The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1881-10-30

between a debtor confined for lie
behind the bars, a porter bendin"
under heavy burden and a swaS9'
gering soldier: "Said the prisoner Fl
the French succeed in landing what
is to become of our liberties? The
porter responded we should all
become slaves, >" while the soldisr.
broke in with "blaSt and damn nv
eyes, that isn't what troubles me bnt
the thought Of what would become
of our glorious religion"
The writer in the HERALD save
that England is the only first class
power in the old world ia which ,
high degree OF personal liberty IRE.
walls. The masses there are sobrnf-
allied and ignorant and, like the
Irish, so wanting entirely in the
means of successful resistance To
authority, that they are compelled
to be quiet, and unlike the French
could not hope for immunity or
determination from the soldiery of
their country. Matthew Arnold. an
English social scientist, in late ad-
dress, thus compares the civilization
of the two leading nations of En-
rope, France and England. A celp-
brated Greek author, from whom
St. Paul quotes, Evil cOmmunica-
ti0ns corrupt good manners" has
also given US another saying as the
no less sure result of the accurate
study of human life. "Choose eouaJ.
ity and flee greed. For equality in
the Frenchifed sense of the term.
almost everything in England has
hard word. In that exciting pas
sage at arms between Mr.. Lowe and
Mr.. Gladstone, equality, poor thing,
received blows from both. MI,
Lowe declared that no concessions
should be made to the CRY for equal
ity unless it appears that the State
is menaced with more danger by its
refusal than by its admission, and
Mr.. Gladstone replied that equality
was so utterly unattractlve to the
people of England, and inequality so
dear to their hearts, that to talk of
concessions being made to the CRY
for equality was absurd. There is
no broad, political idea, says Mr..
Gladstone, which has entered less
into the formation Of the political
system of this country than the
love of equality. And he adds: at
is not the love Of equality that has
carried into every corner of the
country the distinct, Undeniable.
popular preference, wherever other
things are equal, for man who lisa
lord over q man who is not" The
love of freedom itSelf(?), he says. is
hardly stronger in England than the
love for ariStocracy. The love of
aristocracy with our people is a re-
ligion. The human ideal, as wellas
the social ideal, says George Sands,is
to achieve equality. She calls equal
ity the goal of man and the law of
the future. She asserts that France
is the most civilized Of nations, and
that its pre-eminence inssciviliZatiOn
it owes to equality. To be the most
civilized of nations is to be the one
that approaches the most nearly to
perfection. Socrates could say Of
Athens. "Our city has left the rest
Of the world so far behind in phil
0sOphy and eloquence, that those
educated by Athens have become
the teachers of the rest of mankind,
and so we'll has she done her part
that the name of Greek seems
no longer to stand for a race but to
stand for intelligence itself. The
power Of intelligence and science,
the power of beauty and the power
Of'SOcial life, these are what Greece
so felt and fixed and may stand for.
They are the great elements in our
lumaniZation. But the power OF
social life and manners the Athen-
ANS, themselves, perhaps, have
hardly felt as strongly as the French.
Voltaire, in famous passage where
ne eXtols the age of Louis XIV, and
ranks it with the chief epochs in the
civilization of our race, has to
specify it by likening it to the age
IF PericleS bestowing on the Grecian
people the fulness of its art and lit
9ratrre. The great gift of the age
If Louis XIV to the world, says
Voltaire, was the spirit Of society.
From the first moment when the
sense for the power Of
social intercourse and manners Of
he French people came into exist
9nce they were on the high-road
10 equality. When they had got a
high standard Of social manners
abundantly established and at the
same time the natural material
necessity for the feudal inequality
If classes no longer pressed upon
hem the French people introduced
equality and made the French reVO-
ution. 1t was not the spirit Of
philanthropy which mainly caused
hat revolution, neither was it the
pirit of envy; it was the spirit OF
ociety.i A Belgian political econ
mist says that France being the
ountry where the soil is most
Ilvlded is at the same time the
ountry where material we'll
'eing is most widespread and
where population is least outrun-
ing the limits which for the COM
ort and progress of the working
lasses themselves seem necessary.
fr. Hamerton. an excellent observer
nd reporter who has lived in
rance for many years, says: 1.-THE
'rench peasantry are exceedingly
gnorant, but they are at the same
lme full of intelligence. Their