could have found any portion of the Hills unoccupied, when employment was not to be obtained from the affluent.

Season after season the assembly sat in close deliberation, examined numerous witnesses, and published voluminous reports: but notwithstanding all their labours, the last list of delinquents contained a greater number than any preceding one'. Treatises were written on the subject, involving it in still greater difficulty; and one theorist had the boldness to question the right of the pauper bees to relief at all; but their forlorn condition was sufficient to excite the sympathy of the most obdurate, and the proposition, from its revolting character, was speedily dismissed.

"I am free to confess that it gives me great concern that the labours of the Grand Jury are likely to be extended to a considerable length of time; for up to the time the calendar was made up for publication, there were eighty-two prisoners charged with crimes within the City of London, which is at least one-fourth more than I ever remember in the corresponding periods during my forty years experience."-Vide Recorder's Charge to the Grand Jury, September 14, 1825. And again,

"In looking over the calendar, I am sure you will join with me in lamenting, that there are no fewer than seventy-three prisoners for trial on the London side, which is nearly double the number of last Sessions, and by far exceeds any thing within my recollection."-Charge, April 5, 1826.

1

At last they resolved upon the expedient of enlightening the minds of the workers: and accordingly great pains were taken to teach them to read, with the expectation that such pieces only of the papyrus would be perused as the affluent approved. But alas! when their minds were a little expanded, they began to dive into other matters; and such as were considered of a dangerous tendency, particularly by those who were dignified with titles; for they apprehended, and their fears were too well grounded, that by examining the foundations of society the workers would question the equity of exclusive privileges, and be less dazzled by the splendour of their stars m.

Another class of writers now came forward, termed the Apiarian Economists. Their professed object was to promote the prosperity of all the inhabitants of the hive. But upon investigating their theories, they were found, like much of their reasoning, to be directed almost exclusively to the most effectual

"Stars, garters, ribbons, all are glittering toys,
And long-drawn titles make a wond'rous noise!
Titles, to grov'ling minds distinctions rare,
May make the flatt'rer cringe, the vulgar stare;
But to the man who values honest fame,
They brand with new disgrace a worthless name.”

See a Poem called "The Times, or the Prophecy."

means of accumulating the largest quantity of honey". Whether those means were beneficial or detrimental to the working bees, or in what manner the honey was distributed, appears to have been altogether a secondary consideration. Their theories were very unintelligible to the bees in general: nor is this to be wondered at, when it was found that they could not even agree among themselves upon any consistent plan, but were continually disputing one with another upon the working of a favourite system; and indeed not one was found practicable: yet there was

It

" And yet one of the latest writers considers that the field of inquiry has not been sufficiently contracted. "It is not pretended," says Mr. Mill, "that writers on Political Economy have always limited their inquiries to this class of objects. seems, however, important to detach the science from all considerations not essential to it. I therefore premise, that in the following pages I have this alone in view; namely, to ascertain the laws according to which the production and consumption are regulated of those commodities which the intervention of human labour is necessary to procure."-Introduction to Elements of Political Economy, by James Mill, Esq.

It would be of no moment within what limits political œconomists circumscribed the science, if their opinions were not permitted to have a preponderating influence in the enactment of laws. The above definition of the objects of political œconomy may be correct, but it is the province of the enlightened statesman "to ascertain the laws according to which the production and consumption ought to be regulated."

a solitary but fatally important proposition upon which they were unanimous; namely, that the number of the bees had a tendency to increase in greater proportion than the quantity of honey, and consequently that the destruction occasioned by intemperance, disease, and by the wars on the Pentland Hills, kept their numbers within those bounds which the supply of honey prescribed.

Unfortunately for the poor destitute bees, this opinion became too prevalent: the affluent repeated it as a sanction to their overgrown stores; and even the benevolent, assenting to the supposed truth of the proposition, resigned all hope of any extensive amelioration in the condition of the bees, and thenceforward limited their efforts to the correction of some few of the disorders of the hive. The legislatores also concurred in the general opinion, and hastily broke up their meetings; their huge reports and laboured treatises were deposited high upon the shelves, and in their own peculiar phraseology they declared that the evil would cure itself"."

• The meaning of this phrase appears to be, that when the country is afflicted with scarcity and high prices, there will be more produced, until the country is afflicted with superabundance and low prices. What physical and moral consequences attend this oscillation thought of.

among the producers, are seldom

But

So many difficulties had the influential bees experienced in attempting to reform the abuses of the hive and to relieve the indigent, that they were disposed, previous to the publication of this dogma, to resign the cause in despair, if they could have reconciled it to themselves to pass by with indifference so much accumulated and increasing misery. now they were overjoyed to find that they were sanctioned by the inexorable laws of Nature in abandoning the impoverished to their fate, and that they could resume without remorse their jollity and feasting. The drone who had made the grand discovery did not go unrewarded, for he was lodged in one of the choicest cells and fed with the royal jelly P.

After the failure of the various theorists, an experimentalist arrived and announced his discovery of

P There appears to be some error in this part of the narrative, as the royal jelly was given to the young workers intended for future queens, who were destined to augment the population of the hive. But as the drone who proclaimed the dogma was peculiarly adverse to that measure, he is the last who would have been selected for such an important office. "If the bees are deprived of their queen, and are supplied with comb containing young worker brood only, they will select one or more to be educated as queens; which, by having a royal cell erected for their habitation, and being fed with royal jelly for not more than two days, when they emerge from the pupa state (though,