“Very much what he says to all schemes, Sir. He likes nothing that is proposed, and fears every new plan. But as he dislikes and fears becoming dependent on the parish more than any thing else, I have great hopes that he will consent to go, if, after further consideration, I view the matter as I do now. We will do nothing hastily; but I certainly feel at present as if redemption was offered from a bondage which wears the soul and sickens the heart of man. There’s my poor father——” “Stay, stay, Frank. What do you mean by bondage?” “The bondage of poverty, Sir; of hopeless, grinding poverty. What bondage cows a man’s spirit more? What sours and debases and goads him more than to work and work from year to year in vain? If it was a curse upon Adam to get bread by the sweat of his brow, what is it to give the sweat of one’s brow and get no bread?” “It is a hardship which ought not to be borne when a fair way is open to shake it off. I only checked you in the fear that you might be laying blame where it is not due. I agree with you as to the evils of your case, and the remedy you would seek.” “As to where the blame lies, Sir, our institutions must share it among them;—as well those in which the people are concerned, as the government. It is pretty clear, all the while, that the people in this parish are more than can be fed; and so the right way seems to be for some to go where food abounds; and the sooner they are off, the better for themselves and those they leave behind, when once they have settled where to go.” “And who is to go?—for that is a question of no less importance,” observed Mr. Jackson. “You would not take all your relations, Frank, would you?” Frank replied that they were all equally in want, his grandfather and grandmother as well as his father. “But those who will help you to go,” continued Mr. Jackson, “must consider the welfare of the country as well as yours. The parish must pay more for the passage and maintenance of your grandfather than he will probably cost them at home, and this cannot be expected of them if, for the same sum, they could send over a young couple, whose labour is wanted abroad, and whose family will never become burdensome.” Frank saw at once that in sending over a young couple, the parish sent over also all their descendants, besides supplying a want in the colony abroad. After a few moments’ thought, he went on,— “Surely, Sir, it would relieve the country of its over-fulness at once, to send out a certain number of young people every year, as they become marriageable, instead of spending the same money in giving a passage to old people?”