In spite of what Will Dogvane had said to the contrary there was
discontent in the Buccaneer's island. Now the sound was far away; now it
surged up and dashed against the old gentleman's ears like the angry
surf upon the sea-shore. It is necessary to make some little mention yet
of the cause of this disaffection. His toilers and his moilers were
undoubtedly very much better off than what they had been, and
considerably better off than those of many of his neighbours. They
earned more wages, and worked less hours, and in recent years wages had
increased nearly twofold; but it must be owned that they were less
thrifty, and loved too well their pewter pot. His population, however,
had increased to such an extent, and other nations had entered into such
competition with him, producing many things as good and as cheap, and
even very much cheaper, that he had lost the control over the markets of
the world, consequently many even of the skilled hands were idle, and
for the unskilled, the weakly, and the sick, their case was still
harder, yet every mouth had to be fed, and every body clothed. All kinds
of medicines were prescribed by the multitude of doctors, who were
forever trying to treat the disease. Then behind those above alluded to
there came a gang who would only work at cutting throats and picking
pockets, and who were always ready to join in any cry, or any movement,
that might tend to advance their particular calling.
The carpenter had addressed the family of Hodge on more occasions than
one, and he had told them that they were the most pathetic figure in the
whole of the Buccaneer's social system, for that they were condemned to
unremitting toil, with only the poor-house before them. Alas! that the
cry should ever come from honest Hodge that all he asked for was work.
This poor fellow does commend himself to the sympathy and compassion of
all; for the sunniest side of his life is to work with bent back and
horny hands from sun-rise to sun-down. But he was not the most pathetic
figure in the Buccaneer's island. Behind him Poverty came struggling
along, and with barely food enough to keep body and soul together,
brought forth and increased without the slightest thought for the
morrow. Pity was forever trying to help her, and over her sad lot she
shed an abundance of tears. The old coxswain tried to reason with her;
but all to no purpose, she clung to her wretched hovels and held on her
own way. Nature took her in hand occasionally, and taught her a lesson
in a rough and ready fashion. Our universal mother is not soft-hearted,
and she never spoils her children by sparing the rod, so when Poverty's
family becomes overcrowded, she works off the surplus by disease, when
the guilty and the innocent suffer alike. Is not Mercy to be seen
standing in the back ground?
The old Buccaneer thought to find some healing power in the fruit taken
from the tree of knowledge, so that Poverty's children partaking thereof
might learn somewhat of the blessings of thrift, temperance, industry,
and self-denial. But is not the fruit of this tree somewhat like that
flower of which a celebrated friar once said:
"Within the infant rind of this small flower,
Poison hath residence, and medicine power."
In the above nature of things lay the root of very much of the
discontent. The tools lay ready for the worker's hands. The worker being
that human wind bag, called an agitator; one who would find fault with
the order of things even in heaven itself.
This wind bag is forever holding up before the eyes of his dupes a
picture painted in the most gorgeous colours; plenty without labour, and
a general basking in the sunshine of idleness. He points the finger at
wealth, and cries out with a loud voice, "There lies the cure for all
your suffering; see how high above your heads the rich man looks. Go
take, eat and be merry, to-day live, for to-morrow you die." To the
empty stomach, and the ragged back this doctrine has a pleasant sound.
Neither is it without its effect upon that large multitude who have to
earn a scanty living by the sweat of their brow. The uncertainty of the
daily bread; the fear of sickness, and the cry of hungry children open
the ears sometimes even of the well disposed. Then amongst many other
things, man is by nature a lazy animal, and will not work except in rare
instances, unless necessity compels him. Take the noble savage of whom
honourable mention has already been made. He only hunts by compulsion;
for want of food in fact, which, having found, he lies down and sleeps,
and idles his time away until necessity prods him in the stomach again,
and sends him off to his happy hunting grounds. Man is the same wherever
found, and if anybody will provide him with food and clothes, without
any exertion on his part he will not say him nay, nor will he show much
gratitude. He will soon learn to look upon it as a right.
There were a good many kind-hearted people in the Buccaneer's island who
were doing all they could to develop and foster this innate love of
idleness. Already the people had their food for the mind given to them
free of charge in the shape of free libraries, and soon the cry for free
food for the body might be expected to rise up all over the land, to be
followed in due course by a demand for community of property. This,
indeed, was already being whispered about. It is an unmitigated evil to
take from the individual the responsibility of keeping himself, and
bringing up his family. He will not work if you do, and the train of
poverty becomes increased, and there is no limit to the extension. As
the Devil even is supposed at times to quote Scripture, so do the wind
bags, who play upon the wants of the people, frequently base their
doctrine of universal plunder upon the teachings of Christ. But did not
a small band of early Christians try this share and share alike
principle? But it did not answer, and see what has come of it. The pomp,
magnificence, splendour and wealth of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy with
its Priest-King. Who too would think that the pride and majesty of the
Buccaneer's State Church with its High Priest clothed in temporal as
well as spiritual power took its rise from the teachings of Him, who
gathered on the shores of the sea of Galilee a few simple and faithful
disciples to whom He preached the doctrine of humility, chastity,
poverty, and love, and a charity as bountiful as the rain which falls
from heaven on flowers and weeds alike. Did He not say to them "Provide
neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your
journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the
workman is worthy of his meat?" Ah! the meat, sometimes called hire;
there lies the rock upon which so many run, and their frail barks are
shivered to pieces; allured to their destruction by the songs of a siren
called Mammon.
But the priest he has a stomach as well as the layman. He has a back too
which must be covered, and he has his many other wants that must be
attended to. One has taken to himself a wife, and he would fain have his
Lord excuse him, on her account. Another has many children who have to
be fed, clothed, and taught, and put out into the world. Then things
have changed since the days even of St. Paul. Wages have very much
increased, and around religion there has grown surroundings that must be
attended to for the sake of the uncrowned queen Respectability. Ask not
how all these mighty things have been brought about. Without doubt, the
Buccaneer's High Priest or anyone of his learned ecclesiastics could
explain all to you in a most satisfactory manner. They would tell you
how the Scriptures have to be construed to suit the needs of modern
Christians. The mighty "_This_" has he contracted and the small "_That_"
has to be stretched; but so long as an orthodox priest sits upon the box
of your coach and four, it matters little where, and through what he
drives.
Briefly, it may be said, that community of property has no charm except
for that class of a community known by the name of rogues and vagabonds.
Then, as if the very Devil was in it, the Buccaneer's women were
beginning to cry out for more liberty, and disaffection seemed to have
taken a strong hold upon the female breast. The advanced portion of
these wanted to overturn the present order of things, and to put up in
its place, a sort of Hen Convention in which women were to have equal
rights and apparently man's privileges as well as their own. To tell
these women that they had a sphere, was merely to excite their ridicule,
and court their contempt. But the strangeness of the thing was, that
while the men were crying out because they had not work sufficient to
keep them in many cases from starving, the women wanted to increase the
difficulty still more by entering the same fields of labour. Of course
poor women must live, and if men are so selfish that they will not keep
them in the Holy bonds of matrimony, why, the women must keep
themselves. It is true that the men did show an indisposition to set
upon their hearth a rival, who instead of attending to domestic duties,
might give them a political lecture or a discourse upon either ethics,
philosophy, or science. The women too out-numbered the men; spinsters
growing more numerous every day, and as it is well-known that the
mortality amongst the males of all species is far greater than that
amongst the females, on account of the greater risk they run, the above
evil might be expected to increase rather than diminish, unless nature
took the matter in hand and balanced matters by an epidemic amongst the
women. But as matters now stood, the conspiracy amongst the Buccaneer's
female sex bid fair to be far more serious than that of the cook's
caboose.
It has been said that the man who allows a woman to usurp his authority
is in a pitiful condition, for that it shows he has lost somewhat of his
manhood. One thing is certain, the woman he has to live with will not
respect him, and it is more than probable that she will take the
earliest opportunity to show her contempt. It is still worse when this
applies not to an individual here and there, but to the majority of a
people.
What voice is that crying out that we insult the whole of womanhood?
Good lady, if you cast aside your bodkin, and take up the weapons that
have hitherto been considered as peculiar to man, you must not cry out
when you feel yourself injured. You cannot have your cake and eat it
too. "A foolish woman is clamorous; but a good woman retaineth honour."
So said one, who is accounted the wisest man that ever lived.
It does not appear that the true position of woman in the world's
economy has yet been clearly defined. She was once man's slave. She is
now supposed, in all civilised countries, to be his helpmate and
companion, and in the Buccaneer's island she showed a strong disposition
to become his rival. Poetry has assigned to her a place amongst the
angels; reality, on the other hand, has frequently given her a place
amongst the devils. Then again she is supposed to be weak and fragile,
but though she may not be able to walk a mile in pure fresh air, she
will dance many, and several nights a week in the fetid atmosphere of a
ball-room. Although she takes little or no healthy exercise, the general
woman's appetite is good if not absolutely robust, and although they are
all more or less invalids, they generally outlive man. A recent
philosopher amongst the Buccaneer's people had said, when speaking of
woman, that though eminently adapted to that position for which God
apparently intended her, she is not from her constitution and make,
adapted to take man's place in the world, and by attempting such a thing
all concerned must lose. Unfortunately, the Buccaneer's advanced women
did not seem to see this, and they seemed disposed to quarrel with the
work of our Creator. The woman's character is conflicting. When she is
drawn by her sister, she does not at times appear in too beautiful
colours; for she is frequently depicted as vain, silly, jealous, weak,
cruel and revengeful, often kissing the sister she intends to stab, and
in this resembling somewhat those reptiles which slobber over the victim
they intend to devour. But is it the model or the artist who is at
fault?
From history we learn that the presence of woman upon the earth has not
been an unmixed blessing, for she seems to have caused as much sorrow as
ever she has joy, and the estimation in which she was held in ancient
Biblical times is pretty well manifested by the author of the Mosaic
Cosmogony, who attributes to her the damnation of the whole human race.
Through her first act of disobedience man first tasted of the cup of
misery, and she has been holding the cup to his lips ever since.
Constituted as woman is, was it not cruel to place an injunction on that
fatal tree? for, tell a woman not to do a thing and she is pretty
certain to do it. Of course our first father did not act over
honourably. If he had been imbued with the principles of modern chivalry
he would have screened Eve; have sworn, perhaps, that she was not at all
to blame, and finished up by flinging the apple at the tempter's head.
But man ever had, and always will have an ungodly stomach, and so Adam
took the apple and did eat. Notwithstanding the chivalry aforesaid it is
generally believed that there are more Adams in the world now than what
there are Josephs, and if the trial of the apple came over again, man
would fall even as he fell before, though he were to be ten times more
damned. It is a thousand and one pities that the arch Fiend did not wait
until Eve had become a little old and ugly, for then Adam might have
refused the apple and the whole human race might have been saved.
The Essenes would not marry, not because they denied the validity of the
institution or its necessity, but because they were convinced of the
artfulness and fickleness of the female sex. Then again, the Buddhist
believed, if he does not believe, that no woman could attain a state of
supreme perfection. The accomplished woman becomes man.
Read where we will, and what we will, and let us bend our steps whither
we like, and we find that woman is generally believed to be at the
bottom of everything. We are told that Metellus Numidicus, the censor,
acknowledged to the Roman people in a public oration that had kind
nature allowed us to exist without the help of women, we should be
delivered from a very troublesome companion. But, though man still
growls, poets still sing about woman, lovely woman, and though man
sometimes finds her a devil, painters still depict her in the form of an
angel, and man's imagination fills heaven with beings in her shape and
likeness.
To be just; has not woman somewhat to complain of? Was she not made
after man, and, as some think, of the refuse material? Then again has
she not been sent into the world with, on an average, five ounces less
brains than the allowance given to man? And has she not, from the very
beginning, been obliged to bear patiently, and for the most part with
meekness, all these slights and insults? And to finish, was she not made
as a meet and fitting companion for man? Who will be so impious as to
say that she was spoilt in the making? Alas! we cannot do without her;
no matter how uncomfortable we may at times be with her; and a smile, or
a tear, on a pretty face will blot out and efface all the splutterings
that fall from the pen of ill nature.
What man is there who has not created in his mind some womanly idol, and
here often lies the misfortune; for idols will fall and break into
thousands of pieces; but until the catastrophe happens, we worship at
our shrine and look upon fair forms with heavenly faces; bright radiance
is shed over every feature, and we are in an atmosphere free from all
impurity. We look up to and adore a being whose soul is never clouded by
a base thought; whose chaste and cherry lips never give utterance to a
tainted word. One who can be pure without being a prude; gentle and
charitable without there being a suspicion even of foolishness; one who
can be sensible without being masculine, and innocent without being a
vain and frivolous idiot.
Do I dream? Hush then! do not wake me. Let me wander on, if only for a
brief space in the realms of fancy. I will build for myself castles, and
will people them with fair fantasies. What lovely faces do I see! fit
indexes for pure and intelligent minds. Complexions never touched by the
paint soiled fingers of Art, but as delicate as the petals of a lily,
with the faint blush of the setting sun resting upon them, the whole
crowned with a woman's glory dipped in sunshine and not in dye. What
lovely forms, clothed in silver sheen and girdled with golden belts made
in the armoury of the King of Day!