On Picket Duty.

“Society,” some one has truly said, “is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness.”

The New England “Methodist” illustrates the singular unwillingness of O. B. Frothingham to define his position, in view of the fact that he has avowed a new one, by the story of the Irish lad who fell into a deep well, and, when his father called to know if he were dead, replied: “Not dead, father, bat spacheless.”

An exchange tells us that a rich Italian land-owner resorts to an obsolete feudal custom of making his laborers wear iron muzzles during the grape harvest to prevent them from tasting the grapes. The stockholders and directors of horse-railways who make their conductors use bell-punches to prevent them from “knocking down” fares will probably be the first to boisterously brand this Italian’s conduct as a relic of the dark ages, which could have survived nowhere else than in an “effete monarchy of the old world.”

“It is as safe a prediction as any that we are able to picture to ourselves in European politics to say that the Irish peasant and the Irish landlord will have as completely reversed their relations of every kind to one another between the year 1880 and the year 1900 as did the French peasant and the French lord between 1789 and 1794? Some may think this a bold prophecy on the part of Mr. John Morley, but in the eyes of Liberty it is not as bold as the truth, which is that before the year 1900 landlords of every civilized nationality will have disappeared from the face of the earth.

One of the grandest of revolutionary anniversaries again draws near, the eleventh of the foundation of the glorious Paris Commune. The Internationalist and Anarchists of New York have been actively preparing for its commemoration, and will give a grand concert and ball in its honor Saturday evening, March 18, at Irving Hall, New York. Fine musical talent has been secured, and no pains will be spared for the achievement of a success worthy of the occasion. Family tickets may be had for twenty-five cents, the proceeds of the sale to be devoted to the Asile Laique Francais and to the revolutionary cause in Russia. The time will come when the peoples of the earth will unite in adopting the Eighteenth of March as a day of international festival.

All believers in the State, however much they may try ta disguise it, or however it may be disguised beyond their recognition, believe that “might makes rights.” In the last analysis, they invariably hold that the State may rightfully do that which it would be wrong for an individual to do; in other words, that morality is entirely independent of justice, and may be made and unmade by the human will. Here is an instance, taken from instructions issued to General Burbridge by General Sherman in 1864, the publication of which a personal controversy has lately led to: “You may inform all your post and district commanders that guerillas are not soldiers, but wild beasts, unknown to the usage of war. To be recognized as soldiers they must be enlisted, enrolled, officered, uniformed, armed, and equipped by some recognized belligerent power, and must, if detached from a moving army, be of sufficient strength with written orders from some army commander to do some military thing.” Thus, General Sherman and his army of soldiers, who went “marching through Georgia” destroying other people’s property and taking other people’s lives, were honest patriots and humane gentlemen, because they did these things under the sanction of the State; but Colonel Mosby and his band of guerillas, who did things precisely similar, but in an irregular way, were thieves and murderers and wild beasts, because they acted on their own responsibility.

Senator Edmunds of Vermont says that, in the matter of finance, there are four courses open to us. We must, he asserts, either continue the national bank notes, or substitute the old state bank notes for them, or issue a national currency from the treasury, or confine ourselves to coin money. These four, and no more, argues the wise senator. But he is wrong. He has overlooked a fifth thing which we may do, namely, abolish all that we have done, and do nothing more. Whatever may be the proper functions of government, to supply the people with money is certainly not one of them. The people are entirely competent and willing to make their own money, if the government will only leave them to do it. And they will make much better and cheaper money than the government can. Here, as in every other branch manufacture or business, the superiority of private enterprise will manifest itself. The government might just as well make our hats and our shoes and our bread and our books and our pictures as our money. On this point the State socialists are consistent, and have the advantage over such governmental financiers to oppose them, for greenbackism and national bankism are but phases of compulsory communism. The first condition of a true system of finance is Liberty.

Our friend George Chainey has been talking at random again. In accepting as genuine Oscar Wildes’s profession of discipleship to John Ruskin, he unintentionally but inexcusably slanders the latter. Mr. Chainey may champion any humbug that he likes,— that is comparatively a small matter,— but he has no right to saddle the humbug on the shoulders of sincere and noble man. Oscar Wilde’s art teachings show that his knowledge of Ruskin’s thought is of the most superficial nature, and Mr. Chainey’s identification of the two shows that he is incapable of distinguishing between fundamentally opposite schools of art. The character of a school of art depends primarily on its conception of the purpose of art. What is the conception held by the true aestheticism which John Ruksin stands for? Mr. Chainey answers rightly: “To Ruskin nothing was beautiful that was not at the same time in some way useful to either the physicial, intellectual, or moral elevation of society. It must either state a true thing or adorn a serviceable one. It must never exist alone, never for itself. It exist rightly only when it is the means of knowledge or the grace of agency for life.” What is conception held by the false aestheticism which Oscar Wilde stand for? Hear Mr. Wilde himself: “Any element of morals or implied reference to a standard of good or evil in art is a sign of a certain incompleteness of vision. . . . Poems are either well written or badly written; that is all . . . All good work aims at a purely artistic effect . . . True art exist for art’s sake. Two schools of art founded on principles so diametrically opposite as these must necessarily differ as widely as two schools of religion founded one on authority and the other on Liberty. Yet Mr. Chainey pronounces them one and the same. With as much reason might he indorse any professed disciple of Darwin who should teach that the existence of each species is due to a separate act of creation. And the insult to the master would be no greater than that which he has offered to Ruskin. To accept and pass the counterfeit is to clip the genuine coin. But habit is strong, Mr. Chainey has not been long out of the pulpit, and snap judgments, we suppose, must be expected from him for some time yet.

The Philadelphia “Labor World” says that “governments are becoming more liberal, laws more just and comprehensive, obstacles to advancement are disappearing, and opportunities for the gathering of wealth are multiplying.” Liberty is glad to be assured that such fine things are going on, but confesses to a little curiosity regarding the proofs thereof. The latest Observations taken in England, Russia, Germany, France, and the United States had led us to believe that just at present governments are becoming more illiberal, laws more unjust and narrow, obstacles to advancement are multiplying, and opportunities for the gathering of wealth are being confined to fewer and fewer persons. Not that we were with-out confident expectation of an approaching turn in events; otherwise were Liberty without an occupation. But the order of the day had seemed to us to be a tightening of the chains, a strengthening of the barriers, and a riveting of the yokes. Will the “Labor World” tell us on what grounds we should change our opinion?

There is food for serious thought in the statistics furnished by Professor Leone Levi to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, bearing on the relation between the economical condition of the people and their height and weight. Town artisans appeared from the returns to be of an average height of 66.55; the laboring class, 67.15; the commercial class, 67.79; and the professional, 68.70. In weight the town artisans again stood lowest, with 136.2 lbs., the other statistics being: laboring class, 137.8; commercial, 143.9; professional, 162.7. No less instructive are the investigations of Baron Kolb of Germany, who found that, of 1,000 well-to-do persons and 1,000 poor persons, there remained of the prosperous, after five years, 943, while of the poor but 655 remained. After fifty years there remained of the prosperous 557, and of the poor only 283. At seventy years of age there remained 235 of the prosperous, while the number of the poor yet living was but 65. The average length of life among the well-to-do was found to be fifty years, and of the poor thirty-two years. Do not their stunted stature and shrunken stomachs and the frightful rate of mortality among them conclusively prove that the workers of the world are being put through the process of slow starvation, while the food that they produce goes to swell the bellies of the men who steal it? The phrase “bloated bondholders” contains an element of literal accuracy hitherto undreamed of.