Here are the subjects of her Daily News "leaders" in 1861:
The American Union; The King of Prussia; Arterial Drainage; Sidney Herbert; The Secession of South Carolina; Cotton Supply; Laborers' Dwellings; The American Difficulty (two days); Destitution and its Remedy; The American Revolution; Cotton Culture; The American Union; Indian Affairs; America; North and South; American Politics; Agricultural Labor; The London Bakers; President Buchanan; The Southern Confederacy; United States Population; The Duchess of Kent; Indian Famines; Agricultural Statistics; President Lincoln's Address; Indian Currency; American Census; The Southern Confederacy; The Action of the South; The Census; America and Cotton; The American Envoy; Lord Canning's Address; The American Crisis; Spain and San Domingo; East Indian Irrigation; Water-mills; Hayti and San Domingo; The Conflict in America; American Movements; The Secession Party; The American Contest; The Literary Fund; Working-men's Visit to Paris; Mr. Clay's Letter; The American Contest; Money's "Java" (four articles); Mr. Douglas; Our American Relations; Lord Campbell; Results of American Strife; Our Cotton Supply; American Union; Soldiers' Homes; Indian Irrigation; San Domingo; American Movements; Slavery in America; The Morrill Tariff; Drainage in Agriculture; Neutrality with America; The Builders' Strike; Lord Herbert; Lord Elgin's Government; The Builders' Dispute; The Strike; The American Contest; Indian Famines; Syrian Improvement; Affairs of Hayti; Cotton Supply; The American War and Slavery; Mr. Cameron and General Butler; Post-office Robberies; The American Press; Mrs. Stowe; The Morrill Tariff; American Affairs; Domestic Servants; The Education Minutes; The Georgian Circular; French Free Trade; The Fremont Resolution; Laborers' Improvidence; American Humiliation; The Education Code; A Real Social Evil; Captain Jervis in America; The American Contest; Indian Cotton; Slaves in America; The Prince of Wales; American Movements; Lancashire Cotton Trade; India and Cotton; Cotton Growing; The Herbert Testimonial; Captain Wilkes' Antecedents; Arterial Drainage; The American Controversy; Land in India; Slaves in America; Death of Prince Albert; Slavery; Loyalty in Canada; Review of the Year, five columns long.
This gives a total of one hundred and nine leading articles, in that one year, on political and social affairs. In the same year she wrote to the Boston Anti-Slavery Standard as much matter as would have made about forty-five "leaders;" and during the same period she regularly contributed to Once a Week[ [23] a fortnightly article on some current topic, and also a series of biographical sketches entitled "Representative Men." These Once a Week articles were all much longer than "leaders;" the year's aggregate of space filled, in 1861, is two hundred and eighty-one of the closely printed columns of Once a Week; and this would be equivalent to at least one hundred and forty leading articles in the usual "leaded" type. I need not give a complete list of titles of the year's Once a Week articles; but a few may be cited to show what class of subjects she selected: "Our Peasantry in Progress," "Ireland and her Queen," "The Harvest," "The Domestic Service Question," "What Women are Educated for," "American Soldiering," "Deaths by Fire," "The Sheffield Outrages," "Education and the Racing Season."
Such was Harriet Martineau's work for the year 1861; and thus could she, confined to her house, comprehend and care for the condition of mankind.
It will be noticed that she had written on Domestic Servants both in the Daily News and Once a Week; but still she had not said all that she wished to say about the subject, and early in the next year she wrote a long article on it, which appeared in the Edinburgh for April, 1862. It is a capital article, distinguished alike by common-sense, and by wide-reaching sympathy; womanly in the best sense—in its domestic knowledge, and its feeling for women in their perplexities and troubles, whether as servants or mistresses,—and yet philosophical in its calmness, its power of tracing from causes to effects, and its practical wisdom in forestalling future difficulties.
In this year she began to write historical stories, "Historiettes," as she called them, for Once a Week. As fictions, they are not equal to her best productions of that class; but their special value was less in this direction, or even in the detailed historical knowledge that they displayed, than in the insight into the philosophy of political history which the reader gained. They were illustrated by Millais, and proved so attractive that they were continued during the next two years. One, dealing with the constitutional struggle in the reign of Charles I., and called "The Hampdens," has been re-published so recently as 1880.
A large portion of her time and thought was absorbed, in these years, by the American struggle and its consequences. Loving the United States and their people as she did, the interest and anxiety with which she watched their progress were extreme. She was no coward—as it is, no doubt, hardly necessary to remark on this page—and though she grieved deeply for the sufferings both of personal friends and of the whole country, yet her soul rose up in noble exultation over the courage, the resolution, and the high-mindedness of the bulk of the American nation. Over here, she threw herself with warm eagerness into the effort to support those Lancashire workers upon whom fell so heavy a tax of deprivation in the cotton famine. The patience, the quietness, the heroism with which our North-Country workers bore all that they had to suffer, supported as they were by the sympathy of the mass of their fellow-countrymen, and by their own intelligent convictions that they were aiding a good cause by remaining peaceful and quiet—this was just the sort of thing to arouse all Harriet Martineau's loving sympathies. "Her face would all light up and the tears would rush to her eyes whenever she was told of a noble deed," says Miss Arnold; "no matter how humble the doer, or how small the matter might seem, you could see the delight it gave her to know that a fine, brave, or unselfish act had been done." Animated by such respectful joy in the attitude of the Lancashire workers, she threw herself into their service; and her correspondence on this topic during 1861, when she used all her public and private influence on their behalf, and employed her best energies in aiding and advising the relief committees, would fill a large volume.
In the midst of her labors for America, she could not but be gratified by the testimonies which constantly reached her from that country to the appreciation of the work which she had done and was doing.
The History of the Peace was reprinted in Boston in the very midst of the civil war, "at the instance of men of business throughout the country, who believe it will do great good from its political and yet more economical lessons, which are so much wanted." The publishers of the Atlantic Monthly appealed to her to write them a series of articles on "Military Hygiene;" and, over-pressed as she was, she could not refuse a request which enabled her to do much good service for the soldiers of the North, for whom she felt so deeply. Nor were more private tributes to the value of her efforts lacking. A set of the Rebellion Record, published by Putnam, was sent to her with the cover stamped under the title with these words: "Presented by citizens of New York to Harriet Martineau;" and innumerable books came with testimonies inscribed by the writers, such as that in Henry Wilson's Slave Power in America, which was as follows: "Mrs. Harriet Martineau; with the gratitude of the author for her friendship for his country, and her devotion to freedom."[ [24]
In the latter part of the year 1862, Harriet Martineau wrote a paper on "Our Convict System," which appeared in the following January number of the Edinburgh. It will be noted that she never wrote on the politics of the day—the action of the Government and Opposition of the moment—in this Review; her political principles were too democratic for the great Whig organ.