guardian; or Mr. Jones, who together with his
wife laments the neglect of the sick poor,
as exposed in newspaper reports—let Mr.
Souchong or Mr. Jones go into harness,
gifted by some good genious with perfect
professional ability. Mr. Souchong at any
rate must be sure of an angel than I
take him for, if he does not in six months find
himself in some case or other exposed as a
barbarian, and see a forest of hands lifted up
in dismay at his misconduct. Let it not be
supposed that I speak feelingly, as having been
in any great disgrace myself. I have not;
but I do not know how soon I may be. Every
practitioner is more or less stung by
constant small misunderstandings and acts
of ingratitude on the part of the ignorant,
for whom he works. Everybody
has more or less neglected some Thompson,
offended some Johnson, not understood
the case of some Harrison, or suffered a careless
dispenser to send the wrong medicine to
some Wilson. Every man in practice knows
how much misconception, how little justice,
or fair and generous consideration is usually
mixed up with grumblings of this kind. If
the public could but understand what active
practice means, it would spend more time
in thanking medical men for what they
generously do, than in reproaching them
for want of generosity by reason of
shortcomings.

As a body, I have said, medical practitioners
thoroughly respect the poor, and know
how to obtain their confidence. Both have
their own ways of dealing with each other;
but, each to each, are good friends, and they
know it.

I must speak another word of the true
hearts that poor men have; for I would not
do them wrong by dwelling too exclusively
on their weak points. There was a woman
in a row of ill-constructed cottages—all fever
nests—in peril of her life with fever. She had
a rough-looking husband, a collier, and some
young children. I spoke to the landlord, and some
caused that and other cottages to be white-washed;
and I then suggested to the husband
(not with much hope, for I did not see
how they were to be carried out) ideas
concerning the importance of cleanliness. Next
day I found him upon his knees, with pail
and scrubbing-brush, at work upon the kitchen
floor. He had become nurse to his wife, and
more than that; for it was no small thing to
see the pride of the rough collier put aside,
and the great hands and arms engaged in
trundling mops and scrubbing stairs. He
was the only man of the kind I ever saw so
occupied. He swept the sick room carefully,
and kept it always fresh and tidy. He had
even caught up a very chance hint that I
dropped; and put a glass of fresh flowers
in the window, where his wife could see
them. She got well, and I believe he saved
her.

I have spoken only of the poor, because it
concerned me to speak only of them; but let
it not be supposed that the poor and illiterate
have all the nonsense to themselves.

NUMBERS OF PEOPLE.

IN one sense the vast official blue-books,
for the issue of which the public has to
pay a round sum every year, may be
designated Latter-Day Tracts. Until these very
latter days, the perusal and cognisance of
those portly fasciculi were confined to the
much suffering of proof readers at the
parliamentary printers', the catalogoscribes of the
national libraries, and a few members of parliament.
Recently, however, public attention has
been called to the vast amount of useful and
interesting information that has lain perdu
in these prodigious pamphlets, which have for
so long a period been wasting their sweetness
on the dusty shelves of public libraries.
Recently, a sensible young nobleman, Lord
Stanley, recommended a course of "Blue-books
made Easy;" and the judicious presentation
of spare copies to the libraries of mechanics'
institutes and free libraries, has brought a
considerable share of the literature of political
economy within the reach of the humblest
readers. Still a blue-book is but a blue-book
—a dreadful unreadable folio for a' that. The
armies of figures—armies that would laugh the
Xerxian hosts at Marathon to scorn—put our
poor little phalanx of patience to scorn. The
interminable tables, the awfully classical Die
Martis, or Decembris, the grim marginal
references, the endless repetitions, the
inexorable tedium of Question three thousand
four hundred and nine, warn us off the
statistical premises at the very atrium of the
edifice. Mr. Macaulay relates that an Italian
criminal was permitted to choose between
the historical works of Guicciardini and the
galleys. He chose the former, and began to
read; but the war of Pisa was too much for
him, and he went back to the oar as to a
wedding. So can I imagine many a nervous
reader preferring, in the long run, a month
on the treadmill to the thorough perusal of a
blue-book.

Pending the suggested publication of a series
of these Latter-day Tracts, "adapted to the
meanest comprehension," we are glad to
welcome an instalment, in the form of a condensed
report of the census of eighteen hundred and
fifty-one. In a genteel octavo are embodied
the principal results of the enumeration of the
people of Great Britain; comprising an account
of their numbers and distribution; their ages,
their conjugal condition; their occupations,
their birthplace; how many of them were
deaf and dumb; how many blind; how many
paupers, prisoners, lunatics, or inmates of
hospitals, almshouses, and asylums. Of this
report, condensed from the original magnum
opus, presented to the Secretary of State by
Major Graham, Mr. Farr, and Mr. Horace
Mann, let us endeavour to give a yet further