The way in which the poor usually respond to efforts made for their relief, the patience and forbearance they manifest in times of public calamity, are most encouraging to witness, and prove that “English hearts and English hands” are worthy of the assistance which an active and sensible government could extend to them. I cannot think of anything, at the present time, that would be so helpful to the poor as suitable, well-adapted houses to live in. The miserable places which they are now compelled to call homes have a great deal to do with _all_ the immorality that is to be found among them. No one, who has taken the trouble to investigate the matter, can doubt this for a moment; and as long as there are people in the world unconscientious enough to erect such dwellings for the poor as those we have described, it must surely be a right and proper thing for the legislature to step in and say, “We will not stand by and see our people mentally, morally, and physically degraded in this way: we interpose our authority, and insist that such-and-such modes of construction can no longer be permitted.” But we must also consider the other side of the subject—the indifference of the working-classes themselves in obtaining assistance from their rulers. The fact is, they so seldom hear that any but purely political matters claim attention, that they can hardly realise the possibility of being helped by government out of any domestic difficulties. Nothing, however, can justify their foolish clamour for what, if obtained, could in no way benefit them. I have often told working-men that, so long as they continue to ask for stones when they want bread, they must expect only to get stones. I once witnessed a very exciting election, from the windows of a house at Bath. I shall never forget the sight of that sea of human faces, which extended as far as the eye could reach, and all directed towards the hustings. It was a cloudless day in July. The sun beat piteously down upon the many uncovered heads, yet there they stood—this closely-packed mass of people—from ten or eleven in the morning till two or three o’clock in the afternoon, enduring an amount of torture that was worthy of a better cause. A gentleman, who was witnessing it from the same window, was greatly distressed at the sight; and, at last, when some one was carried out of the crowd in an unconscious state, he stamped his foot, and, as if he could bear it no longer, exclaimed— “I have no patience with it—such a set of muffs broiling themselves to death under the sun, and shouting themselves hoarse, for they don’t know what. If there were any chance of their getting any good out of it, I might respect them for their powers of endurance.” “Yes,” I said; “if, for instance, they were agitating that a bill might be brought into Parliament for making it the law of the land that all windows should be made to open at the top as well as at the bottom.”