learned. Owing to this, some children are unable to read, after being members of the school two or three years. The gentleman above mentioned, says, "It would be easy, if it were required, to adduce reasons for believing that the gross ignorance shown to exist in these districts, is not confined to them, but that their condition may be regarded as a fair sample of that of the same class in other parts of the country." And again, "A little consideration of the nature of rural life will show the danger of leaving the peasantry in such a state of ignorance. In the solitude of the country, the uncultivated mind is much more open to the impressions of fanaticism than in the bustle and collision of towns. In such a stagnant state of existence the mind acquires no activity, and is unaccustomed to make those investigations and comparisons necessary to detect imposture. The slightest semblance of evidence is often sufficient with them to support a deceit which elsewhere would not have the smallest chance of escaping detection. If we look for a moment at the absurdities and inconsistencies practised by Thoms, it appears at first utterly inconcievable that any person out of a lunatic asylum could have been deceived by him. That an imposture so gross and so slenderly supported should have succeeded, must teach us, if any thing will, the folly and danger of leaving the agricultural population in the debasing ignorance which now exists among them."
Such is a brief outline of one of the most strange and singular popular delusions of modern times. It would have given me pleasure to have been able to say, that a great improvement had taken place since 1838: such, however, is not the case.
