Pauperism and Destitution for ever from the British Isles. And
yet the poor trudge wearily on, loaded to the earth with exactions and
burdens of every kind, yet stupifying their brains, emptying their
pockets and ruining their constitutions with these poisonous,
brutalizing liquors! I see no hope for them short of a System of Popular
Education which shall raise them mentally above their present low
condition, followed by a few years of systematic, energetic, omnipresent
Temperance Agitation. A slow work this, but is there any quicker that
will be effective? The Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge would greatly
contribute to the Education of the Poor, but that Reform has yet to be
struggled for.

Of _Social Reform_ in England, the most satisfactory agency at present
is the Society for improving the Dwellings of the Poor. This Society has
the patronage of the Queen, is presided over (I believe) by her husband,
and is liberally patronized by the better portion of the Aristocracy and
the higher order of the Clergy. These, aided by wealthy or philanthropic
citizens, have contributed generously, and have done a good work, even
though they should stop where they are. The work would not, could not
stop with them. They have already proved that good, substantial,
cleanly, wholesome, tight-roofed, well ventilated dwellings for the Poor
are absolutely cheaper than any other, so that Shylock himself might
invest his fortune in the construction of such with the moral certainty
of receiving a large income therefrom, while at the same time rescuing
the needy from wretchedness, disease, brutalization and vice. Shall not
New-York, and all her sister cities, profit by the lesson?

Of the correlative doings of the organized Promoters of Working Men's
Associations, Cooeperative Stores, &c., I would not be justified in
speaking so confidently, at least until I shall have observed more
closely. My present impression is that they are both far less mature in
their operations, and that, as they demand of the Laboring Class more
confidence in themselves and each other, than, unhappily, prevails as
yet, they are destined to years of struggle and chequered fortunes
before they will have achieved even the measure of success which the
Model Lodging and the Bathing and Washing Houses have already achieved.
Still, I have not yet visited the strongest and most hopeful of the
Working Men's Associations.

I spent last evening with the friends of ROBERT OW