could once get settled under such a gentleman
as Mr. Wright, I would not abuse my opportunity,
and all I expected I have received. I
have got Bibles, hymn-book, prayer-book, and
tracts; and those things I never had in my
house since I have been married before. My
wife is delighted. My boy goes to school, and
my girl also."

Were the spirit of Mr. Wright diffused
more generally through society, the number
of fallen men—who, being restored with all
due prudence to a generous confidence, " would
not abuse their opportunity "—would tell
decidedly on the statistics of our criminal
courts and prisons. To labour as Mr, Wright
has done, must be the prerogative of few,
though all the indolent may note, by way of
spur, how much a man even like Thomas
Wright, poor, humble, scantily instructed,
may beget of good out of an earnest will.

Mr. Wright's toil has of course chiefly been
in Manchester and Salford, but he has visited
also various prisons in Lancashire, Scotland,
and London, and has been a friend to many
of their inmates; Mr. Wright's name, like
the odour of a violet, has quietly become
diffused, and public journals have, from time
to time, in paragraphs and notices, made
recognition of his virtues. To those who needed
information, we have now supplied a hint of
what might be disclosed by a large narrative
of obscure labours. We may revert now to
the ideas with which we first set out.

On the 12th of January, in this year, the
Justices of Peace at the Salford Quarter
Sessions drew up a memorial to Lord John
Russell, showing that Mr. Wright had devoted
to the public service, unremunerated, time
and labour, and even money, which he might
have applied to his own private good; that
for this reason, he has not, in his approaching
age, any provision which will enable him to
relax in toil for his own livelihood; and that
the unwearied labour to which he has
submitted, has impaired his strength. Having
shown this, the memorial prays for such
recognition from the Government as shall
acknowledge Mr. Wright's past services, and
enable him to devote his future labours more
effectually to the public good.

A month after the signing of this memorial
by the Justices of Salford, the excellent people
of Manchester backed it by a public meeting.
Government did not deny, we believe, Mr.
Wright's title to a little pension. It is but
just to the late Government, and more
especially to the late Premier, to say that there
has been no want of right feeling or a
manly sense of responsibility in this respect.
We are afraid to think how many and how
great salaries are paid to public servants who
keep, or don't keep, falcons, or attend, or
don't attend, to other things. Mr. Wright
having worked for his country in reforming
criminals, saving their future gaol expense,
and making them good working-men—having
worked in this way for fourteen years, six
hours a day, gratuitously, over and above
the close duties of his calling—having spent
even his own money on the public—may be
considered very well entitled to a salary of
public halfpence. Gold, to be sure, is wanted
for the buckhounds and the falcons; but the
public, probably, will not be sorry if it should
happen that the change in Downing Street
does not quash the memorial from Salford,
and that any little pile of pennies which may
have been left by the outgoing servants on
the mantelpiece, may be found labelled,
"Thomas Wright's Pension," and bestowed
accordingly.

The wish of the Manchester people, whose
movement Thomas Wright himself has not
said a word to stimulate, is to ensure to
their citizen, for the remainder of his life,
an income equal to that which he now
derives from his employment in the foundry,
or with a few pounds added—say two
hundred pounds a-year. This, with the aid
of Government, might probably be raised
in their own town; but Mr. Wright is a
man whom one would prefer to honour in the
name of England, rather than of Manchester.
It is very certain, that in whatever form either
Manchester or England may pay to such a
man a salary so trifling, though sufficient to
enable him to spend his whole time upon
prison labours, his exertions will give more
than value for it year by year. And still
there will remain the gift from Mr. Wright, of a
large mass of well-spent time and most efficient,
earnest labour. No acknowledgment, which
this country is likely to make of services so
modest, will suffice to turn the scale of
obligation, and make Thomas Wright its
debtor.

TIME AND THE HOUR.

PROUD as we are apt to be of our
achievements in science and art, it sometimes
strikes some people that we do not reverence
and admire enough the results of the sagacity,
patience, and courage of men of a former
generation. For instance,—what an achievement
is the discovery that the earth is not
flat,—the discovery of its actual form,—the
discovery of its relation to other parts of the
system,—discoveries clenched by the fact, that
we can predict future starry occurences,
account for apparent planetary errors in our
own days, and explain, by means of the history
of the solar system, some dubious
incidents in the ancient history of man! It seems
inexpressibly astonishing that men, on their
little anthill, should be able to make out the
facts of regions which they can never reach,
and where they could not live to draw a single
breath: that such imperceptible insects as they
must appear, if heard of, in the sun
and moon,should lay down, without mistake,
and to demonstration, the laws of the sun and
moon in their external relations. It is as
if the aphides on a rose-bush under a