The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-25 00:00:00

COMPETITION AND MONOPOLY

Competition is a clever, civil, obliging fellow, ever on the alert to
accommodate. He is sharp and bustling. Spare of habit,—for he
does not give himself leisure to grow fat. He accosts you with a bow
and a smile, and asks what he can do to serve you. He is seldom
idle, either in body or mind.—is continually devising and effecting
new improvements, for the public benefit, well knowing that it is
only by such means that he can benefit himself.
Monopoly is a stiff, pompous old gentleman, who will not put himself
•ut of the way for any one. He is stupid and lazy. Cannot see his toes
for his belly. Swaggers about with his hat cocked on one side, and his
thumbs stuck in his waiscoat armholes. He returns your salute with an
air of haughty condescension, and struts away with supercilious hauteur.
He is slow and apathetic in every thing lie does. His brains are nearly
stagnant, and the few ideas he does possess are directed to the prevention
of improvement, which he calls innovation.
Competition is a man of business, depending solely on his own talents
and industry to push himselfforward in the world.
Monopoly is a salaried publie.otlice plodder, going through his dull
routine of duty with irksomeness, anxiously watching the clock for the
hour that is to release him for the day, and depending for his promotion
on the interest of his friends at Court.
Competition is a candidate on his canvas.
Monopoly is an M.P. reckoning his seat secure for seven years.
Competition is a dissenting minister, on the voluntary principle, full
of zeal for the instruction and salvation of his flock.
Monopoly is a rich, fat rector, leaving the cure of souls to his curate,
and caring little whether they go to the or not, so long as they con-
tinue orthodox in the matter of tithes.
Competition makes steam packets and railways, and carries you a
couple of hundred miles, over sea or land, in a few hours.
Monopoly calls these things mischievous and dangerous inventions,
and laments that the good old times have passed away.wbeu people were
a fortnight in travelling from London to York, and wade their w ills be-
fore they set oft

Competition is a puplic benefactor.
Monopoly a public robber.
Competition is a radical, and thinks that civil government was insti
toted for the good of the whole community.
. . . _

Monopoly is a Tory, and maintains that it was invented for the bene-
fit of a few aristocrats and place-hunters.
Competition is continually striving to push the world forward.
Monopoly is exerting all his power to keep it back, or cause it to re.
trograde.

Competition is a sp., it is a spirit of light and lif2, infusing inteiligerfc'e
and vigour into all who come within its infLeace.
Monopoly is an enormous incubus, prostrating our energies, and de-
basing our faculties.
Competition, in short, is the soul which animates and Invigorate; the
whole social body.
Monopoly is its death, turning it Lib, a lifeless and disgusting mass
of corruption.
With all his good qualities, Competition has, however, one failing.—
It is strongly suspected that he would have no objection to get into
Monopoly's easy chair, if he could, and if once there that he would turn
out no better than the old gentleman himself; but we need not be much
afraid of this, for, do what he will, he will never get there while his
name is Competition.
Old Monopoly views his restless scheming neighbour with any thing
but cordiality. In fact, he has a great horror of his improving propen-
sities, and not without reason, for Competition has crossed his path very
frequently of late. and giyen him two or three confounded hard shakes.
The effects of this rudeness are already visible in the old boy. It has
taken a good deal of the buckram out of him. His bearing Is not so
pompous and stiff as it used to be. In fact, he has lately become some-
what desponding and hypocondriacal, probably from want of exercise.
He gets all sorts of strange fancies in his head. He sometimes, for in-
stance, fancies himself a bishop, with ten thousand a year, and sees
Competition arm-in-arm with a fearful looking fellow called Church Re-
form, followed by same twenty or thirty working clergymen, and in the
rear of those a whole host of rate-payers, of twenty or thirty parishes,
the electors of the said working clergymen. These he sees, in his ima-
gination, falling upon his goodly ten thousand per annum. Church
Reform divides it among the parish-elected clergymen, and impudently
offers him a paltry five hundred a year, if he chooses to work for it.
At another time he will fancy himself a peer of the realm, reclining on
crimson velvet, in a splendid hall, admiring the wisdom and perfection of
our glorious Constitution which invests him with the privilege of making
laws, touching the property, the liberties, and the lives of his fellow-sub-
jects, without any regard to his qualifications for such a function,
without imposing upon him any responsibility to those for whom he
legislates, but merely because he happened to be born a lord. Yes: he
exclaims, to himself, on such occasions—Let poor shackled royalty be
subject, through its ministers, to popular controul,—let paltry corn.
moners shrink before a clamorous constituency,—glorious peerage
stands free and irresponsible. Let the ignorant presumptuous people
call for the redress of their grievances,—let the Commons pass measures
of reforms, and let kings or queens be ready to assent to them,—peerage
—invincible peerage—can stop them all, and nullify the wishes of a
whole nation with impunity. But while indulging in such rumi-
nations as these, a fearful apparitinn appears to his disordered ima-
gination, called Peerage Reform. It seems to address him in a voice of
thunder, as fellows :—Vain imbecile; indulge not in such phantasiee.
The days of thy power are numberel. An intelligent, powerful, and
united nation, will not, much longer, suffer its best interests to he sacri-
ficed by a handful of selfish and ignorant aristocrats. I Prepare to resign
thy irresponsible legislative power. Thy titles keep and welcome. But
in order to make laws for thy fellow-subjects, a better qualification than
accident of birth will be necessary.
A

...fter such a vision as this, Old Monopoly generally appears grey ly
agitated, and is heard calling out loudly—Avaunt monster I—Dangbrs
of organic change I—Wisdom of our ancestors .—Sacred prerogative landI—
and various similar incoherent expressions, at which the apparition only
seems to laugh.
Occasionally he fancies himself an elder son, heir to an extensive en.
tailed estate, when he sees the terrible apparition Reform, which con-
stantly haunts his imagination, tearing up the old parchments, and di.
Tiding the estate equally among hid younger brothers and sisters. This
apparition is called Udal or Allodial Succession, and always seems to
come over the water from Norway, in company with a gentleman named
Laing.—;See Laing's Residence in Norway.)
But the most frightful of all his apparitions is one which he calla
Anti.Corn.Law. Association. This one, although slow In its motions,
is of a very stern aspect. It generally appears carrying in its hand the
Times newspaper, and pointing to the " City Article," reads, " Compa-
rative price of corn and flour in foreign places, with the English mar.
ket ;" finishing thus—" so that a man with twenty shillings could buy
rather more than double the quantity of best flour at Hamburgh to
what he can obtain for the same money at London." Monopoly. who
always fancies himself, on such occasions, a rich squire, with lots of
hunters and livery servants, sees, in the rear of the apparition, immense
numbers of half-starved mechanics, and in the far distance the red caps
and hungry faces of 30,000 Sheilanders ; also. cargoes of grain and flour
arriving from foreign parts, free of duty ; his rents falling; his horses
selling off; and the paroxysm ends by his running about, In a distracted
manner, screaming out, "The world is come to an end."—Shaland
Journal.