the manufacture of metal wares are stunted, and frequently deformed. At the latter place the constable says there are examples without number of deformed men and boys, hump-backed, and knock-kneed. At Warrington a private of the 12th Lancers, recruiting for service, could not enlist a single man of sufficient height, although many offered. The children of Warrington are poorly fed and clothed, and work in ill ventilated and crowded rooms. They are, therefore, stunted.

In Bucks, and some of the neighbouring counties, numbers of young children are kept during the day in small, crowded, ill-ventilated cottages, stooping over their lace pillows. Some girls wear a strong wooden busk to prevent the stooping, which only adds indigestion to the most common and mortal disease of their occupation, namely, consumption. With the single exception of the Sheffield dry-grinder, no employment entails so fearful a catalogue of distressing and frequently fatal maladies, as that of milliners and dress-makers.

The MENTAL CONDITION of a large proportion of these children and young persons can, alas! be stated in a few words. At Bilston, with a population of 20,000, there are only four day-schools. In South Staffordshire generally, there is no provision for a quarter of the uneducated youth. The constant return from the Derbyshire coal-mines is, "no school, no reading room, nor anything of the sort connected with these coal-works." Out of 219 children and young persons examined at the bottom of one of the coal-pits near Halifax, only thirtyone could read an easy book, and not more than fifteen could write their names. Oldham and its vicinity contains upwards of 100,000 inhabitants; yet it has only one public day-school for the labouring classes, except an infant-school. The Report goes on to say, that in North Lancashire the intellects of the young colliers are as little enlightened as their places of work-"darkness reigns throughout."

Numbers. Children were found ignorant of the lowest calculations. "I cannot tell how many days in the year. I cannot tell how many weeks in a year," answered a boy at Durham. There are grown up men in Lancashire who cannot reckon the wages they receive. One young person, seventeen years old, working at Wolverhampton, did not know how many two and two made, nor how many farthings there were in two-pence, even when the money was placed in his hand. Another lad, at the same place, could not tell how many twice two made; nor how much money four farthings made; another, aged seventeen, said that seventeen farthings made ten-pence half-penny; another, aged sixteen, being asked how many ounces were in a pound, said “he was no judge o' nothing."

Places. Few children in the county of Durham, who worked in the mines, had ever heard of such places as Birmingham, or Manchester, or Liverpool, and as few in Staffordshire had ever heard of Durham, or Newcastle. One child had never heard of France, or Scotland, or Ireland, nor did he know what America was. Another, a Lancashire boy, eleven years old, had never heard of London. A Wolverhampton boy, also, had never heard of London, nor of Willenhall, which is only three miles distant from, and in constant communication with, Wolverhampton.

Persons. James Taylor, in Lancashire, "had heard of the Queen, but dunnot know who he is." Other children had never heard the name of Her Majesty, nor of Wellington, Nelson, Buonaparte, &c. It is to be especially remarked that, among all those who had never heard of such names as St. Paul, Moses, or Solomon, there was a general knowledge of the characters and course of life of certain infamous highwaymen.

Christianity. The foregoing facts will have prepared you for an equal ignorance upon sacred subjects. The majority of the collier children in Yorkshire are in a state of heathenism. They exhibit a picture of moral

and mental darkness, which must excite grief in every Christian mind. A boy in Lancashire said that he had never heard of Jesus Christ. He confessed, indeed, that he had heard of God, but only from the desecration of His name. Three girls, all employed in the pits, of the ages of sixteen, fifteen, and eleven, declared that they had no knowledge even of the existence of a Saviour. A girl of eighteen years of age, in Yorkshire, said, "I never learnt nought. I never go to church or chapel. I never heard that a good man came into the world, who was God's Son, to save sinners. I never heard of Christ at all. Nobody has ever told me about Him; nor have my father and mother ever taught me to pray. I know no prayer. I never pray. I have been taught nothing about such things."

The MORAL CONDITION of childhood is, almost in every instance, the consequence of the relations that surround it. The earliest of these is,

Parents. The ease with which parents are now enabled to rid themselves of the burden of their children's support, by drafting them into mines, and manufactures, weakens all parental and domestic ties, and puts a stop to progress in moral habits. There are hundreds of men in Birmingham who are supported in idleness by the earnings of their wives and children. This reversal of the laws of nature, decides the moral degradation of the offspring. Filial affection is soon worn out. Brothers and sisters are separated at an early age,―go to different kinds of work, and soon lose all mutual interest, if any had existed. Instead of pious and intelligent parents to watch over their dawning faculties, and to preserve them, soul and body, from the contamination of the world, they have,

Companions, and what companions? The most dissolute, the most depraved, awfully ignorant, and scarcely retaining the mental and moral attributes of man. "These tend to destroy all delicacy, love of truth, in fact, the whole circle of moral virtues, by poisoning every principle in the bud,-supposing the poor child to have ever had one seed previously sown in its breast which had found time to take root sufficiently to put forth a bud." What kind of subjects is such a community likely to become to the

Insubordination to

Vice

Government of the country? parental authority leads to insubordination to all authority. The morals of the collier children in Durham and Northumberland, "are bad, their education worse, their intellect very much debased, and their carelessness,' irreligion, and immorality" are frightful. The ministers of religion declare that the country will be "inevitably ruined unless some steps are taken for securing a full education to the children of the working classes." is contagious, and crimes of no ordinary description have been planned by the neglected population of the mines." The outbreaks, which have occurred in recent times, are the natural consequences of the possession, by childhood, of liberty unrestrained by friend, or parent, at an age when few are capable of self-government; and, also, of the utter absence of external means of education. cated, in truth, they are; but it is by bad companions to crime and violence.

Edu

Religious institutions. In Cumberland not more than one fifth of the collier families attend public worship regularly.

A great number of children employed in labour attend no school at all, nor any place of worship. One child complained " he never went to school, feel t' want of that; it is a sad letting down to a man.' The excessive physical fatigue of the week-days makes any mental or religious instruction irksome to the children. “I go,”. says one, "to Sunday-school sometimes when I am driven." "I do not go to church or chapel," says another, adding "we are worked too hard for that."

The mining children are, therefore, necessarily growing up in a state of absolute and appalling ignorance.

An act of worship is nearly as strange to them as to a Hottentot unenlightened by Christianity. Respecting the state of manufacturing children in the neighbourhood of Wolverhampton, it is observed that a lower condition of morals could not be found; "moral feelings and sentiments do not exist among them. They have no morals."

These are the prominent evils which the Report contains. As there are physical, and mental, and moral evils, so must there be physical, and mental, and moral remedies. Infant slavery will be abolished: the daily labour of childhood must be shortened, and each be taught the duties which he owes to himself, to his fellow creatures, and his God.

In conclusion, I would observe that many of the evils above described, may be beyond yours or my own observation and control; but this by no means rids us of the responsibility of reflecting upon their causes. The remedies of social evils and the removal of their causes include a knowledge of the FIRST PRINCIPLES of science and of Christian action. These principles are as applicable to the improvement of ourselves, our children, and the fellow creatures who more immediately surround us, as of the neglected orphans of a colliery, or the natives of uncivilized lands, For, being every one of us created after the same pattern, our bodily organs are, when placed under the same conditions, reduced to similar diseases; our minds, but for instruction, are alike dark with ignorance and error: above all, our moral or spiritual characters are equally defaced by selfishness towards others, and indulgence to ourselves, unless we are animated with a generous spirit of good will and peace, which is the spirit of our holy religion.

Hence it follows that we cannot sincerely set about to raise the health, intelligence, and piety of those around us, without at the same time increasing the health, intelligence, and piety of ourselves and homes. The purity of air which we insure by ventilation and drainage, is a benefit to our neighbour; the intelligence which

works out this and numerous other domestic duties, will likewise enable him to become a centre of health and usefulness to ourselves; the heart of love which extends these blessings to the poorest, not only multiplies the amount of human happiness, but disarms the violent, and adds strength to our national affection. The seeds of love will bear the fruits of peace. Loving man, we no longer need to fear him. Caring for him whom we have seen, will also prepare the soul for regarding in a fitter spirit his invisible Creator. Heaven would then surround us not only in our infancy, but through manhood, onwards. Our religion would consist of actions-in a cheerful going about to do good. Dissentions about words would cease.

That you may have a hand, and not a hand only, out a head and heart also, in this good work, and may live to enjoy the fruits of an intelligent affection, is the prayer of your sincere friend, F.

QUEEN ELEANOR'S CROSSES.
V.

THE cross representea on the following page is now no longer in existence; but as engravings of it remain to the present day we have thought it right to give our readers an opportunity of marking the features of this last of the memorials, which, according to the order of the funeral progress, were raised by Edward I., in remembrance of his beloved queen, Eleanor of Castile. It was originally a beautiful piece of workmanship; but suffered much by repairs and alterations. The notice of this structure which we find in Srowe's Survey of

London is as follows:

Charing Cross builded of stone, was of old time a faire piece of work, there made by command of Edward I., in the 21st year of his reign, in memory of Eleanor, his deceased

queene.

The same writer tells us that the cross stood in the centre of the three streets, having on the west St. James's Hospital, now occupied by St. James's palace and park; on the south, on the right hand, the Tilt-yard, and on the left hand a space, now called Scotland yard, formerly occupied by buildings for the receipt of the kings of Scotland and other estates of that country.

The situation occupied by this cross was in fact the same as that in which the statue of Charles I. now stands, and was perhaps one of the best which could have been chosen for a public memorial of this kind. This tribute to the faithful Eleanora was not, however, suffered to remain. In the civil wars of the reign of Charles I. it was destroyed by the frantic populace, as a remnant of superstition too leniently spared by time.

With respect to the term Charing Cross, we have some interesting remarks to show that it is probably no more than a corruption of the term chère reine which Edward, as we have already stated, was accustomed to bestow on his beloved Eleanora. These remarks are taken from STRICKLAND'S Lives of the Queens of England.

Of all the crosses raised to the memory of Eleanora of Castile, by her sorrowing widower, that of Charing is the most frequently named by the inhabitants of the metropolis, although the structure itself has vanished from the face of the earth. Yet every time Charing Cross is mentioned, a tribute is paid unconsciously to the virtues of Edward the First's beloved queen, for the appellation is derived from the king's own lips, who always spoke of her in his French dialect as the chère reine. Thus the words Charing Cross signify the "dear queen's cross," an object which was always seen by the royal widower in his egress and regress from his palace of Westminster. This anecdote is corroborated by Edward's personal habits, who certainly, like his ancestors, spoke French in his familiar intercourse. Our sovereigns had not yet adopted English as their mother tongue. Athough Edward and his father spoke English readily yet their conversation in domestic life was chiefly

carried on in French.

The exact place at which Queen Eleanora died has been questioned. It is generally supposed that the sad event took place in Lincolnshire; but the village expressly mentioned by Walsingham is not in that county, though nearly verging on it. Herdeby is situated in the parish of North Clifton on the Trent, in Nottinghamshire, five miles from Lincoln. The king is said to have founded a chantry in Herdeby chapel, which was afterwards removed by his son to Lincoln cathedral. Gough says, with respect to this chantry :

The payment of ten marks is to this day made by the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral to the curate of Herdeby chapel.

A monument witn the queen's effigy at full length, of gilded brass, anciently formed the memorial of Queen Eleanora at Lincoln. This monument shared the fate of many others in the civil wars, but a fragment of the chapel in which it stood, is still remaining at the east end of the choir.

Shortly after the death of Queen Eleanora of Castile, died also her mother-in-law, Eleanor of Provence, the widow of Henry III. She died at Ambresbury, where she had lived a nun fifteen years. Her son being at that time in Scotland, her corpse was embalmed and remained long unburied. On his return the funeral took place with great pomp in Ambresbury monastery

church.

Her heart was deposited in the church of the Friars Minors, London. The memory of this queen is not free from blemish; and the common people have sometimes confused the accounts of the two queens, so of the actions of her mother-in-law. Perhaps there is as to ascribe to the virtuous and excellent Eleanora some scarcely a more eminent instance of a queen, who, living in troublesome times, and appearing so prominent as Eleanora did, owing to the share she took in her

husband's perils, has not only escaped every shadow of just reproach, but whose qualities have won for her such universal admiration and esteem among the historians of her reign. The mistaken ideas of the populace may be traced in a ballad called " A Warning against Pride, being the Fall of Queen Eleanora, wife of Edward I., of England, who for her pride sank into the earth at Queenhithe and rose again at Charing Cross, after killing the Lady Mayoress." This absurd story is founded on a quarrel between Eleanor of Provence and the City of London respecting Queenhithe.

Of the numerous family born to Edward I. and Queen Eleanora of Castile, two only reached middle life, and these were the unfortunate Edward II. and the nunprincess Mary.

In concluding our account of Queen Eleanor's Crosses we may append some remarks from ancient authorities on the sites formerly occupied by some of these interesting structures. We mentioned the doubt as to whether Stamford should be admitted in the number of towns honoured by such a memorial. This doubt seems removed by the following extract from Butcher's account of the town, printed in 1646:

Not far from High Dike, on the north side of the town of Stamford, near unto York highway, and about twelve score from the town gate, called Clement gate, stands an ancient cross of freestone, of a very curious fabric, having many scutcheons insculped in the stone about it, as the arms of Castile and Leon quartered, being the paternal coat of the King of Spain, and divers other hatchments belonging to

wife.

that crown, which envious Time hath so defaced that only the ruins appear to my eye, and therefore are not to be described by my pen. This cross was called Queen's Cross, and erected by King Edward I. in memory of Eleanor his Also among the Harleian MSS. there is a memorandum in the pocket-book of a Mr. R. Symonds, who visited Stamford, county Lincoln, Aug. 23, 1645, of a large lofty cross standing on the hill "before ye come into the toune," with carved shields of England, Ponthieu, Castile and Leon.

Respecting the cross at Stoney Stratford, Dr. Stukely says that it stood "a little north of the Horse-shoe inn, pulled down in the rebellion." The same author adds that at Dunstaple in the centre of the four streets, intersecting at right angles, stood one of those beautiful the town of St. Albans stood one of Queen Eleanor's crosses of Queen Eleanor. Also, that in the heart of crosses, which the inhabitants entirely demolished; "not considering that such kind of antiquities invite many

curious travellers to come thither."

nearly resembled the rest of the crosses, but "being by According to Stowe "the great cross in West Cheape" length of time decaied, John Hatherly, maior of London, procured in the year 1441 licence of King Henry VI. to honour of the citie." But this re-edification was carried re-edefie the same, in more beautiful manner, for the on with so little respect to the original intention, that the statues of the queen were converted into saints, and the whole edifice became illustrative of their history.

THE province in which the extensive city of Turin is situated, and which bears the same name, forms part of the kingdom of Sardinia, in the ancient division of Piedmont. The soil throughout the province is of high fertility, and the country is diversified by high mountains, gentle hills and valleys, and occasionally extensive plains. The north-western division, which is the most mountainous, has some extensive woods, and contains many mines of iron and of vitriol, and quarries of marble and limestone. Good pasturage, and abundant crops of wheat, barley, maize, and beans are prevalent throughout the country. The vineyards yield much wine, and the mulberry-trees feed vast quantities of

silkworms.

Turin is the capital city not only of that province but of the whole kingdom. It is the residence of the monarch, the seat of the central boards of government, and the see of an archbishop. The regularity of its plan, the multiplicity of its public buildings, and the elaborate style of architecture which distinguishes the greater part of them, gives this city the precedence of most of the cities of Europe. Its situation at the confluence of the rivers Doria and Po is an admirable one, and its natural advantages have been diligently seconded by art. Our view represents the left bank of the Po, at a short distance from the bridge. The edifice occupying the heights is the Capuchin Monastery; that to the left is the new marble church, which is built in the form of a rotunda, like the Pantheon. The Villa della Regina, VOL. XXII.

the suburb, and a few villas scattered along the declivity, also enliven this view of Turin. The bridge, or Ponto del Po, is an elegant specimen of art, built entirely of granite and marble, and combining "the very difficult qualities of a light and airy span, with perfect solidity of structure." The river Po becomes navigable considerably above Turin, and in a course of three hundred miles receives the waters of thirty rivers, washes the walls of fifty cities and towns, and communicates fertility and riches to the extensive district known as the Valley of the Po.

The objects which principally attract the attention of the stranger on entering this celebrated city, are thus alluded to by Mr. Gilly:

The city is much more imposing at first entrance than either Paris or Lyons, from the breadth and cleanliness of the streets, and the uniformity of the houses. There was told us we were in a new region, and added to the genesomething also in the appearance of the population which ral effect; but the most striking objects were priests and soldiers, both of whom swarm in Turin. The dress and figures of the Piedmontese officers were equally handsome; and the long flowing cassocks and cloaks, the large flapped hats, and confident air of the priests, told that they are by no means the despised and neglected order that they are in France. Once only, on my journey through France, did I see any mark of respect paid to the clergy, and that was at Lyons, where an aged priest, not in the full garb of his profession, passed a boy, whe bowed to him, and the visible delight of the old man sufficiently proved that the attention was neither new nor expected. At Moulins we happened to

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