17 MAY 1845, Page 12

THE PETITION TRADE.

Tim art of petition-making has been carried to great perfection; but, as in most branches of business, there has been a good deal of overtrading in it, and intense competition has beaten down the profit almost to nil. The division of employments has been very ingeniously carried out, and a vast machinery brought to bear upon the manufacture, and made to work with the most admirable order. Once on a time, public meetings were called for " discus- sion "; but, that practice is obsolete. It was very troublesome ; and when petition-making became one of the established trades of the country, it was found that, although the public meeting might very well be made to answer its present purpose, the ma- nagement of that engine would require much modification. Very often the result of the meeting was totally different from what the promoters expected—a meeting. called to petition against something, would petition for it, or vice versa. There was some fault in the construction of public meetings, which had to be made more conformable to the rules of mechanics. The principal faults were soon detected by the keen eye of British enterprise : the popular element was too much uncontrolled, and a much greater quantity of the people was admitted into the process than it required, or could even allow without inconvenient results. These defects were soon remedied; and by ajudicious selection from the popular element, the public meeting, as an engine for petition- Making, acquired a corresponding increase of power. The art lay in contrivances to pick out just that portion of the public that was needed for each kind of petition ; and much ingenuity was spent in placards, tickets, and such preliminaries, without always realizing complete success. After a meeting had been, as it was supposed, very neatly packed, some part of it would start up, and would raise a " discussion," with no end to the loss of time. At length, however, attention was turned to the chairman ; and by ingenious twistings of the rules of public meetings, and some greater art in the selection of the chairman, not on the ab- surd old plan of impartiality, but for what may be called his in- timate acquaintance with the object of the meeting, the work is now performed with very little waste of mechanical power. One gain was effected by what seems a very trifling matter, only the mechanician knows upon what trifles vast powers may turn : success has at last been attained in persuading the chairman, that the professed "object" of the meeting is "the question" : this very much limits the scope of such discussion as cannot be ex- cluded beforehand, and saves waste of power. Thus, at a recent meeting to petition against the endowment of a Roman Catholic seminary for priests, a chairman decided that Catholic Emancipa- tion formed no part of " the question "1 At one time there was a great prejudice against " packed " meetings ; but so completely is that feeling reversed, that if the arrangers of a public meeting neglect packing, ten to one the meeting packs itself. The old love of " discussion " has quite disappeared. Let it be even suspected that a stray debater means to say anything that raises any question perilous to the " object " of the meeting, and he is at once silenced by "hisses," "uproar," and the question of the chairman, whether he is " friendly " to the "object" Instead of meeting to "discuss," one set of thou- sands go to one place, another set to another place ; each deliver- ing its own arguments into its own ears, duly convincing' itself,

i and coming to its own conclusions. Nothing is so alarming to a public meeting as the whisper of an adverse argument ; and as cowardice is tyrannical, so no vileness or indecency of conduct provokes more rage than the avowal of a contrary opinion. Clearly, if men want to convince, they ought to go to those who are willing to be convinced. " Volenti non fit injuria." Perhaps there may be some effeminacy in the modern practice ; but, to judge from many modern practices, improvement seems insepa- rable from effeminacy. And at all events, the new method has one delightful effect—public meetings are so "unanimous."

.Although in its infancy, the petition-making trade exhibits some surprising results. The list of petitions presented to the House of Commons on a single day last month, against the Maynooth endowment, filled seven folio pages and a half of the Votes, in type packed as closely as an unanimous meeting! The manufac- ture, indeed, has risen to be accounted a minor member of the na-

tional staples ; furnishing employment, probably, for 193,615 workmen ; to say nothing of the impulse given to the auxiliary ' trades, among which that of the parchment-dealer benefits largely.

The flaw in the midst of these brilliant successes is the over- trading : the manufacture has been somewhat overdone. As in the cotton-trade, there is a great want of invention and skill evinced in the patterns: many petitions against Maynooth, for in- stance, are all of the same pattern—word for word. It is of course impossible that so many thousands of individuals can think so exactly alike that the words flow from their mouths. in identi: cal sounds, like those of a chorus-mob in an opera. It is evident' that some few persons suggest the words of the petition, and the signers adopt them, with what heart and. shiCerity. we - know not. Probably, in the bulk of cases, the signature means no more than a cold "very well." The competition among petil- tion-dealers is so intense, people have become so used to be soli- cited by the commercial travellers of the trad4 that really the public will not deign to form an opinion proprio motu, end- consider it quite a favour to have any opinion this way or-that: From this method of accumulating petitions, it cannot be'clesnied that the individual documents have become seriously depreL' ciated in value. Petitions are now valued only by the carts.' load. Honourable Members will not look round at less thin a bale. You don't believe what they say under a ton. As in the case of newspaper-advertising, the enormous number of the suasive appeals mechanically defies perusal, and new devices must soon be struck out in order to attract attention. Petitioners have not et resorted to the puffing plan of having the selfsame pla- card displayed upon a board in dozens, and carried along the streets by a procession of paupers. We believe, indeed, that a band of music in a cart has already been employed to give im- portance to a great political declaration on parchment. But painted vans, blacking-bottles each animated by an internal pauper, (a kind of typical improvement on the placard,) hats on wheels and not worn but ridden in, revolving superstructures hi carts, and some others of the newest kind of puffs, remain to suggest ideas to the petition-makers in search of piquant effects.