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June 16, 1855.J THE LEADEE. 569
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/fW*v~ /IP' ^****,-! ! ^F" ^Uttttl. r „ „ : f1 * TH1» DIPABTHEMI, AS ALL OPINIONS, HOWBVEB EXTREME, All allowei an expression, the editob! nbckssarilt holds him •"* *»«>»»»»<« w " owj There
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flK THIS DKPABTMENT, AS ALL OPINIONS, HO...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES. (To the Ed...
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Mu. Charles Cociikanic, whoso nnmo has b...
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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.
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The People's Day At Sydenham. As The Sum...
not make out a word of his bow-wow , to the other gallery opposite him . But , whether there they could hear , or did not enjoy what they did hear , it is certain that gradually , one by one , they fell into reclining attitudes , studied easy postures , and—went to sleep . Sir Edward seemed to urge the Government to be Richard the Second in earnest , and to take the question of Administrative Reform out of the hands of the agitators . Which the Government begs
the country to believe that it will . So said Sir Cornewall Lewis , but the House refused to listen to Sir Cornewall Lewis . However Sir Cornewall was quite good enough orator to answer Lytton and Layard : and the three had made matters so heavy that he House , bored beyond all precedent for such a pretentious wight , would hear no more , —but adjourned , thoroughly sick of Administrative Reform and Reformers .
Considered from the proper point of view , the airs which the House of Commons gives itself in lecturing the Government about laches in administration , are amusing-. Hume's ( David ' s , not Joe ' s ) discovery of the inherent anomaly in the British Constitution , that our Parliament is representative , while our Government is not representative , accounts for many things that seem to puzzle the worthy but thick Samuel Morley class of mind . But nothing can be clearer than that our Government is so vicious because our House of Commons is destitute of any sense of public virtue . We might get over the fact
that half that people s House is made up of old squires and young nobles ; that is not the principal reason why our Government is a job . The worst of the matter is , that the Liberals , even violent Liberals from Radical constituencies , are even more hungry than the old squires and } r oung nobles for patronage and place , for their friends , their agents , their voters , and themselves . The floor of that House is strewed with prizes , and it's a scramble for them , all round . Why did Mr . Layard go into the House ? To get a place ; and , without any malignant suggestions of a man who obviously means well , it is
certain that lie would not be making reform motions if Lord Palmerston had given him the place he wanted . Look back on the career of Mr . Phinn : he came in as a people's man , and he lands himself in a good office , after two sessions ' work . These are two excellent gentlemen : nobody blames them : it occurs to no one that they are selling their cause and being bribed into agreement in a villanous political system . But all the Liberal members are not looking for office ? No . There are rich men , and who have not capacity for office , in the party ; who , moreover , under the pressure of
large constituencies , have a tendency to conduct themselves with honour and independence . But when the Whigs are in their business is to keep the Tories out ; and for keeping the Whigs in they become entitled to have favours conceded—their wives are brought on in society , their daughters get to the right house , and papa invariably succeeds with that little place for young M'Cad in the Customs . Papa knows that young M'Cad is a startling young idiot , utterly unfit for the paternal eorncliantllery occupation : but when papa has got the thing from Ilayter , into the House he goes , and votes for administrative reform . But then tliL ' re are other Liberals who have
no relation of this sort with the Government ? Why , not half a dozen in the House ; and even these are in such clubby relations with Ministers , and in ouch social snares , tliat you only lioro and there get an eccentricity to stand out from the club as tho popular member , and represent the country against the system . Tho Liberals that existing constituencies return , uro middleclass men of wealth , who see no wrong in
maintaining social and political life us it is , or middle-class men of adventure , who cannot adbrd to wait for a revolution , and meantime , while voting as honestly as thoy can , aro disposed to make as much as they can for themselves out of the villanios around them . This may bo all right ; and while this ia the condition of tho llouse of Commons , it is sheer cant to bo talking about administrative reform . All things considered , tho Government is wonderfully honest ; « it wore not to take a more national view , and to
act on a higher conscientiousness than actuate the average members of the House of Commons , we should see some things even more singular than the appointments of Howells and Ramsays . Lord Palmerston seems to be a man thoroughly proud of England , and England should understand that if he deals contemptuously with the House of Commons , it is because , after considerable experience of it , he finds the House of Commons contemptible . It is out of the question that Jones , the 10 / . householder who has refused a bribe , can take the same view of the House of Commons which the Falmerstons , Russells , and Derbys take . Even Jones would be disabused of some of his
imbecile theories about that popular assembly , and about Parliament generally , if he would only use his common sense and face facts . Take the Sunday Trading Bill , Jones . The House insists that it is a desecration of the Sabbath-day to let you have milk after nine or newspapers after ten ( Sabbath-day does not begin until nine and ten , mind ) . Do you think that honourable members have any passionate respect for the Sabbath-day ? My own impression of the House of Commons is , that there are not fifty Christians in it : and I know that hon . members themselves are not ferociously against morning amusements and three courses —( the cook ' s , not Peel ' s)—on the seventh day . But honourable
members can't help cant ; the House of Commons is returned by the middle-class church-and-chapel-going and partial-to-be-shut-up-on-the-Sunday-in-a-piousand-pestilential-atmosphere-of -perspiring- Christians public ; and the House of Commons , not having a vast mass of Joneses to fall back upon , dare not offend the white neckcloth interest , —the white neckcloth , in fact , chokes us in England . It's hypocrisy , inconsistency ; it ' s the atheistical rich imposing Mosaic laws upon the poor : —that is what you say , Jones . But honourable members know that quite as well as you ; they'll admit it over Burgundy at eight to-morrow evening ; and they'll
congratulate one another that they are practical men . And when they get a chance they will turn white-choker theories against the middle class . The House of Commons will gloat over the appointment of a select committee ( which Mr . Scholefield is to demand ) to inquire into the best means of checking the universal custom of English tradesmen in regard to adulterations of goods . The House of Commons , by that , means to say— " Gentlemen , you go to chapel , and allow the white chokers to choke us , but you see we know very well that you sand the sugar before you go to prayers : we ar 3 all scoundrels , gentlemen , so , if you please , we had better not , any of us , give ourselves any remarkable airs . "
Nationally , Parliament should not be presumptuous . Lord Shaftesbury has been at his old work this week , —most mal apropos to the suggestion of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners that the crying want of the age is twelve more bishops—exposing the heart-rending shams of British social organisation . Trying to induce a law to force capitalist milliners of a church-going calibre not to work their poor stitchers to death . Trying to induce a law which shall olfer facilities for the religious instruction of the 5 , 000 , 000 persons ( his own ghastly statistics ) who live in England and Wales without ever having heard the Word of God , that thore was a God , or whv the tastes of Moses and Co . should
prevent them getting milk after nine and beer between eleven and one on certala mysterious days , called Sundays , because they are usually days of rain . Of course Lord Shaftesbury , distressingly earnest man , was pooh-poohed . To the first suggestion it is replied—law of supply and demand : dresses wanted in a hurry by Lady do Trop : must have the dresses : death of the stitcher in producing the dress not within the province of political economy . To the other suggestion the answer is — the Peers and Bishops know tho blessing of a knowledge
of God , and that it is necessary to be honest and good in order to go to heaven , — great pity that there are 3 , 000 , 000 heathens in our own land : but , then , tho parochial system , and amateur saving of souls would bo badly done : —accordingly there being only a majority of I in favour of trying to preserve the 5 , 000 , 000 British heathens from eternal darkness and damnation . We all know that the majority is far greater against Lord Grey when ho remarks that it is scarcely worth our while to be defending civilisation in the Crimea .
The only sensible work of Parliament this week has been in the House of Commons declining to interfero with the Australian Constitution bills , that is to say , in no work tit all in that direction . Our amusing popular assembly is too conscious of its imperfections to dictate to Australians tho sort ot governing bodies wanted there . Thus it was of no use in Air . Lowe , Mr . Dully , and Mr . Adderloy talking liberalisms and Abbc-fciieyoa-iHUis : Lord John reversed the idea of Bttrnave and , oddly for a Whig , enunciated—ptfrissent les principes plutOt que Ivs Colonies . / Saturday Morning . " A Stkanuijk . "
June 16, 1855.J The Leadee. 569
June 16 , 1855 . J THE LEADEE . 569
/Fw*V~ /Ip' ^****,-! ! ^F" ^Uttttl. R „ „ : F1 * Th1» Dipabthemi, As All Opinions, Howbveb Extreme, All Allowei An Expression, The Editob! Nbckssarilt Holds Him •"* *»«≫»»»»≪« W " Owj There
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Flk This Dkpabtment, As All Opinions, Ho...
flK THIS DKPABTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTREME , A . BM ALLOVKl AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECliSSARILT HOLDS HIMSELF KB 3 FO 2 f 8 IBLK FOB NONE . ]
There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...
There is no learned man but will confess he bath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , betoltraoiefor his adversary to write . —Miltoit .
The Middle And Lower Classes. (To The Ed...
THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sir , —While I perfectly agree with the tenor of your remarks on the unhappy feeling of jealousy which the lower classes are evincing towards tlie middle , I regret that you did not enforce and illustrate your position by reference to French history . You might have pointed out how inefficient the lower classes have always proved when left to themselves , and , as an instance in point , you might have quoted the horrors of the Jacquerie . The presumptuous self-confidence of the nobles having caused the defeat of Poitiers and the capture of their king , the humbler inhabitants of the towns and villages treated
the fugitives % vith scorn , often accompanied by acts of violence , for a time a man of the middle classes , Etienne Marcel , restrained the popular fury within due bounds , and laboured successfully to ameliorate the condition of the people . But the torrent burst its banks , and hordes of savages broke loose upon society . " The cry of the French populace , ' The nobles dishonour and betray the kingdom , ' became a signal for the extermination of those of gentle birth in the cottages of Beauvoisis . Peasants , armed with clubs and knives , rose and marched in bands , increasing as they advanced , attacking the castles with sword and flame , murdering all they found in them —men , women , and children ; and , like the
barbarians of the great invasion , unable to give an account of the objects which they sought , or the motive which instigated them . " The consequence was , not only the miserable destruction of these ruffians , but the entire failure of the rational and practical revolution then in course of accomplishment by the Parisian bourgeoisie . Again , at a later period—in 1413—when the middle classes had well-nigh succeeded in introducing reforms which would have rendered the Revolution of 1789 uncalled for and impossible , the lower classes lost everything by their precipitation and violence . " Persons of mature wisdom and versed in public matters had at that time neither will nor political energy . They held
themselves aloof , and the work remained in the hands of the visionary and the turbulent—of the butchers and their allies ( the € corcheurs ) . By intolerable excesses these persons hastened on a reaction which led to their fall , their banishment , and the abandonment of the reforms which had been obtained with so much labour . " Other instances might be easily adduced , but the easier course is to refer your readers to M . Augustin Thierry's " History of the Formation and Progress of the Tiers-Etat in France , " very fairly rendered into English by the Rev . F . B . Wells . In that admirable work they will observe the gradual advancement of the nation through the
patient , persevering , and constitutional measures of the middle classes . The Parliaments , drawn almost entirely from this order of society , were continually at issue with the Crown and the nobles . Though frequently coerced by superior power , they steadily gained ground , and prepared the nation for the enjoyment of true liberty . Unhappily , their final triumph was thwarted by the despotism of Louis XIV ., and the frightful corruption of the court under his successor ; but , nevertheless , their exertions ever produced an immediate benefit , while tho impatience of the lower classes as invariably caused a reaction which destroyed even the semblance of freedom . I am , & c , • X-i .
Mu. Charles Cociikanic, Whoso Nnmo Has B...
Mu . Charles Cociikanic , whoso nnmo has been repeatedly before the public in connexion with projects for aiding and employing the poor ( soup kitchens , the street-orderly aystem , & c ) , and who u few yeurs since contested the representation of Westminster , died oil Wednesday last at lii . s rcsidenco in Nolson-squuro , MaeklViuia-roud . Tins SicitAsroi-oi- Commi'itick have hud several meetings during- the past week , for the purpose of considering their KoiJort . There has bueu very great difference of opinion , nu < l tho debutes , it is » uid , have been exceedingly stormy . The next meeting will take place on Monday . ., Ol'JCNlNU OK THIS NlSW MimtOl'OJUTAN CATTIJtt M vkkkt TJiirt new market , which is situated in Copenhagen 1 'Yolda , close to tho North London Kail way , wna opened on > V « dn . esduy by i ' rinco Albert , accompanied by tho Lord Mayor aud the Corporation . A luncheon followed , nt which the Trince wan present , as well as the Chancellor of the Kxehecnier , and several members of Parliament und persons of high standing .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16061855/page/17/
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