Mr. Lowe has, of course, the better in argument of
Mr. Ruskin, in a letter which the latter prints in his Fors Clavigera. Mr. Ruskin has been abusing, in his grand, random way, a poor infatuated lady who " dresses herself and her children becomingly." Mr. Lowe answers with truth, " If ever your genuine brickmaker gets hold of her and her little ones—as he very likely may do some day—he will surely tear them to pieces, and say that he has your authority for thinking that he is doing God a service." As it is, she is at least no worse than a flower of the field,— perhaps, if she and her children are neat, a great deal better. This is unanswerable, as every person save Mr. Ruskin will admit. But why does Mr. Lowe go on, when laying down the truism that in their own way rich people may labour hard, to introduce a gratuitous sneer about the so-called poor, " who, man, woman, and child, pay £5 each on intoxicating drinks." If this little prod into the feelings of a few millions of his countrymen has very much to do with the argument—and is not a temperance lecture dragged in apropos of nothing—Mr. Lowe advocates oat- meal and the barest utility-diet for all, and lays down as regards food the very rule which he sternly reproves with respect to dress.
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