Workmen's advocate., 1890-12-20
LITERARY NOTES.
MY UNCLE BENJAMIN,' BY CLAUDE TIL.
 LIER.


 There probably is no language, dead or living, but has some phrase indica- tive of the experience that there is no ill wind but blows good to somebody. MT. Benjamin R. Fuckers translation and publication of the above work illus trates the thought. Those whose posi- ton in the Labor movement c0mpels nes, and thus to become informed as to the existence of all manner of per sons and characters, have in that way become acquainted also with the irree want figure of Mir. Tucker, whose chief characteristic (mentally) is so complete an absence of originality that he never produces any argument of his own, out always falls back upon some second or even third hand quotation. It is, how ever, owing to just this ill feature of Mir. Fuckers that the literature of the social movement in the English Ian guage Is actually enriched by the thoughts of witty, clever, earnest and radical Frenchman; little, if at all, known among us,--the genial Claude TIllier.
 My Uncle Benjamin" is a narrative without plot, after the style of Gil Bias, whose adventures give occasion and scope for the authors philosophy; and like Gil Bias, in some respects to an even greater extent, it is instructive, enter, taning and often amusing. At this stage of the social movement in our own coun- try, many of the views expressed in the work, either by the author himself, or put by him into the mouth of My Uncle Benjamin" deserve close atten tion. We shall here reproduce few of the wittiest
 Alter scathing review of the doings of the court and it's hangers on Uhe scene is placed in the days of Louis XIV. or ANl.) and commenting upon the GUS. tom of the Courtlers of having them selves carried to the ballroom in a lit. ter; of men, as he puts it, who had legs to dance but none to walk, our hero eXclaims, how much they must have suffered from the fatigue of those who carried them
 Another taste of the milk of human kindness, and, like the above, deeply coIored with biting criticism, is rendered in the sentiment that he who has dinner prepared only for himself is not fit to dine.
 A general criticism, as correct to day as it was when claimed to have been spoken, and one which puts its finger on what is both a result of social malad- Justments, and in it's turn the fruitful cause of other equally irrational results, is embodied in the plaint, that when we have all the appetites of youth, when our blood is full of iron and alcohol, we are without cent; when our teeth and stomach are gone, we are millionaires.
 The radical re-revolutionary French man comes out strongest in the remark, that there are three hundred common people against one gentleman. and they allow the gentleman to walk over their bellies, nay, tlatten themselves as much as they can for fear that noble person. age may stumble; and again, in the apophthegm, that those who SOW privi- leges will reap revolution.
 These are only a few samples taken at random out of a rich arsenal. But nume- rous and extensive scenes, picturesque and deep of draught, occur in the work, each of which is historic tableau in itself with it's barb of satire, and pointed moral in politics and economics.
 Mir. Tucker has made a good transla. ton, fairly free from Gallicisms. Also. the external appearance of the book is inviting.