, 1868-12-25

for a reduction in their hours of labour. These
meu maintain, whether rightly or wrongly it is
not for me to say, that after a man has been for1
eight hours laying bricks he feels sufficiently
tired to make it desirable for his own good and
that of the public that he should leave off that
particular kind of amusement, and devote the
rest of the day to something else for which he
may have a greater fancy The government
has adopted the notion as far as its own work
men are concerned, by passing an Act of Con-
gress, so that in future all who are fortunate,
enough to labour for Uncle Samuel, in the dock
yards, the arsenals, or public factories, will en-
joy the blessings of the great triangular system
of eight hours sleep, eight hours work, and
eight hours recreation. AS may be. expected,
capital is thoroughly alarmed, and the great
apostles Of the "getting-on" creed see nothing
but national ruin and everlasting infamy in
store for a people who thus confess themselves
to be getting weak in the knees. Giants, my
dear sir, always get shaky in the legs, and our
young democratic Titan is fast beginning to
exhibit the dreadful symptoms. The working
classes are our support they are to US, more
than the working class is to any other nation
under the sun, the means of locomotion in the
grand march of progress and they are failing
US. Nothing can save US; for the whole trunk
must go just as the legs please to carry it.
This is the capitalists view of the question !;
but, as you will most ~assuredly have this same
eight-hours movement among you, it will per-
haps be as we'll that you should hear a little on
the other side.
The American workman differs from every
other labourer in one respect-h he alone of all
the wage receivers of the world is in law and in
fact the equal of his employer. He has probably
been to the same school with his master, put his
his IN during an agreement with the same force
and propriety, takes as much share and interest
in the public concerns of his country, and out
side the doors of the bank is as respectable and
dignihed a member of society as the owner of
millions of 'dallars." He is never ashamed of
his calling, is generally clean, scarcely ever i'll
dressed my laundreSS payed me a morning call
to-day in a black silk robe-and in spite of what
Americans will say about themselves, is not
very much given to drink. Seeing, then, that
with the one solitary exception of the bodily
marks which bodily labour gives, the slightly
rounded shoulders, the spread hands, and the
i~nelegant gait, the handicraftsman is in every
respect his brothers brother, he begs to know
why what are termed professional men should
have a greater ''pull' out of existence than he
has. He says-and | have found "reSpectable''
people who agree with him-that the tendency
of the age is to go too fast. That life which
God has given US to enjoy, is being made a
positive burden by the high pressure speed at
which everything is being driven. He declares
that more work is now being done by everybody
in eight hours than a few years ago was done
in twelve. He has looked to the wise and pru-
dent to'provide a remedy for this state of things,
a cure for the wold's fever, and they appear to
him to have gone stark-staring mad in the get
ting-on direction. With his pulse vibrating like
a pianoforte string, they prescribe stimulants.
With his brain Keeling like a drunken mans