The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-08-10
KINGS AMONG MEN.
John Burns and Tom Mann, the
London Orators.
WHY Discomfort IS GROWING.
Working People Of England Organising
What They Want and How
They Are Getting 1t.
London Latter.

London Letter.
The recent outbreaks of London police
men and postmen are ominously signifi.
cant of the grave changes going on in
London society. The average Briton of
today is no longer the patient camel of q
generation ago, and even the Bourbon aris-
tocracy are beginning to appreciate the
fact. The poor are demanding share of
the good things. and are not at all delicate
about the manner and method in which
the demand is enforced. 1t is difficult for
an American to understand the utter mis-
cry that exists in some parts of this great
est city of the modern world.
Greater squalor may perhaps be found in
Naples, in Madrid and among the fellahs of
Egypt; but there ignorance is an ever
awaiting antidote for wretchedness. The
miserable Englishman, on the other hand
Is sufficiently well educated. as q rule, to
understand his misery; for the government
takes care that children shall be sent to
school whether they have anything to eat
or not. Only the other day q Door man,
without money to buy food for his nine
children or shoes for their feet was fined
shillings for not sending the little ones to
school. A magistrate who was appealed
to declared his inability to remit the fine,
but humanely ordered that it be paid out
OF the poor box.
The leader in organizing the working
people of London for efforts to better their
condition is John Burns, who is said to
have tagen no unimportant part in encour-
aging the London police to make stand
for higher wages and improved conditions
OF service. A relative of the Scottish poet.
Robert Burns, the London agitaror has all
the contempt of his famous kinsman for
the gew-gaws and titles which arc the
marks of the ruling classes "A mans q
man for a. that" is his motto, and
has been ever since he left the
hills and moors of his native land for
the choking streets and alleys of
the capital, and indeed before that, for
John Burns has been Radical ever since
he learned TO think. 1T was reading nv
great kinsman's poems that first warmed
my heart TO an appreciation OF the rights
OF man as against the privileges OF aristoc-
racy." said John Burns to the writer. Be
sides" he added, II had some private rea-
sons of my own for hating the folks with
titles. You have heard of the Earl of
Galloway, 10 whom Robert Burns addressed
his cutting epigram:
Bright ran thy line. o Galloway.
Though many n far famed SIRE:
Thus ran tn ancient Roman way,
thus ended in d mire.
We'll. judge from the present earl that
the niire has been getting deeper ever since.
He has been hailed before magistrates more
Than once on the charge OF insulting un-
protected girls. One day when he was q
boy We passed each ether on the road near
Ayr. he was riding pony with hunkey
trofting in the rear. was afoot with my
little sister. pretty lassie, so everybody
said. The fellow had the impudence 10
get OF his pony and kiss my sister. /
fhrashed him and then took stick 10 the
turnkey, when the latter came 10 the res
cue, belaboring him about the calves,
since have been no favorite With lords or
their fiunkeys and have no better liking
for them.n
II Burns MAS IS stout boy - he il .