another and more numerous class towards misery, degredation and barbarism. To speak more specifically, the leading facts to which the evils that, in one shape or other, are continually forcing themselves upon the attention of society, may be reduced, appear to be—1st. The existence of an intolerable mass of misery, including in the term both recognized and official pauperism, and the unrecognized destitution that preys, like a consuming ulcer, in the heart of our large cities and densely peopled manufacturing districts. 2d. The condition of a large proportion of the independent laboring class, who are unable to procure a tolerably comfortable and stable subsistence in return for their labor, and are approximating, there is too much reason to fear, towards the gulf of pauperism, in which they will be sooner or later swallowed up, unless something effectual can be done to arrest their downward progress.
With respect to the recognized paupers, it is stated by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, that in England, Ireland and Scotland, the number is 4,000,000. It is also proved by facts which no one can dispute, that a large proportion of the dense masses of population, crowded together in the lower districts of our large towns, have absolutely no regular and recognized occupations, and live as it were, outlaws upon society. They have, in fact, nothing to look forward to; nothing to fall back upon. One or two facts speak emphatically as to the social deterioration.
In Manchester, in 1839, as many as 42,964 persons, or nearly one sixth of the population, were admitted at different medical charities; and more than one half of the inhabitants are either so destitute or degraded, as to require the assistance of public charity in bringing their offspring into the world. And let it be here remembered that the industrious inhabitants of this large town have
