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appointment of one who should correspond to the secretaries of our hospitals, with a salary superior to that which is now given to the masters of workhouses, would prove to be money well spent in the end. He would take the superintendence of financial matters, and exercise authority over the male departments of the house.^[1] Then, as in prisons, the chaplain should be a much more important person than at present, either resident, or at least with no other duties to occupy his time, which should be entirely devoted to the inmates in cases where the numbers amount to many hundreds. At present, the chaplain's office is often filled in the most unsatisfactory manner. The wards cannot be visited more than once or twice a week, when he comes in and reads a prayer to all the inmates of a ward at once; he probably then asks the master if "anything particular" is wanted in the population of seven or eight hundred, or it may be even more, of sick, dying, and vicious persons under his care, and hearing that "nothing particular" is wanted, he hurries off to a parish containing some thousands, who are also in his charge, and where he probably will find "something particular" to do.^[2] This part of the subject is also beginning to excite attention, and a "ratepayer" has lately written to a country newspaper, to urge the appointment of a chaplain on the same terms, and with the same advantages, as those offered in prisons. Such a task as we have described could not be carried out by any one superintendent alone. There must be many fellow-workers with her, both men and women, who will be the responsible heads of each separate department of the house. Under such a superintendence as this, why should not girls be trained to fulfil all the duties of the laundry and the kitchen, and so be fitted for respectable service, instead of being left the whole day to their own evil and idle gossip, as they sit over their oakum picking, unchecked by any superior authority, or by the presence of any one above them in position?^[3] The band of workers within doors would be cheered

intelligence over these establishments, by raising the salaries given to masters and matrons.

1. In large establishments the appointment of a steward or storekeeper would be necessary, and economical in preventing waste.
2. We thankfully admit that there are many honourable exceptions to this description, in devoted and hard-working chaplains of unions, to whom the inmates look as their only friend. But when other and important duties interfere it is impossible that the time should be given to this work which it requires. Inexperienced young men, to whom the salary would often be as good as that of a curacy, are not considered fitted for the post.
3. To the idle and able-bodied the workhouse should be really a place of hard work, which can only be enforced amongst the women by an efficient superintendence of their own sex. Why should the strong girls be allowed to wander up and down passages, or sit about on the stairs gossiping with one another, as every visitor to a workhouse knows they do at present, when the matron's eye is not upon them? The regular worker's in the different departments of the house do