in Parliament, remains to be seen. Akenside, so appealed one hundred and fifty years ago :— "Thou, heedless Albion, what, alas, the while Of ages the proud toil, the ruin of a day! . . . "Say then, if England's youth in earlier days, On glory's field with well-trained armies vi'd, แ "O! by majestic freedom, righteous laws, By heavenly truths, by manly reason's cause, By friendship, social peace, domestic love, Rise! arm; your country's living safely prove ; So sang the poet, the butcher's boy who was born in Newcastle, in a house that stood almost opposite to the offices once so long occupied by Hall Brothers-the refined and patriotic author of the "Pleasures of Imagination," described in Cooper's "Letters of Taste " as the "most beautiful didactic poem that ever adorned the English language.' And never was the patriotic call apparently more needed than as these pages are going through the press at the close of 1895 and the beginning of 1896; with the Eastern Question again to the fore, through the insurrectionary troubles and massacres in Armenia; with strained relations with the United States, through the boundary VOL. II. 12 dispute with Venezuela; with war in Ashanti; and with difficulties in the Transvaal, through the steps taken by Dr. Jameson to assist the Uitlanders of that republic in getting better representation in its government, into which dispute Germany has rashly and unnecessarily entered. However these troubles may end, they cannot fail to show the necessity of carrying out some of the projects, indicated in the preceding pages, which Mr. Hall has been forcing upon the attention of the nation. The perils of our position are being acknowledged, and the wisdom of the proposals indicated for meeting them by Mr. Hall must be seen and appreciated by the patriotic portion of our countrymen, at least. CHAPTER I. PROPOSED INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR NORTHUMBERLAND. “Work has small pleasure because it has little pride. It ought to be impossible for employers to find men who will execute shabby work. It is a sort of crime against the honour of industry, a fraud by connivance upon the purchaser. Nothing shows more plainly the state of honour in artisanship than the fact that we have all sorts of trade unions to come to the support of a man who refuses low wages, but not one union professedly to succour a man who refuses to do dishonest work."-HOLYOAKE. "No strong man in good health can be neglected, if he be true to himself. For the benefit of the young I wish we had a correct account of the number of persons who fail of success in a thousand who resolutely strove to do well. I do not think it exceeds one per cent." EBENEZER ELLIOTT. W E must hark back a little in time in recording the incidents in the active life and unceasing labours for the public weal of the busy Tyneside merchant; and refer to movements that ran on kindred lines to the Wellesley ship, and sought to attain like great ends in the improvement of the rising generation. Mr. Hall believed that it was better to deal with the young before they had got into idle and evil habits and to save before they fell, rather than after the fall had taken place. His experience of the beneficial effects of the Wellesley training ship led him to address the following letter |