ralized and reckless husbands; and have intimated that the girls are ignorant as the boys. But the case is worse, for we thus read.

That the education of the girls is even more neglected than that of the boys; that the vast majority of females are utterly ignorant; that it is impossible to overstate the evils which result from this deplorable ignorance. The medical practitioners of Birmingham forcibly point out the misery which ensues from the neglected condition of the women-improvidence, absence of all comfort, abandonment of children, alienation of all affection in families, and drunkenness on the part of the husband,

Here is another frightful testimony.

The women of some of the manufacturing districts are becoming similar to the female followers of an army. Wearing the garb of women, but actuated by the worst passions of men, in every riot or outbreak the women are the leaders and exciters of the young men to violence. The language they indulge in is of the most horrid description; in short, while they are demoralized themselves, they demoralize all that come within their reach. It has been said that Englishmen would never exhibit one-hundredth part of the ferocity displayed by the French in 1780) and during the reign of terror, even if a similar crisis should occur, but it was difficult to say what the contagion of such examples and language would effect.

We might greatly swell the list of testimonies borne to the alarming facts already stated, and add many corroborations from the Report. We might also proceed to notice the suggestions offered by the Commissioners for stemming the tide of ignorance, demoralization, and misery, which they have disclosed; and then proceed to speculate and to doubt with regard to the probable efficacy of their proposed measures of amelioration, as well as to express an alarm about the evils and sufferings laid bare,-despairing of cure, fearful that a remedy is beyond the ingenuity and power of legislation, and predicting that in the progress of a mighty social and industrial development, the nation is fast hurrying to disorganization and deep degradation. But at present we abstain from all conjecture and disquisition of the sort. Our last extract gives the substance of the views entertained by the commissioners relative to what may be expected from an improved education of the women, and a higher regard to her appropriate occupations.

The girls are prevented by their early removal from home, and from the day-schools, to be employed in labour, from learning needlework, and from acquiring those habits of cleanliness, neatness, and order, without which they cannot, when they grow up to womanhood, and have the charge of families of their own, economise their husbands' earnings, or give their homes any degree of comfort; and this general want of the qualifications of a housewife in the women of this class, is stated by clergymen, teachers, medical men, employers, and other witnesses, to be one great and universally prevailing cause of distress and crime among the working classes.

But supposing that female toil away from the domestic hearth could be dispensed with; that home-abiding tidiness and thrift were more than to meet the earnings that follow such operations as filing iron, steel, or brass, continued day after day, from morning till late at eve; and supposing that there were time and means at command for the necessary acquisitions contemplated by the Commissioners, how long would it be ere the education could be made to bear upon the rising generation, and how much longer ere there could be observed those practical fruits that would sensibly prove a moral revolution was taking place in the frame of the large masses of society where such virulent leprosy prevails as the Report describes! True, the sooner that a movement is made in the right direction the better, the sooner that the legislature is fortunate enough to provide a suitable and efficacious remedy, the earlier must the hands of good men be strengthened, and the more confident the alacrity of each for the labour of love that is required in his immediate sphere. But in the mean while, can one look with less than dismay at the disclosures made by the Commissioners? Is it possible to predict otherwise than so as to sound an alarm, and to pass from one to another the prophecy, that unless the mischiefs in the social and industrial system which prevail, and have long been growing more and more noisome in many of the northern districts, be speedily checked, the most direful results may be anticipated; for otherwise corruption will inevitably spread, so that the honour and safety of this vast empire is brought into direct jeopardy. Such a retribution indeed ensues in the history of nations, by an awful permission of Providence, upon the long unheeded degradation of man.

What stronger evidence can there be adduced to the observant and reflecting traveller, that this degradation has already taken expansive ground and sunk deep, than what he descries in the manufacturing districts? There, on a calm, close, and earnest survey, he cannot but be struck, as some one has years ago declared, by the appearance of misery and filth; by the total neglect of the person and the household; by stunted forms, sallow complexions, sickly and mishapen children, and youth bowed down by the infirmities of age. Is it not terrible to think that in the best season of youthfulness and natural health, multitudes of our fellow-subjects are dejected and suffering, and that instead of beauty and fresh vigour, there is deformity and weakness? Alas! the years for learning and recreation are consumed in bodily toil; and there are tens of thousands who endure a daily torture without that share of parental affection that would in some degree sooth and alleviate in spite of the deepest wrongs.

Multitudes of our race in the heart of England are sunk to the condition of animals of the lowest order, so that they look no higher than to unceasing labour and disgusting sensuality. Thousands of them live apart from the rest of the world, intermarrying, and having

habits, manners, and almost a language peculiar to themselves; but what is dreariest and darkest of all, living in as great a neglect of their duty to God and of religious obligations, as they are reckless of domestic economy, or ignorant even of the way in which to train up their little ones.

Can such a sore in our social system be longer winked at, or allowed to foster, spread, and take deeper rooting with impunity? But not to indulge in gloom further, or utterly to despair, let us, in conclusion, hail those rays of hope, arising even from the Report of the Commissioners, were it merely that the document has made manifest where the sorest of diseases, in-respect both of time and eternity, of contentment, peace, and decency here, as well as of felicity and joy hereafter, resides; for thereby the public pulse and the best minds will be quickened to meditate and achieve a cure. Let no one lull his generous impulses or restrain his natural emotions, by flattering himself, by reposing on some vague complacency about England's greatness and goodness, or by imagining that the hideous picture is overcharged with mock figures or by means of artificial shades. The story told is no fiction, but a stern, frowning, and unabashed truth. The representation has not been got up by any skilful trick of art. The whole, indeed, bears the stamp of unquestionable veracity, buttressed by the surest guarantees that public and official responsibility, or personal honour, can offer. But we repeat that hope may fix its anchor on this Report.

ART. XI.

1. A Theory of the Structure of the Sidereal Heavens. Part First. W. WOOD.

2. A Celestial Atlas. By J. MIDDLETON. Messrs. Jarrolds, Norwich.

"A THEORY of the Structure of the Sidereal Heavens, including an Explanation of the Phenomena of the Via Lactea and Nebulæ ; founded on a new Astronomical Doctrine: being a General Explication of the Astral Collocations upon Geometrical Principles,— with Plates of Illustration," cannot, we think, be better introduced than by at once quoting the Propositions under which the Theory is to be developed. The Propositions are as we here cite them:

I. That the solar systems occupy spaces bounded by spherical superficies.

II. That the spheres in contact include between them intervening spaces; and that spheres of as large a magnitude as our own solar system, must include between them intervening spaces of vast extent.

III.--That the intervening spaces between the solar systems are occupied by smaller solar systems of various magnitudes.

IV. That a great number of the smaller systems are disposed in concentric rings, or circles in the intervening spaces, the larger of them being exterior, and gradually diminishing in magnitude towards a common centre.

V. That each interior concentric ring contains more systems than the next concentric ring exterior to it, because the magnitudes of the solar systems in the concentric rings, are determined by two segments of spheres whose convex sides approach each other.

VI. That the diameters of the systems of the more interior concentric rings are so small, relatively, as to admit an aggregation of the minor. solar systems, in great numbers, towards the point where two great systems approach nearest to contact.

VII. That if the suns of a great series of concentric rings, and the adjacent small suns, in the same region of the intervening spaces, be seen from a planet in one of the systems of the minor concentric rings, they will exhibit phenomena resembling the appearance of the milky-way.

VIII. That if a great series of concentric rings of systems be seen in the direction of a line perpendicular to the plane of their centres or suns, they will present the same appearance as those circular nebula in which the stars seem most numerous towards the centre.

IX. That the various nebulæ are peculiar combinations of the smaller systems, occupying portions of the intervening spaces.

X.-That systems of the largest magnitude, placed nearly in contact, form a basis for the structure of the heavens, and are separated from each other by one or more interposed strata of small systems.

XI. That each great solar system, when surrounded by twelve other great systems, has twelve great series of concentric rings of systems, and many other minor concentric rings, arranged in order upon its spherical superficies.

XII. That the intervening spaces are probably equal in dimensions to one third of the spaces occupied by those great systems which include them.

To show with what great things we deal, let us cite something that is said of spaces:

The distance of the stars is not less, but may be much more, than 19,200000,000000 miles. If it be assumed as a basis for calculation, that, that is the distance from our sun to the nearest neighbouring sun, we cannot thence determine the diameter of our own solar system. For if the diameter of the system, of which that sun is the centre, exceed that of our own, then the semi-diameter of that system will exceed the half of the assumed distance. On the contrary, if the diameter of that system be less than that of our own, then its semi-diameter will be less than the half of the assumed distance. But the diameters of the two systems may also be equal. Therefore, it follows that the semi-diameters are equal, and the mutual distance of the two suns which consists of two semi-diameters of the two systems, is equal to a whole diameter of each system. If the two semi-diameters be 19,200000,000000 miles, then each diameter is equal thereto.

This is a summary of the reasoning that goes to establish the first Proposition.

It was stated under the first Proposition, that the argument there afforded only an approximation, from the probability of equal power of the solar forces, at the boundary of each solar system. Under the second Proposition it was demonstrated, that spheres in contact included between them intervening spaces, and that spheres as large as our solar system must include between them intervening spaces of vast extent.

The arguments under the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Propositions have demonstrated, that solar systems of very different magnitudes may be contained in the intervening spaces, and that great numbers of solar systems may there be disposed in concentric circles. It was also shown, under those Propositions, that the solar systems in the concentric circles increase in number and diminish in magnitude, in each ring, interiorly towardstheir com

mon centre.

The arguments under the seventh, eighth, and ninth Propositions have demonstrated, that the peculiar arrangements of solar systems, of various magnitudes, requisite for the complete occupation of the intervening spaces, present combinations of systems which, viewed at a great distance, would present phenomena, resembling the Milky Way, the circular, oval, annular, and other nebulæ of peculiar forms.

The arguments under the tenth Proposition have demonstrated, that great solar systems of similar magnitudes, disposed in geometrical order, form a basis upon which the other solar systems, inferior in magnitude, may be disposed in various combinations; and that the great systems are, it may be, separated from each other by one or more interposed strata of small systems.

The argument under the eleventh Proposition demonstrates how numerous the circular series of the minor systems may be upon the superficies of each great system, when surrounded by twelve other great systems.

The argument under the twelfth Proposition tends to show that the intervening spaces are probably equal in dimensions to one-third of the spaces occupied by those great systems which include them.

Wherefore, it is concluded, that the arguments under the twelve Propopositions have established a close analogy between the theory and the celestial phenomena observed by astronomers; and that, consequently, the first Proposition, which is the basis of the hypothesis, is thereby demonstrated.

Now, let us come to the Conclusion, of which the following are parts:

The preceding arguments are intended to show that the general phenomena of the stars may be explained by the adoption of a purely geometrical theory.

In the profound regions of the celestial spaces there are, doubtless, chaotic masses of prodigious extent, in various conditions, and undergoing changes which will ultimately result in organised systems of beauty and utility, or which have some other unknown use or purpose.