whatever in
strikes or combinations; and I was now surprised to find the case
otherwise. And he, on the other hand, equally intimate with my
comparatively wild boyhood, and my influence among my schoolfellows,
would have predicted that I should have taken a very warm interest in
such combinations, mayhap as a ringleader; at all events, as an
energetic, influential member; and he was now not a little astonished to
see me keeping aloof from them, as things of no account or value. I
believe, however, we were both acting in character. Lacking my
obstinacy, he had in some degree yielded, on first coming to the
capital, to the tyranny of his brother workmen; and, becoming one of
themselves, and identifying his interest with theirs, his talents and
acquirements had recommended him to an office of trust among them;
whereas I, stubbornly battling, like Harry of the Wynd, "for my own
hand," would not stir a finger in assertion of the alleged rights of
fellows who had no respect for the rights which were indisputably mine.

I may here mention, that this first year of the building mania was also
the first, in the present century, of those great _strikes_ among
workmen, of which the public has since heard and seen so much. Up till
this time, combination among operatives for the purpose of raising the
rate of wages had been a crime punishable by law; and though several
combinations and trade unions did exist, open strikes, which would have
been a too palpable manifestation of them to be tolerated, could scarce
be said ever to take place. I saw enough at the period to convince me,
that though the _right_ of combination, abstractly considered, is just
and proper, the strikes which would result from it as consequences would
be productive of much evil, and little good; and in an argument with my
friend William on the subject, I ventured to assure him that his
house-painter's union would never benefit the operative house-painters
as a class, and urged him to give up his clerkship. "There is a want," I
said, "of true leadership among our operatives in these combinations. It
is the wilder spirits that dictate the conditions; and, pitching their
demands high, they begin usually by enforcing acquiescence in them on
the quieter and more moderate among their companions. They are tyrants
to their fellows ere they come into collision with their masters, and
have thus an enemy in the camp, not unwilling to take advantage of their
seasons of weakn