colliers from the high road into yonder hall,
and spent five hours with them. This five hours'
friendly talk has prevented yon gates that, down
a muddy lane, lead to a mine, from being closed."

I have promised not to plunge into great,
vexed questions. I shall not answer Mr.
Ellis's query, " What is competition?" I want
to feel the human pulse throbbing here: not
to frame periods about supply and demand.
Does competition lower wages? I have met
only two beggars since I have been in these
parts; and I count already some ten days here.
But, as I lean over the parapet of the bridge
that spans the Calder, and see the new mills
creeping up the hills from the banks of the
lively river; as I mark a few very solid mills
raised by clubs of some six or seven operatives
each, and then calling to mind the prodigious
array of carcases I saw some five minutes since
in a butcher's shed, it strikes me that here, at
least, up to this hour, competition has not
brought beggary and ruin.

There is a kind of competition, however, from
which many men foretel a deadly and desolating
conflict. Bad passions competing against
bad passions; tyranny at the weaver's loom and
the grinder's hearth competing against tyranny
in head offices; masters' arrogance competing
against men's arrogance; lock-outs competing
against operatives' intimidation. Of bad blood
warring against bad blood, what good can
come?

II.

IT was a bleak March morning— the wind was
north and the rain was fine— when I started on
a journey of three miles, to breakfast with a mill-
owner, whose mill, I was assured, was a model
one. I had been disturbed at grey dawn by the
patter of the operatives' wooden shoes, or clogs.
The streets were deserted, save by a few old
operatives, with grey shawls drawn over their
threadbare coats, and hats that looked like
shapeless lumps of coke. These old men stared
vacantly after me, and muttered. Children
paused in their play, to have a peep at me; I
was a stranger within the gates of the town, and
what could my errand be? Wherefore was I
on my way to Old Fox's mill? As I dashed past
the mill gates, the porter peeped out to see who
was riding to the master's house. A broad,
handsome pebble road, skirted by young lime
and chesnut trees, destined, if all go well, to
give grateful shade to Old Fox's grandchildren,
winds up the hill to a plain, substantial mansion,
the winnows of which command a view of hills
thirty miles off, now frosted, at the summit, with
lingering snow. From the snuggest of breakfast-
rooms, I peep out of window, where the mills
lie panting and smoking in the valley. The
landscape, far as the eye can reach (save where
the snow crowns of high ranges cap the scene),
is scratched with railways, and blotched with
red mills. Church is stretching out its arms
to Accrington— Accrington is making overtures
to Burnley— Burnley is approaching Blackburn.
With a calm eye mine host surveys the
scene this bleak March morning. It is ten
o'clock, and I am reading last night's debate in
the Commons—a round two hundred miles away
from St. Stephen's. The mills below have been
busy for the last four hours.

Fox's mill is a model mill. There are
architectural pretensions about it. The lodge
is ornate. The entrance is broad and pleasant.
On the left there is a reading-room
for the hands— an elegant, cozy apartment.
But it is not frequented; and sundry observations,
to the disadvantage of the hands, are
hereupon made. But I see very human and
acceptable reasons why the hands— the twelve
hours' work done— wander freely hence into the
free air— to read, or smoke, or take their mug
of ale, where the humour leads them. In this
reading-room the hands may not smoke, for
instance. Now mine host, wandering to his mill
after breakfast, enjoys his cigar. In his evening
hours, when the blinds are closed, and the
London paper is dropped into his hands, he takes
a cigar again, and it gives zest to his enjoyment.
I ask him to see that this evening ease is as dear
to the hands as to himself. Bottom is essentially
an independent personage now-a-days. He will
read where he is free to quaff his "humming
ale," to blow his cloud, and speak freely of men
and things of the neighbourhood. I prefer reading
my own rumpled copy of Rabelais, or my
shilling edition of Locke on the Human
Understanding, in the humble little apartment where
I keep my handful of books, to sitting under
the majestic dome of the British Museum before
the finest editions of the above two, authors. In
the same way, Bottom prefers to thumb the
Lancashire Thunderblast in the chimney corner of
his little home; when he has taken his pipe from
the cupboard, and his wife has found his 'bacco-
box. He prefers this, to the ornate little reading-
room at the mill. I am sure that I am the last
man in the world to blame him for the preference.

If philanthropists would believe that men who
have worked hard for twelve hours cannot be
brought to understand that it is their bounden
duty to proceed direct from their work to hear
Figgins on the Pilgrim's Progress, Higgins on
the Bards of Scotland, Stiggins on the Micro-
scope, and Biggins on a drop of water, they
would be much more useful members of
society than they are now. The Reverend Job
Cockcrow bewails the empty lecture-room
when his venerable friend Bulrushes descants
on the Pilgrim Fathers; and Job perorates,
in shrill falsetto, on the abject condition of
the public that crowds the same room when
besotted serenaders chant the praises of the
Yaller Gal. Zounds! my Reverend Job, if you
want to "elevate the masses," don't try to pull
them up by the roots of their hair. When you
have been preaching all day, you don't preach to
yourself in your sanctum when you get home.
A man whose attention has been fixed on the
flying shuttle from sunrise to sundown, whose
mind has been a prisoner for twelve hours,
must suit his humour, and nibble in the fields
of knowledge where he lists. He naturally
declines to sit upon a form, under freezing