garrulous poor people, she burst out confidentially into ecstatic praises of notre mère—how sweet and kind she was, and how she loved them all, and what she did for them, and what an angel she was altogether, “as indeed all the good sisters were,” the good soul made haste to assure us. We found, on comparing notes with our friends, that those to whom they spoke had improved the opportunity in the same way. It seemed quite a treat to them to find an audience for their grateful praises of the Sœurs. Indeed, as far as our view of them went, the Sisters of Marie-Joseph fully justify the love they receive so plentifully. The superioress is what the French would call une maîtresse femme, a combination of energy and gentleness, with a certain frank brightness of manner that is very winning to a stranger, and must be a great help, independent of stronger agencies, in enabling her to win the confidence and disarm the rebellious spirit of the women she has to deal with. It was wonderful to watch her as she passed on from salle to salle, saying just the right little word to all of them, and bringing a smile on all the faces, old and young, good and bad. Her manner, while it was perfectly simple and familiar, never lost its dignity; but there was not the faintest shadow of that spirit which too often hinders the salutary influence of virtue over vice—keep off; for I am holier than you! With these infirm old women she was affectionate and caressing as a mother, petting them like children, and encouraging their fearless familiarity toward herself. They had been here all through
the Commune, they told us, and witnessed from their windows—the infirmary is on the ground floor—all the scenes enacted in the court by ces dames, as they mockingly styled them, who had come to replace the Sœurs. But the worst of that terrible interval to them was the terror they were in of being burnt to death. They saw the flames rising on all sides from the conflagrations in the neighborhood of St. Lazare, and they were in momentary expectation of seeing the prison itself fired. The doors were opened for them to fly, but “à quoi bon, puisque nous n’avions pas de jambes pour fuir?” they observed jocosely. This was the last salle we saw. Before the superioress took leave of the incurables, she asked them to pray for the nuns during their retreat, which was to begin that evening. They promised in chorus that they would, and one said: “We will offer up all our suffering this week for the good sisters,” and all the others pledged themselves to do the same.
So ended our visit to St. Lazare. It was a sad and yet an unutterably consoling one. We hear a great deal about the atheism and immorality and wickedness of Paris—and God knows there is plenty of them—but there is much also that is bright and pure and beautiful mixed up with the bad, if only we looked for it and proclaimed it. We would find the pearls of purity, and the rubies of charity, and the emeralds of hope, and the salt of the Holy Spirit, scattered everywhere amidst the general corruption, healing and redeeming it.
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION [144]
The Labor Question has become one of the most formidable questions—perhaps the most formidable question—of the day; and the worst feature of the question is that, though it has been looming up in the distance for nearly a century, and constantly coming nearer and nearer, and more and more pressing for a solution, the statesmen, reformers, and philanthropists of no country seem to know what answer to give it, or how to treat it. There is no lack of nostrums, and every petty politician is ready with his “Morrison pill”; but no one gives a satisfactory diagnosis of the case, and the remedies offered or applied have served thus far only to aggravate the symptoms of the disease.
There is a very general conviction among the workingmen themselves that, in the distribution of the joint products of capital and labor, capital gets the lion’s share. Capitalists, or they who can command capital or its substitute, credit, grow rich, become millionaires, from the profits of the labor they employ, while the laborer himself, with the most rigid economy and frugality, can barely keep soul and body together, and not always even that. Yet, if we look at the millions deposited by the laboring classes in our savings-banks, and the large sums collected from them for eleemosynary and other purposes not necessarily included in the expenses of living, this statement
seems exaggerated. Then, too, the majority of the millionaires with us, and, perhaps, in England and France, began life as workmen, or, at least, without capital and with very little credit.
It is not easy to say precisely what the special grievances of the workingmen are, at least in our country, since comparatively few of the wealthy or easy classes of to-day inherited their wealth, or had to start with any appreciable advantages, pecuniary, educational, or social, over their compeers who have remained in the proletarian class. The International Association of Workingmen do not tell us very distinctly what their special grievances are, nor can we gather them from the eloquent lecture of their mouthpiece, Mr. Wendell Phillips, the candidate of the labor unions of Massachusetts for governor of that state. The evils he complains of, if evils, grow out of what is called “modern civilization,” and seem to us to be inseparable from it. This is also clearly his opinion, and The Dublin Review shows that it is the view taken by the Internationals in England and France. Mr. Phillips says:
“Modern civilization is grand in seeming large and generous in some of its results, but, at the same time, hidden within are ulcers that confront social science and leave it aghast. The students of social science, in every meeting that gathers itself, in every debate and discussion, confess themselves at their wits’ end in dealing with the great social evils of the day. Nobody that looks into the subject but recognizes the fact that the disease is very grave and deep; the superficial observer does not know the