Tempora ! O Mores ! 



If a man discover an antidote which will expel self-imposed wretched- 

 ness, what shall be his reward ? We can fancy some good humoured 

 friend saying — " O let the inventor have the monopoly of it, and if the 

 demand be equal to the complaint he must realise a competency, but says 

 another who growls by way of preface — " O hang him high as Haman," 



I hate those confounded sophists who try to cheata man out of his misery," i 



hush you child of a numerous family we heard the voice of your proto- 

 type ages ago in the wilderness of Sin, in the vale of Rephidim, and when 

 Moses lingered upon Mount Sinai. Well we may be singular in our 

 opinions, but shall brave the ridicule that is oft-times attached to singularity 

 of opinion, and state our convictions that to be happy or content ; (synony- 

 mous terms) with' the circumstances in which providence has placed us, 

 we should at times call up in our minds eye a true picture of the real 

 misery of many of our fellow-creatures, how thousands are suffering death 

 and destitution, friendless, homeless, the miserable offspring may be of 

 still more wretched parents, the only legacy they coiild leave, an entailed 

 estate, hardly to be alienated — in this protasis, we do not allude to that 

 portion of the commimity known by the generic blatant name — " Working 

 Class." No, there is a lower strata, a great portion of whom by a sad con- 

 currence of accidents are from birth the chosen companions of misery, to 

 them the pleasures of childliood are an utter blank, they inhabit the alleys, 

 courts, cellars and pestiferous nooks and clefts of large towns ; nor are the 

 agricultural districts innocent of their manufacture ; what hereditary 

 simple faces, the negative index of an intelligence una wakened by educa- 

 tion ; let those who are desirous of knowing the philosophy of the causes 

 which operate to make our lines fall in pleasant places or otherwise, peruse 

 Henry Mayhew's work, "London labour and the London poor," and 

 doubtless they will find there an antidote to self-imposed wretchedness. 

 Why should you be for ever grvunbling at your ill luck, your friends better 

 fortune, the weather, the ingratitude and pride of relations, with a multitude 

 of causes that really affect and operate upon persons whose organization is 

 peculiar to themselves; be as diligent in turning to good account tbe means 



