Like other vermin they are numerous in
proportion as they find shelter; and for this species of noxious beast
large towns and manufacturing districts afford better cover than the
forest or the waste. The fault lies in your institutions, which in the
time of the Saxons were better adapted to maintain security and order
than they are now. No man in those days could prey upon society unless
he were at war with it as an outlaw, a proclaimed and open enemy. Rude
as the laws were, the purposes of law had not then been perverted: it had
not been made a craft; it served to deter men from committing crimes, or
to punish them for the commission; never to shield notorious,
acknowledged, impudent guilt from condign punishment. And in the fabric
of society, imperfect as it was, the outline and rudiments of what it
ought to be were distinctly marked in some main parts, where they are now
well-nigh utterly effaced. Every person had his place. There was a
system of superintendence everywhere, civil as well as religious. They
who were born in villenage were born to an inheritance of labour, but not
of inevitable depravity and wretchedness. If one class were regarded in
some respects as cattle they were at least taken care of; they were
trained, fed, sheltered and protected; and there was an eye upon them
when they strayed. None were wild, unless they ran wild wilfully, and in
defiance of control. None were beneath the notice of the priest, nor
placed out of the possible reach of his instruction and his care. But
how large a part of your population are like the dogs at Lisbon and
Constantinople, unowned, unbroken to any useful purpose, subsisting by
chance or by prey, living in filth, mischief, and wretchedness, a
nuisance to the community while they live, and dying miserably at last!
This evil had its beginning in my days; it is now approaching fast to its
consummation.

COLLOQUY V.--DECAY OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.--EDWARD VI.--ALFRED.

I had retired to my library as usual after dinner, and while I was
wishing for the appearance of my ghostly visitor he became visible.
"Behold me to your wish!" said he. "Thank you," I replied, "for those
precious words."

_Sir Thomas More_.--Wherefore precious?

_Montesinos_.--Because they show that spirits who are in bliss perceive
our thoughts;--that that communion with the departed for which the heart
yearns in its moods of intensest feeling is in reality attained when it
is desi