SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this Heading we nonce such Books of the week as hare not been reserved for review in other forms.]
The Martyrdom of Labour. By Alfred Thomas Story. (G. Red- way. 3s.)—This volume may be read in connection with the work on the utility of a "leisure class," noticed in these columns on April 15th. It is an indictment of the aristocracy and plutocracy as they are now, for he recalls a golden age when we had in England "an aristocracy of culture and refinement, a middle class of yeomen and traders, and a lower clam made up of the peasant and artisan," and in these "an almost ideal state of society." When was this ? In Stephen's time ? or the Conqueror's or in the pre-Conquest age? Not so late as the fourteenth century, certainly, for Mr. Story does not spare those who put down the "John Ball and Wat Tyler risings.'' But history is not our author's strong point ; it is generally suppose.1 that John Ball was the leader of the "Wat Tyler" rising. He, how- ever, distinguishes them. "The latter," he says, "was suppressed by the foulest treachery and lies." Surely a book of this kind ought to be written with scrupulous accuracy, and all the more so the more truth there is in its contentions. For this we are not for a moment disposed to question. Mr. Story might with advantage devote himself to the study of the literature which has been care- fully catalogued in A Handbook of Labour Literature, compiled by Helen Marot (Free Library of Economics, Philadelphia, U.S., 4s.) His own name does not appear among the live hundred authors whose names are here arranged as having contributed "the more important literature" of the subject.
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