STRIKING CIRCUMSTANCES.
Really John Bull may almost be described as a maniac with lucid intervals. He appears to be always suffering under some form of mania or other. A few years ago it was the Railway Mania—a very dangerous phrenzy. Then from time to time occurs a Poultry Mania, or one of the similar and milder forms of insanity. The mania now prevailing is one which, if not attended to, may perhaps prove troublesome. This is the Striking Mania. Everybody is Striking. The other day it was the cabmen; now it is the Dockyard labourers; the policemen, even, have struck and thrown down their staves. Our mechanics have so far become machines, that, like clocks, as clocks ought to be, they are all striking together.
Should this mania spread, we shall have Striking become what might be called the order, but that it will be the disorder, of the day. The professions will strike; you will send for your lawyer to make your will, and your messenger will return with non est inventus—struck; or should you ask the legal gentleman a six-and-eightpenny question, you will discover that he has struck for 13s. 4d. The physicians and surgeons will strike for two-guinea fees; the apothecaries for ten-shilling mixtures. The clergy will all strike—as indeed some of them, the poor curates, might reasonably do—and pluralists will be demanding forty thousand a year instead of twenty; whilst bishops will hang up the mitre, stick the crosier over the chimney-piece, and hold out against the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for double incomes. In short, almost everybody will strike except the threshers, the smiths, and the pugilists.
With all this striking, though, we had better take care that we are not floored.