This is no flight of inventive humour on our part;
it is plain fact which may probably be seen in action as law before
twelve months are over.
Tyranny I abhor, cruelty I abhor--above all, cruelty to children. But we
are threatened at one pole of the State-world with a tyranny of
factioneers who cultivate rudeness and rowdyism as a science, while at
the other pole we are threatened with the uncontrolled tyranny of the
"residuum." We must return to our common sense; the middle-classes must
make themselves heard, and we must teach the wild spirits who aim at
wrecking all order that safety depends upon the submission of all to the
expressed will of the majority. Debate is free enough--too free--and no
man is ever neglected ultimately if he has anything rational to say, so
that a minority has great power; but, when once a law is made, it must
be obeyed. England is mainly sound; our movement is chiefly to the good;
but this senseless pampering of loutishness in high and low places is a
bad symptom which tends to such consequences as can be understood only
by those who have learned to know the secret places. If it is not
checked--if anarchists, young and old, are not taught that they must
obey or suffer--there is nothing ahead but tumult, heart-burning, and
wreck.
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