hands, and save my pennies. Drinking water neither makes a man sick nor in debt, nor his wife a widow. And that, let me tell you, makes a considerable difference in our out-go. It may amount to about half-a-crown a week, or seven pounds a year. That seven pounds will clothe myself and children, while you are out at elbows and your children go barefoot."

"Come, come, that's going too far. I don't drink at that rate. I may take an odd half-pint now and then; but half a crown a week! Pooh! pooh!"

'Well then, how much did you spend on drink last Saturday night? Out with it."

"Let me see I had a pint with Jones; I think I had another with Davis, who is just going to *Australia; and then I went to the lodge."

"Well, how many glasses had you there?"

"How can I tell? I forget. But it's all stuff and nonsense, Bill!"

"Oh, you can't tell

you don't know what you spent? I believe you. But that's the way your

pennies go, my lad."

"And that's all your secret?"

"Yes; take care of the penny-that's all. Because I save, I have, when you want.

simple, isn't it?"

66

It's very

'Simple, oh yes; but there's nothing in it."

"Yes! there's this in it,-that it has made you ask me the question, how I manage to keep my family so comfortably, and put money in the Penny Bank, while you, with the same wages, can barely

make the ends meet. Money is independence, and money is made by putting pennies together. Besides, I work so hard for mine,-and so do you,— that I can't find in my heart to waste a penny on drink, when I can put it beside a few other hardearned pennies in the bank. It's something for a sore foot or a rainy day. There's that in it, Jack; and there's comfort also in the thought that, whatever may happen to me, I needn't beg nor go to the workhouse. The saving of the penny makes me feel a free man. The man always in debt, or without a penny beforehand, is little better than a slave."

"But if we had our rights, the poor would not be so hardly dealt with as they now are."

"

Why, Jack, if you had your rights to-morrow would they put your money back into your pocket after you had spent it?-would your rights give your children shoes and stockings when you had chosen to waste on beer what would have bought them? Would your rights make you or your wife thriftier, or your hearthstone cleaner? Would rights wash your children's faces, and mend the holes in your clothes? No, no, friend! Give us our rights by all means, but rights are not habits, and it's habits we want-good habits. With these we can be free men and independent men now, if we but determine to be so. Good night, Jack, and mind my secret,-it's nothing but taking care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves."

"Good night!" And Jack turned off at the laneend towards his humble and dirty cottage, in Main's Court. I might introduce you to his home -but "home" it could scarcely be called. It was full of squalor and untidiness, confusion and dirty children, where a slattern-looking woman was scolding. Ransom's cottage, on the contrary, was a home. It was snug, trim, and neat; the hearthstone was fresh sanded; the wife, though her hands were full of work, was clean and tidy; and her husband, his day's work over, could sit down with his children about him, in peace and comfort.

The chief secret was now revealed. Ransom's secret, about the penny, was a very good one, so far as it went. But he had not really told the whole truth. He could not venture to tell his less fortunate comrade that the root of all domestic prosperity, the mainstay of all domestic comfort, is the wife; and Ransom's wife was all that a working man could desire. There can be no thrift, nor economy, nor comfort at home, unless the wife helps ;-and a working man's wife, more than any other man's; for she is wife, housekeeper, nurse, and servant, all in one. If she be thriftless, putting money into her hands is like pouring water through a sieve. Let her be frugal, and she will make her home a place of comfort, and she will also make her husband's life happy-if she do not lay the foundation of his prosperity and fortune. This lesson cannot be learned too early. Girls at school

should recollect that even whilst very young they can do much to influence their brothers and their friends, and that when their turn comes to manage a home for their fathers, or their husbands as it may be idleness and extravagance cannot be easily checked, if they have, like "ill weeds," been allowed to "grow apace."

Penny Bank. A bank which

will take care of money even if it be only paid in a penny at a time. Australia.

An island so large

that it is sometimes called a fifth continent. Emigration there is very constant amongst working people when work cannot be got here.

TWO REMARKABLE SCOTCHMEN.

[The extracts in this chapter are taken by permission from the "Memoir of Robert Chambers, with Autobiographic Reminiscences of William Chambers, LL.D.," published by W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh and London.]

In recent times there are not two more striking examples of the reward of Thrift than the lives of the brother publishers, William and Robert Chambers, the elder of whom still survives, and has

written a truthful and graphic account of their early struggles and subsequent success, in a volume which consists of about 350 pages, 8vo, and is well worth reading and study by all boys who desire to achieve a like success. The two brothers, now so well known as distinguished literary men, the publishers and conductors of a journal read everywhere, and the authors of many valuable works, besides being the founders of a family worthy of its name, made by their united industry and perseverance a not inconsiderable fortune. They were both born at *Peebles, in Scotland; William, now known as Dr. Chambers, in the year 1800, and Robert in 1802. The younger brother, who was well known both in London and *Edinburgh society, died in the year 1871, a victim, it almost appeared to his family and friends, to over literary work.

The parents of these remarkable men were a respectable couple, of whom it may be said that the "wife was the better man of the two;" and it is not uncommon in reading biography to find that the mother's abilities and character are inherited by her sons. The elder Chambers was engaged in a cotton manufactory, and did not possess the natural qualities necessary to success. He is described as having a pliancy of disposition which renders a man "his own worst enemy." He was inconsiderate, easily misled, wanted fortitude, and was constantly exposed to imposition. His tastes were, however, refined, and his love of music considerable, but he