CORRESPONDENCE 211 



mechanics will then take the law into their own 

 hands, and will soon ' overthrow the tables/ and 

 will make a clean sweep of those that sit at them. 

 You will see them, as John Bright said, ' running for 

 their lives/ and it will be well for the hindmost if 

 they are not caught by the indignant pursuers, some 

 to be tarred and feathered, and the others to have 

 the cat-o'-nine-tails well laid on. Sauve qui pent 

 will be the outcry of the ' vocal chord ' of every one 

 of them within the sound of Bow Bells. 



" You knew all this when you wrote your review 

 of my pamphlet, for it is a copy of what I sent you, 

 as above said ; and yet, after this, you say I only 

 meant a half-measure. It really is too bad." 



Over and above all the correspondence which he 

 carried on in the papers and with private individuals 

 on natural history, as well as the other extraordi- 

 narily diversified subjects upon which he so often had 

 something to say, he kept himself in touch through 

 the post not only with members of his own family, 

 but with many friends far and near besides. He had 

 a remarkable faculty for not losing sight of or over- 

 looking any one in whom he had at any time felt an 

 interest. He frequently wrote on very small scraps 

 of paper, with the worst of steel pens, and in a hand 

 that was always small and often most difficult to 

 make out for those unaccustomed to it ; so much so, 

 indeed, that sometimes, in despair, his correspondents 

 would cut out the address at the head of his letters, 

 paste it on the back of an envelope, and let it take its 

 chance through the post. It says something for the 



