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May 8, 1S52;] THE L EADER, 4^1
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BREAK-UP OF THE BOOK-TRADE SYSTEM. The b...
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¦' ¦ 'i THE HAUNTED GAMP. Schwarzenbeeg,...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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" Cottoning" To Despotism. History Indic...
that stouter stuff of which a Napier can give some Account , and of which even the West Elding can furnish good supplies . There still beats in England a heart stouter than , that selfish arid cruel Humanitarianism of the counter and the mill ; which faiats at the sight of blood , shuts its eyes at the bright gleam of a sword , closes its ears to the cry of Weeding nations , and contempl a tes , without horror- —at a distance—the possibility that a foreigrifee might violate our sacred homes . And in rousing that heart to its duty before it he too late , many a severed political party might join . __^ _^_
May 8, 1s52;] The L Eader, 4^1
May 8 , 1 S 52 ;] THE L EADER , 4 ^ 1
Break-Up Of The Book-Trade System. The B...
BREAK-UP OF THE BOOK-TRADE SYSTEM . The book-buying world has outgrown the present system of bookselling , and that system is falling to pieces by force of the struggles which its niembers make to accommodate their own condition to the circumstances ; but in the present aspect of the contest , it appears to us that Reformers lose sight of two or three facts which ought not to be omitted from the account . If the present restrictions be burst , the whole character of the trade will alter , the number of books will augment beyond calculation ; any
check upon their character * which is already failing in practice ^ w ill be destroyed ; and , as we believe , a very general deterioration will spread over the vast field of book-making ; reducing it to the level of all other trades . Adulteration will become , not the exception , but the rule . Already , most books are bad enough— -but to have books like ordinary coffee ! yet such , with much lowered price , quantities beyond control ,
incessant competition , and no end to mercenary tools that are but waiting for employment , is the inevitable result . We say nothing against the free trade ^ although we hold that literature is not well engaged when it is subject to any trading process at all ; we believe that it must go through that stage of laissez alter •/ therefore let us at least face the immediate consequences . If the impending evil were * distinctly , yet generally foreseen , some suggestion might be thrown out
to mitigate it . To regulate literature by supply and demand , is to invert the natural order of sense . Ignorance never knows its own want , and never « will demand the supply it needs . On the other hand , love of gain , mercantile " demand , " is not the true motive to good teaching , to good art , or to any intellectual or moral good . Give schoolboys the kind of tutor they demand , select for tutor the man who will bo guided entirely by popularity-hunting , or by the motive for screwing pence out of the boys , and you would convert the school into the casino . Adulteration awaits a literature
regulated by supply and demand , even more than it is now : we aro going to be flooded with catchpenny trifles , " fast" books , and works too sli ght even to be powerfully mischievous—idle things which he that runs may read ; and those which one must stop to read will be left to shift for themselves by the univorsal dictator . Books are to be treated as ordinary manufactures , to bo sold as ordinary merchandize : let authors , howovor , remember , that cotton goods have no " authors , " unless tho designer , with his 40 * . foo , is to staud for tho author . The
original workman of most goods goes by the wall ; and now tho rule is to bo applied to books . It ia so dooreod past revocation , and wo sock not to rovolco it : but tho authors might as well consider what is going to happen . At present they Boom to bo establishing , not a republic of lcttors , but anarchy—abolishing Protection , and substituting J- roudhonism . In , replying to tho question put forth by M . 08 sr 3 . John W . Parkor and Son , they should consider something beyond tho more procoss of undoing . Messrs . Parker and Son ask tho authors '
opinion as to the maintenance of tho fixod selling price , or the liconoo for retailers to soil at any lower price . Tho' whole movement , wo bolieyo , involvos the abandonment of tho fixod selling price , and will leave $ he publishing price , if any , as tho fixod point . Biifc what is lilcoly to happon subsoquontlyp Tho publishers , not wishing to bouomo < mtangled in complicated accounts , will again malco proferontial reductions to allied friends ; u } o publishing price will bo calculated with a V 1 ow to those reductions , and tlion wo shall bo wiioro wo aro now .
... . ° presume suoU ulterior combination , since « ' ia tlio voryoHsonco of perfect freedom , to promuib nothing , not ovon , combination . Under por «
feet freedom , of course , it would still be competent to form an association of booksellers , like the present , refusing to deal with any persons but those who conform to all its rules . And in some degree such a combination is almost certain to exists ¦ ' ;;¦ " .. ,- . . , \ ¦ ¦¦ , ' . ¦' ¦ ¦ ' ¦ Men will , combine ' wherever they see that a common : interest is to be promoted or expedited by the combination . Free trade is but a negation , after all ; it only settles the question of restrictions rendered compulsory by some power ab extra : it has not prevented railway amalga ^
mations , nor even combinations against the public by railway companies , though competing between themselves . It has not prevented the Amalgamated Masters of the engineering trades from combining against the workmen , whom they force to work longer at low wages than the' men desire . Free trade , in short , cannot regulate the wants and wishes of society . It will be therefore but to share in a vulgar infatuation , if authors or publishers , or even booksellers of any foresight , should trust solely to free trade , into which they are nowinvited to plunge without reservation . It is the more needful for authors to reflect .
since , strictly speaking , they do not enter into trade at all , except in rare cases . ! Nor is the training of mind suited to most kinds of literature , suited to the pursuits of eomnieree . Unless therefore they secure ; a machinery for securing their interests , —somfe broad plan which , settled once for all , shall be self-working , except under exceptional stipulations—they will only hand themr selves over , Ibodily , to be swamped among a new creation of jobbing book-makers , and literature Will be buried under the heap of books- —a Pompeii under the dust and ashes belched forward by a volcano of hireling fervour .
Alter the present system by all means ; it is bad , obsolete , indefensible : and though it were best of the best , as little to be kept alive as a man whose last hour is come : but when you pull down , know what is to stand in the place of the old structure—if you are diligent with the pickaxe , have your trowel ready—or at least know tohat vow are doing . r
¦' ¦ 'I The Haunted Gamp. Schwarzenbeeg,...
¦' ¦ ' i THE HAUNTED GAMP . Schwarzenbeeg , ' the Mahomet of Austria , who added to the spirit of Metternich the aggressive sabre of proselytism , is dead , but still survives in spirit : and his coadjutors are of two ordersthose who work in the councils of Austria , and those who work in the councils of the patriots . " When the revolution of 1848 broke out , " says the Vienna correspondent of the Times , " there were no Austrians ; " and so now it is resolved to have some . They arc not to be grown , but made out of materials ready at hand ; for the military doctors of Vienna have discovered how to make an Austrian out of a Bohemian , a Magyar , a Groat , or an Italian . Tho army is the instrument . The plan is not to enlist them as soldiers ; to put the badge of the two-beaked eagle doos not suffice to convert a Magyar or a Vonetian into an Austrian ; but the army , numbering four or five hundred thousand , is to be used as a school for teaching the alien members of tho Provinces German , to Germanize them ; and thus , in seven
years or so , Hungarians , Bohemians , Italians , will be Austrianized . The dead Italian will become a live Austrian . Such is tho schome . Let the Englishman understand it . It is not as if England wore to forbid Gaelic to Ireland or hilly Scotland , French to Jorsey , and Norse to tho Orkneys ; but as if tho Isle of Man wore to forbid those othor provinces their language , and English to England , —to crush tho language of Burke , of Shakcspoaro , of Burns , of Scott , of Gibbon , mid mako tho tongue of litoraturo Manx . The high patriotic strain of Danto , tho pioturod song of Ariosto , aro to bo obsolete . Of course , so mad and criminal a scheme is forbiddon by its
impracticability ; but tho project betrays tho extremes to which , tho activo despotism of Austria will go . ^ Mottornich said that " Italy was . a geographical expression ; " tho sworded Mottornioli would erase her language . Wo have still around us tho multiplying instances of the wido oxtont ovor which this merciless despotism is spreading its machinory . Sly acuopting Ilusaian aid in Hungary bchwar / onborg riveted anow the alliance botwoon tho empire ' s ; and ho managed that allianco so well , that tho jprotd < $ has become tho co-ordinate , the initiator . ' Prussia , despito lingering schemes of her own , is dragged into tho Holy Allianco . Ana
in France , although the Holy Alliance is evidently unpledged to support the new famil y * there is a congenial machinery in active operation at its service . ' The working of this machinery on the model of St . Petersburgh or Vienna is coniplete . Louis Napoleon sits at the centre and dictates , and his subordinates , one under the other , manage the affairs of Frenchmen for them . The press is edited by a Censorship . The Professors of Colleges are weeded , shaved , and instructed , by the Interior . The Prefects are set to watch tho
effects of literature , social converse , instruction , amusements , on the people . The Minister summons the managers of theatres and tells them that nothing hazardous to the morals of the people will henceforth be permitted . In short , all France is in tutelage to Gore House . It may be amusing to us who look on ; but imagine the feelings of a Frenchman who remembers what it was to be free , in act , tongue , and thought ! As if to show what the solicitude for the public morals does not mean , the President attends the
performance of the J ) ame awx Came'lias—not young Alexandre Dumas ' s delicately daring novel of that name , but a " fast" drama founded on it , with no little heightening of midnight orgies and slack vicissitudes . And to mark his enjoyment of the scene , Ijpuis Napoleon sends round a present to Mademoiselle Doche , the representative of the not inaccessible lady in the play : thus the Pericles of Leicester Square lies at the feet of Aspasia , an , d issues decrees to keep France in good nursing .
The French machinery is ready to be incorporated in that of Austria , with or without the present tenant at willy as the case maybe , but in capital working order . Already it is in excellent understanding with Austria in " Rome ; and is helping to settle the Danish succession on the Baltic . The Holy Alliance stands prepared , with its two millions or three millions of armies ; and its guiding power talks of expunging Bohemia , Hungary , and Italy , as Poland has been expunged . At such a time , what is the conduct of the patriot party , whose mission , if it has a mission , i ? shall
is to oppose that gigantic conspracy We divulge HO aecrets , we shall xnoko no comments ; we shall maintain the neutrality , the silence that we believe to be the duty of every patriot of Europe when good men are at fault . But we must note a few , a very few facts , patent to all the world . Let the mention suffice . A most eminent Italian patriot , teaching his countrymen their duty , makes a sudden and unprovoked assault on a party in France that includes men earnest and stedfast , who have worked and suffered , unchanged through all changes . The
aggrieved party retorts , with disclosures intended fatally to diminish the influence of that Italian patriot , with asseverations that he is not the leader of the Italians . Maybo so . But if he is not , who is P Wo look in vain for any one man who is at least the leader of so considerable a portion . Yet unquestionably mistakes have been made . Let one fact speak , Few men have done more to bring the despotic influences into discrodit than tho stinging satirist Giusti--a Potor Pindar with the polish of Voltaire ! Who has more contributed to keep alivo tho fire of
patriotism , even in the very heart or slavery , than tlio sweet and impassioned writer of " The Conscript ' s Mother , "—BerchotP Yot Borchet and Giusti aro not of much account among patriots , par excellence . They wore moderates , monarchists , or modified in somo heterodox way ; and thoy are of comparatively little use to " United Italy . ' Whore such results are , there must bo somothing wrong . Whcro genius finds not its vocation , wliero devotion survives tho trust which it has but once commanded , where a people with a common interest aro divided , the common cause must have had an erroneous utterance . Withltaly ,
tho one quosfciou was , or ought to have boon , tho expulsion of the Stranger ; but that was merged in ulterior and sectional questions . It is tho same all over Europo : tho pooplo , social or democratic , is divided against tho great tyrant Alien—for tho tyrant is ovor an . alion , oven amid his own kin . Tho peoples want moro scourging . TJio ghost of Sohwarzonberg prowls about tho camp of tho patriots , sowing discord ; the patriots , iorgotting tho sacred duty of union , consonfc to bo against each other tho instruments of on immortal Austria —immortal while thoy are divided . Is this right P Let conscience ask itself tho question in tho anxious Ottlw of midnight thought .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08051852/page/13/
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