, 1865-01-31

ment which has in every c0nSeil deS prud.
hOmmeS planted its agent to vote down
the masters, and reckless clearances seem
excusabIe when a grand boulevard is
named after the workman Lenoir. But
the masses interpret "sociaIi>m" to mean
not interference simply, but interference
on their side, and of late the interference
has not visibly tended TO their benefit.
"Government" no doubt, when a peasant
can get at it, is still very conciIiatorv, but
}Ae MaiFe and The gendarme are rot, and
the peasant finds that they can always get
at him. A project may be quite ready,
as he always proclaimS, to support the
weak against the strong, but the tendency
of a garde champere is TO support The
strong against the weak, and the peasant
who never sees the project knocks his
head against the constable just four times
a day. Secretaries may he entrusted with
absolute power without annoying one
but headIeS? Jacques Bonhomme doubts
about beadles, questions sometimes when
the harvest is bad, or The mayor more
than usually fussy, whether he should not
enjoy an fmeute which enabled him TO
hang the beadles, like any other |noxious
kCllIIlu' Lie WOIhIlHl5 uSdIuy uOGS nOG
Of course mind interference very greatly.
NJ. Duruy this very week has informed
certain rich philanthropists that they must
not establish any more public libraries,
for that the State intends to organize a
system of public libraries through France,
with books selected by its own wisdom.
The artizan does not mind particularly,
simply deciding in his own mind THAI he
shall read the Government books or not
read them, according to his interest in
them, but he does mind very much when
prices rise rapidly and wages do not rise
as rapidly, and Government, which can
do everything, does not adjust the ba-
lance. That is the situation IN Paris lust
now. Lodging, food, wine, clothes, every
thing is rising rapidly !; wages rise slowly,
kept down BY the vast immigration at
tracted by Government works to Paris,
and the trades are quietly but effectively
organizing strikes. Of course The papers
cannot discuss the claims of either mas
ters or men. Of course the police inter
fere with all meetings, stop all circulars,
prohibit all harangues, arrest all 'agita-
} tors" But nothing can prevent Partisan
a%rtizans from applying pressure 10 their
employers, from establishing a house-to-
house visitation, from dining together in
restaurants where there may be spies but
is certainly the power Of whispering, or
from hating the Government which, while
driving them five miles from their work,
encouraging the rich to indulge in visible
luxury, and making treaties which they
are told raise prices, tries 10 prevent
them from applying a remedy to their
miSeries. I~nsoIent speeches from a pre-
feet, a grand prosecution of electors for
trying to elect, a letter threatening to
give the monopoly of libraries to the
State, a great strike in Paris, Eugene
Pelletan writing of "a scandal which re-
calls Petronius Arbiter," a rumour of a
new loan, another rumour of disarma-
ment,-the list reads marveIlousIy like
the heading Of some chapter in Louis
Blanc's "HIstory of Ten Years" that
marvellous diagnosis which killed the
patient by proving to him how very near
death he must be.