alism in America and Europe._ It is a spectacle quite too sad for
laughter, and yet too comical for tears, which was offered a few weeks
ago by the unemployed and hungry thousands who disturbed the quiet and
alarmed the fears of the people of London. That strange and unlooked-for
outbreak was probably only the first act in a drama the end of which we
have not yet seen. If "coming events cast their shadows before," what
has happened in England, and is constantly happening in other European
countries and in America, bodes ill for the stability of governments and
the peace of the world. Socialistic theories fill the air, disturb the
minds, and inflame the passions of men. Socialism, in one or other of
its forms, counts its disciples by tens of thousands on both sides of
the Atlantic. With the majority it is a dim and indistinct craving after
an ideal condition of society, without any intelligent conception as to
how it is to be reached and realized. The acknowledged lights and
leaders of the movement, however, teach it as a philosophy, preach it as
a gospel, advocate and practise it as a new style of social refinement,
or labor for its adoption and establishment as a desirable scheme of
social reform. There are philosophical socialists, and Christian
socialists, and aesthetic socialists, and socialists whose dream can only
be fulfilled by a general overturning of the existing order of things
with a view to a more just and equitable distribution of wealth, labor,
liberty, and happiness. They disagree in many things very radically, but
they are all captured by one ideal and animated by one ambition, and it
is a sublime and beautiful conception too, being nothing less than the
consummation of human happiness--so far as such a thing is possible--and
the creation of a heaven upon earth. Socialism contemplates a condition
of society in which not only all shall share equally in work, profit,
property, and enjoyment, but in which there will be no "capitalists, no
middle-men, no rent-taking, and no interest-drawing, and if there is any
wage-paying, only such wage as is a due and full equivalent for the
portion of work done, which shall be measured by the exigencies of the
community, and shall be so assessed and paid for as to leave no margin
of profit to any but _actual_ workers;" a state of society, in a word,
on which all kinds of toil, the lowest as well as the highest, will be
so pleasant and agreeable as to be no toil at all. Wit