CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
THE POWER OF DRAW.
HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
NOTHING NEW.
AN INSURANCE TALE.
THE PRAIRIES AND THEIR INHABITANTS.
ROBBERY OF AN EXPRESS TRAIN.
POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING THE SHREW-MOUSE.
FLOATING-LIGHTS.
No. 749.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1878.
THE POWER OF DRAW.
We have on several occasions called attention tothe Power of Draw. It is a force which for goodas well as for evil pervades the whole socialsystem. Every centre of industry exerts thisattractive force by drawing to it large numbers ofpersons for the sake of employment, and so farthe Draw acts beneficially. All our large towns arein no small degree made up of individuals whohave drifted thither in the hope of exercisingtheir abilities for their own and the public advantage.This is exactly as it should be. The worldis open to everybody. It is only a truism to saythat by the Power of Draw the uttermost ends ofthe earth are peopled.
Unfortunately, this subtle power in its pervadingenergy is not limited to the industrious and well-disposed.It is acutely demonstrated by all whoare looking about for the means of indulging ina life of idleness at the cost of others. The dispositionto abstain from useful labour and to dependless or more on gratuitous benefactions, has beenlargely encouraged by mistaken views of what isordinarily called charity. The poor—no matter howthey happen to be poor—have been extolled as ifthey were superior beings, to whom all must contributeas one of the noblest of virtues. With pervertednotions of this kind, society has for ages doneeverything in its power to consecrate and encouragepoverty, and no wonder it has attained to stupendousdimensions. Early injunctions to give all tothe poor were followed by the piously inconsiderateand wide-sweeping benefactions of the monasteries.These in their turn were followed by the statutoryobligations of the poor-laws. And now thereis superadded a system of voluntary contributionso extensive and varied as to dominate thesoundest principles of political economy, and whichin its general working amounts to a kind of communism.By every large city, arrangements areorganised to succour every human need and infirmity.Those who do not find it agreeable to workwill be fed—the feeding, perhaps, not being whatall would like, but pretty well as a make-shift.For every species of ailment, from a broken leg todiseased lungs, there is adequate prov