Part II

., p. I 76, etc.--Children's Employment Commission's Rep't.

{210} See _Weekly Dispatch_, March 16th, 1844.

{211} Thomas Hood, the most talented of all the English humorists now living, and, like all humorists, full of human feeling, but wanting in mental energy, published at the beginning of 1844 a beautiful poem, "The Song of the Shirt," which drew sympathetic but unavailing tears from the eyes of the daughters of the bourgeoisie. Originally published in _Punch_, it made the round of all the papers. As discussions of the condition of the sewing-women filled all the papers at the time, special extracts are needless.

{214} "Arts and Artisans," p. 137, _et seq_.

{221a} So called from the East Indian tribe, whose only trade is the murder of all the strangers who fall into its hands.

{221b} "What kind of wild justice must it be in the hearts of these men that prompts them, with cold deliberation, in conclave assembled, to doom their brother workman, as the deserter of his order and his order's cause, to die a traitor's and a deserter's death, have him executed, in default of any public judge and hangman, then by a secret one; like your old Chivalry Fehmgericht and Secret Tribunal, suddenly revived in this strange guise; suddenly rising once more on the astonished eye, dressed not now in mail shirts, but in fustian jackets, meeting not in Westphalian forests, but in the paved Gallowgate of Glasgow! Such a temper must be widespread virulent among the many when, even in its worst acme, it can take such form in the few."--Carlyle. "Chartism," p. 40.

{222a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 282.

{222b} _Ibid_., p. 282.

{223a} Dr. Ure, "Philosophy of Manufacture," p. 367.

{223b} _Ibid_., p. 366, _et seq_.

{232} Compare Report of Chambers of Commerce of Manchester and Leeds at the end of July and beginning of August.

{235} See Introduction.

{241} According to the census of 1841, the number of working-men employed in mines in Great Britain, without Ireland, was:

Men over Men under Women over Women under Together 20 years 20 years 20 years 20 Years Coal mines 83,408 32,475 1,185 1,165 118,233 Copper mines 9,866 3,428 913 1,200 15,407 Lead mines 9,427 1,932 40 20 11,419 Iron mines 7,733 2,679 424 73 10,949 Tin mines 4,602 1,349 68 82 6,101 Various, the mineral not specified 24,162 6,591 472 491 31,616 Total 137,398 48,454 3,102 3,031 193,725

As the coal and iron mines are usually worked by the same people, a part of the miners attributed to the coal mines, and a very considerable part of those mentioned under the last heading, are to be attributed to the iron mines.

{242} Also found in the Children's Employment Commission's Report: Commissioner Mitchell's Report.

{259} The coal miners have at this moment, 1886, six of their body sitting in the House of Commons.

{264} E. G. Wakefield, M.P. "Swing Unmasked; or, The Cause of Rural Incendiarism." London, 1831. Pamphlet. The foregoing extracts may be found pp. 9-13, the passages dealing in the original with the then still existing Old Poor Law being here omitted.

{268} This has been literally fulfilled. After a period of unexampled extension of trade, Free Trade has landed England in a crisis, which began in 1878, and is still increasing in energy in 1886.

{269} The agricultural labourers have now a Trade's Union; their most energetic representative, Joseph Arch, was elected M.P. in 1885.

{272a} Report of the Poor Law Commission upon Ireland.

{272b} "Principles of Population," vol. ii.

{273} "The State of Ireland." London, 1807; 2nd Ed., 1821. Pamphlet.

{276} Carlyle gives in his "Past and Present" (London, 1843) a splendid description of the English bourgeoisie and its disgusting money greed.

{286} Extracts from Information received from the Poor Law Commissioners. Published by authority. London, 1833.

{293} To prevent misconstructions and consequent objections, I would observe that I have spoken of the bourgeoisie as a _class_, and that all such facts as refer to individuals serve merely as evidence of the way of thinking and acting of a _class_. Hence I have not entered upon the distinctions between the divers sections, subdivisions and parties of the bourgeoisie, which have a mere historical and theoretical significance. And I can, for the same reason, mention but casually the few members of the bourgeoisie who have shown themselves honourable exceptions. These are, on the one hand, the pronounced Radicals, who are almost Chartists, such as a few members of the House of Commons, the manufacturers Hindly of Ashton, and Fielden of Todmordon (Lancashire), and, on the other hand, the philanthropic Tories, who have recently constituted themselves "Young England," among whom are the members of Parliament, D'Israeli, Borthwick, Ferrand, Lord John Manners, etc. Lord Ashley, too, is in sympathy with them. The hope of Young England is a restoration of the old "Merry England" with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object is of course unattainable and ridiculous, a satire upon all historic development; but the good intention, the courage to resist the existing state of things and prevalent prejudices, and to recognise the vileness of our present condition, is worth something anyhow. Wholly isolated is the half-German Englishman, Thomas Carlyle, who, originally a Tory, goes beyond all those hitherto mentioned. He has sounded the social disorder more deeply than any other English bourgeois, and demands the organisation of labour.

{296} And it did.