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Sept. 6, 1851.] «!> * &*«&*?? 851... . _...
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Kittxatntt.
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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The author of Friends in Council has som...
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Blackwod tliis month contains, besides o...
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That the Catholic Church should be a per...
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Transcript
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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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Social Reform. [I Postpone The Second Pa...
in a greater ratio than their customers ?—is an important q estion . I think there is little doubt they do ; for , s I think you have remarked , a great number a e employed in producing or vending luxuries and " nick-nacks . " The trading class is increased from above and below . Workmen struggle upwards to the position of employers , ruined gentility descends to the counter . A fact more portentous than all else to two-thirds of the traders is , the increased and gradually increasing concentration of trade . To speak of my own trade , of which I may be supposed to know something .
Remark the changes that have already taken place Respectable trades , in the strongholds of respectability , can hardly hold their own . In St . James - street , Piccadilly , Regent-street , Bond street , and Pall-mall , respectable trades are forced to change their system , are turned into show shops with list of prices prominently put forward . Silver and Co . are not only slopsellers and outfitters , but do largely in the ordinary trade . Moses and Son are now , both East and West , defying competition . Nicol the same , in the best situation in the City and the best at the West End , with agents in every
country town . Hyam , Brothers , are in several districts of London , and in almost every large town of Great Britain . All these have unlimited means of advertising and buying in wholesale markets . What in a few years will be left for the small tradesman ? These capitalists can produce a better article at a considerably lower price , even supposing the workmen to be well paid , than it is possible for the small tradesman to do , or what used to be thought large tradesmen in the respectable trade can do . This question is also a woollendrapers ' question . The large tailoring houses purchase of
the manufacturer "; thus is competition destroying its own middle men . These large houses purchase bankrupt stock ; and it is whispered of some of them that goods under suspicious circumstances are not unacceptable . The position of the tailoring trade is , with £ e \ v exceptions , the position of all trades . How many ruined tradesmen act as shopmen to these capitalists ? May we not literally be said to exist on the crumbs that escape from these rich men ' s tables ? A customer significantly remarked to me that I must lower my prices , as a friend of his procured the same article for four shillings less at Nicol ' s .
There is another class equally interested with the tradesmen—the assistants ; numbering , in London alone , something near one hundred thousand . What hope have they , if the tradesmen ' s hope is so small ? And what life do they live ? The drapers ' assistants will afford an example . They number in London about 40 , 000 ; not a tenth of them arc married ; nor dare they marry , unless they dare starve at the same time . In the lar # e majority there is no escape from servitude . They have no home , no family , few , if any , of those strong social ties that bind a man to his fellows , and keep him
something above the brute . These men , mostly well educated , work early and late ; and for what ? For unsatisfied desires , perverted instincts , and a corrupt nature . "A thousand out of the whole number of shopmen are killed ofl" yearly by late hours of business and pernicious atmosphere , and at least eight thousand have their health injured , " says Dr . Lankaster . Does anything but Association hold out a gleam of hope , or ofler any permanent result to such as these ? I do not see
why annihilation should be feared . The mere salesman would , indeed , have to turn his hand to something else ; and why not , if doing so brings him a social existence , and removes the dreadful uncertainty of ways and means ? The tradesmen , in many cases , could not ; he dispensed with . Their business habits and knowledge of work , as a whole , would render their superintendence necessary . In many cases the tradesman is as much a creator as tlm artisan .
Supposing the case here stated to be exaggerated , I would call upon my class to calmly think out what their situation is , and to what it is progressing for themselves , and then decide—not forgetting the moral 'degradation of the necessary lying and deceit ; the anxiety caused hy eagerness to do business and fear of loss ; the amount of work they have to do for landlord and tax-gatherer , before they can begin to work for themselves . Keep all this steadily in view , and much more that < 'i « "h individual case will supply , and then decide whether the principle of concert , even though it dwarfs tho appearance of some of us , does not ' ompensale | ) y t | M , K () Ii ( , wivantUMt , ; would confer . Yours truly , ( 'HAKMCK FllKDJCHIC NlCIIOLLH .
Sept. 6, 1851.] «!> * &*«&*?? 851... . _...
Sept . 6 , 1851 . ] «!> * &*«&*?? 851 ... . _ — . i . .. i . ¦ ——¦¦ - ¦¦ . ——— ¦¦ ¦¦¦ _ . _ _ ..
Kittxatntt.
Kittxatntt .
Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
The Author Of Friends In Council Has Som...
The author of Friends in Council has somewhere said , in his wise and subtle manner , that infinite toil would not enable us to sweep away a mist , but by ascending a little we may often look over it altogether . And that it is so with our moral improvement : we wrestle courageously with a vicious habit which would have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere . True ,
most true ! and it may be applied to Literature as to Morals . Many a vicious habit not to be vanquished may be thus eluded . For example , the vices of the piecemeal system of publication are not to be overcome : piecemeal publication forces the author into piecemeal composition . There is but one issue , and that is to conceive and execute a work as a whole , and publish it as a whole .
This brief sermon is meant to usher in a bit of literary gossip : Thackeray is writing a novel in three volumes , to be published in the winter . The scene is in England early in the eighteenth century , and the stage will be crossed by many of the illustrious actors of that time—such asBoLiNGBROKE , Swift , and Pope ; and Dick Steele will play a prominent part .
There is more than a bit of gossip in the foregoing paragraph . It intimates that Thackeray has risen above the mist "; he will no more be hampered and seduced by the obstacles and temptations coextensive with the fragmentary composition of monthly parts . It intimates that he has the noble ambition of producing a work of art . It also intimates that he has bidden adieu , for the
present , to Gaunt-house , the Clubs , Pall -mall , and May-fair—to forms of life which are so vividly , so wondrously reproduced in his pages , that detractors have asserted he could paint nothing else—forgetting that creative power to that degree cannot be restricted to one form . His Lectures have prepared us for a very vivid and a very charming picture of the Eighteenth Century .
Blackwod Tliis Month Contains, Besides O...
Blackwod tliis month contains , besides other articles of interest , a paper on Rusk in and his works , temperately yet searchingly written , which assigns him his due position as a critic . In Fraser there are three papers to which we would call attention ; the one on English Synonyms , wherein amidst many excellent observations on that very important subject—the purity of Language—we are pleased
to see a complete exposure of our " favourite aversion , " the barbarism talented . The writer ridicules it , as we have done , by the analogous formation " yeniused man , " and further by this use of it as a participle— " A has just been speaking to nie about our friend 1 $ ; he talented him to the skies ! " We recommend to this writer the barbarisms " party , " and " individual , " as synonyms with " person " ; also such phrases as " Whether or no " !
The second paper to which we call attention is the Notes on the Newspaper Stamp . Without positively expressing himself against the reduction of the penny stamp , the writer strongly inclines that way . Although fully alive to the enormous increase in the circulation of papers which would follow the reduction , he is afraid that the quality would be deteriorated . It appears from the Stamp Returns that , nince the reduction o f the utamp from fourpence to a penny , the circulation of
newspapers , or rather the issue of stamps , has trebled in fifteen years ; whereas , during the twenty-one years preceding that reduction an increase of only twenty per cent , is noted . On the question of quality , it appears to us that fe , w persons look at the actual facts , and still fewer bear in mind that the newspaper , in as far as it reflects the tastes and opinions of the community it addresses , must necessarily he of that quality which the community demands . Am a matter of fact , you have only to compare a number of the Time * or Chronicle
now published , with a number bearing any date previous to 1837 ( when the stamp was reduced from fourpence to one penny ) , to be struck with its amazing superiority in point of tone and ability . Now , if the reduction of threepence has not been accompanied with a declension of ability , but with the reverse , why expect that the further reduction of one penny will be tantamount to deterioration ? As regards the community : if blackguard papers
will more easily be published , they will only find purchasers in proportion to the blackguardism of the public ; and the same removal of fiscal burdens which enables them to appear , will encourage good publications . No ; the quality of newspaper literature does not depend on price , so much as on the national culture ; and as the newspaper is one enormous instrument in the diffusion of culture , setting it free from fiscal burdens will be a means of elevating the whole mass .
Italy from 1815 to 1850 is the third noticeable paper . It commands our respect by its general impartiality and dispassionate tone . But there is too much , said on events preceding 1830 , and too little upon more recent occurrences . In point of fact , a new epoch in Italian history began in 1830 : the advent of the National Party ! We also notice two important errors : one of omission , and one of
fact . It is asserted that the insurrection of 1834 was extinguished by a " troop of carabineers and some Custom-house officers" at Annecy . The writer does not mention that the insurgents were betrayed by the Ramorino who was shot for treachery at Novarra . The error of fact is the assertion that in 1844 Mazzini " organized on the banks of the Thames the unfortunate expedition of Calabria in which the brothers Bandeira lost their
lives . " The fact is that Mazzini did the reversehe endeavoured in vain to dissuade those brave fellows from the expedition , which he considered hopeless and premature .
That The Catholic Church Should Be A Per...
That the Catholic Church should be a persecuting Church is only logical : it claims to hold the Truth , as a depot confided to its vigilance . But the Protestant Church , as upholding the liberty of private judgment , cannot extenuate persecution without stultifying its own principles . Having said so much on general grounds , and being perfectly unacquainted with the charge laid against M . ltoussia , we extract the following from a friend ' s
letter : —¦ ? ' Please to tell me why you gentlemen of the ' Liberal' press , who would have ltomish lmnnme > ies stalking abroad in our land , and are so tender of all their institution : * and encroachments — tell me , it' you please , why you have not a word of reprehension for the real persecutions that still exist under the 'liberte , egalite , and fratemite ' of the French against Protestants . Under the government of Louis Philippe * there w ; is far more tolerance , and when one heard of priestly iniluence it was always attributed to the poor old Queen , whose bigotry , however , great as it was , did not prevent , her from giving liberally to soineof the most , influential Protestant institutions .
The priestly iniluvnee vh an mischievous now ; hut the liberal aids to Protestantism are withdrawn , and if you remark , the French press , who weep so sympathetically and abundantly at the wrongs of our Popish , brethren , have not a word of regret , not a comment , upon a process vvhii h condemns to three immtha ' imprisonment , and 300 francs line , M . Ducloux , a Protestant librarian , for selling a little pamphlet of M . Iloussel , entitled Iai Hv . li () ion tl' Argent , published Hoinc years ' »&<> . mi < l too true not to be a rankling thorn in the : side of Popery . This pamphlet and
other controversial works of M KoumhcI , are dt : temps on temps brought up for punishment ; but the grief of tlie French press i . s too deep for utterance , I suppose , and these prosecutions are unnoticed ; while they have tears and nighs and pathetic lamentationn , loud and frequent , for the bigotry and persecution of benighted England . They cannot plead iih I suppose English Liberal journals would , tlwit it encnj'cd their notice ; and now that it is uo longer the case with you , I hope- to see it receive a d < served ciiMtigatiou from your powerful weapon . "
To attract attention , stand on your I"' "' W « lkirig , however swift , i . s after all but a commonplace accomplishment . Stand on your head , and shout lustily that that is the true position of man . I eople will look at you ; the sensible will scorn , but the foola will Kane , and fools are ever the majority . Thio IB
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06091851/page/15/
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