Inhaltsangabe
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII. "Multitudo superbe dominatur."--Lit. The v( client collective" is an untameable hydra! There are many varieties of this species: sometimes it is found in the form of parish vestries; sometimes of a bench of magistrates; sometimes of a professional or scientific council; at others of a coffee-house assemblage of rapacious creditors, or of an insurance or railroad board. In whatever form the monster appears, it requires Herculean powers to encounter it. It has fallen to my lot to meet it in every shape, yet I scarcely know how to prepare myself, much less others, for the conflict. To drop metaphor; we must recollect that when men assemble in considerable numbers to effect any common object, but not subjected to any rigorous discipline because they assemble spontaneously, and therefore on termt of republican equality, each brings to the discussion not merely his peculiar knowledge, but his peculiar temper and absurdities: the most good-natured man is voted to the chair, and unless firmness and good sense mark his deportment, his good-nature is in his own way and the way of every body else: passion breaks loose; absurdity gains ground, (for every man is more or less absurd on some point), the chairman appeals to the good sense of the board, long after every symptom of it has vanished, and then the dernier ressort is to the authority of the legal adviser. But this officer usually stands in a very unlucky predicament. He has an acknowledged interest in the question of costs, on every important matter that provokes debate. Collective bodies are destitute of delicacy or shame; where reproach is distributed among many, each man's share becomes imperceptibly frght; hence the most cutting sarcasm and illiberal sneers are unsparingly vented on professio...
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