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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO ¦"#&« SLeafcet....
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. Daring the Se...
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^1° On and after this day, Ftvepence wil...
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SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1855.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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HYDE PARK LEGISLATION. The civil war in ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
^ Fflb Llb *A B I& Flfo- £76y Satu&Pay, ...
^ fflB LlB * A B I & flfo- £ 76 y SaTU & PAY , ddc ji ¦ _ _„ .. . ¦ ^ . . inT 77 "'' F r- - * " r ~ ' f ^ 1 i " ' ' — ——— - ' ' ' -
Terms Of Subscription To ¦"#&« Sleafcet....
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO ¦ " # &« SLeafcet . " For a Half-Year ..... £ 0 13 0 To be remitted in advance . igr * Money Orders should be drawn upon the Strand Branch Office , and be made payable to Mr . A lpkkd E . Gallowas , at No . 154 , Strand . . No notice can bo taken of anonymous communications Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by tho name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication . but as a guarantee of his good faith .
Notices To Correspondents. Daring The Se...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . Daring the Session of Parliament it is often impossible to find room for correspondence , eve n the briefest . Communications should always be legibly written , and on onesido of thepaperonly . If long . itinoreasesthediincultv of finding space for them . . . We can not undertake to return rejected communications
^1° On And After This Day, Ftvepence Wil...
^ 1 ° On and after this day , Ftvepence will be the price for an Unstamped copy of the Leader , and Sixpence if Stamped . A Stamped copy of this Journal can be transmitted through the Post-office to any part of the United Kingdom as frequently as may be required , during fifteen days from its date , free of charge ; but it is necessary that the paper should be folded in such a manner that the stamp be clearly visible on the outside . The Leader has been " registered" at the General Postoffice , according to the provisions of the New Act relating to Newspapers , and it has , therefore , the privilege of transmission through the post beyond the United Kingdom .
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Saturday, July 7, 1855.
SATURDAY , JULY 7 , 1855 .
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There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there i 3 nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to Keep things lixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in . eternal progress . —Db . Arnold .
Hyde Park Legislation. The Civil War In ...
HYDE PARK LEGISLATION . The civil war in Hyde Park on Sunday last was got up by a feeble and pusillanimous Homo Secretary , as the representative of dilettante statesmanship , and the instrument of a vacillating Cabinet . The history of the affair is before the public , and every one of our readers will be able to correct us if we narrate it wrongly . We do not intend to put any forced construction , but simply to tell the story .
There is a place called . Lambeth , built upon what was once the marsh-ground on the south bank of the river . The tables of the Hegistrar-General show that- * his spot of ground is less healthy than most parts of L-ondon . It is not valuable for house property , and the rents are low . It follows that no persons would live there except those who are instigated chiefly by local necessities , or by economy . Builders , therefore , have constructed houses adapted to a needy neighbourhood . The
district is inhabited by a large proportion of poor , and by numbers who get their bread how they can , by labour , or by other avocations which are not labour , but are beneath that honest calling . Some ' of the class work very hard from Monday morning till Saturday night ; others are very unthrifty ; and numbers arrive at Sunday morning without a provision for the meal of the day , or many
necessaries for the ensuing week . At another part of London called Bethnal-green , there is ' a neighbourhood very similar , with the difference that it is not marsh hut clay , and is inhabited by a large proportion of hand-loom weavers . It is the Bolton of London , with a number of cottages jn streets that look very KKe ^ a ' manufttcturing town half deserted or r * $ t .-. #$ P } 6 1 to ruin - In both tljese "districts the Visitor will find shops open on the Sunday ,, to
suit the overworked or unthrifty inhabitants . It is very painful to see this double desecration of the day of rest and worship—a district so pauperised that it cannot even provide itself with religious worship . —so deadened that it is overtly and cotyorately unconscious of the seventh day . This is very sad , says the missionary or philanthropist , and he enters one of the shops to remonstrate . The shopman replies , with truth , that he would rather close on the Saturday night ; but that
if he does , his neighbour ' s shop will remain open , and that he not only will lose the custom for the day but all custom whatsoever . The shopman would like to be protected from the necessity , which hurts both his conscience and his comfort ; but he cannot help himself . So he assures the visitor from a distance ; and the traveller departs prepared to say from his own knowledge Bethnal trades
that the Lambeth or -green - man would close his shop if he dared , " and would gladly welcome a general measure to enable him by compulsion . Philanthropist gets a few tradesmen , to stand by him ; they form a society ; they compose a bill prohibiting Sunday traffic ; they ask the " popular " but aristocratic member for Middlesex to introduce it to the House of Commons ; it is read a first time with the semblance
of a protest from a few ultra-liberal members ; is carried by a majority of three to one , and the whole movement seems plain sailing . Petitions are sent up for the bill with comparatively few signatures , but the bill is already safe in the patronage of its dignified supporters . Petitions are sent up against the bill with more signatures , but to
much attention is not paid petitions nowa-days . Arguments are sent that the indigent classes cannot do their shopping before Sunday , because they are too hard worked , too late paid : " Too dissolute and lazy , " answers the supporter of the bill . The arguments , therefore , receive no attention . Lord Robert perseveres , and the statement goes forth that he and the House of Commons are
about to prohibit Sunday trading in deference to the wishes of the humbler persons who will be affected by the measure . The latter part of the assertion is denied by journals and by individuals ; but superior to prejudice , Lord Robert perseveres . Irritated at this obstinate misconstruction of their own wishes , the working classes come out in considerable numbers to show
themselves ; and also , they declare , " to see how the aristocracy spend their Sunday . " By the aristocracy the working classes mean those who ride in carriages , and now-a-days , since the landed fnmilies have become dependent upon the money-lending classes , and subservient to the encumbrancers , the distinctions of the Herald are less true than the popular generalisation . Now the carriagekeeping classes are represented in the Park on Sunday by those who are enjoying a drive—a
very harmless and veiy beneficial use of the day of leisure , but one involving the labour of horses and of men ; yet neither Lord Robert Grosvenow , nor Sir George Grey , whatever they may desire , have proposed any bill to save the souls of those distinguished or leisurely persons by prohibiting Sunday driving ! The enormity is even shared by Bishops ; for two Lords spiritual wore detectea in their carriages on the Sunday before last .
W hen the working clasaqs come , they come in great numbers ; and the aristocracy always presume that they mean mischief . It was , there fore , assumed that if the working classes came to see how the aristocracy spend their Sunday they would break the law , that they would not only see , but act j the police
were sent to prevent violence . The police prevented , the working classes from , talking to each other—they could not prevent them from hooting—and the first Sunday passed as we know . Lord Robert disregarded the de < - monstration , and persevered . The next Sunday it was resumed , not only to see tlie exhibition of the aristocracy spending their SuriQay , but also to exhibit bodily those working classes who protested against the measure that was said to have originated with
themselves . The police now had orders to prevent everything , and they proceeded to drive the mob from the carriage-road with their trunclieons . One hundred of the enemy from Bethnal-green , Lambeth , and other working regions , were taken prisoners ; many were struck down , and the law of truncheons succeeded in driving home to the mind of the working classes a conviction , that if they
were to come next Sunday , they must protect themselves , at least with walking-sticks . There was evidently established a crescendo , and a third Sunday , must inevitably be more formidable than the other two . In a word , civil war carried on in Hyde Park has become a weekly custom in default of the opportunitv of harmless recreation and refreshment .
Before this second Sunday , early in the week , an appeal had been made to Government , but although Lord Pal-merston jauntily intimated a by-the-way and merely personal opinion on his own part of dissent from the measure , the Cabinet had neither the courage nor the honesty to interfere . The ouly direct intervention on the part of Government lay in the nervous and excessive
preparations of Sir G-jeorge Grey , the weak and violent Home Secretary of ' 48 , to protect Lord Robert Grosvenor , and to goad the multitude to disturbance in Hyde Park . The bill vs-as abandoned tamely enough on Monday evening last ; Lord Robert Grosvenor confessing by that act that he was wrong in persevering with it , and confessing in words that he had not foreseen the irritation that it
would create . Here was a good easy lord professing to legislate for the inhabitants of Lambeth , Bethnal-green , & c ., without any real knowledge of the natives of those remote settlements . Lord Robert may liover on those confines of barbarism occasionally in a carriage , or obtain sonie factitious notion of their natives through a deputation , or hold conversations with picked men—intelligent persons , who tell him exactly what he expected to hear ; but he has not lived among tho
natives—noblemen never do live in such places . He does not play Haroun-al .-Ra . 8 C 1 iii > . He has no personal knowledge ; and yet we find him undertaking to be the representative man of Bethnal-green , the weaver of the aristocracy , the tin-plate worker of the West-end . Cherishing phuanthropically the delusion that he was acting with that public , he declared himself to be quite safe from any molestation ; yet when the people sent an escort to accompany him to church on Sunday , "o kept out of
the way , and then ho withdrew his bill . The people had a perfect right to go to see how tho aristocracy spent their Sunday , since tho aristocracy had been to Bethnal-green to see how the people demeaned themselves on that day . It was but tit for tat . The aristocracy had done no violence in Bothnal-greon ; there is rio reason to suppose that the people
would have done violence in Hyde Park . The police struck first , and second , and third , — - and drew blood . This might Have been foreseen j and when Sir GEORaiof ^ REX distributed tho crackskull force , }{ q . , iri ^ st hav e know n that , from its weakness , from , iW want iff d > V ciplino , and of weapons , it wbui $ naturally be , ifc must be , indiscriminate ati # violent , iff
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 7, 1855, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07071855/page/8/
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