a few miles of that place. He sought the maps of Pont and Bleau in vain for the parish of Bowden, which any almanac would have pointed out; and, long resident in England and foreign countries, he was singularly inexpert in the Lowland Scottish tongue. Selected by Gibbon to be his assistant in republishing the old historians of England, he repaid the obligation by imitating the style of the historian of the empire, which, in his hands, became harsh, tumid, and obscure. Besides, although Mr. Pinkerton collected many valuable materials from the Paperoffice, yet that valuable depositary of original letters is far from exhausted; and the unwearied labours of Mr. Deputy-Register Thomson have thrown interesting light on the reigns of the second and third Jameses. The immense stores collected by the industrious Chalmers have also been added to the materials for Scottish history, within the last twenty years; we hope, therefore, Mr. Tytler, young, ardent, and competent to the task, will not delay to prosecute it with the same spirit which he has hitherto displayed. And so we bid him God's speed upon his journey

For long, though pleasing, is the way,

And life, alas! allows but an ill winter's day.

ART. IV.-Lettres sur le Système de la Co-Opération Mutuelle, Par Joseph Rey de Grenoble. Paris, A Sautelet.

2. The Co-Operative Magazine.

3. The Brighton Co-Operator.

4. The Birmingham Co-Operative Herald.

IN

1828.

N the year 1696, one John Bellers published Proposals for raising a Colledge of Industry of all useful Trades and Husbandry, with profit for the rich, a plentiful living for the poor, and a good education for youth.' In his rules for teaching children languages, he agrees with Mr. Hamilton, and the modern reformers on this subject, in recommending the vocables to be learnt before the grammar, though rules,' he says, as well as words, make the complete scholar, yet considering words lies (!) in the memory, and rules in the understanding, and that children have first memory before understanding, by that Nature shows, memory is to be first used, and that, in the learning of language, words should be first learnt, and afterwards rules to put them together.' In learning his mother tongue, John Bellers never reached more than the knowledge of words, for, in a pamphlet of only fortythree pages, he has contrived to give detestable examples of every possible sin against grammar. Nevertheless, he seems to have been a benevolent, pious, and sensible man, and in his scheme

there

there is nothing of the tête montée' which these schemers so generally betray. Men whose minds have long been exclusively Occupied with what they deem an important novelty, are of all writers the most tantalizing; heated to excess by their favourite notion, it loses all solidity, expands into gas, and evaporates in an endless redundancy of explanations and declamations, till the reader, hopeless of ever reaching the point he is in search of, lays down the book in despair. This is the main reason why these writers, with one idea,' so frequently complain that no one will attend to them—they make us pay too dearly for the precious unit; as it has cost them almost a life to discover it, they think we ought to spend a life in learning it; but the reader is commonly of a different opinion-his expectation is kept on tiptoe till the toe wearies, and he walks off without waiting the result.

6

John Bellers is a writer of a very different kind; he comes straight to the point, and at once discloses his scheme clearly and briefly. It is that the rich should found a College of Industry,' in which to receive the poor, employ them, maintain them, and take the profits to themselves-the poor labourers securing a provision during sickness and age, and education and maintenance for their children, and the proprietors receiving an ample interest for their money. The college was to contain three hundred persons. Bellers calculated that the labour of two hundred would produce enough for the maintenance of the whole, and that the labour of the other hundred would produce a clear profit to the proprietors. The inhabitants were to be employed in such trades as were required for the wants of the college, or as would be profitable in the neighbourhood, so as to be an epitome of the world, being a collection of all the useful trades in it, so it may afford all the conveniences and comforts a man can want, or a Christian use.' The members of the colledge may be distinguished in caps and cloaths, as the master workmen from the prentices, and women from girls. A certain number of the boys and girls should be appointed weekly to wait at table upon the men and women at meals, that, as much as may be, the men and women may live better in the college than anywhere else. There should be several wards; for young men and boys; for married persons; for sick and lame.' The establishment was to admit a certain number of boarders, who, paying an annual stipend, would be excused all labour; and parents were advised, when they had children of doubtful dispositions, to leave their property to the college, and so purchase for such children a residence and maintenance for life, which they could not squander as they might an estate. For the erection of this college, it was calculated that eighteen thousand pounds would be required. Who John Bellers was, and what

became

became of his scheme, we know not; either it failed, or, what is more probable, it was never tried.

There is no doubt that men have been brought to live in working communities, and have prospered in them; but the question is, whether they require for their success a combination of circumstances which rarely occur together, or whether the necessary elements can be commonly collected and combined. This is the great practical question; the desideratum is, a remedy for every-day evils of society. The practicability of such schemes, as a mere question of finance, if the industry, frugality, and good conduct of the members could be depended upon, there can be no doubt about. If it had never been proved before, it has lately been shown to demonstration, by the success of the settlement at Fredericks Oord. The success of this and other settlements in the Netherlands has been so complete, that it is surprising no attempt has been made to introduce the same plan into England. If the object were to administer the parish rates so as to attain the very minimum of success, the managers could not succeed better than they do at present in this country. We throw out the same hint to the directors of the Refuge for the Destitute. With such funds, the question might soon be settled, and perhaps an important improvement in the management of the poor, one of the greatest of our national wants, be introduced into this country. If any doubts were entertained about the accuracy of Mr. Jacob's account of these establishments, the Netherlands are near, and a committee of two or three inquisitive, accurate, right-headed, unsanguine gentlemen might soon see things for themselves, and bring home conclusive information on the subject.

It is well known that working communities have been formed with success by Moravian teachers, in Hottentot villages at the Cape of Good Hope. The accounts we have received, from eye-witnesses of undoubted veracity, are equally decisive as to the worldly prosperity of those villagers, and their moral and religious character now. The question still to be determined is, whether they will have intelligence enough to continue the system, when the present directors and founders have been removed by death.

One of the strongest examples of a successful working community is the Society of Harmony. It originated at Wurtemburg, in Bavaria, about the year 1780, under a clergyman of the name of Rapp. The members emigrated to America, where they arrived about 1805, and settled in the western part of Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg. At first they were subject to extreme privations; in fact, they were reduced to the verge of famine, because their capital was not sufficient to maintain them comfortably while they were clearing ground and raising their first crops. These diffi

culties

culties being overcome, their wealth accumulated rapidly. Within seven years they had brought into cultivation three thousand acres of land, and possessed about two thousand sheep; they had hopgardens, orchards, and vineyards-barns, stables, and granaries large enough to hold one year's produce in corn always in advance; houses for making cyder, beer, wine, and oil; distilleries, mills for grinding and sawing, and machines for making all kinds of clothing; they had a shop for retailing Philadelphia goods to the country, about a hundred good dwelling houses of wood, a large stone-built tavern, and a church of brick. They did a great deal of business, principally manufacturing for the people of the country. About the year 1816 they disposed of their property, and settled in another district on the Wabash river, when their common capital was estimated at about fifty thousand pounds. In the year 1818 they were prospering at a greater rate than ever; they were introducing steam into all their manufactures, and even building a steam-boat to traffic with New Orleans. In 1823, the members were about seven hundred, and prospering in a way that astonished their neighbours for many miles round they were then considered to be great capitalists, and resorted to by their neighbours for negotiating loans and discounting bills. They have a common capital and common labour. Marriage is not forbidden, but it was rather discouraged than otherwise, so that the numbers increased slowly. In the year 1827 they were beginning to adopt more liberal notions on this and other subjects, for they were paying more attention to the education of their chil dren, and to the general information of the members. It is fair to add, that Mr. Rapp has gratifications beyond those of the community; and that his son is understood to be realizing a fortune from the increase of its wealth,

Another working community, which has been successful in the United States, are the people called Shakers, from the grotesque nature of their religious ceremonies. Captain Basil Hall, during his late travels through North America, paid them a visit at Lebanon, the place of their residence, and though he found their forms of worship too ludicrous to describe, having never beheld any thing, even in Hindostan, (he says,) to match these Shakers,' yet he describes them as a very orderly, industrious and harmless set of persons.'

There is another community, never yet noticed in print, of which we have received the following account from one who visited it. A number of persons emigrated together from Europe, meaning to form a settlement near each other. On arriving at Pennsylvania their funds were exhausted, and they were enabled to go forward only by the liberality of some Quakers; they formed

a settle

a settlement near Wheeling, on the Ohio. They purchased land, and divided it into as many portions as there were families. It was then proposed that each should take possession of his portion, build his own house, and till his own ground. Till this could be done, they built a large house for common accommodation, and cleared a piece of land for common support, When they had accomplished this, it was proposed by some of the influential people, that as they had lived together so long with mutual comfort and satisfaction, it would be as well to continue the same plan which had thus been proved to be advantageous, instead of dividing their interests and property. This they did; and in 1827, they were a true working community, their labour, capital, and produce being in common, and with every mark of prosperity about them,

M. Rey, of Grenoble, the author of the little volume of which we have given the title above, was for some time in England, and became a convert to Mr. Owen's views. From his second letter, if we may trust the accuracy of his information, it would appear that, beside the Harmonists and the Shakers, a numerous crop of working communities have sprung up within the last few years in various parts of the United States. In 1824, the Harmonists sold their village and the surrounding land, amounting to thirty thousand acres, to Mr. Owen, and retired further west to Cincinnati. Mr. Owen having, in the American newspapers, invited settlers to form a working community, they flocked in from all quarters, so that he soon found himself with a sufficient number of persons for the commencement of his plan, but many of them woefully deficient in the necessary qualifications, being ignorant, idle, and profligate; he therefore divided them into several classes, forming the worst into what he called a preliminary society, amounting to about one thousand or twelve hundred persons: these he placed in the village, whilst he formed the better sort into four separate communities, which he placed on different portions of the neighbouring land. The half savage inhabitants of the village were for some time very unruly, and at length split into three communities, one of which is described by M, Rey as being steadily and progressively prosperous, We have seen it stated in the Revue Encyclopedique,' that they have a library of five or six thousand volumes

that they have balls, concerts, and conversaziones in the evening-that the young women quit their pianofortes to go and milk the cows and cook the dinner, which much amused Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar, who remained among them eight or ten days, and whose secretary danced at their balls in the dress of the community, to wit, a Greek tunic with large pantaloons. But the duke, in his own book, gives a more unfavourable account of the whole concern; and, in fact, predicts its speedy dissolution.

Besides