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Untitled Article
Qbligtid * o submit , and run ftway from my work * . This is the case with every workman I have ever known ; and in proportion as a man ' s case is hopeless will such fits more frequently occur and be of longer duration . The best informed amongst the workmen will , occasionally , solace themselves at such times with liquor ; the uninformed will almost always recur to the same means , to procure the excitement which vimt be procured .
c Strong liquor taken into the stomach has an immediate effect on what the working people call their spirits ; they are elevated by the stimulus , and as this increases ) lively ideas are excited , painful ideas are banished , the recollection of past troubles is obliterated , present uneasy feelings as well as fears for the future are excluded , pleasurable
sensations take their places , gloom and despondency are cast away ; the man is lifted above himself , and becomes altogether a different creature ; he is as happy as his condition permits , as long as the delusion lasts , and he is therefore desirous to prolong it , to his utmost capability . He shows his satisfaction in noisy mirth ; and the rude untuned voice of him who bawls out the words of the well-known ballad , and the noise
of his associates who join in the chorus , are as highl } r gratifying to the uncultivated man , as are the finest sounds of the most scientific vocal and instrumental performers to the auditors at a fashionable concert . It is even probable that the excess of pleasurable sensation is on the eide of the uncultivated man , who is both auditor and performer . While we entirely agree with Mr . Place in ascribing the progressive improvement of the manners of the working people to
education ,, and look to that , in its national extension , as the great means for accelerating their improvement , we think also that something should be done , and that very much might easily be done , for the existing generation , to render their burdens less grievous and supply them with the means , not only of direct instruction , but of appropriate and wholesome joyousness . Why should there not be reading rooms , as comfortable as the public
house , and as splendid as the gin-temple ? Let the abhorrers of drunkenness try how such opposition shops would answer . The outlay would Dear a good moral interest . But they must not be spoiled , like so many Mechanics' Institutes , by the exclusion of political publications , nor b y aristocratical management . In fact , the operatives know best how to conduct such establishments
so as to please themselves . They merely want a little help m starting . Then ., again , how man y working people there are who would rather spend a summer ' s evening in Westminster Abbey , or the British Museum , or in the National Gallery that is to he , than in a public house , if they had but the option . Let them in free ; their wives , families and all ; a few policemen would suffice to prevent mischief . The spirit of mischief is generated by , and
* For nearly six year * , whilst working * when I had work to do , from twelve to eighteen hours a day . When no longer able , from th * cause mentioned , to coutinu « working , I used to run from it , and go us rapidly as I could to Highgate , Uampbtead , MutweU-hiU 01 Norwood , and then * return to toy vomit . '
Untitled Article
680 Improvement qf the Working People .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 630, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/26/
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