me to make this an acknowledged subject of instruction,
to the workingman,--how to spend his wages. For, gentlemen, we _must_
give that instruction, whether we will or no, one way or the other. We
have given it in years gone by; and now we find fault with our peasantry
for having been too docile, and profited too shrewdly by our tuition.
Only a few days since I had a letter from the wife of a village rector,
a man of common sense and kindness, who was greatly troubled in his
mind because it was precisely the men who got highest wages in summer
that came destitute to his door in the winter. Destitute, and of riotous
temper--for their method of spending wages in their period of prosperity
was by sitting two days a week in the tavern parlor, ladling port wine,
not out of bowls, but out of buckets. Well, gentlemen, who taught them
that method of festivity? Thirty years ago, I, a most inexperienced
freshman, went to my first college supper; at the head of the table sat
a nobleman of high promise and of admirable powers, since dead of palsy;
there also we had in the midst of us, not buckets, indeed, but bowls as
large as buckets; there also, we helped ourselves with ladles. There
(for this beginning of college education was compulsory), I choosing
ladlefuls of punch instead of claret, because I was then able,
unperceived to pour them into my waistcoat instead of down my throat,
stood it out to the end, and helped to carry four of my fellow-students,
one of them the son of the head of a college, head foremost, down stairs
and home.

Such things are no more; but the fruit of them remains, and will for
many a day to come. The laborers whom you cannot now shut out of the
ale-house are only the too faithful disciples of the gentlemen who were
wont to shut themselves into the dining-room. The gentlemen have not
thought it necessary, in order to correct their own habits, to diminish
their incomes; and, believe me, the way to deal with your drunken
workman is not to lower his wages,--but to mend his wits.[140]

And if indeed we do not yet see quite clearly how to deal with the sins
of our poor brother, it is possible that our dimness of sight may still
have other causes that can be cast out. There are two opposite cries of
the great liberal and conservative parties, which are both most right,
and worthy to be rallying cries. On their side "let every man have his
chance;" on yours "let every man stand in his place." Yes, indeed, let