system of competition, would, most of them,
have been at work and adding to the country's
capital, will make a swarm of pensioned
drones, playing at work, perhaps, set by the
state; as little girls have stitch-work set to
them to keep them out of mischief. At the
same time a limited supply of labourers,
employed by the capital of the country, would
be producing far less wealth from which to
provide future wages. Capital yielding year
by year a heavy tax, beside the limit on its
operation, would diminish steadily; that is to
say, the fund out of which wages come would
be continually on the decline: at the same
time, a race of men, careless and sure of food,
would cause the population to increase still
faster than it does at present; till at last there
would come an end to this—a day when we
could no more live upon our fat. Competition,
then, being natural and wholesome, when
it has full play, will keep the social system
healthy; although it may now and then involve
hard exercise, and make us rather lean.

We have left a difficulty still, from which
we do not wish to turn aside; present excess
of population. The difficulty is not one beyond
our power to remove. Well-organised
emigration will reduce the competition in this
country; but we hope that even the little
space we have devoted to the topic has been
quite enough to show that there is danger in
the doctrine of a forced protection for the
poor, no less than for the rich.

THE LAW OF MERCY.

'TIS written with the pen of heavenly Love
  On every heart which skill divine has moulded;
A transcript from the statute-book above,
  Where angels read their Sovereign's will unfolded.

It bids us seek the holes where famine lurks,
  Clutching the hoarded crust with trembling fingers;
Where Toil in damp unwholesome caverns works,
   Or with strain'd eyeballs o'er the needle lingers.

It bids us stand beside the dying bed
  Of those about to quit the world for ever;
Smooth the toss'd pillow, prop the sinking head,
   Cheer the heart-broken, whom death hastes to sever.

It bids us tell the tempted that the joy
  Of guilt indulged, will change erelong to sorrow;
The draught of sickly sweetness soon will cloy,
   And pall upon the sated taste to-morrow.

And those who copy thus Christ's life on earth,
   Feeding the poor, and comforting the weeper,
Will all receive a meed of priceless worth,
   When ripely gather'd by the heavenly Reaper.

THE FOREIGN INVASION.

WHEN Great Britain, through the Royal
Commission, presided over by Prince Albert,
issued cards of invitation for a conversazione
of all the world in Hyde Park, those ingenious
persons—literary, political, and otherwise—
whose chief mission in this life appears to be
prophecy—prophecy in all shapes, and anent
all matters, from the "tip" and "pick" of
Derby, or St. Leger winners, to the foretelling
of wars and famines—immediately set
themselves to work to predict a series of horrors
and misfortunes of every description, and all
of which were infallibly to result from the
Great Exhibition. The large family of birds
of ill omen arose as one raven. The finders
of mysterious mares' nests; the concoctors of
dark legends, having the prophetic "cock"
and the visionary "bull" for heroes; the
purveyors of traditional pigeons' milk, and the
incubators of preternaturally addled eggs,
gathered themselves together; and, amid the
fogs of November, 1850, wagged their heads,
and sibilated evil predictions awfully.

But the foreign question! The foreigners!
That was the cheval de bataille of the prophetic
brigade. The nasty, dirty, greasy, wicked,
plundering, devastating, murdering, frog-eating,
atheistical foreigners! Here was a
subject for a Delphic "pick"—for a Sibylline
"tip." National Guards marching on London!
The Madonna of Rimini winking in Lamb's
Conduit Street; General Haynau delivering
lectures on military discipline to the young
ladies' seminaries at Blackheath. The
foreigners in London! The grand Lor Maire
de Londres blacking the Czar Nicholas's
jackboots, while a corps of Austrian Uhlans
amused themselves with ball practice in
Guildhall, with Gog and Magog for targets,
and Mr. Daniel Whittle Harvey for setter
up. The foreigners in London! war, ruin,
and desolation! Middlesex the département
de la Tamise, and three regiments
of Cossacks bivouacking at Price's Patent
Candle Manufactory. Pestilence, of course;
the plague, the yellow fever, the vomito nero,
and the cholera morbus. The wicked
Exhibition Building made useful as a lazaretto;
and all the omnibuses turned into plague-carts.
The foreigners in London! England
unchristianised; the Archbishop of Canterbury
guillotined in Lambeth Walk; and Dr.
Cumming sewed up in a sack with Cardinal
Wiseman, the head Rabbi of the Portuguese
Synagogue, and the Chief Elder of the
Mormonites, or Latter-Day Saints, and cast into
the Victoria Sewer. Atheism, pantheism,
polytheism, deism, Mahommedanism, Buddhism,
everywhere. England, of course, nowhere.
The foreigners in London! Fire, famine,
and slaughter; Popery, brass money, and
wooden shoes!

How far these delightful anticipations have
been realised, the readers of this sheet know
as well as I do. The threatened invasion has
taken place: the Gaul, the Teuton, the
Muscovite, and the Moslem have arrived—
and to the extent of some thousands, too—
yet, I am proud to say that the flag of England,
named "Meteor" by Thomas Campbell, does
"yet terrific burn" above the gates of
Buckingham Palace, and Mr. Cutmore's European