TOPICS OF THE_ DAY.'
CHRISTMAS, 18-63;" • .
SELDOM have the characteristics of this palethMlar esatainen so strongly marked as they are in the present year. 11031-4100ather has rarely been more " seasonable "—that is, more harsh and in- clement; for, if it is not cold enough to freeze the heart within the lireast, the damp clings around the frame like a cloak of Death. Yet never perhaps have the preparations for social enjoyment been more extensive or more thoroughgoing than they are at this mo- ment. The inclemency of the season is more than equalled by the comfort which is preparing to meet it. On the other hand, no year, perhaps, has presented so striking a contrast of suffering. Penury and hardship, which are always amongst us, become harder to bear under that wintry sky which does but add a zest to the enjoyment of the comfortable. It is to be believed that by far the greater number of our people are pre- pared for a merry Christmas with more substantial means than usual to provide for it. The well-to-do have seldom been so well off, and the number of that class is probably greater than ever it has been in this country. The prosperity of the summer, which has received some slight arrest by the deficient harvest and other events perplexing financiers, has not melted away and evaporated because its growth was slightly checked. On the contrary, the greater proportion of that which accrued during the past nine or ten months remains in store, and much of it will add to the good cheer under which the Christmas board is destined to groan. But there are those for whom the prosperity absolutely ceased : they are the most poor—the classes to whom the crumbs of prosperity came but scantily at the best, and for whom the surplus has stopped altogether. For them, indeed, the trials of the season are keen and heavy. Numbers in the North were drawn into the great industrial struggle by the natural example, which they could not accurately define, of other trades that were more successful ; and the sub- scription-dinner, which many of them will eat by favour of collec- tions towards the Strike-fund, will be embittered by doubts as to the policy of their great movement, and still more bythe certainty of the difficulty which is to come. In the South, amongst the agricultural labourers, the general arrest of work means a bare cupboard ; and in our great towns, the very slackness which the holiday distractions of the better classes introduce into business means privation for the humbler ministrants to our comfort. Al- ready the workhouse begins to chaffer with the claimants at its gates ; and many a family, which a few weeks back looked for- ward to a merry Christmas at home, will now have to seek the grudging dinner of the Union. To some who can keep away from the Union, and cannot muster the festive materials in their own homes, the trouble will be worse than that of a naked board. To many of those classes the wet winter brings all the worse aggrava- tions of neglected drainage, vicious ventilation, and the thoroughly corrupt building which our neglects has surt'ered to grow into a system. For many, too, the pestilential disease, which has already cut off some child or parent, is but suspended, and awaits the passing of the winter's hardships to renew another form of mortal affliction. The prosperity of the summer will still shine for most of us in the light and luxury of the Christmas enjoyment ; but there, in that cold and dark suffering, lies the black shadow of the Christmas fire.
There is a thought of inclemency without, which increases the enjoyment within. We can look upon the storm and remember even our own past troubles, and hug ourselves the more for the contrast. But it needs the coldest and hardest philosophy to.view the shipwreck, even of the stranger, with a self-seeking zest in enjoying the safety of the shore ; and still less can we remember the helplessness and suffering immediately around us, and enjoy what we have, unless we have done what in us lies to help it. If any man has neglected those things which he might have done to mitigate the hardships of this season for his fellows, the retribution will come upon him now, in the thought that will cast a bitterness on the taste of his pleasure. However abundant our individual means, they will not suffice to cope with that suffering. Nor is it necessary that the charities of the season should lack dis- crimination. If professional mendicancy has usurped the receipt of alms, there are those public dispensers of help for the unfor- tunate whose position enables them moat especially to discriminate —we mean the magistrates and the clergy both of the country and the towns. In many cases our own comfort has aggravated the hardships of our fellows—our prosperity has raised prices, and made bread and coals the dearer : what then can we do to remedy that evil!' Government cannot, like an absolute Emperor, decree
cheapness of bread ; nor can we expect the Parliament or the City to meet this year expressly for repealing the Metropolitan tax which makes coals artificially dear, and obliges the poor to pay for the improvements of the rich. But if we have made coals dear by our clumsy legislation, we may see that there are means provided by which the wrongs shall be redressed to the very poor. But, more than these palliatives, if in the enjoyment of the free con- verse of the season we can gather heart to settle some of these mis- arrangements which fall so heavily upon the poor—if we can re- lieve the coal-cellar of the humble from a building-tat—if we can free the air of the Metropolis from its rankest vapours—if we can promote a better moral in the construction of dwellings—if, in short, we can render next winter more tolerable than this, the reflections of the season will not have been in vain.
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