Education in the 'forties was the Cinderella of the Legislature. Parliament, it is true, spent laborious hours in discussing the theory of education, but in debating the principle overlooked the practice. Money was doled out in homoeopathic doses. In 1841 the sum of £10,000 was voted for the education of the people in the same session in which £70,000 was voted for the Royal Stables at Windsor, a contrast which _Punch_ had not forgotten five years later. The direct connexion between ignorance and crime was constantly forced on the attention of humane magistrates. When the Lord Mayor of London, in January, 1846, declared that "society was responsible for the contamination to which poor children were subjected," and that there was no calamity, to his way of thinking, "comparable to that which sprang from the bringing up of youth in habits and practices of idleness and vice," _Punch_ found himself in the unfamiliar position of being called upon to eulogize a functionary who as a rule never gave him a chance. "Juvenile delinquents," he points out, were "as much reared for Newgate as many of the beautiful babies, taking their morning airings in the parks, are reared for hereditary legislators." In another graphically brusque passage describing the transportation for life of four lads aged from 18 to 21, we read "they were brought up as brutes, and society reaps the terrible fruits of their rearing." Hullah's music classes for the people at Exeter Hall in 1842 were excellent in their way, but the solace of song was a doubtful boon in the Hungry 'Forties, and though _Punch_ supported the establishment of schools of cookery throughout the kingdom, the supply of things to cook was more urgently needed. The years rolled on, the Corn Laws were repealed, and prosperity revived, but illiteracy remained, and it was due in the country districts, in _Punch's_ view, to the fact that "contending zealots cannot agree with what theological mysteries they shall leaven the common information which the schoolmaster is to impart to the country bumpkin." [Illustration: THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION] [Sidenote: _Abysmal Ignorance_] In 1850 the following dialogue was given in _The Times_ police report of Wednesday, January 9, and quoted in _Punch_:-- George Ruby, a boy aged 14, was put into the box to be sworn, and the Testament was put into his hand. He looked quite astonished upon taking hold of the book. _Ald. Humphrey._ Well, do you know what you are about? Do you know what an oath is? _Boy._ No. _Ald. H._ Do you know what a Testament is? _Boy._ No. _Ald. H._ Can you read? _Boy._ No. _Ald._ H. Do you ever say your prayers? _Boy._ No, never. _Ald. H._ Do you know what prayers are? _Boy._ No. _Ald. H._ Do you know what God is? _Boy._ No. _Ald H._ Do you know what the devil is? _Boy._ I've heard of the devil, but I don't know him. _Ald. H._ What do you know, my poor boy?