OR, BETTER TIMES TO COME. BEING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MANY MEN TOUCHING THE PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS OF SOCIETY. EDITED BY VISCOUNT INGESTRE. HUMANI NIHIL ALIENUM. SECOND SERIES. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. MDCCCLIII. 249. E.661. PREFACE. ENCOURAGED NCOURAGED by the success which has attended the first series of Meliora, the editor feels the greater confidence in presenting to the public another volume on the same subject, from the feeling that there is an increasing demand for information upon those topics which they are intended to illustrate. The evils, indeed, both moral and social, which unhappily exist among the working classes only require to be known, in order to awaken a lively sympathy, and an active desire to see them removed. Actuated, then, by the view of diffusing as widely as possible an accurate knowledge of the miseries under which those persons labour who are compelled 'to eat their bread in the sweat of their face,' the editor has pursued the same plan which he adopted in the first series, of collecting papers from individuals of whose earnestness in the cause he was well assured, and the soundness of whose principles he did not doubt. He has also, as before, admitted papers from a few working men, with the view of making known the opinions they entertain upon these subjects. He does not, however, hoid himself responsible for any opinions that may be expressed in any of the papers; but he feels that it would |