that it drove many vile publications out of existence. The Almanack issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge put an end to many silly fortunetelling tracts, and shamed the Stationers' Company into the abandonment of those which they had previously issued. Experience, however, he admitted, had taught that the plan of the "Penny Magazine" was defective in one particular: it erred in not sufficiently incorporating the elements of amusement and relaxation; and by its total omission of tales, and similar matter appealing to the fancy of readers. "It remains," he said, "for others engaged in the same good work of promoting the improvement of the people, to carry this plan a step further, but a most important step, by preparing cheap periodical papers, containing such proportion of works of fiction as should attract persons wholly bent upon entertainment and reading, without any direct view to useful knowledge.”

He went on to pronounce an eulogium on one who was long recognized by Brougham as a worthy and sagacious fellow-worker in this great and good work, and who preceded the elder dispenser of useful knowledge to his rest and reward. No apology is needed for our transference of it to these pages :—

Of one individual, John Cassell, who has taken a leading part, or perhaps the most prominent part, in these important proceedings, it is fit to mention the name, because he was himself a working man, rose by his industry from a most humble station, has constantly lived with the working classes, and has the most complete knowledge of their habits and their tastes from daily unreserved intercourse with them.

At the Congress held at Edinburgh, in 1863, Brougham recurred still more fully to the educational efforts with which the names of Mr. Cassell and his partners were and are identified :—

The circulation of cheap works is now enormous, and the low price marvellous, as, for instance, the various publications of our worthy colleague, Mr. Cassell. He and his partners, Messrs. Petter and Galpin, have invested a large capital in the most important and - philanthropic business, and it is to be hoped that they may soon receive their just reward in the return of it. Their "Educator," "Quiver," and "Pilgrim's Progress" have been well-nigh finished. Of their "Bible" 212 weekly numbers have appeared; the price is a penny, and for this are given eight pages quarto of letterpress, and five really beautiful prints. The number sold is 300,000, and thus, when it is completed, there will be circulated no less than 63,000,000 of the weekly numbers. The sacrifice made, it is devoutly to be hoped, may be only temporary; and in contemplating the circulation of this and the other works just mentioned, Mr. Cassell and his partners may well say that they have converted every poor man's house into a school of moral and religious instruction. These are great things, on which the friends of social science may rejoice as having been done of late years for the advantage, moral as well as material, of the people, and especially of the middle and working classes.

Bradford was the town selected for the third Conference of the Association. In June, 1858, Brougham had been elected perpetual President by the Council, and requested to deliver annually a review of the operations of the body and of the progress of social science generally. From this date, therefore, 1859, commenced that succession of extraordinarily comprehensive discourses with which our readers are familiar, and which will be of the highest value in future ages as "annual registers" of progress in England. In this year he luminously touched, among many other topics, the growing interest indicated by foreign countries, even Russia, in the deliberations of the Association; the adulteration of food; the deficiencies of the Public Health Act of 1857; quarantine; workhouse management; judicial statistics; the half-holiday movement;

savings banks; intemperance-this year being memorable as the first in which Brougham gave in his adhesion to the principle of "permissive" legislation against the traffic in strong drinks. A glowing passage referred to physical discovery in its bearing upon social problems. Touching philosophically, in passing, upon current political discussions, and especially upon the movement for further extension of the franchise, he denounced bribery at elections, if possible, with more than his wonted intensity of detestation, and especially stigmatised the briber. Having referred to an apologue which he had on a former occasion used in illustration of the guilt of those who invested their capital in slave-trading adventures, and who would have shrunk back from the horrors in that infernal traffic, but who were really as much guilty of piracy and murder as the wretches .actually engaged in it, he proceeded to the following burst of honest indignation:

These are greater crimes than the propagation of immorality and perjury throughout the community; but the relation of the principal and the agent is the same; and the former is equally guilty, though of a somewhat lesser offence; I say somewhat lesser, for I never shall forget the exclamation of an honest and experienced judge, the late Mr. Justice Williams, in conversation with Lord Denman and myself, that he felt a horror at seeing perjury committed before his eyes, only to be surpassed by the sight of murder. On our expressing a doubt whether he did not rate too high a degree of guilt unhappily too often incurred-"No," said he, "and that only increases my horror of it; but were it confined to a single instance, what shall we say of his crime who deliberately calls upon the Almighty Judge of all the world to witness and to punish his falsehood?" What would this honest and learned judge have felt on seeing scores of men who had already voted, driven up by the zeal of an unscrupulous election agent, and again tendering their votes with the solemn oath that they had not polled before; and all for the purpose of gaining time that ex

pected voters might arrive before the close—the books of the poll-clerks making it certain that their second votes could not be received; or what would have been his feelings had he seen the inhabitants of a town, filled with his old Yorkshire clients, generally and habitually selling their votes for a price, and with their minds made up, after having received it, to swear upon the Gospel of God that they had got neither reward nor promise of reward from any person whatever?

He said he would have bribery made a misdemeanor. For," said he, "it is clear that candidates and their agents, whom no dread of defeat or expense can restrain, will shrink from the hazard of an infamous punishment when they see the tread wheel as well as the House of Commons at the end of the vista which leads from the bustings."

In 1860 the social reformers for the first time crossed the Tweed. At Glasgow, Brougham and his "collaborateurs" received an almost tumultuously hospitable welcome in that truly vigorous and warm-hearted British city. In his address Brougham did not fail gracefully to refer to the lustre which the names of such men as Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Black, and Watt had shed over the great manufacturing and trading emporium on the Clyde. A remarkably felicitous innovation was here introduced, in the shape of a massmeeting of working men, all trade delegates admitted by tickets, and all friendly to the objects of the Associa tion. This last fact was further proved by another wise innovation the presence of a large number of trades' union representatives at, and their participation in, the discussions in the fifth, or Social Economy section of the Conference. Eclat was also shed over the deliberations this year by the presence of many sympathetic representatives from foreign Chambers

of Commerce, including men so distinguished as MM. Desmarest and Garnier Pages. In his address Brougham was especially, and humorously, severe upon the painful sluggishness of Parliamentary procedure in the direction of social and other reform. He quoted an anecdote related in his "Apothegms by Bacon," a philosopher with whose writings his mind may be, without exaggeration, said to have been saturated. Popham, Speaker of the House of Commons in Queen Elizabeth's reign, being asked by Her Majesty-"Now, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Commons' House?" replied, "If it please your Majesty, seven weeks." Six profitless months of so-called Parliamentary action had, said Brougham, been wasted in this year. Referring to the then approaching election of an American President, in succession to Mr. Buchanan, Brougham showed his perfect apprehension of the unmistakable issue involved. It was, whether American slavery was for the future to be regarded as national and universal, or as only sectional, and sanctioned merely by the law of particular districts. This year was specially memorable as the first in which Brougham expressed his approval of the principle of co-operation; and a large division of his address consisted of a commendatory description of the Rochdale "Equitable Pioneers."

In 1861, the peripatetic reformers crossed St. George's Channel, and held their meeting at Dublin. Brougham expressed his congratulations at the repeal of the paper duty, having in the previous year designated the resistance of the Peers to its abolition by the Commons, as within the letter of the law, but opposed to the best interests of the community. Words of congratulation were also forthcoming about the emancipation of the