condition, and the means by which the difficulties in their position have been encountered. After this it will not be inappropriate to refer to what still remains to be done. "The nineteenth century," as Mr. Gladstone, in addressing the working men of Glasgow, has just said, "whatever else it is, is undoubtedly in a new and peculiar sense the century of the working man." "It is the century which has seen his position raised, his circumstances improved, new means organised for his benefit, new prospects opened for the future, and he has before him--I mean not the individual but the class--a prospect which, I trust, nothing can mar--of increased weight, increased consideration, increased usefulness, increased happiness in the generations to come." The Chancellor of the Exchequer might with justice have said that the second quarter of the present century has seen this great improvement inaugurated and carried on. Beginning with 1830, and letting the period of the removal of political and fiscal burdens mark the commencement of the better order of things, the progress of political economy, of social knowledge, and the favouring circumstances of the times achieved the rest. In the first quarter of the century the working population, left pretty much to themselves, or given over to the tender mercies of political demagogues, were either stolidly indifferent to any improvement, or were kept in a constant turmoil of excitement and confusion. The Reform Bill bringing political power to the better class of artisans, gave a decided stimulus to the intelligence of the people, and an impulse to the then existing means of education. This political power brought its responsibilities, and it may be fairly assumed that increased political knowledge was the result. Whether so much will be granted or no, it is certain that schools and educational establishments now began to multiply in a manner unknown to any previous decade. It was now that there came demands for knowledge, and that the demand brought forth supplies of the most practical kind. The story of the popular literary ventures of 1832--the very first of their kind--need not be repeated here, though a volume might well be written on the subject, and showing the influence which they, and other ventures to which they gave rise, have had on the intellectual progress of the people. On the demand for knowledge there followed in quick succession the removal of many barriers that stood in the way; and more important still, the remissions of, to the poor man, enormous fiscal burdens which pressed with great weight upon his energies.[1] It would scarcely be too much to say that every year for the last thirty years the working man has found himself better able to cope with the disadvantages of his position, and, if he should so choose, to place himself to a very great extent beyond the reach of absolute want.