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84 Cftg llga&er, [Saturday,
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• Thornton cites a chain of testimony sh...
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" Whence come Wars and Fightings ?"—Duel...
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jriinnltire.
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Critics are not the legislators , but th...
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There is a story told of a provincial ed...
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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. Epistolie Obsctjrorum Vie...
by labour . If the effect of advancement in the condition of the nation and of commerce is to make the larger number of Englishmen less comfortable in body and mind than they would be in a ruder state of society , there are those , and I am one , who will j ? o to the displaced Englishman and tell him that he had better combine with the multitude of his fellows to alter that sort of advancement , and bring back things to fundamental rights . Read what Thornton has said as to the practical deterioration in the condition of the English labourer . * Although it may be true that he has now a better ly of broad cloth , knives and forks , and such
supp non-essential articles , they have very little bearing upon substantial happiness . But , further , if the advancement of the nation had been guided by a more accurate and enlightened view of the laws which regulate production and call forth the genius of the People by placing them in the best circumstances , — although I am no disciple of the doctrine of " exterior circumstances , " which you condemn , —I contend that our advancement should have been greater , more sound , and more stable in its results . In pointing to concert in labour as the complement of the division of employments , you forget that I am
pointing out a . principle , and that in eliminating that principle I was no more bound to describe all the institutions that might hereafter arise from it than Adam Smith was bound , in analyzing the division of employments , to describe the Factory System as it actually exists amongst us . I have contended that we must sternly avert our ideas from system-making and bring them back to an examination of principles ; and I maintain , not only that the principle of concert is the true complement t < f a division of employments , but that it is already in operation , unavoidably—as it dictates the agglomeration of work in a factory , the institution of Commercial Exchanges , or " Bourses , " like those which are seen in every capital ; it has
dictated , imperfectly enough , the construction of that railway system which is too vast to be affected in any but a very trivial degree by the ruder principle of competition . It has suggested those demands for official agricultural statistics which have been made in Parliament ; and it is the very principle of a sound Poor Law , which ought to be an engine for " transferring surplus employment from one branch of industry to another . " When you have read this passage , and perhaps done me the honour to glance at the letters ( following those which you have criticized ) on the subject of the Poor Law , you will perceive your mistake in supposing that there cannot be any " third alternative" for unqualified competition or the revival of guilds .
You have your " visions of the future of the working classes , " " as bright as hopeful as any Socialist could indulge in ; " you desire to see them " strive onward to the assertion of their free humanity ; " , if I understand you , you rely in a great degree upon the extension and elevation of the religious motive . These are among the things in which we agree : but having these faiths and aspirations , what is my surprise to read a passage like the following : — » " All , however , that can now be done is toremove every legal obstacle in the way of the improvement of the condition of the people , to facilitate and encourage every effort
which they make in a right direction , and to promote their education as far as relig ious prejudices and passions will allow . All this Government is now doing , with a Single purpose and a zealous will . " Of all the assertions that ever I read , disproportioned to the views and aspirations of the writer , this one is perhaps the most astounding . If , indeed , your future for the working classes is based ? in any degree upon the efforts , the intention , or even the wishes of the present Government--jf the kind of millennium which you seem to anticipate through some more perfect working of Political CEconomy be founded at all upon what the present Government is now doing , you entertain a hope the most imaginative . To believe in a millennium requires faith 5 but a millennium based on the present labours of the Whigs ! '
_ I have no such faith in the powers that be ; I have no belief that anything can be done for the working classes without their own concurrence in the effort . It is for that reason that I endeavour , in the first place , to ascertain the principle upon which measures for their elevation and well-being must depend , and then to arouse them to the effort by showing how their material ill-being is in great part dependent upon causes that would be altered , if their rulers had either the knowledge or the will to begin the work . I tell the working
classes that they need not suffer the ills which nowmost affect them ; that the continuance of their suffering ia the artificial result of existing laws ; and that , if they will unite in the effort to compel an alteration of those laws , their condition may be improved , if not suddenly , at all events with an immediate beginning . They can see in your paper the kind of contradiction by which this representation of mine is met ; and I believe that your essay will aid me very considerably in obtaining the belief and confidence of the working classes .
For that reason , for the disposition to candour which you have shown , and the ability with which you have conducted the arguments on your side of the question , I have to express acknowledgements as emphatic as I can render them . Yours , with sincere respect , Thornton Hunt .
84 Cftg Llga&Er, [Saturday,
84 Cftg llga & er , [ Saturday ,
• Thornton Cites A Chain Of Testimony Sh...
• Thornton cites a chain of testimony showing the condition or the agricultural labouring classes during' the hundred and fifty years ending with tho fifteenth century . " Kortescue ; Lord Chief Justice to Henry VI ., dilates with contagious exultation on the p lenty enjoyed by the lowest clans of Inn countrymen : ' They drink no water , ' he sayn , ' unless it be ho that Home for devotion , and upon a zeal of penance , do abstain from other drink ; they eat plentifully of all kinds of flesh and fish . They wear flue woollen cloth in all their apparel : they have als > abundance of bed-covering's in their houses , and of all other woollen stuff . They have great store of all huptlcmcntH and implements of household . They are plentifully furnished with all instruments of husbandry , and all oilier things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a imiet and wealthy life , according to their estates and degrees . ' Vortesctio wan a panegyrist , but he is confirmed by the most matter-of-fuct compilations , the statutes at large ; several of which are cited , as directed , not only against high wages , but against tho luxury of the labouiiug classes ; forbidding expenditure anil dress , such us velvet coats , silk stockings and shoe-buckles , or cups with HmishcIh lace Would be now . This legislation , continues Thornton , " exhibits agricultural labourers in a condition which was probably never attained by the tune claua in any other age or country , uulctm , perhaps , by . the emancipated Negroes of tho | liritinh Wwt Indies . "Vet the description applies only to the lower order of peasants—to thoso who worked for hire , aud had either no land or none hut what wan allowed them in part payment of wages . What , then , must have been tho prosperity of the small frccholdew and cottage fanners ? It is true that in the midst of thin abund v nee , tho . Knglinh peasantry of tho middle Ages ate oil' wooden platters , nover knew the luxury of a cotton shirt or of iiciip of tea , and slept on straw pallets within walls of wattled plaster , anil that in lomc oounties th « y used barley instead of whonteu broad . DuLjMrMykt ^ fcL / tQ imagine that because they had to put up with ibjWeJpiMMrplajRpcCiLtheir situation , in more imnortuntrespects , iV'WMftiklt ^^ fflClPjILt flty J ! ' " to that of their living de' ^ aMmmUu ^ r ^ J ^ tj »/^ J ' eatant Proprietor * , pp . 75—77 . ^ ' ¦ ¦; i . SSifS ' M
" Whence Come Wars And Fightings ?"—Duel...
" Whence come Wars and Fightings ?"—Duelling , in Queen Elizabeth's reign , was very prevalent , nor has it abated in King James ' s . It is one of the sincerities of Human Life , which bursts through the thickest-quilted formulas ; and in Norse-Pagan , in ( Christian , . New Christian , and all manner of ages , will , one way or the
other , contrive to show itself . A background of wrath , which can be otirred up to the murderous infernal pitch , does lie in every man , in every creature ; this is a fact which cannot be contradicted ;—which , indeed , is but another phasis of the more general fact , that every on « of us is a Self , that every one of us calls himself / . How can you be a Self , and not have tendencies to self-defence ! This background of wrath , —which surely ought to blaze out as seldom as possible , and then as nobly as possible , — may be defined as no other than the general radical fire , in its least elaborated shape , whereof Life itself is
composed . Its least elaborated shape , this flash of accursed murderous rage ;—as the glance of mother ' s-love , and all intermediate warmths and energies and genialities , are the same element better elaborated . Certainly the elaboration is an immense matter , —indeed , is the whole matter ! But the figure , moreover , under which your infernal element itself shall make its appearance , nobly or less ignobly , is very significant . From Indian Tomahawks , from Irish Shillelahs , from Arkansas Bowieknifes , up to a deliberate " Norse Holmgang , to any civilized Wager of Battle , the distance is great . — T . Carlyle , in Leigh Hunt's Journal .
VAitiATioNS of the Bihi , k . —No thinker of ordinary intelligence can fail to perceive , not merely difference in degree of completeness , but contrast , between the religious conceptions which represented the Deity as sanctioning or prescribing the cunning trickery of Jacob , 01 the savage cruelties of Joshua , and those which preside over the sublime remonstrances of the prophets ; but the explanation is still sought in the theory of accommodation , that is , the puerile and unworthy religious conceptions invariably accompanying an absence of intellectual culture , which in other nations are referred to the general principles of human development , are , in the case of the Hebrews , supposed to have been benevolent falsities on the part of the true God , whereby he allured a barbarous race to his recognition and worship . — Westminster and Foreign Quarterly lleview .
Iiik Livu of Aht . —The apprehension and representation of tho individual ia the very life of art . Besides , while you content yourself with generalities , every one can imitate you ; but , in the particular , no one can—and why ? Because no others have experienced exactly the same thing . And you need not fear lest what is peculiar should not meet with sympathy . Each character , however familiar it may he , and each object which you onu represent , from tho Htonc up to man , han generality ; for there is repetition everywhere , and there is nothing to be found only once in the world . At this step of representing what is individual , begins , at the same time , what we call composition . — - ( s ot'lAe ' * Conversations tvitk Eckertnann ,
Jriinnltire.
jriinnltire .
Critics Are Not The Legislators , But Th...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make 1 aws—they interpret and try to enforce them— Edinburgh Review .
There Is A Story Told Of A Provincial Ed...
There is a story told of a provincial editor who , discovering that one of his neighbours had hung himself , would not cut him down , nor men tion the discovery to any one , but kept the body under lock and key for two whole days . His reason was simple and sufficient . His paper appeared on Thursday ; the paper of his rival on Wednesday and " Do you think , " he tr iumphantly asked , « ' I was going to say anything about the suicide , and let that scoundrel have the paragraph ?** That was the true editorial passion , The desire for special news in the soul of an editor is intense ,
allabsorbing . Life itself is viewed only with reference to the " paragraphs" it will furnish . Calamities are godsends . A murder is like rain in the drought season . Revolutions are fortunes . We know a gentleman whose position being one which naturally makes him acquainted with the deaths of distinguished foreigners , is haunted by a newshunter in the necrological line . The crow is not swifter to pounce upon carrion than this resolute hunter upon announcements of death . He enters with a glowing face , eyes sparkling with expectant gratification , " Well , anybody dead I " Nobody has died for the moment . He is unhappy ; blank
disappointment lengthens that radiant face . He feels somehow aggrieved—if hot insulted . But , if there is a death to announce , then how his hands are cheerfully rubbed , how elastic his step , how his eyes dilate with the vision of the " paragraph " - —if not " article " - —this death will furnish ! He is happy ; some one has died , and he has occupation ; the sexton of literature , he sings only while digging a grave !
We sympathize with this worthy necrologist . To hunt up the news and gossip every week for this part of our paper is no light matter ; and , like true hunters , we prize the game we run down rather according to the trouble it has cost us than to the value of the game itself . That provincial editor has our entire sympathy . If a poet were discovered by us hanging in his bedroom—we would let him hang till Friday ; if information reached us that an august political economist had murdered his grandmother , or that a dramatist had thrown a manager into the river , a padlock would close our lips , and this column should be the first to announce the fact
to the world ! The truth is , that even the best hunters sometimes fail to unearth a fox , and we may confess to similar ill-fortune . The week has given us no gossip ; nothing at least that admits of publication We are forced to turn our telescope on the Continent and see what they are doing there . In France
George Sand ' s new drama , Claudie , draws forth universal approbation ; and Lola Months has received a slight respecting her Memoirs . The King of Bavaria—we have it on good authorityhas been so little flattered by the dedication of these Memoirs that lie has requested her not to mention him in them . Probably all her illustrious friends will whare this feeling .
Recently we mentioned with approbation h & Dame aux Came" lias , by Dumas the younger , and are sorry that Inn last work , Diane de Lys , should have ho completely altered our estimate of him . It is a dissolute book ; not so much in the scenea and intention aH in the tone , which implies in the writer an unhealthy morality . Above all it ia uninteresting . Htit what can you expect from a young man who makes his deMt in the boudoir of a courtezan ?
" Le Franqais nt matin " w never at a loss for subjcctH to ridicule . The last jest wo have heard is a witty interpretation of a live-franc piece . On the face there in the head of Liberty arched by tho words , lUpublique Fran ^ aise ; the tresseH of Liberty's huir arc elaborately drawn , while tho
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 25, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25011851/page/12/
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