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MOBS.

ET me, correct reader, be pardoned if I bustle into my subject at once

without more ado. The secret of the unpremeditated character of a mob's movements, which changes quickly from rage to laughter, and back again, lies in the loss of individual responsibility felt by those who compose it. Each member yields to the licence of concealment, and follows the last whim; sometimes his neighbour's, sometimes his own. A quick definite proposal is caught in a moment. Each one is ready for anything, having nothing ready himself.

A gentleman, once, being mobbed, and in danger, cried out, "A guinea for whoever will take my side." "Here you are, sir,” cried a fellow. "Hit him, boys," retorted the briber; "hit him, boys! he's a traitor." "Hurrah!" shouted the mob, and let their intended victim off, to thrash the substitute thus cleverly supplied. A grin, a wink, will turn a mob, if

It

delivered at some happy pause; but woe betide the man who loses his temper, or attempts to argue with such an audience. is bad enough to be proved wrong when you are alone, and to have time enough to think of a cunning rejoinder, but when you are lost in a crowd, and are only "a voice," conviction is intolerable.

But do not

Unanswerable logic must be bonneted at once, if sternly and correctly urged. It is not fair; combatants must be armed alike, and a mob cannot debate with reason. let us on this account be hard upon mobs. They are an essential part of the British constitution, without which the three estates would fail. Suppress mobs, and you drive the inflammation to the vitals. Mobs are the representative assemblies of those who cannot be otherwise heard.

Philanthropists may plead their destitution and labour for their improvement, but the decorous friends of the people are sometimes too polite. It is all very well to have an honourable member pleading your rights in his place in Parliament, or on the platform, but there is a keen vulgar perception of abuses which he will seldom represent. The bloated aristocrat is, we will say, insensible to reason,

and able to repay satire. Well, then, a plain coarse joke which he cannot return will set things straighter; or, if he won't wince at that, try a rotten egg. If you can't answer his logic, you may dirty his coat. He has his fling at the mob in the way which he thinks most damaging, but how shall the mob reply? The hustings will be taken down to-morrow. Time presses. The chance will be gone. You don't seriously intend to hurt him, but you must make a hit. A dead kitten is very soft and nasty. Here goes. And the Honourable Augustus Fitztwaddle is answered.

The unerring plebeian hand will touch its hat to him next Christmas, when he goes to "brush" at the patrician battue, without any accumulated sense of degradation. Conceive the restoration of equality between the streetboy and the magistrate, when the former reflects upon his summons to the potentate to "speak up, old boy," which met with such pronounced success. He can laugh at his pompous airs now. He shut him up once.

I confess I enjoy the details of electioneering intelligence, especially of the catechising of a candidate. I think of the triumph with which the cobbler reads the account of his shrewd cross-examination of Lord Foozle. The inde

pendent, incorruptible reporter jots it all faithfully down, with [continued laughter] in explanatory brackets. Bravo! reporter, you have dispersed a serious accumulation of bile. You have put the parlour of the Cat and Bagpipes into the best of humours with itself, and therewith the Constitution, and things in general. Cobbler does not strap his wife for a month. Local paper is thumbed to rags, and stained with convivial beer.

In melancholy contrast to all this, we read of the police regulations in many parts of the Continent, the arrests of the artisans who sing prohibited songs, pot-house oracles caught discoursing at the corner of the street, impulsive students who march in chorus. Why, an Austrian inspector would drive an English town into open revolution, and sour the politicians of Britain, in a month.

Some time ago I found myself in a foreign mob. Even the little boys had no mischief in them. It was at some races. There was no ragged edge of vagabond amusement to the orthodox business of the day. The people promenaded with the patience of sheep. There was nothing analogous to a knock-'em-down on the course. The inevitable dog did his duty, and galloped over the

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British Ill-humour.

ground in unpleasant consciousness that he was having his day, but he was the only offender. There was an air of decent respectability about the whole thing which was quite depressing, like the intellectual recreation at the old Polytechnic. It was in France. Depend upon it, this ordinary tractability of French crowds accounts in a great measure for their frantic madness at extraordinary times. It must come out sooner or later.

The vulgarity and licence of an English mob is one of the great safeguards of the nation. It feels that it need not be hurtful if it may have its say. Indeed, it cannot well do much harm. There is seldom severe biting when barking is freely allowed.

The English crowd has no glut of grievances for a revolution, or even a respectable émeute. It lets its steam off too fast. It never meets without being rude. It sets to work at once with goading the nearest policeman, and commits high treason against the Government by its remarks, to begin with. And that not with mere badinage, but downright spleen. Most loud talkers in a mob are quite angry and in earnest. They say the most irritating things they can, on purpose to irritate. A vanquishes them with smiles. You may break