And, in the circumstances under consideration, philosophy does afford relief not to be derived from any other source. It assures us, under all circumstances, of the well-being of the departed object of our solicitude. It enables us to say 'Whatever is, is right,' without, at the same time, complacently consigning nine-tenths of the human race to damnation. It relieves from the coward fear of the future; it does not plunge into hell the souls of babes not a span long,' nor punish with infinite torment the sins-necessitated acts-committed by finite beings in the brief period of their existence here. If its votaries doubt whether they shall meet in a future state those whom they love in this life, they are at least free from the horrible fear of meeting them in a place of eternal torment: and oh! how indignantly they repudiate the still more horrible notion of seeing either cherished friend or hated foe in everlasting agony, from which they have neither the will nor the power to relieve them, even to the extent of a drop of water to cool their parching tongue.

If philosophy may be considered by any to fail, inasmuch as it does not (like Christianity) promise a blessed future to the few, it must be remembered that it cannot consign the many to eternal damnation; it has no such formula as 'Straight is the gate that leadeth to eternal life, and few there be that go therein; and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go therein.' No, no! that Being who is supposed to be all-powerful, cannot rationally be deemed otherwise than beneficient.

THE funeral of Arthur Dyson, jun., took place on the 10th of October, at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, moving from the residence of his parents, 231, High Street, Shoreditch, at half-past 10 a.m. arrangements were simple and decorous, according with the opinions and state of feeling of the parents and friends of the deceased; and though the mourners were generally attired in black, they thought fit to dispense with the undertaker's cloaks, scarfs, and hoods, ordinarily used on such occasions. The ceremonies performed at the grave differed, it will be seen, still more widely from those usually observed.

Our young friend was followed to his grave by his father, mother, and eldest sister; his grandfather and two grandmothers; two aunts; two uncles; Mr. Edward Mortimer, the medical attendant and valued friend of the family, who assisted at his birth and attended him in his last illness; and by Mr. G. J. Holyoake. The funeral arrangements were made, under the direction of the parents, by Mr. Briggs, of Kingsland Road, and were conducted with precision and good taste.

LOUIS BLANC'S PARIS WORKSHOPS.

As there has been much misrepresentation abroad respecting the present position, number, and character of the workshops in Paris, organised or recognised by Louis Blanc within little more than one year, it may

be

Nor does it refuse one, if one be contingent. It is merely silent where it knows nothing, that it may avoid both presumption and error.-ED.

;

interesting to our readers to receive an account from one who was at the late peace congress, and took much pains to investigate the subject personally. The writer, though sympathising with the spirit, energy, and philanthropy of Louis Blanc, is by no means a perfect admirer of his system. It involves much that is contrary to any economical science that can be based upon the dispositions which at present characterise the class that must work the problem out. But he believes that the trial is a noble one-that only superior men will engage in it, and that it will lead to something better by training and educating the minds now employed in the organisation. Louis Blanc's exposure of the present competitive system is most masterly; still he does not, and cannot, proceed without competition. His attack upon the present domination of capital, rampant in its omnipotent strength, is also powerful and unanswerable yet what his system chiefly requires to ensure success is capital. The want of it is daily felt by those associated to be a barrier to their progress. That much ignorance regarding these shops should exist in England, cannot surprise us, if we consider the unscrupulous hostility that is manifested towards them on the spot by those masters and men who do not belong to them. At a hat shop only a few doors from one belonging to the fraternity where I had bought a hat, and recommended to a friend to do likewise, the latter was informed no such society was any longer in existence, but that they had all been broken up. Now, what is the fact? Louis Blanc publishes monthly in his Nouveau Monde (of which two numbers have hitherto appeared, and which have been translated into English) a long list of all the shops in every trade, which are recognised by the central authority as belonging to the association. I have not the list by me, but there is one or more of almost every trade that could be named. Dining places are the most numerous -perhaps thirty in all. Next hair-cutters; next shoemakers; next hat shops, of which there are three. At present there is only one tailor's establishment. The whole list occupies an octavo page, double columns. The first shop we entered was a shoemaker's. We found them most civil and obliging, ready to give us every information, and full of zeal, as well as knowledge, respecting the purpose and the theory of their association. There was hung up on the wall a tariff of the prices of all the varieties of shoes and boots as sold to the public. They profess to sell at a slightly reduced price, which they maintain they can afford to do, and consider it to be only fair, because of their own economical arrangements. They have plenty of orders, but are wanting in money to purchase the materials to execute them all. They hope soon to have a tannery of their own, when they may need capital less. All the men are paid by the piece, at fixed prices, and therefore earn wages in proportion to their capacity, talent, and length of hours. It is only part of the profits that are divided equally among all. They consider their experiment successful, and are certainly intelligent and contented. There was here, as also in other similar workshops, boxes to collect subscriptions on behalf of the widows and orphans of those who had fallen in the last revolution.

The hours of work are optional; but, as might be expected, the actual hours are as long as in any other shops, and far too protracted for health -from seven in the morning till ten at night, with intervals for two or

three meals. It was the same with the hatters. They owned the grievance, but declared the necessity, at present, to work as long as the others do, and they hoped to do better some future day. The hatters' system is the same as the shoemakers'. It is different with the tailors: they are paid by the day. All alike earn about 14s. a-week, and work ten hours a-day. All, however, work till four on the Sunday afternoon. They say that the good workers are quite willing to receive no more than inferior hands. Their gain is in the facility with which they work; and they hope that in time, by good education, all will become good workmen. However, from some cause or another, these parties have not succeeded so well as the shops in other trades. They ascribe their decrease in numbers to bad faith on the part of government, with whom they have had to enter into law proceedings to obtain indemnity for a contract which the government had refused to keep to. They have been successful in this point, and are now in hopes of going on successfully. There is not sufficient prejudice against them to prevent the middle classes employing them, their articles, too, being somewhat under the ordinary prices. They, too, only want capital they say. Their establishment in Rue St. Denis is on a large scale, and very pleasing. The cuisinier (dining and coffee room) connected with it is very cheap, cleanly, and agreeable. A basin of chocolate and bread costs 3d.

The dining places are said to be successful, and they certainly deserve to be so. There is no distinction in payment of salary between the cook and the waiters; but as the cook obtains as much as he would elsewhere under a master, he does not grudge the waiters, who would obtain less elsewhere. It is pleasant to be attended by obliging, intelligent persons, who show a manifest pride and interest in the establishment they are connected with. Even the most inferior places of this kind for the poorest class are cleanly; and with clean napkins, table cloths, glasses, and good provisions, one need not complain of a rush-bottom stool (without a back) to sit on. They have proper chairs in the more expensive places. The waiters take their holidays by turns, so that each has a day to himself in the course of the week. We were less annoyed by offensive tobacco there than we might have been elsewhere; and though the cooking stoves were in the same high-ceilinged room in which we sat, it was not hot nor close-ventilation being there, at least, attended to.

The above may serve as a fair specimen of all, as these were not selected from any previous knowledge of them; and we may conclude that, though they may have still much to learn and much to endure, they are working out a problem which, successful or not, cannot but instruct a future generation.-Correspondent of the Manchester Examiner.

AMERICAN DESCRIPTION OF SOCIALISM IN LONDON. ROBERT OWEN has just published a new work. It is said to be the best thing that he has written. It is a pity that he was prompted by the idea of refuting M. Thiers. There is no need of refuting Thiers or his party. Facts, practical facts, these are what Socialism should now produce. At the very moment when Robert Owen was again uttering the words which for sixty years he has put forth, wherever he had the hope of

being heard, one of his oldest and most devoted disciples, Henry Hetherington, was lying on the bed of death. He was interred a few weeks since, and I was present at his funeral, which took place with the most impressive seriousness, and a large concourse of persons, at Kensal Green. Henry Hetherington, whom you know, and who ought also to be known to your readers, was the former editor of the Poor Man's Guardian. He has suffered for the cause of political and religious liberty, and died in rendering testimony to this cause in terms which are not now the expression of philosophy, since the immense progress which she has made within a few years, but which in the mouth of a man whose life had been pure and honourable, could inspire only feelings of sympathy in those by whom they were heard, but not adopted. Henry Hetherington has left a Will, drawn up on philosophical and Socialist principles. This Will commences by a declaration against the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, and closes by recommending the study of Robert Owen's system, which he considers as the exposition of Truth and Justice, and the only means of placing the human race in possession of social happiness. A person of talent and discernment remarked that the close of the Will was the best refutation of the commencement. And, in fact, to believe in truth, in justice, in peace, is to believe in God. To believe that man can arrive at a knowledge of his destiny, and make a new Moral World (this is the title of the first publication of Robert Owen) is to believe in the immortality of the soul, which has the power of creating truth and justice. I know not who it was that said that, at the epoch of the decline of certain churches, it was the atheists who were the religious men. At the time when Hetherington formed his opinions, philosophy was still engaged in the denial of a worship which had need of being resuscitated from the tomb of superstition, and of a dogmatic creed. Philosophy, in fact, has become religious since the first labours of Robert Owen and his disciples. This is the progress which has been effected by the labours of the Saint Simonians. Now whence came the Saint Simonians? From Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Condorcet. They have also passed for atheists. Yet, by means of this school, the human mind has returned, of its own spontaneous action, and by the single force of thought and logic, to the ideas of eternity and spirituality; that is to say, to God and the immortality of the soul. Socialism, accordingly, lays claim to Hetherington, in spite of his apparent irreligion. Let us not condemn good men; let us try to comprehend them, and remember that God comprehends those who do not comprehend Him; that is to say, those who, in denying a special form of religion, believe that they shall arrive at truth, at justice, at the happiness of men.

These sentiments were justly appreciated by the friends who accompanied Hetherington to his last home, and who pronounced the farewell words over his tomb. This duty was performed in the most religious spirit, I assure you, by Mr. Holyoake, editor of the Reasoner, and Mr. Watson, a partner of the deceased in a bookselling house. In the evening, the ceremony was continued in the John Street Scientific Insti

This is an error.

It should be-a friend of the deceased, also a bookseller. The notice contains other inaccuracies-but very excusable in a foreigner.-ED.

tution, where a meeting of the London Socialists is he'd every Tuesday and Sunday, to hear the favourite lecturers Walter Cooper, Thomas Cooper, Holyoake, Hart, Harney, Shorter, and many others-whose moderate air, good sense, and ability, I have always admired. Walter Cooper in particular, is a man of great oratorical powers. He delivered a magnificent lecture last week on the United States, and, aside from slavery, which he condemned as you condemn it, you would have been pleased with his description of America.

PHYSICAL FORCE AGAIN.

MY DEAR SIR,-I would fain make some few comments on the 'Reply' of 'One of the People' to my argument for Physical Force. They shall be brief.

He says:-There is not one people recorded by history, or at present existing, that enjoys freedom in its full sense.' Very true: and even the little modicum of freedom that is enjoyed has not been gained without physical force.

He says of Magna Charta :- Had not the people been so far advanced in intelligence as to back the Barons, the Barons alone would never have gained their object. It was not the physical force that gained the day, it was the superiority of minds that did it.' And the superiority of the baronial minds would have been worth nothing but for the baronial swords, backed by the physical force of a not very intelligent' people. "Why failed Silvio Pellico, Maroncelli,' and their friends? Certainly not through using physical force.

'Why did Poland not obtain liberty? Because the people were not prepared for freedom.' No! most emphatically, no! The freedom sought by the Poles was independence of the Czar; they were fit for that, at least. Had knowledge ever so sufficiently permeated the masses,' they would nevertheless have fallen under the Cossack swarms. 'Enlightened,' or not, they did 'stand for freedom,' more bravely, too, than many of the more enlightened.

The English Commonwealth fell because the people did not understand republican institutions.' Very good! Not at all because it had been founded by the sword.

How Mazzini ripened the intellects' of the Italian people, Rome and Venice have taught us. Certainly he did not 'leaven' them with any nostrums of the immorality of physical force.

'Who make slaves? who make kings? Good helpers in the holy work are the peacemen, who mock the need with worthless sympathy,' with idle prate of the power of public opinion,' while Cossacks are swarming over Hungary and Rome. What power has a man, an aggre gate of dust, over millions of his fellow men, if these do not surrender to him their power, and make themselves his willing tools?" He has the power of direct aid afforded him by the Cossacks and Gauls, and the

Agreeing, to a great extent, with the very judicious advocacy by Mr. Linton in his previous article of the detensive and assistant application of physical force, we nevertheless dissent from the tone in which it speaks of the 'Peace men'-who, however they may err in their extreme view, are not wanting in patriotic good will.-ED.