their number. How, then, is their condition to
be mended? The only way, it appears to me, is to fit them for entering
into competition with others above them in the social scale by means
of instruction, which shall enable them to give a greater value to the
services which they render, and thus entitle them to command a greater
value of services in return. We need entertain no fear lest, by this
letting in competition upon the class above them, we shall lower these
latter in the scale of society. So long as the capital in the country
shall continue to increase in a greater proportion than its
population, there must always be found additional employment and
better remuneration for those whose labour is capable of adding to the
national wealth. It may with more truth be stated, that the
consequence to the community of the existence of any large number of
destitute persons, is to keep down the general rate of wages,
positively, through the absorption of capital required for their
relief, and, negatively, through the absence of those additions to
capital which the surplus services of instructed artisans always
occasion.--_G. R. Porter's Lecture at Wandsworth, entitled 'Services
for Services.' London: Clowes._ 1851.

A WEE BIT NAME.

SHEPHERD _loquitur_.--An' a wee bit name--canna it carry a weight o'
love?--_Noctes Ambrosianae_, No. lxxii.

A wee bit name! O wae's the heart
When nought but _that_ is left,
But doubly dear it comes to be
When time a' else hath reft,
An' youth, an' hope, an' innocence,
An' happiness, an' hame,
Are a' concentred in a word,
That word--a wee bit name.

Back through the weary waste o' years
My memory is borne,
An' gurglin' streams, an' thickets green,
An' fields o' yellow corn:
An' lanely glens, an' sunny hills
Upon my spirit gleam,
The phantoms o' the past before
That spell--a wee bit name.

O vision sweet! a fair, fair face,
A young, but thochtfu' brow,
Twa gentle een o' azure sheen,
Are beamin' on me noo.
Be still, my beatin' heart--be still;
It's but an idle dream:
She heeds na though wi' tremblin' joy
I breathe a wee bit name.

A wee bit name! O lives there ane
That never, never felt
Its pathos an' its wizard power
To saften and to melt?
No--callous though the bosom be
Wi' years o' sin an' shame,
'Twill melt like