Chapter C: F. Keary (3)

Coming, then, to the other mode of co-operation--associations of manual workers--this also divides itself into two branches, having two distinct objects--namely, the receipt of higher wages for labour performed, and the obtaining greater value in commodities in the disbursement of such wages. Both these are, no doubt, laudable aspirations; and, although at the first glance they may appear incompatible with, if not altogether antagonistic to, each other,--inasmuch as increased remuneration to the producer means an increase in the price of the thing produced,--yet it will be seen, on mature reflection, that as a very large proportion of operatives are employed in the manufacture of articles of luxury, of which they are not consumers or purchasers, so much of the increase in the price of such articles as finds its way into the pockets of the artificer in the shape of added wages is a net gain to that portion of the labouring classes, and will inevitably exude from such portion to the benefit of the whole, in the same manner as what may be called in contradistinction their normal earnings.

I should like to say one word about combinations of workmen in this place, which may be distasteful to unqualified panegyrists of the system: such combinations should invariably be in accordance with our recognized code of morals, and they must be in obedience to the ordinary laws of Nature; and it is to be feared that these desiderata to perfection in co-operation have at times been lost sight of in the past. I am compelled to blush for my order when I find them seizing the opportunity of their employers being under a heavy time-contract for the execution of important public or other works to organize a strike: this is clearly an infraction of all the ethics of morality. Neither can I appreciate their sense of the fitness of things when I hear them laying it down as a sound axiom that wages should be equalized, so that the stupid, idle, or inferior workman should be on a par with the skilled and industrious one. This is a blunder against one of the most immutable of Nature's laws--that of variety and infinite gradation; the suggestion implies a yearning after the utterly unattainable, which it is astonishing men of otherwise sound judgment should seriously entertain for one moment. As a comrade of mine pithily observed, not long since, when we were discussing the possibility of devising a scheme by which all men should receive the same amount of remuneration for their labour, and, when received, be enabled to make it go equally far--"You might as well try to make men all o' one height."

Remove these excrescences from our combinations, and when it is found we can be practical as well as earnest, co-operation will have acquired a new vigour, and will be able to accomplish greater results. The main citadel will be none the less impregnable because our forces are not scattered abroad in various directions, in the vain endeavour to strengthen totally indefensible frontiers.

But, after all, it is from the other branch of co-operation--the _co-operative store system_--that the greatest advantages may be expected to accrue. This is growing into favour yearly, still growing (despite recent diatribes in the newspapers), and is extending its ramifications into quite primitive districts. The knowledge that this is an undoubted fact should afford gratification to the well-wishers of the poor.

Yet this gratification is subject to some modification when it is seen that this, not the least important birth of the nineteenth century, though growing and bearing within itself the germs of almost infinite possibilities, is at present of too tiny dimensions to grapple with that colossal ogre--the wasteful expenditure of the impecunious. It is Hercules indeed, but Hercules still in swaddling clothes before the strangling of the serpent. The amount of dealings at these stores by the class to whom they are calculated to prove the greatest boon, when compared with dealings by this same class with _very_ retail shopkeepers and at other places where the practice of paying "through the nose" (pardon the vulgarity) so extensively prevails, will be found to be almost infinitesimal. The question therefore arises, may it not be possible to replace these pine torches by Edisonian lights, so as to eliminate from wider tracts the thick darkness enwrapping the minds of the sons and daughters of toil as to what constitutes their true interests? It appears to me that there is one way of rendering this feasible, which I deferentially submit for consideration. It may be quite impracticable; and, if practicable, may contain such flaws as to be futile. If so, on defects being pointed out which I am not able, unassisted, to discover, I can only say I am open to conviction. I have no desire to be charged with an ineradicable attachment to that peculiar feat of horsemanship known as "riding a hobby to death." My plan is simply this: first, let every town of say over 10,000 inhabitants possess an internal government complete in itself, with plenary administrative powers; let groups of villages, in such numbers as may be determined on (the present Poor-Law Union Divisions might be taken as a basis), form cordons round themselves in like manner, and with the like objects; let every care be taken to select the very best men of every social grade to form the local senate, and let the members of which it is composed be paid for their services out of the public (local) funds, be subject to re-election at short intervals, and be required to give good accounts of their stewardship. Further, let it be clearly understood that the only condition on which a man could hope to be enrolled in this representative band, or, being enrolled, expect to be allowed to continue his official existence, would be his distinct and unquestioning recognition of _personal_ responsibility, as far as is humanly possible, for, and his unwavering resolution to secure, the well-being of _all_ his constituents, physically, pecuniarily, mentally, and morally.

These preliminaries being supposed to be satisfactorily settled, such incorporation or assembly of chosen ones might (always supposing my views happened to find favour in their sight) open as many co-operative stores--so many for each trade--as would be sufficient to supply the needs of the entire community, selecting competent men from each trade to manage the different departments, and paying them by an agreed salary in the same manner as rate collectors and relieving officers are paid. A certain specified per-centage to be added to the prime cost of the various articles to defray the estimated expenses of management, advertising, rent (if necessary, though it would be better if the local legislators were also the landlords), wear and tear, depreciation in stock, and miscellaneous expenses for the year; and sales to be made to the consumer _for cash only_. The urban or rural chancellor of the exchequer would, in his annual budget, soon learn to adjust the amount of his tax (for so the per-centage may be considered), over and above the original cost price, according to the probable exigencies of the ensuing year, by the light afforded by the transactions of the preceding one.

Seeing how many millions of pounds are annually disbursed for the barest sustenance and most absolute necessaries of life by the poor of the three kingdoms, from most of whom exorbitant rates of profit are wrung,--for the fact need not be expatiated on here that the more indigent the purchaser, and the more his penury drives him to live from hand-to-mouth, the less value he receives for his money, to say nothing of the further irruptions made into his income by the only partially-slain "truck system," or by the payment of interest to the accommodating successors of the Lombards, whose golden balls proclaim them to serve the honourable office of jackal-purveyors to the lions of the gin-palaces,--seeing this, I say, shall I be stigmatized as a dreamer, a half-crazy Utopian, if I anticipate magnificent results to follow from fair trial of a scheme designed to stem the frightful torrent of improvidence at present obtaining amongst the working classes, and to enable them to occupy the new position of being participators in the benefits of a sound commercial undertaking?

Here, however, as elsewhere, there are tares amongst the wheat--if, indeed, it be wheat. An awkward inquiry obtrudes itself unbidden. What is to become of the thousands of deserving folks, too old for the most part to begin life _de novo_, who have earned a tolerably honest livelihood as small shopkeepers, and who would probably find themselves, under the system just recommended, "improved off the face of the earth?" Partially the difficulty might be met by the employment of the most active or most experienced of them in the borough stores. A little more might be accomplished in this direction also by giving some of them appointments to the numerous new offices it will be found necessary to create if our municipal authorities ever do wake up and bestir themselves, and aspire to becoming something more suitable to the spirit of the age than mere assemblies for palaver. But when all this is done, there will still be the residuum, and that residuum composed almost exclusively of the feeble, the aged, the halt, the lame, and the blind, who will be more or less thrown upon their own resources. For these, the only gleam of light I can discern is the fact that a remnant of their old customers will not find out all at once the error of their ways, and will go on in their accustomed grooves for some time after the centralized co-operative store shall have become _un fait accompli_, and so their decline into pauperism will be slow and gradual. Heaven only knows how some of these small shopkeepers contrive to exist even now by vending pennyworths and halfpennyworths of this, that, and the other; it can only be by imposing extravagant profits on the article vended. One cannot help thinking that their case can hardly very well be worse than it is, in any event. But be this as it may, care for their particular interests must not be permitted to dominate over due consideration for those of the vast aggregate mass forming the rest of our _clientèle_, innumerable as "leaves in Vallambrosa,"--and, like other and greater folks, superfluous retailers must submit to be sacrificed for the benefit of the common weal.

It is impossible to deal even in the most cursory manner with this "pocket" question without just glancing at the important bearing which the question of temperance must exercise upon it. To place a further spending power in the hands of an incurably intemperate populace would obviously mean only to increase and intensify the vice of intemperance. While deprecating any intention of making this paper the vehicle for a furious tirade against drunkenness, I feel bound to say in passing that, little as I love total abstinence, I regard it as a much lesser evil than the unrestrained indulgence of dipsomania; and if any man feels that he is so much a slave to his degraded appetite that he cannot keep up a nodding acquaintance with John Barleycorn without wallowing under his influence in the mud of inebriety, I respect that man for signing the pledge. My optimist instincts, however, buoy me up again on this subject also, for I sincerely believe that, high authority for the assertion though there be, mankind are _not_ mostly fools; and that when they have begun to realize the fact that they have a choice as to the kind of investment they may obtain for their money, the great majority of them will be looking out for some more substantial advantage than the questionable luxury of seeking temporary oblivion from carking cares and the grisly spectre of hopeless indigence. It may, I think, be relied on with certainty that an improvement in the pecuniary circumstances of the poor would beget increased self-respect, and self-respect would proclaim drunkenness _unfashionable_, and that now vigorous and lusty giant would ere long find himself as decrepit and infirm as Bunyan's Giant Pope. Those of us who have read of the bacchanalian orgies of the great no further back than the days of the Regency of George IV., and contrast it with the sobriety which is said to prevail amongst them in our days, cannot be accused of being groundlessly sanguine if we augur the percolation downwards of this stream of moderation under happier auspices, and that, too, in no remote future.

A third means of lightening the strain upon our _ouvriers_ is to multiply the facilities for emigration. I would even go so far as to say that I think an _International_ Emigration and Immigration League between all the civilized nations of the world, for the purpose of drafting overplus populations into thinly inhabited districts, would be rather a good thing than otherwise, the inconveniences attending differences of language, manners, and so forth, being quite surmountable; whereas the difficulties attendant upon the possession of more hands to labour than there is work to perform, and consequently more hungry stomachs than there is food to fill, is altogether insurmountable. With regard to the affliction of _mal du pays_, from which undoubtedly many of the expatriated would suffer at intervals, that would be found to be a much more tolerable burden to bear, combined with a sufficiency of victuals and clothing, than the pangs of starvation or semi-starvation even on one's "native heather."

But as it is no part of my programme to move too fast, or too far at once, I do not insist upon any international arrangement of the kind I have hinted at during, say, the present decade. I do, however, earnestly entreat all whom it may concern to try their best to place the matter of Emigration on a proper footing. I unhesitatingly maintain that whilst Great Britain possesses untold thousands of acres of virgin soil, and practically unlimited untried possibilities, in her numerous colonies, this our "sea-girt isle" ought not to suffer from a plethora of willing workers. The existing facilities held out to our overcrowded populations to induce them to venture upon "fresh fields and pastures new" might be multiplied a hundred-fold.

Surely it ought to be part of the fundamental policy of a State--especially of a State whose real governing body is elected by household suffrage--to take the most active measures for insuring the weal of all its citizens: the humblest as well as the highest. Does not this, indeed, form the very quintessential attribute of good government? Has it not been rightly said that a State represents the totality of all the individuals composing it? I assume these are sound political axioms; and if I am right in this assumption, may I not suggest, as the most certain way of attaining the desired end, that our Representative Government should formally acknowledge our claims upon them by appointing a Minister for "the Condition of the People," with a seat in the Cabinet? The next step would be easy, for when once the whole surroundings were fairly brought within the range of vision, the vital importance of Emigration as a principal means of amelioration would be recognized; and it would be discovered that an able Secretary for Emigration would prove an invaluable auxiliary in the effective working of the department.

It would be necessary, I apprehend, to select for this latter office a man eminent as well for good temper as for a capacious intellect, as the multiplicity of the functions he would have to perform would render such office by no means a sinecure; and the involved and complex matters he would have to deal with might, at times, go far in the direction of ruffling the serenest imperturbability.

The eye of fancy depicts him in the active performance of his multifarious duties, surrounded by numerous painstaking subordinates, some of whom bear to him huge tomes, containing a full alphabetical list (compiled from the census returns and other sources) of the populations, industries, and assessments of the United Kingdom, divided into areas of certain dimensions, showing the age, sex, occupation, and earnings or incomings of every person; the number of houses (with their rentals or estimated yearly value), workshops, or other business establishments of every kind, specifying how many hands are employed in each and the amount of wages paid; and also showing the number of persons in receipt of out-door relief, and approximate number of vagrants in each district. Other attentive satellites open before him the various domesday books, containing reports by competent surveyors as to the quantity, and the latent riches or irredeemable poverty, of uncultivated lands throughout those vast dominions of ours on which the sun never sets; with copious notes by skilled mercantile men and geographers, pointing out the places where commodious ports might be formed, railways constructed, or manufactories erected. Our much-worried Secretary, whose heart is in his work, compares notes, and directs some of his chief clerks to prepare digests of, for instance, the information contained in pp. 420 to 446 of the 17th volume of the first set of books, and pp. 97 to 104 of the 32nd volume of the second set, ready for his consideration on the day but one following. He then takes up similar digests, which have previously been prepared in like manner, and sees clearly that one hundred artisan families of various specified trades, full particulars of which are before him, may, with advantage to all parties, be transplanted, passage free, from the blind alleys of Flintchester to the new settlement of Hornihand in Australasia, with the authorities of which place the usual arrangement will be made to assist them on their _début_, and lend them a helping hand until they get fairly settled down. Day after day this kind of thing goes on throughout the year, except for some two months during the late summer and autumn vacation, when the hard-worked Secretary and his staff are enjoying a well-earned holiday.

The more I ruminate on this matter of Emigration the more I am convinced that it is indispensable; it should run on wider lines, and cover a far more extended area than is possible under anything short of Governmental intervention. Seeing the utter inutility and inefficacy of isolated exertions to deal with the mighty problems which our complex civilization presents for solution, I should, on behalf of myself and my class, hail with joy the prospect of State interference in our interests. Sneers may continue to be directed against, and witty sarcasms levelled at, a "Paternal Government," "infringement of that liberty of the subject which is the inherent privilege and birthright of every Briton," and other like cuckoo-cries. But meantime we starve; we increase and multiply in obedience to the law of Nature, and our opportunities of earning subsistence do _not_ increase and multiply in a corresponding ratio. And without by any means desiring to steep my pen in midnight blackness in order to portray possible portentous consequences, yet it is a proposition not to be controverted that the ever-increasing preponderance of born toilers over any quantity of remunerative toil which can by any possibility be created within the limits of Great Britain proper must inevitably cause such consequences to be calamitous. For some time past the dark shadow of over-population has been looming on the horizon of "Merrie England," at first no bigger than a man's hand, but later advancing nearer and still more near and assuming colossal proportions; and the time cannot be far distant when it will obstinately refuse to be ignored any longer, even by the most unreflective, but will assert itself in a manner little to be desired. How, then, to avert this evil? How to postpone the advent of the fateful day? Are not these queries of vital interest to all ranks of society? I for one feel them to be so: hence the above gropings after gleams of daylight in the midst of the gathering shades. I do not pretend to aver that I have found the sunshine, that I have discovered an absolute cure for all the ills that "flesh is heir to." Too well I know what mistakes and blunders are interwoven in the best-devised schemes of human origin. Nevertheless, I hold that the free expression and ventilation of opinions, even though they may be erroneous, is often eventually productive of good, by serving to dispel vagueness of thought and loose generalization, and solidifying the abstract into the concrete; until which process has been accomplished no thing soever can be dealt with satisfactorily. Therefore, as a firm _dis_believer in the Malthusian philosophy, as also in the recommendations for checking the increase of population more recently scattered broadcast amongst us, and being deeply impressed with the imperative necessity of confronting the difficulty at once--_now_, in these days when the heavens above us appear to be hardening into brass, and the earth beneath us to be corrugating into iron--I have requested the Editor of this REVIEW to afford me the opportunity of giving publicity to my views.

Closely allied to this division of my paper, if not actually of it, is the subject of _Charity_. Here, again, what a lamentable waste of vital force, what an invertebrate entity crying aloud to be overhauled, remodelled, jointed, and braced! Contrast the grand sum total yearly given in charity with the paucity of definite results attained--the well-worn comparison of the Nasmyth hammer and the nut instantaneously recurs to one's mind. Except when subscriptions are raised for some specific object outside the usual round altogether, how little there is to show for the expenditure! Why is this so? And what is the remedy? Obviously, I opine, the cause is individualism, isolation, caprice,--and as obviously, I ween, the only cure is combination, organization, system. Where we have now hundreds of little benevolent societies, with their honorary secretaries and treasurers and fussy committees, each neutralizing the others, let us have two or three established on a broad basis, with a central committee who, when the "sinews of war" are collected in one focus, will be strong enough to enter on paths at present untrodden, and wise enough to understand that almost innumerable differentiations in the nature of gifts will be necessary to cope successfully with the almost illimitable diversities in the nature of requirements, and who will insist on being invested with discretionary powers in matters of occasional aids and supplemental benevolences. Then it will be no longer possible for the shameless pauper, flaunting his rags and sores in the marketplace, or the whining sycophantic hypocrite, to monopolize the coals of one society, the blankets of a second, the soup of a third, and so on _ad infinitum_, not seldom exchanged for means of procuring beer to give additional zest to the utterance of the sentiment--"What fools these gentlefolks be." The most searching inquiries would be instituted, and perchance succour afforded to those to whom it would prove an inestimable boon, but who, from constitutional timidity or _mauvaise honte_, now starve and drop and die in silence, overlooked by almoners who take the first miserable-looking object who comes to hand, the most self-asserting or the most "'umble," and straightway pour out the contents of their cornucopias upon shams, making a miserable travesty of the sacred name of Charity.

Mind.

It is refreshing to know that so far as this branch of the subject is concerned, our governors, having by the force of circumstances been compelled to realize the fact of our existence, and our claim to be considered as veritably part and parcel of the body politic, with rights of common citizenship, have further, within the last few years, by the passing of the Compulsory Education Act, shown themselves possessed of political sagacity, by thus taking steps to insure that our descendants, when their turn comes to exercise and enjoy the civil privileges now granted to them, shall at least have a ploughed and manured soil in which to sow the seeds of love for law and order with some chance of due fructification, instead of the rough, hibbly-hobbly cinder-heap of their forefathers, which acknowledged no fertilizing influence but gross bribery, and partially justified the political ostracism and exclusion of its owners from all share in electoral privileges.

All hail, then, to the School Board system as a great step in the right direction. Undeniably true as are some of the accusations brought against it, alleging that many blunders and useless extravagances, and much disregard for the susceptibilities of well-meaning but mistaken opponents, have marked its progress onward in too many instances; yet as the general idea is laudable and eminently conducive to promoting the highest interests of the entire population, and as in the nature of things it may be expected that greater experience will bring greater wisdom, and the faults charged against the movement gradually become "small by degrees and beautifully less," let us heartily wish it God-speed.

Yet, why does the good work stop here? Why should not provision be made for building upon the foundation thus laid? Why should totally unformed intelligences be the only ones to profit by this guardian care, and why should they be led a little way on the road and then left to flounder along by themselves, and lose themselves in interminable mazes? Why, in short, should education be confined to children, and not extended to adults?

It is true that the University Extension Scheme, as now carried out in many of our larger provincial towns to a very, very limited and only faintly appreciable extent, tends to show that the wind is just beginning to blow in this direction also. Something, however, much more comprehensive is needed. The masses are not reached, as will be patent to any one who will take the trouble to attend any of the courses of lectures delivered in connection with this extension system. The neophytes seeking initiation into this or that special branch of learning will be found to be composed principally of what we call "better class" people, with a sprinkling of pupil teachers and sucking governesses.

Nor is this the fault of the masses themselves, as may perhaps be conjectured; the mere circumstance of the prices charged for admission in itself forming an insuperable barrier to the great majority having any part or lot in the matter, to say nothing of the fact that the whole apparatus is professedly set in motion for the benefit of the middle-class public solely.

But however inadequate this minute increase in the volume of the fertilizing waters of Literature and Science may be for the mighty task of irrigating the parched and arid desert which stretches out in measureless extent before us, yet I am fain to regard it as a favourable omen--as a symptomatic indication that the "fountains of the great deeps" of human ignorance are beginning to be broken up, and that the tide _is_ rising which, when it has reached its full height, will disseminate the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge far and wide over the landscape so that the lowly equally with the high-born may pluck and eat thereof. The monster Cerberus has received a buffet on one of its three heads, and the Hesperidean Gardens may ere long, I am sanguine enough to hope, be entered by any thirsty passer-by without fear of molestation.

All this, however, is dreamy, unsubstantial verbiage. That it is not also mere chimerical nonsense, which will not bear the strain of practical application, I will attempt to show--always supposing as a necessary preliminary, as in all the hypothetical propositions throughout this paper, that that portion of the community who are nursed in the lap of fortune are imbued with sympathetic feelings towards the less favoured sharers of their common humanity, and do not object to take a little trouble and bear a little charge by way of displaying their fellow-feeling.

Grant this premiss, and what follows, or something better, may easily be rendered an accomplished fact.

The first step will be the formation of a council or committee, after the manner before suggested, save that in this case we shall want an infusion of men of culture who at the same time shall be good workers and good philanthropists (a rare combination, but not an impossible one, I venture to think, notwithstanding the seductions a life of Sybaritic ease and delicate refinement specially offers to the scholar), in every considerable town or group of villages throughout the length and breadth of the land, with power over the district purse-strings, and with no superior authority except the Minister or Secretary of State for Education at Whitehall--for, of course, such a functionary will in those happy times be quite as much a necessity as a Master of the Buckhounds--who alone will have power to veto their proceedings and issue general rules for their guidance.

If I had the ear of this all-important official, I should whisper to him that in my view the best mode of enlightening the working classes would be to take possession of three already-existing institutions, and enlarge their dimensions so as to make of them real forces, distinctly visible, instead of the hole-and-corner obscure trivialities they are now. These three institutions are--1st, Free Libraries; 2nd, Lecture Halls; 3rd, Class Rooms.

1. To Free Libraries I have accorded the first place, because in all probability it is there that the beneficial results will be more immediately apparent, and the advantages offered will, in the first instance, be most considerably made use of. The major portion of the huge and unwieldy mass to be operated on would fly off at a tangent from the exactness and method necessarily incident to formal lectures, and in a still greater degree to class-work. It must first be left to itself to sprawl and struggle at its own free-will; the restraining chain must not be too soon brought into view; gradually and insensibly the quickening influence must be brought to bear; the change from density to clear-headedness, from sluggish inertness to mental activity, will not be effected in a moment; not all at once will the spiritual part of the long-benighted assert its claim to an equality with the animal part; desultory reading only will impart a love for reading; odd waifs and strays of information picked up just anyhow will alone create the desire for the acquisition of further knowledge, and by imperceptible degrees the naturally well-regulated mind will reject vagueness and demand exactness; having reached which stage it will be fit to undergo the further regimen prescribed. A good starting-point, however, will have been gained when our operatives generally are imbued with a genuine love of books and obtain a somewhat varied, if superficial, knowledge anent the salient features of English literature.

These words, "_English_ literature," are used advisedly; for while I would have every town of over 5000 inhabitants possessed of a Free Library (varying in size according to the population), and every village have its book-loan society, it would be well to insist on the greatest and best of our own writers being well represented upon the shelves of every institution of this character before venturing on translations either of the ancient classics or modern foreign authors, even of European reputation. Homer, Thucydides, Æschylus, Plato, Virgil, and the rest, as well as Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and the innumerable host of Continental immortals, can very well wait a bit. We want to inspire _British_ operatives with a love of letters. In endeavouring to effect this, shall we not give the foremost place to the productions of _British_ genius? We have to _form_ a taste. Is it not desirable that, to begin with at all events, this should be a _national_ taste? But is not this the very way, it may be asked, to foster insular prejudices, narrowness, and bigotry? I reply, not necessarily, as many of our ablest _littérateurs_ have not hesitated to attack the various abuses, follies, and weaknesses which crop up in these islands from time to time--some hurling denunciations at them aglow with all the fervour of passion and intellect; others piercing them with the sharp spear of satire; and others yet again calmly but pitilessly holding them up to contempt in a train of close reasoning. Many, too, in addition to lashing the vices peculiar to their native country, have, in terms of generous eloquence, eulogized the virtues of our neighbours. Therefore, the man who is disposed to wrap himself up in a mantle of national self-glorification and self-righteousness will not find that the hierarchs of our national literature are at all times compliant enough to fasten the clasp for him.

But I have a further answer--_i.e._, independently altogether of the question whether the perusal of English works solely will or will not have a tendency to nip the growing flower of cosmopolitanism in the bud, the one essential point in training the English subject to think is to train him to think in his own vernacular--to show him of what mighty things his mother-tongue is capable, and to satisfy him that

"Age cannot weary, nor custom stale
Its infinite variety;"

and that if ever he, individually, wants to raise up his voice and make himself heard on any subject that interests him or his fellows, he must not fritter away his attention on more distant objects, but concentrate his gaze on those which immediately surround him.

This view may appear somewhat contradictory to the one expressed when dealing with the subject of Emigration; but really it is not so. The leaving behind the special spot of earth where one drew one's first breath, played as a boy, saw his first sweetheart, and grew up to manhood, the parting from old friends and long-familiar objects, may and does entail a severe struggle, and inflict many a bitter pang; but it is unavoidable, and so must be submitted to. It is otherwise with home ideas, habits, modes of thought, literature. These will serve to mitigate the poignancy of separation from one's native land, will intertwine themselves more closely round one's affections by reason of that very separation, and be the means of causing miniature Englands to arise in far-off regions, and in various degrees of latitude and longitude. While releasing as cheerfully as may be what we _must_ let go, let us hug more closely still that which we _can_ retain.

To return: In a well-equipped Free Library no standard British author should be conspicuous by his absence. The poets, from Chaucer and Gower to Tennyson and Browning; the dramatists, from Marlowe and Shakspeare to W. S. Gilbert and Tom Taylor; the _modern_ historians, from Hume and Gibbon to Froude and Freeman; the modern theologians, from Hooker and Jeremy Taylor to Canon Farrar and the Dean of Westminster; the modern essayists, from the projectors of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ to the contributors to the current Reviews and Magazines; the philosophers, the leaders in all departments of science, should be there; the best writers of prose fiction, also, from Fielding and Goldsmith to Trollope and George Eliot, should be well represented. The most profound and the most volatile will alike find sufficient to occupy their attention here for some time. The "Anglican paddock" (to misapply a now well-known term) will afford plenty of grazing ground to cattle of moderate appetites for a considerable period; and when it is exhausted, why, then, there are toothsome grasses in endless profusion to be cropped over the boundary fence.

2. With reference to Lecture Halls, these ought to be nearly as plentiful as churches both in town and country, and can with proper management be made to serve two ends--the carrying forward the work begun at the Free Library, and the rousing from torpidity those whom even that useful institution would fail to reach; for as many would only be led to attend the lecture through the library, so there are many with whom the contrary would hold good, as many a dormant, beer-sodden soul would consent to be carried off for an hour or two to a lecture hall who could never be persuaded to sit down in cold blood to the perusal of a book, although such book might be written in the most fascinating and brilliant style imaginable: the unused eyes would soon begin to ache, the palsied brain soon begin to numb; whereas the speaker, if a good one, and his heart in his subject, would contrive to rivet the man's attention, despite of himself, by the magnetism of enthusiasm, and he would carry away with him some sort of idea--muddled and distorted probably, but still an _idea_--of what it was all about.

Penny Readings interspersed with music have been very much derided by our erudite critics, I think without sufficient cause. These really harmless, if not very high-class gatherings, blending together the ingredients of a certain kind of instruction and of entertainment, were doubtlessly called forth by a genuine desire to familiarize the lower orders of the people with some of the more dramatic passages in our literature, and to render visible to them a higher intellectual standard than the tap-room and the music-hall had made them acquainted with. It was a happy thought to mingle singing and playing with the readings. The introduction of these not only served to take off a possible monotony which might otherwise have been felt, but added attractions really elevating in their influence, the status and general surroundings of the auditory being taken into consideration. There is no need to pry too curiously into the petty vanities which prompted this elocutionist or that vocalist to make an appearance in public, nor to speculate too closely upon the disproportion between the ludicrous extravagance of the efforts often made by incompetent aspirants to obtain fame, and the very modest modicum and evanescent character of that article vouchsafed in return. All this is nothing to the purpose. The simple query is,--Have these things, known as "Penny Readings," in ever so slight a degree, fulfilled the object of their existence as that object is generally understood? If an affirmative answer can be given (as I certainly believe it can) to that question, then are they entitled to honest praise, and not to supercilious contempt.

However, having deposited my little offering at this humble shrine as I passed by, I am free to confess that if we never get any further than this on the road towards the mental improvement of the million, the march of intellect will be a very short march indeed. But it will not--it cannot stop here. The universal law of progress forbids the idea; and in some form or another the irresistible impetus to advance will be felt and obeyed.

Meantime, no better means, so far as I see, appearing for the moment to be available, I fall back upon my pet project of lectures, to be delivered every night (Sundays excepted) from the middle of September to the middle of May in every year, in every one of the multitudinous halls built for the purpose, by men or women well versed in the several subjects upon which they discourse.

Failing the possibility of procuring a sufficient number of lecturers who could spare the time necessary to compose original matter for the purpose, it would be by no means a bad plan, I think, to employ good and experienced hands to condense and compress standard works on different subjects into such a compass as to occupy two or three evenings, and hand these digests over to practised elocutionists to be _read_. Take history, for example. Prescott's "Conquests of Mexico and Peru," Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic," Irving's "Conquest of Granada," Carlyle's "French Revolution," or Hepworth Dixon's "Her Majesty's Tower," are peculiarly well adapted to undergo this process. The absorbing interest of the incidents described could not fail to engage the attention of the audience; and I cannot help thinking that the offended _manes_ of such of the above-named great ones as have departed from amongst us would be appeased when it was represented to them that this mutilation of their invaluable legacies to posterity had been conducted with due reverence, and solely for the purpose of introducing them to a far wider (and, perchance, not less appreciative) audience than even their exalted talents could otherwise have commanded. As to the still-living ones, perhaps before taking the liberty suggested with their literary offspring, it might be courteous to ask their permission, and I feel confident they would not be churlish enough to withhold it. I may be reminded that there would still be publishers and owners of copyright to be dealt with; but I leave suggestions as to the best means of negotiating with these awful entities to persons of greater experience than myself.

Obviously this lecture-hall business, like most of my other theories, necessarily involves considerable expenditure; but if anything is to be done, opulence must feel for indigence not only in heart but in pocket.

3. A thorough and unstinted employment of the means above indicated will accomplish much towards the emancipation of our helots from that thraldom of ignorance which gives to the more galling thraldom of caste its sole _raison d'être_. But there is yet one thing needed, the _utilization_ of knowledge acquired, and this can only be attained by dint of laborious and unintermitting class-work. The sacred flame may be kindled in the breast by desultory and omnivorous reading, but the light emitted is as uncertain as that of a wandering marsh-fire--it wants _focussing_ to be of any use to its possessor or his species. And it is in the _class_, under the guidance of a gifted and genial teacher, that this operation can best be performed. It is here that the finishing touch must be applied; here the rounding-off take place; here the heterogeneous be brought into homogeneity, and the discordant be reduced to harmony and system.

If these things are so, the problems which present themselves to be resolved are:--Given certain millions of untrained intellects in crying need of class tuition scattered over certain thousands of square miles in unequal proportions--how to provide sufficient building accommodation to meet the exigencies of the case? and given an uncertain but confessedly immense mass of torpidity and stagnation--how to infuse the necessary leaven into it to quicken it and arouse its latent forces?

I answer as to the first proposition--Require the architects of the multitudinous lecture halls aforesaid to submit plans to you, which shall comprise sections not only of the main building but of three or four adjuncts thereto suitable for class-rooms, after the style of the chapels nestling under the wings of our old cathedrals, or the annexes thrown out at convenient angles from our modern industrial exhibitions for the display of specialities. These would add comparatively little to the original cost of the structure, and save a great deal of time and trouble in hunting up eligible sites, and, when found, negotiating terms of purchase. As to the second proposition, make a _liberal_ distribution of prizes part of your system, so liberal that not only proficiency would be certain of obtaining a reward, but plodding and persevering mediocrity also. Constant attendance, combined with such written answers to questions as evinced that the pupil was making an effort, should, however imperfectly the answers were framed, insure the possession of a prize at the end of every session. With such materials to work upon, a free use of stimulants to exertion must form no inconsiderable part of the programme.

Again, no charge whatever must be made for admission to the classes. Indeed, the entire domain of adult poor education must be as free as United Italy--free from the Alps of the library to the Adriatic of the class-room.

Lastly, no restriction should be made as to the age or sex of the scholar. I am of opinion that no greater incentive to emulation can be offered to either man or woman than the consciousness that they are associated with co-workers or competitors of the opposite sex.

It would be travelling out of the record were I ever so faintly to attempt to enter into details as to the mode in which class-teaching could most advantageously be conducted, or to endeavour to shadow forth what I conceive to be the regulations best adapted for the purpose. No general rules would be found competent to meet ever-varying special conditions. All this must inevitably be left to conform itself to the peculiarities of the respective groups of the taught and the idiosyncrasies of the individual teachers.

Amusements.

On this last, but not least, division of the subject, I need not dilate at very great length. Much has been written with reference to it of late with which I cordially agree.

No one can help being sensible of the melancholy fact that the tendency of many of our so-called entertainments is debasing and degrading in the last degree. It is difficult to imagine anything much more demoralizing in every aspect--anything which appears to be more utterly without redeeming features--than our music-halls. Dances, which are simply unnatural contortions on the part of the male performers, and indelicate exhibitions on the part of the female ones; songs, which are utterly idiotic and meaningless, except when their meaning is indecency, sounding the very lowest depths of imbecility, and having no literary merit save _double entendres_ of the most vulgar description; the whole taking place in an atmosphere redolent with the fumes of beer, gin, and tobacco,--such is the pabulum provided for our delectation through this particular medium. Much the same poisonous mixture is administered at our tea-gardens and other places where we most do congregate. Is it a marvel, then, that our young men waste their strength in drunkenness, and our young women stray from the narrow path? Is it wonderful that when you respectables meet us abroad on Bank Holidays, or Derby or Boat Race days, we comport ourselves in ruffianly fashion, and greet the ears of your dames and damsels with expressions which it is not good for them to hear?

Ultra-exclusives! those of you who are most deeply impressed with the desirability of keeping us in our proper places, and are offended if we pass "between the wind and your nobility," to you most of all do I address myself, and take the liberty of saying that on _you_ rests the onus of providing better and more healthy recreations for us; for needs must that at times the most fastidious of you will find yourselves in the midst of us, and it will interest you even more deeply than others that we should not sink into unmitigated and universal rascaldom, the only natural goal at which the pursuit of such pleasures as those above-named is likely to land us. Give us attractions of a less baneful character, and wean us from these cesspools of infamy. To you it is specially important that this matter should receive attention. Do not, however, seek to do the work half-way; do not attempt to take away the means of recreation we have--evil as they are--until substitutes are furnished; it will not be convenient to you that the people should have too much time to _brood_; it will be safer for you that we should be _mercurial_ rather than that we should be _morose_; in one mood or the other, however you may strive to ignore us, we shall continue to exist in tangible form and be distinctly visible to your perceptions.

I like not threats or innuendoes, however, and say no more concerning this matter.

Time was when holy-days were frequent, when gorgeous pageants feasted the eyes of our forefathers--times of Maypoles and morrice-dancers, of roasted oxen and sheep, of conduits running with wine and milk: I say not I wish these to return. Much I fear that all was not pure, pastoral, Arcadian simplicity amidst these poetic scenes, fascinating as they are to the imagination. I doubt not the taint of vice was there, and the ghastly presence of misery and sorrow, and I do not regret them--let them go.

What, then, do I suggest? Aware of the risk I run in having it imputed to me that my suggestions have already been too numerous, I will, with brevity, venture yet one more.

Repetition is vexatious; notwithstanding which, unification is imperative, and committees must again be called into requisition.

Cricket-clubs, quoit-clubs, bowling-clubs, even skittle-clubs _ad libitum_, in summer; ballad concerts, dramatic performances, &c., in winter, under the same auspices. Membership extended to all comers, fee payable one shilling per annum in monthly instalments; the expulsion or suspension for a longer or shorter term--according to the more or less heinous nature of the offence--of any member for bad language, intoxication, or other misbehaviour; the gradual unbending of the rich and the cultured, and their condescending to grace the sports with their occasional presence, thereby infusing a spirit of refinement into them; the prohibition of betting or _over_-drinking,--these are, shortly and imperfectly stated, the remedies I would suggest.

To conclude the whole matter. We, the industrious poor of this realm--the hard-working classes--are in pressing need of help now, in this present time. This, I believe, is confessed on all hands, diverse and contradictory as the theories how such help could best be given may be. The question at issue is not whether ameliorations are desirable or the contrary, but in what manner to bring them about, and how to be certain that it is bread which is bestowed, and not a stone.

I do not claim to have solved this enigma, or to have invented a millennium. I simply assert my belief that some of my propositions may contain germs capable of being nurtured into hopeful possibilities.

As I have selected four principal points in which improvements are required--health, pocket, mind, and amusements--so have I striven to indicate four principal modes which I think best calculated to attain the desired end, and which for the most part must come from _without_ our borders--namely, sympathy, earnestness, money, and centralized organization--all being essential; the last-named especially being so, for it may be regarded as an irrefragable verity that every movement to be really efficacious must be _national_, and not parochial.

I look for many objections on both sides of the temperate zone, on the waters of which alone I elect to voyage. The frigid will aver that I expect too much, that my notions are Utopian and chimerical to the last degree, and the nostrums prescribed empirical and baneful; that it is not to be supposed sensible people will take all this trouble, and rush into such reckless expenditure in a project so visionary. To such my only answer is,--Where the return is to be great the investment must be great also. The torrid, on the other hand, will say I am not sufficiently thorough; that the only means of elevating the poor is by lugging the wealthy down to their level, abrogating dignities, distributing riches, abolishing ownership in lands and corporeal hereditaments. To these my reply will be,--Evil will the day be which shall dawn on such devil's-sabbath employments as these. Levelling _up_wards is laudable; levelling _down_wards is execrable. I would in nowise interfere with the least of these institutions. The overthrow of dynasties will not advantage us, nor will a general scramble conduce to our lasting welfare. I am a sceptic as to the benefits to be derived from revolution, although professing myself a warm admirer of reformation, as I understand the word--_re_-formation.

Neither do I anticipate that the time will ever come, under the best devised systems, when poverty will altogether cease out of the land. Evil will there be, and good also, while the world stands. This, however, should be no excuse for indifferentism in the work of lessening the sum-total of the evil, and increasing the sum-total of the good.

And so Lazarus unmoors his fragile boat, and launches it, unmanned and untended, on the bosom of the stream,--to meet its fate.

HENRY J. MILLER.

THE FORMS AND COLOURS OF LIVING CREATURES.

In the Essay on Animals and Plants, which appeared in the September Number of this Review, the names were given of the principal groups in which the prodigious multitude of living creatures (existing or known to have existed) have been classified by naturalists. It was therein also indicated that these various groups, and all the subdivisions of such groups, are distinguished one from another by variations in the forms and structures of the creatures which compose them. This fact alone would prove that very many differences in form must exist; but, indeed, a very slight knowledge and a very cursory examination of animals and plants would suffice to show this even to any one who knew nothing of the scope or nature of biological classification. In truth, to the non-scientific observer who feels an interest in living things, the difficulty may seem to be rather how to find general resemblances than how to detect differences between creatures which seem so totally diverse as do humming birds from whales, bees from buffaloes, or the numerous African herds of antelopes from the grasses on which they feed.