The Lion.

No. 16. VOL. 4.] LONDON, Friday, Oct. 16, 1829. [PRICE 6d.

THE amiable crackamen, who are infected with the co-operative mania, undismayed by all the failures of their little projects, persevere in associate-ing the too-highly excited nervous and projecting dispositions of the softer persons who come within their reach. The great founder of their pepper and salt chandler's-shop trading association, Mr. Bryan, of Brighton, the brightest operative star among the co-operatives, has, under his trusteeship in the shop, committed some errors, and has secretly departed for America. I have seen Mr. Bryan, and my opinion is, that the fault is not in the man, but in the system. I held the same opinion of Mr. Cheese, of Red Lion Square. To put a check upon this runaway disposition of the trustees or storekeepers, the co-operating shopkeepers are now persuaded to do all their wholesale business by a committee-a committee, forsooth, to manage the nighty affair of a hundred pounds worth of chandlery goods! A minute of the proceedings would run thus :

Monday, Oct. 12, 1829.-Ordered by the committee, on finding only half an ounce of pepper in the store, that a pound of unground pepper and a pound of P. D. be purchased from the nearest grocer's shop, ground together in his mill, and to form a part of the co-operative store, for which a cheque on the treasurer for three shillings and sixpence has been drawn and given. God save co-operation.

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1829.-The counter-man having reported to the committee, that the mustard is nearly sold out, it has been unanimously agreed, that a pound of mustard already adulterated, be purchased and sold as the best, for the strengthening of the co-operative store. Treasurer drawn on for half a crown. Oh, the blessings of co-operation!

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1829.-On receiving the report of sale

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 62, Fleet Street.

No. 16. Vol. 4.

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the co-operating committee discover that the last cakes of whitening and brickdust have been sold, and they accordingly draw on the treasurer for a shilling, and order the buying of a shilling's worth from the first hawker that passes by. Success to cooperation.

Thursday, Oct. 15, 1829.-The committee finding no receipts, find also that there is nothing likely to be wanted to-morrow. Rather dull co-operation.

Friday, Oct. 16, 1829.-One of the committee being thirsty, has found the small beer getting low in the barrel; and after due debate and co-operative deliberation, it is directed that a new barrel be ordered from the St. Giles's brewery, to be paid for when the barrel is empty, if the concern last so long. Alas! if co-operation do not succeed.

Saturday, Oct. 17, 1829.-Finding the profits of the week's sale nearly enough to cover the expences attending the store, and having fifty shillings as a spare capital, the committee resolve, as the winter approaches, to deal in red herrings; and flatter themselves, that such will be the success of the co-operative store in another year, as to enable them to deal in oysters, and to keep the storekeeper more fully employed with the oyster knife and sauce bottle. The salvation of mankind is only to be found in co-operation.

Burlesque as this may be, it is really characteristic of the present proceedings of the London co-operatives. Some of them have larger notions. Mr. Robert Owen generally wants millions of money for his projects; and he does not succeed, because he cannot command the millions. Some of the more moderate aspirants talk about the wanting of a few thousands, for infant schools, &c.; but they will be as far off the thousands, as Mr. Owen has been from the millions; and then all the fault of want of success in the projects will be in the want of liberality in those who have money, and will not part with it for such projects. The operating co-operators, the chandler's-shop party, are really at work, and experimenting upon their millennium, but their prospects are not very bright. They comfort themselves by the excuse that the failure is not from a fault in the system, but from the want of a sufficiency of means to reach one project, when the failure of another is visible. It is a strange perversion of language to give the name of co-operation to a system that arises from a merely idle spirit, or a love of idleness, from a dislike to be tied down to the common rules of labour, industry, and gain.

The more distinguished idlers among the co-operatives have called two or three quarterly meetings, for the professed purpose of propagating the gospel of co-operative knowledge; but I have attended two of them, and have read almost all their publications, and confess myself so dull, that I cannot discover any kind of knowledge in that which is called co-operation. I cannot discover even that the professed knowing ones, the little great men of

the co-operative world, know any thing more than that it is well to buy cheap and sell dear. The only thing in practice among them is the worst kind of competition that I see in existence-a competition with the really industrious, small-capitalled shopkeepers.

May the grace of more honourable competition be among all the co-operators and associates; and may they become useful reformers, and more useful members of society than they have hitherto been. I speak with caution, for I really esteem some of those who profess attachment to the co-operative system; but I cannot take up that, which to a misnomer adds a very idle system. If they will bear discussion, I will put the question-what is more offensively competitive than co-operative shop-keeping? RICHARD CARLILE.

To the Editor of The Lion."

SIR-I confess that I am one of those who are hardy enough to deny that the present venal and corrupt condition of the House of Commons will ultimately ruin the country; because I look a little further into the matter, and I find that the House of Commons, instead of being the cause of corruption, is merely its effect. I find, that certain people, called dukes and lords, besides sitting in their own house, have a majority in that other pretended checkhouse; that they rule the roast in both; that the majority of the people are either ignorantly content or silent to be so ruled; and that is the reason why all the talk and bother that the Reformers make in the house or out of the house, is just so much noise thrown away.

You may hear otherwise very intelligent people talking thus: "That every householder ought to have a vote:that the Parliament ought only to be for three years; others that there should be annual Parliaments, universal, suffrage, and vote by ballot; and such persons call themselves Reformers!-These self-styled and mis-styled Reformers think, that if the House of Commons were remodelled after their notions, all would be well; but I beg leave to say, that these people, whom I have been describing, are no further advanced in the principle of reform, than he who says, "I conceive that the disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs, and the extension of the franchise to our large manufacturing towns, could alone prove an antidote for the evils complained of." If either of these expedients could cure the evil, all I have to say is, that the evil is very small, and partakes rather more of the nature of a pimple, than an ulcer in the state. No, Sir, the evil is not to be cured in this pitiful way, such an expedient would only render a little (and only a very little) more hypocrisy necessary. If such an expedient as this would satisfy those who cry "Reform in Parliament," if I

were the Prime Minister, I would satisfy them, and should think it would be a dexterous piece of state policy; aye, to be sure, if a thief rob you of a sovereign, and you offer to let him off if he will return a shilling, is it not good policy in the thief to comply with your request? And if he should comply, can you afterwards complain?

The worst thing about these pretended Reformers is, that they begin to reason at the wrong end; they have no clear ideas of what are the capacities and duties of man in society. They appear to fancy that people were made to be ruled and taxed by the aristocracy and priesthood, and that these orders were made to rule and tax the people; therefore, we must beg and pray them not to take quite so much money from us, not to squeeze us quite so hard, or not lay on a proposed tax quite so heavy “ and your petitioners will as in duty bound ever pray.”

Such people fancy, that they may, perhaps, at last succeed in their wishes by thus begging, and praying, and debasing themselves; but I take leave to tell them, that they may wait until the day of judgment, or, as that will be a busy day, until the day after, before the humble petitions will be even taken into consideration.

If you were to tell such persons that men may be, and ought always to continue to be free and happy, as far as Government is concerned, you tell a truth which startles them. You cannot make a master understand that his journeyman has the same right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression as himself, although, perhaps, that master was, a few years before, only a journeyman. If you say that the nation is the source of all sovereignty, they take you at once for a person who wishes a revolution.

Some people do not attempt to deny these principles, they think them just, but say, How will you put them in practice? I answer, not by debasing yourself, by petitioning the corrupt, who, feeling the extent of their influence and usurpation, however you may dissemble, will think you wish and mean more than you ask; but by endeavouring to raise the lower class to their proper station in society, by inculcating in them a desire to respect themselves, and to be deluded no longer, by impressing on them the necessity of leaving off their bad habits, and of thinking for themselves, by exciting them to think of their capacities, their duties, and of their importance in society, teaching them to qualify themselves for, and demand their equality like men, and not to beg and pray their taskmasters like slaves. These are some of the means to bring about an alteration, and not by thinking that any good can come from a motion in parliament, among those who think the law of primogeniture just, or who will support their order, or form resolutions, petitions, and addresses which are but the mere smoky evaporations of the corrupt state of the people themselves.

E. R.

SUNDAY SCHOOL OF FREE DISCUSSION,

62, FLEET STREET.

ON Sunday evening last, the Rev. Robert Taylor opened the business of the school with a sermon on the Gospels, taking his text from Matthew, chapter i. verse 24. Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden

him.

On the assumption that the Gospel Drama begins with a dream, the preacher showed that it could not be of Jewish origin, as the Jewish laws forbad all respect to dreams: and as to a Jew having told the story of the astrological journey of the wise men of the East, it was more likely that he would have eaten pork sausages, inasmuch as it was an offence among the Jews to respect a stargazer or astrologer.

The Persian angels, Gabriel and others, having been shown to be the personification of the months' of the year, was another proof that the Christian religion was not of Jewish origin, for the Jews had not adopted the Persian personification of the months. No Jew would have written anything about the angel Gabriel. The whole Gospel story being founded upon Gabriel's visit to Joseph and Mary, to the one in a dream, and to the other in a more suspicious way, bespeaks the absence of Jewish origin, and in addition to that stamps the whole as a fable.

The preacher treated of Gabriel's visit to Mary as a fabled specimen of the "Loves of the Angels;" and was very happy in pouring over the whole of this rather indelicate scene, a very delicate wit.

We have not room to report his sermon further. The gist has been given; and these Gospel expoundings will be continued for some time.

The business of the school commences at seven o'clock.Ladies free. Gentlemen who are unknown, charged one shilling for admission, for the purpose of keeping up a select and respectble company.

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REV. JAMES BROMLEY'S HUDDERSFIELD SERMON

Oh, that mine enemy had written a book.-Persian Drama of Job. OH, that all my enemies would write books, for then should I triumph over them. I have received Mr. Bromley's printed sermon, which was preached on the Sunday after the Infidel Missionaries left Huddersfield. I have a right to presume, that what is here put forth, is all that Mr. Bromley could have done against us in discussion. I will therefore print his sermon, and answer it in a parallel column; and this I will do in an early No. of "The Lion," next week, if nothing more urgent come in the way.

I have closed the mouth of Thomas Brook this week, unless he be one of Prometheus' unfired men, and such also as are curiously alluded to in the Gospel Drama, in precisely the same words, as