2 Oct. 9.
Democracy is one of those well-meaning words which have fallen into disrepute, through ill-advised friends. It has in fact become a catchword and when a word become that, it soon lose its self-respect and ends up by losing caste, Democracy in its relation to politics has been defined as government of the people by the politicians for the politicians, and, by recent history, this definition is not so very wide of the mark. Measures for the good or supposed good of the people are made into pawns in the great**game of politics. But, perhaps, the greater part of the blame ought not to be put upon the politicians, but on what is called the spirit of the age. The crowd idea'' looms large nowadays, in which sense crowd really denotes a mental more than a physical state. Any number of people, whether in close proximity or widely separated, who are of the same mind in respect to.any particular movement, belief or dogma, constitute a crowd.
Now a crowd is not necessarily an evil thing it may be used to bring about changes in society beneficial to humanity. But, on the other hand, the very ease with which it may be led by those who know how to handle it, often brings about a situation which can only be productive of evil. At the present time the crowd spirit is more rampant than ever it was. Leagues, societies, associations, federations, unions and all their kindred exist by the thousand. Civilized mankind is degenerate ing into a conglomeration of crowds. Most people think along the lines of the particular body to which they belong, or rather one ought to say they do not think at all; they only think that they think; and their
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.