a paramount law of his nature, enforced by scriptural injunction. Upon this vitally important point in the negro’s condition Mr. Smith observes:--“They” (the planters) “uniformly encourage marriage amongst their slaves, and do not require a man and woman to marry unless they wish to do so. If the man fancy a woman on another plantation, the masters agree to the marriage, and one will sell the husband or the wife, so that one master may own them both.” Compare these features and conditions of negro marriages with those which characterise marriages amongst the poor of this country. Where do we find a British or Irish landlord encouraging the “peasantry” to marriage? Where do we find an English or a Scotch cotton-lord, coal-king, or ironmaster promoting early marriages amongst their white slaves? Whoever heard of any of these gentry taking a young man or a young woman into his service, in order to facilitate their union with those they love? On the contrary, early marriages are systematically proscribed by these gentry, and, indeed, all marriages, early or late, amongst the poor. Nothing is more common, in this country, than for landlords to make it a condition, when letting a farm to a tenant, that he (the tenant-farmer) shall not, on any account, introduce a son-in-law or daughter-in-law beneath his roof as inmates of the establishment; whilst he (the landlord) takes care, at the same time, that there shall be no other habitations for young couples on his estate. What is this but interdicting marriage by taking the most stringent precautions against it? We know a certain _noble_ lady, now living, who, not many years ago, when appointing a master and mistress to instruct the young people in a boys’ and girls’ school (established upon one of her estates), made it a positive condition of their appointment that, although they were man and wife, they should have no children while they held their situation! This titled Malthusian is by no means a rare specimen of her rank or sex; on the contrary, she is but a sample of the sack; and the sack is judged by the sample. In truth, from Lord John Russell and his Grace of Richmond down to “penny-a-line Chadwick,” of poor-law notoriety, and the very lowest of his understrappers, there prevails but one sentiment on this subject, namely, an unmitigated dread and hatred of affording any encouragement to the labouring classes to marry. And, from the manner in which they have contrived to frame and administer our present system of poor-laws (throwing the weight of the burden where there is least strength to bear it), we may add, with truth, that they have succeeded in making the great body of our ratepayers as anti-matrimonial and as thoroughly Malthusian as themselves.