ion be fair, take a long, earnest gaze at
the sun, so that you will know him again when you return. They have
something they call the sun over here which they show occasionally, but
it looks more like a boiled turnip than it does like its American
namesake. Yet they cheer us with the assurance that there _will be_ real
sunshine here by-and-by. So mote it be!

V.

THE FUTURE OF LABOR--DAY-BREAK.

LONDON, Friday, May 9, 1851.

I have spent the forenoon of to-day in examining a portion of the Model
Lodging-Houses, Bathing and Washing establishments and Cooperative Labor
Associations already in operation in this Great Metropolis. My companions
were Mr. Vansittart Neale, a gentleman who has usefully devoted much time
and effort to the Elevation of Labor, and M. Cordonnaye, the actuary or
chosen director of an Association of Cabinet-Makers in Paris, who are
exhibitors of their own products in the Great Exposition, which explains
their chief's presence in London. We were in no case expected, and enjoyed
the fairest opportunity to see everything as it really is. The beds were
in some of the lodging-houses unmade, but we were everywhere cheerfully
and promptly shown through the rooms, and our inquiries frankly and
clearly responded to. I propose to give a brief and candid account of
what we saw and heard.

Our first visit was paid to the original or primitive Model
Lodging-House, situated in Charles-st. in the heart of St. Giles's. The
neighborhood is not inviting, but has been worse than it is; the
building (having been fitted up when no man with a dollar to spare had
any faith in the project) is an old-fashioned dwelling-house, not very
considerably modified. This attempt to put the new wine into old bottles
has had the usual result. True, the sleeping-rooms are somewhat
ventilated, but not sufficiently so; the beds are quite too abundant,
and no screen divides those in the same room from each other. Yet these
lodgings are a decided improvement on those provided for the same class
for the same price in private lodging-houses. The charge is 4_d._ (eight
cents) per night, and I believe 2_s._ (50 cents) per week, for which is
given water, towels, room and fire for washing and cooking, and a small
cupboard or safe wherein to keep provisions. Eighty-two beds are made up
in this house, and the keeper assured us that she seldom had a spare one
through the night. I could not in conscience praise her beds for
cleanli