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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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« mnv votes might be dug up after that fashion ! Or even apar t from bribery , , how many an exhausted candidate wouldenjoy an invigorating otirpment into the country , at a place like J 3 al-WTr Motint Alexander ! « To think , " cries Sp candidate who has a bill for cabs , but no seat , " that shepherds and haymakers should pick up the means to pay attheir very feet , and yet have no cabs to pay tor P " If Punch ' s vision had been true , however , and
S alisbury plain had proved to be a Ballarat , what would have become of the general election P " VVho would ever care to oanvass voters , at five , or even ten shillings a-day , when he mz tocanvassthe washings at so many pounds r" Who would care to be voting when he might be : digging r " What do I want with a representative , " the digger would say , " when I can pick up such a re presentative as this ? I can vote my own sup-¦ nlips we of the golden republic are Lords of our
of our own Treasury ; our Sovereigns are ingots , and our general election is the election to dig , So , long live the King of Spades !"
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THE BOOK WOLF . Eveky now and then the Librarian of the British Museum makes a raid upon the booksellers and publishers ; and this time , amongst the victims of his official rapacity , are Messrs . Bradbury and Evans . It is well known that the British Museum has a right to a copy of every work published ; and it is generally understood that the same institution by no means retains all copies it receives , or indeed it would become a vast imperial and perennial storehouse for wastepaper , and ought to rise to the dimensions of an The do not
Egyptian pyramid . publishers object to ° the surrender of a copy , but they do object to the hostile manner in which casual omissions are notified to them through a police court . It is not so at Stationers' Hall : if a published work be not sent in the usual course to that office , a polite reminder is forwarded to the publisher , and the omission is made good without difficulty . The practice of reminding men of their civil duties through a police court is not a very English proceeding , and it reminds the publishers that the gentleman who pursues it with such zest is not an Englishman . The affrighted publisher feels like the industrious ants , conscious of
dreadful Formica Leo or Ant Lion , lying in ambush for him to snap him up if he stumble into the pit ; and he regards that devouring insect with the more horror since it is an outlandish species—a sort of crawling Machiavel , whoso pit is the British Museum , and whose slaves are policemen . " Wo should not see this morbid appetite for booksellers , " they say , "if the Librarian were an JEnqlisliman . " The idea has suddenly struck them , these patient publishers , that perhaps they might bring their case before the trustees of the British Museum ; and really the idea is not a bad one .
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THE WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS ' DESCENDANTS . " The wisdom of our ancestors , " once tho rallying cry and ultima ratio of a great party in tho state , lias suffcred the inevitable destiny of nil high-sounding phrases employed to cover false pretences , and in now become a bye-word and a stale jest . Instead of extolling ancestral excellence , our generation delights in vaunting its own , with what good reason we . shall presently ei deavour to . show . We know a great deal more than our forefathers ; that is a simple historical fact ; and as wisdom Hhould grow with knowledge , and as we are a people pre-eminently endowed with that happy gift of common nen . se which enables its possessors to profit by the lessons of experience , we very logically infer that wisdom lias so grown with us . There are churlish sceptics , indeed , who question the strict validity of that inference , and who hint that " the present enlightened age" is not quite so enlightened as it . might be , or as it deems itself . Nor tire these captious critics content with general objection * only ; they carp and cavil at some of our most valued inntitutions , and profess to nee nothing but folly and mischief in public measures Himctioned
by the approval or acquiescence of the community . The best way to confute such censures , and to shame their authors from their affectation of singularity , is to hold up for the admiration of a discerning public , some of the very things which those persons select for objects of their keenest , invectives . To this end we will hero Htring together a few choice precepts on public economy , which , being faithfully drawn from the actual usages of our sagacious countrymen , may be tiikeu Hevoially and collectively as i ' air expressions of tho
practical wisdom of the nation in this year of grace , 1852 . RtriE 1 . —Beware of setting your paupers to work at any productive employment . They must , of course , have something to do , but the more unprofitable their drudgery the better . They come to you as paupers ; keep them so . Note . —The thought that paupers should be made comfortable by the fruits of their own industry is an abomination to every sound political economist . What ; a frightful revolution would such a system effect in the present wholesome relations between labour and capital ! How it would demoralize our peasantry ! Our independent labourers would then be independent with a vengeance . Not though you searched the whole island through would you then find one able-bodied father of a family willing to toil all his life long for seven shillings a week . What ! convert our admirably repulsive workhouses into cheerful abodes of organized industry ! Get up a regular interchange of commodities between regimented bodies of paupers : agriculturists in Essex , shoemakers in Northamptonshire , cotton spinners and weavers in Manchester , wool-workers in Yorkshire , tailors in London , needlewomen everywhere , and so forth ! Why , it would be rank socialism . What if it did diminish the poor-rates ? The seven millions sterling , or thereabouts , which we now spend annually in maintaining paupers and keeping them in their proper station , is not too large a tax to pay for the privilege of having always an overflowing supply of labour at a minimum rate of wages . The present system is in Tdnd the best of all possible systems . It might be improved iu degree if all paupers were set to dance on treadmills , grinding nothing . But , alas , there is such a deal of pestilent sentimentality abroad ! RTOE 2 . —Throw away the best part of your homemade manure , and send half round the globe for guano . Note . —It is very becoming in a great maritime nation to cater for its shipping interests by such magnificent unthrift as this . The yearly value of the sewage manure swept into the Thames alone has been estimated at more than eig ht millions , and cannot at the lowest computation fall short of five . But it is a mistaken notion that all that mass of wealth is lost to human use ; on the contrary , it serves to g ive body and flavour to the drink of the Londoners , being well churned up , and diffused through all parts of the river from which the water companies derive their supplies . Luxurious Londoners ! Talk no more of the Egyptian queen ' s barbar ' c profusion : what were a few liquefied pearls , drunk in occasional orgies , compared with the wealthspiced draughts daily and hourly imbibed by our millions of Anthonies and C leopatras ? Ruxis 3 . —Turn a deaf ear to all suggestions for the cultivation of your waste lands . They are one and all irreconcilable with the fundamental principles of British agriculture . Note . —Every British farmer knows that the only agricultural use of land is to grow corn and rear cattle , and that no one but an ass would waste his time and Bubstance in cultivating land that could do neither , much less pay rent for it . Some people , indeed , tell us that even Bagshot Heath , under the hands of Dutch gardeners , would yield high rents , and so much the higher as wheat was cheaper ; and that the farmers of Flanders , whose principal crop is ( lax , can afford to pay a rent of 2 , 1 , Is . and a land-tax of 17 . lO . v . per acre for a light sandy soil , originally no bettor than the worst part of Norfolk : and this whilst they are obliged to import hay and corn from Holland . The . so people also twit us with the fact that l'Yench farmers turn a pretty penny by supplying our markets with musty eggs and skinny poultry , and the Americans by cheese-making and growing apples for us . In short , they tell us that wo ought to cultivate less wheat and import more , and that cheapness of corn will ultimately be good for the farmer und for the landlord , since it will increase the demand for every other article of agricultural produce , and bring back for more remunerating crops , many of which arc now banished from our islands . Mut how little they know of the steady going agricultural mind who think to bamboozle it with such new-fangled theories . lliri . i : 4 . — Bury your dead perpetually in the black , greasy , foetid , reeking mould , among the crowded dwellings of your populous cities . Heap corpse on corpse by scores and hundreds daily , till the ground beneath your feet , the . { Middle that splashes you , and the dust , you inhale , jue soaked and mingled with the putrid remains of desecrated humanity . TV ^ c , __ To Hay nothing of tho moral beaut ies of this practice , it is infallible as a means of thinning the superabundant population , and therefore " self-supporting . " Rin / ic ft . — When a terrible pestilence rages in the land , bellow luatily lor sanitary reform ; when tho
epidemic has spent its fury , fall back contentedly upon your old nasty ways . Note , —The want of a comprehensive and efficient administrative system for promoting and conserving the health of the community , is a cap ital subject for a popular cry , and one that may be worked with advantage at election times , and on sundry other occasions . John Bull being constitutionally a g rumbler , can never be happy without a few good grievances ; and the delay of sanitary reform offers so fair a pretext for growling , that perhaps in his heart the worthy gentleman would be rather grieved than otherwise if be was too soon deprived of so convenient a resource . Rule 6?—By all means encourage competition in trade , without any limit whatsoever . The more there
is of it the better . Note . —There is no other maxim of public economy more widely accepted or more strenuously acted upon by the people of England . Competition is said proverbially to be the soul of Trade . Now the personified abstraction here called Trade is not to be understood as identified with the interests either of traders or consumers . It is a grand ideal principle to which the claims of both those classes must be sac rificed without hesitation . It is a very fortunate circumstance that , the real merits of unlimited competition are totally unsuspected by the general public , who cherish it for
reasons altogether unfounded and illusory . Its great recommendation in the eyes of consumers is its supposed tendency to make commodities cheaper , whereas its operation is just the reverse of this—it makes things dearer . The competition of joint-stock companies for the supply of water , ga £ , &c , always ends in a virtual monopoly , with monopoly prices—that is to say , in a mutual compromise at the expense of the consumer . For a similar reason , bread and butchers' meat are now at exorbitant prices in London , compared with the if there
prices of flour and cattle . They would cost less were fewer butchers and bakers , each of whom would then do more business , and be as well remunerated by a lower rate of profit . When retail traders do not combine to keep up prices , they have a nother resource in adulteration , and a very pretty use they make of it . The grand function which unlimited competition fulfils in the economy of trade is to make traders sharp , to compel them to be adepts in all the subtle arts ( illiberally called lying and cheating ) which are essential to success in their calling .
Rule 1 . —The British soil docs not belong to the British nation ; it is tbe exclusive property of a small fraction of the inhabitants , who have an absolute and indefeasible right to do what they will with their own . Note . —How greatly we have improved upon the principles and practice ' of our forefathers in respect to the tenure of land . The old laws of England did not regard the land as private property . They recognise in the baron or lord of the manor a trustee , entitled to certain dues and services in return for the discharge of certain definite duties ; but they recognised also the rights of others to live by the land , and denied the
landlord ' s right to depopulate his estates ; ho could only do so by an act of illegal violence . Such an act would have been deemed atrocious tyranny on the part of the king himself , the landlord paramount , as witness tho universal execration poured upon the memory of William the Conqueror for his seizure of the lands of tho New Forest , and his eviction of their human occupiers to make room . for deer . But law now . sides with might , and similar processes may be conducted with the sanction and aid of our high courts of justice , as Ireland
can tell , and Scotland too . Between the years 1 . 811 and 1820 , all tho villages on the Sutherland estates of the Marchioness of Stafford were pulled down or burnt , and 15 , 000 persons were driven oil" the lands to make way for sheep , which it wa . s thought would pay better than human beings . Similar measures were adopted about the same time on the estates of seven or eight neighbouring landlords . The law held their imputed rights superior to the imprescriptible rights of man —• and very properly ; whoever thinks otherwise is a Jacobin and an enemy to social order . Here we must pause for the present , and leave our renders to reflect , on the brief hints we have offered in vindication of the practical wisdom of IOngland in tho nineteenth century .
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NATION ON THE KL NOTIONS . IV . Tin ? " I . IUHHAf . " I NT KICKS' ! A N J > T 1 IK JMCOPMO ' s INTKKK . HT . Tun peddling and disingenuous " Liberalism , " with which tho ( lovernmcnt of
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Juit 1 « , 1 « J 2 . ] THE LEADER . 661
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1852, page 661, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1942/page/17/
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