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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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" The Lord Chief Justice : No , no . ' Some likes apples , some likes inions . ' "
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THE EGG MYSTERY . Some cowardly blackguards collectacargo of rotten eggsto throw at the . Epsom visitors , and then conceal their names . Mr . Peat , a military saddlemaTter , recognises them , and they , like Diana , threaten to withdraw custom from his shop for that Acteon-like offence . Journals abuse them . Officers of other regiments disclaim the imputation of being concerned in the blackguardism , with a' frankness of indignation which ought to sting the concealed blackguards . But they remain concealed : no , provocation will draw them forth from their cowardly hiding . Meanwhile , Mr . Peat magnanimously pre serves silence ; so does that martyr gent Dimsdale , whose imprisonment I has well nigh proved fatal ; so does the magistrate to whom Mr . Peat showed the letter of a " distinguished " I dffender . Now , why this preposterous delicacy ? Dims- I dale maybe magnaminous ; but what noble purpose is I Berved by Peat ' s punctilio ? Is it not a servile deference I for rank " which restrains his tongue ?
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FEASTS OF CHABITY . Can ' t you give money for a public object without taking it out in amusement ? It is a curious fact—but the feeling of charity is so weak in British humanity , that without a feast you can collect few subscriptions . Poles are perishing , and English benefactors annually dance themselves into the' needful warmth of heart . Some one conceives the idea of aiding an hospital : forth , with a bazaar is got up ; four military bands are engaged ; the merchandise is coquetishly displayed , and coquetishly sold to a public which goes home congratulating itself that it has done a good thing . A religious cause is in want of funds : Exeter-hall is engaged , a bazaar is opened in Hanover-square ; earnest " reformers" pay their shillings to the sacred cause , and traffic in trifles at the same time . In every instance the public is charitable through the medium of sale and barter . Shopkeeping is attempted in all things ; virtue seduced to do its duty by amusement . Really , feasts of charity are your only way to get a flow of soul .
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A " MAGNIFICENT " IDEA . TEMPLE-UAH is certainly a decent-looking block of stone and publicly useful—if pulled down . But we won ' t mention that , since the corporation evidently conceived , what we cannot but call a magnificent idea , in connection with that structure on the occasion of the Queen ' s visit . They caused to be designed a huge crown for the centrepiece of those original illuminations in oil lamps , which they spread up and down the outlines of the architecture . And what a crown it was!—in shape how exquisite , in proportion how graceful , in colouring how unique ! It looked like a great red and yellow hat which had swelled out ut the ton shrunk in at the sides , and lost its brim .
And this gigantic ruin of a " castor , " we have heard it hinted , was invented on purpose to be let down upon the head of Victoria as bhe drove through the Bar into the City—the effect would be » o fine !—only an Alderman , well known for his sngucity , happened to suggest that possibly it might not fit , and that the result would extinguish the Queen . Horrible thought ! It was a magnificent notion , though , for all that !
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SOCIAL It E I ' O R M . III . Tine Nation Summits to Hardship and I' \\ IIAIK . K . TO AHKAIIAM KOJUN . SON . July 8 , 18 fcl . My » Kau KoniNKoN , —Jn tiiis letter 1 want to impress upon the working-men , that the misery which they undergo is a wanton infliction upon them—an infliction which they need not undergo any longer ; that we may l / cijiu to mend our condition a ( , once .
Sonic friends wiio . se opinion i value , urge me to believe that it would be better if we were to trust in the gradual development of Association , and not endeavour to give it a general application , until the ina . ss of the 1 ' oople ( s hould be educated into a condition capable of uning it , but I wish to make the friends who believe such a cour . se the beNfc , understand how much of their view arises from Nome lurking idea , that Association demands a total and sudden reorganization of society ; whereas , not only iH it possible to apply the principle of Association immediately , without awaiting that more distant day at which the People BhaH bo fully educated , bat also ouch a
day will be hastened by that very application . One of the great difficulties in the way of education is the total want of time at the disposal of the workman apart from his daily labour . Short time made a limited and partial amendment of that too protracted toil ; but to carry out short time more expensively , it is evident that " some concert between employers , employed , and consumers is absolutely
necessary ; and I shall be able toshow in these letters how concert does produce " short time . " Indeed , the most hopeful view of the short time-iats does not go far enough to secure leisure for the effective education of the average mind . Nay , one influence of continuous toil is to deaden the activity of the mind , and thus to prevent the labourer from entertaining the idea that his condition can be essentially different from what it is .
I might he content to rely on the growth of Association , since the numbers are already increasing so very rapidly in Paris and even in our own country ; but I am well aware that the associations undergo many difficulties for the want of organization outside of their own bodies . I have also some regard to very numerous classes whose condition , is so low that they have neither the means nor the knowledge to form associations , nor the hope of acquiring any such means ; and I think it can , be made clear that the principle can be applied to them forthwith . Hence we want a national movement .
Now , at would be much easier to evoke the working-classes to the labour of their own elevation , if one could appeal to any broad sentiment of nationality ; but I fear that nationality is very dead amongst us ; that it has nearly ceased ^ because the causes have ceased . Nationality is the love of country ; and the love of country is caused by those qualities in th& soil , the people , and the customs , which we habitually regard as giving us comfort or pleasure . I think that England used to be loved by Englishmen , because they regarded it as a land in which there was no small pleasure to be got out of life , even when life was humble—good
sturdy food , some share of manly pastime , comfortable homes , pleasant lands , freedom , and above all a love of fair play , which stood by to secure every man his right . Now , it is a melancholy fact that , for the great multitude of the English people not one of these things exists . Even the well-paid labourer who can get a full allowance of food , must be content with a monotonous dietary ; and want of time leaves him no enjoyment for his meal . Where the town , with its buildings , its factories , and its ironworks , has not eaten up the country , he has neither leisure nor heart to enjoy the pleasures of the scene . And as to fair play , continuous toil and hard necessities leave
him neither the tune nor the independence to se& it enforced . That which he cannot give to others , others give not to him . I see no reason , then , why the Englishman should love . England more than other countries . He has little comfort there , less hope ; and , in point of fact , it is the fashion of the day rather to sneer at nationality . The general consequence of that feeling is , that Englishmen are not very ready
to act together . ' You can scarcely appeal to them as a nation with any certainty of response . At this moment the English people is shamefully content to bow down under a trade whose profits it does not share , to be driven in a ceaseless toil without retaining the fruits of industry , and to lose , one by one , everything that makes life worth having . It suffers this without resistance ; without even that unanimous protest , the mere utterance of which would suilice to stop the evil .
The objectors to change , who call themselves matter-of-fact men , have the most surprising coolness in assuming facts They warn you against the reorganization of society ; because , aa they Hay , you rink a state of things which will be attended by disorder , decline of trade and of production , misery and famine . They speak as if the actual condition of the greatest number of people were not such as to render them familiar with all those things—disorder , misery , and hunger . . Hut their assumption is worse—they speak as if the existing
state of things were n , success . I Hay that failure encounters them at every turn . The present system secures nothing , excepting for a time , and b y favour of a forbearance which cannot be continued . I see that in Ireland there is a whole kingdom whose ? landed system lias come to utter disorganization , and whose population ban been rapidly declining . Kven in prosperous ITCngland 1 nee largo tracts of land uncultivated or half-cultivated ; I see enormous numbers of people willing to work and unable to find work ; I « ea landlords bankrupt and unable to
perform their part of the "trust" which makT them landlords ; farmers declaring distress , and nt in a condition to carry on their business properiv agricultural labourers driven off the land to lire i towns ; and trade itself , to whose prosperit y everything else is sacrificed—trade itself has to under /" rapid alternations of overtrading , glut , and sta ? nation—has to write , off immense masses of profits in the name of " bad debts , " and has to pay to the existing system a huge annual fine in the form of bankruptcy . These facts are not to be ignored or explained away . The magnificent accumulation of goods in the Crystal Palace ia not more a result of the present system than those gigantic evils are and a system which includes with that achievement those enormous evils i » not a successful system .
It is common to aver that the stimulus to competition is necessary to excite the highest amount of production , and to boast that it does so . It does no such thing . It does stimulate production in certain states of society where great breadth of land and natural facility for industry and trade might otherwise make the contented labourer supine ; but in our country the competition of labourer against labourer , of tradesman against tradesman , of all against each , presses so hard that men are becoming content to take less for the labour of life than that which is necessary fairly to maintain life ; they are becoming consumers of less than they ought to consume . In the mean while the attempt of every class and every person to circumvent all the rest , induces enormous waste of
industry—produce to no purpose ; which is as good as no produce at all . I appeal to the very broadest facts ; and I say , that where there is land idle , and hands are idle , and people wanting food , it cannot be said that the system which regulates industry is one exciting the hightest amount of produce . It does not even excite the necessary amount of produce . This is the great fact which we should constantly expose—that the present system is a failure on the grounds chosen by those oeconomists who uphold it . It does not succeed in any of its professed resultsit does not obtain the highest amountof productionit does not accumulate the largest quantity of wealth —it does not create the sort of wealth needed for the
welfare of the people —it does not secure trade—it does not secure the cultivation of theland—itdoesnot secure the subsistence of the people—and , if we continue much longer without some wiser counsel amongst ourselves , the Conservatives , as with a miserable facetiousness they call themselves , will find that even standing armies will not suffice to secure " order . " The present system is a failure , and to continue that failure , the great mass of the people in this
country needlessly undergoes constant hardship and suffering ; to continue that failure , the ruling classes blindly , if not wantonly , brave a dreadful retribution . By taking counsel of each other , by acting in concert , we might immediately begin a better state of things . But this is the idea which I wish now to stamp and restamp on the minds of our fellow countrymen—That the present system is a failure , a self-proving failure , a needless failure , continued with wanton obstinacy . Ever yours , Thornton Hunt .
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ltiwiMUNTAitir Faculties . —As geologists show the formation of the earth to have been gradual , layer after layer being added , more perfect plants and animals of a higher order of feeling and intelligence appearing , as the world was prepared for them eo has the mind of man been developed , region added to region , as preparation has been made for ita activilf and legitimate exercise . And who shall say that even the best specimen of mankind has yet reacted the last development which our ruce is to attain eVe » upon tins earth ? There appear to be rudimonta » y organs sufheiently developed in some individual ,
; when , excited by mesmerism , to point to a higher order oi intelligence than man has yet attained . They appear to put us in relation with the general mind of mankind ; so that when steam and machinery ahull have annihilated material Hpace and time , and when also we ahull have made a great moral advance , k may be that them ! , at present , undeveloped lacultH * will enable uh to become all-knowing and intelligent us regards what then exists , or ever ha * existed in th « mmd oi man . But even if this bo speculation , all history and experience—noting , as they do , an actual advance notwithstanding much seeming locnl
retrogresHion—confirm the hope we should indulge from rhe nature of man himself , and point to a time when , the faculties lie now undoubtedly possesses being full y developed , and the powers of naturo being brought to their greatest possible subservience , th < J earth shall become the scene for httpptncsn such as the imagination has hitherto conferred upon Heaven alone . —Education oftho Fading ; by Charles Bray ,
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658 ftfyt fytZtlt T * [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), July 12, 1851, page 658, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1891/page/14/
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