Genre:

News-Commentary

Subjects:

Entomology, Analogy, Education, Animal Behaviour, Crime, Politics

    Discusses the claim by Sydney Turner, the Chaplain and Governor of the Philanthropic Farm School who boasted that most of his pupils 'had been substantially moralized—that instead of being wasps, they had become bees'. Discussing the development of 'working and singing' bees, upholds the claim that 'wasps are [...] changeable into bees', but points out that not all bees are 'provident, temperate, industrious'. Observes that bees can get drunk and that 'such are some bees, and such are many men'. Hopes that Turner is right when he insists that wasps 'fed upon wholesome invigorating tasks' can turn into working bees. Expresses pessimism about the efficacy of parliamentary bills for eradicating 'the human wasp' and 'providing for the better production of human bees' by education, and fears that the human 'wasps will be allowed to swarm'.