and a rare good hand she is at it, in spite of what you say. When she is cooking, she is not washing. When she is washing, she is not mending. She does a bit at a time, and she likes it. She is glad to have us all out of the way at the mill, so as she can get on. It is her own house; she does what she likes. You call it slavery; she doesn't. I must leave you to settle it with her.

Of course things might be mended a bit, no doubt. I like your idea about stopping the smoke and having water instead of furnace boilers, and electricity instead of steam. I like the notion of re-building the towns and giving us broad streets with trees in them, and a bit of garden to each house all round; and if we could have it as you say about the railway, have no fares, and nothing for the carriage of parcels, it would be nice. I am not so sure about doing all the cooking for 100 houses at one place. It would not be so comfortable to come home and not know where your dinner was, or to have somebody from the bottom of the street to fetch it in-oh, but I see, you would have us all dine together in a hall. Well, I should not like that, Mr. Blatchford. It is better to come home to your own house, to your own Missus, and sit at your own table and eat your own victuals. And what would Missus do ff she hadn't to cook the dinner and wash the dishes and mend the clothes?

But how are we to get all these fine things you propose, Mr. Blatchford? You say all that is needed is a little common sense, and that it is my fault things are so bad as they are. Heh, Mr. Blatchford, I sometimes think you must be off your head. My fault? Why, things are as I found them. And I have seen such mişchief come from trying to alter things that I have always thought it is best to let well alone, even if they are not so well as you think they ought to be. Your plans are beautiful, but I cannot help thinking they are dreams. They cannot be brought about without storms and changes that might wreck everything and leave us much worse than we are now. And I don't know that on some points they would be so much better. Things might be prettier to look at; but what would wide streets be without the comforts of home, which at present is an Englishman's castle?

Your cautious friend,

JOHN SMITH.

Living Together.

My Dear Mr. Blatchford,

You

OU see I am answering your letters one by one, as you wrote them. I am afraid I shall not be able to do this all the way through, because I find that, in answering one letter, I am often really answering others that come after. Still, although the same ideas come up a good many times, you are such a versatile man that they are served up with different sauce each time, so that they seem different when it is only the There will be the sauce to talk about after all has been said about the dishes. Sauce is important in its place. As a rule people are better without it, but it can be made wholesome, and is sometimes worth talking about. But we mustn't be saucy on the subject, as I am rather inclined to think you sometimes are. However, your sauciness is the good-natured sort that does no harm. I cannot pretend to give it you back with nearly the same piquancy, but John Smith must do his best.

sauce.

It might have been better if I could have answered each letter as it came out, instead of waiting to get the whole before beginning. This would have given you the chance of speaking back one by one, but perhaps you can speak back for all that. When I have done, you may write again and let me know if any of my shots have hit. Not that I expect they will, because most captains have some bullet proof stuff next their skin, and I don't expect you have neglected this. When men take a position publicly, they stick to it as a rule. It is not among the leaders that the converts are made-not often; it is among the rank and file who can quietly and privately converse over what is said, and decide without prejudice.

By the way, I see some of my cousins are having a shy at you. It must be by mistake surely. You see we Smiths are a large family, so that as you did not send your letters through the post, but printed them as a book, other John Smiths might imagine the letters were for them. We must pardon them, it will do no harm. I daresay you can stand a good batting, even if all the John Smiths were to take it into their heads to "have a go," especially as some of them are not good shots. They fire like the Chinese at the Japs. There is a great parade, and much noise and brag, but the shot does not carry a quarter the distance, or it swerves half-a-mile to the right or left, or the guns burst, and by-and-by they take to their heels. I don't say all the John Smiths are like this. You will know the difference when they show up. If I had known that my shilling and sixpenny cousins were going to open fire, I think I'd have kept quiet and watched the game; however, it may be all for the best. Perhaps they are the ironclads who will pound away at your big battleship, while I come in as a torpedo boat, running in and out in the narrow places, trying to blow you up if I can, though with very best of good feeling, you understand. You see, Mr. Blatchford, I am of your own sort, from the same gutter, and having under the same stress acquired the same art of fence. I won't bore you with heavy-footed statistics or newspaperish dissertations, or learned lumber of any kind. I take you in your own light-handed, racy way. I parry your rapid thrusts as you caper round the course, and shall aim to get my rapier home with the right effect before I have done. Not because I have any ill-will to you. Nay, Mr. Blatchford, nay: of a very different colour are my feelings. But it is war, you know. You have made the air ring with your clarion of defiance, and it belongs to honest men on the other side to respond to your challenge. So here goes for your sixth letter.

You think I might get a living, with a third of the trouble I now take, if I were to throw in with ninety-nine other families, and have one kitchen, and one oven, and one drying-ground, and so on. I am not so sure about this. It would be like living in a barracks or a workhouse. I think half the pleasure of life consists in attending to one's own business. You point to the army to show how well the thing works. You say it comes cheaper for a lot of people to mess together. Very likely. But we are not here merely to do things the cheapest way. We are here to live in a

decent and enjoyable manner. I don't think we could do that if we were to herd together like public schoolboys at a common table.

You say it would give us more leisure. Perhaps so: but what for? You say, "to study chemistry and the natural history of microbes!" Mr. Blatchford, this is not what working people do who have leisure on their hands. More likely they would take to pigeon-flying, and dog-fighting, and gambling, and such like. The Spartans were rare fighters.

I see you advocate the use of arms for all citizens. There! How would this work? Young lusty fellows able to use arms, and with nothing to do, I am much afraid would not leave their arms idle. What terrible times we might come to.

It is a very nice idea to have leisure to devote to knowledge; but, Mr. Blatchford, this is not how it would work. All history is against you; all knowledge of human nature is against you. With too much leisure, the common run of men would be either lazy, like niggers where there are plenty of pumpkins without growing them; or wicked, maybe, like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who, when they had "fulness of bread and abundance of idleness gave themselves up to all kinds of bad ways (Ezek. xvi. 49, 50).

You think that with a three hours' day, the colleges would be frequented. I can only say such an idea is contrary to the actual tendencies of human nature as we see it. Men do not frequent colleges with a living assured. You must not judge by the sons of wealthy men. They go to college under compulsion. You must judge by these same sons when they are free. It is hunting and horse-racing then. Where are "the noodles?" Among those who have no incentive to study.

You mistake in saying that the important questions of agriculture and medicine are studied by the rich. It is not the rich that give themselves to learning. It is poor men under the stress of necessity. I don't deny that there is such a thing as loving knowledge for its own sake; but you do not see this love in any great activity among the rich. It is men whose future is not assured, of whom the State will take no care; who are under the necessity of thinking of their wives and families; that apply themselves to knowledge and develop intellectual capacity under pressure. The facts are against you, Mr. Blatchford. It is a pretty picture you draw of the working man, under a three hours' day,

crowding the colleges after work, for the study of science as bearing on questions of "agriculture and the microbes"; but it is contrary to nature, and inconsistent with your constant appeal to facts and natural law. The majority of men prefer amusement and excitement. They do not work from choice, but from necessity; and if they had only to work three hours, they would give the rest of the time to field sport, music halls, or something worse. The colleges would get very poor audiences.

There will come a day when wisdom will have a large and enthusiastic following, but it will not be under a Socialistic regime. It will be under a government at once royal and supernatural. The Bible tells me, John Smith, of such a day when "many people shall go and say, 'let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us of HIS WAYS, and we will walk in HIS PATHS; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.''

Why is John Smith to shut his ears to this sweet voice? Why is he to listen to self-sent agitators, whose attempts to realise a Socialistic ideal might so easily aggravate the present unhappy state of the world? Nevertheless I believe you intend the good of your kind; and therefore I remain,

Your most respectful friend,

JOHN SMITH.