belief that the first great want of the workmen is better morality and more thriftiness, _not_ better masters or higher wages. I have not dared to print half of what are my convictions on this head.... The sufferings of the poor from bad air and bad water are quite a separate chapter. High wages do little to cure this. Indeed, in Manchester the workmen habitually prefer to save a shilling a week in house rent and spend it in beefsteaks, when the shilling would have got them a healthy instead of an unhealthy lodging. Bricklayers' wages are at present high in London; what is the consequence? I have at present a bit of a dwarf wall building in my garden. The men leave their work; I complain; the builder replies: 'Men will not come to work on a Monday without much trouble.' I fear this _means_ that they drink on Sunday and are very 'seedy' on Monday morning. The very men who are excited by high wages to drinking and idleness will make a violent outcry when a fall of wages takes place, and _moreover_ will get the ear and sympathies of Maurice and Co. for their outcry." "Maurice and Co." of course refers to Frederick Denison Maurice, who was the principal mover in the Christian Socialism of the day, as he was in all social reforms. He had met with much abuse and opposition, but still there were very many who called him "Master." Amongst these last was Charles Kingsley, who had been one of his pupils, and who had been very greatly influenced by his opinion in religion and social matters. [Footnote: Kingsley (see memoir) said to Maurice, when opposition was fiercest against him: "Your cause is mine. We swim in the same boat, and stand or fall thenceforth together."] Neither man could bear the narrowness of "parties" in religion. They always demanded more toleration, broader views, and refused to be bound by narrow creeds. It was owing chiefly to Coleridge that Maurice took Holy Orders. He was born in that year of great men, 1805, and by 1851 his socialistic ideas were well known to the world. "As to the milliners and tailors, my wife has the same experience as Mrs. Carlyle, that there are _no_ good workwomen out of work, or earning low wages. Mrs. Wedgwood tells me that the Ladies' Committee could not get women to make the shirts.... Those who cannot get good wages are women who have _spent their prime in idleness_, and cannot work well enough to satisfy ladies. They sew badly, and get a poor pittance from the shops. As to tailors, I give more for a coat by four or five shillings than I did twenty-five years ago.... Until our national morality is much improved, and our moral organization repaired, there must be a large body of persons without any trade, art, or connection who will throw themselves into what seems to be the easiest art, and by their numbers will swamp it.... "Ever your affectionate "Francis W. Newman."