ence for evil they possess over the children. The occasional visits that they receive from their parents when in separate schools, must be very different from frequent association with persons who are living in the workhouse, the effects of which cannot be otherwise than evil. The opportunities of industrial training in a workhouse schools are also small; the cooking, washing, &c., for the children being performed in the "house." The cleaning of the schools is, therefore, almost the only part of industrial work that is left to be done by the girls. There are some instances where the children living in the workhouse are sent out to the national schools, and the plan is said to work well; but here again there must be the disadvantages of a home in the workhouse, and, except in a few well-managed instances, the effect of this must be injurious. These poor children, notwithstanding their many disadvantages both of mind and body, are not insensible to kindly influences, and, generally speaking, from their weakly constitutions require tender treatment. In visiting one of the largest of these establishments lately, we were told some touching anecdotes of these unfortunate little ones. In the infirmary were several in bed, victims of sad disease and neglect; one of them, almost at the close of his short life, begged for a bit of the superintendent's dinner, and added, "Please, sir, let me have it on your plate!" The sight of a different and a coloured plate was something that this poor child felt to be a pleasure, and it spoke to us strongly in favour of humanizing and kindly influences over even the outcasts of society. We hardly think that any sermon could be preached which would so eloquently plead the cause of labouring for the welfare and the elevation of the lowest classes, both physically, morally, and spiritually, as a visit to these homes of pauper children. Their ill-grown bodies, low and debased countenances, weak eyes, and all the other various signs of disease, the dulness of many, almost approaching to idiocy, speak but too plainly of the condition of those masses of our population from which they have sprung,—of the homes unfit for human habitation, of the drunken habits, induced probably by the state of those homes, and of all the sin and misery of the parents which are thus entailed upon a new generation, and which years of training and wholesome living are unable wholly to eradicate.
The evils of the employment of pauper nurses is dwelt upon by all who have considered the subject of workhouse management. When we consider the persons to whom such extensive power and responsibility are intrusted, in the care of 50,000 sick persons in the London workhouses alone, we can hardly wonder at what is told of the results of the system. The only way in which an employment of the inmates could be successfully carried out, would be under the constant supervision of superior persons;
