Robert Raikes: Journalist and Philanthropist. By Alfred Gregory. (Hodder and
Stoughton.)—Robert Raikos (1735-1811) was a printer and newspaper proprietor and editor in the city of Gloucester. He inherited from his father the ownership of the Gloucester Journal, a paper dating from the year 1722, and standing ninth in order of time among the provincial papers. The inheritance fell to him when he was but twenty-two years of age, and he managed it for forty-five years with singular honesty and discretion. There is often something very homely stud quaint about the records of his editorship, but the integrity and honour of the man are everywhere manifest. Yet his business formed but a portion of his life. He devoted much attention to the improve- ment of the prisons of his native town, and Howard himself recognised the value of his labours. And he has claims, which soom incontrovertible, to be the founder of Sunday-schools. Others of course had gathered children together on the Sunday and taught them, but he organised the system. Altogether this is an interesting biography, and the writer has made it judiciously brief. We notice, as a curious instance of changed manners, that towards the close of the last century it was the custom at Manchester for the chief magistrate of the town, attended by the churchwarden and police officers, to go out of the church while the first lesson was being read, and to compel all persons found in the streets to come into the ehuroh or pay a fine, which in the case of persons of the lower class was fixed at one shilling, and for those of higher rank at half-a-crown. This was pretty well for the " godless " eighteenth century. Tho mayor and police of Manchester would have their hands full if they revived the practice.
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