150 FOURTEENTH EVENING,

“ Porter is a sort of luxury to a poor man, bul nota
useless one, since it will stand in the place of some
solid food, and enable him to work with better heart.
You could treat a hard-working man with a pint a day
of this liquor for a fortnight, with half a crown.

“ Many a cottage in the country, inhabited by a large
family, is let for forty shillings a year. Half a crown
a week would pay the full rent of three such cottages,
and allow somewhat over, for repairs.

“The usual price for schooling at a dame-school ina
village is twopence a week. You might, therefore,
get fifteen children instructed in reading, and the girls
in sewing, for halfa crown weekly. But even in a
town you might get them taught reading, writing, and
accounts, and so fitted for any common trade, for five
shillings a quarter; and, therefore, half a crown a week
would keep six children at such a school, and provide
them with books besides.

“All these are ways in which half a crown a week
might be made to do a great deal of good to others.
I shall now just mention one or two ways of laying it
out with advantage to yourself.

“I know you are very fond of coloured plates of
plants, and other objects of natural history. There are
now several works of this sort publishing, in monthly
numbers; as the Botanical Magazine, the English
Botany, the Flora Rustica, and the Naturalist’s Maga-
zine. Now, half a crown a week would reach the
purchase of the best: of these.

“The same sum laid out im the old book-shops i,
London, would buy you more classics, and pretty
editions too, in one year, than you could read in five.

“ Now I do not grudge laying out half a crown a week
upon you; but when so many good things for yourself
and others may be done with it, I am unwilling you
should squander it away, like your schoolfellows, in
tarts and trinkets.”’

STO Re Pee ERT