the industrial poor can be placed. A few examples will put the matter in a clear light, and assist any one who may wish to invest for himself or others.

Mr. Joseph Hoard is a clerk receiving 1007. or 1251. per annum. He pays the yearly sum of 97. 12s., or 16s. per month, as he may prefer, from his twenty-fifth to his fifty-fifth year; and he is rewarded for his thirty years' frugality by receiving for the rest of his life, without any further payment, the sum of 467. 108. a year. For a further consideration of 21. 5s. 8d. per annum, from the age of twenty-five to sixty, Mr. Hoard could assure 1007. also, payable at death.

Thomas Husband, a mechanic, earns from 30s. to 358. a week, and though he cannot deduct as much as Mr. Hoard from his yearly expenditure, yet the tables will accommodate him. Perhaps he can manage to save 28. a week. In this case, if he pays it steadily from the age of twenty-five to sixty, it will secure him, as nearly as may be, 18s. a week for the rest of his days. With this income Thomas will be raised above a thousand cares, and many of his neighbours will envy him the comforts he enjoys. Every one will be kind to Thomas, and respect him for his thrifty ways; and thus he will be doubly rewarded for his prudence and forethought. Of course he is not limited to the figures here set down; but he cannot secure more than 501. a year.

The life of females being less precarious than that of men when once their prime is past, they are obliged to pay heavier premiums in order to secure the same advantages. They ought not to complain of this, seeing that the chances of long life are on their side. Let them not be satisfied, however, with living longer on the average than men do; let them remember also that women who enjoy annuities live longest of all. This is a serious and well-attested fact. Nearly half the female paupers in the unions have been servants, and of this latter class a very large number might, if so minded, secure for themselves 251. a year from the age of sixty till death. To accomplish this, however, they must be able to pay down, at the age of thirty, rather more than 421., and must continue to pay 21. 4s. 5d. per annum during thirty years.

Persons who desire to insure their lives or to purchase government annuities would do well to buy-as they may at almost every post-office-the "Plain Rules," printed by Spottiswoode, for their guidance. The tables have met with universal approbation; and periodicals addressed to widely-differing classes of readers-such as the Social Science Review, the Spectator, the Leisure Hour, and the News of the World-unite in recommending them to the industrial

poor. So also, as I am informed, do the clergy in general, whether Catholic or Protestant.

There is one member of society to whom the government-annuity system holds out peculiar attractions,-I mean the governess. Accustomed to have comforts around her, and being often superior in birth and education to those by whom she is employed, she is haunted through life by the dread of that period when her strength will fail, and she will no longer have any adequate means of support. With all her contrivance she can see no prospect of saving capital the interest of which will suffice for her subsistence. She will learn, therefore, with gratitude and hope, that the real effect of the Postoffice Savings-bank, apart from small details, is to give to persons who save for deferred annuities more than five times the interest on the sum they might have had if they had heaped the same savings up in a bank, and six times the income it would purchase if hoarded in a box.

Let us imagine a case. Miss Sarah Slavely is just thirty years of age, and is earning only 401. a year; but as she lives in the country and need not spend much on dress, she can pay into the government savings-bank 91. 78. 6d. a year, and by this means secure to herself an income of 50l. per annum when she reaches her sixtieth year. She knows indeed a tutor and a poor clergyman, each of whom purchase the same pleasant prospect for 71. 28. 8d. a year; but they are men, and she must pay for the privilege of belonging to another sex. But perhaps Miss Slavely has a little money in hand: her aunt has left her 407., and she has saved up 451. This will exactly do. She has only to make a single payment of 85l. 08. 10d. in order to secure her 251. a year for life at the age of sixty. But suppose she will combine the two methods, which is far best: by the payment once for all of 851. Os. 10d., and a yearly payment of 47. 88., she may insure an income of 50l. per annum for her old age. It is not much, it is true, but equal nevertheless to 1000l. at 5 per cent, and far beyond utter poverty. Besides, Heaven helps those who help themselves. Mary Corby, the governess in a tale of Henry Kingsley's, says that when the children are asleep, she sits and sews and thinks, building her Spanish castles. The highest tower in her castle has risen to this,—that in her old age she "should have ten shillings a week left her by some one, and be able to keep a canarybird, and have some old woman as pensioner." The English government has now put it in the power of almost every governess to realise Mary Corby's dream, and that by a thrift of less than two shillings a week.

The principal objection that will be urged to the practical ope

wages.

ration of this scheme lies in the great difficulty labourers have in
saving out of their
"Times are hard," they say: "meat is
at an enormous price; rents are very high; children are growing
of keeping them increases daily." All this can-
up, and the expense
not be denied; yet it is certain that if the man who thus complains
when earning thirty-five shillings a week were compelled to live on
The thing, then,
thirty-three shillings, he would manage to do so.
to be tried is this: he must resolutely suppose the lesser sum to be
the maximum of his earnings, and put away the remainder. He may
find this hard to do at first, but most things become easy by practice;
and when once he feels himself fairly on the road to competence, and
coming nearer to the point every day of his life, he will go on his
way merrily, and drop his qualification shillings in the postmaster's
treasury with an air of triumph.

There are certain persons-few in number comparatively-who
are excluded from the beneficial scheme in question. They consist
of innkeepers or beersellers, butchers, miners, and others whose
occupation is supposed to be dangerous or unhealthy: special tables,
however, to meet their case are now under consideration. But an-
other shortcoming in the system is not likely to be so easily supplied.
The terms it requires are too high to render it of material benefit to
the great body of the agricultural population. The farm-labourer
who earns but ten shillings a week, and has also a large family to
support, could hardly be expected, strive as he might, to amass a
sum sufficient to purchase by a single payment an insurance or a
deferred annuity, or to save even a shilling a week: yet how many
thousands in England are precisely in this condition! Let us hope
that something may be done to suit their case also; and in the
mean time let us joyfully accept a measure so evidently tending to
promote habits of thrift for the present, and honest independence for
the future, and prove our gratitude by making ourselves better
acquainted with the conditions required, and recommending their
adoption to those poorer shopkeepers and higher mechanics and
have any influence.
labourers over whom we may

A few Words about Smoke.

THOSE Who have never had occasion to examine the subject can hardly conceive the amount of ingenuity and industry which has been brought to bear upon the appliance of coal to the purposes of warming and cooking since its introduction to domestic use in this country. The subject has a literature of its own; and men eminent in science and in the learned professions figure in it either as inventors or improvers. Mr. Edwards,* indeed, reminds us that it is a matter not only of domestic but national importance, by citing the alarming remarks made by Sir William Armstrong, at a recent meeting of the British Association, on the probable duration of our coal-fields; and though we believe that more recent researches have tended to mitigate, if not altogether to dissipate, the apprehensions which those remarks have occasioned, we are all interested to know, not only how long our coal will last, but how to economise and make the best use of it while it remains to us; and if meteorologists are right in predicting that we are about to enter upon a winter which will compensate by its severity for the extraordinary warmth of the past summer, the subject appears not to be unseasonable.

The preliminary question to be decided is, whether we are to continue, as at present, to warm our rooms by open fireplaces, or by stoves and pipes conveying hot air, or hot water, through the several apartments of a house. Count Rumford and Dr. Arnott, the two chief authorities on the subject, recommend the latter mode as being absolutely preferable, and pronounce against open fires as an insular prejudice. It must be admitted that the fire-grate can never become the most perfect contrivance for warming our apartments; for heat always diminishes so rapidly with the increase of distance, that it is impossible it should give that equality of temperature which can be gained by the use of hot-water pipes, by which hot air is supplied to a room at various points. Nevertheless the open fire possesses advantages which are peculiar to itself. Suited to our climate, and

Our Domestic Fireplaces: a treatise on the economical use of Fuel and the prevention of Smoke; with observations on the Patent Laws. By Frederick Edwards, jun. London, 1865.

A Treatise on Smoky Chimneys, their Cure and Prevention. By Frederick Edwards, jun. London, 1865.

VOL. III.

QQ

ingrained by prescription in our national habits and tastes, it can be stimulated in a few minutes to give additional heat when needed. When we are chilled by exposure to the outer air or a cold room, we all know the satisfaction and bodily comfort we derive from proximity to a fire; nor can we disregard the question of cheerfulness in a country identified with gloomy skies, fogs, and easterly winds. Mr. Edwards considers the question settled in favour of the English fireplace by the unanimous consent of our people, and professing his own attachment to it, hopes it may never be banished from our homes.

This question being disposed of, the next point is to construct our fireplaces in such form and of such materials as to enable us, with the greatest economy of fuel, to throw the largest amount of radiant heat into the apartments they are intended to warm. In this respect little or no improvement has been made since the time of Count Rumford; an Englishman who, in the end of the last century, brought the common fireplace to perfection, and by his writings endeavoured to secure the universal adoption of his improvements. In this lastnamed attempt, however, he only partially succeeded; and one of the principal objects which Mr. Edwards has in view in his present publications is to bring these improvements again before the public, and induce us to reject the common fireplaces, constructed upon the most noxious principles, which the wholesale manufacturers supply to the trade from their emporiums in Thames Street. The householder generally leaves the selection and arrangement of his fireplaces to the builder; a cast-iron grate, with all its appurtenances of the same material, saves the builder all trouble in setting it up; and the wholesale manufacturer merely looks to "supplying the demand," without reference to the perfection of the article produced-hinc illæ lacrymæ.

Mr. Edwards gives us a full account of the simple but scientific principles upon which Count Rumford constructed his fireplaces; and the whole of his work is illustrated by plates, taken from the specifications deposited in the Patent Office, giving us the clearest insight into the peculiarities of the different fireplaces recommended. We may say generally that a fireplace should be made with as little metal in its composition as is possible: the fire-bars and bottom of the grate cannot well be made of any thing else; but as the object of a fireplace is to reflect heat, and the property of metal to absorb it, no quantity of metal can be brought in contact with the fire without a proportionate loss of radiant heat to the chamber it is intended to warm. The best material that can be used for the purpose is firestone or common brick. The grate should project as much as pos