DICKENS DISPARAGING

ONE DAY LATER NEWS FROM ENGLAND.

The Salem, from Cork, brings us one day later news from England. The intelligence thus received, however, is both meagre and unimportant, and is derived from a stray copy of the Cork Daily Reporter of the 18th of February.


....The philanthropic movement could never get on without the stimulus of over-statement of case. Mr Dickens has done his share of this and is now beginning to experience, personally, the bad effect of enjoying supererogatory sympathy with human afflictions. It is almost inconceivable, but Mr. Dickens is becoming unpopular with respectable people. In his new novel he assails the London Sunday, and the seventh day generally, and between his first and second number the sale fell off 10,000 copies. In his "Hard Times"—his previous work of fiction—he deals with the manufacturing districts, and the capital and labor question, and gradually as the book has passed into the hands of heads of families, it has been ascertained by that class that he is setting the poor against the rich. Miss Martineau, a politico-economist, rendered virulent by the views of elderly spinsterhood, has attacked Mr. Dickens on this ground, in a pamphlet just published and which has made a great hit. He, of course does not hesitate to proffer his vindication. He is not a profound man, but he is an observant man, and as he sees that the poor are getting poorer, while the rich are becoming richer, he insists that the rich are in fault and are too rich. Miss Martineau listens with contempt, and says that capital is the first chief blessing, and that the poor spend too much money in drink:—and so the two classes go on wrangling about the "social problem" and forcing the puzzle on people who wish to be at peace, but whom the philanthropists will not allow to be happy. One class of laborers is taking the problem for solution into its own hands. The flower of the mechanical artisans of England are the engineers, three out of every five being Scotchmen—and certainly nearly all the foremen being Scotchmen. Their great "strike" in 1852 which, whether right or wrong, brought out great qualities—patience, self-respect, self-reliance, fraternity, devotion—will be remembered; and it may not be forgotten that their orators and several excellent speakers were then produced — insisted that capital could only be fought by communism. They have now, in their "amalgamated" societies collected again the sum of £10,000, and it is their intention to commence in London, on a greater scale than Louis Blanc ever contemplated, the experiment of associated enterprise, by starting a large engineering establishment, the profits to be divided in the association. They think that £10,000 can compete with the capitalists of Great Britain.

 The Argus 3 May 1856.