but pluck, assurance, determination, obstinacy, and the vis inertia. It is out of such elements that societies and leagues arise. The combination is the result of conscious weakness. A man who feels power in himself does not usually resort to such means; he has faith in his own opinions and in his power to impress others with a sense of their truth, and he depends upon force of argument and wit. On the other hand, there is a commonplace class of minds, with the fearful dogmatism of a bullterrier, but without the intellectual ability necessary to sustain their dogmatism. They are compelled to curious expedients by way of supporting their assertions. One of these expedients is mentioned in a well-known couplet of Butler's :

"I've heard old stagers

Say fools for arguments use wagers." A wager proves not the truth of any statement, but the assurance of him who advances the statement. It is an adequate test of self-reliance, of will, of faith; but not of the truth or justice of opinion. That was especially the refuge of weak minds in the last century. In the present century it more frequently happens that when the weak man finds himself in a minority, and his opinions at a discount, he sets to work to organise an association for the furtherance of his views, and gradually becomes the centre of a powerful system. Mr Hare is of opinion that field-sports are cruel, and ought to be abolished, and sees no way of giving currency to his views but by getting up a great Anti-Rod and Gun Crusade. He goes to Alderman Fairchild, who has no pleasure in the country, and cares nothing for manly sports. Alderman Fairchild thinks an Anti-Rod and Gun Crusade a very noble enterprise with himself as the chairman of committee. Mr Deputy Farebrother is next consulted, thinks our friend Hare a very fine fellow, and his scheme a great social want of the age-accordingly agrees to have his name on the committee as vice chairman. Mr Jedidiah Fairbairn is delighted with the new scheme, and subscribes five guineas in a glow of perspiration and human

ity. Dr Potts, who is on the look-out for patients, and is especially anxious to become acquainted with Alderman Fairchild, grasps at the opportunity of sitting at the same board with him. A baronet is by great good luck secured as patron of the new league, the well-known Sir Charles James Brown, the great London banker; and the society is floated with little Hare as the secretary and soul of it. A public meeting is called, and Mr Hare concocts resolutions for the Rev. Messrs Bowie, Cowie, Dowie, and a number of the best people who are the salt of the earth to propose and second, besides making a flaming report, which the chairman of the meeting signs, and which is published next morning in all the newspapers. So the affair grows, subscriptions flow in, a corresponding society is formed in the next town, another in a town at the farther end of our tight little island. Mr Hare is sent as a deputation to a few provincial cities to awaken an interest in the subject, and in the mean time he enjoys himself on his tour, has his expenses paid, gets no end of letters of introduction, and eats heartily of greasy dinners, to which he is largely invited, because he is known to have talked with Sir Charles James Brown, and to have had letters of refusal from a couple of earls. Then come the tracts. It is that little Hare, who has a talent for organisation, but none for either logic or rhetoric, not to speak of grammar, who gets them up. The first is his own handiwork, and intended as a sort of model for the rest. It is entitled "Sporting with Death "-a ridiculous rigmarole of piety, pathos, and puerility, diversified with bad English and bad temper. The next week sees another issue which our friend's favoured minister has furnished gratis, and which is entitled "The Sparrow that Falleth to the Ground." In the third tract we have an awful attempt at a pun, the title being “ Fowl Murder." After that comes "A Voice from Antiquity," in which we have a philosophical dissertation on the phrase-Deus est anima brutorum; after that "AWord to Parents," which describes in pathetic terms the sorrows of a bereaved hen and the troubles of an orphan

combinations to make railways, combinations to send forth missionaries, combinations to secure cheap works of art, combinations to carry political reforms, combinations to insure our lives; and this system of combination seems to be in rivalry with that of individual exertion a rivalry which becomes very odious as soon as it is perceived that a very contemptible man at the helm of a great organisation can distance with ease a man entitled to our respect, who has not the advantage of being backed by such a power. We are not aware, however, that there is anything radically wrong in the fact of combination. As a means of influencing public opinion, and carrying political or social reforms, it has indeed been very much abused; it has been employed by the lower class of intellects for objects that are not good; it has been used for the gratification of petty vanities and the spread of shallow theories. But however we may impugn motives and deplore results, there can be no doubt that the system itself is perfectly legitimate. If a man can get fools to associate with him and to back him, he has a perfect right to do so; it is folly to rail at the principle of association; it is mere blindness not to see that it is a power for good as well as for evil. That we have no longer any heroes may be a lamentable fact; but if the only mode of curing the evil is by denying the principle of associated or joint enterprise, the full power of what it was left to our age to discover, we fear that heroes will never come again, and we are not sure that we would wish to see them again.

The extent to which the art of combination (the most remarkable fact to which the existence of our tract literature points) is carried among us was very curiously illustrated on the occasion of the Queen's late visit to Leeds. The crowds upon crowds which congregated to that great manufacturing city, made it necessary to take more than usual precautions for the preservation of a clear way for her Majesty, and perhaps the whole scene may be more vividly called to the remembrance of the reader if we mention one very striking incident which occurred in the

neighbourhood of Woodsley House, where the Queen took up her resi dence. There the concourse of people was overpowering, all devoured with curiosity to know in what sort of a house the Queen was to be lodged, what kind of a door she had to enter, what kind of chairs she sat on, what kind of table she sat at, what sort of flower-garden met her eye. With a full anticipation of the superior attractions of the spot, the authorities had erected wooden barriers of considerable strength to keep the masses at arm's-length. But it was of no use; the people came on in countless myriads, as the sands of the sea, thronging, and pushing, and straining, and fully determined to see what was to be seen. The great wooden barriers snapt before them like a thread-vanished like a vision. Everybody expected mischief, and one of those hideous exhibitions which sometimes disgrace an English mob. On the contrary, now for the first time order and decorum were introduced. The physical barrier had been thrown down, and the moral barrier began to be felt. The men of Yorkshire had no patience with a wooden obstacle, and kicked it aside; but they understood the obstacle raised by their own feelings, they knew what sort of observance was expected from their loyalty, and they were instantly hushed into quiet. The effect was magical, and was a very striking illustration of the English character, which is so full of selfcommand, and which, refusing to be driven, is most easily led. The mob, upon which brute force had no effect, was all gentleness before the sacred ideas of womanhood and royalty. It was this same tempestuous mob that filled the thoroughfares in every direction, and made it necessary for the authorities to see to it that the liue of march for the royal party should be kept quite clear. police were infinitely too few for this duty, although the district police had been strengthened by constables from London. The idea was then started of making the mob control itself by enlisting the services of the various trade unions and benefit societies. The order preserved was perfect, and this order was created

The

by the following chief societies:The Manchester Unity of Oddfellows sent 5500 members to line the streets; the Grand United Oddfellows sent 4300; the Ancient Romans, 2150; the Foresters, 2100; the Free Gardeners, 1500; the Leeds United Oddfellows, 450; the Kingston Unity of Oddfellows, 450; the Free Independent Oddfellows, 450; the Druids, 800; the Independent Order of the Ark, 200; the Ancient Free Gardeners, 550; the Old Provident Society, 60; the Shepherds, 540; the Bramley Loyal Friendly Society, 500; the Orange Order, 600; while the four following associations, the Imperial Order of Oddfellows, the National Oddfellows, the Order of the Peaceful Dove, and the Order of the Fleece, sent among them 1000 members, making the grand total of associated members who took part in this demonstration 21,150. This is a most interesting result; and no man of the slightest imagination can read over the very curious list of names which we have enumerated without feeling the sort of influence which these unions must exert upon the working classes, in the double fact that they at once awaken the social instinct, and invite a man into a new sphere. In all these masonic institutions, the Druids, the Free Gardeners, and the Order of the Peaceful Dove, the members are in the first place invited into a sort of brotherhood, which of itself is very delightful; and, in the second place, into a new state of life, where, under the name of a Druid, or a Shepherd, he enjoys for the moment, as in a dream, an existence very far removed from the horrid millwork of this work-a-day world. The strangest thing of all is, that the system of combination to which the working classes are accustomed is not half revealed in the foregoing list of unions. It is merely indicated.

The societies we have named are permanent bodies, existing in and for themselves; and perhaps the reader may not at once see what they have to do with those other societies from which the great mass of tracts proceed, and which, besides having but a temporary existence, differ from the benefit clubs in hav

ing an object beyond themselves, a desire to influence the country, it may be to move the Legislature. Our view in calling attention to these innumerable Shepherds, and ancient Romans and Independent Oddfellows, was to bring into relief that appeal to the imagination which is one of the strongest motives that go to the formation of leagues, societies, and clubs. Joblings grasps at the idea of becoming the member of a society, in which he is to be no longer Joblings, the man of cheese and sausages, but a citizen and a philanthropist - the member of a great community, and the saviour of mankind. It is a grand thing to have this refuge from ourselves-to be able to forget Mrs J., and the servant of all work, and the tough beefsteak at dinner, in dreams of universal benevolence and a sense of associated importance. Joblings is ashamed of his private life, feels its insignificance, and will join a dozen societies, provided the subscription is not too dear, and he has a chance of meeting with his betters. It is by playing upon this sentiment that the cunning secretary gets up the societies. At Sheffield, they have got up a committee for foreign affairs. Who the wise men are who form the committee nobody knows, and nobody cares. Podgers, we believe, is a great man there; so is Rodgers; so is Codgers; and like the three tailors of Tooley Street, our Sheffield blades are determined to take the foreign policy of England under their special protection. It is reported that Lord Malmesbury has written and received important despatches. The Sheffield blades write a letter asking for information, and are politely told that information cannot be given to them. They write to inform some other minister that he is a traitor to his country, and that minister politely advises them to stick to cutlery, for their knives cut a good deal deeper than their wit. They are snubbed, but not disheartened; their noses are put to the grindstone, but they grow very fast again. The Sheffield committee for foreign affairs, tenacious of their purpose, still guard our destinies. We can extinguish an individual with

arguments or ridicule; but a society is proof against argument, and has no more sense of the ridicule which it excites than the hippopotamus wallowing in its little tank in the Zoological Gardens. The Financial Reform Association of Liverpool is another animal of the same description. It issues tracts and papers of every kind, and has even gone to the extent, if we remember rightly, of proposing a budget, which included a lot of new taxes-one of these being a tax on every kind of property-down to jewels, which the fair owners are to faithfully schedule for the benefit of the remorseless taxgatherer. It is a glory to be a member of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association. Britain rules the world; finance rules Britain; the Liverpudlian Joblings are kings of finance, and swell with pride over each new attack on the corruption, extravagance, and absurdity of the Imperial Exchequer. Of the Administrative Reform Association we suppose that we shall hear no more. While it lasted, Joblings revelled in it. Was not Joblings seen sitting on the stage of Drury Lane side by side with mighty men? Did not an admiring public ask in that immense theatre, who is he sitting next to Mr Dickens? who is that Mr Layard is talking to? An anxiously inquiring public was informed-Why, that is Joblings--you know Joblings; and the word was passed from admiring inquirer to inquirer-Joblings, do you see Joblings? How anxiously Joblings looked at the papers next morning to see if his name was mentioned as among those conspicuous on the stage; but the attempt at indifference with which, in the intervals of muffin, he mentioned the fact of its announcement to Mrs J. was sublime-was more than human. Unfortunately, the Administrative Reform Association, with all its speeches and all its tracts, vanished into smoke, and our hero has gone into another concern -The Early Closing Movement, the object of which is more suitable to his talents as well as more laudable and feasible in itself. He thoroughly understands the system, and he it was who invented the huge placard

which, in ponderous capitals, promulgates the command, "Never Shop after 7 o'clock." Sermons have been preached, public meetings held, tracts concocted and distributed, handbills strewn like the summer dust over London; but nothing has been invented half so effective as those blue devils of words which meet us at every turn, "Never Shop after 7 o'clock." It was about this time last year, too, that he showed uncommon activity as a managing member of the Property and Income-Tax Association, the object of which is to repeal that obnoxious assessment, and fix the burden on the shoulders of somebody else. Nobody knew what Mr Disraeli's budget would be-there was apprehension of a serious deficit, from which no way of escape seemed possible without retaining the IncomeTax at its then high rate. Joblings girded on his armour, and was ready for the fight. The association, which had felled the war ninepence, was rolled out like an old shandrydan that has been allowed to rot and rust in the coachmaker's back-yard; and its machinery was set in motion for the defeat of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he should exhibit any unwillingness to reduce the impost to the anticipated fivepence. Letters were written-subscriptions were set on foot-meetings were held-articles were concocted-handbills were printed-papers were distributed; and clerks out of office, penny-a-liners, and threadbare fellows who had nothing else to do, were sent into the country, on infinitesimal salaries, to get up corresponding societies, to call public meetings, to bore the editors of newspapers, and to arouse and terrify an injured, but unconscious and listless public. Alas for the lost opportunity of distinction! Mr Disraeli reduced the tax by twopence : the wind was taken out of the sails of the association-Othello's occupation was gone; and Joblings had to retire into the bosom of his cheeses and his Melton Mowbray pies.

Time would fail us were we to enumerate all the important schemes in which this great man is interested. He had been a member of that wonderful Peace Society which was finally