angry, or to think him worthy of a retaliation. I will be content to bear all that he can in future say of me, and never notice any part of it, except the principles he may venture to impugn or

approve.

I returned to London about the middle of April, and was detained here by several unpleasant circumstances until the first week in July, when I took coach for Liverpool, intending to make that a point, from which to move through Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland. Stopping a night at Birmingham, I found a lecture was being delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, which I attended, and with which I was much pleased. The subject was, chemistry, electricity, and galvanism. A small battery was charged, and a rabbit was killed, that the galvanic action might be tried upon it soon after death. There was some defect in the experiment; but enough was shewn to develope the effect of electricity upon the animal body. I was pleased with the lecturer, who was a young man, because I found no superstitious allusions from him. Birmingham, as to the conveniences of its Mechanics' Theatre is far behind London and Manchester. I am sorry to say that it is a town in which my publications have made but little progress, a town in which I have found but very little of open support. There are a few very sincere friends, but I do not know more than half a dozen by name. I hope to spend a few days there in the course of the present year, and to extend my acquaintances.

In

I generally travel incog.; because I think the pleasing incidents of the road are likely to be more numerous. If I were known, I should be the subject of tedious notice, and perhaps of unpleasant company. As it is, from general manners and external appearance, I pass as a very good Christian. It appears that my face does not pronounce my infidelity, nor bespeak those "horrible principles" which alarm so many weak minds. It often happens that my name is brought up in the course of conversation, and I have to pass an opinion on that terrible fellow "Carlile." riding from Bath to Warminster, in April last, two well informed gentlemen, strangers to each other, were speaking of the freedom of the press in this, as contrasted with other countries, and one of them instanced the display made in Carlile's shop window, in Fleet-street, London, as astonishing. There was an evident fear to speak out freely upon the subject, and, hoping that they were about to take a longer ride with me, I waited for them, until I lost their company. I shall, as I proceed, have some very interesting narratives to make in this way. Nothing particular happened on the road to Birmingham, or from thence to Liverpool. In riding through the Potteries, I was much pleased with the clean, comfortable and healthy appearance of the persons employed in them, whom I passed as they were going to dinner. But I saw a most disagreeable change in that appearance, when

I came to the end where the collieries abound. The people of the collieries, including the children, exhibited poverty and degra-dation and wretchedness. There, as almost every where, we find the walls covered with placards about methodistical sermons and collections, and it is quite common, in the north, to see a— "N. B. Silver will be expected at the collection," at the bottom of the bills.

I have not yet begun to beg at any of my preachings or discussions; but the habit has been so long imposed upon the people, that I fear they will not think so well of me as they would if I did. We, on our side, labour under a disadvantage, when compared with the religious preachers. They beg in the name of the Lord, for the service of the Lord, for the Lord's good work, not for themselves. Oh! no! they want nothing but the grace of the Lord in return for the money which they collect for him! We have to beg for ourselves, or to talk about the cause, the glorious cause, and not the work of the Lord. This makes but a dull motion in the fingers, and the cash is almost immoveable, for the want of a little superstitious excitement. I have yet to learn the art of begging. Borrowing is a sort of vice that I shudder at, and which I have now forsworn. If needs be, I will beg rather than borrow for the future; for it is a bad plan to let any cause, glorious or inglorious, run one into debt. Debt! damnable debt! I hate and tremble at the word, and will strive to get it out of my vocabulary: I am a coward before a creditor. I have learnt the best lesson of my life, in the past year, and that is, that debt and independence, debt and happiness, cannot be associated.

RICHARD CARLILE.

P. S. The only publications that I have issued during the last year are:

1st.-A Handsome Edition of VOLNEY'S RUINS, price 88. 2nd. The WILL of THOMAS MORRISON, price 2d.

3rd.-THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RICHARD CARLILE, shewing the true Parentage, Birth and Life, of our Allegorical Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, price 6d.

4th.-A SERMON, upon the subject of Deity, preached at Brinksway Chapel, near Stockport, by Richard Carlile, price 6d. 5th.-The TRIAL of the REV. ROBT. TAYLOR, price 18.

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street, where all Communications, post paid, or free of expense, are requested to be left.

The

Lion.

No. 2. VOL. 1.] LONDON, Friday, January 11, 1828. [PRICE 6d.

NEW PLAN OF REFORM.

BIRTH.

WE wish to begin at the proper beginning; but if there be a more curious reader, who may want a beginning before birth, we refer him at once to the first chapter, &c. of Sterne's Tristram Shandy, as to the ways and means to make more useful children; and to our future treatises on phrenology, for the proper rules to make proper matches between the sexes in marriage and parentage.

As a matter of courtesy, though it be void of truth;-for truth is too often made to bend before courtesy, though not of much import in this case: as a matter of courtesy then, we beg the reader to premise with us, that all the matches hitherto made have been the best possible: and if we are content to delude ourselves with the thought for a moment, that our own is so; we are sure that no other couple will have any ground to object to the same momentary comfort. But then comes the critic, and wants to know, if we consent to admit that all past matches have been the best possible, what need we have of phrenological reforms in match-making for the future. Your criticism is too severe, you carry it too far; grant us the right to be deluded, if we please, according with the wisdom of our ancestors: we told you at starting, that truth is made to yield to courtesy, and our happy matches, we assure you, are only imaginary and courteous ones, and the most difficult task imaginable for the imagination.

Courteously premising, that all past marriages have been matches made with the utmost phrenological, physical, moral, and mental equality, with an equality of age, and with the most profound discreetness as to time, temper, and temporal means, we will direct you how to begin reform at the birth: and if this reform be not radical enough, with our allied premises and promises, we pity the penetration of the impenetrable reformers that would, be more radical. They must be common disturbers; seditious and turbulent characters: men not to be reasoned with morally; but to be physically restrained with strait-waistcoats, Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 62, Fleet Street. No. 2.-Vol. 1.

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shaved heads, bleedings, blister-plaisters, water-gruel, &c. They must, in short, be madmen; for we desire that our reform be radical enough to embrace all that are sober and rational.

1.-During gestation, we advise the mother to study the preservation of her health, as far as possible, and, above all things, to preserve a good temper, and to procure those two important ends, we bind the husband to the preservation of his good temper, to the expression of love for his wife, and to a frequent conversational anticipation of the pleasures to be found in the health and character of the forthcoming child. Much of the health and temper of the child will depend upon the observation of these points. We have experimented here, in a case, that was hopeless enough to be a fair trial.

FIRST TREATMENT AFTER BIRTH.

2. The child born should be subjected to all the rules for the preservation of health, such as loose dress, moderate heat, frequent ablutions ;-if any food beyond the supply of the breast, that food to be the most simple, free from sweets and spices, free from drugs and all narcotics, whether they be called Godfrey's Cordial or Soothing Syrups. There is no cordial or soothing syrup like the breast of a healthy mother, and no other will be needed, if your child be subjected to good and simple treatment-to good air and the most complete cleanliness. The parents must always consider their own healths, as making a part of that of their child. These rules are general, and proper for any age, so as due exercise be as an auxiliary introduced at the proper time.

GENERAL EDUCATION.

3. The health secured, the next point in importance, is the education that is to lay the foundation of the character of the future man or woman.

The most useful knowledge is that the most easily taught to the child; such as the names, properties, purposes and origin of the things which surround it, and to which its attention will be first attracted.

Every child is born an Atheist, and it will be well, that education do not present one superstitious idea to the child. The word God, or any other indefinite word should not be sounded before it, for where explanation cannot be given to the young idea, confusion of mental power must follow the consideration of any improper word. Leave the child to form ideas of the physical powers of the universe, or of the combined operations of matter, by its own growing experience, and by its own examination of the theories existing. Let no theory form a part of the education imposed. Let the conferent part of education be a knowledge of things about which all agree. Let not religion be considered necessary to the welfare of a child, for it is certainly a most pernicious ingredient in education. It will be well that the child

remain an Atheist, until it have acquired the mental power to reason upon the principles of Theism. Any communication to the youthful mind, beyond this point, is not knowledge, but confusion, and an impediment to the acquisition of knowledge. The child should not know the construction of one word, that is not the representative of some known thing or quality, and to which the child, on enquiry, can be referred for its instruction. The committing to the memory of the child, prayers, poetry, orations, or even precepts that do not immediately interest it, becomes an evil.

Another great evil of superstition is, where frightful pictures are presented to the imagination of the child, for the purpose of terrifying it into quietness. This is really a crime on the part of the nurse. Nothing that can be associated with superstition should be associated with the education of the child. It should know no fear but moral fear, the fear of doing wrong, and the real consequences of wrong doing. The health of many a child has been destroyed by fright, and many a bright prospect has been clouded by it.

The gradual education which well informed parents may communicate to a child, is to be preferred to the more forced and systematic education of the schools. A forced education is not so lasting and powerful as that which imperceptibly grows upon the child, nor is a precocity of talent to be desired, as it is generally followed by a decay of mental power at a more advanced age, and when most useful. An appearance of talent is the most desirable at the time when it can be brought into action for the benefit of the possessor.

To manage and educate a child well, the science of phrenology must be applied, a science that promises to produce more substantial reforms in education, than all the changes that have been made, or than all the knowledge that has preceded it. We shall treat more particularly on this science, in the latter part of this new plan of reform. That it is a regular and systematic science is now placed beyond the doubt of those who will fairly examine it. Indeed, to describe it briefly, all the variance in the human figure and character bespeaks its good foundation.

It is an old adage, that example is more powerful than precept; therefore, it may be easily seen, that a first principle in education is, that the tutors be well educated; that they exhibit good temper to the child; that they do not present to its notice, by example, those faults which they would chide and correct in their pupil. If the parents or tutors exhibit bad temper, the child is to be pitied who imitates them. And where correction springs from the passion, rather than from the reason, nothing but bad temper is exhibited, generated and perpetuated. A child, by beating, may be deterred from continuing to do a wrong act; but any other kind of useful knowledge is never beaten into a child.