good accounts of their stewardship. Further, let it be clearly understood that the only condition on which a man could hope to be enrolled in this representative band, or, being enrolled, expect to be allowed to continue his official existence, would be his distinct and unquestioning recognition of _personal_ responsibility, as far as is humanly possible, for, and his unwavering resolution to secure, the well-being of _all_ his constituents, physically, pecuniarily, mentally, and morally. These preliminaries being supposed to be satisfactorily settled, such incorporation or assembly of chosen ones might (always supposing my views happened to find favour in their sight) open as many co-operative stores--so many for each trade--as would be sufficient to supply the needs of the entire community, selecting competent men from each trade to manage the different departments, and paying them by an agreed salary in the same manner as rate collectors and relieving officers are paid. A certain specified per-centage to be added to the prime cost of the various articles to defray the estimated expenses of management, advertising, rent (if necessary, though it would be better if the local legislators were also the landlords), wear and tear, depreciation in stock, and miscellaneous expenses for the year; and sales to be made to the consumer _for cash only_. The urban or rural chancellor of the exchequer would, in his annual budget, soon learn to adjust the amount of his tax (for so the per-centage may be considered), over and above the original cost price, according to the probable exigencies of the ensuing year, by the light afforded by the transactions of the preceding one. Seeing how many millions of pounds are annually disbursed for the barest sustenance and most absolute necessaries of life by the poor of the three kingdoms, from most of whom exorbitant rates of profit are wrung,--for the fact need not be expatiated on here that the more indigent the purchaser, and the more his penury drives him to live from hand-to-mouth, the less value he receives for his money, to say nothing of the further irruptions made into his income by the only partially-slain "truck system," or by the payment of interest to the accommodating successors of the Lombards, whose golden balls proclaim them to serve the honourable office of jackal-purveyors to the lions of the gin-palaces,--seeing this, I say, shall I be stigmatized as a dreamer, a half-crazy Utopian, if I anticipate magnificent results to follow from fair trial of a scheme designed to stem the frightful torrent of improvidence at present obtaining amongst the working classes, and to enable them to occupy the new position of being participators in the benefits of a sound commercial undertaking?