In the second letter, dated March 1838, he developes the principles upon which he acted, and the objects which he had in view, in answer to the request of Mr Horner. His object he avows to be “the elevation of the labouring classes,” or, to use his own language, “promoting the welfare of the manufacturing population, and raising them to that degree of intellectual and social advancement of which I believe them capable.” And amongst the matters which he considers necessary to the attainment of the object in view, he enumerates “fair wages, comfortable houses, gardens for their vegetables and flowers, schools and other means of improvement for their children, sundry little accommodations and conveniences in the mill, attention to them when sick or in distress, and interest taken in their general comfort and welfare.” He says that attention to these things, and gently preventing rather than chiding rudeness, ignorance, or immorality--treating people as though they were possessed of the virtues and manners which you wish them to acquire--is the best means of attaining the wished-for end; and that he has little faith in the efficacy of mere moral lectures. He established the order of the silver cross amongst the girls above the age of 17. It immediately became an object of great ambition, and a powerful means of forwarding the great object of refining the minds, tastes, and manners of the maidens, and through their influence, of softening and humanising the sterner part of the population. He says that he does not want to establish amongst the humbler classes the mere conventional forms of politeness as practised in the upper, but he would refine them considerably. He would have the most beautiful and tender forms of Christian charity exhibited in all their actions and habits, and mere preaching, rules, sermons, lectures, or legislation, can never change poor human nature if the people are not permitted to see what they are taught they should practise, and to hold intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own. He points out the necessity of supplying innocent, pleasing, and profitable modes of filling up the leisure hours of the working-classes as the best mode of weaning them from drinking, and the vulgar amusements alone within their reach. He also points out that merely intellectual pursuits are not suited to uncultivated minds, and that resources should be provided of sufficient variety to supply the different tastes and capacities which are to be dealt with. It is with these views that he provided various objects of interesting pursuit or innocent amusement for his colony, and established prizes for their horticultural exhibitions; and to show how the taste for music had progressed, he mentions that a glee class had been established, and a more numerous one of sacred music that meets every Wednesday and Saturday during winter, and a band had been formed with clarionets, horns, and other wind instruments, which practised