gallery near one of the doors, where I
could see all over the house, and make a quick retreat in case of need.

In one point English ladies certainly do carry practical industry
farther than I ever saw it in America. Every body knows that an
anniversary meeting is something of a siege, and I observed many good
ladies below had made regular provision therefor, by bringing knitting
work, sewing, crochet, or embroidery. I thought it was an improvement,
and mean to recommend it when I get home. I am sure many of our Marthas
in America will be very grateful for the custom.

The Earl of Shaftesbury was in the chair, and I saw him now for the
first time. He is quite a tall man, of slender figure, with a long and
narrow face, dark hazel eyes, and very thick, auburn hair. His bearing
was dignified and appropriate to his position. People here are somewhat
amused by the vivacity with which American papers are exhorting Lord
Shaftesbury to look into the factory system, and to explore the
collieries, and in general to take care of the suffering lower classes,
as if he had been doing any thing else for these twenty years past. To
people who know how he has worked against wind and tide, in the face of
opposition and obloquy, and how all the dreadful statistics that they
quote against him were brought out expressly by inquiries set on foot
and prosecuted by him, and how these same statistics have been by him
reiterated in the ears of successive houses of Parliament till all these
abuses have been reformed, as far as the most stringent and minute
legislation can reform, them,--it is quite amusing to hear him exhorted
to consider the situation of the working classes. One reason for this,
perhaps, is that provoking facility in changing names which is incident
to the English peerage. During the time that most of the researches and
speeches on the factory system and collieries were made, the Earl of
Shaftesbury was in the House of Commons, with the title of Lord Ashley,
and it was not till the death of his father that he entered the House of
Peers as Lord Shaftesbury. The contrast which a very staid religious
paper in America has drawn between Lord Ashley and Lord Shaftesbury does
not strike people over here as remarkably apposite.

In the course of the speeches on this occasion, frequent and feeling
allusions were made to the condition of three millions of people in
America who are prevented by legislative enactments from reading for
the