now work, simple, and easy to be understood by the work-visional Government, among those who have been en. ing classes, not only in France but elsewhere. For in-gaged in administrative functions, who hold these views. stance, I first heard of it, two years ago in a letter I The most talented employées even under the regime of received from a member of the Grand Conseil of the Louis Philippe were compromised more or less to them. Canton de Vaud, in Switzerland, who then informed me Among these, Michel, Chevalier, and other men of ce that Louis Blanc's views of industrial organization, were lebrity were ex-Simonians. These men organized and there generally accepted by the Radicals. In fact, managed even under the old regime all the great pubhowever incomplete his views may be, no better man lic works of France. Cæsar Daly, a Phalansterian, wa's could have been found, for commencing the national in- the architect of the column of July. Pere Enfantin, troduction of a system of industrial organization in since his return from Egypt, has been the director of a France, than Louis Blanc. His very incompleteness is railway. Olinde Rodrigues, another St. Simonian chief in his favour. It makes him less objectionable to op- is a banker, of influence on the Bourse, and now again ponents, while the members of all the schools of societary active in the cause of industrial organization. Moreorganization, can rally round him, as around a friend, to over there is now no fear, but that the Provisional Gowhom they have some additional information to offer. vernment will carry on heart and soul, this organization. Such then, is the tradition of the idea of industrial About a fortnight since it was not so certain. A counre-organization in France-Babeuf, Buaronotti; St Si-cil meeting was then held of the members of the gomon, Enfantin; Fourier, Considerant; Louis Blanc. vernment, in which the great difficulties of organizLouis Blanc is a combination of communist, St. Si- ing a new system of industrial operation were warmly monian and Phalansterian, but principally of the two pressed. Of this meeting I am told an anecdote from former. To the first he is allied by his democratic ideas,à source to be depended upon. Albert seldom speaks to the second by his depth of sentiment. The Phalan- in the government council. However, when these obsterians as a school, have done much in the propagation jections were urged rather strongly, he at length found of industrial views, as did the St. Simonians before them, his tongue, "Gentlemen," said he, "I rarely speak here but the Communists, including the Icarians, are by but prefer to listen. Unless, however, you carry on the far the most numerous body. The Phalansterians how- organization of industry, I had better give in my resigever, although an excellent Normal school for the forma- nation and go and again shoulder my fusil!" Now, howtion of a new public opinion, are as a political party, ever I am happy indeed to add, there is no disunity in not supple enough on the one hand, nor expansive the government, as to industrial organization. They are enough on the other. They cannot well adapt their entirely united to give it the most efficient momentum school studies to the altered action of things. Their possible, during their provisional, and therefore revoluchief demand is a square league of land to try an ex- tionary administration. The Revolution, did not cease perimental Phalanstery. This is too formal a proposal with the thirty hours of February, and the flight of for the present disorganized crisis. It is too petty a Louis Philippe, but is thus even now defining itself plan for the actual state of industrial anarchy, which through the acts of the Provisional Government. Louis convulses France, and threatens a new a of Blanc's organization of workmen are already formed into social dissolution, unless a new industrial order on a industrial battalions, brigades and legions, and march large, a national scale, is not immediately instituted. to and from work with pacific military step, in orderly The people are prepared for this. The propaganda of array, with bugle blowing and with flag flying through the new industrial ideas, although under a variety of the streets of Paris. Already also in Paris are some forms, has been most extensive and successful for the national workshops for mechanics in operation. Morelast ten years. The literary classes, the working over, the decree of government has gone forth, for the classes, and the most intelligent of the middle class are immediate enrolment of two large industrial armies, to fully prepared for a social as well as a political revolu- march forth not with swords and muskets to comtion. However they may differ as to details, they are mit murder, and to destroy, but with spades and pickfully agreed as to the general subject of a new indus- axes to attack the waste lands of the country, and to trial organization. They entirely recognise that a form of win pacific and productive victories. Lastly, by the government is not everything. As far as the people are time this reaches you, the government will have taken concerned, they are determined that France shall not into their hands the management of all the banks, railonly be a republic, but also the sphere of a new indus- ways, and manufactories of France, the present owners to be reimbursed, and these establishments henceforIf the progressive portion of the people are thus pre-ward to be conducted as national works, under governpared for industrial organization, the leading minds of the Provisional Government, are not less so. One or two of its members are indeed but Radicals of the old cut, with no constructive ideas, further than those which are required to alter the supreme governor of the state, from a king into a president, and to change things from monarchical into republican forms. These however, are the minority in numbers and in influence. Lamartine himself, although professing much ignorance, as to the details of its operation, is a friend of industrial organization. In his travels in the East, some while since, he gave in much of his adhesion to the St. Simonian views, and denominated his political system as Christianity practicalized. Later still in the Chamber of Deputics, he was the chief of that denominated, the Social Party. Carnot, also, the Minister of Public Instruction, is an old disciple of the school of St. Simon. Albert, again, now vice-president of Louis Blanc's Board for the organization of work, in the Atelier has been long since the advocate of national workshops, and other associative combinations. Lastly, Louis Blanc's views are well known. A sixth edition of his work on the organization of industry is just issued. Then it is not only the Pro trial order. ment directors. Thus, then, the government are at one among themselves, with the people, and with the great principles of the present revolution on industrial organization. It is fully evident that the movement, the victorious movement, is industrial, as well as political. Beautifully shone the sun upon a placard calling us together to the Champ de Mars! Beautifully shone the sun when we found there assembled the young students of the schools and the men of the workshops! Company after company they flowed in with the Tricolor waving above them, amid the music and the singing of their patriotic hymns. There they met students from the Polytechnic, students from the colleges of law and medicine, working men from the faubourgs, with a priest among them, to write such a page of poetic history as has never before been written in the history of the world. What had the placard announced? That there they would meet, those who worked with the head, and those who worked with the hand, there to shew, that industry was honourable, that there was but one class in future in the Republic-WORKMEN. There they met, and the workmen brought their tools. There they met, and the students took the tools and went to work with No. VI. GOODWYN BARMBY. THE PAMPHLETS OF PARIS. DEAR FRIENDS, IN my letter on the Placards of Paris, I intimated that the Parisian pamphlets, so numerously issued at the present crisis, required a more serious notice than could be given of them under that head. This notice the present letter is intended in some measure to supply. Of course, I do not mean even to name the hundreds of pamphlets which have issued from the press since the great event of February. Such a task would be tedious alike to writer and reader. I would only notice the most remarkable-those whose authors have had fame before, or whose mode of treating the grand subject is remarkable. " would recommence the horrors of the past, and the passions you had kindled would respect nothing. Adieu civilization! adieu France! adieu humanity! There would be a universal cataclysm. As for us, we are con vinced that what the people wishes should be done. What all! Find you the Provisional Government, too patient and too humane? We find it too firm and too equitable. It holds us over a volcano. Alas! we have but one resource, it is to flatter the people. Would you strike off its talons? Let us kiss its claws. That dear people! that good people! Let us double its salary at the first onset, and allow it no time to demand anything. Let us place ourselves at its mercy. It is so good, that if we contradict it the least, it will tear us in pieces." "People," continues George Sand, from her own proper self, "beware of the flattery of poltroons, and avoid the artifices of traitors. Esteem not those who know thee -but by belief. Esteem not those who turn towards thee the uncovered breast when even thou art angry and who speak to thee in the face. Let us explain. Never in the future shouldst thou recommence the past. In the past, thou hast been the man of the past, sometimes sublime, sometimes criminal. Recollect the faults of thy fathers, and yet venerate and bless their names and memories. It was for that, that they were at once grand and culpable, and those who hate and condemn thy fathers absolutely, know not even the processes of God, who enlightens the human conscience but by degrees. But thou wouldst still be culpable in recommencing literally the past, in the face of the maledictions of the history of humanity, and with the law of perfectibility founded even upon imperfection itself. Oh! no, people, the past is not the ideal. Its remembrance is united with regret." niate thee, those who say, that you struggle but for maShe concludes by saying-" They calumterial things, and that you desire by increasing wages and by shortening the hours of labour, but a condition Of these, the first on my list are the "Letters to the of physical well-being. Without doubt thou hast a right People," by George Sand. Two of these letters by that to that well-being, to that repose, but those who know electrical woman have appeared. The first" Yester- thee, know well, that it is with thee a higher question day and To-day." The second-To-day and To-mor- than that of the bread which nourishes the body. Thou row." The first of these epistles of the new republican wishest the bread of the soul, thou wishest light, instruc faith, has already been noticed by the British press, and tion, the time to read, to meditate, to exchange thought. may therefore here be passed over. The second, how- It is an intellectual conquest which you claim." Such ever, to the best of my knowledge, has not been noticed are the words of this glorious woman. She rejoices at in England. "O people" it begins, "When I wrote the progress of the people. She warns them of their thee some days since:- -Thou ought to be loved, because flatterers. She conjures them not to recommence the thou wert worthy of being so,' I had not deceived my- faults of the past. She vindicates the spirituality of self, and my faith on that point still remains un- their aims and objects. There is nothing definite, little shaken." She continues-" But where I have failed, indicative in her words, but there is a generality so where I have dreamed like a child, is in the short dura- soothing, so hovering overhead like a dove, that they tion of the time which I fixed in my thought for that calm and call a sabbath in the heart, that they spread a prompt reconciliation, for that solemn effusion of frater-soft influence over the soul, like a magnetic languor, unnity, for that confidence, without limits, which has to- til we recognise in them a something of the evangelic day united all classes, and rendered the privileged of strain. yesterday, anxious to be lost and confused in the glorious ranks of the people. Pardon me, people, for having been thus deceived." She then goes on to indicate those who would destroy the social end of the Revolution, by supplying the Republic only with liberal laws and the forms of liberty. These,' she adds, 66 are perhaps sincerely republicans, but they do not comprehend the social bearing of the Revolution, and they but little understand the people. Take care, they say, the people is more sharp than you think. It comprehends very well its interests, and if you deceive it, it will dash you to pieces. It is communist at the bottom; it would make a common table, and it seeks but the pretext or the occasion. It would seize in the uproar the gates of the constituent assembly, and you would be forced to save yourselves by the windows. While when thus the workmen of Paris, violated the sanctuary of legality, on every side of France, the workmen of the provinces would break your machines, would burn your forests, would pillage your domains, would cause civil war. You "The "The Discourse at the College of France on the Republic, by Quinet," the celebrated collaborator of Michelet, is the next pamphlet I would notice. reign of matter, of brute force," says he, "is past, is fallen; the empire of the soul, of justice for all, is come. Friends, brothers, for a new society, become new men. The day of alliance, of reconciliation, is here. Let us cast from our hearts every selfish thought, every mean calculation, as the last links of the fetters which we have worn. Among all human revolutions, what is the spirit of that revolution which has now come to be accomplished? It is this. The masses have led their leaders. Such is the genius of this last revolution, accomplished through faith, by the feeble, by the poor, by the humble, the most conformable to that which was ever the spirit of the Christianity, of the Gospel. The pure gospel has conquered. The Republic, which we bear to the world, rests above everything, on the divine equality of hearts. A people in its moments of inspiration is like an individual. It was in the midst of the flames of Sinai, that the tables of the law were written means? James Rothschild has them. Such is the conupon the stone. They speak of the necessity of enlight-clusion of the pamphlet-such its appeal. It is but a ening, of preparing the masses, of giving them educa- sign of the times, a straw which indicates the way of tion. But what book, what journal, what club, what the wind. The straw is prophetic, and the wind is all teaching more powerful than the voice of God, echoing powerful. Though it may crack its cheeks as a storm, in the ear of an entire people, during the night and the it will sweep as a breeze over the world. day of the 24th of February. Everything that bore the heart of man in France, workman, peasant, obeyed at that moment that divine commandment-March! which a sovereign voice impressed upon a nation and a world. But these sublime moments are not eternal. After having fought alike with the heart, the mind, and the arm, our mission is to be watchful of that pure flame which God has re-animated. Have we not all received a hundred-fold our reward, in the hour when it was given us to bear from the paving-stones of the barricades, those three sisters, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, into the palace of monarchy. For myself speech is restored to me, when I feel with a sovereign evidence, the powerlessness, the impossibility of speech. Actions, not words, are what I would repeat without ceasing. Let us speed then, each according to his vocation, with the fact, with the event; let us obey the commandment from on high. All I can now do, is to collect my strength to utter with you the cry of invincible France-Live the Republic!" Such is an abstract of Quinet's discourse. Suppressed by Louis Philippe, he is reinstated by the Republic, and thus addresses, as their authorized in-noble sentiments, sympathy and the recognition of wostructor, the youths of the College of France. * The limits of my letter will yet allow the notice of another pamphlet. In doing so I am happy to be the servant of many ladies in Paris. It is "The Future of Woman, in the Republic; by Madame Sophie SaintAmand." With a soft and sweet voice she calls upon the friends of woman to aid her in evolving for the future of France, all the grace, tenderness, and purity of true womanhood. "Ah!" she says, "if the organizing genius of work had but induced a more just repartition of those employments which appertain to our feebleness that arm so powerful, and which France has so long abused, would never have served a more just cause.' Young Republic!" she adds, "who hast signalized thy advent, by an abolition of the punishment of death, determine that at length woman shall find a place in the management of the great interests of humanity, and all feeble as we are, believe it thy most firm support, will be in our hearts, those hearts which beat with hope and with fear when thou wert proclaimed. Let that Fraternity, so holy, be not for us a word void of sense! Under the intelligent reign of thought and of men, by the new order which protects them, would be perhaps one of the surest means for its consolidation." We fully believe that it would be so. Any organization of labour must be imperfect which does not apportion to woman her proper sphere of employment. No Republic can fulfil its name without its laws tend to preserve the honour and virtue of woman. divine dictation is not sufficiently acknowledged. The press of Paris is ever sending forth such preachers, some eloquent, some obscure. One class dwells in the past. It tells of the thirty hours of last February, now thirty years old, in this fast living life of France. It gives us the experience of '93, for the consideration of '48, which is well of its kind, although the divine law of variation, which in the series of progress, ever forbids alike, two like revolutions, and two counterpart countenances. It gives us also, the memoirs and the portraits of the members of the Provisional Government; but they say that since the Republic, the raven locks of Ledru-Rollin, have turned grey, that Lamartine spits blood, and that the fresh face of Louis Blanc has become wan and thin. These are but histories then, which ever become untrue, which ever require correction, and which always receive addition. There is, however, another class of Parisian pamphlets. These dwell not in the past, but look onward to the future. They are not reproductions of the old revolution, but the living speech of the day. They are not chronicles, but prophecies; not histories but poems; not records but epistles. A notice of four of these, out of four hundred, may meet the few leisure moments of busy commercial England. We have dared not do more. Be it remembered, however, that the pamphlets of Paris are now the pioneers of progress, throughout the world. Another remarkable pamphlet is published by the League of Social Salvation, a species of French Leeds Redemption Society. It is an appeal to the Baron James Rothschild, for the means of the organization of work, by Dr. Arthur Bonnard. The Christian physician plainly tells the Hebrew baron, that but two roads are open to him. The first would lead to an ephemeral and Thus then we have been enabled to hear something of detested feudal power, which he could not insure to his the voices of four of the most important pamphlets of children. The second would conduct to a fortune, im-revolutionary Paris. The pamphlet a preacher whose mutably fixed upon the recognizing love of nations. "James Rothschild," he says, "France is a monarchical country. When a king dies, another mounts his throne. To-day the king is the people. But that king is hungering, and has not bread. But that king has huts for a palace, and the corners of streets for chambers. But that king could say, like Christ, the son of Mary, your compatriot of the tribe of Judah-The birds of the air have nests, the foxes have holes, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head." He then shews that with the sovereign people, enthroned upon the barricades, seated on paving stones, with a musket as its sceptre, there is under such a state of things much to be feared. It may be a good king or a bad king, an Antoninus or a Nero. But the people is never an idle king. A cyclopean worker, it labours day and night, for good or for evil. It must then be employed. Its industry must be directed, moralized, and organized. The difficulty is to find the means for so great a measure. What is the measure! Production, Consumption, and Distribution, are the three persons of the Material Trinity. The producer is too often deprived of the right of consumption. He is Lazarus under the table of the rich man. Distribution is exercised by tradesmen, ten times too numerous. It is Parasitism-they live upon that which they produce not. Form a league then, and proclaim as a principle of Eternal Justice, that the products of work should be sold for the benefit of the workers. Organize a body of Distributors of Produce generally, as the Government has organized such bodies for the sale of stamps, powder, salt, and tobacco. Disgorge also the town, by the emigration into the country of the unemployed, that they may there unite manufacturing industry with agricultural colonies. Government workshops are already found insufficient for the crisis. Complete the political revolution by a commercial and industrial one. Such are the measures. What are the Yours very truly, GOODWYN BARMBY. THE WEEKLY RECORD. MELANCHOLY SIGNS OF THE TIMES. THE LAUGHING PARLIAMENT. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning! for which his name has been handed down to the present hour, and will descend to the latest ages of the world, a term of execration and contempt. It was scarcely to be expected that a parallel to the conduct of a pagan tyrant could be found in the Parliament of a Christian country, in the nineteenth century. But the present British House of Commons bids fair to realize the infamy of the Roman monster. While the spirit of God is moving on the face of the great deep of governmental despotism, and arousing the spirit of man to assert its dignity and its right,-while kings fall, and governments crumble before the mighty inspiration-while at home distress stalks abroad in town and country; while our commerce is panic-stricken, and our manufactures are arrested as by a deadly lethargy; while Ireland, driven to desperation by oppression, assumes a most menacing attitude, the members of the House of Commons answer to the appeals of the wise for conciliation, retrenchment, and timely reform, by bursts of laughter. There is something most frightful in the circumstance. It is like one of the signs of a fatality which accompanies the rapid decline and fall of empires. It betrays a corruption of principle, a recklessness of mind, a blind hardihood of pampered folly, so repulsive and outrageous, as to inspire the most melancholy forebodings. Woe to the nation whose salvation depends on guides and legislators like these! In ordinary circumstances they would be a nuisance, in circumstances like those of England at the present moment, they are a calamity of the worst kind. The present parliament is occupying the sixteenth year of the Reform Bill. The very man who is at the head of the Government, is there precisely through the universal demands at that period for Retrenchment and Reform. Lord John Russell had declared for years in the house, that nothing but the most rigid reform and retrenchment, could save this nation from ruin. He denounced for years the Tory government. He denounced the system of bribery by which members of that house acquired their seats. He denounced the system by which the plundered and impoverished people were kept down at the point of the bayonet and the musket. He promised miracles of retrenchment, he painted paradises of freedom and national prosperity under the Whig Ministry. He and his fellow Whigs were believed, were tried, and what is the result? Sixteen years after these patriotic outcries, these saintly promises, these magnanimous denunciations of political extravagance and despotic treatment of the people-what is the result? Why there sit Lord John and his fellow Whigs comfortably in the golden nests of the Tories, and present such an appearance, that no one could tell them from the old Tories, if they were not made aware of their pretences. The reforms are still unexecuted. The whole manufacturing and commercial systems are crippled and threatened with ruin, because the old monopolies are left in all their destructive force in India, which should have been by this time an immense consumer of our manufactured goods, and supplier of raw material at a far cheaper rate than we can get it elsewhere. India has been made a warfield for the promotion of our aristocrats, instead of a field of trade to feed our mechanics. Therefore, our mechanics are starving by tens of thousands, and the aristocracy in the fulness of place and pension, are crying out for more war establishments, and more taxes. The debt remains undiminished-taxation has been increased last year only ten millions; and this year Lord John has had the cool audacity to ask for further impositions. Ireland is reduced to a pitiable condition of famine, pestilence, starvation, and anarchy now edged with the menaces of rebellion. The people at home, when they announce their intention to come in large bodies and present their petitions for redress-are bade to stand off-and not to approach the sacred precincts of legislative purity. London is thrown into the most hectic alarm. The Bank, the India House, the Palace, and all the offices of Government are fortified and placed in a condition of imaginary siege. The city is gorged with troops, and the houses planted with cannon to overawe or sweep away the petitioning people. Within, the house presents the most astounding sight of members returned thither, not by the free votes of the people, but by more profligate bribery, than ever was witnessed since the most shameless days of Walpole or Pitt. In every department of government the most wasteful mismanagement abounds, and ministers are at this moment asking like another genuine set of Sidmouths, Liverpools, and Castlereaghs, for fresh power to gag the pens and mouths of Englishmen. Such is the recess extravagance, that it has compelled even Lord Ellenborough, himself a sinecurist to the amount of upwards of £9,000, to come out and expose it. March 30th, in the House of Lords, he called the attention of the house to the fact, that in 1847, the Government charges had been increased £110,000! This he justly said too, in a year when the national distress was excessive, when we were obliged to borrow £8,000,000 for the purpose of assisting Ireland, and when the ordinary revenue was deficient. There had been 141 persons only, with the exception of the augmented number in the Post Office, and for these 141 alone, there was charged £70,000! or £500 per head! In one office there had been a decrease of six persons, and an increased charge of £6,000! In the Colonial Office, which was under the direction of Earl Grey, there was an increase of £4,323! In the Admiralty department, there was an increased charge of £10,000! In the Customs of £49,000! Even Lord Stanley's spirit was roused at this. He declared that "it appeared by the explanation of the noble lord at the head of the Admiralty department, that the clerks had been allowed to neglect their duty, and then paid as for extra work for doing it! That in the Customs duties had not been diminished, but altogether repealed on a great number of articles, and yet the increase of charge was £49,000 for the year! That with the decrease of work sixty-two more persons had been employed; an increase of salaries of £1,857; of emoluments, £17,500; of retired allowances £5,747; of expenses £25,000! In the Postoffice the increase of expense appeared steadily progressive. It appeared that 3,300 persons had been added to the establishment during the last two years, and an equal number might be added in the two next." The Marquis of Clanricarde.-"I hope so!" A laugh! Are these the fruits of the Reform Bill? Are they the results of the Whig Government? They are, be it confessed by all England with shame and self-reproach, almost the only ones. But it is not merely the neglect of the promised reforms, the forgetfulness of all their most soundly vowed measures of retrenchment and regeneration, the cool perfidy of the Whigs once in office; it is not merely the audacious assurance, in the face of all their former pledges, with which they advance in the career of expenditure and additional taxation, which constitutes the most alarming features of the case: it is the acknowledged fact of the House of Commons being crammed with naval, military, and other dependants of the Government, who have obtained their seats by bribery, and appear resolved to hold them in the most impudent defiance of all decency and decorum. What is their treatment of the most respected representatives of the people there? Scorn! What are their answers to the most reasonable demands of reform and economy? Laughter! In the late debate on the Army Estimates this disgraceful conduct of British senators reached a height of reckless insolence perfectly unexampled. The military mob of gentlemen were voting for their bread, and they kept no terms with decency. Mr. Hume moved that the number of men in the army should be restricted to 100,000, instead of 113,000. The answer was laughter-and on its being put to the vote, 45 voted for the resolution, 246 for the augmented number! When Mr. Hume began his speech, there was a tolerably full house; when he concluded there were only six on the opposite benches; but plenty rushed in to vote. When Mr. Hume reproved them with their barefaced contempt of all argument-the answer was-Laughter! Mr. Cobden represented that the increased number of men included an expense of £7,000,000. The answer was again— Laughter! We are glad to have it in our power to present the rest of this scene in the words of Dr. Campbell in the British Banner. When Mr. Cobden told them that he despaired, with respect to the vote of seven millions one hundred thousand pounds, of being able to "bring them back to a sense of duty," he was met by a torrent of “ironical cheers;" when he told them there was great discontent rising up in the country, again his voice was drowned by "ironical cheers ;" when he hinted to them that the perusal of his letters received that day from the country, might change their tone, again the House resounded with "ironical cheers," when he charged them with ignorance of the state of feeling among the middle classes, again he was met by "cheers and laughter." When he told them they had few partizans among the working classes, again they replied by "laughter;" when he asked them, if it was not a reproach for them to vote money before they had devised the means of raising it, the reply was "a laugh," when he asked them whether they were prepared to meet the discontent that was rising unt among the working, but the middle class of society in this country, the roof-tree resounded with loud cries of "Divide! divide;" when he entered his protest against the recklessness with which they voted money before they considered how it was to be raised, and hinted they might possibly repent of the deed, again he was visited by" laughter and ironical cheers." Never was "laughter" so misplaced! But the matter did not end here; Mr. Bright, Mr. Cobden's great compeer, and fellow-worker for the good of mankind, followed in a speech worthy of himself and the occasion, in the course of which he met with even more insult and obstruction than the Member for Yorkshire. Had Mr. Bright, instead of being a speaker of the highest order, and a representative for Manchester, been some poor, ignorant, degraded nominee, sitting for a rotten borough, he could scarcely have been treated more contemptuously. At every sentence he was met with cries of "Oh, oh!" "Question, question!" "Divide, divide!" When Mr. Bright solemnly told them, that sixty millions of taxation could not continue to be levied without exciting dangerous discontent, the response was, "Divide!" Nor did the matter end here. Mr. Wakley presented a petition from Mr. Beal, of Grosvenor Cottages, Eaton-square, praying for various needful reforms, and amongst them the abolition of the House of Lords. This was a request so infinitely amusing, that it called forth shouts of laughter! If these things are not a hand-writing on the wall to the people of England, nothing will arouse it to a sense of its real situation. A nation which can permit itself to be thus robbed and insulted by those who are sent up as its representatives, and does not awake to a feeling of generous indignation, must be lost to every feeling of independence, and blind to every sign of coming calamity. But we feel too confident of the spirit of the English nation, too sure that its own honour, and the sufferings of its despised people, will cause every drop of its blood to tingle in its myriad veins at the sound of that aristocratic and idiotic laughter on the benches of its senate, to doubt for a moment the result. The laughter from within will be answered by groans from without, and the too long divided middle and labouring classes will, at length close their ranks and make the "laughing jack-asses," which congregate in St. Stephen's, take wing to some more congenial region. GEORGE DAWSON ON THE PRESENT CRISIS. [We make the following extracts from a Letter to the Middle Classes, on the Present Crisis, by George Dawson, M.A.-EDS.] Fellow Countrymen, That we are now in the midst of a solemn crisis of the world's history all allow. Revolution has come again to show that men cannot, will not be governed by impostures and lies. In France, a corrupt and corrupting government has met its deserved fate. In Germany, Princes swift to promise, slow to perform, have been spurred to quickened paces. All Europe is convulsed. Sad is the necessity for Revolution. But it comes of Reform delayed. Men revolt not for the sake of it. Revolution is a costly method of change, only to be resorted to in dire extremity. If the tenant will not go, we pull off the roof, with a sad feeling that we are entailing the expense of restoration, and rendering the house untenantable for a time. In these times, what is England to do? Are we to have a Revolution? In the usual sense of that term, No! Barricades are exotics here, not likely to be naturalized. Englishmen love not scenes in the market-place. Physical force we will not have, we need it not, we love it not. How shall we prevent Revolution and violence? By the only sure plan-Reform. Is Europe to be reconstructed and England remain still? We want changes-great changes. To prove this, we need have no recourse to political rant-that cheapest of fustian. We have but to go to the door of the relieving officer, the rooms of the workhouse, and the pages of the Gazette. We are taxed up to endurance point, if not beyond. We ask retrenchment, and the answer is, "Five per cent. on Income." The exit of that was as contemptible as its entrance was unjust. Men of the middle classes, think of that! The Government would not tax Australian birds, so called from their hideous, asinine, laughlike cries. the upper classes; could not, dared not tax the working classes. We, peaceable, well-conducted men, were the selected victims. But do not take a selfish view of the matter. Look to the working classes; ask what their movements mean. The work ing man has wrongs, and feels them deeply. He has not yet received his share of political and social advancement. Hear Lord John Russell's opinion on this point. "If we look," said he in 1844, "to the labouring classes,if we look to the men who either till the soil or labour in the factories, if we look to the quantity of necessaries which their wages could buy in the middle of last century, and that which they could buy now,-I think that we must be convinced that they have not participated, in an equal degree, in the advantages which civilization and improved knowledge have conferred upon us." Many of the working men look for their political salvation in the Charter. They hope too much from it-you fear too much. But many of the middle classes never read the Charter. Is it right to oppose that of which we are ignorant? The Charter, I know, goes too far for some, for some too fast. Many recognise it as an ideal to be worked up to, rather than as a plan for immediate realization. My present purpose is neither to advocate nor oppose it, but to ask the middle classes, what, at this crisis, they mean to do? If you like not the "People's Charter," produce your own. Say what you want, and how far you will go. Will you take the points in detail? Draw out your list of Reforms, give the nation your points. Anything but inaction and timidity. On you it depends whether we advance peacefully but quickly in the path of progress, or whether we must succumb to injustice on the one side, or anarchy on the other. Remember, Reform delayed is Revolution begun. A true Reform Bill would soon become to the demagogue, the brawler and the physical-force man, a fool's cap in which he would be hissed off the political stage. Show you are in earnest and men will wait. Organize in every locality-petition (if you will)-" pronounce." If you do not go for the Charter, say so, but say for what you do. Inspect the following list, mark off in what you agree; let those who want little, band for that little, those who ask much, for much, those who want all, for all. Economy. Abolition of Sinecures, useless offices. Try in what points you can unite with the working men. In every town meet at once to adopt all peaceful and constitutional measures to prevent the present Parliament from going to grouse, until some true Reforms have been carried. PORTRAIT OF THOMAS GRAY, THE RAILWAY PIONEER. Although the labours of Thomas Gray will undoubtedly be appreciated by posterity, his friends have resolved to effect something more substantial than mere fame, by promoting a Public Subscription in his favour, to enable him to pass the latter part of a most useful life in ease and comfort. To assist this object Mr. Bannehr, of Exeter, has undertaken to conduct the publication of a Lithograph, in the first style of art, of the Portrait of Thomas Gray, the profit resulting from which he applies in aid of the "Gray Testimonial." CONTENTS. Organization of Labour. By Louis Blanc. Abridged and Translated by LACIQUOQUE-Facts from the Fields. The Meldrum Family. By WILLIAM HOWITT. (Continued.)-German Student Life, and its Influence on Popular Movement. By WILLIAM HOWITT-Chronicle of a Ragged Rascal. By EDWARD YoUL-Letters from Paris. By GOODWYN BARMBY. No. V. Organization of Industry. No. VI. The Pamphlets of ParisRECORD: The Laughing Parliament-George Dawson on the present Crisis, etc. PRINTED for the proprietor by WILLIAM LOVETT, of 16, South Row, New Road, in the Parish of St. Pancras, County of Middlesex, and published by him at 291, Strand, in the Parish of St. Clement Danes. PRICE 1d. STAMPED, 24d |