ter hostility to dram
drinking than myself, insomuch that I never suffer any ardent spirits
in my house--thinking _them evil spirits!_--and if the poor could
witness the white livers, the dropsies, the shattered nervous systems
which I love seen as the consequence of drinking, they would be aware
that _spirits_ and _poisons_ were synonymous terms."

Institutions; it _will_ advance, and what the legislature may never be
able to accomplish, the spirit of improvement eventually will.

But having considered those cases, in which wilful neglect and bad
example may be charged upon the parents, we should not forget to tell
those who object to our interference in the duty of a child's natural
protectors, that it is not, in every instance, from _wilful_ neglect
on their part, that their children are left unprotected in the
streets. The circumstances of the labouring classes are such, in many
cases, that they are compelled to leave their children either wholly
unprotected, or in the charge of some one who frequently becomes a
betrayer instead of a defender. The father, perhaps, goes to his daily
labour in the morning, before the children are out of bed, and does
not return till they are in bed again at night. The mother goes out in
like manner, the earnings of the husband being insufficient for the
maintenance of the family, and the children are intrusted throughout
the day to the care of some girl, whose parents are as poor as
themselves, and are glad to let her earn something towards her
support. Numbers of little girls thus go out before they are twelve
years old, and teach the little children all they know,--commonly
to be deceitful, and not unfrequently to be dishonest. The parents,
careless or unsuspecting, only make inquiry when they return home if
the children have been good and quiet, and of course receive an answer
in the affirmative. In the course of a few years the evil consequences
begin to show themselves, and then the good folks wonder how or when
the seeds of such depravity could have been sown. Many I know will be
inclined to smile at the insignificancy of the cause pointed out. I
can only say, it is from such springs, however regarded, that the
great stream of vice is supplied; and what we laugh at now, for its
insignificant origin, will hereafter, in its maturity, laugh at us for
our impotence, in vainly endeavouring to stem it. What are parents to
do with their children, situated as those are of whom we have