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TO CORRESPONDENTS.

All communications for the EDITOR of the CITIZEN must, in future, be addressed to the care of Mr. MACHEN, 8, D'OLIER-STREET, who has been appointed our sole publisher.

Advertisements and Books for Review to be forwarded to the same.

Contributions intended for insertion in the succeeding Number must be forwarded on or before the 7th instant.

The communication of "W. G." has duly reached us, and will meet with all the consideration and respect, that every thing from him is certain of receiving at our hands.

K. L. F. is fortunate in the possession of that most impenetrable of qualities, self-admiration; we regret our inability to sympathize with him.

"ELATOR" shall hear from us shortly.

As the Editor of the CITIZEN is at present in England, many answers to Correspondents are necessarily deferred till his return.

Printed by Webb and Chapman, Great Brunswick-street, Dublin.

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THE work whose title we have quoted as our text, is one of which we had formed, from the time of its announcement, no easily satisfied expectations. It is, as we anticipated, an exceedingly interesting book. The subject, and the name of its author, assured us of that beforehand. But it is not only more interesting as "au essay towards discovering the origin and course of human improvement," than we had expected it to be, but it is what, to tell the truth, we did not look for at all, an extremely amusing book into the bargain. We knew it was to be written by Doctor Taylor; and we knew that Doctor Taylor was said to be the literary heir apparent, of all the knowledge, experience, and learning of William Cooke Taylor, late of this gay-hearted kingdom. But sooth to say, we did not expect to find in the London LL.D., the very identical man we had known as the witty, good-humoured, keen-sighted, caustic, illustration-full, life and soul of good fellowship, of old-aye, they are grown old-times.

But,--God bless him for it,-Taylor is Irish to the heart's core still. Half a life spent in the deadening, mercenary, literary atmosphere of the inky Babylon, has not deadened him. He takes up a subject still in his own way-a most thoroughly Irish way. Be it never so sober or glum, he is not glum. There is not a plodding pace in him. Up the weariest hill of statistics or political economy, he has always an eye out for the wild flower growing by the wayside; or, as he turns a minute round to take breath,

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may not one as well be looking at the delightful prospect, over the stone wall there?" The consequence of this innate, unquenchable cheeriness of temper is, that Taylor can go through more absolute work, than probably any literary man of the day. The dumb-founded, how-to-observe-drilled, keep-to-the point, dreary, tedious, poorhearted grubs, that are born and begotten in these diffusion of ignorance-we beg pardon-of knowledge-days, have so much miscellancous and multifarious mattersolid, dead, undiscriminated, ungerminating matter-to take into their weak stomachs, and so limited powers of digestion,-in a word, have so little nature and heartiness, so little real poetry, and such an utter lack of digestive fun in them, that they are wholly unable to keep foot with a light jaunty step like Taylor's. He would get through well, as much downright work in a year, and look gay and fresh at the end of it, as would stretch half a dozen of his un-Irish compeers in the churchyard, without as much as one decently turned out volume for a pillow, for their poor notion of fame to take its long sleep on. And the consequences to readers are still more dissimilar. imagine what a book the Natural History of Society would be, by one of your ordinary men of literary distinction." To be candid, we had imagined it; and forgetting for the moment, that our old friend was unchanged and unchangeable, we opened the first volume with certain indescribeable feelings of resignation. We will further own,

Just

The NATURAL HISTORY OF SOCIETY in the Barbarous and Civilized State: an Essay towards Discovering the Origin and Course of Human Improvement. By W. COOKE TAYLOR, Esq. LL.D. M. R. A. S. of Trinity College, Dublin. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman.

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ritual teacher-and every, man taking upon him to write history, poetry, or philosophy is such-has no business with apologies or courteous preludings; he has nothing to say but the true, real, vital thing, whatever it be, that he has come to tell unto the world. -But enough of this.

that our fears gave not way during the dedi- | you, or your friendly gig, or the infirmication, whose two pages seemed to us like ties you can't get over, we came to listen two dozen, so unworthy are they, in our here. Get up, and get on, man. If there mind, of the work thus-thus-but no mat- be any serious word of counsel, or cheering ter, we won't recall what we thought of them. tidings of better hopes in you to tell-tell it, Neither can we aver that we gained much and have done. But the air of public deground of confidence, by reason of the pre-precation is bad, wrong, all wrong. A spiface. Reader-between you and I ('twere odd and awkward to say "you and ice")— we abhor and detest prefaces of all kindsshort, long, smug, sneaking, impertinent, or mock-modest. What is the use of a preface? None that we know of, to a man of ideas. To a man that has nothing to say, and has his bread to earn by saying it, at Come we then to the scope and purport of the greatest inventable length, a preface, the Natural History of Society. In some that is four or five pages of pretext for sen- sort it may be called the Nineteenth Centence-spinning, about the book, and its ma- tury's defence of itself. No light matter nufacturer, and all his obliging friends who this, you will say; no indeed, rather a grave are anxious to see their favours figure in matter-a matter that will not be adjusted foolscap octavo-is a most desirable, advan- in our time, nor till we are long forgotten. tageous, profitable thing. It is so much The familiar reply of the old Greek sage to clear odds got and given, out of the adven- the king, who asked him did he not think turous copyright buyer, and soon repentant him happy, is applicable to eras and epochs single copy purchaser. But what does a of civilization, and to their claims on human man like Taylor want to say in a preface? estimation. We cannot judge of them until A man with a sound cool head, lit by two they are passed wholly by,-frequently not clear insight-full eyes, the countryman of until their immediate followers are passed Tristram Shandy. Only think of an apo- likewise from the dream-shifting stage. This logetic, Longman - Rees-Hurst-Orme-and- is true of all kinds of civilization; but it is Brown-ish preface to Tristram Shandy! Rea- especially so of the tranquil, full-blown, or, if sons for writing Tristram Shandy! Reasons you will have it so, fruit-bearing season of for writing it this way, and not the other the cycle. While the formation or the reway! Ah no; there were no reasons to give formation of opinion and of society is going for either; there is no valid reason for writ-on, the suffering and loss is great; but then ing any book that is worth reading, save and except the book itself. If it tells you why and what for it is there, what need is there of further testimony? And if it cannot tell you this if it do not make you feel wiser or better than you were before you began it, ought any cobweb of a preface hold you to it, or prevent your pitching it into the fire? It is, we have always thought, a grave error, this public exposure beforehand, of the how and the why of moral teaching. When at the appointed hour, the pastor, gifted with peculiar knowledge of divine truths, ascends the pulpit stair, opens the door thereof, shuts himself in, and raises his voice to begin his discourse, is he not as much there-to all moral intents and purposes, more therethan if, in muttering tone, he had stopped at the foot of the stair, to tell us how far he had come to do duty that morning, who brought him part of the way in his gig, and how much better he would be able to preach, but for a cold in his head that he caught about six weeks ago, and which he has never been able to shake off since. Psha! 'tisn't about

it is all or chiefly apparent and calculable. The good is germinating the while; and being in that chaotic period rudely moulded over, seemingly half smothered and buried down, there ascends a wild and bitter cry of anguish over the ruinous effects and tendencies of war, change, loss of fixity, revolution, violence, and soforth. Nevertheless, it may be with sad and sober reason doubted, whether the stormiest hours are the worst. The ills they scatter are all visible, tangible, weepable. But think of the dull, blind, speechless misery, which sweats and rots around the golden rim of uninterrupted peace, strong government, police morality, highest rate of money profit, unblasphemed sanctity of law. "Tis all well enough on paper. Unparalleled production; unrivalled subtilty of jurisprudence; unequalled surety of property; superbest triumph of diplomacy, averting all the ills of war except the occasional use of its name in terrorem, and the permanent expense of providing against its contingency. "Tis all well-excellent well, could the eye be kept steadily fixed on the

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show side of the picture, and the wrong side | clusive arguments-the exclusion of all contraries be forgotten, or mentally abolished. But, -'to whom should this fish or fruit belong if not alas, history will read the wrong side-its to me?' workhouse death-beds, Manchester menstyes, Owen-ite idiotcies, Edinburgh burkings, infanticide pamphlets, murderer's clothes auctions, and Cardigan discipline. Aye, 'twill all go down, jumbling oddly enough in the narrative-much about the way, perhaps, it jumbles in the happening.

Our own notions of this world wide matter,--whether the world is mending or worsening, or both,—and the still more curious and subtle question, at what real rate the said change is going on,-when we have time we shall, for our grandchildren's edification, write fairly down and bequeath to them, with full authority to publish the same after our sands are run, at their in-discretion. For the present, our singular gripe of things must be loosed, in order that we may allow our worthy and eloquent friend to give his version of the matter. It signifies little comparatively in our estimate of a book, whether it squares on many points or few with our own preconceptions. If it be alive, if it can set men thinking, if it contain new truths, or what is more likely, new views of old truths, 'tis a benefit, a joy, a glory, unto us. We differ from Dr. Taylor upon points not a few; but what of that? We know the man to be a strong-headed, broad-hearted, kind-spirited, self-cultured, honest man, and the best thing to do when such a man speaks, is to listen to him thoughtfully with holden tongue hear him, then.

"There is no error more common than confounding what society has unfolded and promulgated, with what society has called into existence. The most striking example of this is the right of property, which, from its acquiring additional strength and security by the progress of society, is very commonly supposed to have been an invention of society. The golden age, when all things were common, has been celebrated by poets and philosophers without number; even grave divines have asserted, that the division of property was a consequence of the iniquity of man. It is not easy to discover whether this community of property so lauded, was an attribute of men individually, or of men in society, but in either the theory rests on an obvious fallacy; namely, that things which were not owned by any individual were the property of all, the fact being that they were the property of none.

"Who is the owner of the uncaught fish in the ocean, or the unplucked fruit in a pathless forest? They become the property of him by whom they are first taken: 'this fish is mine, for I have caught it;'-' these berries are mine, for I have plucked them,'—are claims at once recognised, but they should at once be rejected, if the fruits and fishes were the property of all mankind. Their title is established by the most forcible and con

Appropriation being universally recognised as a title, the notion of community of property must be abandoned. But appropriation, so far from being a superinduced attribute of man, is natural to him in every stage of society and in every age of than the application of man's individuality to exlife. 'Property,' says Lieber, is nothing else ternal things, or the realization and manifestation of man's individuality in the material world.'— The desire of appropriating objects-making them, as it were, a part of individual self-and meets us everywhere. A child, only two years thus rescuing them from undefined generality, old, calls one hyacinth hers, and another her bro ther's, although she knows that neither will be permitted to touch the glasses in which they are clouds, at leaves floating on a stream, or even at growing. Children, looking together at passing waves breaking on the shore, will single out one of these objects as their own; will dispute whether the favoured cloud is the brighter, the chosen leaf the best swimmer, or the selected wave loudest in its roar. In our foundling hospitals and charity schools, every child is desirous to have something which it may call its own; the galleyslave, toiling at the oar, and the monarch seated on his throne, equally desire to impress their indi viduality upon some species of property, some object that may be called mine.'

"We do not always meet with the notion of landed property among uncivilized tribes; but every savage is monarch of his shed,'-the fishhook he has made, the beasts he has hunted, and

the canoe for which he has bartered, are his own. his head, he would resent every attempt to deprive The notion of community has never entered into him of these objects as a gross outrage.

"Private property must necessarily exist so long as man possesses individuality; no complaint of the very poets who loudly celebrate the imaginary community of goods is more melancholy, But an attempt has been made in our days to rea than that no harvest is reaped by their own sickle. lize this poetic dream, which has excited no small share of public attention, and which therefore requires more examination than either its merits or its novelty could reasonably demand. The social system-as this effort to revive forgotten folly is designated-professes to abolish all the crimes resulting from the possession of property, by establishing a community of goods. Such a proposal has often been made before, and is not unlikely to be frequently revived so long as society can be divided into what Sir E. L. Bulwer felicitously terms the Have-nots' and the Haves.' therefore worth while to inquire whether such a scheme be practicable, and if practicable, whether its adoption would be beneficial to mankind? The two questions are very distinct in their nature, but it is scarcely possible to discuss one without taking some notice of the other.

It is

cialists, as they choose to call themselves, is that "The first objection to the schemes of the Sothey do not abolish private property. Corporate possessions are as much private property as individual acquisitions. Robert Owen does not assert that all property should be common, but merely that all property belonging to the denizens of some square or parallelogram, some species of social barrack, should be common to the members of

that community. He does not assert, though he is careful not to deny, that the property of said community should not be shared by other communities. The property, therefore, of the social barrack is as much private, as the property of an English municipality or a Franciscan monastery. At the best, his proposal is merely to establish a Mutual Assurance Company, and he has so far succeeded, that the stock of assurance possessed by himself and his followers is of very remarkable amount. But we may be told that this objection would be obviated, if an entire nation adopted the barrack, or, as it is falsely called, the social system. This does not mend the matter; for that nation would undeniably have a right to insist on its joint-stock property, against the claims of any other nation. There is a significant hint in one of Robert Owens pamphlets, recommending that the young should be instructed in the manual and platoon exercise; so that these social barracks are, like older establishments, to be not merely civil, but military. It is then a mere delusion, if not a downright fraud, to talk about the abolition of private property, when at most it is only proposed to transfer the right of property from an individual to an association.

"Again, it is untrue that the right of property is ever abolished with regard even to the individuals in any social barrack. Not to speak of that monopoly of talk and of time which every so cialist desires to establish in his own favour, it is certain that men cannot be equal in their physical and mental acquirements. Nature herself has bestowed capacity, as private property, on every individual, and that property is inalienable and incommunicable. The clever and skilful artist will execute his task in a shorter time than he who is not gifted with the same powers; he will, therefore, have more leisure in the barrack: but time is property, leisure is property, enjoyment is property. Here then is inequality arising from the inevitable laws of nature. The barrack arrangement is to supersede that of the family; but if a person is not to have a pet child, is he to be prevented from having a pet bird, or a tame rabbit? Is there to be a common snuff-box, a steamsmoking apparatus with branch pipes, and a universal shaving machine to run down the ranks when the members are paraded for manual exercise, brushing the faces and mowing the beards with the speed of a locomotive? These little things are great to little men,'-comforts and conveniences will always be adapted to the taste of individuals, and the variety of taste will of necessity generate private property in some direction or other. The socialists have been fortunate in finding antagonists who can keep their countenances: had they not been libelled as knaves, they would have been laughed at as fools.

"Let us not be understood to deny that there are cases in which great benefit may be derived from co-operative labour, and co-operative expenditure. Grant to the socialists the benefit of their favourite example of the bee-there may be associations that will collect honey, but there may also be associations with nothing of the bee but the sting. Gil Blas was introduced to such a social barrack, established by Captain Rolando, an eminent professsor of community of property. Moreover the bees turn the drones out of the hive, while the socialists propose that drones and working bees should share alike. But the co-operative principle has been known since the creation of the

world; 'Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain
a tiller of the ground:' it exists in every united
family, in every banking and commercial com-
pany-but, so far from being averse to private
property, it is actually founded upon it; for indi-
vidual exertion preceded united exertion, and led
the way to the discovery of its advantages.
"But socialism, we are boastingly told, has
made many converts,-no doubt of it: there are
two ways of gratifying vanity and self-love,—
raising one's self up, or pulling others down,—
the latter plan appears generally the easiest of
accomplishment. In those preeminently social
compacts, trade unions, the great object of the
regulations is to prevent the intelligent artisan
gaining a higher rate of wages than the botch;
the barrack system is the mere application of the
same principle on a larger scale.

"But we are told that the barrack system will
destroy covetousness, avarice, and their conse-
quent train of evils. We should be glad to know
if these eminent moralists have ever given them.
selves the trouble of inquiring what covetousness
is. It is nothing more than the vitiated excess of
a principle originally innocent and laudable. We
have shewn that the desire of property springs
naturally and necessarily from our constitution as
human beings; it is, as we have said, an inevita-
ble result of individuality. As the desire is uni-
versal, its vitiated excess must be common.
to propose the destruction of that vice by the
abolition of private property, is not one whit more
sensible than to recommend the disuse of food as
a check to gluttony, or the abolition of language
as a prevention to socialists talking nonsense."

But

civilization, is equally well worth quoting:— The following, in reference to the arts of

"In the history of human inventions, few things are more remarkable than the sudden checks which the progress of ingenuity appears to have received from apparently trifling obstacles. The Romans seem to have been for many years on the verge of discovering printing; they used letterstamps, which might reasonably be expected to elapsed before any one seems to have thought of suggest the notion of types, and yet centuries combining several stamps together. On the other hand, it is generally difficult to discover by whose ingenuity the obstacle was first removed; the points in literary history, and there is scarcely one origin of printing is one of the most contested great improvement in machinery that has not been claimed by several inventors. But while there are doubts respecting the authors and even the countries of inventions, their dates can for the most part be ascertained with tolerable precision, brought into practical operation. On examinaor at least the periods when they began to be tion, it will be found that most inventions of which we have a record, resulted from some want or necessity, created by the existing state of civilization; that there is a great harmony observable in the progress of the different arts, and that improvements are for the most part simultaneous, or nearly so, in the principal branches of human industry. This harmony is, however, interrupted, when arts are imported from some foreign land; the Russians, for instance, have borrowed several of the most ingenious of the modern processes of manufacture from England and Germany; but a traveller is at no loss to distinguish the imported

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