to put up with, and tells you how ungallant and selfish the young men of the present day are, how improperly the young ladies comport themselves, and how inelegantly they dance: or worse than all, a person who pounces on you as a good subject for an array of interminable and utterly pointless stories of his early days, in short a person of whom everyone has an instinctive horror, and who is always on the look-out for a victim on whom to palm off his dreadful stories. But this kind of people is easier to avoid, as they always carry about with them a reputation for being bores, and are people against whom everyone will warn you, while shop-talkers do not so much earn for themselves the reputation of professed bores, and hence are not so universally shunned, but they rather come upon you like wolves in sheep's clothing, and they always manage to turn the conversation on politics, the state of the money market, or some topic of which people have already been heartily tired in their business hours, or which is unintelligible to the generality of their neighbours.

But there is a species of shop talked at school which must be odious to the majority of fellows; it is the habit some fellows have of always discussing the events of their school hours; this by no means argues that such a fellow takes great interest in his work, but rather points to his having no other powers of conversation, and no single idea out of the beat of his daily routine of life, and it is a fault to which Marlborough is but too prone.

There are some fellows, who, whenever they venture a remark at meals or elsewhere, must instruct their companions as to how many marks they got for their last copy, or how they hope to be higher next week, or something of that sort, which cannot possibly interest any but themselves. None expect school conversation to be of an highly intellectual turn, but when fellows meet their masters at dinner and elsewhere, as most have some chance of doing, they may gain some new ideas and fresh information that surely will be of more interest to them on such occasions than their work, and most fellows must vote those, who are always harping on marks and school work, intolerable bores.

But school shop need not only take the form of work, there is an immense deal wasted at Marlborough, in talking round the fires or on the seats, and the kind of conversation usually in vogue on such oc

casions is for the most part stale and unprofitable. The same topics are discussed over and over again in every imaginable phase, till they must, to say the least of it lose much of their interest. It is a very old and often quoted saying "that speech is silver, silence golden.” The general tone of conversation at Marlborough will have to improve before it can be termed silver, but an attempt to acquire that golden silence, surely would be worth many fellows' while to consider, and a little wholesome reform on the point would be productive of good to themselves and their companions.

GOOD-NIGHT.

Good-night? Ah! no; the hour is ill Which severs those it should unite; Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

H. H.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ?
Be it not said, thought, understood,
That it will be good night.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

SHELLEY.

Mene 'valere' jubes et 'lætam ducere noctem ?'
Ægra mihi socias dividit hora manus.

Tu maneas par, vita, pari: simul usque moremur
Sic valeam, læta sic ego nocte fruar.
An spatio læter soli mihi noctis agendæ,
Voce tui quamvis ales amoris eat?

Ales abit, nec læta tamen : procul absit ab ore,
Absit ab experto pectore inanis honor!

Si vero duo corda ad Solem a Vesperis umbra
Ire solent uno juncta sodalitio,

1lla valent sane, nox lætaque ducitur illis,
Jure: nec usurpant istud in ore vale.

ATHLETICISM.

;

C. W. M.

Ye who believe in those that play and are hacked and are valiant, Ye who believe in the excellent strength of Marlborough and

football,

List not ye to the tales that are sung by dreamers pedantic, Prating of mere displays of brutal animal powers,

Prating of cold and damp and the fatal strain on the weak heart,

Think ye rather of games that were loved by fellows before us, Loved by others of old in Marlborough, School of the Happy. Old Epic.

SIR,-I do not know if any of your readers studied the correspondence in the papers a short time ago on the merits and demerits of the University Boat Race. I confess that I took no interest in it myself so long as it was made a mere medical question. But a correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette," who signed himself "Antagonistes," raised what has always appeared to me, to be the real point at issue, viz., whether the encouragement of Athleticism is on the whole a good thing or a bad thing? If it be a bad thing we have a right to grumble though only one per cent of an university crew die of the effects of the boat race; and if it be a good thing, we have no right to grumble though 99 per cent. should die. They are in that case only like the leaders of a forlorn hope who rush on certain death that their comrades may enter in triumph over their dead bodies.

The argument which "Antagonistes" puts into the mouth of the defenders of athleticism may be stated syllogistically as follows; anything which encourages athleticism in general is good; but excessive

athleticism encourages athleticism in general; therefore excessive athleticism is good. Now for "Antagonistes'" comments:

"Those who thus argue have one great, though antiquated example in their favour. The Greeks were the most intellectual of all races, and at the same time they cultivated bodily skill and strength with even passionate assiduity. But the severe Bishop of St. David's snubs them with the crushing remark that no religious sanction, no charms of art can ever really ennoble a mere display of man's animal powers. And one thing ancient records seemed to show which a little puzzled the worthy ancients themselves. After the science of the games had attained its perfection, no winner of any athletic prize, though half deified at the time, ever seemed to attain any distinguished success in after-life."

I refuse altogether to admit that this argument is pertinent. The question is not-" did this athleticism benefit the individuals ?" but "did this athleticism benefit the nation at large ?" The men

who vowed that they would return from the battlefield with their shields or on their shields, who rejoiced in the multitude of their foemen's arrows, because it would enable them to fight in the shade, who "combed their hair for death" at the pass of Thermopyla, who bade the passer-by bear word to Sparta that they fell at their posts obedient to her mandates. These were the instances which "Antagonistes" should have quoted;-Othryades, the solitary victor of Thyrea, refusing to survive the death of his comrades; Sperthias and Boulis voluntarily offering themselves as sacrifices to avert from their state the wrath of Heaven; Corridonius, reluctant to quit life for the realm of the shades to which Achilles had preferred the meanest serfdom on earth, yet facing death with an undaunted heart; Callicrates murmuring, not at death, but at death without a single blow struck for the good cause. These men, and such as these, were the fruits of athleticism which Spartans made the business of their life. If we admire the Spartan character we cannot justly refuse to admire the athleticism by which it was formed.

I am not, however, going to discuss at length the question of Greek athleticism. I wish to ask what good effects the encouragement of athleticism produces amongst our ourselves? Have we, too, laid ourselves open to the contemptuous scorn of "Antazonistes," and the Bishop of St. David's? With the permission of your readers, I will venture to say a few words on the other side of the question.

In the first place, then, I assert that athleticism unquestionably fosters the spirit of self-abnegation. Abstinence from pudding (I am quite serious) on the day of a Lower game is often quite as lofty a form of self-denial in a small boy as the bestowal of £20 on a public subscription in a grown man. He has no hope of receiving the meed of the sacred palm; his name will not be trumpeted abroad by brazen-throated fame; his virtue is as disinterested, and therefore as noble as any human virtue can be. Only a short time ago I received a letter from a very small friend of mine at Rugby, giving me an account of the first Lower game in which he had played, how he had abjured apple-dumplings, and eschewed the delights of roasted chesnuts for three days previously; how he had gone into the heart of the loose scrimmages; how when he got the ball he had been

severely mauled by two giants on the other side; and how he had it down with them without flinching.—

"P.S.-You'll be sorry to hear that I've got a hack a good deal bigger than a sixpence." My small friend evidently thought himself a hero: and I confidently assert that he was; if his conduct was not heroic, there is no such thing as heroism in the world.

66

And in the second place, it undoubtedly fosters courage. The Greeks," says an eminent writer of our own time, "the Romans, the old Persians, our own nation, whoever of mankind have turned out good for anything anywhere, knew very well that to exhort a boy to be brave without training him in it would be like exhorting a young colt to submit to the bridle without breaking him in. Step by step as he could bear it the boy was introduced to danger till he became familiarized with peril as his natural element." Is not this precisely what our football does? Let him who doubts it watch the scared look with which anyone unacquainted with our noble game enters a loose scrimmage, when eyes are flashing and spirits are waxing fierce, the scarce concealed disgust with which he winces when smitten violently on the shin-bone, ignorant as he is (unhappy being!) of the stern joy of enduring all things for the good

cause.

But not only active courage-passive courage also is thus fostered. In the true football-player all the vices which are akin to cowardice are scorched and withered up. A truly chivalrous football-player (and my experience of the class has been large), was never yet guilty of lying, or deceit, or meanness, whether of word or action. The Bayards of Football are like the Bayards of Knighthood, "sans peur et sans reproche."

In the third place I believe that athleticism tends invariably to promote love for a life of action. "Thought," says a modern essayist, "is but a poor business compared to action. Saints did not earn canonisation by the number of their folios." The Greeks discerned this truth with an unerring instinct even before a higher agency impregnated the world with it. The mere theorist found no favour with them-Eschylus fought at Marathon-Socrates fought at Potidea-Plato mocked with exquisite wit the star-gazing dreamer who fell headlong into the well because his mind was too lofty to notice the petty objects of the terrestrial world. All the men,

all the nations who have hewn out a great niche for themselves in the Temple of Fame have done so by their actions and not by their speculations. Mahomet would have done but little with the Koran alone, or Luther with his polemical writings; or Washington and Franklin, with their abstract assertions of the rights of man. And is it not so with us? Whether exercise the widest and most potent sway over their fellows here, the heroes of thought or the heroes of action? I only know that amongst my special friends at school the three most splendid football-players I ever saw were greater enthusiasts in social, religious, and political questions than any men I ever met.

Yet again, I am convinced that athleticism beyond aught else fans that noblest, and purest and highest of all mere earthly worships-hero-worship; that worship which has lain at the root of half the greatness that ever existed in this world's history, which overcame the frivolity and scepticism of Alcibiades, which stirred the fiery emulation of Alexander, which led the high-born gentlemen of England to pour out their blood like water on the fields of Naseby and Marston Moor. This worship always will and always must burn with a peculiar intensity in a society like this. For youth is the season of

idealism: it is then-before contact with the baseness, and meanness, and hypocrisy of the world has quenched our enthusiasm,-that we stedfastly refuse to believe that our idol can be tainted with any alloy of clay; it is then that we cling with a blind devotion to those whose prowess and energy have marked them out as the fitting objects of our undivided admiration. Even now I can look back and recall the unspeakable reverence with which I regarded the Captain of my House Twenty; what a priceless honour I esteemed it to sweep out his study; with what immeasurable awe I gazed upon his cap, the guiding star of unnumbered fights; with what unquestioning confidence I believed in his ability to play any other House alone and unaided; how readily I would have sacrificed the dearest wish of my heart, to win from him a single look or word of commendation! What would I not give to be capable of surrendering myself up to such a worship now. And lastly athleticism in its noblest forms especially favours the sentiment of patriotism. work is, to a certain degree, necessarily dissociative. It is impossible, for instance, for many minds to

School

work well unless they work alone: it is equally impossible to feel any sincere joy in behalf of the ten fellows who have gained above you by Long List and marred your chance of promotion. But setting these cases aside, there is nothing in an admirable piece of Latin Prose to awaken a strong feeling of patriotism: there is nothing even in a faultless copy of Greek Iambics which tends to excite a lively sense of the dignity and greatness of the corporate body to which we belong. But the House Twenty-five is bound together by the indissoluble tie of common hopes, common sympathies, common aspirations; it is one and the same sentiment which inspire

the fag and the fag's master, the member of the Upper Vth and the member of the Lower IVth; one and the same joy swells every breast; one and the same grief bows down every head. It has been argued in favour of the study of the classics that in the histories of Greece and Rome alone we find that peculiar form of social and political life which has disappeared from amongst us for ever, which furnished the divine afflatus of Demosthenes' oratory and Sophocles' poetry, which led to self-sacrifices such as in this selfish, money-loving age would only move a smile of derision, which made the Athenian willing to undergo without a murmur the galling discipline of the trireme, to carry his arms into the heart of Egypt, and to spread his sails for the distant waters of Sicily, if only he might make Athens the glory and the joy of the whole earth. Is it no gain that we should possess a game which enables us to realize this patriotism in its most perfect form? Is it no gain that our hearts should beat responsive to the magnificent words of the Athenian statesman, when he said of his fallen countrymen: "Now what the worth of a man is, this the closing scene of these men's lives appears to me to show, whether now for the first time declaring it or coming as its final confirmation. And since they deemed it nobler to fall in repelling the foe, than to give way and escape in safety, disgrace to their reputation indeed they fled, but the brunt of battle with their bodies they bore; and not thinking it right to deprive their country of their valour, they sacrificed to it the noblest of offerings, and received the most honourable of tombs, an unwritten memorial of the heart rather than of a material monument."

But "Antagonistes" has a further objection:

"To him who has devoted himself thoroughly to this kind of excitement as to other kinds, existence without it becomes for a time very uninteresting indeed."

And what if it be so? "I would have given," says Richard in the Talisman, "the best year of my life for that one half hour beside the Diamond of the Desert." And which of us will not say the same? Who is there who has fought in one of those matchless struggles, incomparably nobler than aught which breaks the dull routine of later years, who has held his own, it may be against overwhelming odds, in behalf of the venerated name and the much-loved community, who has staggered on over the slimy grass, moist with the November rains, spite of failing breath, and waning hopes, and bruised limbs, and bleeding gashes, who has returned again and again to the charge, only to be borne back again and again fighting with frantic desperation every inch of his retreat, never abating one jot or tittle of his stern resolve, hoping against hope, striving against despair, glaring proud defiance on the insolent foe, till the autumn mists slowly rise from the valley as though Nature were flinging her veil over the dark hour of defeat. Who that has once lived through such a day as this would be willing to exchange the memory of it for ten; nay, fifty years, of mere vegetative existence ?

I fear that your readers will think me a romantic dreamer, and I must submit to the imputation. I confess that I cannot write on this subject with calmness. The very name of football acts upon me like an enchanter's spell, wakes all the slumbering chords of my memory and carries me back to the day when, as a new fellow, I stood behind the School goal and watched in shuddering awe the crash of the heroes of those days, and the first scrimmage of the Sixth match, to the hour not so long past when I beheld Marlborough skill and Marlborough pluck gallantly upholding the old renown of the Marlborough name. Even now my heart swells and my eye glistens as I look back along the vista of bygone years, and recall to mind those grand old fights, the memory of which moves me as the Greek of old was moved by those Homeric battles where Hector and Achilles were the swell "forwards;" when the hugelimbed, broad-shouldered Ajax had the ball down alone with the whole Trojan scrimmage; when

Ulysses, that crafty half-back, not seldom dropped a wily goal, and when the voice of the king of men rang clear above the fray, "urging them on and calling them, each by his name.” Even now, little as I ever partook of the nature of a football-player, and much as I have lost of my early enthusiasm, even now I know not if there be a single object which I cherish more fondly than my old weather-beaten cap which has lost every trace of its ancient hue in the mud of unnumbered scrimmages, which has waved in triumph at a hundred victories, and has been bowed down in despair by a hundred defeats. And only a few afternoons ago, as I gazed upon the charging hosts of the big game, I thought within myself that not without justice had our greatest general declared that the field of Waterloo was won on the playgrounds of England.

I will only add that I claim to speak upon this subject with the utmost impartiality. I was never anything but a mere theorist, a mere dilettante in the noble game whose interests I have been pleading. I write as a critic and not as an artist.

One word more. May I suggest as an appendix to the editorial prelude of your last number, that some youthful football enthusiast should sit down and cast into the shade my faltering utterances by writing on the glories of his beloved game in "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," words such as I might perhaps have found a few years ago, but which have now fled from me for ever, leaving me to murmur regretfully with Virgil's aged hero,

Caestus artemque repono.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
TREBLA.

CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

WITHIN the last few months we have heard a great deal about the relations of capital and labour, and within the last few days Mr. Ernest Jones has delivered a lecture on the subject, the radicalism of which has been universally condemned by the Press, and even the chairman, Mr. S. Morley, has, in the Pall Mall Gazette, declared that he in no way approves the violent measures advocated therein. In the following article I do not intend refuting Mr. Jones's argu

ments; I could only copy the able leader of the Times of November 19th. I shall confine myself to enunciating what appear to me to be the true relations between Capital and Labour.

In every country it will be found that the prosperity and happiness of that country depend upon the prosperity, happiness, and intellectual welfare of those that labour. Upon labour depends the production of wealth, and every addition to its productiveness helps to increase that wealth, to diminish the cost of commodities, and to make them more easy of attainment. The first object of the labouring classes is to encourage industry, and obtain for it a fair and just return. The best mode of effecting this is to leave that industry as free as possible; to allow it to earn as adequate a reward as possible; and, by lessening the price of the necessaries of life, to increase the value of that reward. To effect these objects, property must be secure, and labour and commerce free from all restraint. Whatever gives the best direction to industry and most facilitates its operation, favours the increase of wealth. But that requires capital, which possesses the power of putting labour in motion, of combining the work of many hands, of giving means and power to invention, of creating mechanical aids to labour, ultimately distributing wealth, when it has been produced, to the greatest possible extent. It also incites improvements in machinery, for without capital the inventor cannot produce the improvements he has made. These improvements cause the employment of a more skilled, and therefore better paid labour, and if such improvements reduce the cost of an article which is in large demand, they ultimately tend to the increase of the number of labourers, though at first they may appear to have the contrary effect. Without labour, capital would be comparatively useless, and so upon the one depends the other. Now we come to the question; what is labour? Labour like every other commodity, is simply a matter of sale or purchase. It has a natural price and a market price. The natural price of labour is that which just suffices, and no more, to provide the labourer and his family with the necessaries of life. The market price of labour depends upon the measure which the capital applied to the employment of labour bears to the number of labourers. If the measure of capital