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    in a greater ratio than their customers ?—is an important question . I think there is little doubt they do ; for , as I think you have remarked , a great number are 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 xvoollendrapers ' 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 few 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 Nicul ' 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 are married ; nor dare they marry , unless they dare starve at the same time . In the large 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 . J hese 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 oft" 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 offer any permanent result to such as these ? I do not see

    why annihilation should be feared . The mere salesman would , indued , 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 be dispensed with . Their business habits and knowledge of work , as a whole , would render their superintendence necessary . In many cases the tradesman in as much a creator as the 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 tho moral degradation of the necessary lying and deceit ; the anxiety caused by eagerness to do business and fear of loss ; the amount of work they have to do for landlord and tax-gatherer , hciorc they can begin to work for themselves . Keep all thin steadily in view , and much more that < nch individual case will supply , and then decide whether the principle of concert , even though it dwarfs the appearance of some of us , does not compe nsate by the solid advantages it would confer . Yours truly , Chakmch Fricdkhic Nichom . h .

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    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 c ourageously 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 as Bolingbroke , 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 .

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    Blachw'tod tiiis month contains , besides other articles of interest , a paper on Ruskin 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 " geninsed man , " and further by this use of it as a participle —• " A has just been speaking to me about our friend B ; 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 , since the reduction of the utamp from fourpenee 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 . \ h noted . On the question of quality , it appears to us that few person ' s look at the actual facts , and still fewer bear in mind that tho newspaper , in as far as it reflects tho tastcn and opinions of the community it addresses , must necessarily be of that quality which the community demands . Am a matter of fact , you have only to compare a number of the Timut or Chronicle

    now published , with a number bearing any date previous to 1837 ( when the stamp . was reduced from fourpenee 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 reverse — he endeavoured in vain to dissuade those brave fellows from the expedition , which he considered hopeless and premature .

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    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 sad so much on general grounds , and being perfectly unacquainted with the charge laid against M . Roussel , we extract the following from a friend ' s letter : —

    ' * Please to tell me why you gentlemen of the ' Liberal' press , who woulJ have ltomisli mumrneiies stalking abroad in our land , and are s : > tender of < ll thoir institution and encroachments—tell me , if you please , why you have not a word of reprehension , for the real persecutions that still exist under the ' liberte , egalite , and fraternite ' ot the French against Protestants . Under the government of Louis Philippe there was far more tolerance , and when one heard of priestly influence it was always attributed to the poor old Queen , whose bigotry , liowrvcr , great as it was , did not prevent her from giving liberally to some of the moat influential Protestant institutions .

    The priestly influence is as mischievous now ; but the liberal aids to Protest autism 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 which condemns to three months ' imprisonment and 300 francs fine , M . Dueloux , a Protestant librarian , for Helling a little pamphlet of M . ltousHel , entitled La lleliijion d'Argmt , published some years ago , and too true not to be a rankling thorn in the wide of Popery . This pamphlet and

    other controversial works of M . Kousscl , are dc . temp * en . temps brought up for punishment ; but the grief of the French press in too deep for utterance , I suppose , and these prosecutions are unnoticed ; while they have tears and uighs and pathetic lamentations , loud and frequent , for the bigotry and persecution of benighted England . They cannot plead aa I suppose English Liberal journals would , that it escaped their notice ; and now that it is no longer the cawo with you , I hope to m ? e it receive a dewervod ctwtigation from your powerful weapon . "

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    To attract attention , stand on your head . ' Walking , however swift , is after all but a commonp lace accomplishment . Stand on your head , and shout lustily that that is the true position of man . 1 coplo will look at you ; tho aensiblcwill worn , but the fools will gape , and fools are ever the Minority . I hia m

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    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 Renew .

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    Sept . 6 , 1851 . ] ffltJ * 1 Lt ** tX . 851

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1851, page 851, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1899/page/15/