evertheless, when I left the shores of England, and saw thick autumnal fog enveloping them, it was with a sorrowful feeling for the OLD world; and with an inquiring glance of longing and hope, I turned myself to the NEW.
Two years passed on—a sun-bright, glowing dream, full of the vigor of life!—it was again autumn, and I was again in England. Autumn met me there with cold, and rain, and tempest, with the most horrible weather that can be imagined, and such as I had never seen on the other side of the globe. But in social life, every where throughout the mental atmosphere, a different spirit prevailed. There, I perceived with astonishment and joy, there it was that of spring.
Free-trade had borne fruit, and under its banners manufacture and trade had shot forth into new life; the price of all kinds of grain had fallen, bread had become cheap. This tree of liberty, planted by Cobden and Peel, had, with a strong and vigorous vitality, penetrated, as it were, the life of the English people, and I heard on every hand the soughing of its leaves in the free wind. The Crystal Palace was its full-blown, magnificent blossom—and like swarms of rejoicing bees flew the human throng upon the wings of steam, backward and forward, to the great world's blossom; there all the nations met together, there all manufactures, there all industry, and every kind of product unfolded their flowers for the observation and the joy of all ... a Cactus grandiflora, such as the world had never till then seen.
I perceived more clearly every day of my stay in England, that this period is one of a general awakening to a new, fresh life. In the manufacturing districts, in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, every where I heard the same conversation among all classes; prosperity was universal and still advancing. That pale countenance of want, which had on my first visit appeared to me so appalling, I now no longer saw as formerly; and even where it was seen stealing along, like a gloomy shadow near to the tables of abundance, it appeared to me no longer as a cloud filled with the breath of cholera, darkening the face of heaven, but rather as one of those clouds over which the wind and sun have power, and which are swallowed up, which vanish in space, in the bright ether....
THE RAGGED SCHOOLS.
In Liverpool I visited the so-called Ragged Schools—the schools where are collected from the streets vagabond, neglected, and begging children, who are here taught to read and so on—who here receive the first rudiments of instruction, even in singing. These schools are, some of them evening, others day schools, and in some of them, "the Industrial Ragged Schools," children are kept there altogether; receive food and clothing, and are taught trades. When the schools of this class were first established in Liverpool, the number of children who otherwise had no chance of receiving instruction, amounted to about twenty thousand. Right-minded, thinking men saw that in these children were growing up in the streets, those "dangerous classes," of which so much has been said of late times; these men met together, obtained means to cover the most necessary outlay of expense, and then, according to the eloquent words of Lord Ashley, that "it is in childhood that evil habits are formed and take root; it is childhood which must be guarded from temptation to crime;" they opened these ragged schools with the design of receiving the most friendless, the most wretched of society's young generation—properly, "the children of rags, born in beggary, and for beggary."
I visited the Industrial Ragged School for boys, intended for the lowest grade of these little children, without parents, or abandoned by them to the influences of crime. There I saw the first class sitting in their rags, upon benches in a cold room, arranging, with their little frost-bitten fingers, bristles for the brush-maker. The faces of the boys were clean; many of them I remarked were handsome, and almost universally they had beautiful and bright eyes. Those little fingers moved with extraordinary rapidity; the boys were evidently wishful to do their best; they knew that they by that means should obtain better clothing, and would be removed to the upper room, and more amusing employment. I observed these "dangerous classes"—just gathered up from the lanes, and the kennels, on their way to destruction; and was astonished when I thought that their countenances might have borne the stamp of crime. Bright glances of childhood, for that were you never designed by the Creator! "Suffer little children to come unto me." These words, from the lips of heaven, are forever sounding to earth.
In the upper room a great number of boys were busy pasting paper-bags for various trades, confectioners, etc., who make use of such in the rapid sale of their wares; here, also, other boys were employed in printing upon the bags the names and residences of the various tradesmen who had ordered them. The work progressed rapidly, and seemed very amusing to the children. The establishment for their residence, and their beds, were poor; but all was neat and clean, the air was fresh, and the children were cheerful. The institution was, however, but yet in its infancy, and its means were small.
Half-a-dozen women, in wretched clothes, sate in the entrance-room with their boys, for whom they hoped to gain admittance into the school, and were now, therefore, waiting till the directors of the establishment made their appearance.