Hermione and the Ragged Trousered House Elves

[sbursztynski]

No: HPFGUIDX 77066

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sylviablundell2001" 
<sylviablundell at a...> wrote:
> Has anyone out there read Robert Tressell's great book The Ragged 
> Trousered Philanthropists?  The attitude of the house elves is 
> precisely that of the working-class characters the hero, Frank
Owen, 
> is trying to help.  

I confess I haven't read the book, though I've heard of it, sorry! 
However, it would be interesting to see where this goes. Although the 
characters all poke fun at Hermione for SPEW and her attitude, by
OoP, it's made a *lot* clearer that the wizards have *not* been
treating their fellow magical beings fairly. Dumbledore actually says 
so somewhere - sorry, don't have my book with me, my sister is still 
reading it but the comment on that ridiculous statue in the Ministry 
is that theonly accurate part of it is the adoration of the 
house-elves. One reviewer I know comments that Dobby needs a militant 
union, although he is the closest thing the elves *have* to a
militant 
unionist. Let's hope there are more of them in the last two books and 
that this matter is resolved. I suspect it will be. JKR doesn't write 
in important issues for nothing.