The temper of a progressive and prosperous democracy is very different. Many, perhaps most of the American States, are without a Poor Law. Slavery dispensed with it, and the race antagonism consequent on the manner and circumstances of emancipation has rendered a thorough revision of social relations--a systematic attempt to meet the new and very exceptional conditions of Southern society in its present form--hitherto impossible. Yet, by the confession of one of their bitterest enemies, no people are so tender, so generous, so lavish of active sympathy towards the sick, the bereaved, and the unfortunate. In States which, probably from an instinct under their circumstances just and wise, refuse to recognize the right to subsistence by a legal provision for the poor, whereby the idle and vicious would chiefly benefit, nevertheless paupers by the visitation of God--the aged and infirm, the blind, the deaf, and dumb, lunatics and idiots--are amply provided by public and private charity with all that can alleviate their lot: or teach them, as far as possible, the means of self-dependence. American charity towards the victims of great natural catastrophes, far more common there than here--communities burned out by a forest fire, or ruined by a flood--and yet more the personal sacrifices made, the readiness with which men and women devote their leisure thought, and energy to the supervision of public institutions, the efficient distribution of public subscriptions, the succour and nursing of a community stricken by pestilence, are above praise. A careful study of Transatlantic examples might put our own boasted lavishness of charity to shame. Even in England, organized private charity, wisely directed, might surely contrive to effect a discrimination between those who are paupers by vice, unthrift, and idleness, and those whom God has striken for no fault that humanity is entitled to pass judgment upon; between the fitting inmates of the workhouse, and those--helpless from age, infirmity, accident, and disease--to whom the associations of the workhouse are humiliating, painful and demoralizing. Nothing is more essential, under democratic rule, than the maintenance of due severity towards those who will not work; nothing more likely to relax that needful severity than its indiscriminate application to those who cannot. ART. X.--1. _Fourth Midlothian Campaign._ Political speeches delivered, November, 1885, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. Edinburgh, 1886. 2. John Morley: _The Irish Record of the New Chief Secretary, 1886._ 3. _Ireland; A Book of Light on the Irish Problem._ Edited by Andrew Reid. London, 1886. 4. _Home Rule._ Reprint from the 'Times' correspondence, &c. 1886. 5. _Social Order in Ireland. Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union._ Dublin, 1886. 6. _Speech of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, April 8, 1886, on moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make provision for the future Government of Ireland._