"Many of its tales inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village air.... It has very scant allusion to fine clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life." I am so happy as to possess a number of the "Lowell Offering," for August, 1844. It begins with a pretty little story called "A Flower Dream," which confirms Mr. Dickens's remarks. There are two or three amiable pieces of poetry, a very moral article upon "Napoleon at St. Helena," one upon the tyranny of fashion, in which young ladies are advised to "lay aside all glittering ornaments, all expensive trappings," and to present instead the charms of a cultivated mind and good disposition. There is one article in the number which Mr. Dickens would have enjoyed for its own sake. It is "A Letter from Susan;" Susan being a "mill girl," as she honestly calls herself. She describes the life of the girls in the mill and in the boarding-house. She gives an excellent character both to her companions and to the overseers, one of whom had lately given her a bouquet from his own garden; and the mills themselves, she remarks, were surrounded with green lawns kept fresh all the summer by irrigation, with beds of flowers to relieve their monotony. According to Susan, the mills themselves were pleasant places, the rooms being "high, very light, kept nicely whitewashed, and extremely neat, with many plants in the window-seats, and white cotton curtains to the windows." "Then," says Susan, "the girls dress so neatly, and are so pretty. The mill girls are the prettiest in the city. You wonder how they can keep so neat. Why not? There are no restrictions as to the number of pieces to be washed in the boarding-houses. You say you do not see how we can have so many conveniences and comforts at the price we pay for board. You must remember that the boarding-houses belong to the company, and are let to the tenants far below the usual city rents." Much has changed in Lowell since that day, and it is probable that few mill girls would now describe their life as favorably as Susan did in 1844. Nevertheless, the present generation of operatives derive much good from the thoughtful and patriotic care of the founders. More requires to be done. A large public park should be laid out in each of those great centres of industry. The abodes of the operatives in many instances are greatly in need of improvement. There is need of half-day schools for children who are obliged to assist their parents. Wherever it is possible, there should be attached to every house a piece of ground for a garden. The saying of the old philosopher is as true now as it was in the simple old times when it was uttered: "The way to have good servants is to be a good master." ROBERT OWEN, COTTON-MANUFACTURER.