is concerned. Then comes the question of the rates and their collection and distribution. Even the poor rate is a misnomer. The amount of this rate collected during the year 1882 was £13,947,681 ($67,785,729.66); the receipts in aid, inclusive of the treasury subvention, amounted to £970,592 ($4,717,077.12), forming a total of nearly £15,000,000 ($72,900,000). But more than one-third of this amount was expended towards the county, borough, or police rate, towards highway boards and school boards. The actual amount expended on behalf of the poor for the year ending Lady day 1882 amounted to 68. 33d. ($1.51) per head of the estimated population, while the sum levied as poor rate during the same period amounted to 8s. 10d. ($2.14) per head. I might continue to give instances of the bewildering complications attending the levying and collection of local rates to an immoderate extent, but I will quote from the Right Hon. Mr. Goschen to show the practical working of these numerous systems for controlling the rates. "I myself," said Mr. Goschen, "received in one year eighty-seven demand notes on an aggregate valuation of about £1,100 ($5,346). One parish alone sent me eight papers for an aggregate amount of 12s. 4d. (83). The intricacies of imperial finance are simplicity itself compared with this local financial chaos. I will waste no words on a reform so universally demanded; only it ought to be carried out."

Local expenditure continues to increase, but this does not arise out of additional relief afforded to the poor, but in connection with comparatively recent acts of Parliament relating to public health, artisans' dwellings, and for the purposes of education. According to the census of 1871 the population of England and Wales amounted to 22,712,266. The sum of £7,886,724 ($38,329,478.64) was expended on the poor of the country, and that total is equivalent to 6s. 1144. ($1.67) per head of the population. Subsequent figures show that the amount expended in relief of the poor, calculated upon the basis of population, is gradually decreasing. In 1876 it was 6s. 04d. ($1.47). In 1882 it was a shade less. If we estimate this rate in connection with the value of property levied with the poor-rate we find that in 1871 it was 18. 5.6d. (34 cents) per pound. In 1880, when the ratable value amounted to £133,769,875 ($649,121,592.50), the amount actually expended in the relief of the poor was equivalent to 18. 2.4d. in the pound.

All classes of the inhabitants occupying ratable property are subject to these local rates and have a voice in the election of the various officers connected with the same. The ratable value of property is generally estimated considerably below the real value, and for the purpose of showing the ratio in this regard I insert a table of valuation for ten years of property rated for the purposes of the poor-rate in England and Wales.

Valuation for ten years of property rated for the purposes of the poor rate in England and

Wales.

The contributions made by the working classes under the head of poor-rate include payments to the county, borough, and police rates, the highway boards, sanitary authorities, school boards, &c. I here incorporate a table distinguishing the amount expended in relief of the poor and otherwise during ten years:

Table showing the amount expended in relief of the poor and otherwise during ten years.

$3, 936, 663 18 $38, 329, 478 64 4, 596, 913 62 38, 915, 978 58 4, 446, 691 02 37, 383, 941 34 4, 334, 220 90 37, 251, 691 03 4, 355, 512 56 36, 394, 017 66 4,572, 667 08 35, 652, 269 88 4, 868, 485 56 55, 964, 165 24 5, 441, 440 68 37, 366, 839 00 5, 605, 076 88 38, 052, 920 34 5, 742, 143 46 38, 952, 948 60

Workingmen, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, do not contribute towards the income tax of the country, inasmuch as incomes under £150 a year are exempt from payment of the tax. If it should be £150 or upwards, as it frequently is in the case of a foreman or really first-class skilled workman, he would be exempt from income tax ou £120 ($583.20), simply paying the 5d. (or 10 cents) in the £1 ($4.86), or whatever it might happen to be upon the balance. Should be reside in a house of less than £20 ($97.20) annual rental-and as a rule his house rent would not amount to that-he would be exempt from the inhabited-house duty of 9d. (18 cents) per pound. Therefore, really the taxes that a workingman is called on to bear are more of a local than imperial character. He has to pay local board of health rate, borough rate, and poor rate, amounting altogether to about 68., or about $1.45 per £1 ($4.86) rental value per annum. This applies to the better class of workmen, who would be able from their superior personal habits, their class of employment, and wages received to occupy an entire, even though a small house, at an annual rental. But here we come upon a striking feature. The great majority of the working classes are accustomed to live in lodgings or apartments, so that two, or perhaps more, families may be occupying one house. Where this is so, the tenancy is a weekly one, and in all these cases the landlord takes the responsibility of paying all local taxation and such imperial taxation as he would individually be liable for in respect of such property.

It goes without saying that the rents charged upon the apartments are bound to cover all rates and taxes, and that, therefore, the occupier has to pay the ordinary rental, plus the rates and taxes, in his weekly payment to his landlord.

But workingmen contribute largely towards the national exchequer through the consumption of what are designated in economic parlance the luxuries of life. Prof. Leone Levi estimates that "out of £90,000,000 of taxes, imperial and local, £30,000,000 are paid by the working classes

and £60,000,000 by the middle and higher classes. And for every £1 ($4.86) of taxes the proportion paid by each is about as follows:

Proportion of taxes paid by the working class and middle and higher class.

THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE WELSH PEOPLE.

The native workmen constitutes the best citizen or subject of his class in every country. The less intelligence required for the employment the more general becomes the application of the proposition. The worst class of every community are immigrants who are not racy of the soil. The great majority of the criminals and prize-fighters of America are not natives of the United States. The catalogue of law-breakers in the great counties of England is swelled by drunkards and fugitives from justice who migrate thence from their own communities. It is remarkable how the percentage of criminals can be swelled beyond what we may term its normal condition by the immigration of a score or so of bad men. I am indisposed to make invidious and possibly offensive distinctions regarding nationality; but it is due to the principality that it be stated that if the foreign element were eliminated from the list of convicted prisoners the total would become exceedingly small. Henry Richard, esq., M. P., in his volume of "Letters and Essays on Wales," has been at great pains to prove that Wales is comparatively free from crime; and the unbiased mind who reads his admirable little volume will come to the conclusion that the honorable member has proved his case. I have watched the records of trials both at justice and assize courts since my residence at Cardiff, and an analysis of convictions would go to corroborate the conclusions arrived at by the author of the book referred to.

The influences at work to produce this order of things have been, 1st, the churches and chapels of the principality. There are upwards of 3,000 Nonconformist places of worship in Wales, for the Welsh are a Nonconformist people. The Sunday school (2d) is to them an educational institution, attended by immense numbers of the middle and lower classes of all ages on the Sabbath day, and about 55,000 persons are engaged in teaching every step in the ladder of religious education from the A B C to the complex questions involved in sectarian dogmas and general theology.

The Eisteddfod.-Another (3d) great, if not the greatest, influence for good within the principality is the formerly much laughed at "Eisteddfod." This is essentially a Cymric institution of almost prehistoric antiquity. It has been remarked by the highest political economist of this country and his time that the English people have no pleasure save in their work. It is certainly true that the Welsh people find no recreation save in religious and educational works.

The American has the national game of base ball; the German has his shootingfest and sangerfest and out-of-door dances and pastimes without number; the Frenchman adjourns from his house to his café to discuss politics and the social problems; the Englishman, of what is known as the well-to-do class, has cricket for his national game, and among the wage-earners bowls and boat-racing are popular, while coursing, rabbit and pigeon shooting, dog-fancying and out-door gardening constitute the sports and pastimes of the race. But here among the Cambrian hills we discover no national game, for every holiday is foreordained for concerts, or an Eisteddfod, a kind of "Olympic meeting," according to Matthew Arnold. He adds that "the common people of Wales who care for such a thing show something Greek in them, something spiritual, something humane, something, I am afraid one must add, which in the English common people is not to be found."

The masses of the people of the country-the wage-earning classes— concentrate their holiday desire for recreation in those national Olympics, where competitions are entered into in musical composition and singing, in prose and poetry, in history and romance, in impromptu speeches, recitations, and readings. Some of the leading singers of the English lyric stage first attracted attention at these Eisteddfods. I am of opinion that a greater percentage of the Welsh people can read music than of any other people in the world. I have arrived at my conclusions for the reasons assigned. The best congregational singing I have ever heard in this country was at Dr. Ree's church, at Swansea, where Dr. Parry, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now a distinguished composer, presides at the organ. It is also significant that when a prize for a thousand guineas was offered for the best chorus singing in the world, that prize was won twice in succession, not by the boasted combinations of choirs in the great metropolis, but by the colliers, iron-workers, quarrymen, and clerks of the principality, who astonished the élite of the world at the Crystal Palace under the baton of one of themselves. "It is a most remarkable feature," said Dr. Thirlwall, the late bishop of Saint David's, "in the history of any people, and such as could be said of no other than the Welsh, that they have centered their national recreation in literature and musical composition." This feature has, however, its ridiculous aspect. There is, perhaps, not a village in Wales that does not contain its "nightingales" and its "bards." The titles are assumed, especially by the bards. And the nightingales, who are generally possessed of good natural voices, receive their noms de plume from the chairman of the local Eisteddfod. But there is a great deal of excellent wheat among the chaff.

The Welsh people are a thrifty, cleanly, law-abiding race. When the men are at work the women utilize the leisure hours in knitting, whereby a small profit is realized to swell the too small earnings of the breadwinner. The children, also, while very young, are able to do something in the same way. The darling hope of the toiler is to get his sons and daughters into a better position than their parents, both for the sake of their advancement and that they may succor his old age from that terror of the proud and the inevitable goal of the many-the poorhouse. It is simply impossible for the agricultural laborer earning $4.20 a week, the quarryman earning $5.22 a week, the miner earning $6.07 a week, the ironworker earning $7.29 a week, the carpenter earning $7.78 a week, or the printer earning $10.20 a week, to do more than provide the humblest shelter for his family and keep the wolf from the door. Fifty years ago periodic starvation was the inevitable fate of workingmen and their families. Meat was not then an article of diet to the men who create the national wealth. Things have improved since then.

But to talk of saving money is to romance. The only way in which the workman can hope for a small surplus capital is through his own advancement from the monotonous level plane of the working classes to a position requiring superior skill, confidence, and capacity. It is not necessary to point out that men do rise from the lowest levels to the most distinguished positions in the realm. But the great mass of workmen can only live in the prime of manhood, and when he begins to descend the hill of life he must look for protection and support from his own kith and kin to the bounty of grateful or good employers, or to that heart-withering portal provided by the state.

SUNDAY DRINKING IN WALES.

If I were asked to state the prevailing sin of the Welsh people, I would give it as excessive drinking. There is a considerable proportion, at all events a too large proportion, of the inhabitants of inland villages who pass their lives without profit to themselves or to the community in which they live. They perform just a sufficient amount of work to keep them in food and drink. Their beverage is generally beer; and notwithstanding their excess, the purity of the air, or causes unknown to me, enable them to live beyond the average span of years. At the monthly and other periodical fairs held for the sale and purchase of ag ricultural produce and a great variety of wares, as well as for the purposes of hiring or engaging servants for the ensuing year, there is a great deal too much drink taken, with consequent immorality. Again, in the mining districts and among the iron-workers, drink has been a social curse and a national loss. Before the operations of the Sunday closing act, miners, puddlers, and others drank to excess on Saturday night, continued their spree throughout Sunday, were unfit to perform their duties on what became known as "Blue Monday," with the result that the output of coal was minimized, the puddling furnaces, the mills, and forges were idle to the very great loss of employers as well as to the world in general. The Sunday closing act for Wales came into operation on the 1st of October, 1882; and touching the influences of this law upon the inhabitants I beg to incorporate a paper furnished me by Mr. A. Scholfield, district superintendent of the United Kingdom Alliance for South Wales, and I make grateful acknowledgment to that gentleman for his valuable contribution:

There can be but one opinion as to the general beneficial results of Sunday closing in the principality. In my capacity as district superintendent of the United Kingdom Alliance, and traveling, as I frequently do, from Pembroke Dock to Holyhead, I have ample opportunity of judging of the results of Sunday closing. I am constantly in the habit of holding public meetings in large centers of population and mixing very largely with the people themselves, who unreservedly speak of the Sunday closing act as one of the greatest boons ever given to Wales, and confers untold blessings upon the country generally. All classes of society, from the magisterial bench to the humblest laborer in the Cardiff docks, speak of the measure in the highest terms. This is especially so in the large colliery and iron districts, such as the Rhondda Valley, Merthyr, Aberdare, and other parts in the great coal-field of South Wales. In some of the larger works, where from 1,000 to 5,000 men are employed, I am assured by the masters and heads of firms that now, since Sunday closing has been in operation, they have no difficulty in starting their works on Monday morning, and the men are at work as on other days. Previous to the act coming into force, some of the said firms had to lay idle very often on Mondays, and sometimes on Tuesdays, in consequence of the Sunday drinking, which frequently led into the early part of the week, thus causing a very serious loss and inconvenience to the masters themselves, and inflicting great misery and privation on the wives and families of the men employed. Since the passing of the act all this has disappeared. The works and men are in full swing the week round. Thus Sunday closing has been a great blessing to all concerned and a source of comfort to thousands of families in our mining districts, and also a great commercial boon to large employers of labor.

If space permitted we might give unlimited testimony if necessary of the success of the measure. Even our police courts on Monday morning testify to the blessings