FOOTNOTES:
[60] As regards "strikes," it is of interest to note the following amendment proposed by Mr. Ruskin at a special meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science on the subject, held in 1868: "That, in the opinion of this meeting, the interests of workmen and their employers are at present opposed, and can only become identical when all are equally employed in defined labor and recognized duty, and all, from the highest to the lowest, are paid fixed salaries, proportioned to the value of their services and sufficient for their honorable maintenance in the situations of life properly occupied by them."—Daily Telegraph, July 16, 1868.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," January 24, 1873.]
HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY.
To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."
Sir: Here among the hills, I read little, and withstand, sometimes for a fortnight together, even the attractions of my Pall Mall Gazette. A friend, however, sent me, two days ago, your article signed W. R. G. on spending of money (January 13),[61] which, as I happened to have over-eaten myself the day before, and taken perhaps a glass too much besides of quite priceless port (Quarles Harris, twenty years in bottle), would have been a great comfort to my mind, showing me that if I had done some harm to myself, I had at least conferred benefit upon the poor by these excesses, had I not been left in some painful doubt, even at the end of W. R. G.'s most intelligent illustrations, whether I ought not to have exerted myself further in the cause of humanity, and by the use of some cathartic process, such as appears to have been without inconvenience practised by the ancients, enabled myself to eat two dinners instead of one. But I write to you to-day, because if I were a poor man, instead of a (moderately) rich one, I am nearly certain that W. R. G.'s paper would suggest to me a question, which I am sure he will kindly answer in your columns, namely, "These means of living, which this generous and useful gentleman is so fortunately disposed to bestow on me—where does he get them himself?"
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. Ruskin.
Brantwood, Coniston, Jan. 23.