To-day a paper of this sort, to appear here with anything like an approach to regularity, would have to be printed in some foreign town that is tolerant towards anarchists, and smuggled through the mails inside of other journals or in covers with unsuspicious titles. This propaganda at long range is too expensive to be carried on in a wholesale fashion. It has its periods of favour, however, and is never totally neglected. Apropos of unsuspicious cover titles, it is on record that the journal L’Internationale, which used to be printed in the French colony of London, regaled the prying eyes of the French post-office employees and the police with such more than reputable inscriptions as these: Mandement de S. E. le Cardinal Manning, Petit Traité de Géographie, Rapport sur la Question du Tunnel Sous-Marin, Contes Traduits de Dickens, Lettres d’un Pasteur sur la Sainte Bible.
Once, at least,—more than once, it is probable,—anarchist doctrines have been preached in a journal founded and supported by the prefecture of police,—an ideal arrangement, it would seem, since both parties thereto find their account therein, the anarchists in having a chance to say their say without grubbing for funds, and the police in having large occasion for self-felicitation over their shrewdness in keeping the anarchists under strict surveillance.
The practical impossibility of carrying on a journal successfully without a permanent and known office, subscription lists, and the assistance of the newsdealers, has made the anarchist resort to the secret issue by unknown presses of placards and hand-bills whenever he has anything very special or very incendiary to say,—particularly at election time, when he is exceedingly active in preaching abstention from the polls, and during the enrolment and departure of the conscripts. The police will tear down the placards, of course, but rarely before they have been read; and they may arrest the distributors of the fliers, but this does not recall the fliers which have been put forth. More than this they cannot do, since either there is no printer’s mark to guide them or, if one appears, it is false or fantastic, such as “117 rue de la Liberté, ville de la Fraternité, Etats-Unis de l’Humanité, Département de l’Egalité.”
The tantalising documents float into the streets quietly and gently like snowflakes, before the very eyes of the police, and are irresponsible as snowflakes, having nothing more than these about them to indicate their itinerary or origin.
Here is an election placard which may serve as a sample:—
“A BAS LA CHAMBRE!
“People, retake your liberty, your initiative, and keep them. The Government is the valet of Capital. Down with the Government! Down with the king, Loubet! To the sewer with the Senate! To the river with the Chamber! To the dunghill with all this ancient social rottenness! Away with the Chamber! Away with the Senate! Away with the Presidency! Away with Capital!
“Vive la Révolution Sociale! Vive l’Anarchie!
“(Signed) An Anarchist Group.”