THERE is no commoner mistake among philanthropists than the talk about the "working classes" as a distinct division of society, of which all, or the large majority of the members, are united together by common occupations, common interests, and common antipathies. It is indeed a mistake which has often been protested against, nowhere more powerfully and picturesquely than by Thomas Wright, the Journeyman Engineer, in his book Our New Masters. There he has shown the gulf which separates the skilled artizan from the class which is only just keeping its head above water, and which sometimes drifts into beggary and dishonesty from sheer want.

In fact the miserable people who plead for the charity of the District Visitor or the Clergyman, as well as the paupers who apply to the Relieving Officer, belong almost exclusively to the class of unskilled labourers. The great and essential difference between the skilled artizans and the unskilled labourers is that the former are organized, while the latter live by what has been well called "broken labour"-labour that is not guided by any fixed rules, nor producing any close union among those who do it. It is not the carpenter, the mason, or the engineer who at once needs alms when misfortune overtakes him; and this does not arise so much from his high rate of wages as from the fact that he belongs to an organization which will support him when he is sick or out of work, and help him to find employment when he needs it.

If we would check widespread poverty we must deal with its cause, for when a man has once fallen into poverty it is extremely difficult to raise him out of it without destroying his independence and energy. But if we

and his fellows an organization having for its object the formation of benefit societies, insurance societies, sick clubs, and labour registers, surely the first steps will be gained to raise him beyond. the reach of poverty.

Now if the unskilled labourers are to acquire that independence which can only be gained by common action, they must apply for help and instruction to that class of the community which has already provided itself with an organization adapted to the requirements of manual labour. Nor is it only their previous experience in the matter of organization that gives the artizans a special right to speak with authority on the best way of dealing with the poorest classes; but also the opportunities which they have, which professional men and rich shopkeepers cannot have, of observing the circumstances of the very poor. In many cases the

artizans have raised themselves out of the position of the unskilled labourers, and have gone through the poverty and struggles which that class endures. Moreover the artizans are often forced to live, from various causes, in those districts of London in which the poorest class is still struggling. For instance, the common notion about the east end of London is that it consists entirely of squalid courts filled with dirty and pauperized people. But the truth is that beyond these courts there are miles of little houses occupied by the families of respectable and independent workmen, who live entirely separate lives, holding themselves quite aloof from the occupants of the courts, and who are little heard of because they do not come for assistance to clergy or poor-law guardians. Thus the experience gained both by previous poverty, and present conditions of residence qualify the skilled artizans to help us in the work

disappear, tents are struck, and in a short time the late busy scene is left to the farmer's cows and pigs who no doubt have a fine time of it.

Every one who has a ticket hurries home for the great and final event of all-the ball. The largest room in the town has been hired, and punctual to the hour 300 devotees of the dance pour in. Kisawlee exclusiveness is of no avail on this night; every grade of society is well represented. Lawyers, doctors, butchers, bakers, livery stable keepers and loafers. The judge's wife stands up in the same set with her dressmaker, and the parson's wife, if she is not careful, will run into the arms of her cook. Such tatters and such romping! Spurred heels fly in every direction, dresses rip and tear, an cccasional thud rises above the din of battle, as some rural couple, unaccustomed to a waxed floor, go down. The band of the 126th blow as if every vein in their heads would burst and call loudly for whisky between each dance. Tall men in long black morning coats, red ties, and thick-soled boots, go through quadrilles with a double shuffle; while their partners in pea-green dresses, short ringlets and yellow head-dresses, hold out their skirts with thumb and finger, and go through the contortions of an Irish jig or a Highland reel.

But the red-coats and the dashing hussars carry all before them on this eventful night. It is the last night of their sway. To-morrow they will retire into private life and to a level with their civilian friends, who now hide their diminished heads in the card-room and drink claret-cup fiercely; and who rejoice in their secret hearts when next day the last squadron files out of Kisawlee and the last train full of shouting red-coats puffs out of the station.

Pages could be filled with the life of this stirring little town. I have said nothing of "surprise parties "-nothing of New-Year's Day, when the ladies sit

at home all day behind regiments of glasses and decanters, and the Kisawlee gentlemen rush furiously from house to house, entering the room by sixes and sevens, or sometimes by dozens, sitting down only to jump up again as if there was a live coal in the chair, and after having, according to strict rule and custom, tossed off a glass to the health of the house, disappear as quickly as they came, only to repeat their interesting performance at forty or fifty other houses.

I have made no mention of toboggoning, of snow-shoeing excursions, of riding-parties, of shooting-matches at a turkey's head;-but, on the other hand, I have said little of the very great chances of having the tip of your ear or your nose frozen off, or of its being absolutely impossible to sleep after sunrise in summer on account of the common house-flies. Nor have I spoken of the excessive dirt and bad attendance at the best hotels, nor of the difficulty and sometimes of the impossibility of getting servants. But the Kisawlee ladies, though not very strong in music, painting, or languages, can make an applepie or a bed with any one; necessity, if a hard, is a good master, as many a gently-nurtured English woman has found out in places compared to which Kisawlee is a bed of roses.

Englishmen will penetrate into the most out-of-the-way nooks and corners of the earth, and their wives-who have been brought up in luxury such as no other nation dreams of-will go with them, and brave hardships, dangers, and troubles which would reduce an American, who has never trodden on a carpet, to a helpless and trembling heap of tears and groans. Truly we are an eccentric nation; but at all events we do not require a standing army of half a million to make us respected in regions and by men who have never heard of the Emperor of Germany, and to whom the very name of the Czar of all the Russias is a closed book.

SHEBAUTICON.

THERE is no commoner mistake among philanthropists than the talk about the "working classes" as a distinct division of society, of which all, or the large majority of the members, are united together by common occupations, common interests, and common antipathies. It is indeed a mistake which has often been protested against, nowhere more powerfully and picturesquely than by Thomas Wright, the Journeyman Engineer, in his book Our New Masters. There he has shown the gulf which separates the skilled artizan from the class which is only just keeping its head above water, and which sometimes drifts into beggary and dishonesty from sheer want.

In fact the miserable people who plead for the charity of the District Visitor or the Clergyman, as well as the paupers who apply to the Relieving Officer, belong almost exclusively to the class of unskilled labourers. The great and essential difference between the skilled artizans and the unskilled labourers is that the former are organized, while the latter live by what has been well called "broken labour"-labour that is not guided by any fixed rules, nor producing any close union among those who do it. It is not the carpenter, the mason, or the engineer who at once needs alms when misfortune overtakes him; and this does not arise so much from his high rate of wages as from the fact that he belongs to an organization which will support him when he is sick or out of work, and help him to find employment when he

needs it.

If we would check widespread poverty we must deal with its cause, for when a man has once fallen into poverty it is extremely difficult to raise him out of it without destroying his independence and energy. But if we

and his fellows an organization having for its object the formation of benefit societies, insurance societies, sick clubs, and labour registers, surely the first steps will be gained to raise him beyond the reach of poverty.

Now if the unskilled labourers are to acquire that independence which can only be gained by common action, they must apply for help and instruction to that class of the community which has already provided itself with an organization adapted to the requirements of manual labour. Nor is it only their previous experience in the matter of organization that gives the artizans a special right to speak with authority on the best way of dealing with the poorest classes; but also the opportunities which they have, which professional men and rich shopkeepers cannot have, of observing the circumstances of the very poor. In many cases the artizans have raised themselves out of the position of the unskilled labourers, and have gone through the poverty and struggles which that class endures. Moreover the artizans are often forced to live, from various causes, in those districts of London in which the poorest class is still struggling. For instance, the common notion about the east end of London is that it consists entirely of squalid courts filled with dirty and pauperized people. But the truth is that beyond these courts there are miles of little houses occupied by the families of respectable and independent workmen, who live entirely separate lives, holding themselves quite aloof from the occupants of the courts, and who are little heard of because they do not come for assistance to clergy or poor-law guardians. Thus the experience gained both by previous poverty, and present conditions of residence qualify the skilled artizans to help us in the work

classes, and without such organization all efforts of mere benevolence will prove fruitless. No class has ever risen to independence without power of common action.

There is one body which might well take the lead in making an appeal to the artizans for assistance in this work of organization. Most people who have followed the history of recent thought and action with regard to the questions of the relations of the rich to the poor are aware of the existence and of most of the leading features of the Charity Organization Society. This Society is in the opinion of really thoughtful philanthropists, the most efficient centre for all efforts for the improvement of the condition of the poor. Those, however, who have seen most of the working of its District Committees are fully conscious that the Society in many respects is as yet far from having obtained that completeness of organization which is necessary for carrying out the work which it has set before itself.

This is notably the case even with the primary object of the Society:-the producing co-operation between all the Societies and persons in each district who have knowledge of the ways of the poor and are willing to use that knowledge for the benefit of the poor. One great source of information, at any rate, has been hitherto neglected, which might have assisted the Committees both in investigating the characters of the applicants for relief, in finding employment for them, and in estimating their fitness for employment-I mean the Trade Unions. So great is the still remaining prejudice against these bodies, even among the leaders of such a movement as that for Charity Organization, that I remember not long since inquiring at a committee meeting whether a particular applicant for relief belonged to a Trade Union, and being answered by a very active member of the Committee that he, the Committee man, hoped the applicant did not belong to a Trade Union, as it would only encourage him in idleness.

perhaps to be found in the following passage quoted from Dr. Brentano's Arbeiter Gilden der Gegenwart (p. 216) -"The first and most remarkable form of support (given by Trade Unions) is the allowance to members who are out of work. The rate of this allowance since 1852 has been ten shillings for fourteen weeks, and seven shillings for the ten following weeks, and six shillings for the ten weeks after that..... But the Union does not satisfy itself by any means with granting this small sum of money to preserve its unemployed members from starvation. The mere anxiety to prevent a too great drain on its resources compels it to make the effort to find employment again for those who are without it as soon as possible. Even before the Amalgamation (i.e., before the complete formation of Trade Unions, when only local societies existed) the Society tried to bring in arrangements with this object. For one thing, for instance, there are at every branch books in which all members out of work must put down their names. In Manchester and Glasgow, on account of the great numbers of the members in those districts, there are special offices with their own officials. It is very common now for employers who need workmen merely to send to these offices for them. Where this is not the case they yet inform the working members in every workshop of every vacancy; so that a workman can at once be sent off there to ask for work. Even non-unionists are sometimes in this manner provided with employment by the Society; but of course only when no Unionist is out of work."

It is obvious that such a scheme as this would assist greatly the operations of the Charity Organization Society, and each Society could help the other in some respects to enlarge its sphere of usefulness. If the Charity Organization Society on the one side could supply Trade Unionists with the information which it gains about employers needing workmen, the Trade Unions on the

ganization Society in finding work, even in the case of non-unionists. It might, too, often be worth while to inquire whether an applicant for relief had ever belonged to a Trade Union; and if he had left it, what was his cause for leaving. On this point it is evident that Trade Unions might supply valuable information; and I do not know why such information should be looked on with more suspicion than that given by employers about servants who have left them.

If the suspicion, which I fear might be excited in the case of the Trade Union, lead the Committee from a sense of justice and consistency to scrutinize more closely in some cases the evidence of employers, much good might often be the result. For my own part, I confess, that I should like to see a closer bond formed between these two agencies than that which I have described. When the Charity Organization Society was first coming into existence an attempt was made to interest one of the leading Trade Unionists in its working. The attempt unfortunately failed, to a great extent apparently from the misunderstanding by some of the leading members of the Charity Organization Society of the position and still more of the effects of Trade Unions. These members fell into the mistakes to which I called attention above. They seemed to assume that the Trade Unionists would naturally come in many cases under the cognisance of the Charity Organization Society as applicants for relief; whereas, as the Trade Unionists of whom I speak endeavoured to point out, such men being regularly skilled workmen, and able to come to their Union for support in time of need, would never be likely to require the help of the Charity Organization Society.

But if, instead of being regarded as the friends and representatives of a certain number of possible paupers, the Trade Union secretaries were recognized as fellow-workers by the Society in encouraging habits of self-restraint and

might be done to induce those secretaries actually to join the District Committees, and take an active part in their work.

The spirit of self-reliance, and at the same time of common brotherly feeling, which must have been developed before a man could consent, first, to stint himself in order to subscribe to the union, and afterwards to consent, in many cases, to give up the immediate wages which he is earning for the chance that an increase may be gained by the whole body of his fellow-workmen, is just the quality that a society like that of which I am speaking must make it its final object to cultivate. And I am informed by a member of one of the most active and successful of the District Committees that the boast made by the Trade Unionist to whom I have alluded above, that trade unionists never come before the Charity Organization Society as applicants for relief, is, as far as the experience of that Committee goes, strictly borne out by the facts.

It is therefore-I cannot repeat it too often-as equals and fellow-workers that the Charity Organization Society Committees must make advances to the Trade Unions, if they can hope to secure their help. If any fears are prevalent among the members of those Committees of hostile intentions in the Trade Unions towards employers, what better method can they take to soften that hostility than by showing them that men to a large extent drawn from the employers, or those most apt to sympathize with them, are willing to recognize and work with the Trade Unionists for a common end? If there is any fear of the growth among workmen of theories opposed to sound economical principles, what better means can be found to prove the soundness or unsoundness of such theories than work for an object which must continually involve either their application or refutation?

From this it will be seen that the ordinary work of the Charity Organization Committees might afford opportunities for such common action between