The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-02-25
NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM.
Noisy Demonstrations Made
About the Peers.
MORE JOKING THAN FIGHTING.
The Principal Accomplishment of a
Lord Is to Know Enough to Come
in Out of the Rain.

New YORK, Feb. 24-Harold Frederic
cables the Times from London: 1t was
getting very hard to say anything new
about the pest of aharchism now darken-
ing Europe. or about its professors, whose
| motives. as shadowy processes of thought.
have been as elusive as those of the hood
| lums who throw stones through railway
car windows. A debt of gratitude ought
to be expressed to good many thousands
OF London wOrkiDgmen. casuals, loafers
and general street hoi polloi, who yester-
| day furnished an entirely novel aspect of
anarchism as it is in England.
l should say that the dem on stration at
Bourdin's funeral was in fnitely more val
liable than all the international treaties
possible to imagine. Heretofore no enc
had been able TO tell how far this malg-
nant dry rot, which is perverting Conti-
mental peoples, had found or was likely
! TO find c0ngenial soil at London slums.
Yesterdays answer was luminous and
conclusive in the highest degree. 1t shows
| that the toughest classes in London are
every whit as intolerant of BON -thro wing
as the shopkeepers and bondholders, and
that they will be only 100 glad of chance
| physically 10 demonstrate their feelings.
When oDe thinks of it this is only what
| might have been expected.
London's crowds lack the gayety and
| sprightliness of Continental throngs, but
instead have surly sort of good nature
and vulgar sense of the comic, which do
| not go with iigersh freaks. Their riots
always end in horseplay. Cockney humol-
lists get 10 charge, smash hats, ETC., and
are run into the police courts, where ex-
'raordinarily funny old magistrates mis-
understand all about the case, spIutier out
Tupper-lIke lectures on things in general
and fine the delinqnents 81
Nowhere in the world is the difference
between the rich and the poor more ter
| ribly marked than here. There is no lack
OF feeling about this difference either; but
1T takes itself out in grumbling, or at most
in voting. The idea of throwing bombs is
as abhorrent to one side as the other
This selfsame rude and suIlen but still
invincible good humor, inherent in the
English lower class. always turns up at
the eleventh hour to prevent anything like
finality in their political fight. No poll
tician ever gets so dscretited here that, if
he shows any sense whatever, he can't
get back again into public lie. Every
decade or so elaborate wariike prepara-
tioDs are made for smashing the House of
Lords. Only last week we were chroni-
cling a tremendous, imposing muster of
| radical forces for this very purpose. A
stranger in England would have thought
by the speeches and excited editorials that
the English aristocracy must already be
feeling the backs of their necEs, but
| pshaw! there was really nothing in 1t.
We hear the story. invested with a GER
tain air of reality, that the Queen and the
Prince of Wales became frightened and
strenuously urged leading peers to avoid
conflict with the Commons. Ii it is
true 1T shows that the august Guelphic
family is still insufficiently anglicized to
understand the people over whom it is
called upon to reign.
The Lords needed no such advice. The
chief thing 10 learn in being a Lord it
seems is to know when to come in cut of
the wet. This strategic movement ip the
matter of the parish councils bill has been
executed just as foreshadOwed in these
| dispatches month ago. There will be no
grand set-to with the Lords simply because
II Is I'm possible to inveigle or bully them
into putting up their hands.
l think it is true, however. that the
bishops in this matter have permanently
-
Even that tamest official sheet, the Daily
News, is not afraid to-day to call the
Archbishop of Canterbury. who owes his
inter to Gladstone, a con temptibe shuff1er.
There is no doubt that the whole hierarchy
have made most offensive impression not
| only on the Radicals by their earlier illib-
eral votes, but on the Tories by The
mean haste and nervous dishonesty with
which later they tried to explain why they
ran away from those votes. This Is one of
those things which stick In the peoples
memories. Rumors about an early disso
luton continue to be circulated here and
doubtless fiDd their way to America. 1t
cannot be too decisively stated that they
are all pure bosh. They say that some
thing Is the matter with one of Gladstone's
eyes, though the circumstantial story of a
cataract cabled to America is mercilessly
laughed at by Labouchere in Truth and
denied vehemently by the men closest to
Gladstone. But even if the aged Prsmier's
eye Is quite wrong, that surely furnishes
o reason for having a general election.
have heard many things about Gladstone.
but never that the condition of his left eve
was political issue. Even If he should
90 into Quasi-retirement after the speech
he is to make on the bulge,
next month. and when able he should
keep away from Westminster during
the coming fights on registration, Welsh
church and the evicted tenants bills. il
would be none the less the policy of the
Liberal party to push these measures for
ward and stick to them through the sum-
mer. 1t isn't entirely clear in fact that
they wouldn't msxe more progress with
ouf Gladstone's presence than with il. In
any case there Is to be no dissolution.