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less disposed to resort to brute force to decide the difference between themselves and their employers , or to redress their political grievances . Every day we hear less of the destruction of power-looms , as of the street riots which at one time were almost
of nightly occurrence . Bristol , almost a solitary instance , is not a proof to the contrary . In the midst of their violence the mob shed no blood , and even this was an improvement upon the last Spa-fields' riot . Twenty years ago , and in a time of similar political excitement , the example of Bristol would have been carried to greater lengths in every principal town in the kingdom .
This marked progress is what might have been predicated from the nature of the case . The leader of a rnob is a man reckless of consequences . Teach him to reason and reflect , and although he may reason wrongly at first s he will soon reason himself out of being the leader of a mob . It is impossible to read much without being led to think , and as the habit of thinking * will increase with the habit of reading , it may be laid down as an axiom , the more newspapers the fewer rioters .
Hence it matters very little how intemperate may be the character of a popular journal . The more furious the war of words the more peaceable will generally be the deeds of the combatants . The very individuals best pleased by seeing the conduct of their governors denounced in stron g language , will be the least disposed to commit any overt act of treason against the Government .
They are satisfied with having a voice given to their wrongs , and are then more easily persuaded to rely upon the force of public opinion , than to resort to dangerous and uncertain expedients . The press may be considered as a safety-valve for popular indignation . Put down the press , and in a moment of universal
irritation you produce an explosion which will shake the whole machine of government to pieces . Had Charles the Tenth understood this maxim , he might yet have been upon the throne of France . Civil war would not have raged in the streets of Paris had he not made war upon the journals . Their thunders would have been heard instead of the sound of his own cannon , turned
against him by the people . The ordinances must have been repealed , but the revolution of the three days would have been averted . In disposing of this objection we get rid of almost the only argument deserving refutation which has been urg ed against the
re peal of the taxes on knowledge . Some good people imagine that were newspapers cheap , so violent would be the tone of those addressed to the working classes , that the whole country would he in a flame . Take , however , the most extreme case , and it will be found no evil could arise from a free circulation of
newspapers so great as that which is now produced by the restraints to which they are subject . No doubt the most popular journal among agricultural labourers would be that which expressed in
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The Taxes on Knowledge . 105
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No . 86 . I
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 105, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/21/
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