The former report (to Christmas, 1830,) was laid before the meeting, by which it appeared, that from the time of the commencement of the club, at Midsummer, 1828, the number of subscribing free members had gradually increased from 140 to 225, and that the sum of 951. 58. 10d. from the Honorary Members' Charity Fund had been expended in providing broth, meat, wine, linen, nurses, &c. for the sick.

It appeared that the sum of 691. 16s. 6d. had been expended in a supply of medicines and drugs during the same period, and that the number of persons relieved at the dispensary had amounted in all to 1233, including all casual applicants of every class.

It appeared also that only two or three persons had applied to the honorary members for charity tickets, a circumstance highly gratifying to the committee, and shewing that there was no disposition on the part of the labourer to solicit gratuitous relief, while, by a small contribution from the honest earnings of his own industry, he was allowed to provide against the time of illness and necessity.

By the sixth half year's report, from Christmas, 1830, to Midsummer, 1831,-it appeared, 1. That the number of industrious contributing free members was still on the increase, and that several new candidates were on the list for approval and admission.

2. That the dispensary this last half year paid its own expenses as far as medical attendance and medicines, so that the amount given by the honorary members had been expended in providing broth, meat, wine, nurses, linen, and other requisites for the free members of the blue class.

3. That 194 persons had received relief from the dispensary during the last half year, including all casual applicants of every class, and four patients with charity tickets.

4. That one member only had left the club, and that the arrears from the blue members amounted only to five shillings.

It is stated that at Coventry there have been patients admitted, from the commencement of the institution, July 18, 1831, to March 25, 1832,

Cured
Relieved

Dead

...

1505

1189

101

19

186

10

Under treatment
Midwifery Cases

1505

at an expense of 1267. 78. 11d. ; viz., 45l. 10s. 3d. the cost of medicine, and 807. 178. 8d. paid to the surgeons.

The importance of these facts will be apparent, by comparing them with the expenses of honorary dispensaries, where the average cost in drugs has been fourfold, and whereby the character of man, as a provident being, is undermined, and he is daily taught not to "provide for his own household;" the amiable, but mistaken, distributors of eleemosynary charity

having come in aid of the worst part of our Poor Laws, till they have destroyed in millions the "prospective feeling" altogether, and have denationalized the English artizans and labourers, who come at length, in their hunger and despair, with a knife in one hand and a brand in the other, demanding that property and bread, from the comparatively industrious, they have been taught to waste and destroy for themselves, by the misplaced charity of those who thus make "beggary a better trade than the spade and the workshop." The blame rests on those who are too idle, too ignorant, or too rich, to discriminate.

Birmingham Self-Supporting Dispensary.

The report read at the second annual meeting states, that there has been "not only a great increase in the total number of patients, but a more than proportionate increase in the independent class. By the report of the surgeons it appears, that 1406 cases have been attended during the past year;—of this number 34 were midwifery and 1372 sick,—and of the latter, 1195, more than six-sevenths, are independent patients, who have paid their own expenses.'

THE lay fund for assisting the Irish clergy to proceed at law for the recovery of their just debts appears to have already had very good effects. Mr. Grattan and other persons have, according to the newspapers, at last come forward to pay their arrears. These gentlemen, one may say, have at last been brought to a sense of justice-justice objective, not subjective. All honour is due to both kinds of justice; and all respect to those who act on the latter. To Mr. Grattan and the gentlemen of objective justice, none. It is simply a good thing that men pay their just debts, whether they do so because they ought, or, as in Mr. Grattan's case, because they find that they must. It would seem, too, that in the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute it has occurred to the Irish government that, whatever becomes of the Irish clergy, it would be an awkwardness that his Majesty's Court of Exchequer should be put down by the priests, as it may be wanted. for other purposes, and consequently they have been pleased to allow that where an exchequer process is to be served, and oath is made that a riot is expected, aid may be given by the police and military. This small shew of the exertion of common law on behalf of the ruined and persecuted clergy they owe to the lay fund, which enables them to apply to their last resource. But what is to be said to this fact, that an actual member of the English government, and a lord of the Treasury, Mr. More O'Ferral, is, according to statements made publicly, one of the persons who resist the law, who will not pay tithes, and is, if the newspapers be correct, exchequered at this very moment for his unlawful proceedings? As to Mr. More O'Ferral, he is himself neither better nor worse than any other of Mr. O'Connell's friends, nor is any personal attack upon him meant. But would any government before have allowed one of its members openly to resist the law; and not only to resist it on some individual ground, but to join one of the most fearful combinations to resist the law which has ever been known-a conspiracy organized by the priests, and executed by those who are subject to them with a degree of violence and cruelty which would disgrace New Holland? Such, however, is the fact.

One of the lords of the Treasury has joined in this fearful combination, and remains a member of a government which declares that it is not hostile to the reformed church! Doubtless we are bound to believe them, but will the poor Irish peasantry believe that they are not acting in full accordance with the wishes of government, when they are taking the same line as one of its own members?

Since last month, a fresh subscription for the distressed Irish clergy has been opened, and filled with a rapidity which is doubly gratifying. It is gratifying, from the testimony which it gives to the character of the Irish clergy, and yet more gratifying because it shews clearly that there is a feeling left in England on this momentous subject. It clearly rests with the English people at this moment, whether the reformed religion shall be trampled under foot, and, in the words of the Bishop of London, (whose eloquent speeches on this occasion, and in the House of Lords, deserve an expression of warm gratitude,) starved out of Ireland. The case is quite a clear one. From the time that the Roman priests in Ireland have had a glimpse of power, they have clearly resolved that the popish and the reformed faith should not subsist together in Ireland. The obvious increase of the latter probably stimulated them to more active measures-and in order that they might themselves give the practical proof that their corrupted form of religion is indeed unchanged, they have begun to use all its former weapons-curses, threats, famine, and the sword-against their unfortunate victims, and to take the most effectual measures for extirpating the religion by the murder, ruin, or banishment of its preachers. Till the present moment the law has been powerless, the government has given no protection to the oppressed, and the persecutors, who have begun the work of blood and destruction, exult, with a fiend-like malice, in the achievements of their own cruelty. Archbishop Mac Hale, when he hears of the reformed clergy starving, says in public and private, "They will learn to fast now!" and when he hears of families broken up from want and famine, declares "that they will now learn the virtue of celibacy." One of their party, who should have been of a better mind, and who went to the meeting for the Irish clergy at the Freemasons' Tavern, declared, that though he was sorry that any body should suffer, he felt a proud consciousness in being probably the only person in that assembly who could trace, in the sufferings of the clergy, as described by the Bishop of London, the just retribution of Providence, which is paying back, to the ministers of a false religion, the evil which it has done to Ireland!* When such is the resolution taken by those who have the physical force, when these are their dreadful feelings, when the government will give no aid, but in a great degree appears to countenance the popish priests, where is the reformed religion to look, except to the voice of those in England who care for religion? They,

The "Patriot," which declares itself to be one of the organs of the dissenters, has shewn a spirit just as bad. It is really high time, if, as is said, there are many dissenters who are not political dissenters, to avow themselves, and shame such people. But the Northamptonshire dissenters, who, as is said, to a man, voted for Mr. Hanbury, are not likely to disavow the "Patriot!"

66

and they only, can settle the question with the popish priests, and say whether the reformed religion is to subsist in Ireland, or whether popery is to expel it by force, and to reign alone. "No nation," as an able friend of the writer said, the other day, was ever condemned till it had deliberately chosen evil. The choice," he added, " is now offered to the English nation. Will they, or will they not, chuse a corrupted form of Christianity as the sole form for Ireland, and chuse that it should achieve its triumph by fiend-like cruelty, and then exult with fiend-like malice? Will they, in a word, deliberately, and with their eyes open, chuse Barabbas ?" The answer is not, and cannot be doubtful. The ready answer to the call for the Irish clergy, and many political events, shew that the English heart is awakening; and when it is fully awakened, even the present House of Commons, and the Government, will listen to its voice, because they must.

The history of the meeting at Brighton is a very instructive one. The weapons used by those who oppose the cause for which Mr. O'Sullivan went to plead are curiously characteristic. They prepared for the attack by placards,uttering the grossest falshoods and personalities -they got possession of the room by forged tickets-they preferred a radical hairdresser as chairman, instead of an educated gentlemanand, besides trying to interrupt Mr. O'Sullivan by every kind of indecent noise and expression, at last, in their passion at finding that all was in vain, and that truth and right would have its way, even near them, they resorted to blasphemy of the lowest and most revolting kind. Are these the persons who are hailed as allies by gentlemen, by religious Romanists, by religious dissenters? Will Englishmen long tolerate such men as these?

DESTITUTION OF GREAT TOWNS.

THE following table and remarks on this momentous subject are due to the kindness of the same friends who supplied the invaluable information in the last number: