The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-22

 and it's people which Dickens published under the name of Hard Times Dick ems dedicated the story to Carlyle ana there can be no gainsaying that thy 1n- fluence of that prophet" as Andrew Lang puts it 'is conspicuous in the moral Dickens seems to have written Hard Times" for the express purpose of using a club upon some of his pet aversions, notably the "hard fact fellows who allow imagination no place in the scheme of life His attack upon ''self-made man Is vicious In it's brutality, though Dick ems himself was self-made man and in his other stories he, many times glori- fled that product of civilization. But Dickens at this time was, apparently, saturated with Carlyle and a person in that state of mentality is really not re- sponsible. As a well-constructed story Hard Times is a failure But as a slashing, whacking assault upon every in stitution and upon almost every sort of man or woman brought into the story it is success. The character drawing ranks among the best work of Dickens; but we cannot but feel that it would have been better had Carlyle's digestion been better.
 "HOMAS GRADGRIND was a man
 of facts-a man of realities, with N a rule and a pair of scales and a multiplication table always in his pocket to weigh and measure any parcel of hu- manity and tell you what 1t came to. TWO and two made four with him, never any thing over and never anything under. But if Thomas Gradgrind was man of facts, Josiah Bounderby was man whose facts were a little more uncompromising and with whom two and two made four q trihe more absolutely than they did with Gradgrind. They were both lead- ing citizens of that matter of fact place, ColSetown, where no nonsense was allow ed to raise it's head without being tram pled upon, To be sure the hands" in the grimy factories, according to MT. Bounderby, were in constant state or wanting to be "set up in coach and six and fed on turtle soup and venison with q gold spoon" But they never were. MT. Bounderby had a mill and bank and looked out that no such unnatural dissi- patton was permitted them.
 MT. Bounderby governed by arithmetic so many hands in this mill so many hundred horse steam power It is known to single pound what the engine will do, but it never occurred to Bounderby and Gradgrind that not all the calculators or the national debt can tell the capacity Tor good or evil, for love orhatred, for pa- triotism or discomfort, for the decomposi- ton of virtue into vice or the reverse at any single moment in the soul of one Of these it's quiet servants with the com posed faces and the regulated actions. There is an unfathomable mystery in the
 
 better to reserve. our arithmetic for ma terial objects and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means! Thomas Gradgrind was examining in his way-the scholars arranged mathematical- ly and educated .mathematically ini a gloomy vault of a schoolroom. He looked upon the children before him as so many little jars to be filled with facts, as Mor- gsana filled the jars containing the Forty Thieves "Girl No. 20" said MT. Grad grind. .I do not know that girl" Please, sir. I'm Sissy Jupe,' said girl No 20. "Sissv is no name--say Cecilia" replied MT. Gradgrind Inquiring further, he found out that the girl belonged to some strolling circus people who were tenn porarily corrupting the town by display of bareback riding, trlck-dog performing and such vanties totally unconnected with the multiplication table.
 Of course the good man was shocked, but he managed to ask her to define horse, and when Sissy fell in to irretriev- able confusion in the attempt MT. Grad grind said it was nothing more than he expected, and called upon his favorite scholar, young Bitzer. Young Bitzer was a colorless youth with colorless eyes and hair, whose skin was so deficient in natu- ral tinge that he looked as if he would bleed white if anybody cut him. 'Bitzer, your definition of horse?" "Quadruped. Graminiverous. Forty teeth, namely, "A grinders, four eyeteeth and 12 incisive, Sheds coat in spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs also. Hoofs hard, but re- uuiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in the mouth" NOW, girl No 2O," said MT. Gradgrind. you know what a horse is." Sissy Jupe cour- tested and blushed. Poor girl, she had teen born and brought up among horses and lived among them all her life, but she never knew before what a horse was according to Gradgrind philosophy.
 
 of the dreary, smoky town in a mathe- nautical villa of uncompromising fact call ed Stone Lodge. It was not in the least toned down or shaded off, but was a most decided fact in the landscape. great, square house, six windows on the other side. a lawn and back garden and an infant avenue, all ruled off straight like a botanical account book. MT. Gradgrind had practically retired from the hardware business before he cast up and calculated Stone Lodge, and was now figuring upon making mathematical figure in parlia- ment. There were five young Gradgrinds and they were models. every one of them. They had been lectured at from their / tenderest years, coursed with facts like rabbits, No little Gradgrind had ever learned the silly jingle of twinkle twin kle little star" The little Gradgrinds were expressly prohibited from wonder ing about anything They had seen cows, hut no one of them had ever associated one of these animals withethe famous COW with the crumpled horn that, etc. No, no,- the ,Gradgrinds were stuffed with facts and ologies which ought to be facts if; they are not.
 The eldest of these little Gradgrinds were Tom and Louisa and as Mir. Grad grind was making his way on homeward from his examination of the school what should he see, to his horror. but Tom