souls if there be a spark of
God's life, this seems the only possible mode of keeping it aglow,--if
every one of them could be drowned to-night, by their best friends,
instead of being put tenderly to bed. This heroic method of treating human
maladies, moral and material, is certainly beyond the scope of man's
discretionary rights, and probably will not be adopted by Divine
Providence until the opportunity of milder reformation shall have been
offered us, again and again, through a series of future ages.

It may be fair to acknowledge that the humane and excellent governor, as
well as other persons better acquainted with the subject than myself, took
a less gloomy view of it, though still so dark a one as to involve scanty
consolation. They remarked that individuals of the male sex, picked up in
the streets and nurtured in the work-house, sometimes succeed tolerably
well in life, because they are taught trades before being turned into the
world, and, by dint of immaculate behavior and good luck, are not unlikely
to get employment and earn a livelihood. The case is different with the
girls. They can only go to service, and are invariably rejected by
families of respectability on account of their origin, and for the better
reason of their unfitness to fill satisfactorily even the meanest
situations in a well-ordered English household. Their resource is to take
service with people only a step or two above the poorest class, with whom
they fare scantily, endure harsh treatment, lead shifting and precarious
lives, and finally drop into the slough of evil, through which, in their
best estate, they do but pick their slimy way on stepping-stones.

From the schools we went to the bakehouse, and the brew-house, (for such
cruelty is not harbored in the heart of a true Englishman as to deny a
pauper his daily allowance of beer,) and through the kitchens, where we
beheld an immense pot over the fire, surging and walloping with some kind
of a savory stew that filled it up to its brim. We also visited a tailor's
shop and a shoemaker's shop, in both of which a number of men, and pale,
diminutive apprentices, were at work, diligently enough, though seemingly
with small heart in the business. Finally, the governor ushered us into a
shed, inside of which was piled up an immense quantity of new coffins.
They were of the plainest description, made of pine boards, probably of
American growth, not very nicely smoothed by the plane, neither pai