CONCLUSION. 735 



when landed afresh in the new country far away from friends and 

 help. There is, in fact, an exceptional amount of anxiety 

 and wretchedness threatening us just now. It is really a dreadful 

 state of things when there are strong men and women, all eager 

 and ready for work, who cannot find employment, and the worst 

 of it is seen by considering, if this is so in the country, how 

 much more pitiful will be the distress existing in the 

 back streets of our large towns in this coming winter. The 

 actual necessaries of life are so very cheap in agricultural dis- 

 tricts that the facts we have alluded to are, from some points of 

 view, worse; but, on the whole, of course much better than at 

 first sight they may seem to be. 



** All those who help the seething masses of humanity to extri- 

 cate themselves from the depths of degradation, in which so 

 many are sinking and daily being swallowed up, are doing a 

 great and a noble work. All those who are trying to do this are 

 scattering seed which will bring forth fruit after many days. 

 This good can only be achieved by appealing to the higher 

 sentiments and feelings, which, fortunately, are probably never 

 quite extinguished, even in the most hardened criminals and evil- 

 doers. We must try to elevate them with the spirit of aspiration, 

 and with feelings of enthusiasm for higher and better things, 

 and we must not think that much enduring good can ever be 

 brought about by our having recourse to the harsh and hard lines 

 of action too often laid down. In short, pity and mercy and 

 help will affect far more than severe measures of punishment and 

 unfeeling and unpitying recrimination. 



*' And now all that remains for us is to wish everybody, and 

 especially our readers, each and all — -as we most cordially do — 

 the happiest of happy new years, a new lease of healthy and 

 joyous life and prosperity, and all the good and pleasant things 

 that this world and this stage of earthly existence can bring, and 

 the surety of higher blessings in that unknown sphere which 

 lies beyond the grave." 



We have above reproduced more or less exactly the words we 

 used on the occasion referred to, and now all that remains for 

 us to add is that since then Time has rolled on his unceasingly- 

 revolving wheel, and we have therefore been enabled to forge 

 just a few more links of the chain of pathology and to incorpo- 

 rate them in this book. We are very conscious of its short- 



