It's not that we want their brass so much
this time, as we've done many a time afore. We'n getten money laid
by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us
will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say,
'Hooray for the strike.'"
The story appeared in _Household Words_, a new magazine of which
Charles Dickens was the editor. He expressed especial admiration for
the fairness with which Mrs Gaskell had spoken of both sides.
Nicholas Higgins, whose words are quoted above, is a type of the best
Lancashire workman, who holds out for the good of the cause, even
though it might mean ruin and poverty to himself--"That's what folk
call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor
weaver-chap?"
Dickens himself wrote _Hard Times_, dealing with the same subject.
This appeared about the same time, and the two books should be read
and compared, for, although _Hard Times_ is not equal in any way to
_North and South_, it is interesting. As Ruskin said of Dickens'
stories, "Allowing for the manner of telling them, the things he
tells us are always true. . . . He is entirely right in his main drift
and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but
especially _Hard Times_, should be studied with close and earnest
care by persons interested in social questions."
During all these years the 'Chartists' had been vainly struggling
to force Parliament to proceed with reform of their grievances.
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