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062 ' . "' ¦ ¦ TIE LEIDIjB; [No. 433, Ju...
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PROPRIETY MI LA11 GE. Oub, " Postcript" ...
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THE JEWS. The Tories aro in dismay—their...
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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.
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The 11 Ail Way X>Lfmcultx. Can Any Lover...
labours , one half knew as muck as the other half oared as little what was the real bearing of the issue they were called . together to pronounce upon ? "What a solemn sham has railway legislation oeen tliroughout , with its endless ^ string of incomprehensible and impossible standing orders , its double committees , its double debates on the same bills , ¦ while all the time the sham was in progress a foregone conclusion had been , in many notorious
instances , arrived at . How loudly and unanimousl y Parliamentary agents , engineers , Parliamentary advocates , lawyers , landowners , Peer and Commoner , ¦ with their several ravening cliques , have throughout raised rejoicing pseans at the perennial prospect of tuilimitea pillage of helpless shareholders , let some embryo railway Macaulay record for the ¦ wonder and warning of posterity . But notwithstanding all this misdirected , interested , and unceasing Governmental interference , what is the upshot of Parliamentary supervision . To parody sligntly the words of the poet , it has only produced—•
"A mighty mess , and all without apian , " Looking at the monstrous and overpowering heap of absurd , unjust , and contradictory discussions to which . Railway Committees and Parliament have-recently lent themselves—the bewildered bystander may truly exclaim , " Chaos is come again . " Just for a moment glance at the glorious confusion , the unaffected dismay which Legislative dabbling yrith private enterprise has spread , and is spreading , throughout the railway -world—for a little ¦ world . i $ is in . itself—with its capital of three hundred , millions sterling , and its dependents for
income and subsistence , numbering tens of thousands of families , of every social grade and lank . All this vast multitude is now looking about them in well-founded despondency and appreliension at the gradual depreciation of the market value of railway shares , at the more rapid diminution of dividends , and at the dismal possibility of some further piece of p > arliamentary mischief . The call for . investigation into the causes of this disastrous condition of things is universal . But what
real good would result from investigation ? Truth , which , lies at the bottom of a well , would , we fear , in the case of railways , have to be looked for in a well with , no bottom . The talc of one company , whispered into the ear of a committee of the ordinary mental calibre , would be supplanted by the opposing statement oi another company j the conflicting interests of lines , made rivals by parliamentary . sanction , would so pervert , fact as to baffle inquiry and render hopeless any useful or practical result .
"Who could venture upon the Herculean and Augean task of wading through the mass of acts of Parliament ^ the array of alliances , traffic arrangements , and amalgamations of otiy one of our leading railway companies ? Ex uno cLisce omne . Let us take the London and North-Western , the head of the railway 1 interest , not only as respects the magnitude of its capital and the extent of its territories , but as standing confessedly at the head of all those improvements in every department of the railway system which has made British railways the model and example of all other railways throughout the world .
What do- we see at this monent P Why , that this noble undertaking is sustaining serious damage and depreciation solely through mischievous , contradictory , and incomprehensible legislative interference . Here we find a railway specially sanctioned by Parliament to supply travelling facilities to a specified portion of the manufacturing districts , performing alt its engagements to the public "with honourable fidelity , sometimes even to the loss of their shareholders , encroached upon right and left with permission of Parliament by companies , one established to go in a totally opposite direction due we » t , the other due north . Driven into retaliation by encroachment—we have reason to assert
that for years past , whatover may have been the external aspect of the Company's policy towards other lines , its Bincero desire has been for a fair adjustment of conflicting interests—the directors thus threatened on both aides , have been obliged , in defence of the property and incomes of their large body of proprietors— we may fairly go fiwUiet and add , in defence of the true interests of the travelling and commercial public— -to enter mfco a system of protective and retaliatory P ° W » . W l «« 8 ing * and amalgamations , and to retort with damaging effect bo itself , and yet more damaging efteet to its rivals , the system of losing l » re » jbjBhu lower fares . Xhe London and North
Western refused to obey the stand and deliver demand of rival . lines—they repelled with subcess for some time the attacks on their shareholders purses •—but succumbed at last because Parliament threw in its weight to legalize this system of moral brigandage . Matters , it is clear could not be permitted to remain in their present disastrous condition . Parliament , which lies at the root of all the mischief , has at last taken ub ¦ the . au .
estion , ' and proposes to doctor the wounds it has inflicted by the usual nostrum ojf a commission The Xondon aud North-Western embody a modest suggestion in the form of a petition , the substance of which is all we can make room for . " Parliament ,, " say the petitioners at the outset , " has never laid down definite principles for the construction of a national system of railways—committees on private bills hare determined piecemeal and separately , what lines should be made and who should have them . The decisions of these
committees have necessarily been , conflicting and uncertain , uselessly expensive , and encouraging the aggressions of companies on each other . Bad legislation has forced combination on every railway company ; combinations thougli held to be illega ) , have been sustained in some Temarkable instances by judicial decisions , but set aside sometimes by Parliament , and the parties punished by legislation in favour of some other company , that company being as often deeply involved in such , agreements as the company it has denounced . " Here is a precious picture of the wisdom of hereditary and elected legislators . Here is a telling specimen of the fitness of Parliament to deal with matters of a purely commercial character . The
picture is by no means overcharged ; its tone might have been deepened without any violation of the rigid truth . The directors , in conclusion , content themselves with beseeching Parliament to lay down , eyen at the eleventh hour , " some general declaration , of principles by the application of which railway ; committees might be guided to uniformity of decision . " It is indeed the shameful fact that the Legislature has hitherto had no guiding principle ; it has legislated for railways at random , as particular interests or cliques have been able to command a majority of votes , and the result is the discreditable jumble everywhere perceptible in railway decisions , and the irreparable disasters which are overwhelming the greatest public boon of any age .
This condition of things must cease ; if the abuses of railway legislation are not speedily reformed from within , they will stand a chance of being reformed by pressure from without . Public opinion is being concentrated on this blot in our legislation , and public opinion will make itself felt and respected . Qarpe diem , say we , and , as the readiest means of showing the public that Government have taken the hint , let them do what they ought to have done at the outset—adopt the practical suggestion of the London and North-Western petition , lay down some general declaration of principles which shall ensure uniformity of decision among railway committees .
062 ' . "' ¦ ¦ Tie Leidijb; [No. 433, Ju...
062 ' . "' ¦ ¦ TIE LEIDIjB ; [ No . 433 , July 105 1858 .
Propriety Mi La11 Ge. Oub, " Postcript" ...
PROPRIETY MI LA 11 GE . Oub , " Postcript" will no doubt announce that the duchesses' fete at Cremorne has come to pass without material interruption b y those interested in disturbances . The usual police manifesto to coachmen and others has made its appearance , and the subjoined elegant extract is supposed to warn the jprofanum vnlgus from the premises on Friday : — r ^ REMORNE . —SPECIAL NOTICE . —The public \ J are respectfully informed that tho GARDENS will be CLOSED on FRIDAY NEXT , July 9 , having been engaged for a charitable purpose by a committee of gentlemen for a private fdto .
From the silly vacillating form of this advertisement , it would appear that the " committee of gentlemen , " of whom Lord lngcstro is supposed to be tho moving spirit , were rather puzzled to account to their usual associates in those questionable bowers for tho apparent incivility of substituting modest oompany for one night only . We aro not of those who con regard this proceeding as an insult to either middle or lower rnnks . The laajes and gentlemen of the former arc , as all tho world knows , > io visitors of Cremorne . The latter—at least bo it was pkaded when tho closure of this place of amusement was on the tapis—are of a class whoso conditions of lifo demand early rising and enrly rest . Their hours would no more coincide or clash with those of a late and select crowd of fashionables than with those of the loose
unvouched frequenters of the place . The denial of such society and such hours would be practically no grievance . The wrongs of season-ticket holders ( sometimes falsely compared to the debenture admissions into theatres ) entirely vanish when the ticket , as usual with such documents , carries a stipulation for its own invalidity on particular occasions . For others a sufficient answer maybe found in the right of the proprietor to do his will with his own , and the ample notice given of his intended arrangement . It is impossible to blame the managers of the
entertainment for avoiding , by all means , the contact of loose company with the ladies of their circle or deny them the same right of exclusiveness at Cremorne-gardens as we willingly concede to them at Almack ' a balls . Bat we cannot help censuring the bad taste of English gentlemen , who , with every possible resource for killing time at their full disposal , have volunteeredto introduce and to escort maids and matrons of condition , and , we hope , respectability , to a place of resort , which in their own minds , at least , is associated with the lower pleasures only . The empressement with which the proposition has been welcomed , and the imposing list of adherent patronesses , are deplorable proofs of a falling off
from ancient self-respect and love of purity among ; "the upper ten thousand . " No such welcome would have been extended to a proposition of the kind in our own class . The every-day Paterfamilias would have shut up his house ' s ears , and his good lad y would have tightened little Jessica ' s leadingstrings at the first broaching of the idea . But , as it is ; . every budding rake and worn-out roue of the fashionable -world , who passes night after night in the loosest company that the attractions of Cremorne can . concentrate for his use , may , on Friday , be the cicerone of a virtuous woman , to whom it were idle to say the reputation of the place is mi
known . Is it too much to imagine that lie may , after that , open to his fair partners other pages in a book which the bootless ventilation has already spread too widely before the eyes of youth and innocence ? It is , seriously , a step in the wrong direction ; but yet another moral lurks within the conclusion , to which we are led by the interpolated " charitable purpose" of the public advertisement . We have hope that while young , and fair , and giddy , revel through the night in this well-known focus of the '' great social evil , " some noble dames of power and wealth , may fall to charitable musing upon the sins and sorrows of the class who furnish its habitual
visitants . In the present advanced state of public information , it is almost superfluous to suggest that the indiscriminate and relentless pressure of the sex upon its own stray sheep has swollen this evil to its present dimensions . It is in the power of the sex alone to relax , that pressure to prevent , alleviate , and cure much of tins evil ; and it is time for them to begin so to act , for the preacher and teacher liave prayed and taught in vain , as they ever will abput . it . If an evening at Cremorne should start such train of thoughts among some
few only of the clever , high-hearted women who will be present there on Priday , more service will have been done to a good cau 3 e than could be effected by all the exertions of preacher , teacher , or policeman , or all tho dissections propounded by tlic leading journal as the productions of positive , comparative , and superlative " unfortunates ; " and tha best excuse for "the bad taste of the promoters of this p ilgrimage of Mayfair to Brompton , is in the ? possibility that so important a rapprochement of caste and . outcast , as tho alternate occupation of % Ivstgart & i , may he attended with some such rosulb as we have hinted at .
The Jews. The Tories Aro In Dismay—Their...
THE JEWS . The Tories aro in dismay—their leaders have left them in the lurch . Derby aud Disraeli have formally pronounced in favour of senatorial Judaism > at least one has given up his active , the other his passive , opposition . Tho Tory organs and orators arc spluttering anathemas against political traitors , and the saints aro braying in concert . In the polished phraseology of the Seven-dials we ask ,
What ' s the row P On Thursday week another blow vras fairl y struck at transmitted intolerance * another kiok inflicted a tergo on Christian bigotry , auothcr leaf added to tho laurel which crowns tkc Btatuo of enlightened Liberalism . The Premier , on that day , declared in the House of Peers that it was hopeless to struggle any longer against tho loudly expressed will of tho nation ; in vain to igB ° r ° the spread of a purer and more cosmopolitan sp irit
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1858, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10071858/page/14/
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