COLBURN'S NEW MONTHLY

opens with a paper rather of a controversial turn, and which maintains the rather abnormal thesis that law is about to be dethroned by the various reformatory and educational agencies now operating on society. This writer looks upon vote by ballot, the woman's right question, the spread of Republican ideas in France, and the spread of education among the people, with such a squint of horror and suspicion as indicates tory tendencies of a mediaeval character. The article contains, nevertheless, some graphic writing, and displays a considerable sense of the humourous. The following is an example of the latter, anent woman's rights : —

I have seen your little island, sir ; it is a little styland, sir—
A place I'd hardly room to stretch my pantilettes within.
I've seen your vaunted London, sir ; what's done, can't now
be undone, sir,
But 'tisn't worth the trouble of the passage or the tin.

I've watched your constitution, sir—your boasted institution,
sir ;
I've turned you all, as I may say, both inside out and in,
And 'tis my firm opinion, sir, your paltry old dominion, sir,
Isn't fit for an American to think of living in.

I've viewed your famous she-males, sir ; I can hardly call
them females, sir,
For sure such puppets cannot dare to call our females kin.
Poor slave down-trodden ! yes they are—I say no more or less
they are.
Who hug their tyrant's chains, and think all liberty a sin.

I lectured them all vainly, sir, although I spoke quite plainly,
As in full bloomer costume, too, I proved that they could
win.
The poor degraded creatures, sir, are sunk too low for
teachers, sir,
And gave me no response except a foolish vapid grin.

Of all your used-up nation, sir, of every rank and station, sir,
There's only six or seven souls to whom I'd tip a fin.
There's noble Beales and Bright, sir, and Mr. Mill is right,
sir,
And all your others lumped in one ain't worth a single pin.

Your faded aristocracy, your humbug and hypocrisy,
Your scornful cocked-up nostrils, and your elevated chin,
I tell you in all candour, sir, have rose our people's dander,
sir,
And we're only now a waiting for our time to begin.

Nor is the day far distant, sir—'tis almost now existent, sir,
(I dare say all you Britishers have goosey-feeling skin),
When we shall seize your island, sir, annex it straight to my
land, sir,
And use it for a colony to keep our convicts in.

And hark you, Mr. Porcupine, I don't care if it make you
whine,
But when that blessed hour arrives, I'll go through thick
and thin,
But what I'll teach you editors, that free-born female creditors,
Themselves can settle with their foes, and make the whipcord spin.

Our magazinist is quite lugubrious about the horrors that are to result from the education of the people. He is sure that the education of the masses will tend to make them less amenable to authority than they would be as merely animal men. Education tends to raise the working man into a Falkenstein ready to dethrone the law which has bound him down for centuries. We concede this point, and add the reason why educated, self-reliant workmen will certainly seek for change—to wit, the law is bad. If there is one thing under the sun which, more than any other, cries to heaven for redress, and appeals to patriotic reformers for complete purification, it is that system which is dignified by the name of law, and which now embodies the tortuous twistings of legal intellects for many past centuries. Men could not live in modern society if all the laws in the statute book were to be rigorously enforced. The common sense of judges over-rides and explains away the force of many of these laws —the judges themselves being compelled to act thus by the secret, though unacknowledged, power of the press, backed up by the force of public opinion. Only a few weeks back a judge of inferior rank and mediæval tendencies carried one of these old and barbarous laws into practice, and we all know the effect produced by his efforts. The British press of all countries condemned his conduct, and every liberal mind in every part of the world felt itself outraged by his proceedings. In fact, public indignation ran so high that the Government felt called on to completely alter the sentence, thus showing that both Government and people had outgrown that condition of mind which this law was originally meant to protect and sustain. All such laws (and there are many of them unrepealed) the educated workmen of the future will undoubtedly endeavour to dethrone; but good, sound, useful legislation will be to them as acceptable as it has ever been to educated men.

Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), Saturday 9 September 1871, page 18