MRS. FAWCETT'S POLITICAL ECONOMY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,"] SIR,—I am reluctant to trouble you with a matter personal to myself, but as you have abandoned the "retort courteous," and have had recourse to the seventh of Touchstone's degrees of con-
tradiction, I have no choice but to defend myself. You say that my assertion that I refer to preachers and statesmen in the same line is "not true." Though the two words are not on the same line, they are included in a space equal to the length of one line. Permit me to repeat the quotation in question, printed as it is printed in my book :—
"The labour of an opera singer, an actor, a public reader, or preacher, is un- productive. The labour of a statesman is generally un- productive, although occasionally it is indirectly productive of wealth."
—I am, Sir, &c., MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
[Hrs. Fawcett is needlessly suspicious of the drift of a very innocent remark. Of course, we did not intend to say anything so absurd as that she had meant to mislead. We only intended to point out that by putting statesmen in a separate category of their own, and distinguishing their case from that of preachers, she did not make it clear, as she appears to think she did make it clear, that she was treating both as on the same level. She left it open to her readers to suppose, as many of her readers, especially the readers of the questions and answers at the end, have sup- posed, that she was sneering at preachers, and not sneering at statesmen.—ED. Spectator.]
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