Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/63

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PROPOSALS

FOR

THE SPEEDY EXTINCTION OF EVIL
AND MISERY.

1868, 1871.


————0————


The following Proposals were forwarded to us by our esteemed contributor, with a letter, from which we extract our justification for producing them in these columns:—


"Most of your readers would certainly not understand this magnificent essay, but would regard it as mere mad raving; and the majority of the few who could understand it would feel outraged and enraged because its plans of reform are so immensely vaster than their own, for you are merely national reformers, while my reforms are for all mankind and the universal world. I therefore advise you for your own sake not to print the piece at all, but to send back the MS. endorsed 'Returned with thanks.'

"But if you decide to print it, I counsel you to introduce it to your public with a note to the following effect:

"As we allow all parties to express their views in this periodical, and as moreover B. V. is an old contributor, we insert the following; but we are bound to remark that, in our