English fiction -- 19th century; Labor unions -- Fiction
“'If this reminder of the past and intimation of the future is
disregarded, the refractory master gets a missive, which begins with
an affectation of coarse familiarity, and then rises, with a ludicrous
bound, into brutal and contemptuous insolence. In this letter, grammar
is flung to the winds, along with good manners; but spelling survives,
by a miracle. Next comes a short letter, full of sanguinary threats, and
written in, what we beg leave to christen, the Dash dialect, because,
though used by at least three million people in England, and three
thousand in Hillsborough, it can only be printed with blanks, the
reason being simply this, that every sentence is measled with oaths and
indecencies. These letters are also written phonetically, and, as the
pronunciation, which directs the spelling, is all wrong, the double
result is prodigious. Nevertheless, many of these pronunciations are
ancient, and were once universal. An antiquarian friend assures us the
orthography of these blackguards, the scum of the nineteenth century, is
wonderfully like that of a mediaeval monk or baron.
“'When the correspondence has once descended to the Dash dialect,
written phonetically, it never remounts toward grammar, spelling
or civilization; and the next in the business is rattening, or else
beating, or shooting, or blowing-up the obnoxious individual by himself,
or along with a houseful of people quite strange to the quarrel. Now, it
is manifest to common sense, that all this is one piece of mosaic, and
that the criminal act it all ends in is no more to be disconnected from
the last letter, than the last letter from its predecessor, or letter
three from letter two. Here is a crime first gently foreshadowed, then
grimly intimated, then directly threatened, then threatened in words
that smell of blood and gunpowder, and then--done. The correspondence
and the act reveal--
“The various talents, but the single mind.”
“'In face of this evidence, furnished by themselves, the trades Unions,
some member of which has committed this crime, will do well to drop the
worn-out farce of offering a trumpery reward and to take a direct and
manly course. They ought to accept Mr.----'s preposterously liberal
offer, and admit him to the two Unions, and thereby disown the criminal
act in the form most consolatory to the sufferer: or else they should
face the situation, and say, “This act was done under our banner, though
not by our order, and we stand by it.” The Liberal will continue to
watch the case.'”
“This will be a pill,” said Mr. Carden, laying down the paper. “Why,
they call the Liberal the workman's advocate.”
“Yes, papa,” said Grace; “but how plainly he shows--But Mr. Little is a
stranger, and even this terrible lesson has not--So do pray advise him.”
“I shall be very happy; but, when you are my age, you will know it is of
little use intruding advice upon people.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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