unemployed mechanics and workmen now in the metropolis, and to devise the best means for diminishing their privations and sufferings, by providing them with employment." Mr Lushington, M.P. for Westminster, a thorough-paced liberal, moved the first resolution, the tendency of which was towards the institution of soup kitchens, upon this preamble, "that the number of operatives, mechanics, and labourers now thrown out of employment is unusually great, and the consequent destitution and distress which exist on all sides are painfully excessive, and deeply alarming." And yet, Mr Lushington, like many of his class and stamp, can penetrate no deeper into the causes of distress, than is exhibited in the following paragraph of his speech:--"The great majority of those whose cases they were now met to consider, were the victims of misfortune, and not of crime, and, on that account, they had a legitimate claim upon their sympathy and commiseration. But private sympathy was impotent to grapple with the gigantic evil with which they had to contend; isolated efforts and voluntary alms-giving were but a mere drop in the ocean, compared with the remedy that the case demanded. They must go further and deeper for their remedy; and the only efficacious one that could effectually be brought to bear upon the miseries of the people, was the reduction of the national expenditure--the cutting down of the army, navy, and ordnance estimates, and the removal of those taxes that pressed so heavily upon the poorer portions of the community." This is about as fine a specimen of unadulterated senatorial drivel as we ever had the good fortune to meet with; and it may serve as an apt illustration of the absurd style of argument so commonly employed by the members of the free-trade party. Suppose that the army were disbanded to-morrow, and all the sailors in the navy paid off, how would that give employment to the unfortunate poor? Nay, would it not materially contribute to increase the tide of pauperism, since no economist has as yet condescended to explain what sort of employment is to be given to the disbanded? As to the taxes spoken of by Mr Lushington, what are they? We really cannot comprehend the meaning of this illustrious representative of an enlightened constituency. Supposing there was not a single tax levied in Britain to-morrow, how would that arrangement better the condition of the people, who are simply starving because they can get no manner of work whatever? It is this silly but mischievous babbling, these false and illogical conclusions enunciated by men who either do not understand what they are saying, or who, understanding it, are unfit for the station which they occupy, which tend more than anything else to spread disaffection among the lower orders, to impress them with the idea that they are unjustly dealt with, and to stimulate them in their periodical outcry for organic changes. The remedy lies in restoring to the labouring man those