Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid intervals. A few years ago it was the railway mania--a very dangerous frenzy....The mania now prevailing is one which, if not attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the striking mania. Everybody is striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now it is the dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all striking together. Should this mania spread, we shall have striking become what might be called the order, but that it will be the disorder, of the day. In short, almost everybody will strike except the threshers, the smiths and the pugilists. With all this striking though, we had better take care that we are not floored. As for the efficacy of the strike-weapon in general, _Punch's_ view is summed up in the remark which he puts into the mouth of a working man's wife as early as 1853, "Wot good did strikes ever do the pore?" MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING In the 'thirties and 'forties the triumphs of applied science and invention had already begun to exert an immediate and far-reaching influence on national prosperity and the economics of industrialism. The views on the new order expressed in _Punch_ reflect, with certain variations, the enlightened moderation of the class of which he was the spokesman. The coming of the age of steam and machinery is welcomed, or accepted, with a tempered optimism. He approaches the subject mainly as a critic or a satirist zealous for reform. But on two notable occasions he assumes the rôle of philosopher and prophet. The first was in January, 1842, _à propos_ of a remark made by Sir Robert Peel that increased demand for manufactures would only increase machine-power:-- Machinery, in its progress, has doubtless been the origin of terrible calamity; it has made the strong man so much live lumber. But as we cannot go back, and must go on, it is for statesmen and philosophers to prepare for the crisis as surely coming as the morning light. How, when machinery is multiplied--as it will be--a thousandfold? How, when tens of thousand-thousand hands are made idle by the ingenuity of the human mind? How, when, comparatively speaking, there shall be _no_ labour for man? Will the multitude lie down and, unrepining, die? We think not--we are sure not. Then will rise--and already we hear the murmur--a cry, a shout for an adjustment of interests; a shout that, hard as it is, will strike upon the heart of Mammon, and make the spoiler tremble. We put this question to Sir Robert Peel: if all labour done by man were suddenly performed by machine power, and that power in the possession of some thousand individuals--what would be the cry of the rest of the race? Would not the shout be, "Share, share"?