SOCIALISM.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9282, 6 December 1895, Page 2

SOCIALISM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHBSS. Sir, —Your leader of to-day presents a most distressing picture of what our tin d$ siecle intemperance in pity is leading us into, and the evils in the shape of Socialism, &c, which follow upon a morbid sensitiveness to the sufferings of the poor. There can be no doubt that .this terrible disease should be "nipped in the bud" before it gots beyond the control of those squareheaded practical people who certainly uauuot be accused of utiy morbid sympathy with the horny handed. And, (Sir, in my opinion there i 3 but one way in which to grapple with this fell affliction..

We should figuratively vaccinate ourselves against the inroads of this unhealthy sensitiveness to the sufferings of others, and to that end proceed as follows:—Let the cultivated lounger set aside his thousand a year for a time ; let him go into the gravel pit, the workshop or factory and try to maintain a sickly wife, ailing children and himself on 30s per week. Lot him experience this near approaoh to heaven for a month, and he will find, as you say, that those joyous workers are infinitely healthier and happier than himself; that those who pass their time plessantly. say, in tho manufacture of chemicals or at the blast furnaces of the "Black Country" are the happiest people in the creation, and without a care or sorrow of any sort, and that it would be an extravagant waste to expend any pity whatever upon them. He would fiud that the condition of the parasite lounging on a thousand a year is infinitely inferior to that of the slave who carries a hod and a large family on 18a to £1 per week. Socialism is all fudge of course. We know all about that, for have we not read Herbert Spencer and the Rev. Brook's reply to "Merrie England ?" The writings of Plato, Buskin, Carlyle, Owen, Tolstoi, aye, and even Mark Twain are but the iguorant and misplaced gibberings of an insane pity. Away with this intemperate pity ? —"Xoura, <fco., A Lounger.