livelihood by cultivating a few acres of land; but, practically, it is open to some serious drawbacks.  First, the cultivator requires to be skilled in husbandry, and of a bodily frame to endure the fatigue of constant out-door labour.  Second, his land must be tolerably good, and situated under a good climate.  Third, the land must be close to a market, otherwise the produce cannot be disposed of.  The cultivation of a small bit of land is in reality a kind of gardening.  No horse-labour can be employed; all is to be done by the spade.  It may be possible, therefore, to make a livelihood near a large town, where anything that is produced—­milk and butter included—­will find a ready market at no cost of transport; but in other circumstances the thing is almost hopeless.  It is a notorious fact, that the most wretched of the rural population of this country are small cultivators, even if the land costs next to nothing.  We are aware that the small-farm system is more successful in Belgium and Lombardy.  On the reasons for this, it is here needless to enter.  We take the examples offered in Great Britain, where it has never come up to the expectations of philanthropists.

The purchase of forty-shilling freeholds has lately been put forward as a method of investing money by the working-classes.  It is beyond our province to speak of the political aims of this form of investment.  We can recognise a certain good in giving to a working-man the feeling, that he is the proprietor of a house or small portion of land yielding (along with the franchise in England) a rent of forty shillings per annum; but, at the same time, we recognise a corresponding evil, and we should be shrinking from our duty if we did not mention it in distinct terms.  In those localities where operatives and others can reckon on constant remunerative employment, it may prove a real service in many ways for them to buy a house instead of renting one; indeed, we should highly recommend them to become the proprietors of the dwellings which they occupy.  But in places where workmen possess no such assurance or reasonable prospect of employment, we would as earnestly dissuade them from taking a step of this kind.  The capital of a working-man—­that on which he must place his dependence—­is his labour; and this labour he ought to be in a position to dispose of to the best advantage.  On this account, he requires, as a general rule, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever his labour is in demand.  Of all men, he has the most cause to be a citizen of the world.  He may find it his interest to remove to localities hundreds of miles off; and therefore the fewer obstructions to his movements, the better.  Heritable property is a fixture.  A man cannot take it with him, and the sale of it, even when time is permitted to seek out a purchaser, is attended with expense and difficulty.  No doubt the transfer of such property might and ought to be vastly lowered in cost; but not until this is done, will it be time