of customers to flow easily on, the provisions being sold in the ground flat and the clothing in the flats above, could be erected at such a cost that the rent would not exceed ... ... 30 Salesmen at an average of £70 a year, £1000 2100 ... 1050 300 250 300 1 Superintendent at £250, with a small percentage on profits, ... £5000 being a difference of £22,000, but even if it were only £10,000 what a saving would this sum be to the customers. Some may think that the stores should not be so large, but their magnitude and respectability would the more readily draw abundant customers. The stores, we have said, must have provision for success and perpetuity. The capital must be ample, and if judiciously laid out the stores would be successful. Greater fortunes are to be made at buying and selling than at manufacturing. There are gigantic warehousemen in Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester, Bradford, and London, who have made infinitely more money by buying and selling than manufacturers or tradesmen could do, who employed from 1000 to 3000 workers. There are some men who thus have amassed from £200,000 to £500,000. Where is the capital to come from? The working classes in Glasgow have more than a million in the Savings Bank, but we would not advise them to advance the money, for they have not the requisite skill for management, nor confidence in each other, nor unity of purpose. Wherever a large fortune has been amassed in buying and selling, there has been one directing mind. An army will do better with one general than with twenty. We see no other way of obtaining the capital, than by entreating gentlemen of Mr Corbet's stamp to come forward to the help of the poor. If one or more would advance sufficient funds to start one store as an experiment, thousands of customers would be got to put in a deposit of ten shillings each to entitle them to the benefits to be derived from it. Five per cent. interest would be allowed on these deposits. To prevent bickerings among the depositors, they would have no other share in the management than appointing a committee of their number to confer with the proprietor as to the articles to be kept in stock. The store would be conducted thus:-1st, All articles would be bought direct from the manufacturers and producers, so as to save the ten to fifteen per cent. of advance charged to the retail shops by the wholesale warehouses from which they purchase. 2d, Upon this prime cost there would be put 5 per cent. interest on capital, all working expenses including a percentage for depre ciation of building and fittings, a small allowance for depreciation of stock, and 5 per cent. as profit to be given at the end of every year to the customers. Each customer would have a pass-book, with blotting paper between every leaf. Each salesman and saleswoman would have an exciseman's ink bottle suspended about the person, so as with great dispatch to enter only the sum of each purchase in the pass-book, and the seller's initials. At the end of the year new pass-books would be given out, and the old ones collected and added up. All purchases to be paid for in cash. The benefits of these stores would be, that the working classes would get their provisions and clothing at a cheaper rate than shops were fit to sell, and also at the end of every year get 5 per cent. of profit upon the total amount of their purchases. The stores are principally intended to benefit the neediest class in the community-as widows, orphan families, and working men with incomes under a pound a week. Hitherto the poorest and most neglected class have derived no benefit from co-operative societies. If the gentlemen who may favourably consider the scheme are pleased to permit all working men to participate in the benefits of these large stores, we will not complain. None indeed will complain but the shopkeepers who are affected. While we feel to propose anything that will hurt them, we must look at the interest of the public at large. We hold it is impolitic and unjust to maintain a system of things by which an article which leaves the manufacturer at ten shillings, is placed in the hands of the consumer at fourteen or fifteen shillings, merely because it has passed through the hands of middlemen, who have done nothing whatever to the article—have not improved it in the slightest de Whenever we want a suit of clothes, we purchase the cloth at the wholesale rate, though we are more able to buy it at the retail price than the majority of working men; and we have considered it our duty to buy dresses to poor girls, as often as we could, in the same way. The case is simply this, that there are four times more shops in Glasgow than there should be, and that the labouring classes suffer by having to pay for all the unnecessary rents, taxes, gas, salaries, &e., &c. The annual rental of the shops and warehouses in Glasgow is about £600,000, one-half at least of which could be saved, were our system of retail selling founded on economical principles. Add the saving of gas, salaries, &c., and the total would be far more than half-a-million per annum. We must thin our middlemen, in mercy both to them and the poor. There are hundreds of shopkeepers in Glasgow who at present are in misery; having rent, taxes, gas, salaries running on, and little business being done. In desperation, they are driven to the most miserable shifts. One keeps his shutters half down from the top on Sabbath, as the cheapest mode of advertising. Another has a bill in the window, stating that his shop is "the lowest priced in the city." Many are making "prodigious sacrifices," and giving "immense bargains." Others have been "retiring from the trade" for several years, all the while selling goods at from "thirty to forty per cent. below prime cost." "Only look here goods for nothing," cries another. Young men, distinguished for nothing but an amazing amount of brass, nearly drag in passers by, to see the finest goods in the city, just direct from Paris and London;— poor wretches, that tell four hundred lies a-day for forty pounds a-year. Of all jobs under the sun, this is the most horrible. We would rather sweep chimneys, or empty dungsteads, for bread and water, than accept such a post at a thousand pounds a-year. If we, then, by a few of these huge retail, monarchial co-operative stores, cause one-half of our shopkeepers to look out for a better mode of subsistence, it will in the end be to their advantage, though it may be to their present distress. No one condemned Mr Corbet's cooking depots, though they deprived many small eating-house keepers of the greater part of their business. When free libraries are started in Glasgow, those who at present live by lending books to read will unquestionably suffer. Still, the answer is-the interest of the few must give way to the benefit of the many. What we have in view in proposing these large stores is, the downfall of the credit pass-book system, of loan societies, and credit clubs, and consequently of small debt actions and arrestments. Our missionary volunteers would encourage the poor to become depositors in the stores, and, in the case of a poor widow, orphan family, or deserving working man with very small wages, the missionary might advance the deposit of ten shillings, and get it marked in the books that it was to be repaid to none but himself. It would thus be in safety, and bear five per cent. interest. We have been asking a great deal for the toiling masses; but not more, we are sure, than Glasgow philanthropy will supply. Good dwelling houses at moderate rents-weekly Monday payssavings bank branches to receive sixpenny deposits-work for all -proper retail stores, so efficiently and economically started and conducted as to sell provisions and clothing at less than small shops can afford to do, and give five per cent. profit besides-and the last is a few halls for instruction and recreation-for lectures, soirees, concerts, &c. But let it be remarked, we have not asked for a farthing of charity. We would not have the poor to feel they are paupers; we would not diminish, but increase their selfrespect. Give us these, with our missionary volunteers, and shut the whisky shops; shut the whisky shops, and, with God's blessing, in less than ten years Glasgow will be quite a different place. Again we strike the key note. Thin our city population to secure work for all-regular work for all throughout the yearhigher wages to servants, and greater profits to employers. But how shall we thin it? In 1861 there were within the parliamentary boundaries of the city 82,609 separate dwellings inhabited, and 83,588 distinct families; being about 15 families or dwelling houses to be taken in charge by each of our 6000 missionary volunteers. On any one day these missionaries could collect complete statistical information regarding the state of the city,-how many persons were idle who were able and willing to work—how many were in destitute circumstances, and willing to emigrate-how many had no honest means of livelihood-how many were sickhow many children above ten years were uneducated-how many persons lived in each house-how many lodging houses were overcrowded-how many brothels, &c.;-in short, every item which could be of use in a sanitary, educational, moral, and religious point of view. The returns from the missionaries could be classified by the secretaries, and the summary handed in to the magistrates. The Town Council should be in communication with the authorities of all our colonies on the subject of immigration, ascertaining which would engage to find work for immigrants sent out from Glasgow. It would be cruel to send out men and women to unknown hardships in another land; and therefore the colonies should engage to find employment for the able-bodied we might ship off. Possibly some of our war transports could, in time of peace, be used as passenger vessels; and they should, as they belong not to the Lords of Admiralty, but to the nation. If they were obtained, all that the city would have to furnish would be food for the voyage, and a few clothes. In whatever way it is to be accomplished, this must be done, we must get rid of all idlers. We must find work for all, both for their sake and our own. We do entreat out aristocracy and wealthy gentry, both in town and country, to consider for what purpose God has given them riches and influence. Surely not to revel in every comfort and luxury while their countrymen and countrywomen are pining in destitution and misery; surely not to repose on a soft canopied couch, while others lie all night, even in winter, on a stair or on the bare floor. Are our poor fellow-creatures to be tormented by suffering and want in this life; by that suffering and want driven to despair and crime; for that crime languish in a prison; and then, for their unhappy lives, to descend into perdition? This, alas, has long, too long, been the case; but it must be so no longer. If there be living Christianity in Britain, it shall not be so much longer. It will be a holier offering to God, wisely to consider the case of the poor, than to build Him a temple more glorious than Solomon's. If there be love to God, we will not neglect His creatures, our fellow-immortals. If there be love from God to us, it cannot be confined within our breast; the well of living water in the soul will flow forth, to refresh, to gladden, and purify all around. 9th. ON BENEVOLENCE CRUSHING HONEST UNAIDED LABOUR.-Several of our institutions, as the House of Refuge for Boys, the House of Refuge for Females, the Asylum for the Blind, &c., make different articles for sale, and take in orders from the public. Strongly advocating as we do, that work be got for every one in the city, we have no objections to those within these institutions being fully employed. We have introduced this head solely to call attention to the fact, that many of our boys and girls fit for work cannot find it, and so prowl about the streets neglected and destitute. How shall they find work? By committing crime. As soon as they pass through the hands of the police, then employment is obtained for them. If girls who do not know where their dinner is to come from, call at some of our warehouses soliciting work, it is denied, because these warehouses send their sewing to the House of Refuge for Females. Whether on account of the interest they take in the institution, or from self interest, they know best themselves. Some are mean enough to expect a public institution to work cheaper than a private person. A gentleman we know, said to his clerk, "You had better take some bale ropes from the blind Asylum; you know it's but right to encourage a charitable institution"-the real motive, however, was, that the Blind Asylum was two shillings per cwt. lower in price. We do not affirm that our public institutions work at a cheaper rate than private persons, but if they do, then they crush honest unaided labour. On looking over the list of prices issued by the Directors of the House of Refuge for females, we find they wash and dress plain shirts at 24d each. So far as we know, the usual price charged by widows and other women who live by washing, is 3d each. None know the hardships that widows and women in general, who live by their toil, have to endure. These hardships will not be diminished by our public institutions both taking away the work and lowering the price. Yet, we blame not the Directors -what can they do? the inmates cannot be maintained in idleness. Our object will be gained, if we by our remarks, awaken the Directors to the necessity of using their influence to originate some scheme by which work will be got for all. We long for the time when these Houses of Refuge will no longer be required. As we stood gazing on the boys in the House of Refuge, leaving the chapel at 7 o'clock in the evening to retire to their dormitories, we could not but sigh out, "Poor things, this is not like what God intended for you; this is not a home for childhood." Before each of the two iron gates stood a warder, to suppress the slightest insubordination; and the boys moved away with their hands in their pockets, and the cowed sunken expression of those who know they are in a prison. We did not observe the dash, spirit, and bouyancy belonging to those of their age, who are properly reared, in five out of a hundred. Bitterly these neglected ones suffer for their juvenile delinquency, and their parents' sins; and bitterly the public have |