best manner; or who, in any other service, claim and obtain a preference, because there will be a demand for their skill, as long as taste and fashion shall retain their influence. The laundress, or the seamstress, distinguished in her employment, like those who are eminent in other callings, has few competitors. The demand for talents like hers, even in a time of general depression, may be above, rather than below the supply that is to be obtained of them. But, on the other hand, even in the season of the greatest activity of business, and of the greatest demand for common laborers, or workmen of ordinary powers, a supply, even to any extent that is desired, is easily obtained. And, for the coarse work of tailors, of slop-shops, and of any kind upon which females may be employed, there is always a sufficient number to meet the calls of the market. For this coarse work also, at the best, the prices paid are so small, that even when it can constantly be supplied, a comfortable subsistence for a family can hardly be obtained from it, even by the most unremitted labor. But it cannot be constantly supplied, even in a time of the greatest general prosperity. And, for more than a year past, the demand for it has been so greatly diminished, that many can obtain no share of it; and even the most favored workers consider it as a great boon, when enough of it can be given to them to enable them to pay their rent, and in part at most to purchase the food and fuel, which are necessary for their subsistence. Let these circumstances be taken into view, and I shall be more fully understood in speaking of those who are often, and considerably poor.

This division comprehends some, who were long among the partially, and temporarily poor. A respectable mechanic, for example, who had always provided well for his family, while he had health and employment, but who

had accumulated nothing, has died, leaving an infirm wife, and several young children. His widow is very virtuous, and well disposed. But she has been accustomed only to the ordinary use of her needle, and she has not strength to go out to daily labor. She must, therefore, through the rest of her life, to a certain extent, be dependent on charity. I know families of this description, which it would be ungenerous and unjust to send to an almshouse. Or, an aged and sick mother may for years be partially supported by her children, who live with her, and who do all that they can for her; who yet, by their united exertions, can in part only support the family. There are also many widows, with young children, who have in general pretty good health, are capable of labor, and earnestly desirous of it, but who are often, and for a considerable time, wholly without employment. In this division of the poor, there are some of exemplary characters, who are not far removed from absolute and constant dependence; and there are those, too, whose poverty is immediately attributable to their intemperance, thriftlessness, and indolence. There are widows, who are faithfully toiling, and patiently suffering, for the instruction and well being of their children, who cannot, by their best exertions, earn more than twentyfive, or thirty dollars in a year. And there are suffering wives of intemperate husbands, who do what they can to earn a little, and who are hardly assisted at all by those to whom they have the best right to look for support; who yet ought not, with their young children, to be left to the miseries of unpitied, and unrelieved want,-embarrassed as we may sometimes feel ourselves to be by the doubt, whether we are not supporting the idle and intemperate in their sins, even by giving food and clothing to their hungry and almost naked families. It is also a very im

portant circumstance, that, in this division of the poor, there are hundreds of children, who are in the most imminent danger of moral ruin. Some of them are occasionally sent out to beg; by which their moral feelings are not only blunted, but they are brought also into connexion with the habitual beggars, and other idlers, who go to no school, and who early become fearfully vicious. Many of these children are kept from school during a large part of the winter, to gather fuel; and, when again sent to school, they are truants, their names are stricken by the teachers from their lists, and they are soon vagrants. Many, likewise, at eleven and twelve years of age, and before they have acquired any competent knowledge of writing and arithmetic, are placed in shops and offices as waiters, or runners, that, by earning a dollar a week, their parents may be enabled to pay their weekly rent. So great are the evils to which these boys are exposed, from their association with each other, and from their daily temptations to deception and dishonesty, that I consider the probability to be comparatively small, of their future virtue and usefulness. This division of the poor comprehends the greatest amount, though we do not often see in it the greatest degree, of suffering. To a very large part of them, however, the past winter has been peculiarly distressing.

I would refer any one, who thinks that he cannot visit the poor, and who yet believes that they might obtain the employment necessary for self-support, if they would seek for it, to those from whom alone they can look for employment. Ask a man who is at the head of an extensive slop-shop establishment, whether he has been for a long time obliged, and is still obliged, to dismiss empty handed, any considerable number of females applying to him for work, and he will answer you, "hundreds." And

so it has been, and still is, in all the departments of labor, on which females depend for subsistence. Nor have the opportunities for employment been more favorable among our laboring men. The winter has been to them a season of most dangerous idleness. Who has not seen them standing together in groups upon our wharves, at the corners of the streets, and about the doors of the shops, which attract idlers, as the sweetened vessel which is designed to procure their death, attracts flies? It is literally true, that there have been, and that there still are, considerable numbers of laboring men, who might have obtained for their families a competent support, and who would have supported their families in comparative com. fort, if they could have had work; who yet have not had, and could not obtain, in many weeks of the winter, work enough to enable them to purchase the food necessary for their families. There are those, also, among poor females, with whom the steady sewing of ten or twelve hours a day, at the low price at which they must do their work, would not enable them to meet the absolutely necessary expenses of every week, or month. If, then, four or five weeks shall pass, - and this is sometimes the case, in which they cannot obtain any work from those to whom they look for employment, and if day labor in families cannot be had by them, or if their strength shall be inadequate to this labor, where can they look for support, but to charity? Here, then, it may easily be supposed, that great and bitter want must have been experienced, and must still be felt. And so indeed it has been, and is. I could easily give affecting details of this distress. I could exhibit the struggles I have seen of virtue, with the sufferings and temptations of want, which could not fail to awaken a strong interest, even in hearts of no uncommon sensibility. But my object is alone to do what

I may, in the brief space within which I must confine my report, to make the past and present sufferings of the poor more clearly and fully understood, than perhaps they can be, where there is no classification of the conditions of the poor. I have wished, to a certain extent, to shew what is the kind of suffering that poverty occasions, and among whom this suffering is most keenly felt. This is a knowledge, which is very important to a wise and effi cient direction, either of public, or of private charity.

The question arises, how have these sufferings of the poor been met? I answer, in the best manner in which they could have been met; that is, by an unusually extensive, and active, sympathy with the poor. No one, indeed, who has not been into their families, can be fully sensible of the extent of the distress, which has been occasioned by the failure of demand for their services. But enough has been known of general facts, enough has been seen abroad, and comprehended at a glance, to excite to extraordinary efforts for the relief of the necessitous. Several of our religious societies have repeatedly taken collections in their churches, for the poor of their own number. Our benevolent associations, also, have put forth all their energies in the cause. Very much has been given from families, to those who have personally applied for relief; and many have followed the poor to their homes, and have seen for themselves the wants, which could not be witnessed without commiseration, and efforts for their alleviation. I have myself also, thanks to my benefactors, and to him from whom all good proceeds, been enabled to relieve a very great amount of want, and to save many from great suffering. May the best blessings of heaven descend upon those friends of my ministry, known and unknown, who have so liberally proportioned