JOHN HOWARD, the philanthropist, was born at Enfield or Hackney, London. His father was an upholsterer and carpet warehouseman, but had retired from active business. The boy Howard was a quiet, original kind of lad, endowed with a weak constitution, "not bright, not vigorous, not ambitious" He was brought up in the country, near Woburn in Bedfordshire, learned a little Latin, and something of natural philosophy and medicine, but devoted most of his efforts towards acquiring a knowledge of the modern languages. At sixteen he was apprenticed to a grocer in Loudon, but the employment was distasteful to him, and his father dying soon after, he bought up his indentures, and set out to make the tour of France and Italy.

After an absence of two years, he returned, "speaking French like a

native." He began studying medicine and meteorology, and lodged at Stoke Newington with an invalid lady, who, when he fell ill, so carefully nursed him, that on his recovery he married her, "believing that no other return for her motherly conduct was sufficient." After her death, in 1755, Howard set out to visit Lisbon, believing he could alleviate the misery resulting from the recent earthquake at that place. The frigate in which he had taken a berth was captured by the French, and he was detained, together with others, as prisoner of war. "Howard's heart almost broke with indignation at the treatment of his gallant and unhappy countrymen;" and on his release he hastened to lay the affair before the Government, and was instrumental in getting an immediate exchange of prisoners.

He continued his scientific pursuits; was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1756, and contributed three papers. Two years later he married again, and settled at Cardington, near Bedford, where he found a large field for his philanthropic labours. He built model cottages for his labourers, and established free schools; and, at the end of ten years' labour, the unwholesome, wretched village had become pretty, clean, and prosperous. His wife died in 1765, and he went abroad again; visiting Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. Coming home in 1773, he was elected to the office of Sheriff of Bedford. As soon as he entered on his duties, already aware that abuses existed, he commenced making searching inquiries into the English prison system, and found things everywhere so badly managed, that his "humane heart was astonished, his sense of right violated." He extended his investigations to neighbouring counties, and gradually all over Britain. "He discovered so many abuses in the management, which imagination had never conceived, and so much suffering, of which the general public knew nothing, and of which the law took no account, that he determined to devote to the examination of these wrongs, and the reform of these abuses, whatever time and money might be needful. The task cost him a fortune and the remaining years of his life."

His inquiries began to attract attention. He laid before the House of Commons a brief survey of the prison system, and being unsuccessful in obtaining a seat in Parliament, went abroad in 1775, gathering statistics in relation to the prisons of France, Austria, and the Netherlands. After returning to London, he published "The State of Prisons in England and Wales," which created a great sensation; the public interest was aroused; something must be done for reform. Howard was at hand: his information was placed at the service of the House of Commons, and, later, a bill was passed for building two penitentiaries in accordance with his plans. Howard had a new and valuable idea. Hitherto criminals had sat with folded hands; now they should be made to labour. Prison labour dates from Howard. Once more the inde

fatigable philanthropist went abroad, to glean additional information on the subject; this time visiting Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Poland, Spain, and Portugal.

He was now fifty-seven years old, and had travelled in his mission about 40,000 miles. In the spring of 1784 he retired to his estates at Cardington, and lived quietly and simply for about two years, occupied with private schemes of benevolence, and study. At the end of 1785 he determined to undertake a new mission of philanthropy, and study the causes and cure of the plague. He wished to begin by inspecting the lazarettos of Marseilles, but the French Government, annoyed at his revelations in regard to the Bastille, refused him a passport through France. By the help of a clever disguise, however, he accomplished his object, and visited all the principal lazarettos along the shores of the Mediterranean, and passed on to Turkey; visited Constantinople, and arrived at Smyrna during the plague, and was afforded an excellent opportunity of studying it.

At the end of twelve months his documents were quite complete, anl he ready to return home, when he was seized with the idea that his knowledge would be of more value if it were the result of experience, instead of being acquired from others; and he determined to witness and study for himself the confinement in the famous lazaretto of Venice. Deliberately searching out at Smyrna a foul ship, he secured a berth, and sailed for Venice. On the sixtieth day of the voyage he arrived, and was transferred to the lazaretto, where his health suffered severely, but he was buoyed up by the thought of the precious information he was gaining for others. He reached England, in February, 1787, and took advantage of his leisure to revisit all the prisons of the three kingdoms, which he found much improved. This year he also published "The Lazarettos of Europe;" and in a postscript he informed the public of his intention to study the subject yet more. "To my country," he said, "I commit the result of my past labours. It is my intention again to quit it for the purpose of revisiting Russia, Turkey, and some other countries, and extending my tour into the East. I am not insensible of the dangers that must attend such a journey. Should it please God to cut off my life in the prosecution of this design, let not my conduct be imputed to rashness or enthusiasm, but to the serious conviction that I am pursuing the path of duty."

Starting from London, he went to Riga, then visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, intending to go through Vienna to Constantinople; but the war between Russia and Turkey prevented him: and in visiting the different centres of the war the question of the plague was even laid aside. Journeying down to the coasts of the Black Sea, he had reached Kherson, at the mouth of the Dnieper, when he caught the camp-fever, and died in June, 1790. He was buried on the road to St. Nicolas,

a short distance from Kherson, and a monument has been erected to him in St. Paul's Cathedral.

THE extraordinary individual to whom we are indebted for the great and signal invention of the Spinning Frame was a native of Preston in Lancashire. He was the youngest of thirteen children, and was bred to the trade of a barber. But the res angusta domi could not repress the native vigour of his mind, or extinguish the desire he felt to emerge from his low situation.

In 1760 he established himself at Bolton-le-Moors, and having become possessed of a chemical process for dyeing human hair, which in that day, when wigs were universal, was of considerable value, he travelled about collecting hair, and disposing of it again when dyed. It is unfortunate that very little is known of the steps by which he was led to those inventions that raised him to affluence, and have immortalized his I i