On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    PARALLELS OP ' MISMANAGEMENT.

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    thesis— ' Recreation , if we only confine it to play or enjoyment , just as we have that of the word dissipation , which truly means ' idling or-trifling " , or elegant leisure , whilst we now intend something very different by it . Therefore , before we begin our essay , we may as well ' define our words . It is importjiut that writers-and thinkers should do so , especially when addressing a large audience . Creation : we take it to '' mean all kinds of work , and to intend also a very exhaustive process , Iteereation is ,-on the other hand , a building up of that which the other had pulled down . Hard .-work , say our it out of horseit meanin

    collegians and cabmen , " takes , man or ; ' g the natural vis , or force , the creative power in fact . If creationi . e ., work—be a necessity , then re-creation , or play , must be so also ; and -without something of this sort existence is a curse , and the workman nothing less than a slave , a very drudge . Indeed the word slave is too mild a one to use , for slaves m the W estern and serfs in the Eas-tern hemisphere have plenty of holidays and enjoy them too ; whilst the free man here who binds himself for money drudges away with more activity and exertion than he would if be were saleable like Uncle Tow , and had a taskmaster like Legree

    at his back . . , It is generally believed that the English , as a nation , are the hardest workers in the world . They work at everything , and they do it with a will . At school and college , out in the world , at Hie desk , the pulpit , the bar , the House of . Commons , the shop counter , in the ship , the steam carriage , or down in the mine , the labour is arduous and ceaseless . Not " night passes but what some thousands are working the whole long hours through in the pursuit of wealth , honour , fame , or other of those phantoms which the world will ever recklessly pursue . The headlong pace has had a sad effect upon our laborious classes . In the hardest working-cities and counties the race has very sadly deteriorated ; the length of man s days are shortened , his strength decreased , his stature curtailed , his braiil softened . Moreover , our madhouses are continually filling , day by day the increase of mental disorders astonishes and appals us . There is something very mournful in all this . . " From town and cottage , moor and fen , Tolls the doom of Englishmen , Work , or the grave !¦ "

    The alternative is a sad one . It is for us , if possible , to render some little aid to lighten the burden of _ this ceaseless toil ; it is for us to ventilate the subject , and to add what little we can . to the accumulatihg" testimony against over-labour . - As usual , the thinkers have been before us . In the scheme of Providence , it seeins always tjiat the deep thinker never can he a very active , worker , arid consequently he . feels the curse of labour very much more acutely than any one else . He kicks ngainst it as much as possible ; and lias devised plans for recreation by which

    the over-active man benefits , who Would work himself to death else . Sir Thoius Mobe in his" Utopia " has a scheme whereby he gives up at least six hours out of the twelve for play ; " half the day allotted to work , " says he , " and half for houcst recreation ; " but such A scheme is ' nothing " , cry our present slavedrivers , but " Utopian . " Nevertheless , in one place it has been found to work well . It is not often that we can quote the practice of the JlfewM / MMj-uatii ^ grntiiication . but it would bo unjust to truth to say otherwise than that they have been so industrious and sucli perpetual "

    if his employment be not intellectual , it is astonishing what demand it makes upon the brain . The continual pressure of . pet-its soms exhausts just as much as great ones ; and they have also this auded bitterness , that they are ^" petty and humiliating . The dip ] ornate who fancies , that lie has exhausted the wit and talent of a . great brain in persuading an Emperor or a minister , has not had , perhaps ,-a much harder work than the assistant of an Emporium in determining" the choice of Lady Sjtigsmag , or in soothing the complaints of Mrs ( Jeijvffeuuff . Lord Bicon mentions a minister who , when he approached the Queen with documents for her signature , always eno-ased her in some other conversation , so that he led her thoughts away from the immediate unpleasantly , and obtained what he wanted . Many shopmen have to exercise a diplomacy quite as

    deep as this ; they ' have , besides , to put up with constant disappointment and constant opposition ; upon them devolves , after ail , the prosperity of the " concern , " for they are in immediate contact with the customers , and they can at any time repulse or attract ; it is not too much to say that their patience and general attention as a body is wonderful , and their endurance is such that only can be acquired by long-continued practice . Their lives , let us add , fall far below the average . Their meals are not so comfortable , so wholesome , or enjoyable as those of the common day-labourer ; their minds are so wearied by petty details , that , like a fallow field covered with small weedss , they cannot grow anything else . In addition to this , they are the general marks for ridicule and contempt ; and that very clever but often cruel artist of Punch , Mr . Leech , has continually

    ridiculed the shop-walker or counter-jumper , without once inquiring whether his satire was just or unjust . , ' ' ' ' It is to elevate this class and to free them for some little space from an exhausting bondage that the Saturday half-holiday is sought to be established . Those employers who have tried it speak fairly and honestly in favour of its results . They may well do so . One cannot benefit a whole class without benefiting oneself , and perhaps the most gratifying proof of the bond which exists between the workers and the nobility is , that the latter have coiue forward in this , and other instances , to aid the workers . The very lowest class , the artisans , have their holidays when they like . We all know what St ; Monday is . The bankers close at four o ' clock every day , the Government officers cease from theirlabours : but the shopmen must be ever ready in their shop ; they irmst absolutely court and accunliilate diseases peculiarly their own Tn their long service , and this benefit of

    reallv not for any benefit or public good , but for the sole their employers . Swift , after writing , a few hours , used to run up . hill - Hist for recreation ; Scott would work before breakfast and saunter arid think afterwards ; JBtrkWEB did not work at his desk for more than three hours-a -day , but many thousands of our fellows are kept at the desk and the counter for twelve and fourteen—nay , sixteen hours per day . " Fourteen hours at the forge , " writes Elihv Bukmtt , " and three at the Hebrew Bible ; " but the learned blacksmith had a noble purpose before him , and did not always work at that high-pressure rate . Our shopmen often dodo so , and they want relief;— -employers will be wise if they grant it . The city is already in advance of the west-end of the town , and the great provincial towns in advance of London—perhaps because these latter understand better than we do here that the interest of their assistants is really —thcir-tnvrt : —X ^ JJUiA-u ^ U-iiLoimJlank and Fashio n bear upon their

    workers , that the land into which they marched twenty years ago , then a barren desert , is now a smiling garden . Yet they religiouslyfor so it is inculcated—work only half their time and play the other . In addition to cultivation of the land they have built a city , villages , and bridges ; made roads and canals . , &c . ; they all work , work with a will , and then play afterwards . The labour scheme , which seems to have been based upon the doctrines of Charles Fouruier , seems to iis to be the only bit of sugar which is there to sweeten their bitter lie , and a very bitter lie it is , as many a poor fellow has found ; but yet when everybody works , when they have not ( as yet ) a do-nothing class which must be . worked for , half-a-day ' s labour—not counting- the Sabbath—is . found to be enough to make their land overflow with material comforts . Nature ' s table is with them ever loaded , for she is so kind a mother that a very small exertion , on bur part makes her overwhelm us with favours .

    tradesmen to make them follow the example . But we have already a commencement . . Lord Eicno is " to the fore , " and a crowd of philanthropists after him . Seventy-five ladies of the highest rank , from '' the still beautiful Duchess of Sutherland downwards , have , like the Maccabees , " bound themselves by a strong vow" not to shop on Saturdays after two o ' clock , and many others will follow the truly noble example . The pressure from without has begun , and if it succeeds we may look to improved trade , more briskness and cheerfulness , better health both for master and man , and last , not least , for that rare bird an old shopman , who is now about as rarely met with as an old postboy . The disappearance of the latter has been accounted for , and of the former it may be sa id that they die early ; worii-out by overwork in . this world , they seek for their rest and recreation in the next , where there are no ribbons to measure , no cross old ladies to please , and where a poor young man may hope for something- more than one half-holiday a week .

    Now we have with usnon-productivo classes , —we cannot call them do-nothing- pur ct simp le * for many of them do absolutely a great deal , but , like the lilies of the field , they " sew not , neither do they spin . " And , to carry the illustration further , they are so admirably dressed , that " not Solomon , in all his glory , wus arrnyed like one of these . " Upon , them , in a great measure , depends the comfort of the lower classes ; . for them tho workers , or an immense body of them , actually exist , and from them , therefore , tho working-classes actually demand forethought , and that kindliness which will aid thorn in the present movement of early closing- and n Saturday hnlfholiday . The demand , let us remember , is not for a , hall-holiday every day , but for a leisure time only once a week . There is nothing * unreasonable in the demand ; and when Lord Elcho and others convened a meeting- lfttoly , we had many of .... thft most ; eminent men in trade and manufacture giving the best evidence in favour of the

    movement . The proposition is as plain as a mathematical One m its demonstration . Shop-life i « to the numbers who really work and curry on the business , a life of misery . Its nionotony is dreadful ; its pivy is very little j in many jnntaneos marriage is impossible : in others , when such a luxury is indulged in , the father becomes a perfect stranger to his children and his wife . The shopman who marries ia obliged to Jive at a , distance from his workplace for the sake of economy in rent ; he is , therefore , kept from homo from morn till dewy ove , —no longer dewy for him . He reaches home wearied , and tired , and worried ; and lot us say that ,

    Untitled Article

    SOM E men have been eternally haunted with the impression that nothing was altogether now to them . Goethe and Waltek Scott were among- the number . In many of tho positions of life in which they found themselves , there was a vngue feeling that all this hud happened to them long : ago , with tho same incidents , tho samo actors , Pythagoras may have owed his doctrine to something" of this feeling ;—we own to having experienced a sensation of a similar kind ourselves ; and how much is there in the fivfinta nround uh to finenuvafra nnd confirm this impression I

    What echoes of tho past are constantly falling on our cars ! Is this a copy of the Mercuriua Aulicfls , " or of' * Tho Adventurer , " or of tins day s Daily JXgws that we have been just perusing ? We rub our eyes : does that figure , with a little bonnet resembling the knob , and the remainder tho cone of the extinguisher , to which the Tatter aptly compures it P—does this figure , we say , pertuin to our fair cousin , or to our great groat grandmother ? Is it FiaoiNs , of tho sign of the " Sugar , Lonf , " in Eastchenp , oi his distant ducal descendant in Isew Oxford Street , who ' has just been indicted for tampering- with Inn groceries P Everything is being done over again : " All , to reilourish , fudos ; A 8 in a wheel , all sinks to renscond ;"—

    Untitled Article

    £ 64 The Leader and Saturday < Anal yst . [ June 10 , 1860 .

    Parallels Op ' Mismanagement.

    PARALLELS OV MISMANAGEMENT .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1860, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2352/page/8/