TRADE-UNIONS 39 



ment which the kuobsticks receive, and which is cruelly wrong, 

 we must remember how natural that particular form of cruelty 

 is to man, and how society is pervaded from top to bottom with 

 a similar feeling. The knobstick is the parvenu the man 

 who has not entered the profession by the right gate. A saving 

 clause generally exists in favour of great merit ; and it does 

 take great merit to overcome the barriers erected by the actual 

 possessor of any patronage or privilege. Men can get into the 

 Artillery or Engineers by competition ; does any one think a 

 snob could stop in those corps ? We remember very well the 

 case of a young man who had served his apprenticeship as pupil 

 to a very eminent mechanical engineer, but who was told by a 

 civil engineer, that whatever his merits or knowledge he must 

 not look forward to the position of a resident engineer on a 

 railway, a position worth from 250Z. to 400?. per annum, 

 because he had come into the profession by a wrong gate, i.e., 

 through a mechanical engineer's office, not through a civil 

 engineer's office. Be it in law, physic, church, army, or navy, 

 the man who does not come in at the right gate will be looked 

 upon with an evil eye. We fear the feeling is too deep-rooted 

 in our English nature to be met by any law to the contrary. 

 Great merit of course overcomes the feeling, and wins regard in 

 spite of all restrictions, and this more readily among cultivated 

 than uncultivated men ; but shall we not feel greater indigna- 

 tion at the physician who refuses to attend a case where a 

 midwife has been employed, than at a workman who declines 

 to work beside a knobstick ? 



While we frankly allow that there is no hope of obtaining 

 full justice for the non-society man wherever unions are strong, 

 we can point out one great distinction between the cases of 

 oppression among gentlemen and those among workmen. The 

 social indignities heaped on the victim are the same in both 

 cases ; but the workmen often go further they make a bargain 

 with their employer that he shall join in the persecution, that as 

 one consideration received in return for their labour they shall 

 be able to shut the door against their weak competitor. They 

 thus bribe the employer to deprive workmen of the wages they 

 could otherwise gain. This action falls distinctly within the 

 rule which we laid down, that no compact should be allowed, 



