PREFACE.

THE first and most essential condition of doing good, is the thorough knowledge of the evil to be combated. The cankers which are eating into the very heart of modern society can be cured only (if cure be possible) after a careful and scrupulous investigation. It is only by patient and diligent research into the causes of destitution that we can discover the means of overcoming, or at least of mitigating it; and to reduce the effective army of crime, we must first know under what moral and social influence that army has been raised and recruited.

But it would be of very little use to expatiate on the nature of the malady, without at the same time proposing the means of removing it. Indeed, a curious and instructive lesson may be learned from the parallel between the disease itself and the remedies employed against it.

To draw a faithful picture of the crime and pauperism which are making such fearful havoc in wealthy and industrial England, and at the same time to paint in true colours the generous efforts of a whole nation to attenuate their evil results and lighten their perils-to point out, on the one hand, the millions plunged in the depths of misery and sin, and, on the other, the institutions of every description established to aid and relieve them-to pro

claim the mighty power of charity, self-devotion, and wisely-directed philanthropy in alleviating suffering and diminishing crime-this is the task the author of these pages has undertaken-a task as difficult as it is noble, and which he has fulfilled with equal conscientiousness and ability.

Cut off in the prime of life from the literary career of which he was an ornament, from the serious and important labours in the cause of suffering humanity to which his attention was devoted, he had not time to rear. a finished edifice, but has left only fragments, the extent and nature of which serve to increase our regret that they should be incomplete.

It was a happy thought of his widow to collect these pages from the reviews and periodicals in which most of them were scattered ;* for, different as is their nature, one common link unites them all. An ardent love of well-doing; a passionate zeal for the amelioration of the poorer classes, and the reformation of the guilty; a remarkable impartiality of judgment; a keen critical acumen, guided and enlightened by religious faith;these constitute the pervading spirit of all the author's works; more especially of these pages, to which we are happy to append our name.

Mettray, August, 1865.

DE METZ.

* The works already published by M. D. de Pontès :--" Études sur l'Angleterre ;" Études sur l'Orient," two editions; "Notes sur la Grèce;” “Études sur Paris;" "Études sur la Gaule ;” “Traduction en Vers de Childe Harold."

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THE second French edition of the "Études sur l'Angleterre," just issued from the press, and of which this volume is a translation, has been considerably enlarged, partly by many pages omitted from want of space in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," where the two first articles originally appeared, and partly by appendices carrying on the history of crime and pauperism to the present day.

These appendices have been added by the widow of the author, at the desire of several individuals interested in the cause of humanity, who believe that the main object of M. de Pontès-viz., the welfare of society, the relief of suffering, and the reformation of the criminal— will be promoted in France by some information on what has been done on the other side of the Channel during the last seven years for the improvement of the condition of the poorer classes, and by the assurance that the introduction of a portion at least of the Irish system, so warmly approved by the author, into the penal discipline. of England, has been already attended with the most encouraging results.

In offering the English public an English edition of the "Études," the translator has been actuated by the

belief that many whose attention is most earnestly directed to these questions, would prefer reading the pages which treat of them in their own tongue. The appendices, however inadequate, are at least the result of careful investigation and personal acquaintance with the subject, aided by the knowledge and experience of some of those to whose untiring efforts the improvements she has recorded have been mainly due. Whatever the defects of the translation, she trusts they will not mar the interest which, in the opinion of the English as well as the French press, this volume must possess for every thoughtful and enlightened mind.

July, 1866.