A MATTER OF SOCIAL INTEREST.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 232, 21 February 1885, Page 4

A MATTER OF SOCIAL INTEREST.

I*", when some months ago Mr Andrew Carnegie, who, by the way, is an American, remarked that Queen Victoria was a nice, unobjectionable old lady, whom one could introduce without any qualms of conscience into his family, Englishmen were horrified at his audacity, what must be their feelings when they read the " New Book of Kings," by Mr J. Morrison Davidson, a barrister of' the Middle Temple, London. We find the Englishman speaking thus of Her Majesty, when praised by post-prandial orators, because she never interferes with the course of government: "Was ever such a qualification for office or any kind of human employment heard before ? Conceive," he says, " of a chimney-sweep who never swept a chimney, a baker who never baked, a butcher who supplied no meat, a shoemaker who made no snoes, a head clerk who never entered his office, being complimented for magnanimously abstaining from thedischarge of the duties of their respective callings. Nay, more ; conceive of a grateful nation rewarding such abstention by. a clear grant to the abstainer and. his or her relatives of a million sterling per annum, and the marvel has grown, a hundred fold." # Still further, our author in considering the cost of the crown makes these startling remarks : community is divisible into three great cesses — beggars, robbers, and workers. The robbers make the beggars, and^tihe workers toil for bt>th. Xow is it not very remarkable that among so many philanthropic advisers it should seemingly occur to none that the first thing to be done is to get rid of the robbers ? An ill-defined* company, doubtless, but their chiefr,their shield and buckler, is, as a matter of course, the occupant of the throne. Hereditary royalty at the top pi society necessarily implies hereditary poverty at the base. ''But though it is surprising enough that the nation should have to pay over £000,000 a year to a Queen-Do-Nothing, it is yet more astounding that the lady cannot maintain her

own family out of that sum. With a grasping avarice that nothing could exceed, she has called on Parliament time after time to to quarter her sons end daughters on the taxes wrung from the toiling" masses. The sin of bringing into the world children whom they cannot or will not support is one frequently hurled at working men and women. When their offspring come on the rates, theresis not a voice uplifted in their justification. But what does this royal person (sic) do with impunity ? She charges the nation £170,000 per annum for the maintenance of her able-bodied sons, daughters, ancj^relatives. " JSTow the amazing feature of this unheard of imposition is that the whole family are absolutely unfit to render the state any responsible service whatever. The royal superstition aside, what part, for example, in this "vorld's business would any discerningman be disposed to assign the Prince of Wales ? Could he be trusted to drive a bus or a hansom ? If so, that would bo about the likeliest occupation for him. Whpn the noblesse were happily cleared out of France, many of them earned an honest, if not a very useful livelihood, by turning dancing masters, but the heir apparent is altogether too clumsy to compete in any such line of life. As for any form of intellectual labor, that would be clearly beyond him. " Is there a Socialist workingman in Soho or Clerkenwell who ever in his "wildest dreams made such heavy demands on the state as these insatiable Guelphs (sic) whose muddy ' G-errnan ' blood constitutes their sole claim to public consideration ? It may be asserted, without exaggeration, but there is scarcely a family in England with a less creditable record." This certainly reads as if "there was beginning to bo " something rotten in the State of Denmark." We congratulate Mr Davidson on "the fact that he lives in the nineteenth century, for had he lived in prior times he would, doubtless have lost his head.