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658 ftt)C HeaKtV. [Saturday , '«
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THE EGO MYSTERY. Some cowardly blackguar...
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FEA.STS OF CHABITY. Can't you give money...
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A " MAGNIFICENT " IDEA. Temfi/e-bar is c...
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SOCIAL REFORM. III. The Nation Summits t...
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mankind ; so that when steam and machine...
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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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.
Tiih Hunch And The Uah At Hohooi... Tilb...
Counting for tastes . ' Some like grapes and some onions . ' " The . Lord Chief Justice : No , no . ' Some likes apples , some likes inions . ' "
658 Ftt)C Heaktv. [Saturday , '«
658 ftt ) C HeaKtV . [ Saturday , '«
The Ego Mystery. Some Cowardly Blackguar...
THE EGO MYSTERY . Some cowardly blackguards collect a cargo of rotten eggs to throw at the Epsom visitors , and then conceal their names . Mr . Peat , a military aaddleraaker , 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 concer ned 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 preserves silence ; bo does that martyr gent D imsdale , whose imprisonment has well nigh proved fatal ; so does the magistrate to whom Mr . Peat showed the letter of a " distinguished " offender . Now , why this preposterous delicacy ? Dimsdale m ay be magnaminous ; but what noble purpose is served by Peat ' s punctilio ? Is it not a servile deference for rank " which r estrains his tongue ?
Fea.Sts Of Chabity. Can't You Give Money...
FEA . STS 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 Eng lish benefactors annually dance themselves into the needful warmth of heart . Some one conceives the idea of aiding an hospital : forthwith 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 . 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 .
A " Magnificent " Idea. Temfi/E-Bar Is C...
A " MAGNIFICENT " IDEA . Temfi / e-bar 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 at the top , shrunk in at the sides , and lost its brim .
And thia gigantic ruin of a " castor , we have heard it hinted , was invented on purpose to be let down upon the head of Victoria as she drove through the Bar into the City—the effect would be so fine !—only an Alderman , well known for his sagacity , 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 !
Social Reform. Iii. The Nation Summits T...
SOCIAL REFORM . III . The Nation Summits to IlAnDsmr and Fah , uiik . to ad 1 uiiam iioiunson . July 8 , 18 * 1 . My dbak Robinson , —In this letter I 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 begin to rnend our condition at once .
Some friends whose opinion I value , urge me to believe that it would he better if we were to trust in the gradual development of Association , and not endeavour to give it a general application , until the musts of the Peoplo should be educated into a condition capable of using it ; but I wish to make the friends who believe mich a course the best , understand how much of their view urinoH from some lurking idea , that As « ociation demands a total and sudden reorganization of society ; whereas , not only in it possible to apply the principle of Association immediately , without awaiting that more distant day at whioh the People shall bo fully educated , but also such «
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 extensively , it is evident that some concert between employers , employed , and consumers is absolutely
necessary ; and I shall be able to show in these letters how concert does produce * ' short time . " Indeed , the most hopeful view of the short time-ists 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 be 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 , it 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 the 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 tha 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 time nor the independence to see 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 suffice 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 , as they say , you risk a state of things which wilt be attendee ! 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 nil those things—disorder , misery , and hunger . But their assumption is worse—they speak as if the existing Btato of things were a success . I say 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 he continued .
I see that in Ireland there is a whole kingdom whose landed system has come to utter disorganization , and whose population hat * been rapidly declining . Even in prosperous England I Bee large tracts of land uncultivated or half-oultivatod ; I sec vnormouu numbers of people willing to work and unable to find work ; I tee landlords bankrupfc and unakto to
perform their part of the " trust" which make * them landlords ; farmers declaring distress , and not in a condition to carry on their business properly , agricultural labourers driven off the land to live m towns ; and trade itself , to whose prosperity every , thing else is sacrificed—trade itself has to undergo rapid alternations of overtrading , glut , and stag . nation—has to write off immense masses of profit s in the name of " bad debts , " and has to pay ^ the existing system * 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 is not more a result of the present system than those gigantic evils arc and a system which includes with that achievement those enormous evils is not a successful system .
It is CQmmon 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 la bourer 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 amount of 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 .
Mankind ; So That When Steam And Machine...
mankind ; so that when steam and machinery »"" have annihilated material space and time , and w « e " also wo shall have made a groat moral adv ance , » may bo that these , at present , undeveloped faculty will enable us to become all-knowing and intcllig c " as regards what then exists , or ever has existed in tuo mind of man . Hut even if this bo speculation , m history and experience—noting , as they do , ftn act" ^ advance notwithstanding much seeming loc re gression—confirm tho hop » wo should Hkdulg * »* the nature of man himself , and point to a tiino when . the faculties he now undoubtedly possesses bom fully developed , and the powers of nature otm brought to their greatest ponsibla aul > sorvi «> i »« e « J |( l arth » huH b # m > mo tho » ena for U , appiiu >* a * iou e « imagination ha » hitherto conferred upon Hea * 00 ** —MJucation of tha f « eU » yt , by C' Avki flray .
ft ItuDiMKNTAnv Fa . cultik 8 . —As geologists show the formation of the earth to have been gradual , lay er 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 , bo has the mind of man been developed , region add ed to region , as preparation lias been made for its activity and legitimate exercise . And who shall say that even the beat specimen of mankind has yet reached the last development which our race is to attain even upon this earth ? There appear to be rudimentary organs sufficiently developed in some individuals * when excited , by mesmerism , to point to a higher order of intelligence than man has yet attained . They appear to put us in relation with the general mind oi
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 12, 1851, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12071851/page/14/
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