Human Physiology. 425 



and universally participated, will have a double value. We 

 shall all enjoy, in the peace of a good conscience, even the 

 luxuries of life, when we know that we thereby deprive no one 

 of its necessaries, or of any comfort or happiness. 



I appeal in this matter to the common sense of every reader 

 to his judgment and his heart. As a rule, all men wish to 

 be honest, upright, friendly, and faithful to each other. They 

 admire such qualities; they wish to live in the constant enjoy- 

 ment of all that constitutes good-fellowship. They feel them- 

 selves to be the victims of false and oppressive social relations 

 and conditions. Hence all efforts at reform, political and 

 social; hence the vast associations for mutual help; hence such 

 philanthropic societies as those which can assemble from fifty 

 to eighty-five thousand people in orderly annual holidays at 

 the Crystal Palace. Mr. Roebuck, in an address at the open- 

 ing of a club for tradesmen and clerks at Sheffield, expressed 

 the common sentiment of intelligent and right-feeling men, 

 when he said, "he wanted to see the working man an educated 

 man, bold and upright, fronting every danger and difficulty that 

 came in his path, and at the same time gentle and courteous, 

 holding out a brotherly fellowship to every one. He wished 

 to see the working man make himself part of this great country, 

 and not an antagonist portion of it. What was there in the 

 career of the working man, or small shopkeeper, that should 

 render it impossible that they should sit down to a genteel 

 dinner? What he hoped would come to pass at no very distant 

 day, was, that the working man should be in his dealings, in his 

 demeanour, and in every order of life, a gentleman." 



Is it too much to hope for, to labour for, and to expect, that 

 in a country of universal education, and the means of bound- 

 less wealth, every working man may sit down every day to what 

 Mr Roebuck calls a genteel dinner? He once described the 

 working man of his black country district as "a man who 

 caressed his dog, cursed his wife, and kicked his children." 



