they are already familiar. Mr. Maurice explained how
in this mode arithmetic, geography, grammar, mechanics,
&c, would be made to illustrate the laws by which
many artisans must work. A lecture on political terms
would introduce the student to a better idea of elementary
principles in politics. The reign of King John, as
illustrated by Shakspeare, would serve to impress the
moral truth of history, illustrated by the poet, with the
historical corrections of the historian. Each lecture
would be a lesson upon the subject; and the student
would be invited to join in an interchange of questions
with the professor, thus clearing up difficulties and
drawing on the pupils. Mr. Maurice delivered himself
with great plainness and all his peculiar earnestness.
He satisfied his hearers that there would be no attempt
to entrap their assent into particular doctrines. He
mentioned that the lectures on the Bible, on Sunday
evening, would be delivered gratuitously; but to attend
them is not made a condition of admission into the
College.

The Society for Improving the Dwellings of the
Labouring Classes invited several persons interested in
such questions, and the representatives of the press,
to inspect on the 8th instant a row of houses in Wild
Court, Great Wild Street, Lincoln's Inn, which the
Society is about to purify and repair. Hitherto the
profit derivable from model lodging-houses, 5 or 6 per
cent, has not been sufficient to encourage their imitation
by trading builders; the refitting of existing houses is
more profitable, yielding about 16 per cent; and the
Society is active in that direction. Wild Court is a
short flag-paved alley, in the midst of a very poor and
close neighbourhood. The houses taken by the Society
are thirteen in number; they contain 108 separate
rooms, and are reckoned to have afforded lodging for
200 families or 1000 persons. The inhabitants are many
of them street-dealers in fruit, &c.; the bulk appear to
be honest; some are known thieves, others of equivocal
character, but very poor, sleeping at night on the stairs,
and paying actually no rent. The buildings are solid
structures of brick and oak; but they have scarcely a
whole pane of glass in the windows; and the draining
is abominable. In the upper stories, the draining is
effected by the roof, and thence through the rain-pipes
to the drains. The communication from the gutters
between the gables to the rain-pipe in front is a wooden
trough that passes through the rooms; this trough in
some cases being covered, in others uncovered. About
ninety or a hundred pounds will suffice to make each
house habitable and healthy.

The first meeting of the Society of Arts, the opening
of the winter season, was held in the Adelphi on the
15th inst. Lord Ebrington, the President of the Council
for the ensuing year, delivered the inaugural address.
He touched upon a great variety of topics connected
with the business of the society: the proposed examination
of the members of the institutions in connection
with the society for the purpose of certifying their
acquirements—the educational exhibition—the coming
exposition at Paris, and the relation of exhibitions to the
working classes—the Paris improvements contrasted
with our lack—the relation between the health of
labourers and their employments, lodging, and food—
and a proposed exhibition of dwellings, furniture, and
domestic appliances of all kinds, for working men—were
among the more conspicuous themes. He announced
that her Majesty's government are of opinion that the
educational exhibition should be rendered available as
the nucleus of a permanent educational museum for the
nation. It is proposed to give the members of the
institutions in union with the society facilities for
visiting the Paris exhibition; but to carry out the
design, it will be necessary that the French government
should relax the passport system; and Lord Ebrington
stated that they have shown every disposition to meet
the application in the most liberal spirit. One thing on
which he dwelt with emphasis was the necessity for the
extension of some protection to the public against the
adulteration of articles of food; arguing that there is
"no more reason why knowingly uttering false money
should be punished than knowingly selling verdigrised
pickles,—money being also equally a commodity, an
object of purchase and sale, and its falsification being at
least free from any danger or injury to life." At the
Paris exposition, he stated, the French government
propose to set apart one section as an exhibition for the
display and comparison of the various kinds of dwellings,
internal arrangement and fittings; furniture, beds, and
bedding; fuel, grates, and stoves; cooking apparatus,
kinds of food and beverages, and the modes of preparing
them; materials, and form of clothing, &c.; arrangements
for cleansing persons, bedding, clothes, &c, which
in different countries and in different parts of the same
country, in different climates and in the same climate,
to answer different purposes aud the same purpose,
under circumstances essentially different and
circumstances essentially similar, are generally used and
approved, more especially by the classes commonly
known in England as the labouring classes.

At a recent meeting of the Preston institution for the
Diffusion of Knowledge, Lord Stanley made the
following observations on the Employment of Sunday by
the Working Classes:—Alluding to the claims on the
working man's time and energy, which seemed to forbid
his application to purely intellectual pursuits, he said—
"I do not of course suppose that a man who works ten
hours a day is likely to undertake any course of study
with unimpaired energy after his day's work is over.
Five days are fully, or almost fully occupied. Saturday
is a half-holiday; and 12 out of his available 56 hours
belong to the Sunday. Now. I mention that because I
think there is upon this subject a feeling which I am
loth to call a prejudice or a superstition, but which I
think is exceedingly hurtful to the interests of religion
as well as of morality, and which does materially interfere
with the intellectual culture of the busy, over-
tasked working man—I mean a feeling which I don't
share, and which I believe the majority of an
enlightened public don't share, but which exists in some
places—that it is wrong to devote to intellectual culture,
or to any study not distinctly theological, any portion of
the Sunday. I think that is an error in any case; in
the case of the working man, overtasked as he is, I am
sure it is a fatal mistake. It is easy to say that more
holidays should be given, and the hours of labour made
fewer, but it must be recollected that we have to
compete, and compete under some disadvantages, both in
manufactures and agriculture, with the industry of the
world, and we cannot afford to relax our efforts in any
way. It has been computed, and I believe without
exaggeration, that a national holiday—a single day
during which by common consent all work is suspended
—a single holiday causes a loss to the community of
about a million sterling. It follows, therefore, that we
cannot hope for much diminution in the hours of labour.
Almost the only available time for intellectual
cultivation which the working man can obtain is upon
the day on which he rests from his labour. Now,
don't imagine for a moment that I would suggest
anything that would interfere with the proper
discharging of his religious duties. But we all know that
religious duties being discharged as well or better than
many perform them, there still remains a very large
amount of time which by working men in general is
spent in idleness—by a good many in something worse.
I believe the greatest educational reform which you
could bring about would be to make men understand
that intellectual culture is an object which may properly
be pursued upon that which our religion declares to be
a day of rest. Knowledge is not profane, but sacred;
and, so far from such an application of a part of that
day being contrary to, I believe it would simply be a
carrying out of, the purposes for which that day itself
was instituted."

PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

The Duke of Argyll has been elected Lord Rector of
the University of Glasgow, in opposition to Mr. Carlyle
and Mr. Disraeli.

Mr. John Melville, Writer to the Signet, has been
elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

The Reverend Robert Wilberforce, late Vicar of
Burton Agnes, Yorkshire, and Archdeacon of the East
Riding, has been Received into the Roman Catholic