Tue British working-man is in rather an unenviable position, In numbers and influence he is the English people, for England has so long censed to be an agricultural country that the artisan is now the bone and sinew of the country. he bold ponsantry? itself }is no longer their country's pride;? even they are being supplanted by machinery and driven into the towns to swell the ranks of the British working-mav, Except when an election is afoot, the working-man is the target for every kind of attack. The religious fire ut him constant volleys of tracts, in which he is taught the wickedness of not being content with his position here, with the gratifying assurance that there will be no class distinctions hereafter, The well-meaning supply him with coffee-taverns and dominoes, and urge lim to fly from the destructive pursuit of beer and tubnece, Tu pros. perity he is supposed to spend his money on platies and champagne, and to get drunk and kick his wife: in adversity, when a period of depression brought on by the overspeculativeness of his masters throws him out of work, ho is supposed to sell his furniture and starve his hilden, and equally get drank and kick his wife. If he tukes the wages ho can get without trying for more, be Jess outerist. If he combines with his fellow. workman to exact what ho thinks a fair share of his master's profits, be is a conspirator his country und driving her trade into the hands of foreigners. is the uufniliug resource of the comic newspapers, which would almost make their readers believe that idleness, imposture, and love of drink are confined to the working classes. Devoting their days to handicraft, they leave the pen to be wielded by others; they put themselves in the position of the lion in the fable; but it would bea very different sculpture were they the carvers. Still they are, what Liberals and Conservatives alike own them to be when: their votes are wanted, the blood and backbone of England.
This being so, it is interesting to see what the working classes are doing for themselves. It is only within the last few yenrs that the law has allowed them to form trades' unions at all; but since these unions Lave been made legal they have become a power, and the record of their annual congress, which has been sitting this year at Dabliv, is fall of points of interest. But we desire more particularly to direct attention to a paper read to the congress by Dr. Ingram, a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, on " Work and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.