its expenses exceeding its income by an annually increasing sum, which then amounted to £10,000 a-year. He took it in hand. It quickly became selfsupporting, then profitable, and it now clears a net produce of £29,115 per annum, making a difference to the State of £39,115. But, as every year is more profitable than its predecessor, it is to be expected that even this sum will hereafter be far exceeded. This great saving is attributable solely to the simplification of the arrangements commenced by Mr. Rowland Hill, but extended by his youngest brother, Mr. Frederick Hill, who, in 1851, mainly with a viewof relieving Rowland of part of his excessive toil, resigned his office of Inspector of Prisons, and undertook the far more laborious duties of Assistant-Secretary to the Post-office. Nor is this the only assistance which Rowland Hill has received from his family. It may be doubted if he would have found it possible to bear up for so many years under his never-ending labours, but for the cheerful and intelligent aid rendered by his wife, whenever the nature of his task admitted of her co-operation, and but for her watchful care of his health, at all times easily deranged.

When Mr. Rowland Hill returned to office in 1846, he was made Secretary to the Postmaster-General, and was, in effect, joint-secretary with Colonel Maberly; but, in 1854, the latter gentleman having become one of the Commissioners of Audit, Lord Aberdeen's Government appointed Mr. Rowland Hill Secretary to the Post-office. It is but common justice to state that the Conservative Ministries which have come into office since his restoration have shown, by their treatment of the author of Penny Postage, that they have no sympathy with their Tory predecessors who dismissed him. In the present year, 1860, the Queen has been graciously pleased to invest Mr. Rowland Hill with the dignity of Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

From an address, recently read at a large and influential towns' meeting at Liverpool assembled to recognize Sir R. Hill's public services, and signed by the Mayor of Liverpool on behalf of the municipality, we extract the following justly appreciative passage.

Occasional attempts have been made to dispute your just claims to originality in the suggestion of a uniform rate of one penny for all ordinary letters. We believe these attempts to have been as unfair as they have been ineffectual. They have mainly rested on the fact that a penny rate had been previously suggested, and even adopted within very limited distances. But we regard this as widely different from your suggestion of a uniform low rate per letter for every distance, and that justified by the fact, which you then developed for the first time, that the average cost of transit for a single letter within the limits of the United Kingdom hardly exceeded one-third of a penny, and was much more dependent upon the number of letters than the distance they were carried. We remember also your other suggestions of charging letters only by weight, instead of by single sheets, and making the lowest rate depend upon prepayment by means of the stamp. To these essential arrangements are perhaps owing, to a very large extent, the brilliant success of your scheme. We desire, therefore, thus publicly and formally to record our belief in the entire originality of your plans for postal reform. It is a proud tribute to their excellence that they have been adopted more or less in their integrity by every country in Europe and America. The revenue derivable from the Post-office department should always be regarded as a very secondary consideration. The advantages arising from frequent, punctual, and cheap means of communication by more efficiently maintaining that industry which must be the permanent source of all taxation, would, in our opinion, certainly compensate for any diminution of the amount previously

derived

derived from that source. But all those advantages have been secured, not only without diminution, but with an actual increase. For twenty-four years previous to the adoption of your plan, the number of letters passing through the Post-office, and the revenue derived therefrom, had been something less than stationary, but every year since has witnessed an increase in the number of letters-from 76,000,000 in 1838 to 642,000,000 in 1863while the revenue has not only recovered its first loss, but now stands higher than ever. It is difficult to over-estimate the benefit which so vast an increase in the correspondence of the country must have secured to every interest comprehended within our national life and policy. Nor would we forget that, under your able direction, the money-order system has been developed into a most important branch of the public service; that it has been extended to nearly all our colonies; and that the total amount passed through that department has risen from £313,000 in 1839 to nearly £16,000,000 in 1862, or upwards of fiftyfold. The Post-office has been made available also for the transmission of books, packets of newspapers, and of samples, to an enormous extent, with corresponding advantages to both literature and

commerce.

To the foregoing we need only add that in the present year, 1864, Sir Rowland Hill, from failing health, resigned his connection with the Postoffice; and that a sum of £20,000 has been awarded by the nation in acknowledgment, rather than in payment, of his signal services.

FLOWER SHOWS BY THE POOR IN TOWNS.

The following extract is from Window Gardens for the People,' a recent publication of the Rev. S. Hadden Parkes, noticed amongst our 'Reviews of Books.'

The district in which it has been my privilege to work is one narrow street about ninety yards long, with six courts, all cul-de-sacs, running right and left at right angles with the street, and containing a population of about 1,700 persons. The condition of these people as a class is as distressed and as low as any in London. The policeman on the beat has informed me that it is the most likely place in the neighbourhood in which to find any who were 'wanted.' When I state that it is an offshoot from the wellknown Rookery' in St. Giles, which was demolished at the time that the improvements were made in New Oxford-street, it will give a tolerably fair idea of the general character of the people.

*

*

The houses in which these persons generally dwell contain six or eight rooms, each of which is occupied by one family. Some of these houses are in a fair state of repair, but the majority are in a very unhealthy and dilapidated condition. The cellars are almost invariably inhabited, and in some instances there are families residing in both the front and back cellar or kitchen.

Their occupations are various. Some have no recognized calling, others are washers, i.e., men who wash the cabs; these have generally been cabmen themselves, but have lost their license through misconduct or crime. Others are overworked and underpaid sempstresses, eking out a wretched hand-to-mouth existence by army work, straw-bonnet-making, and shoebinding while the largest and most aristocratic are costermongers, under which division I place those who sell fruit, flowers, water-cresses, dried fish, and cat's meat in baskets and barrows, and those who make and sell penny toys.

Flower Shows by the Poor.

167

It was in this place and among these people that first the flower show, and then the clean-and-tidy-room experiment was tried.

A few handbills announcing the proposed show were printed and placed in the various shop windows in the district. In these bills, the conditions upon which plants would be allowed to compete, and the amount of the prizes, were announced. The conditions were simply that none but those living in Little Coram-street and the courts adjacent would be permitted to exhibit; that all plants intended for exhibition be registered at a shop in the street, at least four weeks before the show, and remain in the exhibitor's possession until the show; and that the prizes would be given for the best plants of any description provided they had fulfilled the above conditions.

Of course it would be desirable for the poor to retain the plants in their possession for a much longer period, but as this was the first experiment, I thought it better to avoid all extremes than to risk the consequences of a failure. I felt therefore that, for a first show, four weeks would be a period long enough to test the value of the experiment, and not too long to try the patience and perseverance of the poor. By causing them to register the plants, with their names and addresses, a kind of security was given, though not in all points a satisfactory one, that the plants had been in the exhibitor's possession in the street for the required time. To increase this security, an inspector went round, ostensibly to see how the plants were progressing, but in reality to see that the registered plants were actually in existence and in the exhibitor's possession. This precaution was found absolutely necessary, not only to guard against deception, but also to protect the more honourable exhibitors. If this had not been done, I should not have been certain that the plants had not been purchased a few days before the show.

*

No effort was made to induce the poor to register the plants. At once they felt an interest and a pleasure in the scheme, and without hesitation or solicitation they came forward spontaneously to register their plants. The result was that about 140 plants were registered for exhibition; but, as some of them died, and others flowered too soon, and others not at all, the number was reduced to ninety-four actual exhibitors.

The exhibition was held in the Bible Mission Room, to which we endeavoured to give a flower-show aspect, by arranging the forms in tiers around the walls of the room, and then covering them with green tissuepaper, thus making them look like first-rate flower-stands. The day of exhibition was one of no small excitement among the poor. Each exhibitor delivered his own plant in person, with a card attached, upon which was written his name and address.

It was indeed a pleasing sight, and an instructive one too, to see the flowers which had grown and the failures which had been made, in the homes of these wretchedly poor people. The pride and pleasure with which they showed the plants which they had reared and trained, proved that every human feeling had not yet been banished from their hearts, notwithstanding the sin-hardening process through which they had passed. But perhaps the most amusing sight in the whole exhibition was the different domestic articles which had been made to do duty for the day as flower-pots. There were old cracked tea-pots, of the most approved antique pattern, which doubtless years before had brewed the refreshing Bohea in the drawingroom of the neighbouring squares. There were jugs with dilapidated noses, which doubtless had paid regular visits to the public-houses. There were even washing basins and other articles of domestic use, the makers of which could never have dreamed that they would ever be put to such singular uses. Nearly all the flower-pots and quasi flower-pots were either freshly raddled or tastefully adorned with old scraps of gaily coloured paper-hang

ing. The flowers, of course, were not such as are to be seen at the Botanical Gardens, but yet, considering the bad atmosphere in which they had been reared, the badly ventilated rooms in which they had lived, and the little experience which their owners possessed, it was a marvel to all that there should be any flowers at all.

The important office of judge was undertaken by a local gardener, assisted by Walter H. Bosanquet, Esq., who has largely helped to secure the success of all the Bloomsbury shows. It was no easy matter to judge fairly which were the best plants among so many, and such various kinds; and there were some dissatisfied persons who ventured, with little grace and less judgment, to dispute the decision which had been made; but a few kind words put this matter in a different light, and all acquiesced in the selection which had been made. Those who had exhibited were admitted free, while those not exhibitors paid-adults one penny, children one halfpenny-for admission to the show. And some test of the interest which the non-exhibitors took in the scheme may be gathered from the fact that upwards of two pounds were taken at the door for admissions.

In the evening the successful competitors were gathered together, when the Rev. E. Bayley presented the prizes. And thus our first experiment proved a success, not only in reaching the lowest class of our population, and in affording a common interest for both minister and people, but also in being self-supporting, the money taken at the doors being found sufficient to cover all the expenses.

*

The prizes offered were only for fuchsias, geraniums, and annuals. Competition was confined to these, because they are inexpensive to purchase and easy to rear.

*

The day of the [second] show was one of unusual excitement. Under a spacious tent, well shaded by trees, were arranged in various classes, according to the order of the published handbill, 547 plants, the property of 274 exhibitors. The tent, decorated with flags of all nations and with various devices, with the flowers ranged on tables on either side, presented a most pleasing effect. Of course, within this tent there were no new plants from China or Japan, no large and fragrant roses like those of Paul, no wondrous masses of pelargonium bloom like those of Fraser; but there was that which was more remarkable still, for there were plants grown in areas by domestic servants; in the mews by the wives and children of stablemen; in the garrets by poor sempstresses; in kitchens by water-cress girls; in first and second floors by costermongers; in any imaginable nook and corner by the children of National and Ragged Schools, and one even in the sick ward of the parish workhouse.

Of course, the blight of London smoke was upon many of the plants, and the dinginess of the rooms in which they had been reared was but too evident, but all bore signs of care and attention, and, as was repeatedly said, all the specimens were very creditable, considering the quarters whence they had come; while some of them were fit to be exhibited at shows of far loftier pretensions.

6

The frequenters of more fashionable shows, perhaps, would have been amused to hear so much praise lavished upon such unpretending floral specimens. There's my little girl's fuchsia got the second prize! well, I never expected it.' 'See how fine Billy's geranium looks yonder!' and similar exclamations of pleasure and pride were heard in all parts of the tent; and the eyes of a pale little fellow with a crutch attained a brightness almost painful at the discovery that some marvellous honour had befallen the pot of annuals which he had seen his sister watering so carefully, morning and evening, for many a week.

CLEAN

Social Science Selections.

CLEAN-AND-TIDY-ROOM PRIZES.

169

From the same interesting little publication, we select the following illustration of philanthropic effort in another direction.

Eighty-six sent in their names as candidates for the prizes, and it was not a little singular that some of the rooms were the dirtiest in the whole street. So soon as the last day for registration had arrived, it was necessary for the work of inspection to begin. And here there was no little difficulty in determining upon what plan the inspection should be carried out, so as to prove satisfactory to us and also to the poor. At one time we thought of entrusting the work to several ladies, and then going round at last ourselves and making our final adjudication, based partly upon the report of the ladies and partly on our own inspection. But this scheme fell through, in consequence of the ladies who were invited being unwilling to take the responsibility; and then the work devolved upon Mr. Bayley and myself. We thought of giving marks one to twenty to the various rooms, according to their condition; but this plan was rejected on the ground that it would be impossible to decide whether a room was, for example, five or six, or fourteen or fifteen. The line was too fine for us accurately to draw it. At last I determined simply to mark the rooms in our lists A, B, C, D, respectively, as descriptive of their condition at the time of inspection.

This system of marking, simple as it seems, is not without its difficulties. It is not easy, when called upon to judge and decide, to give the right mark, for there are so many small circumstances, such as the order and arrangement of the furniture, ornaments, &c., as well as cleanliness, which have to be taken into account, and which cannot be comprehended in any general rules. But a similar difficulty will be encountered upon any plan, and I am inclined to think that this is the best that I have heard of, and, on the whole, will work well.

The work of inspection was undertaken by Mr. Bayley and myself, each of us taking alternate weeks, and visiting the whole of the rooms during one week. In the first week we went together, and determined the A and D standard, so that when we went alone our judgments might agree. We went at all kinds of odd times, and when we were not expected, and frequently caught the poor, often the children, in the act of scrubbing the floors of their rooms. One poor child, about nine years old, whom we thus caught, expressed her distress at the disorder of the room, saying, Please, mother's out; didn't expect you to-day. Please, the room was all ready yesterday, and now I am putting things to rights, and cleaning up a bit for you.'

At the conclusion of our inspection, Mr. Smithies met Mr. Bayley and myself, and we all three went together to the best rooms to decide which should have the prizes awarded to them. The 'best rooms' we defined to be those which had the greatest number of marks. In arriving at certainty on this point, I caused A to represent four, and B and C each two, and D 0; then by adding up these together, we arrived at almost an absolute certainty as to those rooms which had been the best during the whole of the inspection.

After he had visited together the thirty best rooms, and each made our own notes, we met in my rooms for the final adjudication. As regards the first, second, and third prizes, the most important to decide, it was very

pleasant