The author of this book is a medical practitioner at Leeds; and the object of his work, than which there can be none more important, is to exhibit, in most cases from personal observation, the influence of particular occupations on the health of the individuals pursuing them and on the duration of their lives. His general impression is, that the employments of large manufacturing towns, such as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, are decidedly unfavourable to health and consequently to happiness; and, he says, with regard to the town in which he lives, “every day we see sacrificed to the artificial state of society one, and sometimes two victims, whom the destinies of nature would have spared.” Doubtless, continued and laborious occupation in crowded rooms is not favourable to health; but, on the other hand, it should be considered that these very employments, by increasing the comforts of the great mass of consumers, have a direct tendency to secure the general health of the community; and that if the term “destinies of nature” is to be taken to apply to man in an uncivilized state, it is perfectly certain that the artisan who pursues his calling under the most unfavourable circumstances is far better off in his physical condition, and therefore in his capacity for long life, than the poor dweller in the forests of America or the wilds of Africa, whose supply of food and clothing is wholly dependent upon chance, and who is entirely without medical aid in sickness. It is a well-known fact, that in this country, a century ago, the average mortality in a year was one in thirty; it is now about one in sixty; that is, where one person in a year dies now, two died a century ago, as compared with the gross amount of the population. When it is considered therefore, how large a number of our countrymen are employed in manufactures, it would seem that, upon the whole, manufacturing employments are not so unfavourable to health as might at first be imagined. An attentive examination of Mr. Thackrah’s book will show, that even in the most apparently unwholesome employments there is a wonderful compensation in the power of habit; and it is beyond all doubt that cleanliness, temperance, and that habitual cheerfulness which leads the spirit to triumph over the most adverse circumstances, will enable those who would appear necessarily the most unfortunate, to pass through life with comparative happiness and comfort. Still, it is very important to examine what occupations have the most unfavourable influence on health,--not with the view of making those who follow them dissatisfied with their condition, but for the purpose of suggesting every preventive and remedial measure, within the range of human knowledge, to the attention of the capitalist, whose first duty is to provide for the happiness of those around him; and above all to show the working-man himself how much he has it in his own