the world of imagination; but as soon as we touch this material world we feel the presence of difficulties. We must not amuse ourselves merely with painting pictures of all that we should love to behold; we must find out the causes which prevent the realisation of our views. If these obstructions are founded in reason and nature, then we must resign our schemes as visionary; but if we find no opposition to our views save in the errors of men, against these we must resolutely contend. Now let us inquire what are the causes which prevent "Our Village as it is" from becoming "Our Village as it ought to be." It is evident that they can be found neither in reason nor in nature. There is no necessity that any of our villagers should reside in that filthy and unwholesome "back-lane" where the Hodgsons dwell, and which has always been the laboratory of fevers. There is no law of nature opposed to the law of reason, that every family should have a decent and wholesome dwelling. Light, air, and water are cheap. Light for the mind, too, is cheap. There is no reason against the education of every mind,-the training of every good, harmonious faculty in Our Village. Our

young ladies might teach the children of the poor to read, to sew, and to sing some cheerful melodies. Our young men who have received something like an education might help their brethren who have received none. Even our tailor might be taught to play "Oh Nannie" in proper time; and the shoemaker might, at last, bring his restive clarionet to something like a tune. Our squire might superintend the healthful sports of our young men; our rector might find benevolent occupation to dispel the six days* ennui of every week, and, in a word, Our Village might be made, without a miracle, something more like that " Auburn" of which good-hearted Goldsmith sung. Why not? Here is a question that must be answered. For every fact there is a reason somewhere. Our Village is, without a doubt, a sad dull place; and though several causes contribute to make its condition what it is, we believe there is one principal cause, without which the others I would not be effectual. Where shall we find this cause? We have said it is not in nature; then it must be in the minds of the people they are not prepared for a social reformation. But this is too vague an answer: we must seek further. There is one

common principle of agreement in the minds of all the leading men of "Our Village"-the rector, the squire, and the lawyer. It is the notion which they entertain of religion as a mere affair of assent to some doctrines and going to church. Here is the error which paralyses all hopes of social improvement. All great and good movements spring from religion; but a false, narrow notion of religion is the most serious obstruction in the way of any benevolent design. Bear witness to this fact-tens of thousands of young slaves in mines and manufactories kept in the foul gloom of the most hopeless ignorance, because our present views of religion (!) will not allow us to give you the privileges of human beings! It is not our business here to meddle with religion doctrinally; but a plain view of its practical nature is wanted. Practically, as the New Testament teaches us, it consists in the development of the good, the harmonious faculties of human nature. We can only judge by fruits; where this development does not take place, the root of religion is not to be found. Now we must apply this rule to our rector. We have no wish to interfere with him personally, nor to call in question any of his doctrines; we have only to consider him as a social agent, and to suggest to him a part of his duty, of which he has, perhaps, never thought. Â religious teacher must be a helping, guiding power among the people over

whom he is placed. All things that are good, beautiful, and happy in their influences, should find in him their promoter. As the florist among flowers, so should he be as the cultivator of national natures: not striving to tie down all to one exact pattern, but helping all in the development of their best instincts: not merely railing against weeds, but encouraging and helping the growth of all that is good and beautiful. Now this is a view of religious duty which, unhappily, our rector never learned at Oxford, and, consequently, he has never taught our squire that there is any inconsistency between the religion of a "sound churchman" and a total neglect of all rational cultivation of the people who dwell round "the Hall;" nor has he ever hinted to our lawyer that the gospel would require him, instead of gathering in rents from the wretched hovels in our back-lane," to pull down these dens of discomfort and disease, and build up dwellings suitable for human beings. All truths of this nature are fast asleep in "Our Village ;" and if we wait for our rector to waken them and put them into motion, we shall never see a glimpse of "Our Village as it ought to be.' The plain fact must be spoken (without any personal ill-will): our rector, with his present views and habits, is an incubus upon all hopes of social or intellectual improvement.

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Here we may just put in a word in reply to a charge which we have heard preferred against our modern philanthropic literaturethat it would make social improvements a substitute for religion. This is not true; but we would measure the depth of religion by the extent of its benevolent operation; we would conceive of it as not merely a shut-up doctrine, but as a spirit, with life and love, raising and refining all life and practice. We propose social improvements as instruments to be swayed by such a spirit, and, with regard to that form of religion which refuses to employ them, we say it may be very comfortable for an individual who is satisfied with it; but it is not the religion required in order to realise even "Our Village as it ought to be."

JOSEPH GOSTICK.